Divoselo ( Serbian Cyrillic : Дивосело ) is a village in the Gospić municipality in the Lika region of central Croatia . It is located near Gospić, connected by the D25 highway .
151-797: During the WWII Genocide of Serbs by the Croatian fascist Ustaše regime, more than 900 Serbs were massacred in Divoselo. The Serb community was ethnically cleansed from the area during the Operation Medak Pocket (September 1993) of the Croatian War (1991–95), when the Croatian Army took it from the break-away Republic of Serbian Krajina . Earlier, the Battle of Gospić (1991) included firefights between
302-643: A kingdom under the Obrenovićs, who ruled with strong support from the Austro-Hungarian Empire . The antagonism between the two rival royal houses was such, that, after the assassination of Prince Mihailo Obrenović in 1868 (an event Karađorđevićs were suspected of taking part in), the Obrenovićs resorted to making constitutional changes, specifically proclaiming the Karađorđevićs banned from entering Serbia and stripping them of their civic rights. Alexander
453-613: A royal dictatorship . The 1931 Constitution formalised Alexander's personal rule and confirmed Yugoslavia's status as a unitary state , further aggravating the non- Serb population. Political and economic tensions escalated on the outbreak of the Great Depression , which devastated the predominantly rural country. In foreign affairs, Alexander supported the Balkan Pact with Greece , Romania , and Turkey , and sought to improve relations with Bulgaria . In 1934, Alexander embarked on
604-594: A terrorist organization as well. The first Ustaše center was established in Vienna , where brisk anti-Yugoslav propaganda soon developed and agents were prepared for terrorist actions. They organized the so-called Velebit uprising in 1932, assaulting a police station in the village of Brušani in Lika . In 1934, the Ustaše cooperated with Bulgarian, Hungarian and Italian right-wing extremists to assassinate King Alexander while he visited
755-576: A "kingmaker" and to have the Serbian Army be a "state within the state" existing outside of civilian control as a major threat. Additionally, Alexander saw Dimitrijević as an irresponsible intriguer who having betrayed one king might always betray another. In January 1914, the Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić sent a letter to the Russian Emperor Nicholas II in which King Peter expressed
906-658: A "loner" who kept to himself and rarely showed his feelings. Being a Karađorđević led to Alexander being invited by the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to dinner at the Winter Palace , where he was the guest of honor at meals hosted by the Russian imperial family , which was a great honor for a prince from Serbia's deposed princely family. During his time in Petrograd, Alexander visited the Alexander Nevsky Monastery , where
1057-521: A bent for conspiracies, revolutions and coups is in their blood." Starčević called the Serbs an "unclean race", a "nomadic people" and "a race of slaves, the most loathsome beasts", while the co-founder of his party, Eugen Kvaternik , denied the existence of Serbs in Croatia , seeing their political consciousness as a threat. Milovan Đilas cites Starčević as the "father of racism " and "ideological father" of
1208-405: A campaign to pressure Alexander to prosecute Šufflay's killers. The Great Depression was especially severe in predominantly rural Yugoslavia as it caused deflation leading to a collapse in price of agricultural products. The Croat politician Ante Trumbić summed up the feelings of many when he gave a speech in early 1931 stating: "We are in a crisis, an economic, financial and moral crisis. There
1359-443: A death camp, had 88% mortality rate, higher than Auschwitz 's 84.6%. A former brickyard, a furnace was engineered into a crematorium, with witness testimony of some, including children, being burnt alive and stench of human flesh spreading in the camp. Luburić had a gas chamber built at Jasenovac V, where a considerable number of inmates were killed during a three-month experiment with sulfur dioxide and Zyklon B , but this method
1510-563: A defensive alliance that was later joined by Greece in May 1912. In March 1912, Alexander had a meeting with ten senior military commanders. They all agreed to end all internal conflicts in the Royal Serbian Army and fully commit to realizing national goals, which allowed space for consolidation before the two successive Balkan Wars . In the First Balkan War in 1912, as commander of
1661-540: A desire for his son to marry one of the daughters of Nicholas II. Nicholas II in his reply stated that his daughters would not be forced into arranged marriages, but noted Alexander on his most recent trips to Petrograd had during dinners at the Winter Palace kept giving loving looks at the Grand Duchess Tatiana , leading him to guess that it was her whom Alexander wanted to marry. On 24 June 1914, Alexander became regent of Serbia. On 24 July 1914, Alexander
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#17330849553971812-506: A godfather to a Bosnian Muslim child. Alexander had once fraternised frequently with ordinary people, being known for his habit of making unannounced visits to various villages all over Yugoslavia to chat with ordinary people but after the proclamation of the royal dictatorship, his social circle consisted of a few generals and courtiers, causing the King to lose touch with his subjects. Within Serbia,
1963-476: A group of nationalists to the unification into a common state of South Slavs , influenced ethnic tensions in the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since 1929 Kingdom of Yugoslavia). The 6 January Dictatorship and the later anti-Croat policies of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government in the 1920s and 1930s fueled the rise of nationalist and far-right movements. This culminated in
2114-499: A man of strong physique or robust health. He had a strong fixity of purpose, great devotion to duty, powers of sustained work. He had great charm and simplicity of manner. He was accessible and very open to opinions-though he rarely acted on them, and though occasionally he reacted with positive violence, as in the case of the Slovene Zerjav who fainted in his presence." One of the things that historians can be certain about Alexander
2265-408: A new constitution which allowed the skupština to meet again. In 1931, Alexander decreed a new Constitution which transferred executive power to the King. Elections were to be by universal male suffrage. The provision for a secret ballot was dropped and pressure on public employees to vote for the governing party was to be a feature of all elections held under Alexander's constitution. Furthermore,
2416-565: A sign of the trouble to come, Trumbić demanded to have the right to speak for the South Slavs living under Austrian rule, a demand that Alexander rejected under the grounds that the Serbian government represented the South Slavs. After the army was regrouped and reinforced, it achieved a decisive victory on the Macedonian Front , at Kajmakchalan . The Serbian army carried out a major part in
2567-465: A single flag for the entire country, brought in a single legal code for his realm, imposed a single fiscal code so all of his subjects would pay the same tax rate, and a Yugoslav Agrarian Bank was created by merging all of the regional agrarian banks into one. Alexander tried to promote a sense of Yugoslav identity by always taking his vacations in Slovenia, naming his second son after a Croat king, and being
2718-585: A slew of conspirators pulled off a bloody coup d'état in the Kingdom of Serbia, known as the May Overthrow , in which King Alexander and Queen Draga were murdered and dismembered. The House of Karađorđević thus retook the Serbian throne after forty-five years and Alexander's 58-year-old father became King of Serbia , prompting George's and Alexander's return to Serbia to continue their studies. After Alexander's 15th birthday, King Peter had Alexander enlisted into
2869-525: A soldiery man most comfortable in a military milieu who was very quiet and surprisingly modest for a king. Seton-Watson described Alexander as having an "autocratic" personality, a man who was first and foremost a soldier who spent "six of his formative years" in the Serbian Army, which left him with a "military outlook which unfitted him to deal with the delicate problems of constitutional government and which made compromise hard for him". Seton-Watson wrote that Alexander "...was very courageous, though not ever
