C HAPTE R S IXTEEN

TheInterwarYears andWorldWarII

TheVersailles dictates of theEntente Powers regardingthe new nation-states of “friends” and“enemies” camewith both strings attached andscantconsideration for thecollateral difficulties thatthey caused. Whether “winners” or “losers” at Versailles, the postwar Balkan states suffered almost equally in termsofnational, political, andeconomic problemsstemming from the settlements. Nationally,the problemsof the“losers” wereblatant, whilethe“winners” paid for their favored status with subsequent intense internal national problems. Politically, all reverted from outwardly Western-like liberal-democracy toward moreoverttraditional Eastern-like(Orthodoxand Islamic) authoritarian rule. Economically, all primarily remained agrarian andcommercially dependenton the West, leavingthemhighly vulnerable to Western market changes—especially theGreatDepression—and ultimately susceptibletoNazi Germany’s influence through economic assistance.

Continuing National Problems: The“Winners”

The Kingdom of , , andSlovenes wasthe most artificial European nation-state to emerge from Versailles. Contrary to the ideal ofnational self- determination,the kingdomrecognized by theEntente Powerswasconsidered somehow a single nation-state representativeofnumerous disparate groups— Albanians, Bosnian Muslims (“Bosniaks”), Croats, Hungarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, , and a smatteringof others—not all of whom were South Slavsor willing participants. Recognition overtly wasbased on theCorfu

D. P. Hupchick, The Balkans © Dennis P. Hupchick 2002 THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 339

DeclarationandtheBelgrade Proclamation, but it actually was arewardtotheSerbs under theguise of Serbia’s wartimeespousal of “.” Disparities in nationalist ideologyamongthethree “Yugoslav” movements duringthewar—the Pasid government, theLondon Committee, andthe“Yugoslav Group”—wereevident, but expedientcompromises in response to wartimesitua- tions led to both theCorfu andBelgrade pronouncements. Theemergence of the Slovene-led pro-Habsburg“Yugoslav Group”(1917) forced the Pasid government andtheLondon Committee to unite in defense ofanindependent postwar South Slav state. Thatunity,expressed in theJuly 1917Corfu Declaration outlining a future Yugoslav state, was noeasymatter. Neither theLondon Committee’s Ante Trumbid, a Dalmatian Croat, nor the few Slovenes in attendance werecertain thatthey spoke for the majority of their respectiveconationals—most Croats andSlovenes werewary of Serb intentions. In theStrossmayer tradition,they envisioned the future“Yugoslav”state as a decen- tralized confederation of separate nations andwere awarethat Pasid advocated “” nationalism. Thespecter ofpossiblecontinued Habsburg rule, however, led them to thetablewith theSerbian government-in-exileon in hopes offinding a workablecompromise. Pasid accepted Trumbid’s demands foraconstitutional monarchy responsible to a democratically elected national assembly asthegoverning framework for the proposed postwar state, which wastoencompass all ofprewar Serbia (including Kosovo and Macedonia), Montenegro, Croatia (includingSlavonia andDalmatia), ,Bosnia-Hercegovina, andVojvodina. Hedid so, however,only because at thetimeof the meetingSerbia lacked Russian supportsince the MarchRevolution hadthrownit into internal turmoil,the Americans(crucial to Entente war efforts) favored theLondon Committee’s “Yugoslav” ideas, andcontinued Entente support was needed to regain occupied Serbia. Just astheLondon Committee wasconstrained to cut a deal with the Pasid government, so wasthe“Yugoslav Group”whenAustria-Hungary disintegrated. Without aHabsburg-led option,thegroup’s Slovene andCroat members first tried establishing a South Slav state on their own under theguise of theZagreb Yugoslav National Council.Lacking a military force, thecouncil becamedependenton the Serbs, who fielded theonly effectivetroops in the region, andultimately wasobliged to acknowledge Serbia’s righttopostwar South Slav leadership under theBelgrade Proclamation (December1918). Given thecircumstances leadingtotheBelgrade Proclamation,theSerbian government felt noobligation to honor theCorfuDeclaration’s termscalling fora confederationprovidingeachnational componentwithanauthentic voice in the state throughliberal-democraticconstitutional means. Its intentions first were displayed when,shortly after the proclamation, it declared Serbian Prince Aleksandr Karadjordjevid king-regent(1921-34). 340 THEBALKANS

