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Yugoslav coup d'état

The Yugoslav coup d'état took place on 27 March 1941 in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, when the regency led by Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was overthrown and King Peter II fully assumed monarchical powers. The coup was planned and conducted by a group of pro-Western Serbian-nationalist Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force officers formally led by the Air Force commander, General Dušan Simović, who had been associated with several putsch plots from 1938 onwards. Brigadier General of Military Aviation Borivoje Mirković, Major Živan Knežević of the Yugoslav Royal Guards, and his brother Radoje Knežević were the main organisers in the overthrow of the government. In addition to Radoje Knežević, some other civilian leaders were probably aware of the takeover before it was launched and moved to support it once it occurred, but they were not among the organisers. Peter II himself was surprised by the coup, and heard of the declaration of his coming-of-age for the first time on the radio.

Yugoslav coup d'état
Dušan Simović, King Peter II of Yugoslavia, and Radoje Knežević in London, June 1941. Peter II was declared of age and placed on the throne as a result of the coup.
Date27 March 1941
LocationBelgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
OutcomeCoup successful
Deaths1 (accidental)[1]

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia played no part in the coup, although it made a significant contribution to the mass street-protests in many cities that signalled popular support for it once it had occurred. The putsch was successful and deposed the three-member regency (Prince Paul, Radenko Stanković and Ivo Perović) and the government of Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković. Two days prior to its ousting, the Cvetković government had signed the Vienna Protocol on the Accession of Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Pact (Axis). The coup had been planned for several months, but the signing of the Tripartite Pact spurred the organisers to carry it out, encouraged by the British Special Operations Executive.

The military conspirators brought to power the 17-year-old King Peter II (whom they declared to be of-age to assume the throne) and formed a weak and divided national unity government with Simović as prime minister and Vladko Maček and Slobodan Jovanović as his vice-premiers. The coup led directly to the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. The importance of the putsch and subsequent invasion in delaying Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union (which started on 22 June 1941), is still open to debate. In 1972 military historian Martin van Creveld dismissed the idea, affirming that the invasion of Yugoslavia actually assisted and hastened the overall Balkan campaign, and that other factors determined the start-date for Operation Barbarossa. On the other hand, findings by Craig Stockings and Hancock, published on 2013, have led them to assert that Operation 25 (the invasion of Yugoslavia) did somewhat contribute to delay the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.

Background Edit

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, incorporated diverse national and religious groups with varied historical backgrounds. These included Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians and Albanians, among others. Each of these national groups was strongly associated with one of the three dominant religions: the Serbian Orthodox Church (Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians); the Catholic Church (Croats and Slovenes); and Islam (Bosnian Muslims and Albanians). The religious diversity deepened the divisions within Yugoslav society. Serbs and Montenegrins made up 38.8 per cent of the population, Croats contributed 23.9 per cent, Slovenes 8.5 per cent, Bosnian Muslims 6.3 per cent, Macedonians 5.3 per cent, and Albanians 4 per cent.[2][3]

According to economics professor and historian Jozo Tomasevich, Yugoslavia was politically weak from the moment of its creation and remained so during the interwar period mainly due to a "rigid system of centralism" imposed by the Serbian-friendly Vidovdan Constitution, the aforementioned strong association between each national group and its dominant religion, and uneven economic development. In particular, the religious primacy of the Serbian Orthodox Church in national affairs and discrimination against Catholics and Muslims compounded the dissatisfaction of the non-Serbian population with the Serbian-dominated ruling groups that controlled patronage and government appointments, and treated non-Serbs as second-class citizens.[4] This centralised system arose from Serbian military strength and Croatian intransigence, and was sustained by Croatian disengagement, Serbian overrepresentation, corruption, and a lack of discipline within political parties.[5] This state of affairs was initially maintained by subverting the democratic system of government through political bribery. The domination of the rest of Yugoslavia by Serbian ruling elites meant that the country was never consolidated in the political sense, and was therefore never able to address the social and economic challenges it faced.[6]

The Political scientist Sabrina P. Ramet sees the dysfunctionality and lack of legitimacy of the regime as the reasons why the kingdom's internal politics became ethnically polarised, a phenomenon that has been referred to as the "national question" in Yugoslavia. Failures to establish the rule of law, to protect individual rights, to build tolerance and equality, and to guarantee the neutrality of the state in matters relating to religion, language and culture contributed to this illegitimacy and the resulting instability.[7]

 
Banovina created by King Alexander in 1929

In 1929, democracy was abandoned and a royal dictatorship was established by King Alexander,[6] who attempted to break down the ethnic divisions in the country through various means, including creating administrative divisions (Serbo-Croatian Latin: banovine) based on rivers rather than traditional regions.[8] There was significant opposition to this move, with Serbian and Slovene opposition parties and figures advocating the division of Yugoslavia into six ethnically based administrative units. By 1933, discontent in the largely Croatian-populated Sava Banovina had developed into full-blown civil disorder, which the regime countered with a series of assassinations, attempted assassinations and arrests of key Croatian opposition figures including the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) Vladko Maček.[9] When Alexander was assassinated in Marseilles in 1934 by a Bulgarian assassin with links to the Croatian ultranationalists, the Ustaše, his cousin Prince Paul headed a triumvirate regency whose other members were the senator Radenko Stanković and the governor of the Sava Banovina, Ivo Perović. The regency ruled on behalf of Alexander's 11-year-old son, Prince Peter, but the important member of the regency was Prince Paul.[10] Although Prince Paul was more liberal than his cousin, the dictatorship continued uninterrupted.[11] The dictatorship had allowed the country to follow a consistent foreign policy, but Yugoslavia needed peace at home in order to assure peace with its neighbours, all of whom had irredentist designs on its territory.[12]

Yugoslav foreign policy during the interwar period Edit

From 1921, the country had negotiated the Little Entente with Romania and Czechoslovakia in the face of Hungarian designs on its territory, and after a decade of bilateral treaties, had formalised the arrangements in 1933. This had been followed the next year by the Balkan Entente of Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania and Turkey, aimed at thwarting Bulgarian aspirations. Throughout this period, the Yugoslav government had sought to remain good friends with France, seeing her as a guarantor of European peace treaties. This was formalised through a treaty of friendship signed in 1927.[13] With these arrangements in place, Italy posed the biggest problem for Yugoslavia, funding the anti-Yugoslav Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation which promoted Bulgarian irredentism.[14] Attempts by King Alexander to negotiate with Benito Mussolini fell on deaf ears, and after Alexander's assassination, nothing of note happened on that front until 1937.[15] In the aftermath of Alexander's assassination, Yugoslavia was isolated both militarily and diplomatically, and reached out to France to assist its bilateral relationship with Italy.[16] With the appointment of Milan Stojadinović as Prime Minister in 1935, Germany and Yugoslavia became more closely aligned. The trade relationship between the two countries also developed considerably, and Germany became Yugoslavia's most important trading partner.[17]

Cvetković–Maček Agreement Edit

Prince Paul recognised the lack of national solidarity and political weakness of his country, and after he assumed power he made repeated attempts to negotiate a political settlement with Maček, the leader of the dominant Croatian political party in Yugoslavia, the HSS. In January 1937, Stojadinović met with Maček at Prince Paul's request, but Stojadinović was unwilling or unable to grapple with the issue of Croatian dissatisfaction with a Yugoslavia dominated by the Serbian ruling class.[18] In 1938, the Anschluss brought the Third Reich to the borders of Yugoslavia,[19] and early elections were held in December. In this background, the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force (VVKJ) commander, General Dušan Simović, had been involved in two coup plots in early 1938 driven by Serbian opposition to the Concordat with the Vatican, and another coup plot following the December election.[20]

In the December 1938 elections, the United Opposition led by Maček had attracted 44.9 per cent of the vote,[21] but due to the electoral rules by which the government parties received 40 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly before votes were counted, the opposition vote only translated into 67 seats out of a total of 373.[22] On 3 February 1939, the Minister of Education, Bogoljub Kujundžić, made a nationalist speech in the Assembly in which he stated that "Serb policies will always be the policies of this house and this government."[23][24] Head of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO) Mehmed Spaho asked Stojadinović to disavow the statement, but he did not. At the behest of the Senate leader, the Slovene Anton Korošec, that evening five ministers resigned from the government, including Korošec. The others were Spaho, another JMO politician Džafer Kulenović, the Slovene Franc Snoj, and the Serb Dragiša Cvetković.[25]

Stojadinović sought authority from Prince Paul to form a new cabinet, but Korošec as head of the Senate advised the prince to form a new government under Cvetković. Prince Paul dismissed Stojadinović and appointed Cvetković in his place, with a direction that he reach an agreement with Maček.[26] While these negotiations were ongoing, Italy invaded Albania, Yugoslavia's southern neighbour. In August 1939, the Cvetković–Maček Agreement was concluded to create the Banovina of Croatia, which was to be a relatively autonomous political unit within Yugoslavia. Separatist Croats considered the Agreement did not go far enough, and many Serbs believed it went too far in giving power to Croats.[27] The Cvetković-led cabinet formed in the wake of the Agreement was resolutely anti-Axis,[28] but remained on friendly terms with Germany,[17] and included five members of the HSS, with Maček as deputy Prime Minister. General Milan Nedić was Minister of the Army and Navy.[29] After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, German pressure on the government resulted in the resignation in mid-1940 of the Minister of the Interior, Stanoje Mihaldžić, who had been organising covert anti-Axis activities.[28] In October 1940, Simović was again approached by plotters planning a coup but he was non-committal.[20] From the outbreak of war British diplomacy focused on keeping Yugoslavia neutral, which the Ambassador Ronald Campbell apparently still believed possible.[30]

Pressure builds Edit

By the time of the German invasion of Poland and subsequent outbreak of war in September 1939, the Yugoslav Intelligence Service was cooperating with British intelligence agencies on a large scale across the country. This cooperation, which had existed to a lesser extent during the early 1930s, intensified after the Anschluss. These combined intelligence operations were aimed at strengthening Yugoslavia and keeping her neutral while encouraging covert activities.[31] In mid to late 1940, British intelligence became aware of coup plotting, but managed to side-track the plans, preferring to continue working through Prince Paul.[32] The Special Operations Executive (SOE) office in Belgrade went to significant lengths to support the opposition to the anti-Axis Cvetković government, which undermined the hard-won balance in Yugoslav politics that that government represented. SOE Belgrade was entangled with pro-Serbian policies and interests, and disregarded or underestimated warnings from SOE and British diplomats in Zagreb, who better understood the situation in Yugoslavia as a whole.[33]

 
Minister of the Army and Navy Milan Nedić was fired by prince regent Paul in November 1940 for advocating that Yugoslavia join the Axis.[34]

Yugoslavia's situation worsened in October 1940 when Italy invaded Greece from Albania, and the initial failure of the Italians to make headway only increased Yugoslav apprehension that Germany would be forced to help Italy. In September and November 1940 respectively, Germany forced the Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of Romania to accede to the Tripartite Pact.[35] In early November 1940, following the Italian invasion of Greece, Nedić, stated in a memorandum to Prince Paul and the government, that he believed that Yugoslavia was about to be fully encircled by enemy countries and that ultimately Germany would win the war. Nedić proposed to the government that it abandon its neutral stance and join the Axis as soon as possible in the thinking that joining the Axis would protect Yugoslavia against its "greedy neighbors".[36] A few days later Prince Paul, having realised the impossibility of following Nedić's advice, replaced him with the ageing and compliant General Petar Pešić.[37] At the same time, Hitler, recalling Serbia's excellent military performance in the Balkan Wars and World War I, was concerned that the Yugoslav army was strong, and defeating it would necessitate the expenditure of considerable effort. Despite this, he remained concerned about the threat to the southern flank of his planned invasion of the Soviet Union posed by Greece and Yugoslavia, and aimed for a political resolution of Yugoslavia's status.[17]

