Operation Maslenica - Timeline

Timeline

The Croatian Army and Special Police units started the offensive in the Maslenica and Zadar area on January 22. RSK forces were completely taken by surprise and initially failed to offer any meaningful resistance. One of the reasons for the initial Croatian success was the unprecedented use of Croatian naval and air forces - which was the only instance of Croatian ground, naval and air forces acting together in a single major operation.

As a result, Maslenica and areas around Zadar were liberated, and the Croatian Army continued to push into the hinterland of Northern Dalmatia. Janko Bobetko, the Croatian Army general in charge of the operation, was hailed as a national hero and the city of Zadar saw public celebrations.

Six days later, seeing RSK forces being overwhelmed, the 126th Home Guard Regiment of the Croatian Army near Sinj conducted its own offensive operation against the Peruča dam. The dam was taken, but not before RSK forces detonated explosives that left it damaged. The dam held long enough to prevent massive flooding, but not long enough to prevent a major loss of hydroelectric power that would plague Dalmatia for much of the next year. The 200-foot-high dam held back an estimated 17 billion cubic feet of water in a narrow lake that stretched for 12 miles. The collapse would have unleashed the water down the Cetina River valley, affecting 50,000 people.

In the meantime, the RSK forces reorganised, stormed arms depots held by UNPROFOR and began to resist advancing Croatian forces more effectively. The government in Belgrade failed to honour its promise of military intervention in the case of a major Croatian offensive against the Krajina, but the arrival of volunteers from Serbia proper, including units commanded by Arkan, improved RSK-morale to a certain extent. Those forces mounted a ferocious counter-attack which, although ultimately repulsed, resulted in many Croatian casualties and the Croatian advance lost its momentum.

Partly due to international pressure, partly because of the potential for huge casualties to affect the outcome of elections and partly because of the impression that the most immediate aims were met, the Croatian government decided to halt the offensive. The fighting continued in a series of local attacks and counterattacks, with minor pieces of territory changing hands and the Dalmatian coastal cities of Zadar, Biograd and Šibenik being occasionally shelled by Serb artillery. By the autumn of 1993, all those incidents petered out and both sides held the lines that would be unchanged until Operation Storm in August, 1995.