Pages

1942: Croatia

This newly formed state was proclaimed 'independent' on April 10, 1941, at the moment when Yugoslavia, of which it had formed a part, was disintegrating under German aggression. Its government is purely Fascist in character. It was formed on April 18, 1941, with Dr. Ante Pavelitch as Poglavnik (leader) and prime minister, and his party, the terrorist Ustasha, as the only legal party. On May 18 Croatia concluded a treaty of alliance with Italy and Prince Aimone, a nephew of the King of Italy, was proclaimed king, but up to the end of 1942 he had not dared set foot in his kingdom. Croatia signed on June 15 the Three-Power Pact and became officially an ally of Germany, Italy and Japan in their war against the United Nations.

Croatia has not been able to establish peaceful government in the twenty months of its existence. Italian troops have occupied large parts of the country, especially Dalmatia, and keep them under Italian administration. The Croatian government has equaled and perhaps even surpassed the German Nazis in savagery. Unprecedented cruelty was turned especially against the Serbs and against the small Jewish minority. This terrorism provoked an unceasing unrest, so that guerrilla warfare in Croatia has now gone on for the whole period of its existence as a separate kingdom. Warfare was undertaken partly by the Yugoslav patriot army of General Mihailovich, which for many months occupied large parts of Bosnia and sometimes carried the war to the vicinity of the Croatian capital, Zagreb, and partly by dissatisfied peasants, sometimes under Communist leadership. The savage reprisals of the Croatian puppet government and of the Italian-German armies have not pacified the country. On the contrary they have aroused only more bitterness and more determined resistance. Internal unrest has been increased by economic problems, by dislike for the Italians, by the dissatisfaction of the Croat Peasant Party which represents the large majority of the population and which has been removed from its position by the Ustasha, and finally by a rift in the Fascist Croat government because of which the second in command, Marshal Kvaternik, was removed and imprisoned.

No comments:

Post a Comment