From thestart, Stjepan Radid’s Croatian Peasant party opposed AleksandrI’s acceptance until a liberal-democraticconstitution wascreated. Croat fearswere justified. Pasid andtheSerbian nationalists refused to relinquish their centralizing program anddelayed elections foraconstitutional assembly. TheSerb-dominated interim government passed aland reform program thatthey used to win support from Bosnian and Macedonian Muslim landownerscontrolling anumber of seats in the national assembly,who received overly generous compensationfor lands confiscated by the reforms. Even though elections for theconstitutional assembly (1921)demonstrated widespreadopposition to theSerbs’ centralism,theSerbian nationalists passed a strongly centralized state constitution that essentially copied Serbia’s prewar monarchical document. A solidified national breech between Serbs andCroats resulted. Serbian nationalists dominated thestate in every way,controllingthetop government ministries andoffices, the military’s officer corps, andthe police. King Aleksandr’s complete control over the army guaranteed thatsituation.Before WorldWar I ended, hecrushed theBlack Hand, which contested royal authority over the military,by trying andexecuting its leaderson trumped-up treason charges. Hetheninstalled a group of trusted, loyal officers(whomhecalled the “White Hand”) in its place, who placed the military unquestioningly behind Aleksandr during his subsequent reign. TheSerbs also counted on the many ethnonational differences fragmentingthe state’s non-Serb population to preclude effectiveunified majority opposition. Radid’s Croatian nationalists, theonly cohesiveopposition,committed numerous political mistakes (ill-timed boycotts of the national assembly,erratic“waffling” in political tactics) that hampered their effectiveness. TheSerbs boughtoff lesser national groupswith minorpolitical concessions and frequently resorted to traditional extralegal political tactics—bribery, police coercion,electionrigging, patronage, and legal manipulation—whennecessary.Such tactics commonly were used on the Macedonian Slavs, whom theSerbs refused to recognize asethnically different(officially callingthem “Southern [or ‘Vardar’] Serbs”). TheCroats responded with blatant andcontinuous opposition. AfterRadid was murdered in the national assembly byaradical Serb nationalist (1928), they declared all-out political war on theSerbs. A Croatian ultranationalist revolution- ary terrorist organization—the Ustase—was formed by theexpatriate Ante Pavelid. Basically an outgrowth of the Party ofPure Right, the Ustase established ties with thesimilarly terroristicBulgaro-Macedonian IMRO, withrevisionist Hungary, andwithfascist Italy. A separate Croatian “parliament” wassetupinZagreb, and King Aleksandr, raised in theOrthodoxauthoritarian cultureof the Russian tsarist court, declared aroyal dictatorship to staveoff the kingdom’s dissolution. To mollify theCroats andunite the various non-Serbs underhis rule, Aleksandr changed thestate’s nametoYugoslavia (1929), but theCroats (joined by the THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 341

Bulgaro-Macedonians) remained adamantly opposed andthe royal dictatorship acquired noticeable anti-Croatovertones. Toweakenregional power bases, the kingdom was reorganized administratively,with ahistorical banovinas (adminis- trative regions) replacing historical provinces. Aleksandr’s heavy-handed methods eventually discredited hisdictatorship. Most non-Serbs considered theterm “Yugoslav”synonymous with “Serb.” By eliminating all partypolitics, Aleksandrlost even Serbian nationalist support. He issued anew constitution (1931)thatsuperficially lent political respectabilityand representativegovernmenttowhat remained a centralized, authoritarian, monar- chical state. By1934 the king realized that hisdictatorship had failed to solvethe national-political conflict, but before he couldend it hewas assassinated during a state visittoFrance byanUstase-connected Macedonian revolutionary in the pay ofItalian fascists. Fear ofItalian ambitions in Dalmatia briefly united some level-headed Croats andSerbs behindthe regency of Prince Pavel,who, in the nameofyoung King Petr II (1934-41), governed in continued dictatorial fashion. The honeymoon wasbrief, with theCroats again boycottingthe national assembly afterreceiving noconces- sions from theSerbs regardingtheir federalist demands (1935). TheSerb-dominated governmenttried cultural bribery to placate them—a concordatwith theVatican giving Roman Catholics wider privileges in (theOrthodoxand Muslims already enjoyed legal official standing) wassigned (1937). Swift andwidespread Orthodox opposition, however, forced thegovernmenttotreatthedeal as a dead letter, reinforcingtheCroats’ displeasure. Another Balkan “winner”— Romania—emerged from Versailles asthe“Greater Romania”of the nationalists’ goals, having acquired coveted Transylvania,Banat, andBukovina frompostwar Hungary and Austria and Bessarabia from collapsed . Romanian ethnic majorities in all of these regionssuperficially justified their acquisition onnational self-determinantgrounds. In reality, however, Romania’s national situationresulting from their possession closely resembled thatof the Yugoslav Kingdom: Transylvania contained large Hungarian,Székely, andGerman minorities; Banat’s former military borderpopulation was an ethnic hodgepodge; Bukovina included numerous Poles, Ruthenians, andSlovaks; and Bessarabia housed Ukrainian, Russian,Bulgarian, and Turkish minorities. ARomanian-Hungarian dispute over Transylvania’s possession thaterupted with the TrianonTreaty’s signing—the“Transylvanian Question”—dominated Romania’s national stage through the outbreak of WorldWar II. Romania’s Transylvanian national problem