KOSTA MILOVANOVIĆ PEĆANAC AND THE FORMATION OF THE CHETNIK ORGANIZATION IN THE SOUTH OF SERBIA APRIL 6 - AUGUST 27, 1941

Abstract

One day before the German attack on Yugoslavia and the devastating bombing of Belgrade, on April 5, 1941, Minister of the Army and Navy, with the consent of the Supreme Command, appointed Kosta Milovanović Pećanac, a 62-year old vojvoda (= war leader), as commander of all Chetnik detachments of The Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Vojvoda Milovanović had an order to remain in the background and organize guerrilla warfare in event war and the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army. Based on that order, Pećanac started arranging Chetnik detachments from Kuršumlija or Kopaonik on April 6, 1941. The Chetnik headquarters, first located in Lukovska Banja, then on Mount Sokolovica – the centre of the rebellion from 1917. So, the Pećanac’s group was the first Chetnik formation and the first national armed formation in general, created before the capitulation of Yugoslavia. However, when the army capitulated, and the state structure collapsed, a new situation arose for Vojvoda Pećanac and his Chetnik organization, the only remaining armed formation. The activity of Vojvoda Pećanac after the capitulation, i.e. from April 19 to 29, was exclusively attached to the south of Serbia – to Kosanica, Toplica, Jablanica, the outskirts of Kopaonik mountain, and in the zone towards Kosovo where there was a great danger of Arbanasi crimes. In that period, Pećanac issued several orders on appointing individuals as commanders and forming Chetnik detachments. By the end of April 1941, Pećanac had about 600 armed Chetnik soldiers. In the following months, smaller groups of his Chetniks appeared in every part of Serbia, even before the German attack on the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941, Pećanac and his squads covered the entire area of Serbia from Valjevo to Vranje. Only in the area of the Field Command 809, in December 1941, the Germans registered 36 Chetnik detachments of Kosta Milovanović Pećanac. According to some data, by the end of 1941, the movement grew to an impressive 15,000 fighters. In Toplica, the Chetniks organized in 6 detachments, and the Leskovac area, 13. In total, there were about 30 Chetnik detachments in southern Serbia. Uprising and joint actions of the partisan and Draža Mihailović movements, creation of the free territory in western Serbia, frightening threats and cruel German retaliation, appeals of the political and intellectual elite in Serbia and the refugee government not to provoke suffering by irresponsible actions, as well as the experience of a premature uprising and the scope of the suffering of people in Toplica, Jablanica and Pusta Reka in 1917 influenced Kosta’s decision to join the national forces to destroy the communists. The desire and belief that he could stop further revenge, prevent an uprising, and even avoid the fratricidal war determined Pećanac to make a decision that would compromise him among the people and mark him as a traitor and collaborator of the occupier. Putting that as a priority, he agreed to cooperate with the occupying authorities and for his Chetnik detachments to become legalized and official formations, which the Serbian government supported. Old vojvoda accepted Nedić’s ideological and political orientation and put his detachments in the service of the government for the pacification of Serbia, which he announced in the Proclamation of August 27.