Bosna i Hercegovina
2
How the "Bosniaks" became Muslims
A) EARLY & MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF SERBIA, CROATIA & BOSNIA
Situated at a major intersection of Asia and Europe, the Balkans saw many cultural and racial cross-fertilisations. Nonetheless, the earliest known inhabitants of the Balkans were the Illyrians: they were once spread over the Balkans. The Roman Empire subjugated most of these tribes by AD 9. Gold and silver was mined by the Romans in Eastern Bosnia. In the wake of the Romans came Christian missions. As Rome faltered, other waves of migrants came - Goths, Asiatic Huns, Avars and the Slavs. The Slavs, an Indo-European people originally from Scandinavia, became dominant, settling in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Montengro in the late 6th and early 7th Centuries. They came from a single Slavic confederation - the Slaveni; in small tribal units. It is true that the Slaveni were all one people.. the Bosnians come from the same Slavic base as today's Serbs and Croats. During the early Middle Ages, Bosnia was often under foreign rule, of various states: Serbia (briefly under Časlav till 960 AD); Croatia (under Kresimir II till 997 AD); and Bulgaria (briefly under Samuel); Byzantium (after it swallowed Bulgaria in 1018), and at various times Hungary. But in a sea of shifting allegiances, even the oldest established Balkan power, the Byzantine Empire had only precarious control over Bosnia.
Serb-ruled territories in modern Hercegovina and Montengro and south-west Serbia were gathered by a Grand Zupan, under a princedom by the mid 9th Century. Croatia was gathered together under King Tomislav. After his death, his territories, including North and Western Bosnia; were taken over by Serbs under allegiance to the Byzantine empire. Bosnia as a distinct and separate entity was recognised however. As early as 958 AD, Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitus, noted a ‘territory of Bosnia’. Even though, it was then under Serb rule. Bosnia then fell to the Croats for about 50 years. In 1019 Emperor Basil II ("The Bulgar Slayer") forced Serb and Croat allegiance to Byzantium. Now Serbs and Croats ruled as Governors over Bosnia under Byzantine authority. In South Serbia, Serbian King Bodin defied the Byzantines a little, but Bodin's empire broke up in 1101. For Serbia, ambitions now shifted East to Raska. Croatia was taken over by Hungary, whose King in 1102 was crowned King of Croatia. Croatia’s relationship with Hungary (subjugation and/or alliance) continued till 1918.
This was the beginning of a real separate ambition for Bosnia.
The Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus, who warred against Bosnia, now referred to Bosnia's distinctness. In 1180 Emperor Commenus' secretary, chronicler Kinnamos wrote: ‘Bosnia does not obey the grand zupan of the Serbs; it is a neighbouring people with its own customs and government.’ After Commenus died, in 1180, Bosnia stood alone. Since it was no longer ruled by Byzantine Empire or by Croatia, was able to stand, for the first time as a more or less independent state. Neither Serbia nor Croatia had had adequate time to establish a serious claim nor to acquire their loyalty". By the 12th Century, Ban Kulin (1180-1204) established Bosnia as a prosperous and independent region, and the merchants of Ragusa developed trade. The title Ban was now regularly held by Bosnia's rulers (whether independent or under foreign overlordship) from Kulin in 1180 until 1377, when Ban Tvrtko assumed the title of king".
Stefan Kotromanic
After Kulin died in 1204, the Hungarian empire tried to control Bosnia, taking advantage of religious divisions such as Bogomilism. By 1254 onwards, Hungarian suzerainty divided Bosnia into two: Upper and Lower Bosnia.. Lower Bosnia remained under the Bosnian Bans. Upper Bosnia under Hungarian control, was joined to part of North Serbia, forming the Duchy of Macva and Bosnia - an outpost against Bulgaria and Serbia. Vassal Princes of the Subic family (Bosnian Serbs) took control in 1299, for Hungary. A native uprising in 1322 removed the Subics. Now the Bogomil Ban, Stefan Kotromanic, maintained and expanded Bosnia using shifting alliances. He captured Hum (or Hlum; later Herzogovina) from Serbians (from 1168 to 1326 Hum was separate from Bosnia under members of the Serbian royal family, the Nemanjic dynasty. Thus this region was under Serbian rule for an extensive periods of time. After the death of King Milutin of Serbia in 1321, disorders followed among the Serbs of Serbia. As a result Kotromanic was able to conquer Hum in 1326. Here most of the population was Orthodox. The Ban did not interfere with Orthodox institutions.)