wascomplex, involving both domestic and foreign components. Until the 1918 AlbaIulia Union,which was an act oflast-resortexpediencyin the face ofHabsburgcollapse andthe presence ofRomanian troops in Transylvania, Transylvanian Romanian nationalism aimed atgainingstatus equal to the Hungar- 342 THEBALKANS ians, Székelys, andGermanswithin both the principalityandthe HabsburgEmpire as a whole. Egalitarian social reform essentially lay at its core. Evenastheir national situation worsened after the 1867 Compromise, only a handful of Transylvanian Romanians soughtcloserrelationswithRomania. Most wanted anational partition deal from the Habsburgs similar to the Hungarians’ rather than unification with Romania,whose Byzantine-like Phanariote and Ottoman cultural ties seemed foreign.On theother hand, the PrincipalityRomanians mainly wereconcerned with blotting out their Greek Phanariote legacy while preservingtheir highly aristocratic and essentially feudal sociopolitical traditionswithin a “GreaterRomania.” In the charged atmosphere prevailing at AlbaIulia, few Romanians from either side of the Carpathiansgave much thoughttothe real differences existing between their two nationalist traditions. Romania’s military occupation of Transylvania rendered such considerationmoot andensured the TrianonTreaty’s implementation. After Trianon, Romania’s non-Romanian minorities, especially the Transylva- nian Hungarians, initially hoped thatthe historical andcultural differences between the Transylvanian and PrincipalityRomanians would preservethemfromRoma- nian ultranationalist discrimination. Their hopes quickly weredispelled. Some minorities werestronger socially andeconomically than the Romanians, who viewed thatsituationas a threattotheir national superiority within the Romanian nation- state. Thegovernment reacted by implementing programs intended to weaken the minorities’ position. King Ferdinand I’s government, intenton centralizing its control,eliminated pre-Trianon governing institutions in the newly acquired territories and installed administrators from the Regat(prewar Romania). Minority officialswere weeded out of their posts, and numerous minority churchand private schoolswereclosed. Schoolsbecametools forRomanianizingthe minorities, withRomanian-language classes made mandatory.Systematic personal attacksonminorityindividuals and local communities followed. Romania’s oppression of minorities, particularly in Transylvania,often escaped outside notice because ofits legal facade. The 1923 constitution was amodel ofliberal- democratic ideals: Itguaranteed minorityrights, proportional representationin government, and freedom ofreligion, education, and national organizationfor all. As frequently wasthecase in theBalkan states, the law itself was good but its enforcement was poor. Romanian officialsbullied the minorities andshowed utter contempt for the laws thatthey weresworn to uphold. At first, thecorruptionpermeatingthe Romanian administrationproved usefulfor the minorities, who foundthatbribery helped havethe laws enforced. Astimewentonandtheolderpolitical generation died out, their “Westernized” younger, moreefficient andchauvinistically nationalist replacements reduced corruption but increased the injustices. The Agrarian Reform (1920) also was an outwardly progressive program used to attack minorities. The reform was needed in the Regat, where aristocraticgreat THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 343 landowners literally lorded itover the abjectly poorpeasant masses. In Transylvania andotherformerHabsburgterritories, itwas used to divest minorities of their land. Nationalistically important minorityreligious denominationssupported themselves andtheir schoolsthroughprofits derived from landownership.By expropriating church lands and handingthem over to Romanians, thegovernmentweakened the minorities’ national aspirations andgained direct control ofminority education. The Agrarian Reform was a financial,spiritual, andcultural blow to the non- Romanian minorities in Transylvania,Banat, andBukovina. Romania’s discriminatory policies helped keep alivethe“Transylvanian Ques- tion” as an international issue throughout the interwar yearsbyprovidingthe Hungarianswith ammunitionfor diplomaticefforts to have Trianonrevised. The Hungarians made continuous and vociferous detailed complaints to theLeague of Nations’ Minorities Question SectionatGeneva and in the national and interna- tional media. Hungary’s unwillingness to dropits Transylvanian cause forced the Romanianstorespond in kind, andthe two states’ incessant publicdispute became an open diplomatic and media sore. Bothproduced mountainsof statistical data to supporttheir respective nationalist historical claimson Transylvania. TheVersailles victors, however,wereuninterested in suchhistorical arguments. They were predisposed towardtheir Romanian allies because of war-related commitments, and that factor decisively overrode all others. Having favored Romania in the Trianon Treaty,Britain and stubbornly refused to modify it later in any major way. Although other European states proved amore susceptible audience forHungary’s