How the Wars of Yugoslavia Began: From Pakrac and Borovo Selo to the Ten-Day War in Slovenia

By early 1991, the video says, it had become clear that Yugoslavia was falling apart. The open questions were how the country would fall apart, how it would be divided, which countries would become independent, which would stay under Serbian domination, and most importantly whether there would be war and bloodshed.

The video states that it addresses some of these questions by discussing Slovenia and Croatia's independence and how the first Yugoslav wars unfolded in those countries.

Once the Krajina Serbs declared unilateral secession from Croatia, the video says, confrontation between Croats and Serbs became inevitable. After taking Serb-majority territories under its control, the Serb police and paramilitaries turned their attention to the border region of Slavonia, which had mixed Croat and Serb populations.

On March 1, 1991, Serb paramilitaries captured the town of Pakrac and disarmed Croatian policemen in the process. Croatian president Tuđman immediately ordered an operation to retake the town, as he had no intention of suffering another Knin debacle. At 4:30 am on the following day, a police force of 200 Croatians commanded by Deputy Police Minister Perica Jurić covertly entered the town and recaptured Pakrac after a brief gunfight with no casualties.

The video notes that the Serbian press claimed the Croat operation caused Serb deaths and a refugee exodus. Borislav Jović, the Serb president of the Federal Presidency, ordered the Yugoslav army into Pakrac to settle the dispute. Talks between the Croat government and the Yugoslav Army produced an agreement under which both the Croat police and the JNA would withdraw from the town. The immediate threat of violence decreased, but the video says the crisis was far from resolved.

The next target of the Serb paramilitaries led by Milan Martić was Plitvice National Park, a resort popular with European tourists. After Croat police established a police station in the area, Martić sent a group of armed militiamen who took over the park.

On March 31, about 300 men from the Croatian Police Special Forces arrived to restore Croatian control. This time the Serb paramilitaries were better prepared, having erected barricades and laid an ambush, but in the ensuing short battle the Croats prevailed. The video states that the first casualties of the Yugoslav wars occurred in this battle, one on each side.

Once again the JNA arrived to ensure a ceasefire, but the political reaction was more heated. Milošević's representatives went to Knin to coordinate support for the rebels. In Bosnia, Radovan Karadžić, then one of the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs and not yet engaged in genocide, called for the creation of a Serbian army.

The video notes that the nationalists were not the only source of trouble. In mid-April 1991, a group of HDZ members, including Croat-Canadian businessman and extreme nationalist Gojko Šušak, went to Borovo Selo, a Serb village in Slavonia. The group fired three Ambrust missiles into the village in a completely unprovoked manner. No one was killed, but tensions rose.

On May 1, four Croat policemen tried to replace the Yugoslav flag with the Croatian flag in Borovo Selo, and the local Serb militia, which was ready, wounded and captured two of them. The next day, 180 Croat policemen went to Borovo Selo and were ambushed by Serb paramilitaries. Twelve Croats were killed.

The video reports that the event shocked Croatia. President Tuđman stated that the Battle of Borovo Selo was "the beginning of open warfare against the Republic of Croatia" and blamed Serbia's leadership for supporting the Serb paramilitaries. In the following weeks, violence spread through Slavonia, with bombings and shootings by both sides occurring regularly. The video says the escalation made the last-ditch attempts to find a new governance format for Yugoslavia meaningless.

Slovenia and Croatia had already voted for independence in their respective referendums. The video says Slovenians were far ahead in preparing: by summer 1991 they had finalized plans for customs, the border, the police, legislation and more. The Croats, by contrast, had done practically nothing to prepare because they were already overwhelmed by the war they were embroiled in. Still, Tuđman wanted to declare independence on the same day so as not to be left behind.

On June 25, 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, and Yugoslavia in its post-World War II form ceased to exist. The video explains that Slovenia had no significant Serb population, making it, from the nationalist point of view, the easiest republic for Milošević and Serbia to let go. A few months earlier, on January 24, 1991, Milošević had met Slovenian President Kučan, who later said that Milošević was not against Slovenia's secession.

The video says that when push came to shove, Serbia decided to make at least a token show of force, since doing otherwise would have sent the wrong message to other republics.

Well-prepared Slovenians immediately started taking steps to assert their sovereignty. They assumed control of the borders, the air traffic, and the port authorities. Slovenian flags and symbols replaced Yugoslav ones, and federal officials were ordered to leave their posts.

The Yugoslav army was ordered to invade Slovenia under the pretext of securing Yugoslavia's international border. Elements of the JNA's 13th Corps stationed in Rijeka and the 306th Anti-Aircraft regiment stationed in Karlovac, together with other forces totalling some 2,500 men, entered Slovenia early in June. This began what was later dubbed the Ten-Day War. The Slovenes learned of the JNA's advance from the Croats and began preparing to resist by erecting barricades.

