Chetniks

Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement (Serbo-Croatian: Četnici, Четници, ; Slovene: Četniki), were a Serb nationalist and monarchist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century, formed as a resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participating in the two Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II. Between the wars, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, they functioned in the form of two civilian organizations. The name is today most closely associated with the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, the World War II movement of Draža Mihailović, which was later renamed the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (Jugoslovenska vojska u otadžbini, Југословенска војска у отаџбини; JVUO, ЈВУО), though the original name remained more common. The Mihailović Chetniks were not a homogeneous movement.

During World War II, the Chetniks were an anti-Axis movement in their long-range goals and engaged in marginal resistance activities for limited periods, but also carried out almost throughout the war a tactical or selective collaboration with the occupation. The Chetnik movement adopted a policy of collaboration with regard to the Axis Powers, and engaged in cooperation to one degree or another by establishing modus vivendi or operating as "legalised" auxiliary forces under Axis control. Over a period of time, and in different parts of the country, the Chetnik movement was progressively drawn into collaboration agreements: first with the Nedić forces in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, then with the Italians in occupied Dalmatia and Montenegro, with some of the Ustaše forces in northern Bosnia, and after the Italian capitulation also with the Germans directly. While Chetnik collaboration reached "extensive and systematic" proportions, the Chetniks themselves referred to their policy of collaboration as "using the enemy".

The Chetniks were a partner in the pattern of terror and counter terror that developed in Yugoslavia during World War II. The Chetniks used terror tactics against the Croats in areas where Serbs and Croats were intermixed, against the Muslim population in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sandžak, and against the Partisans and their supporters in all areas. These terror tactics took various forms, including killing of the civilian population, burning of villages, assassinations and destruction of property. The terror tactics used by the Chetniks against the Croats was largely a reaction against the mass terror perpetrated by the Ustaše, and the terror against the Partisans and their supporters was ideologically-driven. The Muslim population of Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sandžak was a primary target of Chetnik terror due to the traditional animosity between Serbs and Muslims, but this action was also undertaken to 'cleanse' these areas of Muslims in order to create a 'Greater Serbia' free of non-Serbs.

Several modern Serbian paramilitary organizations, formed in the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia, chose the name "Chetniks", and consider themselves as the continuation of the Chetnik legacy.