Organization
The Croatian Home Guard was originally limited to 16 infantry battalions and two cavalry squadrons - 16,000 men in total. The original 16 battalions were soon enlarged to 15 infantry regiments of two battalions each between May and June 1941, organised into five divisional commands, some 55,000 men. Support units included 35 former Yugoslav light tanks returned by Italy, four engineer battalions, 10 artillery battalions (equipped with captured Royal Yugoslav Army 105mm weapons of Czech origin), a cavalry regiment in Zagreb and an independent cavalry battalion at Sarajevo. Two independent motorized infantry battalions were based at Zagreb and Sarajevo respectively.
The fledgling Army crushed the revolt by Serbs in eastern Herzegovina in June, and fought in July in eastern and western Bosnia. They fought in eastern Herzegovina again, when Croatian-Dalmatian and Slavonian battalions reinforced local units. By the end of 1941 the NDH military forces consisted of 85,000 home guard and the national police force of about 6,000.
In January 1942 it forced the Partisans in eastern Bosnia back into Montenegro, but could not prevent their subsequent advance into western Bosnia. Clearly conventional infantry divisions were too cumbersome, and so in September 1942 four specially designed mountain brigades (1st to 4th) were formed; each had two regiments totalling four 1,000-man battalions, mounted and machine gun companies, a two-gun artillery group, 16 light and 16 heavy machine guns, and six mortars. Two volunteer regiments, and a mobile Gendarmerie Brigade were also established; but by November 1942 the Partisans had occupied northern Bosnia, and the Army could only hold main towns and communications routes, abandoning the countryside.
During 1943 four Jager Brigades (5th to 8th) were set up, each with four 500-man battalions in two regiments and an artillery group, equipped for hilly terrain. The Home Guard reached its maximum size at the end of 1943, when it had 130,000 men.
By 1944 the Croatian Army had 90,000 men, though only 20,000 were front-line combat troops, organised in three mountain, four Jager and eight static garrison brigades, and the 1st Recruit Training Division.
The Croatian Home Guard also included an air force, the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia (Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, or ZNDH), the backbone of which was provided by 500 former Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers and 1,600 NCOs with 125 aircraft. By 1943 the ZNDH was 9,775 strong and equipped with 295 aircraft.
The small Navy of the Independent State of Croatia was limited by a special treaty with Fascist Italy. The Navy comprised a few riverine craft and, from 1943, coastal patrol boats. After the Italian Armistice the Croatian Navy was expanded, but the loss of even an unreliable ally further weakened the Croatian state.
Read more about this topic: Croatian Home Guard (Independent State Of Croatia)
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“The village had institutionalized all human functions in forms of low intensity.... Participation was high and organization was low. This is the formula for stability.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“I will never accept that I got a free ride. It wasn’t free at all. My ancestors were brought here against their will. They were made to work and help build the country. I worked in the cotton fields from the age of seven. I worked in the laundry for twenty- three years. I worked for the national organization for nine years. I just retired from city government after twelve-and-a- half years.”
—Johnnie Tillmon (b. 1926)
“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)