Page:Robert M. Kennedy - German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944) - CMH Pub 104-18 (1954).pdf/80

GERMAN ANTIGUERRILLA OPERATIONS IN THE BALKANS (1941–1944) rest was invested by Romanian troops, and tank units had to be rushed to its relief. A few days later, Romanian troops joined Soviet forces in a campaign to drive the Germans out of Romania. The Bulgarians, meanwhile, had begun to assemble their occupation units in Macedonia into a compact force in the area just west of their own national border.

On 8 September, Bulgaria was at war with Germany and the Bulgarian I Corps was already in contact with the Partisan forces that had managed to infiltrate east to the Morava. Awaiting heavy Soviet and Bulgarian reinforcements from the Sofiya area, the I Corps held in place. Farther south, the V Corps was in defensive positions east of Skopije, though units in and about the city itself put up a stubborn struggle against the 1st Mountain Division on its arrival in TREUBRUCH. North of Skoplje, the 2d, 5th, and 17th Divisions of the Partisan II Corps had been identified. Immediately engaging both Bulgarians and Partisans, the 1st Mountain Division cleared the main routes to the north and secured the city of Skoplje itself. However, the division lacked the strength to destroy the guerrilla and Bulgarian forces or to drive them from the area.

It is important to note, at this point, that the Germans had begun to use the Partisan and other guerrilla designations for the irregular units. Before this time, the usual reference in German reports had been to "bands." But from mid-1944, operations orders and the war diaries of the German units committed against the guerrillas began to carry the guerrilla forces as brigades, divisions, and corps, with numerical designation when known. In a conference on 21 September, Marshal von Weichs expressed the view that the size, armament, organization, and operations of the Partisan units justified the Germans' considering them as an enemy on the same plane with the regular forces of the other nations with which the Reich was at war.

To keep the various small units and administrative detachments scattered over Yugoslavia intact while the fighting to secure the Skoplje area was in progress, Army Group F directed their concentration in central locations and the organization of an all-round defense. All female personnel were ordered evacuated, and plans drawn up to destroy all supplies that could not be moved. Outlying garrisons were stripped of combat units to build up the mobile force assembling under Second Panzer Army in the area south of Belgrade.

After an appeal by Prime Minister Neditch, the Serbian State Guard and security units were issued additional ammunition. However, it was obviously already too late to strengthen either the Serbian auxiliaries or the demoralized Croatian Ustascha. The Chetniks, facing complete annihilation at the hands of the Partisans, rendered