3020-602: A state visit to France in order to secure support for the Little Entente against Hungarian revanchism and Fascist Italy 's imperialist designs . During a stop in Marseille , he was assassinated by Vlado Chernozemski , a member of the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization , which received assistance from the Croat Ustaše led by Ante Pavelić . French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou also died in
3171-470: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia The Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia ( Serbo-Croatian : Genocid nad Srbima u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj / Геноцид над Србима у Независној Држави Хрватској ) was the systematic persecution and extermination of Serbs committed during World War II by
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#17330849553973322-422: Is no material or moral credit in the country. Nobody believes anything anymore!" However, Alexander remain unperturbed, stating in an interview with the press: "Yugoslav politics will never again be driven by narrow religious, regional or national interests". In response to pressure from Yugoslavia's allies, especially France and Czechoslovakia, led Alexander to decide to lessen the royal dictatorship by bringing in
3473-515: Is regarded by the Serbs as holy ground. It was a great honor for him to pay his respects to the Serbs who had fallen in that earlier battle. In the aftermath of the First Balkan War , disputes emerged among the victors over control of Macedonia , and Serbia and Greece signed an alliance against the Kingdom of Bulgaria . After the Ottoman defeat and withdrawal from Skopje (most of whom had left after
3624-511: The Albanian revolt of 1912 ), Prince Alexander was met with flowers by the local people. He stopped and asked a seven-year-old girl, Vaska Zoicheva, "What are you?" ( Pa šta si ti? ) When she replied "Bulgarian!" ( Bugarka! ), the prince slapped her. This news of the event spread quickly around Bulgaria . Later in 1913, during the Second Balkan War , Alexander commanded the Serbian Army at
3775-506: The Battle of Bregalnica against the Bulgarians. In 1920 and 1921, Serbian authorities searched for the girl's father, Danail Zoichev, and offered him money to renounce the event as fictional, but he refused. In the aftermath of the Second Balkan War , the region of Vardar Macedonia was attributed to the Kingdom of Serbia by the Treaty of Bucharest (1913). Prince Alexander took sides in
3926-560: The Black Hand came to ahead, when Colonel Dimitrijević began to openly criticize his leadership. Suspecting a threat to the throne, Alexander promptly had officers who were members of the Black Hand arrested in December 1916 and tried for insubordination; after their convictions, Dimitrijević and several other Black Hand leaders were executed by firing squad on 23 June 1917. At the same time,
4077-599: The First Balkan War , Alexander played the role of a diplomat, visiting Sofia to meet Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria for secret talks for a Balkan League to drive the Ottoman Turks out of the Balkans. Both Bulgaria and Serbia had rival claims to the Ottoman region of Macedonia , so Alexander, along with Ferdinand's son Crown Prince Boris , traveled to Petrograd to see the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to ask for Russian mediation. In March 1912, Serbia and Bulgaria signed
4228-703: The Frankists ( Frankovci ) and they would become the main pool of members of the subsequent Ustaše movement. Following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I and the collapse of Austria-Hungarian Empire , the provisional state was formed on the southern territories of the Empire which joined the Allies -associate Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Yugoslavia), ruled by
4379-554: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on the basis of the Corfu Declaration . He ascended to the throne upon his father's death in 1921. An extended period of political crisis followed, culminating in the assassination of Croat leader Stjepan Radić . In response, Alexander abrogated the Vidovdan Constitution in 1929, prorogued the parliament, changed the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia and established
4530-559: The Little Entente with Czechoslovakia and Romania to guard against Hungary. Hungary refused to accept the Treaty of Trianon and made territorial claims against all three states of the Little Entente. In 1921, a war veteran and communist Spasoje Stejić Baćo attempted to assassinate king Alexander by throwing a bomb at his carriage. The bomb was thrown from a balcony and it got stuck in the telephone wires and it ended up wounding several bystanders. The principal enemy of Yugoslavia in
4681-401: The Royal Serbian Army as a private with instructions to his officers to only promote his son if he proved worthy. On 25 March 1909, Alexander was suddenly recalled to Belgrade by his father with no explanation offered other than that he had an important announcement for his son. In 1909, a scandal broke when Crown Prince George , Alexander's older brother, killed a servant by kicking him in
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4832-559: The Ustaše movement reaches back to the 19th century when Ante Starčević established the Party of Rights , as well as when Josip Frank seceded his extreme fraction from it and formed his own Pure Party of Rights. Starčević was a major ideological influence on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše. He was an advocate of Croatian unity and independence and was both anti- Habsburg , as Starčević saw
4983-608: The Yugoslav People's Army and the Croatian National Guard in the village. The 1712–14 census of Lika and Krbava registered 589 inhabitants, all of whom were Serbian Orthodox ("Vlach") . The 1991 census registered 344 residents, out of whom 304 were ethnic Serbs . The 2011 census registered 4 residents. 44°29′46″N 15°21′51″E / 44.49611°N 15.36417°E / 44.49611; 15.36417 This Lika-Senj County geography article
5134-529: The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand could operate on Serbian soil with the powers of arrest, which would have been the effective end of Serbia as an independent state. As expected, the Austrians declared war on Serbia , and Alexander threw himself into preparing his nation's defense. In a letter to King Nicholas of Montenegro , Alexander wrote: "God has willed yet again that the Serbian people should give their lives for Serbs everywhere ... I pray for
5285-517: The banovinas , only one had a Slovene majority, two had Croat majorities and the rest had Serb majorities, which especially angered the Bosnian Muslims who were in a minority in every banovina . The way in which the banovinas were based on new borders that did not correspond to the historical regional borders led to much resentment, especially in Bosnia and Croatia. The banovinas were named after
5436-544: The fascist Ustaše regime in the Nazi German puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia ( Serbo-Croatian : Nezavisna Država Hrvatska / Независна Држава Хрватска , NDH) between 1941 and 1945. It was carried out through executions in death camps , as well as through mass murder , ethnic cleansing , deportations , forced conversions , and war rape . This genocide was simultaneously carried out with
5587-454: The racially superior Nordic race. On the other hand, Serbs belonged to the " degenerate race " of the Vlachs. The Ustaše promoted the theories of historian and politician Šufflay, who is believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when the nation of Yugoslavia
5738-721: The 1920s was Fascist Italy , which wanted much of what is now modern Slovenia and Croatia. The origins of the Italo-Yugoslav dispute concerned the Italian contention that they had been "cheated" out of what they had been promised in the secret Treaty of London in 1915 at the Paris peace conference in 1919. It was largely out of the fear of Italy that Alexander in 1927 signed a treaty of alliance with France, which therefore became Yugoslavia's principal ally. In fact, Alexander I and Benito Mussolini were arch-rivals. Starting in 1926, an alliance of
