Božidar Ljotić

Božidar Ljotić, is a politician and military officer who is currently serving as the Minister of Justice and Minister of the Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Serbia since the 15th of July, 1939.

History:

Ljotić was born on the 5th of August, 1891, in the city of Kraljevo, located in central Serbia. Ljotić grew up in a very traditional Serbian Orthodox household, which gave him a strong nationalistic and religious outlook on life at an early age. Not much is known of Ljotić's early life, except for the fact that he graduated from high school at age 15 in 1906 and joined the army later at the age of 17 with faked papers in September of 1908.

Eventually, Ljotić reached the rank of Sergeant and fought during the First Balkan War, where he was injured on the 25th of November, 1912, by a stray bullet which hit him in the shoulder. Ljotić finally fully recovered from his wound in June of 1913, when he decided to stay in service as well.

He was eventually promoted to Major during his services in the First World War, as he had bravely lead 200 Serbian soldiers to attack a Bulgarian camp of 500 soldiers to rescue around 60 Serbian POWs during midnight on the 15th of December, 1916. Ljotić was almost killed by an oncoming grenade in January of 1917 but was saved by Senior Lieutenant Kosta Pećanac before it exploded.

The two soldiers would become closer after this and during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia, the two staged a rebellion with over 8 000 soldiers in the Užice region in March of 1918. The rebellion was a success and managed to cut off Austro-Hungarian divisions from easily entering Serbian or Bulgarian lands, allowing for the Vardar offensive to capitulate Bulgaria in September of the same year.

Political and military career in Yugoslavia:

Ljotić later created the ultra-nationalist paramilitary and political organization named ZBOR on the 23rd of January, 1921, to combat against Macedonian-Bulgarian and Croatian separatist movements. Ljotić's organization was classified as a terrorist organization by multiple surrounding nations in May of 1924 but Alexander I of Yugoslavia did nothing to stop the terroristic activities of the organization.

The organization gained a larger following after Croatia and Slovenia separated from Yugoslavia, as Serbian nationalists wanted the rest of Serbia to stay united under the crown. Later on, Ljotić was made the Minister of Armed Forces in June of 1933, when the new cabinet under Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović came to power.

When the Serbo-Croatian War broke out on the 7th of October, 1938, Ljotić was deployed at the front and was put in charge of the V Corps, which was stationed in Brčko. Ljotić set up strong artillery in the city, but was eventually bombarded by the forces of General Jaroslav Janković in March of 1939, while Ljotić and his force were unsuspecting.

Ljotić was pushed out of the city and retreated across the Drina right before the entirety of the Bosnia province was cut off from the rest of Serbia in early April of 1939. Ljotić was then ordered to come back from the front, as the Serbian government sued for peace on the 12th of May, 1939.

Serbian revolution:

After King Alexander I's death on the 12th of July, 1939 by an Albanian nationalist, Kosta Pećanac was made the Prime Minister of Serbia, after being elected into the position by parliament on the 20th of July, 1939. Ljotić was promoted to Minister of Justice by the new Prime Minister, which he felt honored by.

Immediately after his promotion, he promoted his fellow ZBOR members into members of the Ministry of Justice and started deporting and massacring Albanians in Kosovo as "revenge" for the killing of the king. Soon enough, in late February of 1940, moderate Chetniks realized what Ljotić, Pećanac and the ZBOR were doing in the country and staged an uprising in Smederevo and the south of Vojvodina.

Ljotić initially was ordered to lead the 2nd infantry corps into battle with the revolutionaries, but he passed the command to Lieutenant General Milutin Ognjanović. Eventually, more and more units of the Serbian army defected to the revolutionary cause and Ljotić ended up fleeing the country in early March of 1940 and was never found again after that. Reports say he fled to Hungary, but the Hungarian government under Miklós Horthy has not wanted to co-operate and search for him in the country.

* Order of Karađorđe's Star (Awarded: 27th of November, 1934)