Wasn't it the Germans that invaded? But the Italians did form a large part of the occupying forces later on.

David

Mussolini's embarrassing war was the invasion of Greece rather than Yugoslavia. IIRC the Germans descended on Yugoslavia when a friendly regime was overthrown by one more aligned to the western allies.

Anyway the partisan war followed the lines of what we have seen in Iraq recently with the various factions fighting each other along ideological and ethnic lines just as much as they fought the German and Italian occupiers. There were various 'collaborators' with the occupiers like the Croatian Ustase and Serbian Chetniks - though it could be said that they weren't entirely collaborationists but pursuing their own national/ethnic interests and exploiting the German's war against Tito. And also pretty much like the various ethnic groups fought each other in the Soviet Union after Barbarossa.

The whole issue of how we ended up supporting Tito is pretty murky too - specially when you consider that the Communist partisans didn't start forming until AFTER the Germans had invaded Russia......

David

I know it is a very old topic, but it's never too late for history.

I have to say I'm surprised the number of topic about the Yugoslavia.

Partisans and the Chetniks were the Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. Chetniks were formed under the order of King and fought mostly against the Ustasha. Ustashas collaborated with the Germans and are responsible for many of brutality that even the Germans were surprised by. Partisans and the Chetniks fought against each other, but they were still fighting for the liberated Yugoslavia. My grandfather ("Bosnian Serb" which once did not matter) went to the Partisans, because he supported Communism. and many Croats did not want communism and joined the Chetniks. So Chetniks were not only Serbs and Partisans were not only Croats. and the Chetniks in the recent history have nothing to do with the Chetniks from the Second World War.