Serbian uprising during World War II
The Drvar uprising () was the World War II uprising of the Serb population of Bosnian Krajina (modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina). Italy supported it, both politically and in arms, in its struggle against the fascist puppet state of the Independent State of Croatia between 27 July and 26 September 1941.
The genocidal activities of the Independent State of Croatia forced the Serb population to organize an uprising. It had no ideological background and was simply a struggle for physical survival, with rebels considering themselves guerrilla. Italy used the uprising to create an opening to establish its influence beyond the zones of Croatia it already occupied per formal agreements.
A group of Serb nationalist rebels first attacked Croatian military units on 26 July 1941 in Pasjak near Drvar. This attack and subsequent conflicts later that day sped up the mass uprising of Serbs from the region of Bosnian Krajina and Lika. The uprising started with the attack of four rebel detachments on the Drvar garrison of the Croatian army, which consisted of 400 Ustaše and Home Guard soldiers, early on 27 July. The rebels captured Drvar that afternoon, along with nearby Oštrelj and Bosansko Grahovo.
The uprising had an immediate influence on other regions of Bosnian Krajina and the nearby region of Lika. When Serbs from Lika were informed about the uprising in Drvar, they decided to start the Srb uprising on the same day. On the first day of uprising, the Serb rebels from Bosnian Krajina and Lika managed to seize control over territory long and wide. The communists gradually forged their Partisan republic, and on 30 July, they established the Military-Revolutionary Council, which became the supreme governing institution for the entire region.
During the next two months, rebels managed to capture additional territory including Mrkonjić Grad, Kulen Vakuf and many other Western Bosnian towns. Several retaliatory massacres of Muslim and Croatian war prisoners and civilians were committed by rebels, including the Trubar massacre, Bosansko Grahovo massacre, Vrtoče massacre, Krnjeuša massacre and Kulen Vakuf massacre. The number of victims is estimated to be between 1,000 and over 3,000 people.
Based on agreement with non-communist rebel leaders, the Second Italian Army peacefully took control over the region and temporarily shielded local Serbs from the Independent State of Croatia on 26 September 1941. The communists were dissatisfied and continued armed attacks, primarily against other non-communist rebels. To fight against Chetniks who gained substantial support of the local population, the communists established two Anti-Chetnik Battalions in March and April 1942 and reestablished their control over the region of Drvar at the beginning of July 1942.
Background.
The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was founded on 10 April 1941 during the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. The NDH consisted of most of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with some parts of modern-day Serbia. It was essentially an Italo-German quasi-protectorate, as it owed its existence to the Axis powers, who maintained occupation forces within the puppet state throughout its existence.
According to the Treaties of Rome between Benito Mussolini and Ante Pavelić, Italy annexed Zone I, and Zone II was demilitarized. After that, Italy pulled out the bulk of its army from Zones II and III.
In the weeks following the invasion, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (, KPJ) managed to tie up its cells. Some members of the KPJ and the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (, SKOJ) were returnees from the defeated Royal Yugoslav Army, including Zdravko Čelar, Slavko Rodić, and Rajko Bosnić. There were also students like Ilija Došen, and workers and refugees from Hungarian-occupied Bačka, including Milutin and Pero Morača. KPJ committees in Drvar and Bosansko Grahovo succeeded in obtaining rifles, light machine guns, and ammunition belonging to the surrendered Royal Yugoslav Army, and hid them from German, Italian and later Ustashe searches. Independent of the efforts of the KPJ, local peasants also hid arms.
During late April and early May, Ustashe couldn't easily consolidate their rule in an area with a predominantly Serbian population. They were only able to achieve that with Italian support and a Ustashe squad brought in from Herzegovina. Italian units left Drvar area in the beginning of June.
After the NDH consolidated its rule in Drvar at the end of May 1941, Ustaše imprisoned many Serbian men from Drvar and began with preparation to imprison and indiscriminately kill all Serbs from Drvar.