On 12 December 1940, at the initiative of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Count Pál Teleki, Hungary concluded a friendship and non-aggression treaty with Yugoslavia. Although the concept had received support from both Germany and Italy, the actual signing of the treaty did not. Germany's planned invasion of Greece would be simplified if Yugoslavia could be neutralised.[38] Over the next few months, Prince Paul and his ministers laboured under overwhelming diplomatic pressure, a threat of an attack by the Germans from Bulgarian territory, and the unwillingness of the British to promise practical military support.[39] Six months prior to the coup, British policy towards the government of Yugoslavia had shifted from acceptance of Yugoslav neutrality to pressuring the country for support in the war against Germany.[40]

On 23 January 1941, William Donovan, a special emissary of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, visited Belgrade and issued an ultimatum, saying that if Yugoslavia permitted German troop passage then the US would not "interfere on her behalf" at peace talks.[41] Around the same time, suspicious of Prince Paul's actions, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, ordered British intelligence services to establish contacts with anti-regime groups in Belgrade.[42] On 14 February, Adolf Hitler met with Cvetković and his foreign minister and requested Yugoslavia's accession to the Tripartite Pact. He pushed for the demobilisation of the Royal Yugoslav Army—there had been a partial "reactivation" (a euphemism for mobilisation) in Macedonia and parts of Serbia, probably directed at the Italians.[43] Hitler also pressed the Yugoslavs to permit the transportation of German supplies through Yugoslavia's territory, along with greater economic cooperation. In exchange he offered a port near the Aegean Sea and territorial security.[44] On 17 February, Bulgaria and Turkey signed an agreement of friendship and non-aggression, which effectively destroyed attempts to create a neutral Balkan bloc. Prince Paul denounced the agreement and the Bulgarians, describing their actions as "perfidy".[45] On 18 and 23 February, Prince Paul told the US Ambassador Arthur Lane that Yugoslavia would not engage the German military if they entered Bulgaria. He explained that to do so would be wrongful and that it would not be understood by the Slovenes and Croats.[41] On 1 March, Yugoslavia was further isolated when Bulgaria signed the Pact and the German army arrived at the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border.[45]

On 4 March, Prince Paul secretly met with Hitler in Berchtesgaden and was again pressured to sign the Pact. Hitler did not request troop passage through Yugoslavia and offered the Greek city of Salonika.[45] A time limit for Prince Paul, who was uncommitted and "wavering", was not set. Prince Paul, in the middle of a cabinet crisis, offered a nonaggression pact and a declaration of friendship, but Hitler insisted on his proposals.[45] Prince Paul warned that "I fear that if I follow your advice and sign the Tripartite Pact I shall no longer be here in six months."[41] On 8 March, Franz Halder, the German Chief of the Army General Staff, expressed his expectation that the Yugoslavs would sign if German troops did not cross their border.[45] During March, secret treaty negotiations commenced in Moscow between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, represented respectively by the Yugoslav ambassador, Milan Gavrilović, and the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov.[46] According to General Pavel Sudoplatov, who was at the time the deputy chief of special operations for the NKVD, the Soviet internal affairs ministry, Gavrilović was a fully recruited Soviet agent,[46] but Sudoplatov states that they knew that Gavrilović also had ties with the British.[47] The Yugoslavs initially sought a military alliance, but this was rejected by the Soviet side, as they were already bound by the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact which guaranteed non-belligerence with Germany.[48][49]

On 17 March, Prince Paul returned to Berchtesgaden and was told by Hitler that it was his last chance for Yugoslavia to join the Pact, renouncing this time the request for the use of Yugoslav railways in order to facilitate their accession.[45] Two days later, Prince Paul convened a Crown Council to discuss the terms of the Pact and whether Yugoslavia should sign it.[50] The council's members were willing to agree, but only under the condition that Germany let its concessions be made public. Germany agreed and the Council approved the terms. Three cabinet ministers resigned on 20 March in protest of the impending signing of the Pact.[45] These were the Minister of the Interior, Srđan Budisavljević; the Minister of Agriculture, Branko Cubrilović; and the Minister without Portfolio, Mihailo Konstantinović. The British were friendly with Budisavljević, and his resignation at British urging precipitated the resignations of the other two.[51] The Germans reacted by imposing an ultimatum to accept by midnight 23 March or forfeit any further chances.[52] Prince Paul and Cvetković obliged and accepted, despite believing German promises were "worthless".[53] On 23 March, Germany's guarantee of Yugoslavia's territorial security and its promise not to use its railroads were publicised.[45] In the United Kingdom, Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, penned in his diary that the "Yugoslavs seem to have sold their souls to the Devil. All these Balkan peoples are trash."[54]

Yugoslavia signs the Tripartite Pact Edit

On 25 March, the pact was signed at the Belvedere palace in Vienna. An official banquet was held which Hitler complained felt like a funeral party. German radio later announced that "the Axis Powers would not demand the right of passage of troops or war materials," while the official document mentioned only troops and omitted mention of war materials. Likewise the pledge to give Salonika to Yugoslavia does not appear on the document.[53] In Athens, Allied planners were dismayed by the Yugoslav signing of the Pact, as it represented a "worst case scenario" for the defence of Greece.[55] On the following day, Serbian demonstrators gathered on the streets of Belgrade shouting "Better the grave than a slave, better a war than the pact" (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Bolje grob nego rob, Bolje rat nego pakt).[56]

Development of the coup Edit

 
Peter II, 17 years old at the time of coup, was declared to be of age.

The coup was executed at 2:15 am on 27 March.[56] It was planned by a group of VVKJ officers in Zemun, and Royal Guard officers in nearby Belgrade. The only senior officers involved were from the air force.[57] Under the supervision of the VVKJ deputy commander Borivoje Mirković, headquartered at the VVKJ base at Zemun, officers assumed control of critical buildings and locations in the early hours of 27 March, including:[58][59]

  • the Zemun VVKJ base (Colonel Dragutin Savić)
  • the bridges over the Sava between Zemun and Belgrade (Colonel Dragutin Dimić)
  • the City Administration, Police Directorate and the Belgrade radio station (Colonel Stjepan Burazović)
  • the ministries and headquarters of the General Staff (Major Živan Knežević)
  • the Royal Court (Colonel Stojan Zdravković)
  • the main post office in Belgrade (Lieutenant Colonel Miodrag Lozić)
  • the barracks of the Royal Guards and Automotive Command

An inspector of post, telegraph and telephone assisted Mirković by cutting off communications between Belgrade and the rest of the country. Tanks and artillery were deployed on all the main streets of Belgrade, and by 2:00 pm all strategic locations were in the hands of troops loyal to the coup leaders.[60]

At the time of the coup, Prince Paul was in Zagreb en route to a planned holiday in Brdo.[61] On the morning of 27 March, Deputy Prime Minister Maček was informed of the coup and met Prince Paul at Zagreb's railway station to discuss the situation.[62] A meeting was then held at the residence of the Ban of Croatia, Ivan Šubašić, which included Šubašić, Prince Paul, Maček and the army commander in Zagreb, August Marić. Maček urged Prince Paul to oppose the putsch and Marić pledged the support of the Croatian units of the army. Maček suggested that Prince Paul stay in Zagreb, with the possibility of mobilising army units in the Banovina of Croatia in his support. Prince Paul declined this offer, at least partially because his wife, Princess Olga, and children remained in Belgrade. Accompanied by Šubašić, he reached the capital by train that evening and was met by Simović, who took him to the war ministry where he and the other two regents relinquished power, immediately abolishing the regency.[63][62] Having already made arrangements with the British consul in Zagreb, Prince Paul and his family left that evening for Greece, after which they travelled to Kenya and then exile in South Africa.[64][65]

 
Demonstrations in Belgrade on 27 March

On the morning of 27 March, the royal palace was surrounded and the coup's advocates issued a radio message that impersonated the voice of King Peter with a "proclamation to the people",[65] calling on them to support the King.[66] Peter was surprised by the coup, and heard of his coming of age for the first time on the radio.[67] Pamphlets with the proclamation of the coup were subsequently dropped into cities from aircraft.[68] Demonstrations followed in Belgrade and other large Yugoslav cities that continued for the next few days, including in Cetinje, Podgorica, Split, Skopje and Kragujevac. The crowds at these demonstrations shouted slogans in support of the United Kingdom,[69] and also frequently used the slogan that had been used by demonstrators the day before the coup, "Better the war than the pact, better the grave than a slave".[70] Members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which had been outlawed since 1920, also took part in pro-putsch rallies all over the country.[71] Churchill declared that "Yugoslavia has found its soul”,[62][65] and he even considered that a Balkan front could be established with Turkish help. The news resulted in Greek attempts to change their defence plans, and the Greeks also pressed the Yugoslavs to attack the Italians in Albania.[72] The Polish and Czechoslovakian governments-in-exile both praised the coup, and news of it was received in Greece with "wild enthusiasm".[73] According to the memoirs of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch, Gavrilo V, the putsch was immediately welcomed by the senior clergy of the church, as the Holy Assembly of Bishops convened on 27 March in response to the coup. Patriarch Gavrilo also spoke publicly in support of the King and the new regime over the radio.[74][75] King Peter II was inaugurated in the presence of Patriarch Gavrilo on 28 March.[69]

For other nations in Yugoslavia, the prospect of war and the government's close ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church was not at all appealing. Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, president of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops of Yugoslavia, bitterly wrote in his diary that, "All in all, Croats and Serbs are of two worlds... that will never move closer to one another without an act of God". He also wrote, "The Schism [Orthodoxy] is the greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than Protestantism. There is no morality, no principle, there is no truth, no justice, no honesty [in Orthodoxy]." On the same day, he publicly called on the Catholic clergy to pray for King Peter and that Croatia and Yugoslavia would be spared a war.[76] The coup resulted in only one death, which was accidental.[1]

Responsibility for the coup Edit

There are contradictory claims as to who was the leader of the coup, coming from Simović, Mirković, and Živan Knežević. Mirković claimed sole credit immediately after the coup and stated on its tenth anniversary that: "Only after I had informed General [Simović] about my idea and he had accepted it did I make the decision to undertake the planned revolt. I made the decision myself, and I also carried out the whole organization. I made the decision as to when the revolt would take place." It is likely that he had been a planning a coup since 1937 when an Italo-Yugoslav pact was signed. King Peter later credited simply the "younger and middle ranks [of officers] of the Yugoslav army" for the coup in a speech on 17 December 1941.[77] In 1951, Mirković stated that he had been considering a putsch since 1938, and had discussed the idea quite openly with a significant number of generals, including Milan Nedić. He went on to say that he had offered the lead role in the post-coup government to a number of prominent people, including: Milan Nedić; the governor of the Morava Banovina, Janićije Krasojević; the commander of the Royal Guard, General Aleksandar Stanković; General Bogoljub Ilić; and Simović. Nedić and Krasojević refused as they felt they could not take an active part due to their positions, Stanković promised not to use the Royal Guard against the people and to keep his knowledge of the plot secret, Ilić did not think he had the political influence to perform the role, and Simović agreed.[78]

Simović's response to Mirković's claims was published posthumously. Simović claimed that he "stood in the center of the whole undertaking" and "personally engaged his assistant Brigadier General Bora Mirković for the action". Tomasevich considers Mirković's account to be the more credible of the two, and points out it is corroborated from several sources, both Allied and Axis.[77] The matter would play a role in the factionalism that would divide the soon-to-be Yugoslav government-in-exile during the war.[79]

According to former British diplomat and Emeritus Professor of History, Classics, and Archaeology of the University of Edinburgh David A. T. Stafford, writing in 1977, although supported with British intelligence and encouragement, the "[i]nitiative came from the Yugoslavs, and only by a stretch of the imagination can the British be said to have planned or directed the coup d'etat."[80] Radoje Knežević vehemently denied any British involvement at all in a series of published letters between himself and Stafford, until in 1979, Stafford apologised for his error and for any offence caused to Radoje Knežević.[81] In 1999, Ivo Tasovac criticised Stafford's revised conclusion, pointing to evidence that the plotters were dependent on British intelligence, and that senior British officials met with both Simović and Mirković immediately before the coup was carried out. The British air attaché Group Captain A. H. H. McDonald met with Simović on 26 March,[82] and the assistant air attaché and British intelligence agent T. G. Mappleback met with his close friend Mirković on the same day and told him that the coup had to be carried out within the next 48 hours.[83][84][85] According to the historian Marta Iaremko, writing in 2014, "the vast majority of researchers" consider that the putsch was planned with the assistance of the British intelligence services, but that this, and their encouragement of the revolt, were not sufficient to ensure it was carried out.[42]