The video describes several columns. One JNA armoured column crossed the border with Croatia near Metlika and moved toward southeastern Slovenia. Another moved from Varaždin toward the Austrian border. Simultaneously, a column of the 1st Armored Brigade stationed in Vrhnika barracks moved out to capture the Ljubljana airport. The Kučan government ordered the Slovenian army and Territorial Defense Units to resist. Battles took place around Metlika, Medvedjek and Ormož, where Slovenians harassed Yugoslav armour with anti-tank guns, and in the afternoon they shot down a helicopter carrying bread over Ljubljana to Yugoslav barracks.

The JNA had occupied many border crossings on the first day, so on the following day the Slovenians shifted from primarily blocking actions to attacking captured crossings and blockading JNA bases. Slovenian forces defeated a JNA unit in the Nova Gorica border area, capturing three of its T-55 tanks, and another heavy battle took place at the Holmec border crossing. The video notes that many Yugoslav servicemen started to desert or refuse to fight, since the JNA was still a multinational force that included Slovenians. The JNA used its air superiority to bomb airports, Slovenian military installations, barricades, and radio and television transmitters. While this had limited military impact, the Slovenian forces isolated Yugoslav units scattered across the border crossings, worsening their supply situation. At Vrtojba a JNA unit surrendered, leaving several tanks to the Slovene army.

The video says that by this point the Serb leadership concluded the limited invasion was insufficient to break Slovene resolve. Military leadership proposed a full-scale invasion, but the political leadership shot the proposal down. Preserving Yugoslavia was no longer a priority; ensuring that all Serb-populated areas were under their control was, and the Yugoslav army was to be used for that instead.

A short EU-brokered ceasefire had earlier turned Slovenia into the victim and Yugoslavia into the villain in the eyes of the international community, and it gave the Slovenes time to improve their defences. When fighting restarted on June 29, Slovenian forces isolated Yugoslav units across the border crossings. One last attempt came on July 2, when a JNA armoured unit tried to leave the Kokovski forest but was stopped by Slovene anti-tank weapons, and the armoured column sent to relieve it met the same fate. Fighting largely stopped after another EU-brokered ceasefire. On July 7, 1991, the Ten-Day War ended as Slovenia, Croatia and Yugoslavia signed the Brioni Accord, under which Slovenia and Croatia would postpone their independence for three months and the Yugoslav army would withdraw.

The video states that the Ten-Day War was not indicative of the other Yugoslav wars. In Slovenia the Yugoslav army tried to suppress independence with a small force and quickly withdrew, accepting Slovenia's secession. Slovenia, the video says, did not have a Serb population and was not part of the Greater Serbian realm in the eyes of Slobodan Milošević, unlike Croatia.

Croat president Franjo Tuđman wanted to avoid war at all costs. The JNA was still a formidable force and far stronger in conventional terms than the nascent Croat army. When his defence minister Martin Špegelj suggested taking over the JNA barracks in Croatia while they were busy in Slovenia, Tuđman disagreed to avoid provoking Serbia. For him, independence was to be won through international sympathy and recognition rather than by taking on the JNA. The caution proved fruitless: throughout July and August, Martić's forces captured Glina, Kostajnica, Okučani and Dalj, with the Yugoslav Army behind them ready to prevent Croat counter-attacks, and thousands of Croats were displaced.

Martić's next target was the Croat village of Kijevo, in the middle of Serb-held territory. The video says the JNA, which at the start of the war in Croatia had tried to appear neutral, had become openly pro-Serbian. Both Milan Babić and Martić admitted this, or rather proudly declared it.

The video introduces Ratko Mladić, a young Serb lieutenant colonel from Bosnia who later became one of the most notorious war criminals of the Yugoslav Wars. He was transferred to Knin in summer 1991, where he became Chief of Staff of the Knin Corps of the JNA. By then he had embraced the Serb nationalist perspective on Croatia and immediately established contact with the Krajina Serb paramilitaries. On August 26, after a long artillery bombardment, they practically destroyed Kijevo and the Croats were forced to flee.

Around the same time, Serbs began besieging the Croatian town of Vukovar in Eastern Slavonia, on the border with Serbia, under intense artillery and mortar fire. At this point, the video says, Serb paramilitaries controlled more than a quarter of Croatia, in three separate territories: one around Knin, a second around Glina, and a third in Eastern Slavonia. The three were connected to each other only through Bosnia and Herzegovina, which allowed the JNA and Serb paramilitaries to regroup and move freely among them.

After a series of defeats, the Croatian government announced a general mobilisation and a "war of liberation." In mid-September the Croatian National Guard began laying siege to JNA military bases across Croatia, cutting their electricity, water, telephone lines and supplies. Tank traps and barricades were erected on main highways. The battles broadly followed the lines of Serb communities, from Gospić in the south to Karlovac just south of Zagreb, then around Pakrac and Okučani, and finally in Eastern Slavonia at Vukovar.

The Croat sieges of JNA bases had varied success. In Osijek, Vinkovci and Jastrebarsko, JNA commanders struck deals with local Croat police chiefs or military commanders, threatening to destroy the cities unless they were allowed to leave for Serb-held areas. Deeper in Croatia, in Varaždin, Yugoslav commander Vlado Trifunović had no hope of relief from Serbia and surrendered to save his men's lives.