Through June, communists across Bosanska Krajina continued to prepare for an uprising. Ljubo Babić was chosen to be the head of the military committee for Drvar, and Ilija Došen was chosen for Bosanski Petrovac. Axis invasion of the Soviet Union encouraged locals to accelerate preparations. Ustashe authority anticipated rebellion, so reinforcements were brought to the area. The Party advised Drvar workers who were in danger of being arrested to leave Drvar and hide in nearby villages. On 17 July, communists set up the Headquarters of Guerrilla Detachments for Bosanski Petrovac with Zdravko Čelar in command, Vaso Kelečević as his deputy and Ilija Došen as the political commissar. The following day, the Headquarters for Drvar was established, with Babić as commander and Milutin Morača as his deputy. Between 20 and 26 July, the first detachment of fifty men was formed in the village of Kamenica (commander Jole Marić, political commissar Nikola Kotla). In the following days, new detachments were formed in the villages of Javorje (commander Mile Kecman, deputy Slavko Rodić) and Crvljivci (commander Vlado Morača). In Bosansko Grahovo, a detachment was formed, with Simo Bajić as commander. In the village of Trubar, a detachment was formed, with Nikola Rodić as commander and Pero Boltić as commissar. There were also smaller detachments.
The Ustaše genocidal policy resulted in a mass uprising of Serbs which began on 27 July 1941 in Bosnian Krajina (Western Bosnia) and Lika simultaneously.
The uprising in Drvar was inspired by Orthodox priest Ilija Rodić, worker Ilija Desnica and teacher Uroš Drenović. Since 22 June 1941, more than 2 months after Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the communists also planned to organize an uprising in Bosnian Krajina on 1 August 1941. Notably, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia pushed for rebellion only after the uprising was in its advanced stages in an attempt to shape the character of the uprising into one that pushed for communist ideals rather than mere survival.
Forces.
Initially, the Serbian uprising had no ideological background because it was a struggle for physical survival. While Croatian reports referred to the rebellion as Chetnik-Communist action, rebels simply considered themselves rebels or guerrilla. Only in September, after the Stolice conference, would communist rebels adopt the name "partisans", and nationalists around same time begun calling themselves "chetniks". Because the vast majority of rebels in Krajina and the Independent State of Croatia were Serbs in 1941 to 1942, Ustashe propaganda initially called all rebels chetniks.
One detachment of rebels were under command of Vlado Morača. Some of the rebel units were under the control or influence of the communist party while many others were not, including a group of rebels under command of Nikica Kecman. The commanders of the rebel units of Drvar district included Mane Rokvić and Branko Bogunović. Some participants of the uprising became Chetniks, like Mane Rokvić, Uroš Drenović and Ilija Desnica. The rebel forces during the uprising eventually numbered 4,000 men. The Serb rebel detachments were armed with 270 rifles and 7 machine guns.
The Drvar garrison had a total of 400 Ustaše and Croatian Home Guard soldiers of Independent Croatia.
First rebel action.
The Italian Military Intelligence Service reported that the uprising began on 26 July 1941 when rebels attacked isolated gendarmerie stations, railroads and communication lines. The rebels cut all telephone poles between Drvar, Grahovo and Knin.
On 26 July 1941, in a road ambush near village Pasjak, a group of Serb nationalists, including Nikica Kecman and three of his men, killed Croatian major Ferdinand Konrad who was travelling from Drvar to Prijedor by car. The ambush was actually targeted at logornik Kuharski, who had issued an order to kill 40 notable Serbs from Drvar, but was still considered a success as it ignited the uprisings in Lika and Krajina.
The Ustaše and Home Guard forces soon arrived from Drvar by train and harassed the local population until they were forced to retreat by guerrilla groups of rebels from the hamlets of Crvljivica and Zaglavica. The rebels knew the Ustaše would return. Thus, their Headquarter of Guerrilla Detachments for Bosnian Grahovo and Surrounding () decided to start the uprising early the following day, on 27 July 1941.