revisionist pleas, their hands weretied without the two Great Powers’ consent. The increasingbelligerency offrustrated Hungary overits inability to win Trianon’s revisionled all “winner”states thatbenefited territorially from thetreaty to band togetherforprotectionagainst possible Hungarian aggression. In a series of agreements signed in 1920 and 1921, Romania,the Yugoslav Kingdom, and Czechoslovakia formed an anti-Hungarian political-military alliance—the“Little Entente.” Although taken seriously by Britain and France as a guarantor ofregional stability,the alliance produced little practical results andonly furtherpoisoned relations betweenHungary and its allied neighbors. technically was a Versailles “winner” but actually emerged a “loser.” The nationalistically favorableSèvres Treaty with the Ottomans proved a dead letter. AlthoughItaly handed Greece the Dodecanese Islands (except forRhodes) in 1920, Kemal’s Turkishnationalist movement foiled Greeknationalist claims in Anatolia and Thrace. Aftermuchfruitless military effort anddomestic political turmoil, Greece wasobliged to sign theLausanne Treatyrecognizingthe new Turkishnation- state. Greek “Great Idea” nationalist aspirations in Anatolia wereended and heightened anti-Turk national sentiment becamecemented amongGreeks in general. Moreover,Greece faced problemswithItaly over occupation zones in Albania.(Greece held most ofnorthern Epiros, Italy the rest.) 344 THEBALKANS

A significant national development forpostwar Greece wasthecompulsory exchange of minorities with Bulgaria called forinthe Neuilly Treatyandtheseparate agreementwithTurkey struckatLausanne. These exchanges represented the culmination of Balkan population shifts thatbegan with theBalkan Wars and continued through WorldWar I,duringwhich timesome216,000 Greeks, 410,000 Muslims, and 60,000 Bulgarians moved, eithervoluntarily or byforce, from their home regionstolocationswithin newly established states. As aresultofNeuilly, an additional 53,000 Bulgarians voluntarily emigrated from Greek-held Macedonia, while30,000Greeks leftBulgaria. The magnitude of theLausanne population transfersdwarfed most others: Some 1.3 million Greekswereexpelled fromTurkey (except for those residing in Istanbul, includingtheGreek Orthodoxpatriarch,who wereexempted) and 480,000 Muslimswere removed from Greece (excludingthose in Greek Western Thrace, who remained as aquid pro quo for the Istanbul Greeks). The population exchanges were amixed blessing for Greece. Greece’s control overits Macedonian territories wasstrengthened ethnically—numerous non-Greeks left, and most Greeks repatriated fromTurkeyandBulgaria were settled thereto reinforce theGreekpresence. Remaining non-Greekswere subjected to forced Hellenization. SuccessiveGreek governments attempted to eradicate permanently any non-Greek ethnocultural presence in GreekMacedonia,singlingoutSlav inhabitants—officially termed “SlavophoneGreeks”— forparticular attention. The Slavic vernacular wassuppressed, police intimidation becamecommonplace, Slav villages were destroyed, recalcitrantSlavswereexpelled byforce, andother systematic acts ofanti-Slav violence werecarried out. The“Slavophone” policyhadsome negative repercussions. TheGreek govern- ment neverfeltcompletely certain that its Hellenizationpolicy succeeded, and a sense of paranoia regardingthe national situationinGreece’s northern territories persisted. Greeknationalists feared theSlavs living north of their borders, and relationswith Greece’s Slavic neighborssuffered. It took six years(1923-29) to finalize an official friendship pact with the Yugoslav Kingdom. As for Bulgaria, whichrefused to recognize Greece’s holdonMacedonian lands as final, relations werestrained. Greece suffered continuous incursions into its Macedonian holdings by Bulgarian-based IMROterrorists, and a Greek invasion of southwestern Bulgaria to crushIMRO in its lair (1925) wasstopped by theLeague ofNations, after which IMRO attacks persisted. The population exchanges also raised serious socioeconomic issues for Greece. The influx of over a million immigrants into an already overcrowded state was costly andsocially explosive. Thesupply ofhabitable, arable landwas limited by mountainous terrain. Theexpulsionsofnon-Greeks from GreekMacedonia freed some plots forresettlement, but fell shortof satisfyingthe immigrants’ overall needs. It became necessary to redistribute all available land, whichreduced average private landholdings, further impoverished the majorityagrarian population, and intensi- THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 345 fied general discontent. Bothnative mainlandGreeks and Anatolian immigrants experienced a sense of cultureshock, and mutual prejudices emerged. Many immigrants spokeonly Turkish, Anatolian Greek dialects, or scholasticGreek learned in schools. Former urban immigrants oftenfoundtheir new society “provincial,” offering fewer opportunities anddiminished livelihoods, makingthem susceptibletoradical political and social ideas. National frustration over the postwar Anatolian adventure andthedomestic and foreignrelations impact of the immigrants were reflected