Uprising in Serbia (1941)

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Uprising in Serbia
Part of World War II in Yugoslavia
Destroyed German train in Serbia, 1941
Date 7 July – 29 November 1941 (4 months, 3 weeks and 1 day) Location Western parts of Serbia Result German and Collaborationist victory Uprising suppressed
Belligerents
Partisans Chetniks (31 August–1 November)	Chetniks (from 1 November)	Germany Commissioner Government Government of National Salvation (from 29 August) Pećanac Chetniks Albania[1][2]
Commanders and leaders
Josip Broz Tito Aleksandar Ranković Miloš Minić Koča Popović	Draža Mihailović Dragoslav Račić Dragutin Keserović Veselin Misita †	Heinrich Danckelmann Franz Böhme Paul Bader Milan Nedić Kosta Pećanac Aćif Hadžiahmetović Bilall Dreshaj Shaban Polluzha
Casualties and losses
4,000 Chetniks & Partisans[3]		200 killed 400 wounded[4]
35,000 rebels and civilians massacred in reprisals[5]

The Uprising in Serbia was initiated in July 1941 by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia against the German occupation forces and their Serbian quisling auxiliaries in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. At first the Yugoslav Partisans mounted diversions and sabotage and attacked representatives of Milan Aćimović's quisling administration. In late August some Chetniks joined the uprising and liberated Loznica. The uprising soon reached mass proportions. Partisans and Chetniks captured towns that weak German garrisons had abandoned. The armed uprising soon engulfed great parts of the occupied territory. The largest liberated territory in occupied Europe was created by the Partisans in western Serbia, and was known as the Republic of Užice. Rebels shared power on the liberated territory; the center of the Partisan liberated territory was in Užice, and Chetniks had their headquarters in Ravna Gora.

As the uprising progressed, the ideological rift between the two factions became more and more obvious. On one side the Chetnik detachments considered themselves loyal to the royal government in exile and fought for the restoration of pre-war order. On the other side, members of the Peoples Liberation Army of Yugoslavia favored the introduction of socialism and the post-war reorganization of Yugoslavia on a federal basis. The Chetnik leader Dragoljub Mihailović abandoned the uprising in late October and entered into negotiations with the quisling government and the Germans in order to destroy the rival Partisans.

The Germans soon gathered a large force and quelled the uprising using mass terror, but the remaining Partisan forces crossed into Bosnia, where they formed the 1st Proletarian Brigade. After the collapse of the uprising, the Territory of the Military Commander was largely pacified until the return of the Partisans and the Belgrade Offensive in the second half of 1944. Meanwhile, the Chetniks became even more reluctant to fight against the Germans, and engaged in anti-Partisan operations and open collaboration. Nevertheless, Mihailovic was able to establish himself as the sole legitimate representative of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, and ordered that all resistance forces should fight under his command.