Croatia was an ancient kingdom, but for centuries the country had been under foreign rule, for a significant period under the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
After the First World War of 1914\u201318, Croatia was forcibly incorporated\u2014very much against the wishes of the population\u2014into the new Greater Serbia, Yugoslavia.
Between Croats and Serbs there existed an age-old hostility, which often resulted in violent incidents and conflicts.
The Germans skillfully exploited these tensions and established a Croatian puppet government, with a promise of full self-government after the end of the war.
As a result, a large number of young Croats volunteered for the German army, and the army established by the government to fight the partisans also gained strong support. <\/p>\n
Officially, the Germans were masters in the Balkans and controlled all important towns, all ports, railways, and transport hubs, but they had to wage a constant struggle against the partisans in order to make use of the advantages of these possessions.
The country seemed made for partisan activity; the desolate, inaccessible mountain regions and the dense thicket forests made up a large part of Yugoslavia\u2014and it was here that Marshal Tito and his bands held sway. <\/p>\n
Who this Tito was and where he actually came from was shrouded in a mist of mystery; at least at that time we were not aware of how his past had unfolded.<\/p>\n
Marshal Tito was a communist, and his bands were ideologically communist. In his struggle he received support both from Russia and England, but the directives and orders came from Moscow.
In hardly any of the occupied countries did partisan warfare play such a major role or reach such proportions as in Yugoslavia.
From southern Serbia and parts of Greece through Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, and Croatia in the north, Tito and his men operated.
Tito\u2019s core troops were recruited from Serbia, but otherwise it was a mixed assembly of all the Balkan peoples who gathered under his banners.
He never left the Germans in peace. Strongly favoured by the terrain, he had placed snipers and ambush units everywhere, whose actions forced the Germans to maintain a disproportionately large occupation force in the Balkans.
With great skill and energy, but also with considerable brutality, Tito conducted his struggle\u2014sometimes blowing up trains, sometimes attacking pro-German villages, and when it suited his plans, engaging the Germans in full-scale battles.
At his disposal Marshal Tito had a large number of men who from childhood were familiar with this form of warfare\u2014people accustomed to the mountains and forests, trained in hardship, endurance, and deprivation. In terms of personal courage, however, judged by our standards, they did not particularly distinguish themselves. <\/p>\n
When Mussolini was overthrown and Italy defected as Germany\u2019s ally, a large part of the Italian army stationed in Yugoslavia followed Marshal Badoglio\u2019s orders and joined Tito\u2019s partisans.
As a result, a considerable amount of weapons and equipment fell into the hands of the Red Marshal, whereas the Italian soldiers themselves hardly added any significant combat strength to his forces.
Wherever we fought against the Italians, they showed only limited fighting ability. <\/p>\n
Such were the conditions in September 1943, when Regiment Denmark arrived in the Balkans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2792,"template":"","personer":[115],"class_list":["post-2807","litteratur_og_kilder","type-litteratur_og_kilder","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","personer-marius-soerensen"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder\/2807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"personer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/personer?post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}