Hum had been contested by Hungary. Therefore Kotromanic ensured the neutrality of the papacy and the Hungarian King, by renouncing the Bosnian Church, adopting the Roman Catholic faith in 1340. His state was not attacked by the great Serbian King Stefan Dusan.
Kotromanic was, if not fully, at least half-Serb, for their have been previous intermarriage between his family and the Nemanjic ruling family of Serbia. The Nemanjics became extinct, leaving Kotromanic claim to Serbia's throne, exercised by the conquest of Hum (Kotromanic also stormed Croatia, but no one calls Kotromanic a Croat). Bosnia's rulers and nobles, unlike their contemporaries in Europe and Serbia and Croatia, were indifferent to religious issues. They intermarried and formed alliances across denominational lines when it suited their world aims, they changed faiths easily. As a result of (taking Hum and the extinction in Serbia in 1371 of the Nemanjic dynasty, to which Tvrtko belonged (for his grandfather had married the daughter of Serbia’s King Stefan Dragutin Nemanjic) Tvrtko claimed the Serbian kingship. He was crowned King of Serbia and Bosnia in 1377 at the Serbian Orthodox Monastery of Milesevo on the recently conquered Lim, the rulers of Bosnia instead of being Bans, were Kings and bore this double title even though they held very little Serbian territory. Tvrtko then participated in a civil war over the Hungarian Throne, which drew into the fray on one side or the other many Croatian nobles. Tvrtko succeeded in acquiring considerable Croatian territory, including several Dalmatian cites. By 1390 Tvrtko had added Croatia and Dalmatia" to his royal title.
Seal of King Tvrtko I
Kotromanic achieved significant prosperity for Bosnia. Under Kotromanic Bosnian mines were opened (especially lead and silver, paving the way for Bosnia’s economic development and increasing its commercial contacts." Following Kotromanic’s death, his nephew Tvrtko, a minor took the throne, tempting the Hungarians to invade Hum. By 1370, Tvrtko had expelled the Hungarians; by 1347 he recovered Hum and annexed part of Dalmatia. After Serbian Stefan Dusan's death, the Serbian knez (prince) Lazar ceded to Tvrtko a large tract of Bosnia in exchange for a military alliance. This tract included the principality of Trabunja and the coast to Kotor. Further territorial power continued to accumulate. In 1376 Tvrtko was crowned "King of the Serbs and of Bosnia and of the Coast". In 1377 Tvrtko married the daughter of the last Bulgarian emperor. Tvrtko was able to take a large part of the Adriatic coast from Hungary, the large islands of Brac, Hvar, and Korcula too surrendered. By 1390 he was able to include among many of his titles that of "King of Dalmatia and Croatia". The leadership of the Southern Slavs had in fact passed from Serbia to Bosnia. Tvrtko had become a King, Lazar was merely prince (knez) of the diminished state of Serbia.
B) TURKISH CONQUEST (1463)
Before Tvrtko died in 1391, he attempted to seal an alliance with Serbia against Turkey. This proved futile at the Battle of Kosovo (1389). After his death, a disputed succession and disputes in the kingdom, ensured that the Turks and Venetians controlled Bosnia between them. Three nobles Hrovje Vukcic, Sandal Hranic and Stephen Vukcic divided up Bosnia. Stephen, taking over Hum, asserted independence from the Bosnians. He dropped the title of Vojvoda in 1448, taking the title of Herceg (Duke) of Hum and the Coast. He then changed it to Herceg of St. Sava (for knez Lazar of Serbia had given Tvrtko control of the monastery of Milesevo which contains the relics of St. Sava, one of the most sacred figures of the Serbian Orthodox Church). In its German form the title was "Herzog" - hence "Herzogovina" or Hercegovina. In his struggle against the king, Stephen wished to ally with Serb ruler George Brankovic, who as a semi-independent vassal of the Turks was still warring against the Bosnian king for control over the Srebrenica region of Eastern Bosnia.
