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The National Liberation War of Macedonia (Macedonian: Народноослободителна Борба на Македонија (НОБ), Latinic: Narodnoosloboditelna Borba na Makedonija (NOB)) was a political and military operation carried out by Macedonian partisans from October 11, 1941 until 1944 when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established.
| National Liberation War of Macedonia | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Yugoslav People's Liberation War (World War II) | |||||||||
| File:Goce delcev odred small.jpg Partisan fighters of the Goce Delčev National Liberation Detachment, 1943 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Allied Powers (communist): Macedonian Partisans Macedonian National Liberation Army |
 Italy Bulgaria Albania | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
many Notably: Mirče Acev Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo |
Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Boris III of Bulgaria Victor Emmanuel III | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| ~56,000 - 1945 | ~60,000 - 1945 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
Total Casualties: ~2,500-~3,000 | |||||||||
Background: the invasion of Yugoslavia
Between 6 April, 1941 and 17 April, 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Croatia allied with Nazi Germany and temporarily became an independent state; Independent State of Croatia. Bosnia was ceded to Croatia by Germany and Serbia also became and independent state as Nedić's Serbia. The Macedonian (Vardar Banovina or Vardar Macedonia) part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was annexed by Bulgaria and, along with various other regions, became Greater Bulgaria. The western-most part of Vardar Macedonia was occupied by the fascist Kingdom of Italy with the remainder being ceded to Axis-allied Bulgaria by Nazi Germany.
Timeline
Early stages and conflict
At the beginning of the war on the Balkans all in Macedonia shows how complicated the situation was. The political sympathies were intertwined with the national feelings. As ruling, the pro-Serbian elements were for the English-French block and the pro - Bulgarian, for the power of Axis. Besides, some of the former revolutionary activists were not far from the thought of solving the Macedonian question through accession of Macedonia or parts of it to Italy. The followers of Ivan Mihaylov fought for pro-Axis and pro-Bulgarian Macedonia. In this situation the population was divided in different groups. And time was crucial.
As the Bulgarian army entered Vardar Macedonia on April 19, 1941, it was greeted by most of the population as liberators[1] Former IMRO members were active in organizing Bulgarian Action Committees[2] charged with taking over the local authorities. Metodi Shatarov - Šarlo, who was a leading member of the Yugoslav Communist Party, also refused to define the Bulgarian forces as occupiers (contrary to instructions from Belgrade) and called for the incorporation of the local Macedonian Communist organizations within the Bulgarian Communist Party. The Macedonian Regional Committee refused to remain in contact with CPY and linked up with BCP as soon as the invasion of Yugoslavia started. Šarlo refused to distribute the proclamation of the CPY calling for military actions against Bulgarians..[3] More then 10,000 Yugoslav Macedonian soldiers who had been conscripted into the Yugoslav army and captured by the Germans and Italians, had been liberated as Bulgarians.
It is important to remark that the local population was regarded from the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians as Bulgarian.
The prominent force which occupied most of Vardar Macedonia was the Bulgarian 5th Army, which occupied the region from the time of its annexation until the time it was liberated. The 6th and 7th Infantry Divisions were active in invading the Vardar Banovina between April 18 and April 24, 1941. The army was mainly present in the western part of Vardar Macedonia, close the Italian occupational zone, because of some border clashes with Italians, who implementеd Albanian interests and terrorised the local peasants.[4] Units of the 5th army were occupying larger cities and towns; Skopje occupied by the 14th Infantry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Bitola occupied by the 15th Infantry Division and Štip, occupied by the 1st Cavalry Regiment. Both the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Regiments were branches of the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Bulgarian 5th Army.[5]
Before the German invasion in USSR, there had not been any resistance in Vardar Banovina.At the start of World War II, the Comintern supported a policy of non-intervention, arguing that the war was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes. But when the Soviet Union itself was invaded on 22 June 1941, the Comintern changed its position. According to that resistance movement called Fatherland Front, was set up in August, 1941 by the Bulgarian Communist Party to oppose the pro-Nazi government. After that and when already most of Yugoslavia was annexed by Axis Powers, Macedonian partisans, which not only included ethnic Macedonians, but also local Aromanians, Serbs, Albanians and Bulgarians[6], had begun organizing their resistance. On August 22, 1941, the First Skopje Partisan Detachment was founded and had been attacking Axis soldiers in Bogomila, in today's Čaška municipality near Skopje.