The Croats captured dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles in this operation, enabling them to form their first tank brigade. Tuđman later claimed that the Croatian army had captured 70 JNA facilities, including garrisons and ammunition depots, which improved their supply situation.

The Croat strategy of encircling the JNA bases gave Serbia a further pretext to send the Yugoslav army against Croatia. On September 19, Belgrade witnessed a column over six miles long of at least 100 T-55 and M-84 tanks, along with armoured personnel carriers and heavy artillery, moving towards Croatia.

Meanwhile Vukovar remained under heavy Serb bombardment. On September 14 Serb paramilitaries attacked southwest of Vukovar from the direction of Negoslavci, forcing thousands of civilians into the centre of the city. Those trying to escape were targeted by snipers. The Croatian National Guard put up fierce resistance, and the poor organisation of the Yugoslav military and Serb paramilitaries, combined with a high rate of desertion in JNA ranks, prevented them from capturing Vukovar quickly. Discipline improved only after General Panić was appointed. On November 3 the First Motorized Guard Brigade attacked with support from the Yugoslav Air Force and captured most of Vukovar. The main body of Croatian defenders surrendered on November 18, and the last pockets held out until November 20, when the town fully fell to the Serbs. Many captured civilians and Croat soldiers were executed.

Serb forces achieved several victories while the siege of Vukovar was still ongoing. They captured Petrinja, 45 km south of the capital Zagreb, on September 21. There they committed atrocities against Croat POWs and civilians who did not want to leave the town, and even against Serb families who opposed these atrocities. In November they captured Slunj to establish a territorial connection between the Knin and Glina areas.

After the victory in Vukovar the Serb army continued its advance in Eastern Slavonia, capturing Ernestinovo and Laslovo and beginning to shell Osijek, the largest city in the region. Thousands of Croatians fled the city. In late November and early December they pushed closer to Osijek against heavy resistance from the Croatian 106th Brigade.

On December 17 the Croat 135th Brigade launched Operation Devil's Beam, pushing the Serbs back from the north of Osijek and preventing the complete encirclement of the city. At this point Tuđman was once again under heavy internal and external pressure. The external pressure forced him to order the Croat Army to allow JNA forces in the Marshal Tito barracks in Zagreb to leave with hundreds of tanks and other equipment, in a bid to secure international support for the coming fight. This was unpopular with Croats, and Tuđman calmed things somewhat by arresting several nationalist commanders and politicians.

A few weeks earlier, on October 1, the JNA's 2nd Corps had unexpectedly attacked toward the port city of Dubrovnik from Montenegro, even though the city had no JNA bases or sizable Serb population. Because Dubrovnik sits at the edge of Croatia, bringing in and supplying reinforcements was a huge task, and within days the Croatian National Guard defending the city was forced back into it.

Shelling and bombardment of the city from ground, air and sea began in mid-October. Some bombs fell on the historic Old Town, causing a major international outcry, and some of the shelling served no military purpose. In November all yachts in the Old Town harbour were destroyed by wire-guided missiles, which Silber and Little described as "the revenge of the poor boys from the mountains on one of the richest, most westward-leaning parts of former Yugoslavia." However, Serb forces never launched a decisive assault to capture Dubrovnik, and the fighting shifted to a low-intensity siege by late 1991.

The video offers several explanations. From a purely military perspective, an urban fight would have been difficult and costly for the Serbs. There was also strong international condemnation after the bombardment and a threat of sanctions against Serbia, which may have affected their reluctance. Some commentators argue that by then Serb attention had started turning toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, and some speculate that Tuđman and Milošević reached a tacit agreement to partition Bosnia in March 1991. The video says the Bosnian war will be covered in the next video.

The extreme nationalists in Serbia, who were further right than even Milošević, wanted to continue the offensive deep into Croatia and bring the whole country to heel. General Panić, who commanded the Serb forces at Vukovar, believed that had they continued, they would even have captured Zagreb. They were thwarted by Milošević, which the video describes as a very overconfident perspective on the part of the Serb general.

According to Silber and Little, by late 1991 the Croat army had vastly improved its capacity. The capture of dozens of JNA facilities had given it significant equipment and supplies, and Croat commander-in-chief Antun Tus had improved the organisation and discipline of the Croat forces, which by then numbered 250,000 men. Further Serb attempts could have succeeded, but would have been extremely costly against a much better organised enemy. For Milošević, the job in Croatia had largely been done: he controlled almost all of the Serb-populated territory, about a third of the country, which was his initial goal anyway.

On January 2, 1992, Croatia and Yugoslavia signed an agreement in Sarajevo, brokered by former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. It established a ceasefire along the existing line of contact and allowed for the deployment of UN peacekeepers. The ceasefire largely held until 1995, ending the first stage of the war in Croatia.

The video concludes that Milošević and Serbia could now turn their attention to Bosnia, which the next video will cover, including the inter-ethnic conflict, Croatia's participation in the war, the siege of Sarajevo and some of the worst atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars.