Situation in the Third Army District from the Institution of 6th January Dictatorship to the April War 1941 Cover Image

Прилике у Трећој армијској области од увођења Шестојануарске диктатуре до Априлског рата
Situation in the Third Army District from the Institution of 6th January Dictatorship to the April War 1941

Author(s): Vladan Z. Jovanović
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Military policy, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Institut za strategijska istraživanja
Keywords: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia; Third Army; April war; 1941; dictatorship; armed forces;

Summary/Abstract: After 1934 and dismantling of VMRO in Bulgaria, there was a tendency towards moving the bulk of the armed forces from the south to the northeast of the country given the serious threats that were looming from the Italian side. However, the border incidents along the Bulgarian border continued in the second half of the thirties, which in 1937 led to consideration of reorganization of the Third Army Sector and formation of a new one with the main headquarters in Skopje. Peace time military activities in the south were reduced to military exercises and faked air attacks on the town of the Vardar Banovina, participation in civilian affairs and public works, and sporadic use as political instrument in „nonSlavonic“ areas. The ethnic composition of the military units operating in the Third Army Sector indicated the domination of Serbian soldiers in artillery and their poor representation in infantry, where Croats dominated. A great number of conscripts coming from „potentially disloyal minorities“ in the areas of Kosovo and Vardar Division Sector forced the General Staff in the eve of the World War II to consider the possibility of their deployment far from the fronts where their compatriots were fighting. The Border Group, which was a peace time military formation with the Command in Skopje, faced similar problems when deployed to three districts along the borders with Albania, Greece and Bulgaria. People were reluctant to join this service because of low wages, complexity of work and nonprofessional command personnel composed of reserve officers. Between 1929 and 1941 six generals performed the duty of the chief of the Third Army Sector. The last of them was a retired gendarmerie commander. The sudden crush of the Yugoslav armed forces in the south fronts in April 1941 did not come as surprise given the situation in the Balkans at the time and internal tensions in the Vardar Banovina preceding the April War.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 46-61
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Serbian