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117-543: The 1st Army was a Royal Yugoslav Army formation commanded by Armijski đeneral Milan Rađenković during the German -led Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941 during World War II . It consisted of one infantry division , one horsed cavalry division, and two brigade-strength infantry detachments. It formed part of the 2nd Army Group , and was responsible for

234-532: A personal dictatorship and appointed Živković as prime minister . In April, thirty-two generals were forcibly retired, including the chief of the General Staff , Petar Pešić . During that year, the army took delivery of 4,000 light machine guns , eighty 75 mm (3.0 in) field guns and 200,000 vz. 24 rifles from the Czech firm Škoda . The latter meant that the standing army could finally be equipped with

351-482: A Guards division was formed, consisting of two regiments of cavalry, and one regiment each of infantry and artillery. It was commanded by Petar Živković , a founder of the White Hand. The first significant acquisition of military aircraft were made in the same year, with 150 Breguet 19 light bomber and aerial reconnaissance biplanes being purchased from France under the terms of a loan. Extensions were also made to

468-620: A celebration in Zagreb on 5 December with a Te Deum at the Zagreb Cathedral . Members of the 25th Croatian Home Guard Infantry Regiment and the 53rd Infantry Division held a protest at the same time at the nearby Ban Jelačić Square . The protest was quelled by the police with 15 dead and 17 injured. Both units were subsequently demobilised and disbanded. At the end of 1918, a Serbian Army mission led by Colonel Dušan Simović , Milan Pribićević and Milisav Antonijević arrived in Zagreb to lead

585-469: A fictional fifth column that destroyed the European democracies from within in the tragic days that led up to the final blackout of European civilization. But this would not be a fifth column of traitors, but a sixth column of patriots whose privilege it would be to destroy the morale of invaders, make them afraid, unsure of themselves. In Foyle's War , series 2 episode 3, "War Games", one line reads: "It's

702-513: A fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. The term is also applied to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage , disinformation , espionage or terrorism executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force. The term "fifth column" originated in Spain (originally quinta columna ) during

819-453: A la que parece que se había referido el general Mola" (the famous fifth column that General Mola seems to have referred to) Some authors consider it possible if not likely that the term has been invented by the Communist propaganda with the purpose of either raising morale or providing justification for terror and repression ; initially it might have been part of the whispering campaign , but

936-567: A peak of 450,000 soldiers in July 1919, though demobilization quickly followed. By early 1921 the army organisation had settled into one cavalry division of four regiments , 16 infantry divisions, each consisting of three infantry regiments and one artillery regiment, and additional army-level troops. The 16 infantry divisions were grouped into four numbered army areas, with headquarters at Novi Sad ( 1st Army ), Sarajevo ( 2nd Army ), Skoplje ( 3rd Army ), and Zagreb ( 4th Army ). Later in 1921,

1053-439: A second cavalry division was formed using the four army-level cavalry regiments. Artillery allocation was one heavy artillery regiment and one howitzer regiment at army level, and one field artillery regiment at infantry division level. The army was based on conscription , and annual call-ups were used to maintain the peacetime strength of the army at 140,000. Of the four armies, two were equipped with French-pattern rifles, and

1170-449: A single type of rifle. The year also saw three inter-divisional exercises conducted, although reports indicated that they were poorly organised and carried out. In 1930, Živković was promoted to Armijski đeneral , and four out of the five army commanders were changed. There was only one Croat or Slovene in the general ranks, and he was an engineer in an unimportant post. Acquisition of about 800 modern artillery pieces of various calibres

1287-489: Is referred to as the fifth columnist of the Jupiter 2 expedition. In the first episode, he was a secret agent sent to sabotage the mission who got caught on board at liftoff. There is an American weekly news podcast called "The Fifth Column", hosted by Kmele Foster , Matt Welch , Michael C. Moynihan , and Anthony Fisher. Robert A. Heinlein 's 1941 story "The Day After Tomorrow", originally titled " Sixth Column ", refers to

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1404-505: The Savska (Zagreb) and Dravska ( Ljubljana ) divisions converted one of their infantry regiments into a mountain infantry regiment. This latter development was intended as the first step to creating two independent formations that, with integral artillery, signals and transport elements, could be used along the mountainous northwest frontier. The year saw no military exercises, even the recent inter-divisional manoeuvres being foregone due to

1521-541: The 4th Indian Division but was later disbanded in Italy in 1944 as its strength dwindled and the unit was plagued by infighting between royalist and pro- Josip Broz Tito factions. During 1943–44, 27 men made up the "No. 7 (Yugoslav) Troop" of the 10th (Inter-Allied) Commando, a special forces unit under British command. In November 1943, the Yugoslav Detachment was established as part of the 512th Bombardment Squadron of

1638-680: The Adriatic opposite Zadar comprised one infantry division and two detachments, in addition to fortress brigades and anti-aircraft units at Šibenik and Kotor . Along with other Yugoslav forces, the Royal Yugoslav Army surrendered on 17 April 1941 to an invading force of Germans, Italians, and Hungarians. Subsequently, a unit titled " 1st Battalion, Royal Yugoslav Guards " was formed in Alexandria, Egypt. This unit saw action in North Africa with

1755-715: The Balkan Wars twenty years earlier. Three more anti-aircraft regiments were formed, and an independent command was created for Šibenik in Dalmatia . Long-term shortages in officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) remained, with deficiencies of 3,500 officers and 7,300 NCOs. Disturbances in the Macedonian region resulted in the issue of 25,000 rifles to members of the Serb-nationalist paramilitary force Narodna Odbrana . In June 1934, Army general Milan Nedić became Chief of

