Royal Yugoslav Army

The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17 1941.

Shortly before the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the army staged a coup against the Serbian Yugoslav monarchy on March 26. [ [http://www.vojska.net/eng/world-war-2/chronology/1941/coup/ Coup on March 27th 1941 ] ]

The force was known for its domination by ethnic Serbs. At the time of the force's final surrender, the vast majority of its head command and field army generals were Serbs. [ [http://www.vojska.net/eng/world-war-2/kingdom-of-yugoslavia/organization/1941/#3AG Yugoslav Army, April 1941 ] ]

April 1941 Campaign

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 had begun. Of about 7,000 artillery pieces, many were aged and horse-drawn, but about 4,000 were relatively modern, including 800 anti-tank guns. There were also about 1,900 modern mortars and 250 anti-aircraft guns. All of these arms were imported, from different sources, which meant that the various models often lacked proper repair and maintenance facilities.

The only mechanized units were 6 motorized infantry battalions, 4 motorized artillery regiments, two tank battalions equipped with 110 tanks, one of which had Renault FT-17s models of WW 1 origin and the other 54 modern French R-35 tanks and an independent tank company with 8 Czech SI-D tank destroyers [Tomasevich, Jozo. War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941-1945: The Chetniks. Stanford, Cal., London, Oxford University Press, 1975] .

Fully mobilized, the Royal Yugoslav Army could have put 28 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions, and 32 independent regiments in the field. Of the independent regiments, 16 were oganized as combined regiments, or "Odred". Each Odred had one to three infantry regiments and one to three artillery battalions. The German attack, however, caught the army still mobilizing, and only some 11 divisions were in their planned defense positions at the start of the invasion. The units were filled to between 70 and 90 per cent of their strength as mobilization was not completed. The strength of the Royal Yugoslav Army was about 1,200,000 as the German invasion got underway [Fatutta, F. and Covelli, L. 1941: Attack on Yugoslavia in The International Magazine of Armies & Weapons, Year IV - Nos. 15 and 17, January and May 1975, Lugano, Switzerland] .

The Royal Yugoslav Army was organized into three army groups and the coastal defense troops. The 3rd Army Group with the 3rd and 5th Armies defended the borders of Albania. The 2nd Army Group with the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Armies, defended 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. [Geschichte, pp. 317-318]

See also

*Invasion of Yugoslavia
*Greco-Italian War
*Bombing of Belgrade in World War II
*Battle of Greece
*Royal Yugoslav Air Force

References

*Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges Vol. 3, A. A. Gretschko, Berlin: Militärverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1977.
*Tomasevich, Jozo. War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941-1945: The Chetniks. Stanford, Cal., London, Oxford University Press, 1975.
*Fatutta, F. and Covelli, L. 1941: Attack on Yugoslavia in The International Magazine of Armies & Weapons, Year IV - Nos. 15 and 17, January and May 1975, Lugano, Switzerland.