5889-817: The Albanian and Bosnian Muslim landlords lived. On August 16, 1921, upon the death of his father, Alexander ascended to the throne of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , which from its inception was colloquially known both in the Kingdom and the rest of Europe alike as Yugoslavia . The historian Brigit Farley described Alexander as something of a cipher to historians as he was a taciturn and reserved man who loathed to express his feelings either in person or in writing. As Alexander kept no diary or wrote no memoirs, Farley wrote that any biography of Alexander could easily be titled "In search of King Alexander" as he remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. The British historian R. W. Seton-Watson , who knew Alexander well, called him
6040-517: The Austrians, which greatly delayed the movement of the Serbian Army. Field Marshal Radomir Putnik persuaded Crown Prince Alexander and King Peter that it was better to keep the Serbian Army intact to one day liberate Serbia rather to stand and fight in Kosovo as many Serb officers wanted. The Serbian Army withdrew through the gorges of Montenegro and northern Albania to the Greek island of Corfu , where it
6191-517: The Austro-Hungarian army and two of them served as military governors of Bosnia and occupied Serbia . They both endorsed Austria–Hungary's denationalizing plans in Serb-populated lands and supported the idea of incorporating a tamed Serbia into the Empire. Newman stated that Austro-Hungarian officers' "unfaltering opposition to Yugoslavia provided a blueprint for the Croatian radical right,
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6342-478: The Belgrade government of propagating "a barbarian culture and Gypsy civilization", claiming they were spreading " atheism and bestial mentality in divine Croatia". Supporters of the Ustaše planned genocide years before World War II, for example one of Pavelić's main ideologues, Mijo Babić , wrote in 1932 that the Ustaše "will cleanse and cut whatever is rotten from the healthy body of the Croatian people". In 1933,
6493-594: The Brezje forest. On the Serbian New Year , 14 January 1942, the biggest slaughter of the civilians from Slavonia started. Villages were burned, and about 350 people were deported to Voćin and executed. In August 1942, following the joint military anti-partisan operation in the Syrmia by the Ustaše and German Wehrmacht , it turned into a massacre by the Ustaše militia that left up to 7,000 Serbs dead. Among those killed
6644-537: The Bulgarians took Niš , severing the railroad that linked Serbia to Thessalonika in Greece . Being attacked from the north by the Austrians and the Germans and from the south by the Bulgarians, the Serbs by 25 November 1915 had been forced into the Kosovo region. The massacres committed by the Austrians when they invaded Serbia in 1914 twice caused enormous panic and hundreds of thousands of Serbs fled their homes to escape
6795-548: The Croats. Since we cannot, it would be better to separate. The best way to be to effect a peaceful separation like Sweden and Norway did". When Pribićević protested that this would be an act of "treason", Alexander told him he would think some more about what to do. Alexander appointed the Slovene Catholic priest, Father Anton Korošec prime minister with one mandate, namely to stop the slide towards civil war. On 1 December 1928,
6946-644: The First Army, Crown Prince Alexander fought victorious battles in Kumanovo and Bitola . One of Alexander's most cherished moments came when he drove the Ottoman Turks out of Kosovo and on 28 October 1912 led the Royal Serbian Army on a review on the Field of Blackbirds . The Field of Blackbirds was where the Serbs under Prince Lazar had been defeated in a legendary battle by the Ottoman sultan Murad I on 28 June 1389, and
7097-596: The French city of Marseille . Pavelić's fascist tendencies were apparent. The Ustaše movement was financially and ideologically supported by Benito Mussolini. During the intensification of ties with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Pavelić's concept of the Croatian nation became increasingly race-oriented. In April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers. After Nazi forces entered Zagreb on 10 April 1941, Pavelić's closest associate Slavko Kvaternik , proclaimed
7248-560: The Granik ramp crane, their intestines and necks slashed, then dropped into the river. When the Partisans and Allies closed in at the end of the war, the Ustaše began mass liquidations at Jasenovac, marching women and children to death, and shooting most of the remaining male inmates, then torched buildings and documents before fleeing. Many prisoners were victims of rape , sexual mutilation and disembowelment , while induced cannibalism amongst
7399-514: The Holocaust in the NDH as well as the genocide of Roma , by combining Nazi racial policies with the ultimate goal of creating an ethnically pure Greater Croatia . The ideological foundation of the Ustaše movement reaches back to the 19th century. Several Croatian nationalists and intellectuals established theories about Serbs as an inferior race . The World War I legacy, as well as the opposition of
7550-645: The House of Romanov-including the Grand Duchess Tatiana-and during his reign was very hostile towards the Soviet Union, welcoming Russian emigres to Belgrade. The lavish royal wedding to Princess Maria of Romania was intended to cement the alliance with Romania, a fellow "victor nation" in World War I which like Yugoslavia had territorial disputes with the defeated nations like Hungary and Bulgaria. For Alexander,
7701-456: The Jadovno concentration camp itself acted as a "way station" en route to pits located on Mount Velebit , where inmates were executed and dumped. Approximately 90,000 of the Serb victims of genocide perished in concentration camps; the rest were killed in "direct terror", i.e. Punitive expeditions and razing of villages, pogroms, massacres and sporadic executions which mainly occurred between 1941 and 1942. The largest and most notorious camp
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#17330849553977852-444: The King would appoint half of the upper house directly, and legislation could become law with the approval of one of the houses alone if it were also approved by the King. The 1931 constitution kept Yugoslavia as a unitary state, which enraged the non-Serbian peoples who demanded a federation and saw Alexander's royal dictatorship as thinly disguised Serbian domination. In the elections for the skupština in December 1931 – January 1932,
8003-511: The NDH population. The NDH was never fully sovereign, but it was a puppet state that enjoyed the greatest autonomy than any other regime in German-occupied Europe . The Independent State of Croatia was declared to be on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory". This country can only be a Croatian country, and there is no method we would hesitate to use in order to make it truly Croatian and cleanse it of Serbs, who have for centuries endangered us and who will endanger us again if they are given
8154-430: The NDH that lasted until the end of the war. A few days following the massacre of Bjelovar Serbs, the Ustaše rounded up 331 Serbs in the village of Otočac. The victims were forced to dig their own graves before being hacked to death with axes. Among the victims was the local Orthodox priest and his son. The former was made to recite prayers for the dying as his son was killed. The priest was then tortured, his hair and beard
8305-448: The NDH was one of the most lethal European regimes. Mile Budak and other NDH high officials were tried and convicted of war crimes by the communist authorities . Concentration camp commandants such as Ljubo Miloš and Miroslav Filipović were captured and executed, while Aloysius Stepinac was found guilty of forced conversion. Many others escaped , including the supreme leader Ante Pavelić, most to Latin America . The genocide
8456-433: The Royal Serbian Army was estimated to have the strength of about 420,000 men, of whom 94,000 had been killed or wounded while another 174,000 had been captured or were missing during the fall campaign in 1915 and the subsequent retreat to the sea. The losses taken by Serb civilians during the autumn campaign in 1915 together with the retreat to the sea have never been calculated, but are estimated to be massive. The situation
8607-430: The Serb Democrats led by Svetozar Pribićević and the Croat Peasant Party led by Stjepan Radić had systematically obstructed the skupština to press for federalism for Yugoslavia, filibustering and filing nonsensical motions to prevent the government from passing any bills. In response to obstructionism from the opposition parties, in June 1928, one frustrated deputy from Montenegro took out his handgun and shot Radić on