The many shifting alliances and wars of conquests created a changing power structure. These enabled outside interested parties to insinuate themselves into the fray. These were initially the Ottomans and the Hungarians. In the 15th century feuds between king and noble became commonplace, More and more frequently the expanding Ottoman Turks involved themselves. As did the Hungarians, occasionally allied with the rulers of Serbia. As a result on occasion, a frequently victorious Hungary assigned territory on the Bosnian side of the Drina to the Serbian ruler (especially the rich silver mine of Srebrenica); when Srebrenica was lost, the Bosnians refused to recognise Serbian possession of it and many clashes occurred between Serbia and Bosnia over it. Ethnic differences played no part in any of this warfare.
By 1392 all Serb Orthodox lands; bar the Bosnian-ruled Hum had submitted to Ottoman suzerainty. The Turks became ever more and more a fact of life. Raids gave way to formal occupation of the Balkans. The Turks fostered one Bosnian noble (the illegitimate son of Tvrtko called Tvrtko II) and the Hungarians another - Ostoja. Hungary reasserted a short rule over Bosnia, but lost to Turkey in battle. Ostoja remained in power, beholden to the Turks. On his death the Turks supported Tvrtko II into power, who promptly then shifted to the Hungarians. But the balance of forces was again shifted. Under Mehmet II (the Conqueror), Constantinople was captured from the Byzantines in 1453. Despite pleas for help from King Stefan Tomas of Bosnia to the Pope and the Venetians, the Ottoman invasion took Bosnia in 1463. From Bosnia, the Turks invaded Hungary and further West. But by 1683, after the failed assault on Vienna in 1683, the Turks were forced to the defensive.
C) BOSNIA, RELIGION AND THE MUSLIM CONVERSIONS
A Bogomil tomb in Bosnia
Following the Romans there were two centres of Christianity. Both East and West Churches took root in Bosnia, but in different parts. This was a matter of geographic chance. From the 9th Century Christian missions from Rome and Constantinople pushed into the Balkans; Rome won Croatia and most of Dalmatia, while Constantinople succeeded in Bulgaria, Macedonia and eventually most of Serbia. Bosnia lying in between. Due to its mountainous terrain and poor communications (Bosnia) was a no-man's land between East and West. When the split or Schism between Orthodox and Catholic Churches came in the 11th century, territory was already divided. Bosnia more superficially worked up by the missions along with Albania, did not end up permanently locked into either Church’s camp, remained receptive to switches of faith. With the convenient "conversions" of the Bans, by the 10th Century, most Bosnians were nominally under Roman Churches. But this Catholicism was primitive; Bosnians did not know Latin and few were literate in any language.’ As well as these Churches, the Bogomil heretical belief spread. The Paternes or Bogomils thought that the material world was the Devil's world and that rigid ascetism was the only escape from the Devil. They rejected the Old Testament, the incarnation, the Cross, the sacraments and the whole Christian Church organisation. They formed a Bogomil Church. Bogomilism became the faith not only of the common people but of many landowners and nobles as well. Kulin himself formally abandoned the Roman Church in order to become a Bogomil, but he was forced to recant later under pressure form the papacy and from Hungary (1203). Despite this the Bogomil heresy continued to spread throughout the land.
Historical revisionists or those seeking even the most tenuous link to the past interpret the Bogomils as a 'Bosnian Church’ and by extension, as legitimization of the Muslim claim to Bosnia. There is no evidence to suggest that they would have represented a significant proportion of the population. Fred Singleton wrote in A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples that: "It has been suggested that the rapid increase in the Muslim population during this period (Turkish conquest to 1530) cannot be attributed to the mass conversion of Bogomils as the greatest numbers were recorded in the areas where Bogomils were fewer in number especially in the towns."
A previous incorrect scholarship did ascribe a key role to the Bogomils. Singleton is right to deny that the Muslim conversions were purely due to an alienated Bogomil Church, a Church clearly separate from either Western Roman Catholic influence; or from the Serbian Orthodox Church. Reliable data cited by Malcolm, also refutes the size and significance of the Bogomil Church in either providing the numbers of Muslim conversions claimed by some; or indeed with even a significant size by the time of the Turkish Invasion. So why did Bosnia end up with a large Muslim population? Miller wrote in 1921: "Thus Bosnia presents us with the curious phenomenon of an aristocratic caste, Slav by race, yet Mohammedan by religion. Hence the country affords a striking contrast to Serbia. There the Mohammedans were never anything more than a foreign colony of Turks; here the Mohammedans were native Slavs, men of the same race as the Christian, whom they despised."
