27th Infantry Division Savska
It was raised from the Savska divisional district, and like all Yugoslav infantry divisions of the time, was a very large and unwieldy formation almost entirely reliant on animal transport for mobility.
Commanded by Divizijski đeneral August Marić, the division was largely made up of ethnic Croat troops, many of whom saw the Germans as potential liberators from Serbian oppression during the interwar period.
A counterattack delayed the German advance during the night of 8/9 April, but the division began to disintegrate due to fifth column actions, rebellion and desertion.
In a single day, the German panzers, with overwhelming air support, brushed aside the remnants of the division and captured Zagreb, covering nearly 160 kilometres (100 mi) and meeting little resistance.
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was created with the merger of Serbia, Montenegro and the South Slav-inhabited areas of Austria-Hungary on 1 December 1918, in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
[3] Consequently, at the time World War II broke out in September 1939, the VKJ had several serious weaknesses, which included reliance on draught animals for transport, and the large size of its formations.
[7][8] The weaknesses of the VKJ in strategy, structure, equipment, mobility and supply were exacerbated by serious ethnic disunity within Yugoslavia, resulting from two decades of Serb hegemony and the attendant lack of political legitimacy achieved by the central government.
In peacetime, the Savska divisional district included:[12] The wartime organisation of the VKJ was laid down by regulations issued in 1936–1937,[13] which set the strength of an infantry division at 26,000–27,000 men.
[20] On 4 April, the commander of the 4th Army, Armijski đeneral Petar Nedeljković, had reported that the division could not move for another 24 hours due to lack of vehicles.
The XXXXVI Motorised Corps was then ordered to begin seizing bridges over the Drava along the length of the 4th Army front, including at Zákány near Gyékényes.
These local attacks were sufficient to inflame dissent within the largely Croat 4th Army, who refused to resist the Germans who they considered their liberators from Serbian oppression during the interwar period.
[31] The continuing mobilisation and concentration of the division and of the whole of the 4th Army was hampered by escalating fifth column activities and propaganda fomented by the Croatian nationalist Ustaše.
This attempt was only partially successful, due to the influence of Ustaše propaganda and the countermanding of the demolition orders by the chief of staff of the 27th ID, Major Anton Marković.
[33] About 07:30, the commander of the Yugoslav 1st Army Group, Armijski đeneral Milorad Petrović, met with Nedeljković at Zagreb and ordered him to go to Koprivnica and prepare a counterattack against the bridgehead, to commence at 15:00.
[35] After the Germans reinforced their bridgehead with two more battalions, they overcame the Yugoslav defenders, who had suffered significant losses and were running low on artillery ammunition.
[37] On 8 April, the German XXXXVI Motorised Corps continued with its limited objective attacks to expand their bridgeheads on the 4th Army front, including at Zákány.
Supported by two batteries of Skoda 75 mm Model 1928 mountain guns of the 27th Artillery Regiment, the attack consisted of three columns converging on the bridgehead.
[40] By noon, a full-scale revolt had broken out within the flanking 40th ID, resulting in the capture of the town of Bjelovar and a large portion of the 4th Army headquarters by the rebels that afternoon.
The commander of the right sector, Pukovnik[c] Mihailo Georgijević ordered his troops to hold their positions and went to divisional headquarters to ask approval to discharge the Croats in his units.
Marić would not inform 4th Army headquarters of this idea, so Georgijević went to Zagreb to speak to Petrović, and to further urge him to withdraw all troops that still wanted to fight to a line south of the Sava.
According to Georgijević, Petrović ordered him to tell Marić to consider disarming his Croat troops, and to continue to hold positions on the line of the Bilogora hills, but to conduct a fighting withdrawal towards Zagreb and Sisak if the German pressure was too great.
[41] Before the disbandment of the 104th Infantry Regiment, the rebels in Bjelovar had used the telegraph station and telephone exchange in the town to issue false orders to parts of it directing them to withdraw from their positions.
[44] On the evening of 9 April, Generaloberst[d] Maximilian von Weichs, commander of the German 2nd Army, was ready to launch major offensive operations from the bridgeheads on the following day.
[47] The second would see Generalmajor Walter Neumann-Silkow's 8th Panzer Division break out of the bridgehead in the sector of the 40th ID and turn east between the Drava and Sava to attack towards Belgrade.
[42] Early on 10 April, Pukovnik Franjo Nikolić, the head of the operations staff with the headquarters of the 1st Army Group,[51] left his post and visited the senior Ustaše leader Slavko Kvaternik in Zagreb.
[52] On the same day, the 14th Panzer Division, supported by dive bombers, crossed the Drava and drove southwest towards Zagreb on snow-covered roads in extremely cold conditions.
Nedeljković replied that he no longer had an army, and suggested that all Serb officers and men be ordered back to form a defensive line along the Sava and Una rivers.
[62] Yugoslavia was then occupied and dismembered by the Axis powers; Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Albania all annexed parts of its territory.