8758-432: The Serbian Karađorđević dynasty . Historian John Paul Newman explained that the influence of the Frankists, as well as the legacy of World War I, had an impact on the Ustaše ideology and their future genocidal means. Many war veterans had fought at various ranks and on various fronts on both the ' victorious ' and ' defeated ' sides of the war. Serbia suffered the biggest casualty rate in the world, while Croats fought in
8909-498: The Serbian Army was the only army in Europe where officers would shake hands with the other ranks. However, the Serbian Army suffered major shortages of equipment with a third of the men called up in August 1914 having no rifles or ammunition, and new recruits being advised to bring their own boots and clothing as there were no uniforms for them. Alexander ordered the Serbian police to conduct searches of houses all over Serbia to see if there were any rifles and ammunition to be seized for
9060-411: The Serbian government-in-exile led by Prime Minister Nikola Pašić was in contact with the Yugoslav Committee , a group of anti-Habsburg Croat , Slovene , and Bosnian Serb politicians and political activists led by Ante Trumbić who aimed to create a new nation to be called Yugoslavia which would unite all of the South Slavic peoples into one unitary state. In June 1917, the Corfu Declaration
9211-450: The Serbs between sixteen and sixty years of age to be arrested. After much discussion, they decided that all of the arrested should be killed. Many of the town's Serbs heard rumors that something bad was in store for them but the vast majority did not flee. On the night of 11 May, mass arrests of male Serbs over the age of sixteen began. The Ustaše then herded the group into an Orthodox Church and demanded that they be given documents proving
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#17330849553979362-742: The Serbs had all converted to Catholicism. Serbs who did not possess conversion certificates were locked inside and massacred. The church was then set on fire, leaving the bodies to burn as Ustaše stood outside to shoot any survivors attempting to escape the flames. A similar massacre of Serbs occurred on 30 July 1941. 700 Serbs were gathered into a church under the premise that they would be converted. Victims were killed by having their throats cut or by having their heads smashed in with rifle butts. Between 500 and 2000 other Serbs were later massacred in neighbouring villages by Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić 's forces, continuing until 3 August. In these massacres specifically males 16 years and older were killed. Only one of
9513-485: The Serbs in the back". As a Karađorđević, Alexander was very conscious of the long blood-feud between the Houses of Obrenović and Karađorđević that had disfigured Serb politics in the 19th century and that the 1903 coup d'état that finally brought down the Obrenovićs and led to the Karađorđevićs regaining the throne had happened because the last Obrenović king, Alexander, was widely viewed as too subservient to Austria-Hungary and as having betrayed Serb interests. Because of
9664-404: The Serbs. Historian Michael Phayer explained that the Nazis' decision to kill all of Europe's Jews is estimated by some to have begun in the latter half of 1941 in late June which, if correct, would mean that the genocide in Croatia began before the Nazi killing of Jews. Jonathan Steinberg stated that the crimes against Serbs in the NDH were the "earliest total genocide to be attempted during
9815-452: The Serbs. Political scientist Tamara Pavasović Trošt, commenting on historiography and textbooks, listed the claims that terror against Serbs arose as a result of "their previous hegemony" as an example of the relativisation of Ustaše crimes. Historian Aristotle Kallis explained that anti-Serb prejudices were a "chimera" which emerged through living together in Yugoslavia with continuity with previous stereotypes. The Ustaše functioned as
9966-440: The Slovenes to prefer living with their fellow Slavs. On 1 December 1918, the National Council asked Alexander to declare Serbia united with the former Austrian provinces of Croatia-Slavonia , Slovenia , Vojvodina , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Dalmatia on the basis of the Corfu Declaration . Serbia had been devastated by the war, and 1 out of every 5 Serbs who were alive in 1914 were dead by 1918. Much of Alexander's time in
10117-405: The Unifier ( Aleksandar Ujedinitelj / Александар Ујединитељ [aleksǎːndar ujedǐniteʎ] ), was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 16 August 1921 to 3 October 1929 and King of Yugoslavia from 3 October 1929 until his assassination in 1934. His reign of 13 years is the longest of the three monarchs of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . Born in Cetinje , Montenegro , Alexander
10268-452: The Ustaše cited, among other things, policies of the inter-war Yugoslav government which they described as Serbian hegemony "that cost the lives of thousand Croats". Historian Jozo Tomasevich explains that that argument is not true, claiming that between December 1918 and April 1941 about 280 Croats were killed for political reasons, and that no specific motive for the killings could be identified, as they may also be linked to clashes during
10419-471: The Ustaše concept of nation and racial identity, as well as the theory of Serbs as an inferior race. Pilar, historian, politician and lawyer, placed great emphasis on racial determinism arguing that Croats had been defined by the " Nordic - Aryan " racial and cultural heritage, while Serbs had "interbred" with the "Balkan-Romanic Vlachs ". Truhelka, archeologist and historian, claimed that Bosnian Muslims were ethnic Croats, who, according to him, belonged to
10570-410: The Ustaše had about 100,000 members who took the oath. Since Vladko Maček reluctantly called on the supporters of the Croatian Peasant Party to respect and co-operate with the new regime of Ante Pavelić, he was able to use the apparatus of the party and most of the officials from the former Croatian Banovina . Initially, Croatian soldiers who had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army held
10721-419: The Ustaše movement and ultimately its anti-Serbian policies in World War II, which was totally out of proportions to earlier anti-Croatian measures, in nature and extent. Yeomans explains that Ustaše officials constantly emphasized crimes against Croats by the Yugoslav government and security forces, although many of them were imagined, though some of them real, as justification for their envisioned eradication of
10872-427: The Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles" that formed the official ideology of the movement. The Principles stated the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights and declared that people who were not Croat by " blood " would be excluded from political life. In order to explain what they saw as a "terror machine", and regularly referred to as "some excesses" by individuals,
11023-503: The Ustaše". The Frankists blamed Serbian nationalists for the defeat of Austria-Hungary and opposed the creation of Yugoslavia, which was identified by them as a cover for Greater Serbia . Мass Croatian national consciousness appeared after the establishment of a common state of South Slavs and it was directed against the new Kingdom, more precisely against Serbian predominance within it. Early 20th century Croatian intellectuals Ivo Pilar , Ćiro Truhelka and Milan Šufflay influenced
11174-409: The Ustaše, while some Ustaše ideologues have linked Starčević's racial ideas to Adolf Hitler 's racial ideology . Frank's party embraced Starčević's position that Serbs were an obstacle to Croatian political and territorial ambitions, and the aggressive anti-Serb attitudes became one of the main characteristics of the party. The followers of the ultranationalist Pure Party of Right were known as
11325-453: The Ustaše. The Ustaše's goal was to create an ethnically homogeneous Greater Croatia by eliminating all non- Croats , with the Serbs being the primary target but Jews , Roma and political dissidents were also targeted for elimination. Large scale massacres were committed and concentration camps were built, the largest one was the Jasenovac , which was notorious for its high mortality rate and
11476-653: The World War II". Andrija Artuković , the Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia, signed into law a number of racial laws. On 30 April 1941, the government adopted "the legal order of races" and "the legal order of the protection of Atyan blood and the honor of Croatian people". Croats and about 750,000 Bosnian Muslims, whose support was needed against the Serbs, were proclaimed Aryans. Donald Bloxham and Robert Gerwarth concluded that Serbs were primary target of racial laws and murders. The Ustaše introduced
