A little bit of history:
AP Online
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, April 14, 1999
Pentagon, NATO Study Nazi Quagmire
By JOHN DIAMOND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pentagon and NATO officials considering ground troop options for Yugoslavia are studying the history of Yugoslav resistance during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of German soldiers failed to pacify determined guerrilla opposition.
The Nazi campaign was called "Operation Punishment," reflecting Adolf Hitler's rage against Yugoslav partisans who overthrew their own government after Belgrade made a pact with Berlin. The campaign was well named - Yugoslav civilians were attacked with an intensity far beyond anything NATO would contemplate.
In the end, though, the Wermacht took plenty of punishment. And five
decades later the campaign offers lessons for any force reckoning to do battle with the hardy "South Slavs" who plagued the German army in a costly guerrilla war.
When NATO first studied ground troop options last fall, Clinton administration planners cited the German experience as one reason to rule out ground troops as an option in the Kosovo crisis.
"We always look at historical campaigns - that's something we always do" when planning a deployment, said Maj. Shelly Stellwagen, an Army spokeswoman. But she cautioned, "History alone is not enough - you've got to look at the big picture."
After insisting for weeks that no plans for ground troops were in the works, top Clinton administration officials now concede that some contingencies were studied and that plans could quickly be activated if NATO decided on a ground assault. U.S. lawmakers, frustrated with the continuing ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia despite a three-week NATO air campaign, are pushing a resolution to authorize ground troops.
Pentagon planners said they were careful not to overdo the comparison
of two markedly different armies fighting with different equipment in
different political contexts. But the difficulty of the terrain and the stubbornness of the Yugoslav people remain powerful common denominators, they said.
The German invasion force of nearly 200,000 - a figure some U.S.
officials have cited as necessary to invade Yugoslavia today -
fluctuated after 1941 from a low of 60,000 to a high of 700,000. Through it all, the Germans were never able to quell the multiple and dogged Yugoslav resistance forces.
An official U.S. Army history of the campaign, written in the early
1950s, contained a warning for any future force contemplating
challenging Yugoslavia on the ground.
"The success achieved by the (Yugoslav) guerrillas against the
Germans ... strengthened considerably the tradition of resistance to
foreign occupation forces," the Army history concluded. "There is little doubt that a foreign invader today, whether from East or West, would be confronted with a formidable task of pacification following a successful campaign against the regular forces of the Balkan nations."
As Hitler planned "Operation Barbarossa," the German invasion of the
Soviet Union, he wanted to secure his southern flank by neutralizing
Greece. To do that he needed Yugoslavia's cooperation, and in early 1941 he thought he had it.
But Hitler badly misjudged the sentiments of the Yugoslav people.
A coup in March 1941 toppled Yugoslavia's royal government, setting a
precedent that undoubtedly influences the thinking of Yugoslavia's
current leadership: Governments that cave in to foreign pressure will be ousted from within.
Hitler, in a rage, ordered the carpet-bombing of Belgrade.
Hitler's War Directive No. 25 said, "The ground installations of the
Yugoslav air force and the city of Belgrade will be destroyed from the
air by continual day and night attacks." The strikes began 58 years ago this month, on April 6, 1941.
The Germans aimed specifically at killing civilians during 48 hours
of near-continuous bombing. Hitler wanted to spare Yugoslavia's
factories for his own use. NATO, by contrast, has been seeking to avoid civilian casualties while aiming at destroying Yugoslav military and weapons installations. The Germans used 1,000 attack and escort aircraft in those 48 hours. NATO has employed 700 - soon to be 1,000 - strike and support aircraft in three weeks of attacks.
Estimated death totals from the Nazi bombing range widely, but
published German and American estimates put the total as high as 17,000.
The German ground invasion consisted of a dozen divisions - roughly
180,000 troops - supplemented by forces from Bulgaria and Italy. German forces completed their conquest of the Balkans in 11 days.
But the lightning conquest only began Germany's troubles in the Balkans.
Despite brutal tactics, summary executions and wholesale burning of
villages, German forces assaulted guerrilla strongholds again and again, only to see the rebels slip into the hills and forests. By mid-1943, the U.S. Army history recounted, "It was obvious that more German troops would be required if the Balkans were to be held."
Total German forces peaked at 700,000 at the beginning of 1943,
though many of these troops were either green or battle-weary veterans
resting from the Russian front. No precise casualty figures exist for
German forces in Yugoslavia.
Belgrade fell to the westward-marching Russians on Oct. 20, 1944.
When riding a dead horse, the best strategy is usually to dismount. |