The revolt on October 11, 1941 by the Prilep Partisan Detachment is considered to be the symbolic beginning of the resistance. Armed insurgents from the Prilep Partisan Detachment attacked Axis occupied zones in the city of Prilep, notably a police station, killing one Bulgarian policeman of ethnic Macedonian origin, which led to attacks in Kruševo by the Kruševo Partisan Detachment and the creation of small rebel detachments in other regions of Macedonia. Partisan detachments were formed in Greek Macedonia and today's Bulgarian Macedonia under the leadership of Communist Party of Greece and Bulgarian Communist Party. Combatants of the Jane Sandanski Brigade were to participate in the National Liberation War of Macedonia, but soon after the foundation, the brigade was disbanded and the combatants joined the Bulgarian partisans. In Strumica, approximately 3,800 fighters took part in the formation of military movements of the region; The 4th, 14th and 20th Macedonian Action Brigades, the Strumica Partisan Detachment and the 50th and 51st Macedonian Divisions were formed.[3]
1942-1943
With the ongoing war in 1942 and 1943 for liberation of Macedonia between anti-fascist partisan detachments and Axis forces, new squads were constantly formed and in 1942 nine partisan detachments were active in Vardar Macedonia and had liberated and controlled mountainous territories around Prilep, Skopje, Kruševo and Veles. The policy of minimal resistance changed towards 1943 with the arrival of the Montenegrin Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, who began to organize an armed resistance against the Bulgarian occupation. During World War II he served on the Supreme Staff of CPY and became Josip Broz Tito's personal representative in Vardar Banovina.
The first Macedonian army, the Macedonian National Liberation Army, was formed in 1943, consisting of several military units and battalions one of the first being the Mirče Acev Battalion, which was formed on August 18, 1943 on Mount Slavej. At around the same time period, the first (and only, until 1991 Macedonian political party) was created; the Communist Party of Macedonia which was closely affiliated with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. On November 1, 1943, the First Macedonian-Kosovo Brigade was formed by having existing battalions from the regions of Macedonia and fascist Italian occupied Kosovo combine to create one unit, but on December 20, 1943 joined the Second Macedonian Brigade. Among the first liberated, were the regions of Debarca, Mavrovo and Rostuša and the towns Kičevo and Debar, within Italy's occupational territory.
Local recruits and volunteers formed the Bulgarian 5th Army, based in Skopje, which was responsible for the round-up and deportation of over 7,000 Jews in Skopje and Bitola. Harsh rule by the occupying forces and a number of Allied victories indicated that the Axis might lose the war and that encouraged more Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito.
Many former IMRO members assisted the Bulgarian authorities in fighting Tempo's partisans. With the help of Macedonian emigrants, several pro-German and anti-Greek armed detachments (Ohrana) were organized in the Kastoria, Florina and Edessa districts of occupied Greek Macedonia in 1943. These were led by Bulgarian officers originally from the northern Greek province of Macedonia; Andon Kalchev and Georgi Dimchev[7].
1944 and aftermath
Since the formation of a partisan army and Communist party in 1943, Macedonian partisans were aspiring to create an autonomous government. In Spring of 1944 the Macedonian National Liberation Army launched an operation called "The Spring Offensive" which engaged an estimated 60,000 German and Bulgarian soldiers.
On August 2, 1944, on the 41st anniversary of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, the first session of the newly created Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) was held at the St. Prohor Pčinjski monastery. Corresponding to the Resolutions of Comintern for the recognition of Macedonian nation from January 11, 1934 and for creation of Balkan Communist Federation a manifesto was written outlining the future plans of ASNOM for an independent Macedonian state. However, under pro-Serbian pressure a decision was later reached that Vardar Macedonia will become a part of new Communist Yugoslavia.
In September, 1944 IMRO leader Ivan Mihaylov was offered by the Germans in Skopje to head a future pro-German Macedonian state but he declined, favoring the occupation of Vardar Macedonia by Bulgaria. On September 9th 1944 the Fatherland Front made a coup d'état and deposed the pro-German government. Already the following day the new government declared war on Germany and all its allies. After the declaration of war by Bulgaria on Germany, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Under the leadership of a new Bulgarian pro-Communist government, three Bulgarian armies (some 500,000 strong in total) entered occupied Yugoslavia in late September, 1944 and moved from Sofia to Niš and Skopje with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and most of Macedonia were liberated within a month. They continued its offensive towards Hungary. In April 1945 the Bulgarian forces reached Klagenfurt in Austria, where they met British troops on the very same day as Nazi-Germany capitulated.
On October 15, 1944, Macedonian partisans liberated Ohrid from Axis occupants for a short period of time. They were forced to withdraw by the overwhelmingly larger German army and Ohrid became occupied by Nazi German forces. On the early morning of November 7, 1944 units of the 48th People's Liberation Division and the V Brigade of the 48th People's Liberation Division headed an attack on Axis forces. The remaining units of the 48th People's Liberation Division entered the town and resumed attacks on opposing forces on that evening. On the following morning, Ohrid was entirely liberated from Axis occupation.[8] Strumica was liberated from German and Bulgarian occupation by the Strumica Partisan Detachment, headed by Boro Pockov, two days prior to the liberation of Ohrid.