Capture of Drvar.
The plan for attack on Drvar was prepared by Slavko Rodić, a partisan.
One of the rebels was local schoolteacher Lazar Tešanović who read the order for attack on Drvar using a battery lamp. The beginning of rebel attack was signaled with a fire of signal gun from the citadel on Šobića Glavica at 3:30 AM. The detachment commanded by Morača attacked a Ustaše unit in Oštrelj, a village on the road toward Bosanski Petrovac which became the first populated place under rebel control during uprising. Rajko Bosnić, who would later be recognized as a People's Hero of Yugoslavia, distinguished himself as a member of Crvljevičko-Zaglavički detachment.
The first platoon was given the order to capture Ustaše barracks in the pre-war Apprentices' Home building.
The mass uprising in Bosnian Krajina first started in Drvar on 27 July when three rebel detachments from Kamenica, Javor and Crvljivica, accompanied by hundreds of armed peasants, captured a garrison of 400 Ustaše and Home Guard soldiers in Drvar. The rebels were under the command of Mane Rokvić. In Drvar, Ustaša Mijo Sarić fired heavy machine guns at rebels from the tower of local church.
The rebels captured all surviving enemy soldiers, including 120 members of Croatian Home Guard, as well as a substantial quantity of arms and ammunition. The Croatian commanders, logornik Kuharski and Ustaša Sarić, known as Šeponja, managed to escape.
The rebels, fueled by resentment against earlier massacres of Serbs, committed numerous massacres of war prisoners, as well as Muslim and Croatian civilians. The number of victims are estimated to be between 1,000 and over 3,000 people. Some massacres occurred on the first day of the uprising, such as the Trubar massacre and Bosansko Grahovo massacre, while others happened later, such as the Krnjeuša massacre and Kulen Vakuf massacre.
Capture of other towns.
On 27 July 1941, the rebels captured Oštrelj and Bosansko Grahovo under the command of rebel leader Branko Bogunović. The Drvar uprising had a large impact on the development of the Srb uprising in Lika, where the largest number of communists were present, along with many armed people from Srb and the surrounding area. On the first day of the uprising, Serbian rebels from Bosnian Krajina and Lika managed to seize control over territory which was long and wide.
The rebel unit commanded by Simo Šolaja captured the gendarmerie station in Pljeva, while rebels from the southern part of Mrkonjić Grad municipality and rebels from Glamoč and Pljeva captured the gendarmerie stations in Gerzovo and the villages of Čardak, Podgorje, Gerzovo, Dragnić, Trnovo, Baraći, Pecka, Medna and many other villages in the southern part of Mrkonjić Grad municipality.
Drvar Republic.
The rebels immediately established the command of the Drvar municipality, which operated until 25 September 1941 and was reestablished at the beginning of July 1942 when Drvar was captured by communist forces. The headquarter of joint Partisan-Chetnik rebels was housed in Drvar. The Chetnik commander Uroš Drenović was subordinated to this joint headquarter. The partisans organized revolutionary court in Drvar.
Since the first days of the uprising in Bosnian Krajina, the communists gradually forged their Partisan republic, and on 30 July 1941, established a Military-Revolutionary Council that became the supreme governing institution for the whole region. The Partisans referred to this territory as Drvar Republic.
In the regions of Bosansko Grahovo and Mrkonjić Grad, the influence of the communists was not as strong as in Drvar, and Chetnik representatives like Uroš Drenović neutralized communist attempts to impose their ideology on rebels and consolidate their own forms of government.
Suppression attempts.
To suppress the uprising, Croatian authorities sent eight battalions and several artillery batteries to Drvar. Both Italian and German intelligence reports concluded that the Drvar uprising had "Communist and Serbian" character and that the main reason for uprising was the Ustaša terror of the Serbian population. The units engaged by Croatian authorities were unable to suppress the uprising. Italy