1872-678: The House of Commons that same month, Winston Churchill reassured MPs that "Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand." In July 1940, Time magazine referred to talk of a fifth column as a "national phenomenon". In August 1940, The New York Times mentioned "the first spasm of fear engendered by the success of fifth columns in less fortunate countries". One report identified participants in Nazi "fifth columns" as "partisans of authoritarian government everywhere", citing Poland , Czechoslovakia , Norway , and

1989-574: The Netherlands . During the Nazi invasion of Norway , the head of the Norwegian fascist party, Vidkun Quisling , proclaimed the formation of a new fascist government in control of Norway, with himself as Prime Minister, by the end of the first day of fighting. The word " quisling " soon became a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor". The New York Times on 11 August 1940, featured three editorial cartoons using

2106-589: The Royal Hungarian Air Force ( Hungarian : Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő , MKHL) at the start of the European war. Shortly after takeoff from the airport at Veszprém-Jutas on the afternoon of 12 April, the command plane, code E-101, crashed with the loss of 20 or 23 lives, including 19 paratroopers. This was the heaviest single loss suffered by the Hungarians during the Yugoslav campaign. Meanwhile, Sombor

2223-586: The United States in the months just preceding the invasion. Fully mobilized, the Royal Yugoslav Army could have put 28 infantry divisions, three cavalry divisions, and 35 independent regiments in the field. Of the independent regiments, 16 were in frontier fortifications and 19 were organized as combined detachments, around the size of a reinforced brigade. Each detachment had one to three infantry regiments and one to three artillery battalions, with three organised as "alpine" units. The German attack, however, caught

2340-613: The United States Army Air Forces . The detachment consisted of 40 Yugoslav aviators and was disbanded in August 1945. All Royal Yugoslav Forces were formally disbanded on March 7, 1945, when King Peter II's government was abolished in Yugoslavia. Fifth column A fifth column is a group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. The activities of

2457-452: The arsenal at Kragujevac in 1925, but the previous deficiencies in the army continued to plague the force, with the result that despite its size, the army could not be expected to contend with a smaller and more modern force for any significant time. In 1926, the 5th Army was created, utilising two divisions from the 1st Army and one from the 4th Army. In the same year, 13 more companies of frontier troops were raised for deployment along

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2574-417: The international financial crisis . The British military attaché observed that the army lacked the sound system of battalion and regimental training needed to thoroughly prepare units for modern warfare, as training consisted mainly of close order drill , basic marksmanship and a small number of field firing exercises. In 1932, Živković resigned as Prime Minister and from official politics, and returned to

2691-510: The 1st Army deployed with one division forward with an infantry detachment on each flank, and a cavalry division held in depth. The deployment of the 1st Army from west to east was: The 44th Infantry Division Unska , which was under the direct command of the General Headquarters of the VKJ, was deployed in the 1st Army area to the east of the 3rd Cavalry Division, centred on Stara Pazova on

2808-737: The 2nd Army had three infantry divisions and one frontier defence regiment. Finally, the 1st Army Group consisted of the 4th Army, with three infantry divisions and one detachment, whilst the 7th Army had two infantry divisions, one cavalry division, three mountain detachments, two infantry detachments and nine frontier defence regiments. The Strategic, "Supreme Command" Reserve in Bosnia comprised four infantry divisions, four independent infantry regiments, one tank battalion, two motorized engineer battalions, two motorized heavy artillery regiments, fifteen independent artillery battalions and two independent anti-aircraft artillery battalions. The Coastal Defence Force, on

2925-474: The 3rd Territorial Army with three infantry divisions and one independent motorized artillery regiment; the 5th Army with four infantry divisions, one cavalry division, two detachments and one independent motorized artillery regiment and the 6th Army with three infantry divisions, the two Royal Guards detachments and three infantry detachments. The 2nd Army Group's 1st Army had one infantry and one cavalry division, three detachments and six frontier defence regiments;

3042-497: The 6th Army on the right flank of the 1st Army was ordered to withdraw south of the Danube and deploy on a line facing east to defend against an attack from the direction of Sofia , Bulgaria. 2nd Army Group also received orders to withdraw south of the line of the Drava and Danube. 1st Army began to withdraw, and on the same day elements were approaching the Danube crossing. The following day,

3159-550: The American war effort. The film was also released under the name Fifth Column in Dutch ( Die van de 5de kolom ), Finnish ( Viidennen kolonnan mies ) and French ( Cinquième colonne ). Soon the term was being used in popular entertainment. Several World War II–era animated shorts include the term. Cartoons of Porky Pig asked any "fifth columnists" in the audience to leave the theater immediately. In Looney Tunes ' Foney Fables ,

3276-554: The Axis invasion collapsed overnight, primarily due to a large part of the non-Serb population, Croats in particular, being unwilling to offer resistance. In its worst expression, Yugoslavia's defenses were badly compromised on 10 April 1941, when some of the units in the Croat-manned 4th and 7th Armies mutinied, and a newly formed Croatian government hailed the entry of the Germans into Zagreb

3393-802: The Coast", he wrote of possible attacks that could be made along the West Coast of the United States that would amplify damage inflicted by a potential attack by Japanese naval and air forces. Suspicion about an active fifth column on the coast led eventually to the internment of Japanese Americans . During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines , an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December 1941 said