11627-408: The abbot gave Alexander an icon of Prince Alexander Nevsky and guided him to the grave of Marshal Alexander Suvorov . After his visit to the monastery, Alexander expressed the wish to be a great general like Marshal Suvorov or Prince Alexander Nevsky, saying he wanted to be commanding either a great army or a great armada when he was a man. In 1903, while young George and Alexander were in school,
11778-469: The actions of the German allies, including the Croatian one, and the town- and village-level elimination of minorities also played a significant role. On 28 April 1941, approximately 184–196 Serbs from Bjelovar were summarily executed , after arrest orders by Kvaternik. It was the first act of mass murder committed by the Ustaše upon coming to power, and presaged the wider campaign of genocide against Serbs in
11929-539: The agrarian reform. Moreover, he stated that Serbs too were denied civil and political rights during the royal dictatorship. However, Tomasevich explains that the anti-Croatian policies of the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav government in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as, the shooting of the HSS deputies by Radić were largely responsible for the creation, growth and nature of Croatian nationalist forces. This culminated in
12080-403: The army. In 1915, the Serbian Army was attacked on several fronts by the allied forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary , suffering heavy losses. On 7 October 1915 an Austro-German army group under the command of Field Marshal August von Mackensen invaded Serbia and after encountering fierce resistance took Belgrade on 9 October. On 14 October 1915, Bulgaria invaded Serbia and on 16 October
12231-569: The attack. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son, Peter II , under the regency of his first cousin Prince Paul . Alexander Karađorđević was born on 16 December 1888 [ O.S. 4 December] in the Principality of Montenegro as the fourth child and second son of Peter Karađorđević and his wife, Princess Zorka . His paternal grandfather, also named Alexander , had been forced to abdicate as prince of Serbia and surrender power to
12382-530: The bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand. The Ustaše's preference for cold weapons in carrying out their deeds
12533-405: The barbaric practices which occurred in it. Furthermore, the NDH was the only Axis puppet state to establish concentration camps specifically for children . The regime systematically murdered approximately 200,000 to 500,000 Serbs. 300,000 Serbs were further expelled and at least 200,000 more Serbs were forcibly converted, most of whom de-converted following the war. Proportional to the population,
12684-522: The battles at Cer and at the Drina (the Battle of Kolubara ) in 1914, scoring victories against the invading Austro-Hungarian forces and evicting them from the country. The British historian Max Hastings described the Royal Serbian Army in 1914 as the toughest army in Europe and also the most egalitarian , with none of the distinctions of rank that characterized the other European armies, exemplified by how
12835-445: The bodies in the trenches. Some historians use a sentence from German sources: "Even German officers and SS men lost their cool when they saw (Ustaše) ways and methods." The infamous camp commander Filipović , dubbed fra Sotona ("brother Satan") and the "personification of evil", on one occasion drowned Serb women and children by flooding a cellar. Filipović and other camp commanders (such as Dinko Šakić and his wife Nada Šakić,
12986-497: The complicated power struggle over how Macedonia should be administered. In this, Alexander bested Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević "Apis" and in the wake of this, Alexander's father, King Peter, agreed to hand over royal powers to his son. Though Colonel Dimitrijević was the mastermind of the 1903 coup that had restored the House of Karađorđević to the Serbian throne, Alexander distrusted him, regarding his attempts to set himself up as
13137-448: The conflict between Croatian and Serbian political parties, King Alexander I proclaimed a dictatorship with the aim of establishing the "integral Yugoslavism " and a single Yugoslav nation . The introduction of the royal dictatorship brought separatist forces to the fore, especially among the Croats and Macedonians . The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement ( Croatian : Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret ) emerged as
13288-402: The elimination of "Eastern" (Serbian) words from Croatian, as well as the shutting down of Serbian schools. Ante Pavelić ordered, through the "Croatian state office for language", the creation of new words from old roots, and purged many Serbian words. Whereas the Ustaše persecution of Jews and Roma was systematic and represented an implementation of Nazi policies, their persecution of Serbs
13439-469: The elite Black Legion and Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (later Brigade). They were predominantly recruited among the uneducated population and working class. Besides ethnic Croats, the militia also contained Muslims where they accounted for an estimated 30% of the membership. Violence against Serbs began in April 1941 and was initially limited in scope, primarily targeting Serb intelligentsia . By July however,
13590-485: The entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats. In that period, Mussolini was interested in Balkans with the aim of isolating Yugoslavia, by strengthening Italian influence on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea . British historian Rory Yeomans claims that there are indication that Pavelić had been considering the formation of some kind of nationalist insurgency group as early as 1928. In June 1928, Stjepan Radić ,
13741-655: The final Allied breakthrough on the Macedonian Front in the autumn of 1918. The debate whatever the Serbian Army was fighting for Yugoslavia or Serbia resolved itself in October–November 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed , leaving the Royal Serbian Army to move into the vacuum. The Kingdom of Italy had ambitions to annex Dalmatia , Istria , and much of Slovenia , leading the Croats and
13892-399: The first acts of the new regime was to carry out a purge of the civil service with one-third of the civil service being fired by May 1929 in an attempt to address popular complaints about rampant corruption in the bureaucracy. He also changed the name of the country to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and changed the internal divisions from the 33 oblasts to nine new banovinas on 3 October. Of
14043-415: The floor of the skupština . The charismatic Radić, the "uncrowned king of Croatia", had inspired intense devotion in Croatia and his assassination was seen as a sort of Serb declaration of war. The assassination pushed Yugoslavia to the brink of civil war and led Alexander to consider the "amputation" of Croatia as preferable to federalism. Alexander mused to Pribićević that: "We cannot stay together with
14194-579: The formation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) on a Radio Zagreb broadcast. Meanwhile, Pavelić and several hundred Ustaše volunteers left their camps in Italy and travelled to Zagreb, where Pavelić declared a new government on 16 April 1941. He accorded himself the title of " Poglavnik " ( German : Führer , English: Chief leader ). The NDH combined most of modern Croatia, all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate". Serbs made up about 30% of
14345-563: The frequent changes in loyalty in the Royal Serbian Army in the 19th century between the feuding royal families, Alexander was never entirely convinced that the Serb-dominated officer corps of the Royal Yugoslav Army were completely loyal to him, and always had the fear if he was seen to be betraying Serbdom as the last Obrenović king was, he too might be overthrown and killed. On 8 June 1922, he married Princess Maria of Romania , who
14496-507: The highest positions in the NDH armed forces. Historian Irina Ognyanova stated that the similarities between the NDH and the Third Reich included the assumption that terror and genocide were necessary for the preservation of the state. Viktor Gutić made several speeches in early summer 1941, calling Serbs "former enemies" and "unwanted elements" to be cleansed and destroyed, and also threatened Croats who did not support their cause. Much of