Why did many Bosnians convert? One reason, was that there was not a single Church monopoly as in Serbia. This allowed the peasant and serfs to be more cavalier with formal religion. Evidence shows that the peasants of Bosnia had no scruple about moving from Church to Mosque and back again. Bans changed religion at political convenience. Later the Ottomans were also tolerant. The Christians were left free to organise their communal affairs and their private laws as they pleased." In addition there were migrations into Bosnia from the retreat of the Turkish forces after their defeat at Vienna. Also slaves taken in battle were converted. Furthermore, there were obvious and significant advantages to being a Muslim under the Ottoman rule. These included escape from the traditional discriminatory laws of the kanun-i raya (dhimmitude). These restricted non-Muslims from such things as riding horses, carrying weapons, or wearing certain clothes. More substantially was a bar in law suits. Christian testimony was not taken in court. Muslims were also (in the first two-and-a-half centuries of the Ottoman Empire) exempted from devsirme ("boy tribute", ie. forcing non-Muslim families to give one of their male children as a slave to the Sultan). Finally there were tax exemptions, like the cizye (jizya) or haraç, an annual graduated poll-tax, though Muslims paid zakat alms-tax. But the conversions were slow and extended over a long time. No conversion occurred en masse at the time of conquest; conversions were a long drawn-out gradual process. Secondly, Bosnian Churchmen converted not only to Islam but also the two other Christian faiths. Finally many Catholics and Orthodox also became Muslims.
At the same time, the Serbian Orthodox Church became more visible in Bosnia (one may say, Orthodox priests felt some kind of guilt for having let the Bosnians become first Bogomils and then Muslims, and were now trying to restore the faith). From the 1480s on, Orthodox priests and believers are mentioned in many parts of Bosnia where they were not mentioned before. In part explanation, was the Ottoman policy to people depopulated lands with Vlachs. Who were Vlachs? Malcolm confesses, that this is "one of the most vexed questions in Balkan history". Malcolm traces them to shepherds and herdsmen who practised transhumance. The word "Vlach" itself was used by early Slavs for people who spoke Latin; hence "Wallachian" or "Walloon". Similarities with Illyrian, or Albanian, suggest that the Vlachs are a remnant of Latinised Illyrians. They probably survived Slav invaders who took over pastoralism, forcing them to transhumance. From North Albania, the Vlachs had moved to Hercegovina. They entered the Orthodox Church. But this is not a mere debating point. The Vlachs were taxed uniquely in the Ottoman tax registers (the defters), allowing them to be traced in the Ottoman times.
D) OTTOMAN RULE
The Ottoman colonial apparatus extracted manpower for an army; and loot or money to pay them. The military was either a regular paid army (Janissaries) or a salaried cavalry (Sipahis) or an irregular army raised from the peasantry. These were Muslim armies; though Christian mercenaries (Vojnuk) could be assembled. A boy tribute (devsirme; roughly "child collection") enabled the Empire to obtain hostages of boys from villages under suzerainty. These boys were taken to Istanbul, converted to Islam and trained according to their skills to be either janissaries, or personal servants of the Sultan; or officials. Successful ones (eg Bosnian Serb Sokollu-Sokolovic dynasty in Istanbul) protected their Bosnian family.
The Ottomans imposed the timar, military-feudal system. It consisted of a timariot, ready to serve with arms and horses, whose tenure depended upon military service. But the land remained the property of the Sultan. The Timariot's heirs had no rights to inherit it. The peasants (either Christian or Muslim) worked the lands, paying a tithe in kind, of between one tenth and one quarter of produce. They also laboured and paid other dues to Timariots, though they were better off than other European peasants. The Timariot had no further legal interest in his peasants beyond the requirement that they pay their tithe and other dues and obey him when he acted as a functionary of the state: he had no judicial powers of the sort practised in manorial courts in Western Europe.
The Ottoman Empire was however weakening. After failing to capture Vienna, the Austrians took back Hungary from the Ottomans between 1684-7. The Hapsburg-Ottoman Wars continued through the 17th Century. Finally, the Austrian Emperor invaded Bosnia, the first time in 1688. The Treaty of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) in 1699 ceded the whole of Transylvania and Hungary, greater part of Slavonia and Croatia to Austria; and Dalmatia was largely "given" to the Venetians.
