After the imposition of royal dictatorship by King Alexander in 1929, at which time the state was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Račić's former organisation was dissolved, and the former dissidents rejoined the original "Chetnik Association for the Freedom and Honor of the Fatherland",[41] which was officially sanctioned.

[44] Resistance by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was met with further terror, which included the formation in 1922 of the Association against Bulgarian Bandits led by Pećanac and Ilija Trifunović-Lune, based out of Štip in eastern Macedonia.

However, it is clear from the series of Yugoslav war plans between 1938 and 1941 that the General Staff had no real commitment to guerrilla warfare prior to the April 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, and did not seriously consider employing the Chetnik Association in the role either.

[64] On 13 May, Mihailović arrived at some shepherd huts at Ravna Gora on the western slopes of Suvobor Mountain near the town of Gornji Milanovac in the central part of the occupied territory,[61] by which time his group consisted of only seven officers and 27 other ranks.

Vasić was the most important of the three, and was designated by Mihailović as the ranking member of a three-man committee, along with Potpukovnik (Lieutenant Colonel) Dragoslav Pavlović and Major Jezdimir Dangić, who were to take over the leadership of the organisation if anything should happen to him.

It reinforced the main Greater Serbia objective of the Chetnik movement, and in addition advocated the retention of the Karađorđević dynasty, espoused a unitary Yugoslavia with self-governing Serb, Croat and Slovene units but excluding entities for other Yugoslav peoples such as Macedonians and Montenegrins as well as other minorities.

[17] The final documents detailing Chetnik ideology were produced by the Ba Congress called by Mihailović in January 1944,[87][88][89] in response to the November 1943 Second Session of the communist-led Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) of the Partisans.

[116] A few Sandžak and Bosnian Muslims supported Mihailović,[117][116] and some Jews joined the Chetniks, especially those who were members of the right-wing Zionist Betar movement, but they were alienated by Serb xenophobia and eventually left,[118] with some defecting to the Partisans.

According to new archival evidence, published in 1980 for the first time, some actions against Axis carried by Mihailović and his Chetniks, with British liaison officer Brigadier Armstrong, were mistakenly credited to Tito and his Communist forces.

In the following months of 1942, General Mario Roatta, commander of the Italian 2nd Army, worked on developing a Linea di condotta ("Policy Directive") on relations with Chetniks, Ustaše and Partisans.

[157] Italian officers noted the ultimate control of these collaborating Chetnik units remained in the hands of Draža Mihailović, and contemplated the possibility of a hostile reorientation of these troops in light of the changing strategic situation.

[166] Fleeing the Partisans, in March 1945 Pavle Đurišić negotiated an agreement with the Ustaše and Ustaše-supported Montenegrin separatist, Sekula Drljević, to provide safe conduct for his Chetniks across the NDH.

From this point on, the German occupation actually started to "openly favor" Chetnik (Serb) troops over the Croat formations of the NDH, due to the pro-Partisan dispositions of the Croatian rank-and-file.

Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs commented:Though he himself [Draža Mihailović] shrewdly refrained from giving his personal view in public, no doubt to have a free hand for every eventuality (e.g. Allied landing on the Balkans), he allowed his commanders to negotiate with Germans and to co-operate with them.

[182] Prior to the outbreak of World War II, use of terror tactics had a long tradition in the area as various oppressed groups sought their freedom and atrocities were committed by all parties engaged in conflict in Yugoslavia.

[190][191] Mihailović's headquarters sent further instructions to the commander of the Second Sarajevo Chetnik Brigade clarifying the goal: "It should be made clear to everyone that, after the war or when the time becomes appropriate, we will complete our task and that no one except the Serbs will be left in Serbian lands.

[204] In early October 1942 in the village of Gata near Split, an estimated one hundred people were killed and many homes burnt purportedly as reprisal for the destruction of some roads in the area and carried out on the Italians' account.

In that same October, formations under the command of Petar Baćović and Dobroslav Jevđević, who were participating in the Italian Operation Alfa in the area of Prozor, massacred a minimum of five hundred Croats and Muslims and burnt numerous villages.

In the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, apart from a few terrorist acts against Nedić's and Ljotić's men, and in Montenegro against separatists, terror was directed solely against the Partisans, their families and sympathizers, on ideological grounds.

[220] On 10 September 1944, a Chetnik mission of approximately 150 men, led by Lieutenant Colonel Velimir Piletić, commander of northeastern Serbia, crossed the Danube into Romania and established contact with Soviet forces at Craiova.

[230] He was declared a war criminal who as commander of the Dinara Division was responsible for organizing and carrying out a series of mass murders, massacres, tortures, rapes, robberies, and imprisonments, and collaborating with the German and Italian occupiers.

On 12 January 1952, the government reported four or five Chetnik "brigades" numbering around 400 men each still existed and were at the borders of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania, and in Montenegrin forests, attacking meetings of the communist party and police buildings.

[255] Jović, at the time the Serbian Minister of the Interior, organized the youth wing of the SNO into the White Eagles,[257] a paramilitary closely based on the World War II Chetnik movement,[242] and called for "a Christian, Orthodox Serbia with no Muslims and no unbelievers.

[264] Milošević and Radovan Karadžić, the president of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska, used the subordinate Chetnik forces of Šešelj and Ražnatović as part of their plan to expel non-Serbs and form a Greater Serbia through the use of ethnic cleansing, terror, and demoralization.

[272] Reports sent by Ražnatović to Milošević, Ratko Mladić, and Blagoje Adžić stated the plan was progressing, noting that the psychological attack on the Bosniak population in Bosnia and Herzegovina was effective and should continue.

[301] The 2002 Serbian textbook intended for the final years of high school[301] hailed Chetniks as national patriots, minimized the Partisan movement, and resulted in protests from historians who viewed the work as dubious.

[156] The Serbian basketball player Milan Gurović has a tattoo of Mihailović on his left arm which has resulted in a ban since 2004 in playing in Croatia where it is "considered an incitement ... of racial, national or religious hatred".

"[317] On 4 July, the Montenegrin government forbade the unveiling of the monument stating that it "caused public concern, encouraged division among the citizens of Montenegro, and incited national and religious hatred and intolerance.

They spoke of "common Slavic blood and Orthodox faith", cited similarities with the Cossacks, and claimed to be returning the favour of Russian volunteers who fought on the Serbian side of the Yugoslav Wars.

[349] This organisation promotes the concept of Chetnik forces fighting against the Nazi and Italian regimes during the second world war and as a result has participated in Anzac Day marches in Melbourne and Sydney.