3510-786: The Department of National Defense, which brought all Austro-Hungarian units on its territory under the command of a new National Army of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. All affected units of the Common Army , the Imperial-Royal Landwehr and the Royal Croatian Home Guard came under that unified command. Immediately after the Armistice of Villa Giusti, Italy began occupying parts of the Kingdom of Dalmatia that had been promised to it under

3627-475: The Drava at Barcs in the 4th Army sector. The 8th Panzer Division turned southeast between the Drava and Sava rivers, and meeting almost no resistance and with strong air support, had reached Slatina by evening, despite poor roads and bad weather. Later that day, as the situation was becoming increasingly desperate throughout the country, Dušan Simović , who was both the Prime Minister and Yugoslav Chief of

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3744-560: The Drava, with the 8th Panzer Division capturing Našice , Osijek on the Drava, and Vukovar on the Danube, followed by the 16th Motorised Infantry Division which advanced east of Našice, despite bridge demolitions and poor roads. The 8th Panzer Division had effectively routed the 2nd Army Group by 11 April. On the same day, Messerschmitt Bf 110 's of I Group of the 26th Heavy Fighter Wing (German: Zerstörergeschwader 26, ZG 26) destroyed several 1st Air Reconnaissance Group Breguet 19s at Ruma. The rest were flown to Bijeljina, but were destroyed

3861-679: The General Officer Commanding the Royal Yugoslav Air Force . The major organisational change during the year was the formation of a tank battalion, consisting of three companies, each of three platoons of five tanks. The only tankettes in service at this time were Renault FTs operated by a training company, but an order for new tanks had been submitted. Large-scale manoeuvres were carried out in Slovenia in September 1937, involving

3978-399: The General Staff , broadcast the following message: All troops must engage the enemy wherever encountered and with every means at their disposal. Don't wait for direct orders from above, but act on your own and be guided by your judgement, initiative, and conscience. The bulk of the 1st Army were able to cross the Danube and began to prepare defences. By the evening of 10 April, the 1st Army

4095-457: The General Staff, replacing Milovanović. King Alexander appointed Nedić to carry through a significant change in army organisation against the opposition of many of the senior generals, mainly to reduce the size of the oversized infantry divisions and create corps as an intermediate formation between divisions and armies. After Alexander's assassination, Nedić decided to defer the changes, citing practical difficulties. A chemical warfare battalion

4212-535: The Germans during their drive on Sarajevo in the centre of the country, including 30,000 around Zvornik and 6,000 around Doboj . On 15 April, the 8th and 14th Panzer Divisions entered Sarajevo. After a delay in locating appropriate signatories for the surrender document, the Yugoslav High Command unconditionally surrendered in Belgrade effective at 12:00 on 18 April. Royal Yugoslav Army Shortly before

4329-571: The Hungarian General Staff considered irregular resistance forces to be their only significant opposition. The Hungarian 1st Parachute Battalion captured canal bridges at Vrbas and Srbobran . This, the first airborne operation in Hungarian history, was not without incident. The battalion's aircraft consisted of five Italian-made Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 transport aircraft formerly with the civilian airline MALERT , but pressed into service with

4446-484: The Hungarian and Italian borders, and 12 Dornier floatplanes were also purchased. The first manoeuvres of any significant size since the formation of the army in 1919 were conducted between the troops of two divisions during 29 September to 2 October 1927, although the number of troops engaged did not exceed 10,000 and some reserves had to be called up to achieve this number. Prior to this, only local inter-garrison exercises had been conducted. The method adopted for

4563-508: The Hungarians occupied Baranja without resistance, and pushed south through Bačka to reach the line of Novi Sad and the Great Bačka Canal . Early on 14 April, the remnants of 2nd Army Group, including the 1st Army, continued to fight against the 8th Panzer Division and 16th Motorised Infantry Division along the Sava. On 14 and 15 April, tens of thousands of Yugoslav soldiers were taken prisoner by

4680-642: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , US Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox issued a statement that "the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the exception of Norway". In a column published in The Washington Post , dated 12 February 1942, the columnist Walter Lippmann wrote of imminent danger from actions that might be taken by Japanese Americans . Titled "The Fifth Column on

4797-504: The Military Council and was replaced by Army General Ljubomir Marić as Chief of the General Staff. Six infantry regiments were disbanded, but the General Staff decided to stick with four infantry regiments per infantry division. Equipment received during the year included 800 Stokes mortars , enough Skoda anti-aircraft guns to arm 20 batteries, and six Skoda Škoda S-1d tankettes. Deficiencies in radio communications were apparent, with

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4914-422: The Sava. By 12 April, the withdrawal of the 2nd Army Group was being threatened from the left flank, with 2nd Army having "no combat importance at all". On the right flank, 6th Army attempted to regroup while being pressed by the 11th Panzer Division as it drove towards Belgrade. West of Belgrade, remnants of the 2nd Army Group tried to establish a line along the Sava, but XLVI Motorised Corps had already captured

5031-460: The Second salvage collection I've missed, they've got me down as a fifth columnist." In Fallout: London , a total conversion mod for the 2015 Bethesda Softworks action role-playing game Fallout 4 , there is a populist faction known as the "5th Column" whose declared aim is to tear down the existing government and rebuild it. Their propaganda style and black uniforms are a likely reference to