According to Sudoplatov, the coup was actively supported by Soviet military intelligence (GRU) and the NKVD, following the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin′s instructions, with a view to strengthening the USSR's strategic position in the Balkans.[86] A group of Soviet intelligence officers that included Major General Solomon Milshtein and Vasily Zarubin was sent to Belgrade to assist in the coup.[47][46] The activities of the USSR in Yugoslavia had been boosted by the establishment of a Soviet mission in Belgrade in 1940; the Soviet Union had been developing its intelligence network through left-wing journalists and academics at the University of Belgrade.[87] The German embassy in Belgrade was certain that the coup had been organised by British and Soviet intelligence agencies.[46]

Individuals that were probably aware of the coup included Slobodan Jovanović, president of the Serbian Cultural Club, and Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, president of Serbian nationalist organisation Narodna Odbrana (National Defence).[1] Some of those urging a coup or at least aware that a coup was planned had previously been involved with secretive Black Handers, including Božin Simić.[88][89] Mirković himself had been a student of the leading Black Hand operative, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević (also known as "Apis"), while training at the Serbian Military Academy. Those that favoured the coup included the older generation of generals, including the former prime minister Petar Živković and his brother Dimitrije Živković, intellectuals, leftist students, the opposition, the army and army air force, and the Orthodox Church. The generals had various reasons for disliking Prince Paul, including being placed on the retired or reserve lists, postings to lesser roles to prevent them from engaging in politics, and aversion to Prince Paul's policies.[90]

Aftermath Edit

The new government Edit

In the wake of the coup, Simović's new government refused to ratify Yugoslavia's signing of the Tripartite Pact, but did not openly rule it out. Hitler, angered by the coup and anti-German incidents in Belgrade, gathered his senior officers and ordered that Yugoslavia be crushed without delay.[91] In particular, Hitler was concerned about the British Royal Air Force using bases in Greece and Yugoslavia to conduct air attacks against the southern flank of the pending attack on the Soviet Union.[17] On the same day as the coup he issued Führer Directive 25 which called for Yugoslavia to be treated as a hostile state.[92] Italy was to be included in the operations and the directive made specific mention that "[e]fforts will be made to induce Hungary and Bulgaria to take part in operations by offering them the prospect of regaining Banat and Macedonia".[92] Furthermore, the directive stated that "[i]nternal tensions in Yugoslavia will be encouraged by giving political assurances to the Croats",[92] taking account of their dissatisfaction with their position in pre-war Yugoslavia.[17] Later, Hitler stated that the coup had been a shock.[93]

At the same time he ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia, Hitler postponed the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, by about four weeks from its original date of 15 May. Up to this point, the need for some delay due to the particularly wet spring in eastern Europe may have been foreseen, but the timing indicates that the unexpected need to defeat Yugoslavia was an important factor in Hitler's decision.[94]

On 30 March, Foreign Minister Momčilo Ninčić summoned the German ambassador, Viktor von Heeren, and handed him a statement which declared that the new government would accept all its international obligations, including accession to the Tripartite Pact, as long as the national interests of the country were protected. For his part, Heeren demanded an apology for the anti-German demonstrations, immediate ratification of the Tripartite Pact, and demobilisation of the Yugoslav armed forces. Heeren returned to his office to discover a message from Berlin instructing that contact with Yugoslav officials was to be avoided, and he was recalled to Berlin, departing the following day. No reply was given to Ninčić. On 2 April, orders were issued for the evacuation of the German embassy, which occurred the next day, and the German chargé d'affaires advised the diplomats of friendly countries to leave the country.[95][96] Heeren tried to assure Hitler that the putsch was an internal matter between Yugoslav political elites, and that action against Yugoslavia was unnecessary, but he was ignored.[97] On 31 March, after offering Croatia to Hungary and being rebuffed, the Germans had decided to give Croatia its independence.[98]

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle worked to "organise cries for help" from ethnic Germans, Croats, Macedonians, and Slovenes in Yugoslavia that could be published in the press to provide moral justification for a German invasion.[99] The German media simultaneously launched a barrage of accusations against Yugoslavia, claiming that German nationals in Yugoslavia had been subjected to atrocities, similar to the propaganda issued prior to the invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia. This media onslaught also attempted to exploit divisions between Serbs and Croats, by pledging that the latter would have a prominent role in the country in the future.[96] After the coup ethnic relations concerning Germans in Yugoslavia were tense, but rarely resulted in outright violence. The Yugoslav government denied allegations of German ethnic repression.[100] Thousands of German nationals left Yugoslavia on instructions from Berlin.[96]

On 3 April, Führer Directive 26 was issued, detailing the plan of attack and command structure for the invasion. Hungary and Bulgaria were promised the Banat and Yugoslav Macedonia respectively and the Romanian army was asked not to take part, holding its position at the Romania-Yugoslav border.[101] Internal conflict in Hungary over the invasion plans between the army and Teleki led to the Prime Minister's suicide that same evening. Also on 3 April, Edmund Veesenmayer, representing the Dienststelle Ribbentrop, arrived in Zagreb in preparation for a regime change.[102] Croatian pilot Vladimir Kren, a captain in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force, also defected to the Germans on 3 April taking with him valuable information about the country's air defences.[103]

Simović named Maček as Deputy Prime Minister once again in the new government, but Maček was reluctant and remained in Zagreb while he decided what to do. While he considered the coup had been an entirely Serbian initiative aimed at both Prince Paul and the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, he decided that he needed to show HSS support for the new government and that joining it was necessary.[65] He also demanded that four Croatian politicians from the deposed cabinet be part of the new one, to which Simović agreed.[67] On 4 April, Maček travelled to Belgrade and accepted the post on several conditions: that the new government respect the Cvetković–Maček Agreement and expand the autonomy of the Banovina Croatia in some respects; that the new government respect the country's accession to the Tripartite Pact; and that one Serb and one Croatian temporarily assume the role of regents.[70][104] That same day exiled Croatian politician and Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić called for Croats to start an uprising against the government over his Radio Velebit program based in Italy.[105]

On 5 April the new cabinet met for the first time. While the first two conditions set by Maček were met, the appointment of regents was impracticable given Prince Peter had been declared to be of age. Involving representatives from across the political spectrum, Simović's cabinet was "extremely disunited and weak".[106] It quickly realised that it had to embrace a foreign policy that bore a strong resemblance to that of the preceding administration.[107] Budisavljević and Cubrilović, along with the four HSS politicians, were re-instated to cabinet. It included members who fell into three groups; those who were strongly opposed to the Axis and prepared to face war with Germany, those who advocated peace with Germany, and those that were uncommitted. The groups were divided as follows:[108][67]

Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR Edit

On 5 April 1941, the post-coup government signed the Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression with the Soviet Union in Moscow, for which talks had been underway since March.[46] The relevant final article of the treaty read as follows: ″In the event of aggression against one of the contracting parties on the part of a third power, the other contracting party undertakes to observe a policy of friendly relations towards that party″,[109] which fell short of a commitment to provide military assistance.[48][49] Stalin's intention by entering into the treaty was to signal to Hitler that the Soviet Union had interests in the Balkans, while not antagonising his erstwhile ally. For this reason, Soviet military intervention in Yugoslavia was never considered.[110] According to Tomasevich, this was "an almost meaningless diplomatic move", which could have had no real impact on the situation in which Yugoslavia found herself.[111]

Axis invasion Edit

Even within the Royal Yugoslav Army, divisions between a Croatian-Slovene pro-Axis faction and a Serbian pro-Allied faction emerged.[107] The Axis invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April. The bombing of Belgrade forced the government to seek shelter outside the city.[112] From here, King Peter and Simović planned to leave for exile. Maček, refusing to leave the country, resigned on 7 April and designated Juraj Krnjević as his successor.[112] Maček returned to Zagreb. Three other ministers also refused to leave Yugoslavia: Ivan Andres and Bariša Smoljan of the HSS and Kulenović of the JMO.[112] The government met on Yugoslav soil for the last time on 13 April near Pale. From here they travelled to Nikšić where they were flown out of the country to Athens.[113] The Soviet leadership accepted the invasion of Yugoslavia without any criticism.[48][49]

Another result of the coup was that the work that had been done by British intelligence with the anti-Axis government of Cvetković and Maček was lost. By supporting the coup plotters, the SOE undermined the balance in Yugoslav politics that had been achieved by the Cvetković–Maček Agreement. Serbian nationalists supported and welcomed the coup because it ended Croatian autonomy under the Agreement and freed them to pursue a Greater Serbia agenda. The coup and its immediate aftermath also contributed to the paralysis within the Yugoslav government-in-exile during the rest of the war, due to ongoing disputes regarding the legitimacy of the Cvetković–Maček Agreement.[33]

Legacy and historical evaluation Edit

Other than the dispute over who could take credit for staging the coup, the event itself and the dismal showing of the Yugoslav armed forces during the invasion were extensively analysed and discussed by participants, Yugoslav and foreign scholars, and others, both during and after the war.[114] It remained a source of pride for the most outspoken Serbian nationalists and politicians from the Serbian ruling groups that supported it. Those that had advanced a policy of accommodation with the Axis maintained that had the coup not occurred, Yugoslavia would have been able to remain neutral and would have therefore escaped invasion and the many other consequences, including the large number of deaths and widespread destruction during the war, and the victory of the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and the creation of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia as a socialist state. The proponents of accommodation also considered that Yugoslavia might have been able to enter the war on the Allied side at a later time and with less sacrifice. The KPJ saw the coup and invasion as a trigger for the wider revolt which resulted in its ultimate victory, and this aspect was commemorated each year in post-war Yugoslavia. In the final analysis, the primary significance of the coup was that it placed Yugoslavia's accession to the Tripartite Pact into doubt, which led directly to the Axis invasion. Tomasevich concurs with the KPJ evaluation that the coup and the resulting invasion were the starting point for the successful communist-led revolution.[115]

According to the British major general and historian I. S. O. Playfair, the coup was essentially a brave gesture of defiance, mainly by Serbs, against the German domination signified by signing of the Tripartite Pact, undertaken in the full knowledge that invasion would likely follow.[94] It was also, according to the historian Alexander Prusin, an "utter blunder, based on wishful thinking and emotions rather than a realistic appreciation of the country's limited economic and military potential".[116] By overthrowing Prince Paul and the Cvetković government who had sought accommodation with the Croats, the coup also operationalised Serbian opposition to the Cvetković-Maček Agreement.[117] Further, it underlined the lack of unity between Serbs and Croats, which limited the military options available to the Yugoslav government.[118]

Hitler's decision to invade Yugoslavia delayed the concurrent invasion of Greece by five days, but this was more than made up for by the advantages of being able to invade Greece via southern Yugoslavia, allowing the outflanking of the Aliakmon Line.[119] The role of the coup and subsequent invasion of Yugoslavia in delaying Operation Barbarossa, and the subsequent Axis defeat by the Soviet Union, is disputed. In 1975, Tomasevich wrote that the events in Yugoslavia were "a partial cause of what proved to be a fateful delay in Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union", and went on to state that many writers consider that this delay was responsible for the German failure to capture Moscow in the winter of 1941–1942. He acknowledged that, apart from the coup and invasion, the wet spring of 1941 contributed a two or three week delay to the launching of Barbarossa, but saw the delay caused by events in Yugoslavia as an important indirect factor in eventual Axis defeat in the war.[120] In 1972 the historian Martin van Creveld examined the arguments supporting this position and dismissed such views as based on "sloppy scholarship" and "wishful thinking".[121] He concluded that the invasion of Yugoslavia facilitated and accelerated the overall Balkan campaign, and that the fact that the Germans did not capitalise on the earlier than expected end of operations in Yugoslavia by bringing forward the start date for Operation Barbarossa proves beyond doubt that other factors determined the start date.[122] More recently, in 2013, Stockings (Australian Defence Force Academy) and Hancock (New South Wales), using new archival findings for their analysis of Operation Marita came to the conclusion that there is “little doubt” that to some degree Operation 25 (the invasion of Yugoslavia) forced a delay to the planned start date of the invasion of the Soviet Union.[123]