In Bosnia itself, increasingly tax revolts would break out. Nonetheless the Ottoman held on. In 1788 the Austrians entered Bosnia. But Austria was forced by other European powers to give up its Bosnian and Serbian gains. The other powers were wary of the Austrian (Joseph II) alliance with Russia (Catherine the Great). They preferred that the weak Sultan grant the Austrian Emperor status as "Protector" of the Christians under Ottoman rule. But the Muslims in Bosnia became increasingly resistant to Istanbul rule. This coupled with a general revolt in the Balkans led to an increasing alienation to the Ottomans, especially in Sarajevo and Mostar.
In 1877 Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In 1878 they almost entered Istanbul, and set terms at the Treaty of San Stefano, that were very favourable to themselves. In the Balkans it created an expanded Bulgaria as a Russian client state. This ignored Austrian interests. At the subsequent Congress of Berlin in 1878, the great powers struck this down. They declared Bulgaria would be cut in size; and that Bosnia-Hercegovina would be occupied by Austria-Hungary. The Bosnian Orthodox and Muslims united in joint opposition to this, but the Austrians took the country nonetheless.
E) AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN RULE 1878-1914
But being a landowner and feudal regime, the Austrian occupation failed to undertake Land Reform. This accorded with refusal to enact Democratic Revolution. This led to serious friction between Christians and Muslim. For Muslims were the vast majority of landowners with kmets ("sharecroppers"); however there were many more Muslim "free peasants" than Muslim "landowners". Free peasants were not burdened by obligatory payments to a landlord as were the kmets. There were more free peasants than kmets, but over half the free peasants were Muslim. Of the kmets, 74% were Serbian Orthodox, 21% Catholic, and only 5% were Muslim.
Instead of tackling this, diversions were fostered. the Finance Minister Benjamin von Kallay, promoted religious education, and Bosniastvo (Bosnianism, as an artificial "uniquely Bosnian" national consciousness). The latter aimed to dilute Serb and Croat nationalism, which were developing. Until then, Bosniak Muslims had called themselves "Turks". But contrary to the Austrian intent, the religious hierarchy became springboards for political parties. Reforms were introduced under pressure. In 1903, after Kallay's death, his successor Istvan von Burian allowed parties to be legalised. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Hercegovina, instead of merely occupying it. To defuse controversy, the Government introduced a Constitution, and a parliament. Elections were based on a narrow franchise, with representation by ethnicity.
The Bosnian Serbs organised themselves into the Serbian National Organisation (SNO). They argued that the Bosnian Muslims were Serbs by nationality who had embraced Islam. They were supported by the Serbian peasantry. The Bosnian Croats organised the Croatian National Union (CNO). They also, insisted that Bosnia-Hercegovina did not belong to Muslims. Only they insisted that it belonged to the Croats, that the Muslims were really Croats. Again however, they saw that they could never achieve a majority in Bosnia and sought coalition with the Bosnian Muslim landlord party; like the SNO, they avoided major peasant-based demands.
In this situation the Bosniak Muslims knew they could play both the Serbs against the Croats. The political representatives of the ruling class of the Bosniak Muslims were aware that without including the Muslims neither Serbs nor Croats could assert a credible claim to a demographic majority in Bosnia. Without including Muslims, each of these groups.. Resorted to more tenuous historical or geopolitical arguments.. each side in fact needed the Bosnian Muslims.
The Muslim National Organisation (MNO) represented primarily the interests of the Muslim landlords. The MNO first allied with the SNO but then after a Serb instigated peasant revolt; sided with the CNU. However, the Bosnian parliament, was destined to be stormy.
In 1914, Bosnian Serbs were specially repressed, because of Austrian concerns about the neighbouring independent Serbia. Serbs living in Serbia linked up with the Serbs inside occupied Bosnia. As before the Muslims were a force who having achieved a separate identity, would sometimes side with Croats and sometimes with the Serbs. Accordingly, the Serbs organised with the Croats for a common South Slav state. The formation of Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia) heralded the organised armed Serb faction.
F) THE FIRST YUGOSLAVIA - A MONARCHIST STATE
Bosnian Serbs organised resistance to the Austrians. In 1912, Montenegro and Serbia united to declare war on Turkey, leading to victory over Turkey in the First Balkan War. The Serbs and Montenegrans were aided by Bulgaria and Greece.. The victory had created a Montengro and Serbia on Bosnia’s border, free of Turkey. War was now feasible with Austria-Hungary. Martial law in Bosnia was followed by the Treaty of London, on 30 May 1913. However this was followed by the Second Balkan War in which Serbia and Greece defeated Bulgaria. The subsequent visit to Bosnia by the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary provided an opportunity for Mlada Bosna who assassinated the Archduke. This rapidly became the pretext for a international war. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and then Russia declared war on Austria, and soon Germany entered, and World War I began.
By 1918, the Habsburg empire was destroyed with the defeat of Austria-Hungary and Germany. The end of the war left the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with differing views. Some hoped that a united land of the South Slavs, or Yugoslavia would be a constitutional democratic and parliamentary monarchy with rights for all, under the Serbian Karadjordevic dynasty. The above view was in the Corfu Declaration of July 1917, convened by the Yugoslav Committee but received differing interpretations from the participants. Serbs, Croats and Slovenes saw this state as a partnership of equals. The Muslims of Bosnia acquiesced, though for the landowners this acquiescence was involuntary, prompted by rural unrest. Bosnia was forced to "invite" Serbia to quell disorder. But there were peasant uprisings in the rest of the Balkans also, including Croatia.
On December 1, 1918 Prince Regent Alexander on behalf of his father King Peter I declared the creation of Yugoslavia, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In November 1920 state wide elections were held. In Bosnia, the Muslims were led by "Yugoslav Muslim Democracy" led by Mehmed Spaho. This party represented the landowners and the Muslim middle class. Many Muslims wanted a federal state. Spaho argued for Bosnia to be an autonomous unit to preserve its identity within Yugoslavia. The Bosnian Croats led by Josip Sunaric also argued similarly for Croatia. Various Serbs wanted a more overtly Serbian dominated state. The elections saw Spaho's party winning nearly all Muslim votes. Spaho was then courted by other parties as nearly 24 seats in Bosnia and 6 Muslim seats in Macedonia, tipped the voting balance. Spaho managed to retain the structure of "Bosniastvo" (Bosnian identity). The Croats in Bosnia over followed the Croatian Bosnian Party led by Stjepan Radic who argued for radical land reform. This party represented the interests of the urban middle class and the middle peasantry. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and now come into being. It represented the interests of the small working class, and the landless peasantry. It did well becoming the 3rd largest party in the Constituent Assembly with 58 seats. But it withdrew from the Assembly and then was banned.
The new assembly in large part solved the immediate Agrarian Question by transferring land, with Government compensation to Muslim landowners; to serfs. Serfdom was essentially ended, over 150,000 peasant families receiving one million hectares of land. Croatian unrest resulted in repeated battles with the Serb-dominated Assembly. After Radic and 3 others were shot in Parliament on June 20th 1928, Radic died. On January 6th, 1929, the King suspended Parliament and annulled the Constitution and proclaimed himself the sole authority. Instead of a kingdom of several nations, it was renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In September 1931 a rather less free Parliament was established. Mussolini's fascist Italy, always envious of Yugoslavia's meteoric rise in the Balkans, sponsored various autonomist terrorist groups inside Yugoslavia to cause its breakup, including the "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" of Ivan Mihailov and the Croatian Ustasha of Ante Pavelic. Ustasha organized the assassination of King Alexander I in 1934. Power passed to Prince Paul, Alexander's cousin. New elections in May 1935, saw Muslims win seats in Bosnia. In the government led first by Prime Minister, Milan Stojadinovic and then Dragisa Cvetkovic, the Croats held the foreign ministry portfolio. Links were firmly established by these Croat foreign ministers with Nazi Germany. Only the Communists demonstrated against the pro-German links.
Between November 1940 and March 1941 Hitler forced the Tripartite Pact between Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria with the German and Italian governments. He then issued an ultimatum to Yugoslavia. On March 25 1941, Cvetkovic and foreign minister Cincar-Markovic capitulated and signed the Tripartite Pact with Hitler. Sections of the Serb-led military led a coup on March 26th 1941 and forced Prince Paul to flee. On 6 April 1941 Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia and bombed Belgrade. The occupation had begun.
G) SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE MASS REDUCTION OF THE NUMBER OF BOSNIAN SERBS THROUGH GENOCIDE
The Croat Nazi, Ante Pavelic, perpetrated a genocide of both Bosnian Serbs and Croatian Serbs in 1941-45
Orthodox Serbs were the majority in Bosnia-Hercegovina before the Serb decimation at the hand of the Croat ‘Ustashi’ and the Muslim supporters of Hitler in World War II, and still populated more than half of Bosnia-Hercegovina in the 1990s.
The Ustasha Government (10 April 1941) of the 'Poglavnik' Ante Pavelic, which also ruled Bosnia, was especially ferocious against Serbs. Pavelic had the notoriously barbaric habit of ordering his officers to cut out the eyes of executed Serbs and send them to him so that he was sure they were dead. In the notorious Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska concentration camps of the Ustasha regime 100,000 to 300,000 Serbs are estimated to have perished - altogether the number of the Serbian victims of the NDH is 200,000 to 500,000. As the Ustasha regime also controlled Bosnia, the majority of these Serbs were from Bosnia. These atrocities greatly reduced the number of Serbs in Bosnia. Pavelic became notorious in the Balkans for demanding a bowl of eyes be brought to him every morning so he could be sure the massacres of Serbs were progressing at a suitable pace.
Hitler was not at all moved by this continuing callous massacre of whites by whites and even wished for its continuation, telling Croatian PM Nikola Mandic in 1944 that "Serbs will never be Germany's friends" (a clear indication to the Croats that Germany won't be trying to stop any action taken by the Croats towards the goal of the extermination of the Serbs). The Croats also opened children-only concentration camps in Jastrebarsko and Sisak, where the guards tasked with torturing and killing Serbian children were mainly Bosniak Muslims.
The Serbs consequently, and initially only in self-defence, attacked both Croats and Muslims. Meanwhile, continued Croatian Ustasha and Serb chauvinist Chetnik attacks on Muslims led them to their own collaboration with fascists. Bosniak Muslims formed the infamous 13th Muslim SS Division, 'Handzar'. But Muslims soon grew disillusioned with the fascists, and joined Tito's Partisans in droves; forming first the 8th Regional (Muslim) Brigade under Osman Karabegovic; and then the Partisan 16th Muslim Brigade. As Noel Malcolm poignantly says: "Muslims had fought on all sides - Ustasha, German, Chetnik, Partisan and had been killed by all sides."
H) THE NUMBERS GAME
Members of the Bosniak Muslim SS division "Handschar" (that perpetrated an ethnic cleansing against Christian Orthodox Serbs) wearing the Turkish fez, which came to the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire. Bosniaks called themselves just "Turks" until deep into the 20th century.
In the 1948 Census the Muslims had three options: they could call themselves Muslim Serbs, Muslim Croats, or 'Muslim nationally undeclared'. 72,000 declared themselves as Serbs and 25,000 as Croats, but 778,000 registered as undeclared. The next census in 1953 produced a similar result. In December 1990, democratic elections were held in Bosnia; the proportions of seats allocated were 41% Muslim, 35% Serb; 20% Croat. It's obvious that this upper hand gained by Muslims in population is due to the 1941-45 genocide of Serbs in Bosnia by the unholy alliance of Hitlerite Germany, Pavelic's Croatia and Muslim Bosniaks. These figures accord with population figures for the same groups - being 44%, 31% and 17% respectively. This 44%, known today as the Bosniaks, Slavic in blood (of mostly Serbian but also Croatian DNA) and Muslim in religion, are the only white nation in Europe that believes in Islam. In the 1990s, under the Presidency of the fanatic Islamic fundamentalist Alija Izetbegovic, and backed by Turkey and Saudi Wahhabis (let alone by Germany and the US) organized further atrocities against Bosnia's Christian population, including the Kazani pit massacre, Sijekovac massacre and Mrkonjic Grad massacre against Serbs and the Bugojno ethnic cleansing against Croats, which then provoked counter-massacres from Serbs and Croats such as the Srebrenica and Ahmići massacres.
SOURCES
N.Malcolm: ’A Short History of Bosnia’; London; 1994; p.7
Fred Singleton: ’A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples’; Cambridge University Press, 1985
Miller W: ‘Essays on the Latin Orient’; Cambridge 1921; p. 494.
Poulton, H; ‘The Balkans: Minorities and States In Conflict’, London, 1990; p.44.
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Originally Posted by Bosniensis
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