Yugoslav People's Army

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Flag of Yugoslavia (1946-1992) .svg Yugoslav People's Army
Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija
Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija
Југословенска народна армија
Jugoslovanska ljudska armada
Logo of the JNA.svg
guide
Commander in Chief : President of Yugoslavia (1945–1980);
Presidium of the SFRY (1980–1992)
Defense Minister: People's Commissar for Defense
Military leadership: President of Yugoslavia (1945–1980); Commander in Chief (1980-1992)
Headquarters: Belgrade
Military strength
Active soldiers: approx. 620,000 (1980s)
Reservists: approx. 3,200,000 soldiers including TO (1980s)
Conscription: 18 months
Resilient population: approx. 6,200,000 (1980s)
Eligibility for military service: 15-65
history
Founding: March 1, 1945
Replacement: May 12, 1992
Highest manpower: approx. 680,000 active soldiers (1974)

The Yugoslav People's Army ( Serbo-Croatian Jugoslovenska / Jugoslavenska narodna armija (JNA) and Југословенска народна армија; Slovenian : Jugoslovanska ljudska armada ) were the until 1992 existing forces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia .

history

The armed forces had their origins in the armed part of the anti-fascist resistance against the occupation by the Axis powers during the Second World War between 1941 and 1945 under the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia .

On March 1, 1945, the army was formally formed from Tito's partisan units. On December 22, 1951, it was officially renamed the Yugoslav People's Army .

Members of the JNA in Sinai as part of the United Nations Emergency Force , 1957

After the Second World War, it was transformed into a regular army with a strong communist character (in 1990 around 96% of the officers and around half of the civilian employees were members of the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia). Although the political commissars , which were introduced after the Soviet model during the founding phase , were abolished in 1953, political work in the JNA remained extraordinarily intensive. After Tito's break with Stalin in 1948, the Yugoslav army also received US military aid until the early 1950s . So for decades it still had a mixture of originally Soviet, American and then increasingly also weapon systems and equipment from its own production.

In 1968 the army was reorganized and - under the impression of the crackdown of the Prague Spring  - the territorial defense (TO) was created as an equal organizational area. The territorial defense was an institution that existed parallel to the army, which, with an organizational form similar to the fire brigade , was supposed to organize the defense quickly and unbureaucratically in the event of an attack until the army arrived and was under the orders of the municipal administration. This orientation towards guerrilla warfare should make a quick invasion of enemy forces ( NATO and the Warsaw Pact ) difficult. The TO was set up territorially in the six republics and the two autonomous provinces and administered by these individually.

In 1974, six field armies were created and distributed across five of the republics of Yugoslavia. The 1st Army ( headquarters in Belgrade ) in Serbia and the autonomous province of Vojvodina , the 2nd Army (HQ Niš ) in southern Serbia and Kosovo , 3rd Army (HQ Skopje ) in Macedonia , the 5th Army (HQ Zagreb ) in Croatia , the 7th Army (HQ Sarajevo ) in Bosnia and the 9th Army (HQ Ljubljana ) in Slovenia . In addition, two corps were stationed in Montenegro . The former 4th Army was converted to the Coast Military District with HQ in Split , which spanned the entire coast of the country. The Navy possessed with an Adriatic fleet with several heavy units, the river flotilla, twelve Marines - brigades and 25 coastal artillery - batteries over powerful units to protect the Adriatic coast. The air force was based on the Soviet model and had three air corps (1, 3 and 5), each belonging to the army with the same number. In addition, the air forces had an anti - aircraft brigade and two anti-aircraft regiments. This organization lasted until 1988.

After the start of the first unrest in 1988 and after it became clear that there were more and more separatist movements within the individual republics, the armies were initially divided into military districts that no longer coincided with the borders of the republics. In addition, the territorial defense was dissolved.

The districts were finally redistributed to 1991, the previous infantry - divisions been dissolved and reassembled into their corps brigades. The districts included the 1st military district (HQ Belgrade) in northern Serbia, northeastern Croatia, Bosnia and Vojvodina, the 3rd military district (HQ Skopje) in southern Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia, parts of the Macedonian, Serbian and Montenegrin TO, the 5th military district (HQ Zagreb) in Slovenia, Western Croatia, the Slovenian and parts of the Croatian TO. Only the coastal military district remained, with minor changes.

Yugoslav Wars and Dissolution

The dissolution of the JNA took place together with the dissolution of the state of Yugoslavia. While the army was initially used as a buffer between the individual ethnic groups and was intended to guarantee the unity of Yugoslavia, in the course of 1992 it came more and more under the control of Serbia.

On March 10, 1991 there was a dramatic meeting of the Presidium of the SFRY . The JNA demanded from the Presidium - which was formally in command of the armed forces - to declare a state of emergency in order to be able to take action against the unrest in Croatia and Slovenia . While Serbia , Montenegro , Kosovo and Vojvodina voted in favor, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina voted against. The application was thus rejected.

Before the Yugoslav Wars , the army was a multi-ethnic group. Most (professional) soldiers and officers in particular felt connected to Yugoslavia as a state, but also committed to their ethnic group. At the end of 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia had finally left the Federal Republic, the People's Army was practically paralyzed in its role as the army of all Yugoslavs .

On March 15, 1991, Serbia declared that it no longer felt bound by the instructions of the Presidium and thus gave the army a free hand to act.

The first skirmishes in the civil war for Yugoslavia took place in the context of the 10-day war for Slovenia's independence. Slovenia took command of its TO troops on June 25, 1991 and began securing its borders with Austria, Italy, Hungary and the rest of Yugoslavia.

Withdrawal of the JNA from Slovenia in the course of the 10-day war in 1991

The JNA was not prepared for the situation. The Slovenian armed forces , which emerged from the Slovenian TO and police, managed to block the JNA in their barracks and cut off supplies. Thanks to the help of Croatia, which is also striving for independence, hardly any JNA units from Bosnia and Serbia were able to move up.

After ten days, an armistice was agreed between the JNA and the Slovenes. In October 1991 the last Yugoslav soldier left the country. In total, the JNA had 44 dead and 146 wounded and 4,693 prisoners. On the Slovenian side there were 18 dead and 182 wounded.

The second scene of the war was Croatia, which had also declared independence on June 25, 1991.

It was mainly conducted around the area of ​​the so-called Krajina , which is mostly inhabited by Serbs ; but larger Croatian cities as well as the areas of Slavonia and northern Dalmatia , in which Serbs were a minority, were also affected. The aim of Serbia was to gain control of a contiguous territory in order to connect the Serbian-populated areas to a “rest of Yugoslavia”. Croatia's goal was to secure its borders.

On the basis of a decision by the Presidium of the SFRY not to intervene for the time being, the JNA initially did not participate directly in the fighting, but provided logistical support to Serbian associations. When Croatia decided to block the JNA barracks on its territory, the army openly appeared as a warring party. She participated in the shelling of Croatian cities such as Vukovar, Osijek and Dubrovnik and blocked Croatian Adriatic ports.

On April 27, 1992, with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , which consisted only of Serbia and Montenegro , the army was also renamed the Army of Yugoslavia ( Vojska Jugoslavije ).

In May 1992 the United Nations Security Council confirmed the new republics on the former territory of Yugoslavia. The army of Yugoslavia had to withdraw from the sovereign states of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina .

On May 12, 1992 the remnants of the People's Army were split up, one part withdrew to Serbia , while the other part formed the Vojska Republike Srpske . Thus most of the armament of the People's Army remained in the hands of the Serbs. The army of Yugoslavia officially did not intervene in this war because Serbia was not at war with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Structure and structure

In 1988, the JNA consisted of three armed forces:

  • Land Forces of the Yugoslav People's Army (Serbo-Croatian: Kopnena Vojska )
  • Air Force of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbian: Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protiv vazdušna odbrana - RV i PVO SFRJ / Croatian: Ratno zrakoplovstvo i protuzračna obrana - RZ i PZO SFRJ )
  • Navy of Yugoslavia (Serbian: Jugoslovenska ratna mornarica / Croatian: Jugoslavenska ratna mornarica )

The structure of the JNA was drastically changed after the beginning of the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1991. After the last change, the JNA was divided into three military districts (1st, 3rd and 5th Army ) and one military district of the Navy . The air force had its own headquarters with the same command structure. Each military district (MD) was responsible for the troops in its geographic region.

The arms industry of Yugoslavia comprised 56 factories with 8,000 scientists and 72,000 workers. Another 100,000 worked in supplier companies. About 60 percent of the production was in Bosnia and Herzegovina .

Land Forces

Emblem of the Yugoslav Land Forces

In the 1980s, the Yugoslav land forces had a troop strength of around 240,000 to 260,000 professional soldiers and around 100,000 conscripted recruits and 1,500,000 trained reservists . There were also around 1,500,000 members of the Territorial Defense (TO).

An M-84 tank of the Yugoslav Land Forces

construction

The establishment of the Yugoslav People's Army by 1988.

1st Army

Belgrade divided into

  • 4th Corps with headquarters in Sarajevo
  • 5th Corps with headquarters in Banja Luka
  • 12th Corps with headquarters in Novi Sad
  • 17th Corps with headquarters in Tuzla
  • 24th Corps with headquarters in Kragujevac and
  • 37th Corps with headquarters in Užice

3rd Army

Skopje divided into

5th Army

Zagreb divided into

  • 10th Corps with headquarters in Zagreb
  • 13th Corps with headquarters in Rijeka
  • 14th Corps with headquarters in Ljubljana
  • 31st Corps with headquarters in Maribor and
  • 32nd Corps with headquarters in Varaždin

equipment

Standard helmet M 59/85 of the JNA
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Evidence of equipment strengths
  • Medium tanks
  • Light tanks
  • Armored personnel carriers and armored personnel carriers
  • Self-propelled guns
  • Rocket artillery

Air Force

Air Force logo
Marking on the aircraft

The headquarters of the air force was in the Belgrade district of Zemun .

equipment

Status 1990 of the Air Force and Air Defense ( Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protiv vazdušna odbrana , RV i PVO for short ):

A G-4 SOKO Super Galeb from Yugoslav production

Warplanes

helicopter

Transport aircraft

Trainer

Air bases

marine

Emblem of the JRM
Gösch of the JRM
Sail training ship Jadran of the JRM (today in Montenegro)

The navy had its headquarters in Split .

equipment

The Yugoslav Navy ( Jugoslavenska ratna mornarica , short JRM ) had the following equipment:

Submarines

  • 3 × Heroj class (patrol submarines)
  • 3 × Sava class (patrol submarines)
  • 2 × Sutjeska class (training boats)
  • 6 × Una class (small submarines)
  • 4 × Mala class (small submarines)

Surface vessels

Web links

Commons : Yugoslav People's Army  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ^ A b c N. Thomas and K. Mikulan: The War of Yugoslavia (1) Slovenia & Croatia 1991–95 . Osprey Publishing Ltd., New York, USA 2006, ISBN 1-84176-963-0 , The Yugoslav People's Army, p. 7 (American English: The Yugoslav Wars (1) Slovenia & Croata 1991-95 .).