– Arso Jovanović –
After long and difficult battles our army carried out its task. It liberated our fatherland. On that difficult but glorious path of our army, all the genius of Tito’s leadership came to the surface, bringing major victories to our peoples.
All strategists and leaders from past wars had armed armies to achieve their set goals. Tito did not have that. But he deeply understood the laws of social development and the aspirations of his peoples. In them he recognized and uncovered those inexhaustible forces that had been suppressed for centuries. Under the protection and inspiration of Comrade Tito, those popular forces triumphed in this great war of liberation. And in the history of wars, he was the first to succeed in creating a modern army from almost illiterate peoples, mutually divided and oppressed by fascist terror. While building the army, Comrade Tito set it combat objectives from the very first days, which were in fact political objectives of the liberation struggle of our peoples. On that political foundation our army rested and was built from the first partisan detachments to its growth into a unified Yugoslav Army. The way in which that army was created represents something new in strategy, which surprised both our friends and our enemies.
Small partisan detachments, from the very beginning of the fighting in 1941, were scattered throughout the entire country, cut off by significant occupying forces, mountain ridges and river courses. And yet Tito’s energy succeeded in establishing unity of organization and military discipline among all those forces and directing them along a single path. With the development and strengthening of the army, operational unity was also achieved across vast areas. In this way Tito ensured command over the entire Yugoslav battlefield, which resulted in major military outcomes. In modern warfare, a war of enormous technical possibilities, commanders directed their armies using various technical means. Tito did not have those means, and yet he succeeded in carrying out unity of thought, will and action down to the smallest and most distant partisan units, even in those regions that had lived for decades under foreign bondage, such as Istria, the Slovenian Littoral and Carinthia.
Units of our army regularly fought battles at great distances from one another, exposed to continuous enemy offensives, when it seemed that everything was lost. But the moral spirit of our army was always firm, and faith in victory and in the just cause unshakeable. In this way a new Titoist spirit was woven, which emerged victorious from the harsh test of war. A monolithic army was created, resolute in the struggle against imperialist invaders and in the defence of the democratic freedoms of its people.
Tito was constantly above his army, strengthening and reinforcing its internal structure and stability. With the completion of individual wartime periods of our struggle, he carried out reorganizations of the army. Thus, from the form of partisan detachments which in 1941 allowed broad participation of the popular masses in the struggle, there was a transition to the formation of shock brigades, as units capable of tactical operations and manoeuvre. With the strengthening of the army, there was a move to the formation of divisions and corps, military formations that made it possible to carry out major strategic tasks and to defend significant territories for the purpose of their consolidation and stabilization. Finally, armies were formed that covered the strategic front among the Allied forces and played an important role in the final phase of the crushing of German fascism and the liberation of our country. These major organizational problems were carried out under difficult conditions of constant enemy offensives, when the enemy exerted all its strength to prevent the strengthening and consolidation of our forces. The organization and readiness of our army always surprised the enemy.
The gradual development of our army also gave us popular commanders, who rose during the struggle into true warriors. “Workers and peasants, students and other honest members of the intelligentsia learned the art of war in daily fierce battles. Slowly and surely, the heroic cadre of our army was created. The fighters have confidence in them, the people have confidence in them, because they are genuinely popular officers and non-commissioned officers” (Tito). Comrade Tito devoted special attention to the education of the command cadre, creating military schools, which resulted in the advancement of military science, the raising of the authority of the command cadre and the strengthening of discipline in the army.
The leadership of the struggle in occupied Yugoslavia, where the rulers of old Yugoslavia had provoked hatred and discord among our peoples and set them bloodily against one another — was very difficult and complicated. But in those complicated conditions, Comrade Tito adapted his strategic actions and based them on a correct understanding of the internal and foreign political relations of our country. Thus, it is of great historical significance that the great uprising of 1941 was first raised in Serbia. In this way the Serbian people proved to all the peoples of Yugoslavia that they stood for brotherhood and unity and that they had no connection whatsoever with Greater Serbian hegemonists. This had major consequences and ensured the correct development of the liberation struggle in Yugoslavia.
At the end of 1941, when in Serbia the occupiers and domestic traitors had amassed major forces, Comrade Tito withdrew combat units to the tri-border area of Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and reorganized them while studying the most favourable further direction of action. He chose a suitable moment and, with all forces, launched an offensive in the spring of 1942 towards Bosnian Krajina and Croatia. This extraordinary manoeuvre brought major strategic and political results: in Croatia the uprising flared up to its peak. Pavelić and his Ustaša army were dealt one of the decisive blows, which played an enormous role in their political defeat in Croatia. Our army was significantly strengthened and took up a central position in the country.
In order to avoid the encirclement of his forces in the western part of our country, Comrade Tito carried out a manoeuvre towards the east with a shock group in January 1943. He struck the enemy on the Neretva and completely crushed the treacherous and politically Chetnik forces of Draža Mihailović, who were carrying out unspeakable terror in the territory of Herzegovina, Montenegro and the Sandžak.
In the summer of 1943 Comrade Tito directed his main forces along the coastal belt of Montenegro, Dalmatia, the Croatian Littoral and Slovenia, where he disarmed the shattered Italian divisions and cut all German connections towards Italy, where the Allies had launched an offensive from Africa. The material strengthening of the army and the strategic task of coordination with the Allied forces were fully accomplished.