After the liberation of a majority of towns in Vardar Macedonia, the Macedonian National Liberation Army aided Yugoslav Partisans in conclusive operations for the liberation of Yugoslavia from fascist occupation. The army of ethnic Macedonians in Nedić's Serbia and the regions of Macedonia was now some 25,000 strong, compiling of several reorganized Macedonian partisan units, such as the 15th Macedonian Corps.[9] On November 19, 1944, with the liberation of Tetovo and Gostivar, the Vardar region of Macedonia was completely liberated and as intended by ASNOM, joined Yugoslavia. Nedić's Serbia along with a liberated Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[10][11]
By the Spring of 1945 the Macedonian National Liberation Army numbered over 65,000 combatants in the Vardar Macedonia which produced about 2,000 victims in battles against the Germans. German, Italian and Bulgarian occupiers of the region had over 60,000 military and administrative police personnel.[12]
Controversies and Consequences
During the WWII Bulgarian army was involved in some war crimes. The execution of 12 young males and 4 females, most of them members of CPY by fascist Bulgarian soldiers is one of the most controversial events of World War II among ethnic Macedonians. The massacre, which took place on June 16, 1943, engaged 16 members of the Communist Party of Vataša, a village near Kavadarci. The Bulgarian Army was scouting ethnic Macedonian partisans and raided all the houses in the village. Without any success of pursuing the partisans, members of the Bulgarian Army captured the 12 men and interrogated them, demanding them to reveal the whereabouts the partisans. After the unsuccessful interrogation, the men were beaten and shot by the Bulgarian soldiers. A group of females were witnesses to the executions, several of them were sisters of the male victims and escaped but 4 of them were also killed by the army.[13][14] Following the National Liberation War, accusations surfaced that partisans in Macedonia were involved in acts that some characterize as war crimes too. The partisans engaged in retribution in the immediate post-war period against people who did not support the formation of the new Macedonian republic. The numbers of dead due to organized killings, however, far outstrip even the most lavish estimates of the partisan crimes' death toll. Indeed, the partisans were the only armed force in the region that actually did not have official genocidal agendas. Many people went throughout the concentration camp of Goli Otok for pro-Bulgarian sympathies or an independent or united Macedonia ideology in the late 1940s.[15]This chapter of the partisan's history was a taboo subject for conversation in the SFRY until the late the 1980s, and as a result, decades of official silence created a reaction in the form of numerous data manipulation for nationalist communist propaganda purposes.[16]
The first serious resistance against the return of Vardar Macedonia to Yugoslavia, is the armed mutiny of the new Macedonian army in Scopje in December 1944. Receiving an order to dislocate to the "Srem's front" in Serbia, several thousand soldiers and officers from all regions of Vardar Macedonia, most of them just demissioned from the Bulgarian army, organised armed mutiny. On December 16, 1944, they head for the Headquarters of the Macedonian National Liberation Army located in the Officers House in Skopje, with the slogans: " We don't want Srem! We want Salonica", "We don't want new Yugoslavia! We want free and independent Macedonia". These slogans frighten the High Command in Scopje. Seeing a sea of armed soldiers surrounding the Officers' Houise and hearing them, Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo declared to the officers around him, most of them Serbs that, these are "bugarashi", "IMRO-members", "mihailovists" and "fascists". They have to be stopped, and their leaders to be shot. Such instruction Tempo receives from Belgrade, too.
All local soldiers and officers, who disobey the Supreme Command and voice the slogan for "independent Macedonia" ware to be immediately shot, is said in the order of the Supreme Comand in Belgrade. Tempo, then, sent the Shtip - born General Mihailo Apostolski, who invites all officers disagreeing with the order of the Headquarters for translocation for Srem, to gather in the Hall of the Officers' House and discuss together the situation, while the soldiers are to return to the barracks.The officers leading the mutiny acept the invitation, with no thought of possible treason.
All, after entering the Officers' House, are disarmed in a most violent way and with hands bound are taken to the cellars. In this way, on December 16, 1944, for several hours only, according to still not fully verified information, ware killed around 70 officers, young Macedonian patriots, who have the consciousness to fight not only for the liberation of Macedonia from the Germans, but also not to permit its new dependency by Serbia and Greece. Almost thousand soldiers, understanding that something is happening to their commanders, head once again for the center of Skopje. They, however, are met by Serbian communist partisans, who commence violent machine-gun fire on them. Several dozens of them foll dead, others are wounded and die without any help having been offered. About 900 ware disarmed, arrested and imprisoned. Left and "forgotten" there for more than a month without food, water, covers and etc. Almost many of them died from cold and hunger in the dark dungeons.