5148-562: The Yugoslavs were already withdrawing and the Hungarians faced almost no resistance. This was followed by the German capture of Belgrade and the rear area units of 1st Army. Remnants of the 1st Army continued to resist along the line of the Sava, within days, tens of thousands of Yugoslav soldiers had been captured. The Germans closed on Sarajevo , and accepted the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April, which came into effect at

5265-519: The allocation of artillery within the army was enhanced using material captured in World War I . The result was that the army-level artillery was stripped of its howitzer regiments, which were used to increase the division-level field artillery regiments to brigade strength in eight of the 16 infantry divisions. In the same year, the peacetime strength of the army was reduced to 100,000, and the Ministry of War

5382-474: The apolitical John Doe Clubs. Connell says to John: "Listen, pal, this fifth-column stuff is pretty rotten, isn't it?", identifying the businessman with anti-democratic interests in the United States. When Doe agrees, he adds: "And you'd feel like an awful sucker if you found yourself marching right in the middle of it, wouldn't you?" Alfred Hitchcock 's Saboteur (1942) features Robert Cummings asking for help against "fifth columnists" conspiring to sabotage

5499-559: The army and the emblem worn on the cap, virtually everything else was retained from the Serbian Army, including uniforms, ranks, medals and regulations. Serbian Army symbols were used by the force for a substantial part of 1919. While the Serbian Army officers were automatically transferred to the Army of the KSCS, the former Austro-Hungarian and Croatian Home Guard officers had to apply to be accepted to

5616-570: The army had continued, with young educated Croats and Slovenes now reluctant to enter the army. The attaché saw the Serb domination of the army as a possible political weakness for the nation, but also a military weakness in time of war. Three Croat officers were promoted to the rank of brigadni đeneral during the year. There were also reductions in the numbers of artillery regiments and batteries, and infantry battalions and companies, due to significantly lower conscription numbers for 1933, which were caused by

5733-446: The army had great self-belief, its infantry was tough and its artillery was well-equipped, but it greatly lacked in significant areas required by a modern fighting force. Key deficiencies remained in machine guns and infantry guns, and there was no combined arms training. The attaché further observed that, along with the almost complete Serb domination of the general ranks, the General Staff was also 90 per cent Serb, and "Serbianisation" of

5850-888: The army mobilised troops in Macedonia and parts of Serbia along the border with Albania. Formed after World War I, the Royal Yugoslav Army was still largely equipped with weapons and material from that era, although some modernization with Czech equipment and vehicles had begun. Of about 4,000 artillery pieces, many were aged and horse-drawn, but about 1,700 were relatively modern, including 812 Czech 37mm and 47mm anti-tank guns. There were also about 2,300 mortars, including 1,600 modern 81 millimetres (3.2 in) pieces, as well as twenty-four 220 millimetres (8.7 in) and 305 millimetres (12.0 in) pieces. Of 940 anti-aircraft guns, 360 were 15 millimetres (0.59 in) and 20 millimetres (0.79 in) Czech and Italian models. All of these arms were imported, from different sources, which meant that

5967-403: The army still mobilizing, and only some eleven divisions were in their planned defense positions at the start of the invasion. The total strength of the Royal Yugoslav Army at full mobilization was about 1,200,000 however only around 50 per cent of the recruits were able to join their units before the German invasion. By 20 March 1941, its total mobilized strength amounted to 600,000. On the eve of

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6084-504: The army was renamed the Royal Yugoslav Army ( Serbo-Croatian Latin : Vojska Kraljevine Jugoslavije , VKJ). The army budget remained tight, and as tensions rose across Europe during the 1930s, it became difficult to secure weapons and munitions from other countries. Consequently, at the time World War II broke out in September 1939, the VKJ had several serious weaknesses, which included reliance on draught animals for transport, and

6201-456: The borders with Albania, Bulgaria and Greece . In 1923, the only non-Serb generals in the army retired, and the number of generals in the army was increased from 26 to more than 100 by the promotion of colonels into the lower general ranks of brigadni đeneral (brigadier general) and divizijski đeneral (divisional general). In 1924, the artillery strength of the remaining eight infantry divisions were brought up to brigade strength. In 1925,

6318-491: The bridges. When elements of the 8th Panzer Division captured Zemun without a fight, they captured 1st Army's rear area units. On 12 April, the 1st Army's 3rd Cavalry Division counter-attacked at Šabac and pushed the Germans back across the Sava. The Hungarians pursued the 1st Army south, and occupied the area between the Danube and the Tisza meeting virtually no resistance. Serb Chetnik irregulars fought isolated engagements, and

6435-510: The capital. Elements of the 8th Panzer Division did continue their thrust to capture the Sava bridges to the west of Belgrade, and entered the city during the night. The rest of the 8th Panzer Division turned southeast and drove towards Valjevo to link up with the left flank of the First Panzer Group southwest of Belgrade. The 16th Motorised Infantry Division was redirected south across the Sava, and advanced toward Zvornik . On 13 April,

6552-477: The central government. Attempts to address the disunity came too late to ensure that the VKJ was a cohesive force. Fifth column activity was also a serious concern, not only from the Croatian nationalist Ustaše but also from the country's Slovene and ethnic German minorities. The 1st Army was commanded by Armijski đeneral Milan Rađenković , and his chief of staff was Brigadni đeneral Todor Milićević. It

6669-494: The command of the Guards Division. Some communist activity was detected within the army during the year, and the same conservative group of senior Serb officers remained firmly in charge. The two independent mountain brigades completed formation in 1932, each provided with two batteries of 75 mm (3.0 in) guns. The exclusively Serb Chetnik organisation led by Kosta Pećanac formed new detachments in various parts of