Sue Onslow, in a bid to place the coup in the broader context of the British policy towards Yugoslavia between the outbreak of the Second World War and the events on 27 March 1941, writes that the coup was a major propaganda victory for Britain, as it "proved a tremendous, if ephemeral, boost to British morale, coming rapidly upon the victories against Italian forces in North Africa and the Sudan"; it also was "a much-needed fillip to the 'upstart'... Special Operations Executive created by [Hugh] Dalton".[124]

Prince Paul was found guilty of war crimes in September 1945 for his role in the Yugoslav accession to the Tripartite Pact. In 2011, a High Court in Serbia found the sentence to be politically and ideologically motivated and Prince Paul was officially rehabilitated.[125][126] A similar decision had been made in 2009 to rehabilitate Cvetković for war crimes charges relating to the signing of the pact.[127]

Notes and citations Edit

  1. ^ a b c Tomasevich 1969, p. 67.
  2. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 45.
  3. ^ Tomasevich 1969, pp. 60–62.
  4. ^ Tomasevich 1969, pp. 10–11, 60–62.
  5. ^ Hoptner 1963, p. 7.
  6. ^ a b Tomasevich 1969, p. 61.
  7. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 76.
  8. ^ Ramet 2006, pp. 79–80.
  9. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 87.
  10. ^ Dragnich 1983, p. 99.
  11. ^ Tomasevich 1969, pp. 60–63.
  12. ^ Hoptner 1963, p. 9.
  13. ^ Hoptner 1963, pp. 10–12.
  14. ^ Hoptner 1963, p. 14.
  15. ^ Hoptner 1963, pp. 19–20.
  16. ^ Hoptner 1963, p. 28.
  17. ^ a b c d e Tomasevich 2001, p. 47.
  18. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 22–23.
  19. ^ Roberts 1987, p. 7.
  20. ^ a b Onslow 2005, p. 37.
  21. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 40.
  22. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 104.
  23. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 105.
  24. ^ Malcolm 1994, p. 171.
  25. ^ Singleton 1985, p. 170.
  26. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 23.
  27. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 24.
  28. ^ a b Starič 2005, p. 35.
  29. ^ Ramet 2006, pp. 106–107.
  30. ^ Starič 2005, p. 36.
  31. ^ Starič 2005, p. 33.
  32. ^ Hehn 2005, pp. 368–369.
  33. ^ a b Starič 2005, p. 38.
  34. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 179.
  35. ^ Roberts 1987, pp. 6–7.
  36. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 30.
  37. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 31.
  38. ^ Frank 2001, p. 171.
  39. ^ Milazzo 1975, p. 2.
  40. ^ Stafford 1977, p. 401.
  41. ^ a b c Creveld 1973, p. 139.
  42. ^ a b Iaremko 2014, p. 120.
  43. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 32 & 57.
  44. ^ Presseisen 1960, p. 367.
  45. ^ a b c d e f g h Presseisen 1960, p. 368.
  46. ^ a b c d e Medvedev & Medvedev 19 October 2014.
  47. ^ a b Sudoplatov 1994, p. 119.
  48. ^ a b c Reshetnikov 1992, pp. 110–123.
  49. ^ a b c Slijepčević 1978, p. 27.
  50. ^ Stafford 1977, p. 402.
  51. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 39.
  52. ^ Presseisen 1960, pp. 368–369.
  53. ^ a b Presseisen 1960, p. 369.
  54. ^ Stafford 1977, p. 403.
  55. ^ Stockings & Hancock 2013, p. 126.
  56. ^ a b Ramet & Lazić 2011, p. 18.
  57. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 43.
  58. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 46.
  59. ^ Iaremko 2014, p. 122.
  60. ^ Iaremko 2014, pp. 122–123.
  61. ^ Tanner 1997, p. 138.
  62. ^ a b c Tanner 1997, p. 139.
  63. ^ Iaremko 2014, pp. 123–124.
  64. ^ Iaremko 2014, p. 124.
  65. ^ a b c d Tomasevich 1975, p. 47.
  66. ^ Creveld 1973, p. 142.
  67. ^ a b c Iaremko 2014, p. 123.
  68. ^ Dizdar 2007, p. 587.
  69. ^ a b Iaremko 2014, p. 125.
  70. ^ a b Goldstein 2003, p. 268.
  71. ^ Petranović 1992, p. 190.
  72. ^ Stockings & Hancock 2013, pp. 128–129.
  73. ^ The Examiner 29 March 1941.
  74. ^ Tomanić 2001, p. 187.
  75. ^ Dožić 1974, pp. 399, 401–411.
  76. ^ Biondich 2007, p. 41.
  77. ^ a b Tomasevich 1975, pp. 44–45.
  78. ^ Iaremko 2014, pp. 121–122.
  79. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 44.
  80. ^ Stafford 1977, p. 419.
  81. ^ Iaremko 2014, pp. 119–120.
  82. ^ Tasovac 1999, p. 118.
  83. ^ Tasovac 1999, pp. 129 & 214.
  84. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 45.
  85. ^ Iaremko 2014, p. 121.
  86. ^ Sudoplatov 1994, p. 118–119.
  87. ^ Onslow 2005, pp. 28–29.
  88. ^ Bakić 2005, p. 231.
  89. ^ Papasissis 1960, Chapter 5.
  90. ^ Iaremko 2014, pp. 120–122.
  91. ^ Milazzo 1975, pp. 2–3.
  92. ^ a b c Trevor-Roper 1964, p. 108.
  93. ^ Klajn 2007, p. 17.
  94. ^ a b Playfair et al. 2014, p. 157.
  95. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 50–51.
  96. ^ a b c Çetiner 2014, p. 72.
  97. ^ Prusin 2017, p. 23.
  98. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 48.
  99. ^ Zakić 2017, p. 60.
  100. ^ Zakić 2017, pp. 60–61.
  101. ^ Trevor-Roper 1964, p. 109.
  102. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 49.
  103. ^ Ciglic & Savic 2002, p. 10.
  104. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 48.
  105. ^ Dizdar 2007, p. 588.
  106. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 48–49.
  107. ^ a b Stockings & Hancock 2013, p. 130.
  108. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 49.
  109. ^ Treaty on Friendship and Non-Aggression between the USSR and Yugoslavia.
  110. ^ Prusin 2017, p. 21.
  111. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 52.
  112. ^ a b c Tomasevich 2001, p. 50.
  113. ^ Pavlowitch 2007, p. 19.
  114. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 43–47.
  115. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 47, 52–53.
  116. ^ Prusin 2017, p. 22.
  117. ^ Iaremko 2014, p. 126.
  118. ^ Playfair et al. 2014, p. 74.
  119. ^ Playfair et al. 2014, pp. 74 & 157.
  120. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 86.
  121. ^ Van Creveld 1972, p. 85.
  122. ^ Van Creveld 1972, p. 86.
  123. ^ Stockings & Hancock 2013, p. 573.
  124. ^ Onslow 2005, pp. 2–3.
  125. ^ The Star online 7 October 2012.
  126. ^ Radio Television of Serbia 15 December 2011.
  127. ^ Politika 26 September 2009.

References Edit

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Websites Edit

  • Medvedev, Roy; Medvedev, Zhores (19 October 2014). "Poklon Moskvi sa Balkana" [A Gift to Moscow from the Balkans] (in Serbian). Novosti.
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  • "Treaty on Friendship and Non-Aggression between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia". www.kodeks.ru. The Legal Information Consortium. 5 April 1941. Retrieved 14 December 2017.