in Greece’s political sphere. A sense ofnational defeat and abandonment permeated politics, resulting in a succession of governments exhibiting varying institutional forms—the military juntaand puppet monarchy of George II (1923-24), a constitutional republic(1924-35), andtheconstitutional monarchy ofarestored George II (1935-36)—andultimately culminating in General John Metaxas’s military dictatorship (1936-41)with theblessingofKingGeorge. Western-style liberal- democratic institutions proved unabletocopewith the interwar period’s national, social, and economic pressures, andtheGreeks resorted to the authoritarianism rooted in their Orthodox cultural traditions. Even duringthe republic’s eleven-year existence, one individual—Elevtherios Venizelos—dominated affairs. He returned to powerfollowingthe failed military dictatorship of General Theodore Pangalos (1925-26). Asthe premierforaseries ofpresidential nonentities (1928-33), Venizelos manipulated electoral laws to ensure republican parliamentary majorities against royalist opposition. To hiscredit, Venizelos used his power to address Greece’s domestic and foreignproblems. He conducted the largest land redistributionprogram undertakenintheBalkans, made credit availabletopeasants, fostered industrial development, andexpanded Greece’s merchant marine. Venizelos forged friendship pacts withItaly (1928) andthe Yugoslav Kingdom (1929), endingGreece’s international isolation caused by King Constantine’s return (1920), andcalled the First Balkan Conference (Athens, October1930) to improve mutual political and economic relations amongthe Balkan states. Convinced thatGreek-Turkishrelations needed mending, Venizelos visited Turkey,where hesigned the Treaty of Ankara (October1930) settling outstanding population exchange issues and recognizingtheterritorial status quo. Venizelos no longerheldoffice whenaBalkan Entente wassigned by Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, and TurkeyinFebruary 1934, but hisearlier diplomatic efforts laid much of the preparatory groundwork for that alliance. After being voted out of office (1933), Venizelos led a failed uprising(1934) and fled to France. The victorious royalists thenrestored King George II to the throne(1935). George appointed as premierretired General John Metaxas(1936), whoconvinced the kingthat“stronggovernment” was necessary.Usingthethreat ofanational labor strike as hisexcuse, Metaxasstaged a coup (August 1936) with George’s acquiescence. Metaxas declared martial law, closed parliament, reorganized 346 THEBALKANS thegovernment(gainingdirect control over the military, foreign affairs, and education), banned political parties, and muzzled the press. With the army aligned completely behind him, Metaxas assumed the premiership for life(1938) and all liberal-democratic pretense ended. Metaxas’s dictatorship was bothnationalist and populist—hecalled hisgovern- ing ideology the“Third HellenicCivilization,” theoretically linkingclassical and ByzantineGreece to thatof the 1930s. Itemphasized conservativeOrthodox values mixed withapopulist preference for, amongother things, the vernacular (demotic) Greeklanguage, for which the first grammar was published. Metaxas attempted to inculcate his idealsthroughmass indoctrination that resembled similar tactics taken in the risingEuropean fascist states. In Metaxas’s case, dictatorship was paternalism withafew fascist trappings—hesaw himself as a benevolent fatherfigure(an aspect of Byzantineemperors) and not as“BigBrother.” Althoughhisdictatorship rested squarely on the army’s backing, Metaxas made efforts to win popular support. Heexerted control over thestate’s industrial sector, permitting him to initiate social benefits, including a minimum wage, pay increases, social security, and artificially low food prices. Numerous agricultural debts were cancelled, and low-interest agrarian loans made available. The merchant marine again wasexpanded, and ahuge publicworks program emphasizing military rearmamentwas implemented. (Despite the jobs itcreated, the program led to higher taxes andgeneral publicdiscontent.) In foreign affairs, Metaxas maintained close relationswithTurkeyand adhered to theBalkan Entente. In the late 1930s, however, he laidGreece open to German economic penetration.By1938 German products accounted for 30 percentof Greece’s imports, whileGermany bought 40 percentof thestate’s exports. Yet Germany’s importance in Greece’s foreign trade did not eclipse theBritishand French roles as primary Great Power partners andsupporters. Britain especially was an important friendly Great Power: TheBritishhadencouraged the king’s restoration and bestowed on him their traditional support. As anew worldwar threatened in 1938, Metaxas proposed aformal alliance with Britain but received no response. (The Britishfeared that itwouldcause British-German relations to deterioriate further than they were atthetime.) In April 1939, after the Italian Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini (1922-43) occupied Albania, Metaxas accepted a Britishand French guarantee of Greece’s territorial integrityinreturn forresisting Italian aggression.

