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Planning Begins
Hitler begins planning to invade Greece. He unifies forces with Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian axis to invade Yugoslavia and Greece. -
Italy Attacks
By the late 1940 Italy began to invade Greece, however Greece was well prepared and was not defeated by Italy forces. This led to the intervention of Germany allies to defeat Greece. -
Invasion in Balkan
Invasion in Balkan countries of Yugoslavia begun. Hitler takes advantage of the tension between ethnic group conflicts, resulting in the division of the Yugoslav Army. Causing many Croatians units to surrender. Therefore Greece was forced to find refuge in Crete. -
Chetniks Movement
Chetniks was a movement in Yugoslavia who was anti-axis movement and engaged in marginal resistance activities. In 1942 they cooperated with Italy to annihilate Partisans who were the largest resistance army. -
Three-sided war
Conflict between Partisans and Chetniks fighting against Axis occupation escalated and in face of the Germans this had become a three-sided war. -
Italy surrenders
Italy surrendered in 1943, however the British forces supported the Partisans. At this point Germany forces were focused on capturing Tito leader of the partisans and General Secretary of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. -
Tito escapes to Vis
By 1944 Tito had escaped to the island of Vis, however his army continued to fight and grew to become the largest resistance force in Europe. -
German surrenders
Sizable Partisans gradually drove axis forces through Serbia and Croatia until Germans surrendered on May 8. -
Liberation of Yugoslavia
Soviet advanced against German forces reaching the eastern regions of Yugoslavia, enforcing Germans to withdraw north. This led Partisan forces to liberate the capital of Yugoslavia few hours before the Red Army arrived. -
The Aftermath
Tito made sure to hunt down the Chenik and executing about 30,000 Croat Ustate troops who were a Croatian Revolutionary Movement promoting genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Romani people. Yugoslavia invasion resulted in over 1.7 million dead.
