Balkans campaign (World War II)
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2017) |
Balkans campaign | |
---|---|
Part of Greek islands | |
Result |
Axis victory
|
Territorial changes | Yugoslavia and Greece come under Axis control |
- Albania
Hungary (from April 1941)
Greece
Yugoslavia (from April 1941)
United Kingdom
Australia
New Zealand
Ubaldo Soddu
Ugo Cavallero
Vittorio Ambrosio
Shefqet Vërlaci
Akif Përmeti
Wilhelm List
Maximilian von Weichs
Kurt Student
Elemér Gorondy-Novák
Alexandros Papagos
Dušan Simović
Milorad Petrović
Henry Wilson
Bernard Freyberg
680,000
80,000
Total: 1,325,000
850,000
62,612
Total: 1,342,612
The Balkans campaign of
The
Background
After
Campaign
Greco-Italian War
The Italian invasion of Greece lasted from 28 October 1940 to 30 April 1941. Italian forces invaded Greece and made limited gains. But soon the Greeks counter-attacked and the Italians were driven back to the
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The invasion of Yugoslavia (also known as "Operation 25") began on 6 April 1941 and ended with the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April. The invading
Battle of Greece
Hitler began planning to invade Greece in November 1940, after the British occupied Crete and Lemnos. He ordered the invasion of Greece — code-named Unternehmen Marita (Operation Marita) — on 13 December 1940 for execution in March 1941. The stated aim of the operation was to prevent the British from getting air bases within striking range of the Romanian oilfields.[1] On 6 April 1941, the German Army invaded northern Greece, while other elements launched an attack against Yugoslavia. Breaking through the Yugoslav lines in southern Yugoslavia allowed Germany to send reinforcements to the battlefields of northern Greece. The German army out-flanked the Greek Metaxas Line fortifications and, despite the assistance provided by a British expeditionary corps, set out to capture the southern Greek cities. The Battle of Greece ended with the German entry into Athens and the capture of the Peloponnese, although about 40,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated to Crete, prompting one of the largest airborne attacks in the history of warfare: Operation Merkur, or the Battle of Crete.
Battle of Crete
On 20 May 1941,
Result
By 1 June 1941, all of Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece were under Axis control. Greece was placed under
Bulgarian occupation
On 6 April 1941, despite having officially joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian government did not participate in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Battle of Greece. On 20 April, the Bulgarian Army occupied most of Western Thrace and the Greek province of Eastern Macedonia, which had been already conquered by Germany, with the goal of restoring its pre-World War I outlet to the Aegean Sea. Bulgarian troops also occupied much of eastern Serbia, where Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and the Italians.
Resistance movements
Throughout the remainder of the war, active
See also
References
- Wards, Ian (2000). "The Balkan Dilemma". In Crawford, John (ed.). Kia Kaha: New Zealand in the Second World War. Auckland, NZ: Oxford. pp. 20–35. ISBN 0-19-558438-4.
- ^ Walther Hubatsch, Hitlers Weisungen fuer die Kriegfuehrung 1939-1945, Weisung Nr. 20, 2nd Edition, Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1983
External links
- The Fate of the Jews in South-Eastern Europe During the First Years of the War Archived 2012-01-11 at the Wayback Machine on the Yad Vashem website
- Summaries WORLD WAR II in the BALKANS
- Timeline of the Balkans Campaign
- World War Two Online Newspaper Archives — The Invasion of the Balkans: Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete, 1940-1941
- World War II in the Balkans