Continuing National Problems: The “Losers”

Bulgaria wasthechief Balkan state “loser” atVersailles. The Neuilly Treaty’s imposed territorial losses (in Macedonia, Thrace, andDobrudzha), reparations payments, and military restrictions hobbled thegovernment and inflamed Bulgarian THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 347 nationalist emotions. To make mattersworse, some 250,000 refugees fromMace- donia and Thrace flooded into Bulgaria,causingovercrowding andconcomitant political and social pressures. FollowingBulgaria’s wartimecollapse, Agrarian Union partyhead Aleksandur Stamboliiski cametopoweras premier (1919-23) for the politically weak and uncertain Tsar Boris III.Leader of the first peasant-oriented government in the Balkans(and in Europe), Stamboliiski represented a symbolic alternativetoLenin’s Bolshevismfor many postwar-era European statesmen, holding out the possibility that his“Orange” movement(the Agrarian Union’s official color)—althoughradical in traditionalists’ eyes because ofits egalitarian ideology, it adhered to traditional liberal-democratic parameters—mightstymiethespreadof the anti–liberal- democratic“Reds” (Bolshevik Communists). Stamboliiski espoused aradical policy ofpeasantempowerment: All state lands and larger private estates (therewere nogreatones because therewere no aristocratic landowners) were redistributed; aheavy progressive incometax was levied on all but the peasants; compulsory labor service replaced military service foryouths; the governmental roleof the middleclass was reduced; rural education wasexpanded and curricula modified to include increased vocational andtechnical training. He aimed to build an egalitarian society enjoyingsuchmodern benefits asclean habitations, paved streets, good water, proper sanitation,universal primary and secondary educa- tion, andcheap, abundant necessities. The Agrarians alienated thecommercial and professional classes, whooften were targeted officially asthreats to their government’s egalitarian goals. TheBulgarian Communists, founded in the 1880s by Dimitur Blagoev,considered the Agrarian Union their sociopolitical enemy,whiletraditional political parties chafed over beingdiscredited forpast political ineffectiveness. Unfortunately for the Agrarian movement in general,Stamboliiski’s governing approach wasembedded in the authoritarian traditionsof theOrthodoxand Ottoman Balkans. He ruthlessly cemented near-autocratic powerinhisown hands. Onassumingoffice, Stamboliiski cleaned house in thegovernment—most previous ministerswere fired andsomeweretried. He replaced them with inexperienced peasant leaderswhooften were vulnerabletopower’s corrupting impulses. When theCommunists threatened hisgovernmentwithageneral strike, Stamboliiski unhesitatingly declared martial law, usingthe army and“Orange Guard” peasantgangs to break theopposition. He arbitrarily manipulated elections to retain a popular mandate and muzzled political opposition throughrigid press censorship and police crackdowns. Hisefforts in foreignpolicy,which was intimately linked to domestic national issues, ultimately proved fatal for Stamboliiski,who personally wasuninterested in national territorial expansion. Hisstance so pleased theEntente victorsthat Bulgaria wasthe first defeated state admitted to theLeague ofNations(1920), 348 THEBALKANS and reparationswere reduced (1923). Stamboliiski realized thatcontinued fermentoverMacedonia’s possession weakened Bulgaria’s international position andthreatened any furtheradvances opened by League membership. Hetried to dampen the Macedonian issue by developing friendly relationswith the Yugoslav Kingdomandclamping down on IMRO. Hisefforts stirred upintense hatred among IMRO’s leaders and nationalistic army officers, whostaged a concerted coup (June 1923), in which Stamboliiski brutally was murdered. Effectivecentral authority then evaporated foratime: Areactionary governmentwas installed; political parties proliferated; andwinning parties in electionsconsidered govern- ment a source ofpersonal enrichment rather than a responsibility. Nationalist agitationincreased to dangerously anarchistic levels, and IMRO stepped up terrorist raids into Yugoslav andGreekMacedonia. Foradecade followingthe coup, IMRO played aleading role in Bulgarian national life, abetted by general national frustration over the Neuilly Treatyand, particularly,thebitterness of the large Macedonian immigrant population over the postwar loss ofMacedonia. IMRO’s influence was magnified byreports of thesad treatmentofMacedonian Slavs in Yugoslavia andGreece. Followingthewar, both theSerb-dominated Yugoslav andtheGreek govern- ments initiated ethnonational policies in their Macedonian territories to erase pro- Bulgarian sentiment amongtheir inhabitants permanently. In neither state were Macedonian Slavsgranted nationality status. They were forced to use either Serbian or Greekastheir official and educational languages, andthey rarely attained high governmentor church offices. In the Yugoslav Kingdom,thegovernmentcalled them “Serbs” andthe region “South Serbia”; in Greece, they were“Slavophone Greeks” (the regional name“Macedonia”was retained). Faced with such ethnona- tional discrimination,the Macedonian Slavs not only clandestinely supported IMRO but formed similar secret organizationsof their own to combatthe overweeningSerbs andGreeks. In the Yugoslav Kingdom,they established contacts with theCroatian Ustase and frequently conducted joint actionswith them. In the 1920s IMROwasentrenched in southwestern Bulgaria’s Pirin region, over whichitexerted veritabletotal governingcontrol. For all practical purposes, the region became a small Macedonian state within Bulgaria. IMRO’s increasing terrorist incursions led the Yugoslav andGreekauthorities to fortify heavily their borderswith Bulgaria. Although IMRO appeared formidable, itwaswracked byinternal dissention. The persistentdivision between annexationists and autonomists was multiplied when Communists seekingtocreate an autonomous socialist Macedonian republic appeared in its ranks. A short-lived coalition ofallthree parties in theearly 1920s gaveway to internal civil war. Between1924and 1934 (whenIMRO finally was outlawed in Bulgaria), some 400 personsdied in the intraterrorist fightingthat degenerated into gangsterism. Thestreets of Bulgaria’s capital,Sofia,were likethose THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 349 in Chicago duringtheCapone years. The pro-Bulgarian annexationists, led by Ivan Mihailov,briefly enjoyed the protection of the king andthegovernment. Their non- Communist opponents, who sought an autonomous Macedonia within a Bulgarian- Yugoslav federation,did not andsuffered accordingly. Calmerheads within Bulgaria eventually tired of the violence. Realizingthat normalizing relationswithYugoslavia andGreece was necessary forfutureBalkan peace, a group ofreserveofficers and progressive intellectualsstaged a coup (1934) that established a one-year dictatorship. Asoneof their first acts, IMROwas suppressed. By thetimeofits demise, IMRO no longer was a true revolutionary organization but aracketeering-gangster operation extorting moneyfrom the Macedonian immigrants in southwestern Bulgaria. Itwas heavily involved in illegal drug manufacturing andsmuggling andoperated numerous opiumrefineries. Blackmail,extortion,“protection,” forced “contributions,” and“taxes” were its primary games, providing itwith extremely lucrative propertyassets. In theend, IMROespoused noconcrete program other than the retention ofits wealthand power through usingempty slogans and naked violence. While IMROterrorized both Bulgaria and neighboringstates duringthe 1920s andearly 1930s, Boris’s successivegovernments dealtwith ballooning problemscaused by the Neuilly-imposed reparations, an agrarian economy that increased thestate’s debt anddependency on theworld market, aflood ofMacedonian and Thracian refugees, andcontinuingborderincidents with Greece and Yugoslavia.Communist activityrose, resulting in an unsuccessful uprising followingthe anti-Stamboliiski coup (1923) andculminating in a failed bombing attack on Boris at an Orthodox cathedral in Sofia (1925), after which theCommunist party was declared illegal. Tocurethe anarchisticdomestic political situationand reassertcentral royal authority,Boris disbanded the military dictatorship (1935) and inaugurated an unpopular royal dictatorship (1936). The 1934 Balkan Entente was an effortby Bulgaria’s neighbors(whobenefited territorially atBulgaria’s expense in the Neuilly Treaty)tostymieBulgarian revisionism.Boris, however, managed to conclude formal agreements withYugo- slavia (1937) andGreece (1938) thatsomewhat lessened Balkan tensions. Bulgaria was permitted to rearm, but that process alreadyhadstarted with German support. German influence on thestate wasgrowing, although Bulgaria was not wholly committed to Nazi Germany. A Bulgarian National Socialist organization set up by Germany wasdisbanded (1938), andBoris readily accepted alarge Anglo-French loan to support his rearmament program. Asworldwar loomed in 1939, efforts were made to bringBulgaria into the pro–Anglo-French Balkan Entente, but they were frustrated by Boris’s demandtonegotiate arevision ofNeuilly’s territorial terms. Thereafter,Bulgaria moved closer to Germany. Postwar Albania was in poor shape. Prior to thewar, itsuffered from ill-defined borders and political factionalism.Duringthewar, itexperienced successive 350 THEBALKANS occupation by six foreign armies. In 1917 Italy claimed Albania as aprotectorate; it relinquished that assertion (1920) only to focus its efforts on gainingDalmatia and Istria.Endemic Albanian political anarchy continued followingthewar: Theexiled