In the winter and spring of 1944 the main task of our army lay in the south-western regions of our country. However, at the beginning of the summer of 1944 the situation was characterized by the following facts:
a) The Allied front in Italy, encountering fierce German resistance and difficult terrain, stalled and did not promise results in terms of a rapid breakthrough into the Po Valley and further advance towards the north. In connection with this, there was no operational need to keep our strong forces in the western part of the country. Our forces in the Slovenian-Istrian area fiercely attacked enemy transport, making the German position on the Italian front more difficult;
b) The situation on the Eastern Front presented an entirely different picture. In summer operations the Red Army broke through German lines on a broad front and rapidly advanced towards the west and south-west. This required the grouping of stronger forces of ours in the eastern part of the country, where great operational possibilities were opening up;
c) In Serbia the liberation movement had taken on major proportions. In central and eastern Serbia there were large liberated territories, while our forces controlled certain areas of Šumadija. These Serbian forces were fighting bloody battles with the treacherous bands of Nedić, Ljotić and Mihailović. This had to be put to an end once and for all;
d) Among the Bulgarian people activity of the popular masses was felt with the aim of overthrowing the fascist agency. In this connection it was necessary to be in the closest contact with the Bulgarians. This required the strengthening of our forces in the Serbian operational area;
e) In the south of the Balkans there were major German forces whose retreat and withdrawal towards the north had to be cut off. This also required the strengthening of forces in the Morava-Vardar sector.
Because of all these facts, Comrade Tito shifted the main focus of his operations towards the east — into Serbia, which was finally crowned by the brilliant victory of the liberation of Belgrade in cooperation with units of the Red Army.
Relying on the Red Army and having received substantial material assistance, Comrade Tito carried out a breakthrough with his main forces in the winter of 1944-45, in order for them to reorganize, master modern equipment and become capable of a spring offensive and the final assault on fascist Germany. In the spring offensive, the armies of our northern wing broke through the Srem Front and continued their advance towards Zagreb. The armies of the southern manoeuvre wing struck enemy forces in Bosnia, carried out a rapid breakthrough towards Croatia, parts of the forces liberated Istria, Trieste and the Slovenian Littoral, Ljubljana, and together with the northern wing closed the ring at Dravograd, capturing all the German Balkan forces of Field Marshal Löhr, including himself and his staff, as well as the entire 97th corps of the Italian grouping of Kesselring, thus once again fulfilling a strategic role in relation to the Allied front in Italy, with whose forces we met near the Soča and on the Soča River.
From this brief account the great strategic concepts of Marshal Tito and the depth of his military and political objectives can be seen. Only a single glance at the map is needed to see that these were operations of great manoeuvre scope, with the shifting of the main axis of operations across distances of more than three hundred kilometres. In this it is necessary to bear in mind the enormous internal and external difficulties of our country, the difficulties of the geographic factor, the supply of the army, medical services — in carrying out these major tasks. Yet all of this was overcome. Reality proved the superiority of Titoist military and political leadership over the Italian-German occupiers and their domestic mercenaries.
Tito’s main blows always surprised the enemy, because beforehand diversions were undertaken in various directions, whose task was to deceive the enemy. Thus, in the spring of 1942, before the offensive in the direction of Bosnian Krajina, Tito sent part of his forces into eastern Bosnia, while another part conducted offensive fighting in the sector of the upper Drina. Under the cover of these actions, the shock group suddenly broke through into Bosnian Krajina.
In January 1943, during the fourth offensive, Tito left two corps that deceived the enemy, and with the main group suddenly appeared on the Neretva. When the battle dragged on and the enemy discovered the direction of our movement towards the east, Tito destroyed the bridges on the Neretva and the enemy, deceived, took measures to prevent our movement towards the west, and precisely at that moment Tito forced the Neretva towards the east.
Before directing the main forces into Serbia, Tito sent one diversionary group towards Valjevo, which drew the bulk of the enemy forces onto itself, and in the meantime the shock element of our army appeared from the south and broke the entire section of the enemy defence along the Rudnik—Suvobor—Cer line.
All of this shows that Comrade Tito is the bearer of the new spirit and momentum of our army, which is characterized by activity and extreme offensiveness. In this spirit our entire army and the whole people must be prepared and educated. This offensive spirit must permeate the entire life of the army, through military science and all military practice. We must be conscious of the fact that passivity and waiting would never have brought freedom to our peoples. “In our army an exclusively offensive spirit must prevail, not only when we are on the offensive but also when we are on the defensive” (Tito).
In the most difficult moments our army drew strength and energy from its commander. He instilled faith in final victory. The historical path of our army is the path of Comrade Tito, who shared both good and evil with it. He constantly led a shock group which, in various sectors of Yugoslavia, ignited popular uprisings and resolved major problems within the framework of our country. The enemy itself clearly recognized the sharpness of that shock group, and the Marshal was exposed to the most severe enemy attacks, the culmination of which was the fifth offensive in the sector of Montenegro and the airborne landing at Drvar. At the head of our army he won for Yugoslavia a worthy place in the international community of nations, for whose freedom we too made a significant contribution.
Lieutenant-General
Arso R. JOVANOVIĆ
(Translated from the Serbo-Croatian original: “Tito – Organizator i strateg naše armije,” Borba, May 26, 1945, p. 2)