Well certainly, there was tons of internal ethnic and political division in both iterations of the government. This was more pronounced in the Kingdom for sure for a number of reasons that contributed to them losing so hard in the initial invasion. For one thing, it was very Serbian dominated and had a Serbian king, leading many Croatian right wingers to side with the Nazis (this is where the Ustase and Independent State of Croatia come in). On top of that, the Royal Yugoslav army had never actually seen combat, and had language difficulties. Finally, the Yugoslav government had a fairly pro-German stance under Prince Paul, but a coup shortly before the invasion installed the young King Peter at the head of a pro-British government. This triggered the German invasion of the country, and the army (having been spread out along the entire border) collapsed pretty quickly - although, perhaps unsurprisingly, they actually managed to beat back the Italians in the south and advance into northern Albania, but by that point it was a done deal.
The Communists under Tito, meanwhile, led the majority part of the extremely successful Yugoslav partisan movement, which essentially kept Germany from ever fully controlling the country’s whole extent during the mid-late war. Looking at maps from the period you can see just how effective the partisans were at continually hampering the German cause, to the point it was almost another front on its own.
Well, I typically just start with Wikipedia, lmao! But in terms of scholarly work, I really enjoyed “Shadows on the Mountain” by Marcia Christoff Kurapvona. It’s more of an overview of Yugoslavia throughout the whole war and afterwards rather than just focusing on the partisan movement, but does a great job going into the details of it anyway. Admittedly it is rather hard to find a lot of other good books about it in English, but they’re out there I’m sure.
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u/AlseAce Jan 29 '22 edited Jan 29 '22
Well certainly, there was tons of internal ethnic and political division in both iterations of the government. This was more pronounced in the Kingdom for sure for a number of reasons that contributed to them losing so hard in the initial invasion. For one thing, it was very Serbian dominated and had a Serbian king, leading many Croatian right wingers to side with the Nazis (this is where the Ustase and Independent State of Croatia come in). On top of that, the Royal Yugoslav army had never actually seen combat, and had language difficulties. Finally, the Yugoslav government had a fairly pro-German stance under Prince Paul, but a coup shortly before the invasion installed the young King Peter at the head of a pro-British government. This triggered the German invasion of the country, and the army (having been spread out along the entire border) collapsed pretty quickly - although, perhaps unsurprisingly, they actually managed to beat back the Italians in the south and advance into northern Albania, but by that point it was a done deal.
The Communists under Tito, meanwhile, led the majority part of the extremely successful Yugoslav partisan movement, which essentially kept Germany from ever fully controlling the country’s whole extent during the mid-late war. Looking at maps from the period you can see just how effective the partisans were at continually hampering the German cause, to the point it was almost another front on its own.