Toptani persistently claimed leadership until his assassination (1920); an Italian- supported national assembly sat in Durrës (1919); and anti-Italian Albanian nationalists attacked the occupying Italians andcreated a government in Tiranë (1920), headed bylocal clan chieftain Ahmed Zogolli. TheEntente victors atVersailles, although ostensibly committed to preserving independent Albania, also sympathized withItalian andGreek claimstoAlbanian territory and permitted the Yugoslav Kingdom to build a railway to the Adriatic throughnorthern Albania. Thespecter ofanItalian protectorate, andthegrowing harshness ofItalian military occupation,discredited the pro-Italian Durrës assembly and reinforced Albanian nationalist support for Zogolli’s Tiranë movement. A Tiranë-inspired anti-Italian uprising pushed out the Italians(September1920), solidified Zogolli’s leadership of the nationalists, andearned international recogni- tionforanindependent Albania within its 1913borders. True to form,the new governmentwas rentbyfactionalism,which coalesced roughly along two lines: The rich central and northern landownerswanted to retain existing Ottoman legislationandopposed land reform,while southern middle-class reformers, led by Zogolli andBishopFanNoli (aformer emigranttotheUnited States and founder ofanAlbanian Orthodox church organizationinBoston), favored land reform. Although thegovernmenttheoretically was aregency serving underanational assembly, Zogolli, a traditional authoritarian centralist who consistently controlled important ministries and adeptly maneuvered amongthe various political factions, dominated its affairs. Albania wastheonly European state withaMuslim majoritypopulation (approximately 70 percent, with 20 percentOrthodoxand 10 percentCatholic), and its governing institutions leaned heavily on Ottoman traditions. Zogolli exerted authority throughlocal clan elders and landowners in the northandtheurban middleclass in the south. Arbitrary police tactics suppressed political opponents. His preference for consolidatingcentral authority before pursuing irredentist nationalist claimstoKosovo and western Macedonia in the Yugoslav Kingdom earned him thewrath ofAlbanian ultranationalists. Zogolli’s predilectionfor dictatorial methods sparked apowerfulreformist-nationalist oppositionmovement, led byNoli andthe Kosovar National Committee of émigrés. To allay publicopinion while hedealt harshly withhisopponents, Zogolli established a constitutional assembly and an interim government. He assumed the premiership,changed his name to Zogu (because “Zogolli” seemed too Turkish), and overtly aligned with theconservative landowners. Hiscontinued friendly dealings with the Yugoslav Kingdomintensified the ireof the Kosovar Albanian immigrants, who conducted guerrilla actions against his authorityandstaged periodic local uprisings. THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 351

Kosovo, withits Albanian ethnic majority (at least 80 percent), wasconquered by theSerbs in the First Balkan War (1912). Serbian nationalists mythologized the regionasthe“cradle” ofmedieval Orthodox Serbia—homeof the first Serbian OrthodoxPed Patriarchate and numerous monasteries sportingthe best extantworks ofmedieval art and literature andsite of the 1389 battle representing medieval Serbia’s martyrdom.Serbs considered itunthinkablethat suchanationalistically important region shouldbean Albanian ethnic preserve. Afteracquiringthe region,theSerbs consistently conducted anti-Albanian policies in Kosovo—language discrimination, landconfiscations, police brutality, andSerbcolonization—to either Serbianize the Albaniansormaketheir lives so unbearablethatthey would leave. Over100,000 Kosovar Albanians fled to northern Albania,whileotherscarried out persistent anti- Serb guerrilla attacks. TheSerb-dominated Yugoslav governmentcreated aPrizren Republic(1921)comprised ofAlbanian collaboratorstolendovert legitimacy to the discrimination. In theearly 1930s thegovernmentdrew upanofficial policy paper (supported bynumerous Serbian nationalists, including Nobellaureate Ivo Andrid) calling for the mass removal ofmost Kosovar Albanians andtheir replacementby Serb colonists. Only WorldWar II prevented the plan’s implementation. In early 1924Noli led an anti-Zogu uprisingthat forced the premier to flee to the Yugoslav Kingdom. Noli soon discovered thatgoverningwas noeasy task. The populationremained divided alongtribal,clan, social, and linguistic lines. Thestate was isolated economically from the rest of theBalkansby the rugged Albanian Alps. Most Albanianswere illiterate. Therewere no real state finances andcorruptionran rampant. Political power lay with those whoexerted the most brute force. While Noli talked of creating amodern,democratic, soundstate, he lacked the meansto achieve hisgoals. Albania’s instabilityprecluded foreignloans. