World War I During
World war I, Croat soldiers served in
Royal Croatian Home Guard and other units. Some of notable Croatian commanders of that time were Field Marshal
Svetozar Boroević, General
Stjepan Sarkotić and Admiral
Maximilian Njegovan. Unlike the other fronts, Croats participating in World War I, were most motivated to fight on the
Italian front, as
Treaty of London (which brought Italy into World War I), promised large chunks of Croatian littoral to Italy. Notable battles of World War I that included Croatian troops: •
Serbian Campaign (World War I) (1914) •
Adriatic Campaign of World War I (1914–1918) •
Battle of Galicia (1914) •
Brusilov Offensive (1916) •
Battle of Soča (1915) •
Battle of Caporetto (1917) •
Bombardment of Ancona (1915) •
Battle of the Piave River (1918) •
Battle of Vittorio Veneto (1918) File:Svetozar Boroëvić von Bojna 1914.jpg|
Svetozar Boroević - Croatian
field marshal, credited for repelling twelve Italian offensives on
Italian front, thus earning nickname a "Lion of Isonzo". File:10. dom. husarska pukovnija.jpg|
Cavalrymen of
10th Hussar Home Guard Cavalry Regiment from
Varaždin, during military exercises. File:Hrvatski domobran.JPG|Croatian Home Guard during WWI. File:Hrvatski vojnici rov Galicija.jpg|Croatian soldiers on
Eastern Front in
Galicia. File:Bitnica u rovu.JPG|An artillery battery manned by Croatians on
Italian front. The end of World War I was followed by the dissolution of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the formation of new national states. The
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was formed from the southernmost parts of the
Austria-Hungary but it lasted for only a month. After it was clear that
Austria-Hungary had lost World War I, the Austrian government decided to give much of the
Austro-Hungarian Navy fleet, to the newly formed
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. This move would have avoided handing the fleet to the Allies, since the new state had declared neutrality. Soon, the Fleet was attacked and dismembered by the Italian
Regia Marina and the flagship
SMS Viribus Unitis was sunk along with his captain and commander of Navy of the newly formed state, admiral
Janko Vuković.
World War I aftermath •
1918 occupation of Međimurje Interwar period Throughout the interwar period, the
Royal Yugoslav Army was mostly Serb dominated institution, which discouraged Croatians from joining it. Major issue was Serbian tradition of
corporal punishment, which was unknown in former Austro-Hungarian lands and which caused much resistance when introduced. Former Austro-Hungarian officers were ofter regarded as second-class officers, and often found themselves subordinated to much younger Serbs officers who were completely uneducated.
World War II As Axis forces overran Kingdom of Yugoslavia in
April War of 1941, Croatian fascists
Ustaše under German-Italian sponsorship arrived to
Zagreb and proclaimed
Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Almost immediately, Ustaše started a campaign of
mass terror (and genocide) against large Serb population in NDH, as well as
Jews,
Romani and anti-fascist Croats. However, when
Hitler started his
Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Croatian communists responded by
launcing an uprising, thus giving Serbs of NDH a chance to escape the Ustaše persecution by joining their ranks. To great annoyance of Germans, Ustaše continued their persecution which made the uprising grow ever bigger, forcing Germans to commit ever more tropps to quell it. While Serbs were forced to join communist
People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (NOVJ) in order to save their lives, Croatians as a nation were divided between those supporting Axis in order to preserve what they perceived as their new state and those opposing Ustaše. Yugoslav communists who opposed pre-war Serb domination, also offered a federalized state to the Croats, thus creating a platform acceptable to both Serbs and Croats. However, when Ustaše gave away much of Dalmatia to Italian irredentists by agreeing to
Treaties of Rome, their support among Croatians sank even lower, especially in
Dalmatia which was given to Italy. As Croatian historian
Dušan Bilandžić points out; throughout
World War II, Croats as a nation were engaged in several wars at once. Firstly, they were engaged in a war against axis occupation. In 1942, Ustaše government sent a detachment of its units to fight along Axis forces in
Battle of Stalingrad. Communist partisans continued to wage a guerilla war against Axis forces in the country. A major breakthrough happened in September 1943, when fascist Italy capitulated which was a major impetus for Dalmatian Croats to join communist partisans as well as partisans who acquired large quantities of Italian weapon stocks. That same year, partisan uprising spread among Croats in
Istria, however Germans considered
Istrian peninsula too important in case of spaculated Allied landing on Eastern Adriatic, so
Erwin Rommel was sent to
Istria and his forces quashed the uprising by brute force. Except for NOVJ and NDH loyal units, Greater Serbian
Chetnik Royalist detachments also operated in the country
committing massacres against non-Serb population. As Allied forces prevailed over Axis, NOVJ became recognised as part of an Allied Coalition in
Teheran conference of 1943. As ever more people joined their ranks, NOVJ guerilla warfare evolved into a full-fledged army –
Jugoslavenska Armija (JA) by 1945. On the other hand, by 1944, NDH authorities were forced to merge their Ustaše militia with their regular Homeguard units into
Croatian Armed Forces (HOS). As war came to its end in Spring 1945, remnants of HOS units with Ustaša government pulled out towards the Austrian border to surrender to the Allies, however British who awaited them there insisted for HOS to surrender to JNA. After the surrender, the HOS members along with many civilians who accompanied them were massacred in
Bleiburg rapatriations.