yugoslav, coup, état, royalist, coup, état, 1929, january, dictatorship, took, place, march, 1941, belgrade, kingdom, yugoslavia, when, regency, prince, paul, yugoslavia, overthrown, king, peter, fully, assumed, monarchical, powers, coup, planned, conducted, g. For the royalist coup d etat of 1929 see 6 January Dictatorship The Yugoslav coup d etat took place on 27 March 1941 in Belgrade Kingdom of Yugoslavia when the regency led by Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was overthrown and King Peter II fully assumed monarchical powers The coup was planned and conducted by a group of pro Western Serbian nationalist Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force officers formally led by the Air Force commander General Dusan Simovic who had been associated with several putsch plots from 1938 onwards Brigadier General of Military Aviation Borivoje Mirkovic Major Zivan Knezevic of the Yugoslav Royal Guards and his brother Radoje Knezevic were the main organisers in the overthrow of the government In addition to Radoje Knezevic some other civilian leaders were probably aware of the takeover before it was launched and moved to support it once it occurred but they were not among the organisers Peter II himself was surprised by the coup and heard of the declaration of his coming of age for the first time on the radio Yugoslav coup d etatDusan Simovic King Peter II of Yugoslavia and Radoje Knezevic in London June 1941 Peter II was declared of age and placed on the throne as a result of the coup Date27 March 1941LocationBelgrade Kingdom of YugoslaviaOutcomeCoup successful Removal of Regent Prince Paul and his government Installation of national unity government under the minor King Peter II and headed by General Dusan Simovic Provocation of the Axis invasion of YugoslaviaDeaths1 accidental 1 The Communist Party of Yugoslavia played no part in the coup although it made a significant contribution to the mass street protests in many cities that signalled popular support for it once it had occurred The putsch was successful and deposed the three member regency Prince Paul Radenko Stankovic and Ivo Perovic and the government of Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic Two days prior to its ousting the Cvetkovic government had signed the Vienna Protocol on the Accession of Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Pact Axis The coup had been planned for several months but the signing of the Tripartite Pact spurred the organisers to carry it out encouraged by the British Special Operations Executive The military conspirators brought to power the 17 year old King Peter II whom they declared to be of age to assume the throne and formed a weak and divided national unity government with Simovic as prime minister and Vladko Macek and Slobodan Jovanovic as his vice premiers The coup led directly to the German led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 The importance of the putsch and subsequent invasion in delaying Operation Barbarossa the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union which started on 22 June 1941 is still open to debate In 1972 military historian Martin van Creveld dismissed the idea affirming that the invasion of Yugoslavia actually assisted and hastened the overall Balkan campaign and that other factors determined the start date for Operation Barbarossa On the other hand findings by Craig Stockings and Hancock published on 2013 have led them to assert that Operation 25 the invasion of Yugoslavia did somewhat contribute to delay the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union Contents 1 Background 2 Yugoslav foreign policy during the interwar period 2 1 Cvetkovic Macek Agreement 2 2 Pressure builds 2 3 Yugoslavia signs the Tripartite Pact 3 Development of the coup 4 Responsibility for the coup 5 Aftermath 5 1 The new government 5 2 Non Aggression Pact with the USSR 5 3 Axis invasion 6 Legacy and historical evaluation 7 Notes and citations 8 References 8 1 Books 8 2 Journals and newspapers 8 3 WebsitesBackground EditThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes incorporated diverse national and religious groups with varied historical backgrounds These included Serbs Croats Slovenes Montenegrins Bosnian Muslims Macedonians and Albanians among others Each of these national groups was strongly associated with one of the three dominant religions the Serbian Orthodox Church Serbs Montenegrins and Macedonians the Catholic Church Croats and Slovenes and Islam Bosnian Muslims and Albanians The religious diversity deepened the divisions within Yugoslav society Serbs and Montenegrins made up 38 8 per cent of the population Croats contributed 23 9 per cent Slovenes 8 5 per cent Bosnian Muslims 6 3 per cent Macedonians 5 3 per cent and Albanians 4 per cent 2 3 According to economics professor and historian Jozo Tomasevich Yugoslavia was politically weak from the moment of its creation and remained so during the interwar period mainly due to a rigid system of centralism imposed by the Serbian friendly Vidovdan Constitution the aforementioned strong association between each national group and its dominant religion and uneven economic development In particular the religious primacy of the Serbian Orthodox Church in national affairs and discrimination against Catholics and Muslims compounded the dissatisfaction of the non Serbian population with the Serbian dominated ruling groups that controlled patronage and government appointments and treated non Serbs as second class citizens 4 This centralised system arose from Serbian military strength and Croatian intransigence and was sustained by Croatian disengagement Serbian overrepresentation corruption and a lack of discipline within political parties 5 This state of affairs was initially maintained by subverting the democratic system of government through political bribery The domination of the rest of Yugoslavia by Serbian ruling elites meant that the country was never consolidated in the political sense and was therefore never able to address the social and economic challenges it faced 6 The Political scientist Sabrina P Ramet sees the dysfunctionality and lack of legitimacy of the regime as the reasons why the kingdom s internal politics became ethnically polarised a phenomenon that has been referred to as the national question in Yugoslavia Failures to establish the rule of law to protect individual rights to build tolerance and equality and to guarantee the neutrality of the state in matters relating to religion language and culture contributed to this illegitimacy and the resulting instability 7 nbsp Banovina created by King Alexander in 1929In 1929 democracy was abandoned and a royal dictatorship was established by King Alexander 6 who attempted to break down the ethnic divisions in the country through various means including creating administrative divisions Serbo Croatian Latin banovine based on rivers rather than traditional regions 8 There was significant opposition to this move with Serbian and Slovene opposition parties and figures advocating the division of Yugoslavia into six ethnically based administrative units By 1933 discontent in the largely Croatian populated Sava Banovina had developed into full blown civil disorder which the regime countered with a series of assassinations attempted assassinations and arrests of key Croatian opposition figures including the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party Serbo Croatian Latin Hrvatska seljacka stranka HSS Vladko Macek 9 When Alexander was assassinated in Marseilles in 1934 by a Bulgarian assassin with links to the Croatian ultranationalists the Ustase his cousin Prince Paul headed a triumvirate regency whose other members were the senator Radenko Stankovic and the governor of the Sava Banovina Ivo Perovic The regency ruled on behalf of Alexander s 11 year old son Prince Peter but the important member of the regency was Prince Paul 10 Although Prince Paul was more liberal than his cousin the dictatorship continued uninterrupted 11 The dictatorship had allowed the country to follow a consistent foreign policy but Yugoslavia needed peace at home in order to assure peace with its neighbours all of whom had irredentist designs on its territory 12 Yugoslav foreign policy during the interwar period EditFrom 1921 the country had negotiated the Little Entente with Romania and Czechoslovakia in the face of Hungarian designs on its territory and after a decade of bilateral treaties had formalised the arrangements in 1933 This had been followed the next year by the Balkan Entente of Yugoslavia Greece Romania and Turkey aimed at thwarting Bulgarian aspirations Throughout this period the Yugoslav government had sought to remain good friends with France seeing her as a guarantor of European peace treaties This was formalised through a treaty of friendship signed in 1927 13 With these arrangements in place Italy posed the biggest problem for Yugoslavia funding the anti Yugoslav Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation which promoted Bulgarian irredentism 14 Attempts by King Alexander to negotiate with Benito Mussolini fell on deaf ears and after Alexander s assassination nothing of note happened on that front until 1937 15 In the aftermath of Alexander s assassination Yugoslavia was isolated both militarily and diplomatically and reached out to France to assist its bilateral relationship with Italy 16 With the appointment of Milan Stojadinovic as Prime Minister in 1935 Germany and Yugoslavia became more closely aligned The trade relationship between the two countries also developed considerably and Germany became Yugoslavia s most important trading partner 17 Cvetkovic Macek Agreement Edit Main article Cvetkovic Macek Agreement Prince Paul recognised the lack of national solidarity and political weakness of his country and after he assumed power he made repeated attempts to negotiate a political settlement with Macek the leader of the dominant Croatian political party in Yugoslavia the HSS In January 1937 Stojadinovic met with Macek at Prince Paul s request but Stojadinovic was unwilling or unable to grapple with the issue of Croatian dissatisfaction with a Yugoslavia dominated by the Serbian ruling class 18 In 1938 the Anschluss brought the Third Reich to the borders of Yugoslavia 19 and early elections were held in December In this background the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force VVKJ commander General Dusan Simovic had been involved in two coup plots in early 1938 driven by Serbian opposition to the Concordat with the Vatican and another coup plot following the December election 20 In the December 1938 elections the United Opposition led by Macek had attracted 44 9 per cent of the vote 21 but due to the electoral rules by which the government parties received 40 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly before votes were counted the opposition vote only translated into 67 seats out of a total of 373 22 On 3 February 1939 the Minister of Education Bogoljub Kujundzic made a nationalist speech in the Assembly in which he stated that Serb policies will always be the policies of this house and this government 23 24 Head of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization JMO Mehmed Spaho asked Stojadinovic to disavow the statement but he did not At the behest of the Senate leader the Slovene Anton Korosec that evening five ministers resigned from the government including Korosec The others were Spaho another JMO politician Dzafer Kulenovic the Slovene Franc Snoj and the Serb Dragisa Cvetkovic 25 Stojadinovic sought authority from Prince Paul to form a new cabinet but Korosec as head of the Senate advised the prince to form a new government under Cvetkovic Prince Paul dismissed Stojadinovic and appointed Cvetkovic in his place with a direction that he reach an agreement with Macek 26 While these negotiations were ongoing Italy invaded Albania Yugoslavia s southern neighbour In August 1939 the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement was concluded to create the Banovina of Croatia which was to be a relatively autonomous political unit within Yugoslavia Separatist Croats considered the Agreement did not go far enough and many Serbs believed it went too far in giving power to Croats 27 The Cvetkovic led cabinet formed in the wake of the Agreement was resolutely anti Axis 28 but remained on friendly terms with Germany 17 and included five members of the HSS with Macek as deputy Prime Minister General Milan Nedic was Minister of the Army and Navy 29 After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 German pressure on the government resulted in the resignation in mid 1940 of the Minister of the Interior Stanoje Mihaldzic who had been organising covert anti Axis activities 28 In October 1940 Simovic was again approached by plotters planning a coup but he was non committal 20 From the outbreak of war British diplomacy focused on keeping Yugoslavia neutral which the Ambassador Ronald Campbell apparently still believed possible 30 Pressure builds Edit By the time of the German invasion of Poland and subsequent outbreak of war in September 1939 the Yugoslav Intelligence Service was cooperating with British intelligence agencies on a large scale across the country This cooperation which had existed to a lesser extent during the early 1930s intensified after the Anschluss These combined intelligence operations were aimed at strengthening Yugoslavia and keeping her neutral while encouraging covert activities 31 In mid to late 1940 British intelligence became aware of coup plotting but managed to side track the plans preferring to continue working through Prince Paul 32 The Special Operations Executive SOE office in Belgrade went to significant lengths to support the opposition to the anti Axis Cvetkovic government which undermined the hard won balance in Yugoslav politics that that government represented SOE Belgrade was entangled with pro Serbian policies and interests and disregarded or underestimated warnings from SOE and British diplomats in Zagreb who better understood the situation in Yugoslavia as a whole 33 nbsp Minister of the Army and Navy Milan Nedic was fired by prince regent Paul in November 1940 for advocating that Yugoslavia join the Axis 34 Yugoslavia s situation worsened in October 1940 when Italy invaded Greece from Albania and the initial failure of the Italians to make headway only increased Yugoslav apprehension that Germany would be forced to help Italy In September and November 1940 respectively Germany forced the Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of Romania to accede to the Tripartite Pact 35 In early November 1940 following the Italian invasion of Greece Nedic stated in a memorandum to Prince Paul and the government that he believed that Yugoslavia was about to be fully encircled by enemy countries and that ultimately Germany would win the war Nedic proposed to the government that it abandon its neutral stance and join the Axis as soon as possible in the thinking that joining the Axis would protect Yugoslavia against its greedy neighbors 36 A few days later Prince Paul having realised the impossibility of following Nedic s advice replaced him with the ageing and compliant General Petar Pesic 37 At the same time Hitler recalling Serbia s excellent military performance in the Balkan Wars and World War I was concerned that the Yugoslav army was strong and defeating it would necessitate the expenditure of considerable effort Despite this he remained concerned about the threat to the southern flank of his planned invasion of the Soviet Union posed by Greece and Yugoslavia and aimed for a political resolution of Yugoslavia s status 17 On 12 December 1940 at the initiative of the Prime Minister of Hungary Count Pal Teleki Hungary concluded a friendship and non aggression treaty with Yugoslavia Although the concept had received support from both Germany and Italy the actual signing of the treaty did not Germany s planned invasion of Greece would be simplified if Yugoslavia could be neutralised 38 Over the next few months Prince Paul and his ministers laboured under overwhelming diplomatic pressure a threat of an attack by the Germans from Bulgarian territory and the unwillingness of the British to promise practical military support 39 Six months prior to the coup British policy towards the government of Yugoslavia had shifted from acceptance of Yugoslav neutrality to pressuring the country for support in the war against Germany 40 On 23 January 1941 William Donovan a special emissary of US President Franklin D Roosevelt visited Belgrade and issued an ultimatum saying that if Yugoslavia permitted German troop passage then the US would not interfere on her behalf at peace talks 41 Around the same time suspicious of Prince Paul s actions the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered British intelligence services to establish contacts with anti regime groups in Belgrade 42 On 14 February Adolf Hitler met with Cvetkovic and his foreign minister and requested Yugoslavia s accession to the Tripartite Pact He pushed for the demobilisation of the Royal Yugoslav Army there had been a partial reactivation a euphemism for mobilisation in Macedonia and parts of Serbia probably directed at the Italians 43 Hitler also pressed the Yugoslavs to permit the transportation of German supplies through Yugoslavia s territory along with greater economic cooperation In exchange he offered a port near the Aegean Sea and territorial security 44 On 17 February Bulgaria and Turkey signed an agreement of friendship and non aggression which effectively destroyed attempts to create a neutral Balkan bloc Prince Paul denounced the agreement and the Bulgarians describing their actions as perfidy 45 On 18 and 23 February Prince Paul told the US Ambassador Arthur Lane that Yugoslavia would not engage the German military if they entered Bulgaria He explained that to do so would be wrongful and that it would not be understood by the Slovenes and Croats 41 On 1 March Yugoslavia was further isolated when Bulgaria signed the Pact and the German army arrived at the Bulgarian Yugoslav border 45 On 4 March Prince Paul secretly met with Hitler in Berchtesgaden and was again pressured to sign the Pact Hitler did not request troop passage through Yugoslavia and offered the Greek city of Salonika 45 A time limit for Prince Paul who was uncommitted and wavering was not set Prince Paul in the middle of a cabinet crisis offered a nonaggression pact and a declaration of friendship but Hitler insisted on his proposals 45 Prince Paul warned that I fear that if I follow your advice and sign the Tripartite Pact I shall no longer be here in six months 41 On 8 March Franz Halder the German Chief of the Army General Staff expressed his expectation that the Yugoslavs would sign if German troops did not cross their border 45 During March secret treaty negotiations commenced in Moscow between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union represented respectively by the Yugoslav ambassador Milan Gavrilovic and the Soviet People s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov 46 According to General Pavel Sudoplatov who was at the time the deputy chief of special operations for the NKVD the Soviet internal affairs ministry Gavrilovic was a fully recruited Soviet agent 46 but Sudoplatov states that they knew that Gavrilovic also had ties with the British 47 The Yugoslavs initially sought a military alliance but this was rejected by the Soviet side as they were already bound by the 1939 Molotov Ribbentrop Pact which guaranteed non belligerence with Germany 48 49 On 17 March Prince Paul returned to Berchtesgaden and was told by Hitler that it was his last chance for Yugoslavia to join the Pact renouncing this time the request for the use of Yugoslav railways in order to facilitate their accession 45 Two days later Prince Paul convened a Crown Council to discuss the terms of the Pact and whether Yugoslavia should sign it 50 The council s members were willing to agree but only under the condition that Germany let its concessions be made public Germany agreed and the Council approved the terms Three cabinet ministers resigned on 20 March in protest of the impending signing of the Pact 45 These were the Minister of the Interior Srđan Budisavljevic the Minister of Agriculture Branko Cubrilovic and the Minister without Portfolio Mihailo Konstantinovic The British were friendly with Budisavljevic and his resignation at British urging precipitated the resignations of the other two 51 The Germans reacted by imposing an ultimatum to accept by midnight 23 March or forfeit any further chances 52 Prince Paul and Cvetkovic obliged and accepted despite believing German promises were worthless 53 On 23 March Germany s guarantee of Yugoslavia s territorial security and its promise not to use its railroads were publicised 45 In the United Kingdom Alexander Cadogan the Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs penned in his diary that the Yugoslavs seem to have sold their souls to the Devil All these Balkan peoples are trash 54 Yugoslavia signs the Tripartite Pact Edit Main article Yugoslav accession to the Tripartite Pact On 25 March the pact was signed at the Belvedere palace in Vienna An official banquet was held which Hitler complained felt like a funeral party German radio later announced that the Axis Powers would not demand the right of passage of troops or war materials while the official document mentioned only troops and omitted mention of war materials Likewise the pledge to give Salonika to Yugoslavia does not appear on the document 53 In Athens Allied planners were dismayed by the Yugoslav signing of the Pact as it represented a worst case scenario for the defence of Greece 55 On the following day Serbian demonstrators gathered on the streets of Belgrade shouting Better the grave than a slave better a war than the pact Serbo Croatian Latin Bolje grob nego rob Bolje rat nego pakt 56 Development of the coup Edit nbsp Peter II 17 years old at the time of coup was declared to be of age The coup was executed at 2 15 am on 27 March 56 It was planned by a group of VVKJ officers in Zemun and Royal Guard officers in nearby Belgrade The only senior officers involved were from the air force 57 Under the supervision of the VVKJ deputy commander Borivoje Mirkovic headquartered at the VVKJ base at Zemun officers assumed control of critical buildings and locations in the early hours of 27 March including 58 59 the Zemun VVKJ base Colonel Dragutin Savic the bridges over the Sava between Zemun and Belgrade Colonel Dragutin Dimic the City Administration Police Directorate and the Belgrade radio station Colonel Stjepan Burazovic the ministries and headquarters of the General Staff Major Zivan Knezevic the Royal Court Colonel Stojan Zdravkovic the main post office in Belgrade Lieutenant Colonel Miodrag Lozic the barracks of the Royal Guards and Automotive CommandAn inspector of post telegraph and telephone assisted Mirkovic by cutting off communications between Belgrade and the rest of the country Tanks and artillery were deployed on all the main streets of Belgrade and by 2 00 pm all strategic locations were in the hands of troops loyal to the coup leaders 60 At the time of the coup Prince Paul was in Zagreb en route to a planned holiday in Brdo 61 On the morning of 27 March Deputy Prime Minister Macek was informed of the coup and met Prince Paul at Zagreb s railway station to discuss the situation 62 A meeting was then held at the residence of the Ban of Croatia Ivan Subasic which included Subasic Prince Paul Macek and the army commander in Zagreb August Maric Macek urged Prince Paul to oppose the putsch and Maric pledged the support of the Croatian units of the army Macek suggested that Prince Paul stay in Zagreb with the possibility of mobilising army units in the Banovina of Croatia in his support Prince Paul declined this offer at least partially because his wife Princess Olga and children remained in Belgrade Accompanied by Subasic he reached the capital by train that evening and was met by Simovic who took him to the war ministry where he and the other two regents relinquished power immediately abolishing the regency 63 62 Having already made arrangements with the British consul in Zagreb Prince Paul and his family left that evening for Greece after which they travelled to Kenya and then exile in South Africa 64 65 nbsp Demonstrations in Belgrade on 27 MarchOn the morning of 27 March the royal palace was surrounded and the coup s advocates issued a radio message that impersonated the voice of King Peter with a proclamation to the people 65 calling on them to support the King 66 Peter was surprised by the coup and heard of his coming of age for the first time on the radio 67 Pamphlets with the proclamation of the coup were subsequently dropped into cities from aircraft 68 Demonstrations followed in Belgrade and other large Yugoslav cities that continued for the next few days including in Cetinje Podgorica Split Skopje and Kragujevac The crowds at these demonstrations shouted slogans in support of the United Kingdom 69 and also frequently used the slogan that had been used by demonstrators the day before the coup Better the war than the pact better the grave than a slave 70 Members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia which had been outlawed since 1920 also took part in pro putsch rallies all over the country 71 Churchill declared that Yugoslavia has found its soul 62 65 and he even considered that a Balkan front could be established with Turkish help The news resulted in Greek attempts to change their defence plans and the Greeks also pressed the Yugoslavs to attack the Italians in Albania 72 The Polish and Czechoslovakian governments in exile both praised the coup and news of it was received in Greece with wild enthusiasm 73 According to the memoirs of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Gavrilo V the putsch was immediately welcomed by the senior clergy of the church as the Holy Assembly of Bishops convened on 27 March in response to the coup Patriarch Gavrilo also spoke publicly in support of the King and the new regime over the radio 74 75 King Peter II was inaugurated in the presence of Patriarch Gavrilo on 28 March 69 For other nations in Yugoslavia the prospect of war and the government s close ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church was not at all appealing Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac president of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops of Yugoslavia bitterly wrote in his diary that All in all Croats and Serbs are of two worlds that will never move closer to one another without an act of God He also wrote The Schism Orthodoxy is the greatest curse in Europe almost greater than Protestantism There is no morality no principle there is no truth no justice no honesty in Orthodoxy On the same day he publicly called on the Catholic clergy to pray for King Peter and that Croatia and Yugoslavia would be spared a war 76 The coup resulted in only one death which was accidental 1 Responsibility for the coup EditThere are contradictory claims as to who was the leader of the coup coming from Simovic Mirkovic and Zivan Knezevic Mirkovic claimed sole credit immediately after the coup and stated on its tenth anniversary that Only after I had informed General Simovic about my idea and he had accepted it did I make the decision to undertake the planned revolt I made the decision myself and I also carried out the whole organization I made the decision as to when the revolt would take place It is likely that he had been a planning a coup since 1937 when an Italo Yugoslav pact was signed King Peter later credited simply the younger and middle ranks of officers of the Yugoslav army for the coup in a speech on 17 December 1941 77 In 1951 Mirkovic stated that he had been considering a putsch since 1938 and had discussed the idea quite openly with a significant number of generals including Milan Nedic He went on to say that he had offered the lead role in the post coup government to a number of prominent people including Milan Nedic the governor of the Morava Banovina Janicije Krasojevic the commander of the Royal Guard General Aleksandar Stankovic General Bogoljub Ilic and Simovic Nedic and Krasojevic refused as they felt they could not take an active part due to their positions Stankovic promised not to use the Royal Guard against the people and to keep his knowledge of the plot secret Ilic did not think he had the political influence to perform the role and Simovic agreed 78 Simovic s response to Mirkovic s claims was published posthumously Simovic claimed that he stood in the center of the whole undertaking and personally engaged his assistant Brigadier General Bora Mirkovic for the action Tomasevich considers Mirkovic s account to be the more credible of the two and points out it is corroborated from several sources both Allied and Axis 77 The matter would play a role in the factionalism that would divide the soon to be Yugoslav government in exile during the war 79 According to former British diplomat and Emeritus Professor of History Classics and Archaeology of the University of Edinburgh David A T Stafford writing in 1977 although supported with British intelligence and encouragement the i nitiative came from the Yugoslavs and only by a stretch of the imagination can the British be said to have planned or directed the coup d etat 80 Radoje Knezevic vehemently denied any British involvement at all in a series of published letters between himself and Stafford until in 1979 Stafford apologised for his error and for any offence caused to Radoje Knezevic 81 In 1999 Ivo Tasovac criticised Stafford s revised conclusion pointing to evidence that the plotters were dependent on British intelligence and that senior British officials met with both Simovic and Mirkovic immediately before the coup was carried out The British air attache Group Captain A H H McDonald met with Simovic on 26 March 82 and the assistant air attache and British intelligence agent T G Mappleback met with his close friend Mirkovic on the same day and told him that the coup had to be carried out within the next 48 hours 83 84 85 According to the historian Marta Iaremko writing in 2014 the vast majority of researchers consider that the putsch was planned with the assistance of the British intelligence services but that this and their encouragement of the revolt were not sufficient to ensure it was carried out 42 According to Sudoplatov the coup was actively supported by Soviet military intelligence GRU and the NKVD following the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin s instructions with a view to strengthening the USSR s strategic position in the Balkans 86 A group of Soviet intelligence officers that included Major General Solomon Milshtein and Vasily Zarubin was sent to Belgrade to assist in the coup 47 46 The activities of the USSR in Yugoslavia had been boosted by the establishment of a Soviet mission in Belgrade in 1940 the Soviet Union had been developing its intelligence network through left wing journalists and academics at the University of Belgrade 87 The German embassy in Belgrade was certain that the coup had been organised by British and Soviet intelligence agencies 46 Individuals that were probably aware of the coup included Slobodan Jovanovic president of the Serbian Cultural Club and Ilija Trifunovic Bircanin president of Serbian nationalist organisation Narodna Odbrana National Defence 1 Some of those urging a coup or at least aware that a coup was planned had previously been involved with secretive Black Handers including Bozin Simic 88 89 Mirkovic himself had been a student of the leading Black Hand operative Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic also known as Apis while training at the Serbian Military Academy Those that favoured the coup included the older generation of generals including the former prime minister Petar Zivkovic and his brother Dimitrije Zivkovic intellectuals leftist students the opposition the army and army air force and the Orthodox Church The generals had various reasons for disliking Prince Paul including being placed on the retired or reserve lists postings to lesser roles to prevent them from engaging in politics and aversion to Prince Paul s policies 90 Aftermath EditThe new government Edit In the wake of the coup Simovic s new government refused to ratify Yugoslavia s signing of the Tripartite Pact but did not openly rule it out Hitler angered by the coup and anti German incidents in Belgrade gathered his senior officers and ordered that Yugoslavia be crushed without delay 91 In particular Hitler was concerned about the British Royal Air Force using bases in Greece and Yugoslavia to conduct air attacks against the southern flank of the pending attack on the Soviet Union 17 On the same day as the coup he issued Fuhrer Directive 25 which called for Yugoslavia to be treated as a hostile state 92 Italy was to be included in the operations and the directive made specific mention that e fforts will be made to induce Hungary and Bulgaria to take part in operations by offering them the prospect of regaining Banat and Macedonia 92 Furthermore the directive stated that i nternal tensions in Yugoslavia will be encouraged by giving political assurances to the Croats 92 taking account of their dissatisfaction with their position in pre war Yugoslavia 17 Later Hitler stated that the coup had been a shock 93 At the same time he ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia Hitler postponed the invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa by about four weeks from its original date of 15 May Up to this point the need for some delay due to the particularly wet spring in eastern Europe may have been foreseen but the timing indicates that the unexpected need to defeat Yugoslavia was an important factor in Hitler s decision 94 On 30 March Foreign Minister Momcilo Nincic summoned the German ambassador Viktor von Heeren and handed him a statement which declared that the new government would accept all its international obligations including accession to the Tripartite Pact as long as the national interests of the country were protected For his part Heeren demanded an apology for the anti German demonstrations immediate ratification of the Tripartite Pact and demobilisation of the Yugoslav armed forces Heeren returned to his office to discover a message from Berlin instructing that contact with Yugoslav officials was to be avoided and he was recalled to Berlin departing the following day No reply was given to Nincic On 2 April orders were issued for the evacuation of the German embassy which occurred the next day and the German charge d affaires advised the diplomats of friendly countries to leave the country 95 96 Heeren tried to assure Hitler that the putsch was an internal matter between Yugoslav political elites and that action against Yugoslavia was unnecessary but he was ignored 97 On 31 March after offering Croatia to Hungary and being rebuffed the Germans had decided to give Croatia its independence 98 German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle worked to organise cries for help from ethnic Germans Croats Macedonians and Slovenes in Yugoslavia that could be published in the press to provide moral justification for a German invasion 99 The German media simultaneously launched a barrage of accusations against Yugoslavia claiming that German nationals in Yugoslavia had been subjected to atrocities similar to the propaganda issued prior to the invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia This media onslaught also attempted to exploit divisions between Serbs and Croats by pledging that the latter would have a prominent role in the country in the future 96 After the coup ethnic relations concerning Germans in Yugoslavia were tense but rarely resulted in outright violence The Yugoslav government denied allegations of German ethnic repression 100 Thousands of German nationals left Yugoslavia on instructions from Berlin 96 On 3 April Fuhrer Directive 26 was issued detailing the plan of attack and command structure for the invasion Hungary and Bulgaria were promised the Banat and Yugoslav Macedonia respectively and the Romanian army was asked not to take part holding its position at the Romania Yugoslav border 101 Internal conflict in Hungary over the invasion plans between the army and Teleki led to the Prime Minister s suicide that same evening Also on 3 April Edmund Veesenmayer representing the Dienststelle Ribbentrop arrived in Zagreb in preparation for a regime change 102 Croatian pilot Vladimir Kren a captain in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force also defected to the Germans on 3 April taking with him valuable information about the country s air defences 103 Simovic named Macek as Deputy Prime Minister once again in the new government but Macek was reluctant and remained in Zagreb while he decided what to do While he considered the coup had been an entirely Serbian initiative aimed at both Prince Paul and the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement he decided that he needed to show HSS support for the new government and that joining it was necessary 65 He also demanded that four Croatian politicians from the deposed cabinet be part of the new one to which Simovic agreed 67 On 4 April Macek travelled to Belgrade and accepted the post on several conditions that the new government respect the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement and expand the autonomy of the Banovina Croatia in some respects that the new government respect the country s accession to the Tripartite Pact and that one Serb and one Croatian temporarily assume the role of regents 70 104 That same day exiled Croatian politician and Ustase leader Ante Pavelic called for Croats to start an uprising against the government over his Radio Velebit program based in Italy 105 On 5 April the new cabinet met for the first time While the first two conditions set by Macek were met the appointment of regents was impracticable given Prince Peter had been declared to be of age Involving representatives from across the political spectrum Simovic s cabinet was extremely disunited and weak 106 It quickly realised that it had to embrace a foreign policy that bore a strong resemblance to that of the preceding administration 107 Budisavljevic and Cubrilovic along with the four HSS politicians were re instated to cabinet It included members who fell into three groups those who were strongly opposed to the Axis and prepared to face war with Germany those who advocated peace with Germany and those that were uncommitted The groups were divided as follows 108 67 War with Germany Cabinet member Party PortfolioDusan Simovic Mil Prime MinisterChief of the General StaffBogoljub Ilic Mil Minister of the Army and NavySrdjan Budisavljevic SDS Minister of InteriorSava Kosanovic SDS Minister of SupplyBranko Cubrilovic ZS Minister of AgricultureRadoje Knezevic DS Minister of the Royal Court Peace with Germany Cabinet member Party PortfolioVladko Macek HSS First Vice PremierIvan Andres HSS Minister of Trade and IndustryJosip Torbar HSS Minister of Posts and TelegraphsJuraj Sutej HSS Minister of FinanceBarisa Smoljan HSS Minister without PortfolioMomcilo Nincic NRS Minister of Foreign AffairsDzafer Kulenovic JMO Minister of Forests and MinesFran Kulovec SLS Minister of ConstructionMiha Krek SLS Minister without Portfolio Uncommitted Cabinet member Party PortfolioSlobodan Jovanovic Ind Second Vice PremierMilan Grol DS Minister of Social Welfare and Public HealthBoza Markovic DS Minister of JusticeMilos Trifunovic NRS Minister of EducationBogoljub Jevtic JNS Minister of TransportationJovo Bonjanin JNS Minister without PortfolioMarko Dakovic Ind Minister without Portfolio Non Aggression Pact with the USSR Edit On 5 April 1941 the post coup government signed the Treaty of Friendship and Non Aggression with the Soviet Union in Moscow for which talks had been underway since March 46 The relevant final article of the treaty read as follows In the event of aggression against one of the contracting parties on the part of a third power the other contracting party undertakes to observe a policy of friendly relations towards that party 109 which fell short of a commitment to provide military assistance 48 49 Stalin s intention by entering into the treaty was to signal to Hitler that the Soviet Union had interests in the Balkans while not antagonising his erstwhile ally For this reason Soviet military intervention in Yugoslavia was never considered 110 According to Tomasevich this was an almost meaningless diplomatic move which could have had no real impact on the situation in which Yugoslavia found herself 111 Axis invasion Edit Main article Invasion of Yugoslavia Even within the Royal Yugoslav Army divisions between a Croatian Slovene pro Axis faction and a Serbian pro Allied faction emerged 107 The Axis invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April The bombing of Belgrade forced the government to seek shelter outside the city 112 From here King Peter and Simovic planned to leave for exile Macek refusing to leave the country resigned on 7 April and designated Juraj Krnjevic as his successor 112 Macek returned to Zagreb Three other ministers also refused to leave Yugoslavia Ivan Andres and Barisa Smoljan of the HSS and Kulenovic of the JMO 112 The government met on Yugoslav soil for the last time on 13 April near Pale From here they travelled to Niksic where they were flown out of the country to Athens 113 The Soviet leadership accepted the invasion of Yugoslavia without any criticism 48 49 Another result of the coup was that the work that had been done by British intelligence with the anti Axis government of Cvetkovic and Macek was lost By supporting the coup plotters the SOE undermined the balance in Yugoslav politics that had been achieved by the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement Serbian nationalists supported and welcomed the coup because it ended Croatian autonomy under the Agreement and freed them to pursue a Greater Serbia agenda The coup and its immediate aftermath also contributed to the paralysis within the Yugoslav government in exile during the rest of the war due to ongoing disputes regarding the legitimacy of the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement 33 Legacy and historical evaluation EditOther than the dispute over who could take credit for staging the coup the event itself and the dismal showing of the Yugoslav armed forces during the invasion were extensively analysed and discussed by participants Yugoslav and foreign scholars and others both during and after the war 114 It remained a source of pride for the most outspoken Serbian nationalists and politicians from the Serbian ruling groups that supported it Those that had advanced a policy of accommodation with the Axis maintained that had the coup not occurred Yugoslavia would have been able to remain neutral and would have therefore escaped invasion and the many other consequences including the large number of deaths and widespread destruction during the war and the victory of the communist led Yugoslav Partisans and the creation of the Federal People s Republic of Yugoslavia as a socialist state The proponents of accommodation also considered that Yugoslavia might have been able to enter the war on the Allied side at a later time and with less sacrifice The KPJ saw the coup and invasion as a trigger for the wider revolt which resulted in its ultimate victory and this aspect was commemorated each year in post war Yugoslavia In the final analysis the primary significance of the coup was that it placed Yugoslavia s accession to the Tripartite Pact into doubt which led directly to the Axis invasion Tomasevich concurs with the KPJ evaluation that the coup and the resulting invasion were the starting point for the successful communist led revolution 115 According to the British major general and historian I S O Playfair the coup was essentially a brave gesture of defiance mainly by Serbs against the German domination signified by signing of the Tripartite Pact undertaken in the full knowledge that invasion would likely follow 94 It was also according to the historian Alexander Prusin an utter blunder based on wishful thinking and emotions rather than a realistic appreciation of the country s limited economic and military potential 116 By overthrowing Prince Paul and the Cvetkovic government who had sought accommodation with the Croats the coup also operationalised Serbian opposition to the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement 117 Further it underlined the lack of unity between Serbs and Croats which limited the military options available to the Yugoslav government 118 Hitler s decision to invade Yugoslavia delayed the concurrent invasion of Greece by five days but this was more than made up for by the advantages of being able to invade Greece via southern Yugoslavia allowing the outflanking of the Aliakmon Line 119 The role of the coup and subsequent invasion of Yugoslavia in delaying Operation Barbarossa and the subsequent Axis defeat by the Soviet Union is disputed In 1975 Tomasevich wrote that the events in Yugoslavia were a partial cause of what proved to be a fateful delay in Hitler s invasion of the Soviet Union and went on to state that many writers consider that this delay was responsible for the German failure to capture Moscow in the winter of 1941 1942 He acknowledged that apart from the coup and invasion the wet spring of 1941 contributed a two or three week delay to the launching of Barbarossa but saw the delay caused by events in Yugoslavia as an important indirect factor in eventual Axis defeat in the war 120 In 1972 the historian Martin van Creveld examined the arguments supporting this position and dismissed such views as based on sloppy scholarship and wishful thinking 121 He concluded that the invasion of Yugoslavia facilitated and accelerated the overall Balkan campaign and that the fact that the Germans did not capitalise on the earlier than expected end of operations in Yugoslavia by bringing forward the start date for Operation Barbarossa proves beyond doubt that other factors determined the start date 122 More recently in 2013 Stockings Australian Defence Force Academy and Hancock New South Wales using new archival findings for their analysis of Operation Marita came to the conclusion that there is little doubt that to some degree Operation 25 the invasion of Yugoslavia forced a delay to the planned start date of the invasion of the Soviet Union 123 Sue Onslow in a bid to place the coup in the broader context of the British policy towards Yugoslavia between the outbreak of the Second World War and the events on 27 March 1941 writes that the coup was a major propaganda victory for Britain as it proved a tremendous if ephemeral boost to British morale coming rapidly upon the victories against Italian forces in North Africa and the Sudan it also was a much needed fillip to the upstart Special Operations Executive created by Hugh Dalton 124 Prince Paul was found guilty of war crimes in September 1945 for his role in the Yugoslav accession to the Tripartite Pact In 2011 a High Court in Serbia found the sentence to be politically and ideologically motivated and Prince Paul was officially rehabilitated 125 126 A similar decision had been made in 2009 to rehabilitate Cvetkovic for war crimes charges relating to the signing of the pact 127 Notes and citations Edit a b c Tomasevich 1969 p 67 Ramet 2006 p 45 Tomasevich 1969 pp 60 62 Tomasevich 1969 pp 10 11 60 62 Hoptner 1963 p 7 a b Tomasevich 1969 p 61 Ramet 2006 p 76 Ramet 2006 pp 79 80 Ramet 2006 p 87 Dragnich 1983 p 99 Tomasevich 1969 pp 60 63 Hoptner 1963 p 9 Hoptner 1963 pp 10 12 Hoptner 1963 p 14 Hoptner 1963 pp 19 20 Hoptner 1963 p 28 a b c d e Tomasevich 2001 p 47 Tomasevich 1975 pp 22 23 Roberts 1987 p 7 a b Onslow 2005 p 37 Tomasevich 2001 p 40 Ramet 2006 p 104 Ramet 2006 p 105 Malcolm 1994 p 171 Singleton 1985 p 170 Tomasevich 1975 p 23 Tomasevich 1975 p 24 a b Staric 2005 p 35 Ramet 2006 pp 106 107 Staric 2005 p 36 Staric 2005 p 33 Hehn 2005 pp 368 369 a b Staric 2005 p 38 Tomasevich 2001 p 179 Roberts 1987 pp 6 7 Tomasevich 1975 p 30 Tomasevich 1975 p 31 Frank 2001 p 171 Milazzo 1975 p 2 Stafford 1977 p 401 a b c Creveld 1973 p 139 a b Iaremko 2014 p 120 Tomasevich 1975 pp 32 amp 57 Presseisen 1960 p 367 a b c d e f g h Presseisen 1960 p 368 a b c d e Medvedev amp Medvedev 19 October 2014 a b Sudoplatov 1994 p 119 a b c Reshetnikov 1992 pp 110 123 a b c Slijepcevic 1978 p 27 Stafford 1977 p 402 Tomasevich 1975 p 39 Presseisen 1960 pp 368 369 a b Presseisen 1960 p 369 Stafford 1977 p 403 Stockings amp Hancock 2013 p 126 a b Ramet amp Lazic 2011 p 18 Tomasevich 1975 p 43 Tomasevich 1975 p 46 Iaremko 2014 p 122 Iaremko 2014 pp 122 123 Tanner 1997 p 138 a b c Tanner 1997 p 139 Iaremko 2014 pp 123 124 Iaremko 2014 p 124 a b c d Tomasevich 1975 p 47 Creveld 1973 p 142 a b c Iaremko 2014 p 123 Dizdar 2007 p 587 a b Iaremko 2014 p 125 a b Goldstein 2003 p 268 Petranovic 1992 p 190 Stockings amp Hancock 2013 pp 128 129 The Examiner 29 March 1941 Tomanic 2001 p 187 Dozic 1974 pp 399 401 411 Biondich 2007 p 41 a b Tomasevich 1975 pp 44 45 Iaremko 2014 pp 121 122 Tomasevich 1975 p 44 Stafford 1977 p 419 Iaremko 2014 pp 119 120 Tasovac 1999 p 118 Tasovac 1999 pp 129 amp 214 Tomasevich 1975 p 45 Iaremko 2014 p 121 Sudoplatov 1994 p 118 119 Onslow 2005 pp 28 29 Bakic 2005 p 231 Papasissis 1960 Chapter 5 Iaremko 2014 pp 120 122 Milazzo 1975 pp 2 3 a b c Trevor Roper 1964 p 108 Klajn 2007 p 17 a b Playfair et al 2014 p 157 Tomasevich 1975 pp 50 51 a b c Cetiner 2014 p 72 Prusin 2017 p 23 Tomasevich 2001 p 48 Zakic 2017 p 60 Zakic 2017 pp 60 61 Trevor Roper 1964 p 109 Tomasevich 2001 p 49 Ciglic amp Savic 2002 p 10 Tomasevich 1975 p 48 Dizdar 2007 p 588 Tomasevich 1975 pp 48 49 a b Stockings amp Hancock 2013 p 130 Tomasevich 1975 p 49 Treaty on Friendship and Non Aggression between the USSR and Yugoslavia Prusin 2017 p 21 Tomasevich 1975 p 52 a b c Tomasevich 2001 p 50 Pavlowitch 2007 p 19 Tomasevich 1975 pp 43 47 Tomasevich 1975 pp 47 52 53 Prusin 2017 p 22 Iaremko 2014 p 126 Playfair et al 2014 p 74 Playfair et al 2014 pp 74 amp 157 Tomasevich 1975 p 86 Van Creveld 1972 p 85 Van Creveld 1972 p 86 Stockings amp Hancock 2013 p 573 Onslow 2005 pp 2 3 The Star online 7 October 2012 Radio Television of Serbia 15 December 2011 Politika 26 September 2009 References EditBooks Edit Biondich Mark 2007 Controversies surrounding the Catholic Church in Wartime Croatia 1941 45 in Ramet Sabrina P ed The Independent State of Croatia 1941 45 New York New York Routledge pp 31 59 ISBN 978 0 415 44055 4 Cetiner Yusuf Turan 2014 Turkey and the West From Neutrality to Commitment Lanham Maryland University Press of America ISBN 978 0 7618 6190 4 Ciglic Boris Savic Dragan 2002 Croatian Aces of World War 2 London United Kingdom Osprey Publishing ISBN 978 1 84176 435 1 Creveld Martin L Van 1973 Hitler s Strategy 1940 1941 The Balkan Clue London United Kingdom Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 20143 8 Dozic Gavrilo 1974 Memoari patrijarha srpskog Gavrila Memoirs of the Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo PDF in Serbo Croatian Paris France Richelieu OCLC 439206806 Dragnich Alex N 1983 The First Yugoslavia Search for a Viable Political System Stanford California Hoover Press ISBN 978 0 8179 7843 3 Frank Tibor 2001 Treaty Revision and Doublespeak Hungarian Neutrality 1939 1941 In Wylie Neville ed European Neutrals and Non Belligerents During the Second World War Cambridge United Kingdom Cambridge University Press pp 150 191 ISBN 978 0 521 64358 0 Goldstein Ivo 2003 Goldstein Slavko ed Hrvatska povijest Croatian History in Serbo Croatian Zagreb Croatia Novi Liber ISBN 978 953 6045 22 8 Hehn Paul N 2005 A Low Dishonest Decade The Great Powers Eastern Europe and the Economic Origins of World War II 1930 1941 London United Kingdom Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 8264 1761 9 Hoptner Jacob B 1963 Yugoslavia in Crisis 1934 1941 New York New York Columbia University Press OCLC 310483760 Klajn Lajco 2007 The Past in Present Times The Yugoslav Saga Lanham Maryland University Press of America ISBN 978 0 7618 3647 6 Malcolm Noel 1994 Bosnia A Short History New York New York New York University Press ISBN 978 0 8147 5520 4 Milazzo Matteo J 1975 The Chetnik Movement amp the Yugoslav Resistance Baltimore Maryland Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 1589 8 Papasissis Themistokles 1960 5 Der Konig muss sterben The King Must Die in German Berlin West Germany Berlin Bar OCLC 722376881 Pavlowitch Stevan K 2007 Hitler s New Disorder The Second World War in Yugoslavia New York New York Columbia University Press ISBN 978 1 85065 895 5 Petranovic Branko 1992 Srbija u drugom svetskom ratu 1939 1945 Serbia in the Second World War 1939 1945 PDF in Serbo Croatian Belgrade Yugoslavia Vojnoizdavacki i Novinski Centar OCLC 246803289 Playfair I S O Molony C J C Toomer S E Flynn F C 2014 1956 J R M Butler ed The Mediterranean And Middle East Volume II The Germans Come To The Help Of Their Ally 1941 Illustrated Edition USA Pickle Partners Publishing ISBN 978 1 78289 622 7 Prusin Alexander 2017 Serbia Under the Swastika A World War II Occupation Urbana Illinois University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0 252 09961 8 Ramet Sabrina P 2006 The Three Yugoslavias State Building and Legitimation 1918 2005 Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 34656 8 Ramet Sabrina P Lazic Sladjana 2011 The Collaborationist Regime of Milan Nedic In Ramet Sabrina P Listhaug Ola eds Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two London United Kingdom Palgrave Macmillan pp 17 43 ISBN 978 0 230 27830 1 Reshetnikov Leonid 1992 K voprosu o sovetsko yugoslavskom dogovore o druzhbe i nenapadenii On the Question of the Soviet Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship and Non Aggression in Gibianskij Leonid Anovic Sluc Sergej Zinov evic eds Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya i strany Centralnoj i Yugo Vostochnoj Evropy v period fashistskoj agressii na Balkanah i podgotovki napadeniya na SSSR sentyabr 1940 iyun 1941 International Relations and the Countries of Central and South Eastern Europe during the Fascist Aggression in the Balkans and Preparations for an Attack on the USSR September 1940 June 1941 in Russian Moscow Russian Federation Institute of Slavic Studies and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences pp 110 123 OCLC 690302464 Roberts Walter R 1987 Tito Mihailovic and the Allies 1941 1945 3 ed New Brunswick New Jersey Duke University Press ISBN 978 0 8223 0773 0 Shirer William 1990 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich A History of Nazi Germany New York New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 671 72868 7 Singleton Fred 1985 A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples New York New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 27485 2 Slijepcevic Đoko 1978 Jugoslavija uoci i za vreme drugog svetskog rata Yugoslavia Before and During the Second World War in Serbo Croatian Munich West Germany Iskra OCLC 490751261 Stockings Craig Hancock Eleanor 2013 Swastika over the Acropolis Re interpreting the Nazi Invasion of Greece in World War II Boston Massachusetts BRILL ISBN 978 90 04 25459 6 Sudoplatov Pavel 1994 Special Tasks The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness A Soviet Spymaster Boston Massachusetts Little Brown amp Co ISBN 978 0316773522 Tanner Marcus 1997 Croatia A Nation Forged in War New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 09125 0 Tasovac Ivo 1999 American Foreign Policy and Yugoslavia 1939 1941 College Station Texas Texas A amp M University Press ISBN 978 0 89096 897 0 Tomanic Milorad 2001 Srpska crkva u ratu i ratovi u njoj The Serbian Church in War and Wars Within It PDF Belgrade Serbia Medijska Knjizara Krug OCLC 249507440 Tomasevich Jozo 1969 Yugoslavia During the Second World War In Vucinich Wayne S ed Contemporary Yugoslavia Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment Berkeley California University of California Press pp 59 118 OCLC 652337606 Tomasevich Jozo 1975 War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941 1945 The Chetniks Stanford California Stanford University Press ISBN 978 0 8047 0857 9 Tomasevich Jozo 2001 War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941 1945 Occupation and Collaboration Stanford California Stanford University Press ISBN 978 0 8047 3615 2 Trevor Roper Hugh 1964 Hitler s War Directives 1939 1945 London United Kingdom Sidgwick and Jackson ISBN 978 1 84341 014 0 Zakic Mirna 2017 Ethnic Germans and National Socialism in Yugoslavia in World War II New York City Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 17184 8 Journals and newspapers Edit Bakic Dragan 2005 Apis s Men the Black Hand Conspirators after the Great War PDF Balcanica 46 219 239 ISSN 0350 7653 Dizdar Zdravko January 2007 Bjelovarski ustanak od 7 do 10 travnja 1941 Bjelovar Uprising 7 to 10 April 1941 Casopis za suvremenu povijest Journal of Contemporary History in Serbo Croatian 39 3 581 609 Hadzi Jovancic Perica Losing the Periphery The British Foreign Office and Policy Towards Yugoslavia 1935 1938 Diplomacy amp Statecraft March 2020 31 1 pp 65 90 Iaremko Marta 2014 Belgrade Coup D Etat of March 27 1941 PDF Proceedings of the History Faculty of Lviv University 15 119 128 ISSN 2078 6077 Nazis Ask Yugoslavs To Explain The Examiner Vol C no 16 Tasmania Australia 29 March 1941 p 1 Retrieved 7 June 2018 Onslow Sue March 2005 Britain and the Belgrade Coup of 27 March 1941 Revisited PDF Electronic Journal of International History 8 359 370 ISSN 1471 1443 Presseisen Ernst L December 1960 Prelude to Barbarossa Germany and the Balkans 1940 1941 Journal of Modern History 32 4 359 370 doi 10 1086 238616 JSTOR 1872611 S2CID 144699901 Stafford David A T September 1977 SOE and British Involvement in the Belgrade Coup d Etat of March 1941 Slavic Review 36 3 399 419 doi 10 2307 2494975 JSTOR 2494975 S2CID 159560969 Staric Jerca Vodusek 2005 The Concurrence of Allied and Yugoslav Intelligence Aims and Activities The Journal of Intelligence History 5 1 29 44 doi 10 1080 16161262 2005 10555107 S2CID 150956459 Van Creveld Martin 1972 The German attack on the USSR the Destruction of a Legend European Studies Review SAGE Journals 2 1 69 86 doi 10 1177 026569147200200104 ISSN 0014 3111 S2CID 220911250 Websites Edit Medvedev Roy Medvedev Zhores 19 October 2014 Poklon Moskvi sa Balkana A Gift to Moscow from the Balkans in Serbian Novosti Prince Paul of Yugoslavia gets royal resting place at last The Star online 7 October 2012 Rehabilitovan knez Pavle Prince Paul Rehabilitated in Serbo Croatian Radio Television of Serbia 15 December 2011 Rehabilitovan Dragisa Cvetkovic Dragisa Cvetkovic Rehabilitated Politika in Serbo Croatian 26 September 2009 Treaty on Friendship and Non Aggression between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia www kodeks ru The Legal Information Consortium 5 April 1941 Retrieved 14 December 2017 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Yugoslav coup d 27etat amp oldid 1153745005, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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