6786-406: The country and the weakness of existing bridges meant that motorisation and mechanisation should be developed slowly, but that a light truck should be acquired as a first step. Reserves of ammunition of all types were reported as low. In 1935, estimates were made that within a month of mobilisation, 800,000 to 900,000 soldiers could be placed under arms. This was based on the duplication of eight of

6903-409: The country, but if fully mobilised would be able to give a good account of itself in a defensive campaign. The exercise was conducted in Slovenia to test the loyalty and value of Slovene and Croat reservists, and was completely satisfactory in this respect only, with nearly all of the reservists reporting for duty and bearing the hardships of the exercise with "discipline and fortitude". The same year saw

7020-460: The country. From a military perspective, it was intended that the Chetniks would assist the frontier guards in peacetime, in addition to their traditional guerilla activities in times of war. Three anti-aircraft regiments were formed in the same year. In early 1933, there was a war scare regarding Italy and Hungary which greatly concerned the General Staff. The British military attaché observed that

7137-624: The defence of the section of the Yugoslav- Hungarian border between the Danube and the Tisza rivers. The 1st Army was not directly attacked during the first few days after the invasion commenced, but attacks on its flanks resulted in successive orders to withdraw to the lines of the Danube and then the Sava . The Hungarians then crossed the border in the sector for which the 1st Army had been responsible, but

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7254-588: The delivery of a substantial amount of equipment from Czechoslovakia, including 36 mountain guns, 32 anti-aircraft guns, 60 reconditioned howitzers, 80 field guns, and eight Škoda S-1d tankettes. Considerable work was being undertaken building fortifications on the Italian frontier. During 1938, Milutin Nedić was appointed as Minister of the Army and Navy, and was replaced as Chief of the General Staff by Armijski đeneral Dušan Simović . That year, two geo-strategic changes made

7371-570: The early phase of the Spanish Civil War . It gained popularity in the Loyalist faction media in early October 1936 and immediately started to spread abroad. The exact origins of the term are not clear. Its first known appearance is in a secret telegram dated 30 September 1936, that was sent to Berlin by the German chargé d'affaires in Alicante , Hans Hermann Völckers  [ de ] . In

7488-435: The equivalent of four divisions, and exposing to foreign observers the serious deficiencies in the army, caused by incompetent General Staff and the senior commanders, a lack of technical training of regimental officers in modern warfare, and across-the-board shortages of arms and equipment of almost every type. The British military attaché observed that the army was not capable of undertaking any large-scale operations outside of

7605-446: The exercises and the tactics used were similar to those used by the British Army before the Second Boer War . In 1928, four new infantry regiments were established in response to an Italian buildup along the frontier. These were seen as the nucleus for a potential new infantry division. The arsenal at Kragujevac also went into operation, producing Mauser M24 series rifles and ammunition. In January 1929, King Alexander established

7722-404: The fascist Ustaše and their sympathisers. At dawn on 11 April, Hungarian forces, consisting with the Mobile , IV and V Corps of Vezérezredes (Lieutenant General) Elemér Gorondy-Novák 's 3rd Army, crossed the Yugoslav border north of Osijek and near Subotica , overcame Yugoslav border guards and advanced on Subotica and Palić . The XLVI Motorised Corps continued to push east south of

7839-423: The film The Spanish Earth . He returned to the US to publicize the film and wrote the play, in the Hotel Florida in Madrid, on his next visit to Spain later that year. In the US, an Australian radio play, The Enemy Within , proved to be very popular, though this popularity was due to the belief that the stories of fifth column activities were based on real events. In December 1940, the Australian censors had

7956-419: The first above divisional level since the formation of the army in 1919. They took place on the Sava river between Novi Sad and Sarajevo at the end of September, and were really in the form of a demonstration rather than a war game . There was no freedom of action for commanders, and control was rigid. During 1936, Marić became Minister of the Army and Navy, replacing Živković, who had been intriguing against

8073-411: The following day when I/ZG 26 swept over the airfield in one of the most effective attacks of the campaign. On the night of 11/12 April, the 8th Panzer Division captured Sremska Mitrovica on the Sava at 02:30, destroyed a bridge over the Danube at Bogojevo , and advanced on Lazarevac about 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of Belgrade. These advances delayed the withdrawal of the 2nd Army Group south of

8190-564: The following day. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created with the merger of Serbia , Montenegro and the South Slav -inhabited areas of Austria-Hungary on 1 December 1918, in the immediate aftermath of World War I . The Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established to defend the new state. It was formed around the nucleus of the victorious Royal Serbian Army , as well as armed formations raised in regions formerly controlled by Austria-Hungary. Many former Austro-Hungarian officers and soldiers became members of

8307-454: The force. Non-Serbian officers accepted to the service were often discriminated against. The Serbian Army numbered 145,225 soldiers at the end of the war, and absorbed the some 15,000 former Austro-Hungarian officers and volunteers which had been organized by the National Council. By 1 January 1919, a total of 134 former high-ranking Austro-Hungarian officers had been retired or relieved of their duties. From late 1918 until 10 September 1919,

8424-468: The government. Before this occurred Marić had told the British naval and military attachés that any mobilisation of the army would take 25 days, and revealed that shortfalls in many items of equipment were severe, including gas masks, steel helmets, tents, horseshoes, small arms ammunition, saddlery and tanks. The new Chief of the General Staff was Armijski đeneral Milutin Nedić , brother of Milan, who had been

