During World War II, several provinces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia corresponding to the modern-day state of Serbia were occupied by the Axis Powers from 1941 to 1944. Most of the area was occupied by the Wehrmacht and was organized as separate territory under control of the German Military Administration in Serbia.
The German government reported that its records list 4.3 million dead and missing military personnel. Civilian deaths during the war include air raid deaths, estimates of German civilians killed only by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from around 350,000 to 500,000.
Croatia has more than its share of apologies to make for crimes it committed during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s, but it can start with the massive killings it unleashed during World War II. Although estimates vary, between 300,000 and 700,000 victims were murdered by Croatian fascists during the war.
Fascist Italy set up
Albania as its protectorate or puppet state. The resistance was largely carried out by Communist groups against the Italian (until 1943) and then German occupation in
Albania.
World War II in Albania.
| Date | 1942–1944 |
|---|
| Location | Albania |
| Result | Albanian communist victory Establishment of the Democratic Government of Albania |
After Bulgaria switched
sides in the war in September 1944, the Bulgarian 5th. Army stationed in
Macedonia, moved back to the old borders of Bulgaria.
World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia.
| Location | parts of the wider region of Macedonia |
|---|
| Territorial changes | Part of Vardar Banovina (Vardar Macedonia) became SR Macedonia as part of SFR Yugoslavia |
With the outbreak of World War II, and the Anschluss (“union”) between Austria and Germany, pressure was placed on Yugoslavia to more closely ally itself Germany, despite Yugoslavia's declared neutrality.
After the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 (later renamed to Yugoslavia), a few thousand Serbs moved to Croatian territory. After the Croatian Army's Operation Storm, the RSK ceased to exist, its territory was reincorporated into Croatia, and approximately 200,000 Serbs fled the country.
1941. Having steadily fallen within the orbit of the Axis during 1940 after events such as the Second Vienna Award, Yugoslavia followed Bulgaria and formally joined the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941.
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were assassinated by a Serbian-backed terrorist. Austria-Hungary, with German encouragement, declared war on Serbia on 28 July.
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat
The first of the conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, was initiated by the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) on 26 June 1991 after the secession of Slovenia from the federation on 25 June 1991. Initially, the federal government ordered the Yugoslav People's Army to secure border crossings in Slovenia.
Yugoslav Wars
| Date | 31 March 1991 – 12 November 2001 (10 years, 7 months, 1 week and 5 days) |
|---|
| Location | Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Republic of Macedonia |
| Result | Breakup of Yugoslavia and the formation of independent successor states |
NATO launched its 78-day campaign of air strikes against Serbia in 1999 in an attempt to force then-President Slobodan Milosevic to accept the terms of an agreement to end his military campaign against the Kosovo Liberation Army, which involved widespread ethnic cleansing and killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians.
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the self-proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, that lasted from 18 October 1992 to 23 February 1994. It is often referred to as a "war within a war" because it was part of the larger Bosnian War.
The war ended on 14 December 1995. The Bosnian War was characterised by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing and systematic mass rape, mainly perpetrated by Serb, and to a lesser extent, Croat and Bosniak forces.
Serbia became a constituent republic within the SFRY known as the Socialist Republic of Serbia, and had a republic-branch of the federal communist party, the League of Communists of Serbia.
What ended the Bosnian war?
April 6, 1992 – December 14, 1995
Nine soldiers in the peace force have died and 44 have been wounded since the NATO-led troops arrived in December. A U.S. soldier died at a logistics base in Hungary last month, apparently of a heart attack. Most of the casualties came in land mine or shooting accidents.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The
Balkan Wars consisted of two conflicts that took place in the
Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913.
Serbian–Ottoman battles.
| Battle | Battle of Kumanovo |
|---|
| Year | 1912 |
|---|
| Serbia Commander | Radomir Putnik |
|---|
| Ottoman Empire Commander | Zeki Pasha |
|---|
| Result | Serbian Victory |
|---|
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War, a long, complex, and ugly conflict that followed the fall of communism in Europe. In 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina joined several republics of the former Yugoslavia and declared independence, which triggered a civil war that lasted four years.
The Yugoslav side and its Western supporters claimed the refugee outflows were caused by a mass panic in the Kosovo Albanian population, and that the exodus was generated principally by fear of NATO bombs.
Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. After the breakup, the republics of Montenegro and Serbia formed a reduced federative state, Serbia and Montenegro, known officially until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).
In the later Ottoman period, Bosnia attracted Muslim refugees from lands that were conquered by Christian powers (mainly Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia). Some converted to Islam as a way to escape the devşirme tribute (whereby the son of Christian family would be taken for military service).