14647-453: The ideology of the Ustaše was based on Nazi racial theory. Like the Nazis, the Ustaše deemed Jews, Romani, and Slavs to be sub-humans ( Untermensch ). They endorsed the claims from German racial theorists that Croats were not Slavs but a Germanic race. Their genocides against Serbs, Jews, and Romani were thus expressions of Nazi racial ideology . Adolf Hitler supported Pavelić in order to punish
14798-505: The immediate post-war years was to be taken up with reconstruction. On 1 December 1918, in a prearranged set piece, Alexander, as Prince Regent, received a delegation of the People's Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs , an address was read out by one of the delegation, and Alexander made an address in acceptance. This was considered to be the birth of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . One of Alexander's first acts as Prince Regent of
14949-471: The imperial Page Corps in Petrograd , Russian Empire . The British historian Robert Seton-Watson described Alexander as becoming a Russophile during his time in Petrograd, feeling much gratitude for the willingness of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to give him a refuge, where he was treated with much honor and respect. As a page , Alexander was described as hard-working and determined while also being
15100-456: The inmates also took place. Some survivors testified about drinking blood from the slashed throats of the victims and soap making from human corpses . The Independent State of Croatia was the only Axis satellite to have erected camps specifically for children. Special camps for children were those at Sisak , Đakovo and Jastrebarsko , while Stara Gradiška held thousands of children and women. Historian Tomislav Dulić explained that
15251-571: The land were Christians, and in both places land reform was seen as an attack on the political and economic power of the Muslim gentry. In Croatia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina, the majority of the landlords who lost their land were Austrian or Hungarian nobility who usually did not reside in those places, meaning that however much they might have resented the loss of their land it did not have the sort of political repercussions it did in Macedonia and in Bosnia where
15402-646: The lavish celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the triune Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that the government organized led to rioting that left 10 dead in Zagreb. In response to the political crisis triggered by the assassination of Stjepan Radić , King Alexander abolished the Constitution on 6 January 1929, prorogued the Parliament and introduced a personal dictatorship (the so-called " January 6th Dictatorship ", Šestojanuarska diktatura ). One of
15553-521: The laws to strip Serbs of their citizenship, livelihoods, and possessions. Similar to Jews in the Third Reich, Serbs were forced to wear armbands bearing the letter "P", for Pravoslavac (Orthodox). (Likewise, Jews were forced to wear the armband with the letter "Ž", fort Židov (Jew). Ustaše writers adopted dehumanizing rhetoric. In 1941, the usage of the Cyrillic script was banned, and in June 1941 began
15704-545: The leader of the largest and most popular Croatian party Croatian Peasant Party ( Hrvatska seljačka stranka , HSS) was mortally wounded in the parliamentary chamber by Puniša Račić , a Montenegrin Serb leader, former Chetnik member and deputy of the ruling Serb People's Radical Party . Račić also shot two other HSS deputies dead and wounded two more. The killings provoked violent student protests in Zagreb . Trying to suppress
15855-505: The main Croatian enemy in the Habsburg Monarchy, and anti-Serb . He envisioned the creation of a Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by Bosniaks , Serbs , and Slovenes , considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to Islam and Eastern Orthodox Christianity . In his demonization of the Serbs he claimed "how the Serbs today are dangerous for their ideas and their racial composition, how
16006-478: The most extreme movement of these. The Ustaše was created in late 1929 or early 1930 among radical and militant student and youth groups, which existed from the late 1920s. Precisely, the movement was founded by journalist Gustav Perčec and Ante Pavelić. They were driven by a deep hatred of Serbs and Serbdom and claimed that, "Croats and Serbs were separated by an unbridgeable cultural gulf" which prevented them from ever living alongside each other. Pavelić accused
16157-406: The new kingdom was to declare his support for the widespread demand for land reform, stating: "In our free state there can and will be only free landowners". On 25 February 1919, Alexander signed a land reform decree breaking up all feudal estates over the size of 100 cadastral yokes with compensation to be paid for the former landowners except for those who belonged to the House of Habsburg and
16308-448: The opportunity. The Ustaše became obsessed with creating an ethnically pure state . As outlined by Ustaše ministers Mile Budak , Mirko Puk and Milovan Žanić, the strategy to achieve an ethnically pure Croatia was that: According to historian Ivo Goldstein , this formula was never published but it is undeniable that the Ustaše applied it towards Serbs. The Ustaše movement received limited support from ordinary Croats. In May 1941,
16459-477: The other ruling families of enemy states in the Great War. Under the land reform decree some two million hectares of land was handed over to a half million peasant households, though the implementation was very slow, taking 15 years before land reform was complete. In both Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the majority of the landlords who lost land were Muslims while the majority of their former tenants who received
16610-587: The past out of the fear of assassination. On 14 February 1931, Alexander visited Zagreb, and the men of the Turnopolje district, who for centuries always provided a mounted honour guard for any royal visitor to Zagreb, failed to show up, a snub that shown how unpopular Alexander had become in Croatia. On 19 February 1931, the Croat historian Milan Šufflay was murdered by police agents, becoming an international cause célèbre with Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann leading
16761-700: The respective local Ustaše warlords than a well-structured policy. The Ustaše set up temporary concentration camps in the spring of 1941 and laid the groundwork for a network of permanent camps in autumn. The creation of concentration camps and extermination campaign of Serbs had been planned by the Ustaše leadership long before 1941. In Ustaše state exhibits in Zagreb, the camps were portrayed as productive and "peaceful work camps", with photographs of smiling inmates. Serbs, Jews and Romani were arrested and sent to concentration camps such as Jasenovac , Stara Gradiška , Gospić and Jadovno . There were 22–26 camps in NDH in total. Historian Jozo Tomasevich described that
16912-580: The rise of the Ustaše, an ultranationalist , terrorist organization, founded by Ante Pavelić . The movement was financially and ideologically supported by Benito Mussolini , and it was also involved in the assassination of King Alexander I . Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, a German puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was established, comprising most of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as parts of modern-day Serbia and Slovenia , ruled by
17063-507: The rival House of Obrenović . Alexander's maternal grandfather was Nicholas I, Prince of Montenegro . Despite enjoying support from the Russian Empire , at the time of Alexander's birth and early childhood, the House of Karađorđević was in political exile, with family members scattered all over Europe, unable to return to Serbia. Serbia had recently been transformed from a principality into
17214-403: The royal dictatorship for the first time made Alexander into an unpopular figure. The British historian Richard Crampton wrote many Serbs "...were alienated by the attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to lessen the Serbian domination on which, to add insult to injury, many of the faults of the previous system were blamed. Alexander had implicitly made the Serbs, the most reliable proponents of centralism,