Croatian War of Independence In 1991, as Croatia proclaimed its independence, tensions between the new Croatian government and Croatian Serb militia backed by Yugoslav Federal Army (JNA) escalated into the
Croatian War of Independence. With
Croatian Territorial Defense (TO) weapons kept by the
Federal Army, Croatia saw urgent need to form its own armed forces. They expanding their police force and formed the
Croatian National Guard (ZNG) subordinated to the newly formed
Ministry of Defense. In September 1991, Croatian National Guard and Police blocked Yugoslav Federal Army's barracks throughout Croatia and in the
Battle of Barracks forced JNA to withdraw from most of Croatia. Croatians managed to get their hands on heavy weapons and most of the TO arsenal, a lot of it stored in the Varaždin barracks. In September 1991, Croatia also formed its general staff. Despite being well motivated at the time, Croatian troops were just a "loosely organized and hastily trained" light infantry force supported with a limited number of tanks and artillery. After 1991, Croatia created their own doctrine, military culture and professional troops with the main aim of retaking self proclaimed
Republic of Serbian Krajina, a separatist proto-state. In 1994, Croatian Army also established
NCO school in Zadar for its all-professional Guards brigades, These brigades were as follows: •
1st Guards Brigade - "The Tigers" •
2nd Guards Brigade - "The Thunders" •
3rd Guards Brigade - "The Martens" •
4th Guards Brigade - "The Spiders" •
5th Guards Brigade - "The Hawks" •
9th Guards Brigade - "The Wolves" •
7th Guards Brigade - "The Pumas" In terms of equipment, the HV also acquired more heavy weapons such as:
Argentinian CITER 155 mm field guns,
Romanian APR-40 rocket launchers, 21
MiG 21 fighter jets and 8
Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships. Croatians also domestically produced their own UAVs (such as: MAH-1, MAH-2 and BL M-99 "Bojnik"), used for scouting enemy positions and guiding artillery fire. These systems were put to use in military operations in late stages of the war. Some of the battles of from Croatian War of Independence include: •
Operation Coast-91 (1991) •
Battle of the Dalmatian channels (1991) •
Battle of Vukovar (1991) •
Battle of the barracks (1991) •
Operation Otkos 10 (1991) •
Siege of Dubrovnik (1991) •
Operation Maslenica (1993) •
Operation Medak pocket (1993) •
Operation Flash (1995) •
Operation Storm (1995) File:Da-se-ne-zaboravi-19.-Kolovoza-1991.-uslijedio-je-kombinirani-dugo-pripremani-pjesacko-artiljerijski-napad-Srba-na-Pakrac.jpg|
Special police troops of Croatian Ministry of Interior in
Pakrac, in August 1991. File:Destruction of a tank.jpg|Croatian soldiers engaging a Serb tank in 1992. File:Jack in Siritovci.jpg|A Croatian trooper in 1992. File:Mini besposadna letjelica M99 Bojnik (2).jpg|The unmanned flying vehicle M-99 "Bojnik", the kind of which Croatian Army used in late stages of Croatian War of Independence. Tuđman apparently considered
Banovina Hrvatska as legitimate and desirable model of territorial defining of Croatia. As the war in Croatia entered a ceasefire phase in 1992, while the Bosnian War was only beginning,
Zagreb sent shipments of weapons to Bosnian Croats and allowed Bosnian Croats serving in HV to bring their weapons home, where they helped forming the Bosnian Croat army
Croatian Defense Council (HVO). In certain cases still nascent HVO forces were commanded and organized by HV officers for which CIA refers to them as HV/HVO. The first wave of mujahedeens arrived throughout 1992. The second wave of mujahedeeds arrived in spring 1994 after cessation of hostilities in
Croat-Bosniak War. As
Serb forces tightened their grip on Bihać, by the late 1994, Croatians assessed potential fall of enclave as a threat to its own strategic position and threatened to intervene in the matter. Croatians feared that if Bihać falls the Serb forces engaged in the siege would be able to redeploy to wider Karlovac area, where territory of Croatia was only ten kilometers deep before Slovenian border. In order to deter Serbs from further attacking Bihać, as well as to improve its own positions arount
Knin, Croatians launched
Operation Winter '94 in late 1994. CIA also assessed that
Operation Storm as well as joint Croat/Bosniak offensives in autumn 1995, had greater influence than
NATO's air campaign in bringing Bosnian Serbs to negotiating table which ended the Bosnian War. •
Croat–Bosniak War (1992–1994) •
Operation Winter '94 (1994) •
Operation Summer '95 (1995) •
Operation Mistral 2 (1995) •
Operation Southern Move (1995) File:HVO Army T-55 Glamoc firing MG.jpg|HVO's T-55 tank. == 21st Century ==