Other of the victims of these campaigns was Metodija Andonov - Čento, a wartime partisan leader and president of ASNOM, who was convinced of having worked for a "completely independent Macedonia" as "an IMRO member". He was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Also, Communists who supported Metodi Šatorov's pro-Bulgarian line in new Macedonia, called Šarlisti, were systematically exterminated by the CPY in the autumn of 1944 and repressed for their anti-Yugoslavian political positions. Šatarov himself was sentenced to death by the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1941. Šarlo was killed under unknown circumstances in September, 1944 in a battle in the Rhodope Mountains.
Former members of the IMRO (United) which participated in CPY, ASNOM and the forming of Republic of Macedonia as a federal state of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, such as Panko Brashnarov, Pavel Shatev, Dimitar Vlahov and Venko Markovski were quickly ousted from the new government. Such Macedonian activists came from the Bulgarian Communist Party and with Bulgarian education, who have declared Bulgarian ethnicity before WWII but never managed to get rid of their pro-Bulgarian bias and because of that, the first and second one ware annihilated. As last survivor among the communists associated with the idea of Macedonian autonomy, Dimitar Vlahov, was used "solely for window dressing". They were chanced from cadres loyal to the Yugoslav Communist Party in Belgrade, who had pro-Serbian leanings and education before the war.It was not important that thеse party members had declared Bulgarian origin during the war, along with Kiro Gligorov, Mihailo Apostolski and Lazar Koliševski.
On the other hand, former Mihaylovists were also persecuted by the Belgrade-controlled authorities on accusations of collaboration with the Bulgarian occupation, Bulgarian nationalism, anti-communist and anti-Yugoslav activities, etc. Notable victims included Spiro Kitinčev, mayor of Skopje, Ilija Kocarev, mayor of Ohrid and Georgi Karev, the mayor of Kruševo and brother of Ilinden revolutionary Nikola Karev. Another IMRO activist, Sterio Guli, son of Pitu Guli, reportedly shot himself upon the arrival of Tito's partisans in Kruševo in despair over what he saw as a "second period of Serbian dominance in Macedonia".
However, the Bulgarian army during the annexation of the region was partially recruited from the local population, which formed as much as 40% of the soldiers in certain battalions. Some official comments of deputies in Macedonian parliament[17]and of former Premier, Ljubčo Georgievski after 1991 announced the "struggle was civil but not a liberation war".[18] According to official sources the number of Macedonian communist partisan's victims against the Bulgarian army during WWII was 539 men, which is not a high level. Bulgarian historian and director of the Bulgarian National Historical Museum Dr. Bozhidar Dimitrov, in his 2003 book The Ten Lies of Macedonism, has also questioned the extent of resistance of the local population of Vardar Macedonia against the Bulgarian forces.
See also
References
- ^ МАКЕДОНИЯ 1941, "Възкресението" - С. Нанев, 1941 г.
- ^ Bulgarian Campaign Committees in Macedonia - 1941 Dimitre Mičev
- ^ "Зборник докумената и података о народоослободплачком рату jугословенских народа", т. VII, кн. 1, Борбе у Македониjи. Београд, 1952, с. XII и 22.
- ^ Богдан Филов, Дневник /под общата редакция на Илчо Димитров/ (Изд-во на Отечествения фронт), С. 1986; 1990 [1]
- ^ Bulgarian army occupation units in Yugoslavia 1941
- ^ Кои беа партизаните во Македонија Никола Петров, Скопје, 1998
- ^ IMRO Militia And Volunteer Battalions Of Southwestern Macedonia, 1943-1944 by Vic Nicholas
- ^ http://www.ohrid.org.mk/eng/istorija/ww2.htm
- ^ ФОРУМ, "КАТАРАКТА", Ефтим Гашев
- ^ World Investment News Macedonia, Historical Events
- ^ Unet.com.mk Uprising!
- ^ Narodnooslobodilachka vojska Jugoslavije. Pregled Razvoja oruzhanih snaga narodnooslobodilachkog pokreta, 1941-45, Belgrade, 1982, 590-815
- ^ THE EXECUTION OF THE 12 YOUNG MEN FROM VATASA IN MACEDONIA ON THE 16 JUNE, 1943
- ^ TODAY IN HISTORY, 1943 Macedonian Information Agency, June 16, 2007
- ^ Goli Otok : the island of death : a diary in letters by Venko Markovski, New York, Columbia University Press, 1984
- ^ Македонската кървава Коледа. Създаване и утвърждаване на Вардарска Македония като Република в Югославска Федерация (1943-1946) Веселин Ангелов, 2003-08-01
- ^ СТЕНОГРАФСКИ БЕЛЕШКИ Тринаесеттото продолжение на Четиринаесеттата седница на Собранието на Република Македонија, 17 January, 2007
- ^ КОЈ СО КОГО ЌЕ СЕ ПОМИРУВА - Лидерот на ВМРО-ДПМНЕ и Премиер на Република Македониjа, Љубчо Георгиевски одговара и полемизира на темата за национално помирување.