World War II Day by Day

Vienna, Austria · March 25, 1941

On this date in 1941 in Vienna, the govern­ment of Yugo­slav regent Prince Paul signed a protocol of ad­herence to the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Tri­par­tite Pact, there­by setting the stage for a com­plex guer­rilla war against Ger­mans, Ital­ians, and their Yugo­slav allies, and within the Yugo­slav resis­tance forces them­selves. Not two days after aligning Yugo­sla­via with the Axis, the Yugo­slav army over­threw Paul and pro­claimed seventeen-year-old Peter II as king. A new cabi­net announced a policy of neu­tra­lity. In Berlin Adolf Hitler was furious and lost little time raining bombs on Bel­grade, the Yugo­slav capital, killing 17,000 civil­ians in a series of air raids—the largest num­ber of dead in a single day since the Euro­pean con­flict began in Septem­ber 1939. Out­matched in the air and on the ground, the Yugo­slav high com­mand surrendered on April 17. Not until three and a half years later, on Septem­ber 6, 1944, after smashing and occupying Roma­nia and declaring war on neigh­boring Bulgaria, did the Allies in the form of the Red Army set foot on Yugo­slav soil, pushing their way to the Dal­ma­tian coast and linking up with Yugo­slav Par­ti­sans, who for months had tied down a con­sid­er­able number of Ger­man troops. To the south of Yugo­sla­via, Brit­ish air­borne forces descended on Greece (Septem­ber 24, 1944) and advanced on Athens, liber­ating the capi­tal on Octo­ber 13. On Octo­ber 19, Ger­man forces, holed up in Bel­grade for half a week, fled the ruined capi­tal, which was occupied by Soviet troops and Josip Tito’s Yugo­slav Army on Octo­ber 20. That same week, Octo­ber 9–19, 1944, Brit­ish Prime Minis­ter Winston Chur­chill was in Mos­cow for dis­cus­sions with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The two men adopted the Percent­ages Agree­ment, whereby the two Allies divided the Bal­kan region into spheres of in­flu­ence. Under terms of the agree­ment, the Soviets would pre­dom­i­nate in Roma­nia, Bul­garia, and Hun­gary—Axis coun­tries where the Red Army had been or would soon be, while Great Britain would assume power in Greece. Both coun­tries would share in­flu­ence in Yugo­sla­via. Presi­dent Franklin D. Roose­velt, upon learning of the agree­ments reached by Chur­chill and Stalin, announced that his adminis­tration would not be bound by the terms.

Yugoslavia During World War II

Left: King Peter II of Yugoslavia. On March 27, 1941, Peter, then 17, was pro­claimed of age and par­ti­ci­pated in a Brit­ish-supported coup d’état op­posing the Tri­par­tite Pact. Peter (reign: 1934–1945) was forced to leave the coun­try with the Yugo­slav govern­ment following the Axis in­vasion by Ger­man, Ital­ian, and Hungarian armies.

Right: Hitler in the company of his press secre­tary and the chief of his chan­cel­lery crossing the Old Bridge (Stari most) in Mar­burg an der Drau (Mari­bor), Yugo­slavia (in today’s north­eastern Slo­venia), 1941.

Left: Partisan supreme com­mander Marshal Josip Broz Tito, 1942. Tito’s for­mi­dable com­munist guerril­la force, con­cealed in rural vil­lages, the country­side, and moun­tain strong­holds, was a con­stant thorn in the side of the Wehr­macht, prompting nu­mer­ous anti-Partisan operations and much bloodshed.

Right: Tito and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, keeping his dis­tance, pose for the camera in Naples, Italy, 1944. Chur­chill called it one of his big­gest war­time blun­ders—shifting Brit­ish and U.S. sup­port from Yugo­slavia’s Draža Mihail­ovic and his royalist resis­tance move­ment to Tito and his com­munist Partisans.

Hitler Revenges Himself on Yugoslavia, the Emergence of Yugo­slav Resis­tance Groups, and the Rise of Tito’s Dictatorship