8541-549: The indigenous Moro Muslims were "capable of dealing with Japanese fifth columnists and invaders alike". Another in the Vancouver Sun the following month alleged that the large population of Japanese immigrants in Davao in the Philippines welcomed the invasion: "the first assault on Davao was aided by numbers of Fifth Columnists–residents of the town". However, postwar analysis of both Japanese and American military records, including

8658-433: The infantry needing between 1,000 and 2,000 small sets, and the cavalry being completely lacking in radios. The radios issued to artillery units were unable to communicate with aircraft, and were therefore of little use. The British military attaché observed that even the most senior commanders have never handled a force larger than a division on exercises or in war. The 1935 manoeuvres were the first of any type since 1930, and

8775-463: The interrogation of surviving Japanese officers, fail to support the claims of a Japanese fifth column existing in the Philippines prior to the outbreak of hostilities. The title of Ernest Hemingway 's only play " The Fifth Column " (1938) is a translation of General Mola's phrase la quinta columna In early 1937, Hemingway had been in Madrid, reporting the war from the loyalist side, and helping make

8892-634: The invasion, Serbian officers of the Yugoslav General Staff, encouraged by British Special Operations Executive personnel in Belgrade , led a coup d'état  against  Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Dragiša Cvetković for adhering to the Tripartite Pact . Beyond the problems of inadequate equipment and incomplete mobilization, the Royal Yugoslav Army suffered badly from the Serbo-Croatian schism in Yugoslav politics. Yugoslavian resistance to

9009-418: The invasion, there were 167 Generals on the Yugoslav active list. Of these, 150 were Serbs, 8 Croats, and 9 Slovenes. The Royal Yugoslav Army was organized into three army groups and the coastal defense troops. The 3rd Army Group was the strongest with the 3rd, 3rd Territorial, 5th and 6th Armies defending the borders with Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. The 2nd Army Group with the 1st and 2nd Armies, defended

9126-454: The large size of its formations . Infantry divisions had a wartime strength of 26,000–27,000 men, as compared to contemporary British infantry divisions of half that strength. These characteristics resulted in slow, unwieldy formations, and the inadequate supply of arms and munitions meant that even the very large Yugoslav formations had low firepower. Generals better suited to the trench warfare of World War I were combined with an army that

9243-436: The lessons of World War I. In the view of the British military attaché , the clique of Serbian officers in charge of the army at this time were narrow-minded and conservative men who, while keen to modernise the equipment of the army, did not see the need to modernise its tactics or organisation, and were unwilling to learn from others. During following year, a machine gun company was created in each infantry battalion, and both

9360-496: The narrator of a comic fairy tale described a wolf in sheep's clothing as a "fifth columnist". There was a Merrie Melodies cartoon released in 1943 titled The Fifth-Column Mouse . Comic books also contained references to the fifth column. Graham Greene, in The Quiet American (1955), uses the phrase "Fifth Column, Third Force, Seventh Day" in the second chapter. In the 1959 British action film Operation Amsterdam ,

9477-476: The new army was involved in a sharp military confrontation with irregular pro- Austrian formations in the region of Carinthia on the northern frontier of the new KSCS. At one point, KSCS troops briefly occupied Klagenfurt . After a plebiscite in October 1920 the frontier with Austria was fixed and tensions subsided. To deal with these security concerns, a large mobilization was carried out from 1918 to 1919, reaching

9594-412: The new army. From the beginning, much like other aspects of public life in the new kingdom, the army was dominated by ethnic Serbs , who saw it as a means by which to secure Serb political hegemony . The army's development was hampered by the kingdom's poor economy, and this continued during the 1920s. In 1929, King Alexander changed the name of the country to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , at which time

9711-547: The original statement referred to by Völckers, Ibárruri, Girón, de Jong, and others. The transcripts of Francisco Franco 's, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano 's, and Emilio Mola 's radio addresses have been published, but they do not contain the term, and no other original statement containing this phrase has ever surfaced. Australian journalist Noel Monks , who took part in Mola's press conference on 28 October 1936, claimed that Mola referred to quinta columna on that day, but by that time

9828-625: The other two used an Austrian model. In the early 1920s, the army responded to several external crises, including the attempted return of King Charles IV to neighbouring Hungary , disturbances along the Albanian border, and incursions from Bulgaria . Despite high standards of discipline and individual training, the army was unable to conduct large-scale mobilisation due to threats on all frontiers, lack of funds, poor railway infrastructure, lack of suitably trained and qualified officers, and shortage of arms, munitions, clothing and equipment. In 1922,

9945-460: The possible exception of Germany, and could also deal with a combined Italian and Hungarian attack. During the year, a Coastal Defence Command was raised using troops already stationed along the Yugoslav coastline, and did not involve the creation of new formations. Delivery of 10,000 light machine guns from Czechoslovakia was completed during the year, which meant that the army was fully equipped with rifles and light machine guns. Further fortification

10062-760: The re-organisation of the Serbian Army and the National Army of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs into a single new Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS). The re-organisation talks were led by Pribičević on one side and Mate Drinković and Slavko Kvaternik on the other. They agreed that there would be a new army for the new state, consisting of six regiments. Two of them would be based in Croatia and one in Slovene Lands (specifically in Ljubljana), commanded by Croatian and Slovene officers respectively. The agreement

10179-580: The region between the Iron Gates and the Drava River . The 1st Army Group with the 4th and 7th Armies, composed mainly of Croatian troops, was in Croatia and Slovenia defending the Italian, German (Austrian) and Hungarian frontiers. The strength of each "Army" amounted to little more than a corps , with the three Army Groups consisting of the units deployed as follows; The 3rd Army Group's 3rd Army consisted of four infantry divisions and one cavalry detachment;

10296-402: The reserve army from 40 to 50 years of age. Service in the standing army was set at one-and-a-half years, and three general ranks were introduced instead of the previous single rank. One year after their disbandment, border disturbances made it necessary to reconstitute a smaller contingent of frontier troops in the 3rd Army area. A total of 32 companies were therefore raised and stationed along

10413-505: The right flank of the 1st Army was the 6th Army , an independent formation that was responsible for the defence of the Yugoslav Banat region east of the Tisza. The boundary with the 2nd Army ran just east of the Danube to Vukovar , then south towards Bijeljina . The boundary with the 6th Army ran just to the east of the Tisza to the confluence with the Danube, then south across the Sava through Obrenovac . The Yugoslav defence plan saw

10530-501: The road between Novi Sad and Belgrade . The 1st Army faced the Hungarian 3rd Army , and during the first few days after the commencement of the invasion, there were exchanges of fire with Hungarian border guards, but the 1st Army faced no direct attacks. Neither the 1st Army or the Hungarians were ready for full-scale fighting, as they were still mobilising and deploying their forces. On 9 April, due to events in other parts of Yugoslavia,

10647-491: The same day, the PCE activist Domingo Girón made a similar claim during a public rally. During the next few days, various Republican papers repeated the story, but with differing detail; some attributed the phrase to General Queipo de Llano , while later some Soviet propagandists would claim it was coined by general Varela . By mid-October, the media was already warning of the "famous fifth column". Historians have never identified

10764-673: The same day. During the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, the Chetniks of Draža Mihailović were referred to as the "Royal Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland". The Royal Yugoslav Army was formally disbanded on 7 March 1945 when the Yugoslav government-in-exile appointed by Peter II of Yugoslavia was abolished. The Austro-Hungarian Army exited the First World War after the Armistice of Villa Giusti

10881-471: The secret Treaty of London . On 1 December 1918 the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the Kingdom of Serbia was declared, forming the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The Kingdom of Montenegro had already united with Serbia five days earlier. This declaration and firm action by armed groups halted any further encroachments by Italy. The National Council subsequently organised

10998-487: The series banned. British reviewers of Agatha Christie 's 1941 novel N or M? used the term to describe the plot's depiction of two British turncoats working on behalf the German government in Britain during World War II. In Frank Capra 's film Meet John Doe (1941), newspaper editor Henry Connell warns the politically naïve protagonist, John Doe, about a businessman's plans to promote his own political ambitions using

11115-690: The situation deteriorated significantly when the German XLI Motorised Corps crossed the Yugoslav-Romanian border into the Yugoslav Banat and struck the 6th Army, halting its withdrawal and disrupting its ability to organise a coherent defence behind the Danube. Also on 10 April, the main thrust of the XLVI Motorised Corps of the 2nd Army , consisting of the 8th Panzer Division leading the 16th Motorised Infantry Division crossed

11232-465: The sixteen standing infantry divisions and of the alpine division, and the formation of an additional cavalry division, resulting in a total of 24 infantry divisions of about 25,000 men each, one guards division, two alpine divisions and three cavalry divisions. This year saw significant changes in the higher command of the army following the creation of the Military Council . Nedić became a member of

11349-572: The task of the army significantly more difficult, the Anschluss between Germany and Austria, and the Munich Agreement which drastically weakened Czechoslovakia. These changes meant that Yugoslavia now had a common frontier with Germany and its most significant supplier of arms and munitions was under threat. It was the assessment of the British military attaché that the army could stem the tide of an invasion by one of its neighbours acting alone, with

11466-556: The telegram, he referred to an unidentified "supposed statement by Franco " that "is being circulated" (apparently in the Republican zone or in the Republican-held Levantine zone). This "supposed statement" held that Franco had claimed that there were four Nationalist columns approaching Madrid , and a fifth column waiting to attack from the inside. The telegram was part of the secret German diplomatic correspondence and

11583-456: The term "fifth column" was commonly used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders of the United States. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German "fifth column". A series of photos run in the June 1940 issue of Life magazine warned of "signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere". In a speech to

11700-510: The term "fifth columnists" is used repeatedly to refer to Nazi-sympathizing members of the Dutch Army . The V franchise is a set of TV shows, novels and comics about an alien invasion of Earth . A group of aliens opposed to the invasion and assist the human Resistance Movement is called The Fifth Column. In the episode "Flight Into the Future" from the 1960s TV show Lost In Space , Dr. Smith

11817-399: The term during an impromptu press interview, and different—though detailed—versions of the exchange are offered. Probably the most popular version describes the theory of Mola's authorship with a grade of doubt, either noting that it is presumed but has never been proven, or that the phrase "is attributed" to Mola, who "apparently claimed" so, or else noting that "la famosa quinta columna

11934-471: The term had already been in use in the Republican press for more than three weeks. Historiographic works offer differing perspectives on authorship of the term. Many scholars have no doubt about Mola's role and refer to "fifth column" as "a term coined in 1936 by General Emilio Mola", though they acknowledge that his exact statement cannot be verified. In some sources, Mola is named as a person who had used

12051-685: The term. John Langdon-Davies , a British journalist who covered the Spanish Civil War, wrote an account called The Fifth Column which was published the same year. In November 1940, Ralph Thomson, reviewing Harold Lavine's Fifth Column in America , a study of Communist and fascist groups in the US, in The New York Times , questioned his choice of that title: "the phrase has been worked so hard that it no longer means much of anything". Immediately following

12168-496: The various models often lacked proper repair and maintenance facilities. The only mechanized units were 6 motorized infantry battalions in the three cavalry divisions, six motorized artillery regiments, two tank battalions equipped with 110 tanks, one of which had Renault FT models of World War I origin and the other 54 modern French Renault R35 tanks, plus an independent tank company with eight Czech SI-D tank destroyers. Some 1,000 trucks for military purposes had been imported from

12285-403: Was also formed, with the intention of providing each army with one company. Trials were also undertaken with Skoda tankettes and a locally designed automatic rifle . It was announced that army-level manoeuvres would be held in 1935, for the first time since the formation of the army in 1919. A commission formed to examine the issue of mechanisation of the army concluded that the terrain of much of

12402-413: Was also undertaken, again from Czechoslovakia, and another 100,000 rifles were purchased from Belgium. Despite this new equipment, the army remained deficient in light and heavy machine guns, motor transport, signalling and bridging equipment, and tanks. Inter-division manoeuvres were again undertaken in three regions, but cavalry charges and massed infantry attacks demonstrated that the army had not learned

12519-561: Was attached from the Royal Yugoslav Air Force and was based at Ruma just south of Novi Sad . The 1st Army was part of the 2nd Army Group , which was responsible for the eastern section of the Yugoslav-Hungarian border, with the 1st Army deployed in the Bačka region between the Danube and the Tisza, and the 2nd Army in the Baranya and Slavonia regions between Slatina and the Danube. On

12636-503: Was captured against determined Chetnik resistance, and Subotica was also captured. On the evening of 12 April, elements of the SS Motorised Infantry Division Reich , under command of XLI Motorised Corps crossed the Danube in pneumatic boats and captured Belgrade without resistance. About the same time, most of the elements of XLVI Motorised Corps that were approaching Belgrade from the west were redirected away from

12753-473: Was discovered long after the civil war. The first identified public use of the term is in the 3 October 1936 issue of the Madrid Communist daily Mundo Obrero . In a front-page article, the party propagandist Dolores Ibárruri referred to a statement very similar (or identical) to the one that Völckers had referred to in his telegram, but attributed it to General Emilio Mola rather than to Franco. On

12870-400: Was ignored by Serbian military authorities. Following the December 1918 protest in Zagreb , existing Royal Croatian Home Guard were disbanded. Existing Slovenia-based units of the former Austro-Hungarian armed forces were gradually disbanded over the course of 1919 when the new army was established, led by Serbian generals with Serbian language as the official language. Apart from the name of

12987-463: Was later openly floated by Communist propagandists. There are also other theories afloat. Some writers, mindful of the origin of the phrase, use it only in reference to military operations rather than the broader and less well-defined range of activities that sympathizers might engage in to support an anticipated attack. By the late 1930s, as American involvement in the war in Europe became more likely,

13104-448: Was neither equipped nor trained to resist the fast-moving combined arms approach used by the Germans in their invasions of Poland and France . The weaknesses of the VKJ in strategy, structure, equipment, mobility and supply were exacerbated by serious ethnic disunity within Yugoslavia, resulting from two decades of Serb hegemony and the attendant lack of political legitimacy achieved by

13221-469: Was ordered to withdraw from this line and form a defensive line behind the Sava from Debrc to the confluence with the Vrbas river , for which one or two days would be needed. On the night of 10/11 April, the whole 2nd Army Group continued its withdrawal, but units of the 2nd Army on the left flank of the 1st Army that included significant numbers of Croats began to dissolve due to the fifth column activities of

13338-408: Was organised and mobilised on a geographic basis from the 1st Army District, which was divided into divisional districts, each of which was subdivided into regimental regions. The 1st Army consisted of: Its support units included the 56th Army Artillery Regiment, the 1st Anti-Aircraft Battalion, and the 1st Army Anti-Aircraft Company . The 1st Air Reconnaissance Group comprising fifteen Breguet 19s

13455-565: Was struck with the Kingdom of Italy on 3 November 1918. A National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs had been formed in Zagreb in the previous month with the aim of representing the kingdoms of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia , the condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina , and the Slavic-populated areas of Carniola and Styria . On 1 November 1918 the National Council had established

13572-547: Was trimmed by handing over the frontier troops to the Minister of Finance and transferring the gendarmerie to the Ministry of Interior. From the earliest days of the army, a clique of officers known as the White Hand , were actively engaged in politics. In 1923, the liability for service in the army were changed so that all citizens were liable to service from 21 to 50 years of age, in the active army from 21 to 40 years of age and in

13689-527: Was undertaken along the Italian border, and plans were developed to fortify the former Austrian border. Of the 165 generals in the army in 1938, two were Croats and two were Slovenes, the rest were Serbs. During the interwar period , the Yugoslav military budget expended 30 per cent of government outlays. By January 1939, the army, when mobilised, and including reserves, numbered 1,457,760 men, with fighting formations including 30 infantry divisions, one guards division, and three cavalry divisions. In late 1940,

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