17365-423: The royal wedding was especially satisfactory as most of the royal families of Europe attended, which showed that the House of Karađorđević, a family of peasant origins who were disliked for slaughtering the rival House of Obrenović in 1903, were finally accepted by the rest of European royalty. In foreign policy, Alexander favored maintaining the international system created in 1918–19, and in 1921 Yugoslavia joined
17516-426: The sister of Maks Luburić), used ingenious torture. There were throat-cutting contests of Serbs, in which prison guards made bets among themselves as to who could slaughter the most inmates. It was reported that guard and former Franciscan priest Petar Brzica won a contest on 29 August 1942 after cutting the throats of 1,360 inmates. Inmates were tied and hit over the head with mallets and half-alive hung in groups by
17667-616: The so-called Delić pit. During the war, the Ustaše massacred more than 900 Serbs in Divoselo , more than 500 in Smiljan , as well as more than 400 in Široka Kula near Gospić. On 2 August 1941, the Ustaše trapped about 120 children and women and 50 men who tried to escape from Divoselo. After a few days of imprisonment, where women were raped, they were stabbed in groups and thrown into the pits. On 21 December 1941, approximately 880 Serbs from Dugo Selo Lasinjsko and Prkos Lasinjski were killed in
17818-451: The stomach. Following pressure from powerful figures such as Prime Minister Nikola Pašić and high-ranking officers Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijević and Petar Živković , George publicly renounced his claim to the throne in March of that year in favour of Alexander. In 1910, Alexander nearly died from stomach typhus and was left with stomach problems for the rest of his life. In the run-up to
17969-511: The support of my dear and wise forefathers". At the outbreak of World War I he was the nominal supreme commander of the Royal Serbian Army ; true command was in the hands of the Chief of Staff of Supreme Headquarters, a position held by Stepa Stepanović (during the mobilisation), Radomir Putnik (1914–1915), Petar Bojović (1916–1917) and Živojin Mišić (1918). The Serbian Army distinguished itself in
18120-463: The systematic murder of infants and children, who could not pose a threat to the state, serves as one important illustration of the genocidal character of Ustaša mass killing. The Holocaust and genocide survivors, including Božo Švarc , testified that Ustaše tore off the children's hands, as well as, "apply a liquid to children's mouths with brushes", which caused the children to scream and later die. The Sisak camp commander, aphysician Antun Najžer ,
18271-677: The throne, making Alexander heir apparent . Alexander distinguished himself as a commander during the Balkan Wars , leading the Serbian army to victory over the Ottoman Turks and the Bulgarians . In 1914, he became prince regent of Serbia . During the First World War , he held nominal command of the Royal Serbian Army . In 1918, Alexander oversaw the unification of Serbia and the former Austrian provinces of Croatia-Slavonia , Slovenia , Vojvodina , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Dalmatia into
18422-500: The topography of Yugoslavia rather than the historical names in a bid to weaken regional loyalties, being governed by bans appointed by the King. In the same month, he tried to banish by decree the use of Serbian Cyrillic to promote the exclusive use of the Latin alphabet in Yugoslavia. Alexander replaced the three regional flags for the triune Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with
18573-510: The town of Vojnić were massacred during the war, out of a total of approximately 5000 inhabitants. That same month, a total of 759 women, children and elderly Serbs were massacred near the village of Krstinja . On 31 July 1942, in the Sadilovac church the Ustaše under Milan Mesić's command massacred more than 580 inhabitants of the surrounding villages, including about 270 children. At various dates, 2,019 primarily women and children were killed in
18724-543: The victims, Ljubo Jednak, survived by playing dead. The district of Gospić experienced the first large-scale massacres which occurred in the Lika region, as some 3,000 Serb civilians were killed between late July and early August 1941. Ustaše officials reported an emerging Serb rebellion due to massacres. In late July 1941, a detachment of the Croatian military in Gospić noted that the local insurgents were Serb peasants who had fled to
18875-480: The village of Pecka with 250 victims, and Perna where 427 old men and children were killed. A large number were also killed in Vojišnica and Vrginmost . About 60% of Sadilovac residents lost their lives during the war. More than 400 Serbs were killed in their homes, including 185 children. On 17 April 1942, 99 Serbs were burned alive in the village of Kolarić , near Vojnić . A total of 3,849 inhabitants of
19026-416: The village of Rakovica . On 11 or 12 May 1941, 260–300 Serbs were herded into an Orthodox church and shot, after which it was set on fire. The idea for this massacre reportedly came from Mirko Puk, who was the Minister of Justice for the NDH. On 10 May, Ivica Šarić, a specialist for such operations traveled to the town of Glina to meet with local Ustaše leadership where they drew up a list of names of all
19177-502: The villains of the Vidovdan piece". The royal dictatorship was seen in Croatia as merely a form of Serbian domination, and one result was a marked upswing in support for fascistic Ustashe , which advocated winning Croat independence via violence. By 1931, the Ustaše were waging a terrorist campaign of bombings, assassinations, and sabotage, which at least in part explained Alexander's reluctance to engage with ordinary people as he done in
19328-964: The violence became "indiscriminate, widespread and systematic". Massacres of Serbs were focused in mixed areas with large Serb populations for necessity and efficiency. In the summer of 1941, Ustaše militias and death squads burnt villages and killed thousands of civilian Serbs in the country-side in sadistic ways with various weapons and tools. Men, women, children were hacked to death, thrown alive into pits and down ravines, or set on fire in churches. Hardly ever were firearms used, more commonly, knived axes and such were utilized. Serb victims were dismembered, their ears and tongues cut off and eyes gouged out. Some Serb villages near Srebrenica and Ozren were wholly massacred while children were found impaled by stakes in villages between Vlasenica and Kladanj. The Ustaše cruelty and sadism shocked even Nazi commanders. A Gestapo report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , dated 17 February 1942, stated: Increased activity of
19479-542: The war, not breaking it up. Not willing to antagonise Wilson, Alexander favored a " greater Serbia " that saw the Serbs annex South Slav-inhabited parts of the Habsburg lands . Though the Crown Prince declared in a speech during a visit to Britain that he was "fighting for Yugoslav unity in a Yugoslav state", when he addressed his own soldiers he stated he was fighting for "the reestablishment of Serbia, our dear homeland". In
19630-760: The war, the NDH armed forces killed over 7,000 Serbs in the municipality of Kozarska Dubica , while the municipality lost more than half of its pre-war population. The biggest massacre was committed by the Croatian Home Guard in January 1942, when the village Draksenić was burned and more than 200 were people killed. Alexander I of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karađorđević ( Serbo-Croatian : Александар I Карађорђевић , romanized : Aleksandar I Karađorđević , pronounced [aleksǎːndar př̩viː karadʑǒːrdʑevitɕ] ; 16 December 1888 [ O.S. 4 December] – 9 October 1934), also known as Alexander
19781-416: The way, as one Serbian soldier wrote in his diary how the refugees rested by the side of the road were: "Immobilized by the snow their heads rest to their breasts. The white snowflakes dance around them while the alpine winds whistle their songs of death. The heads of horses and oxen which have fallen protrude from the snow". As the Serbs braved the icy winds and snowdrifts, the only consolation for Alexander
19932-626: The woods "purely as a reaction to the cleansing [operations] against them by our Ustaša formations". Following a sabotage of railway tracks in the district of Vojnić that was attributed to local communists on 27 July 1941, the Ustaše began a "cleansing" operation of indiscriminate pillage and killing of civilians, including the elderly and children. On 6 August 1941, the Ustaše killed and burned more than 280 villagers in Mlakva , including 191 children. Between June and August 1941, about 890 Serbs from Ličko Petrovo Selo and Melinovac were killed and thrown in
20083-458: Was a daughter of Ferdinand I of Romania . They had three sons: Crown Prince Peter , and Princes Tomislav and Andrej . He was said to have wished to marry Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia , a cousin of his wife and the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II , and was distraught by her untimely death in the Russian Civil War . The Russophile Alexander was horrified by the murders of
20234-544: Was abandoned due to poor construction. Still, that method was unnecessary, as most inmates perished from starvation, disease (especially typhus ), assaults with mallets, maces, axes, poison and knives. The srbosjek ("Serb-cutter") was a glove with an attached curved blade designed to cut throats. Large groups of people were regularly executed upon arrival outside camps and thrown into the river. Unlike German-run camps, Jasenovac specialized in brutal one-on-one violence, such as guards attacking barracks with weapons and throwing
20385-452: Was able to do during its occupation of Europe." Bounded by rivers and two barbed-wire fences making escape unlikely, the Jasenovac camp was divided into five camps, the first two closed in December 1941, while the rest were active until the end of the war. Stara Gradiška (Jasenovac V) held women and children. The Ciglana (brickyards, Jasenovac III) camp, the main killing ground and essentially
20536-446: Was dubbed the "Croatian Mengele " by survivors. Diana Budisavljević , a humanitarian of Austrian descent, carried out rescue operations and saved more than 15,000 children from Ustaše camps. A large number of massacres were committed by the NDH armed forces, Croatian Home Guard ( Domobrani ) and Ustaše Militia . The Ustaše Militia was organised in 1941 into five (later 15) 700-man battalions, two railway security battalions and
20687-526: Was formed in 1918. The outburst of Croatian nationalism after 1918 was one of the main threats for Yugoslavia's stability. During the 1920s, Ante Pavelić , lawyer, politician and one of the Frankists, emerged as a leading spokesman for Croatian independence. In 1927, he secretly contacted Benito Mussolini , dictator of Italy and founder of fascism , and presented his separatist ideas to him. Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia that should cover
20838-460: Was further worsened by the outbreak of a typhus and relapsing fever epidemic which ravaged the country in 1915. Serb losses as a percentage of the population were the greatest of any belligerent in the war. The surviving Serb soldiers were ultimately taken to Thessalonika to join the Armées alliées en Orient . In the fall of 1916, Alexander's long-standing dispute with the secret military society of
20989-454: Was his belief in keeping Yugoslavia as a unitary state and his consistent opposition to federalism, which he believed would lead to the break-up of Yugoslavia and perhaps his own assassination. In turn, Alexander's opposition to federalism related to his belief that in a federalised Yugoslavia, the prečani Serbs would be discriminated against by the Croats and Bosnian Muslims, once telling a Serb Orthodox priest that federalism would be "stabbing
21140-503: Was not properly examined in the aftermath of the war, because the post-war Yugoslav government did not encourage independent scholars out of concern that ethnic tensions would destabilize the new communist regime. Nowadays, оn 22 April , Serbia marks the public holiday dedicated to the victims of genocide and fascism, while Croatia holds an official commemoration at the Jasenovac Memorial Site. The ideological foundation of
21291-477: Was one of the first Serbian officials to see the Austrian ultimatum containing terms deliberately written to inspire rejection. Turning to Russia for help, Alexander was advised to help the ultimatum as much as he could. Alexander was late to say he "went as far as an independent could" to accept the ultimatum, as Serbia accepted all of the terms except for the one demanding that Austrian police officers investigating
21442-467: Was partly a result of the shortage of ammunition and firearms in the early course of the war, but also demonstrated the importance the regime placed on the cult of violence and personal slaughter, in particular through the usage of the knife. Charles King emphasized that concentration camps are losing their central place in Holocaust and genocide research because a large proportion of victims perished in mass executions, ravines and pits. He explained that
21593-578: Was pulled out, eyes gouged out before he was skinned alive. On 24–25 July 1941, the Ustaše militia captured the village of Banski Grabovac in the Banija region and murdered the entire Serb population of 1,100 peasants. On 24 July, over 800 Serb civilians were killed in the village of Vlahović. Between 29 June and 7 July 1941, 280 Serbs were killed and thrown into pits near Kostajnica . Large scale massacres took place in Staro Selo Topusko , including in
21744-452: Was reorganized. The march across the Prokletije ("Accursed") Mountains was a harrowing one as the Serbian Army together with a mass of refugees had to cross mountains that rose to 3,000 feet high in the middle of winter, with the average daily temperature being −20° while battling the hostile Albanian tribes with the armies of Austria, Germany, and Bulgaria in pursuit. Many Serbs died along
21895-407: Was rooted in a stronger "home grown" form of hatred, implemented with more variance due to the larger Serb population found across rural areas. This was done despite the fact it would degrade support for the regime, fueled Serb rebellion and jeopardized the stability of the NDH. The level of violence enacted against Serb communities often depended more on the intercommunal relations and inclinations of
22046-468: Was signed by Pašić and Trumbić promising Yugoslavia after the war. Alexander seems to have been dubious about the plans for Yugoslavia, as throughout the war, he spoke in terms of liberating Serbia. The introduction of the 14 Points by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in January 1918 increased Alexander's doubts about Yugoslavia as Point 10 spoke of "substantial autonomy" in the Austrian Empire after
22197-416: Was that the winter weather was also delaying the German, Austrian, and Bulgarian armies under the command of von Mackensen that were pursuing his army. Alexander repeatedly exposed himself to danger during the march to the sea while his health declined. Upon reaching the sea, the surviving Serbs who numbered about 140,000 were rescued by British and French ships, which took them to Corfu. In September 1915,
22348-534: Was the Jasenovac-Stara Gradiška complex, the largest extermination camp in the Balkans. An estimated 100,000 inmates perished there, most Serbs. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, the commander-in-chief of all the Croatian camps, announced the great "efficiency" of the Jasenovac camp at a ceremony on 9 October 1942, and also boasted: "We have slaughtered here at Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire
22499-482: Was the prominent painter Sava Šumanović , who was arrested along with 150 residents of Šid , and then tortured by having his arms cut off. In August 1941 on the Eastern Orthodox Elijah's holy day , who is the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina, between 2,800 and 5,500 Serbs from Sanski Most and the surrounding area were killed and thrown into pits which had been dug by victims themselves. During
22650-598: Was the second son of Peter and Zorka Karađorđević . The House of Karađorđević had been removed from power in Serbia 30 years prior, and Alexander spent his early life in exile with his father in Montenegro and then Switzerland. Afterwards he moved to Russia and enrolled in the imperial Page Corps . Following a coup d'état and the murder of King Alexander I Obrenović in 1903, his father became King of Serbia . In 1909, Alexander's elder brother, George , renounced his claim to
22801-417: Was two when his mother, Princess Zorka, died in 1890 from complications while giving birth to his younger brother, Andrej, who died 23 days later. Alexander spent his childhood in Montenegro. In 1894, his widower father took the four children, including Alexander, to Geneva , Switzerland where the young man completed his elementary education. Alongside his older brother George , he continued his schooling at
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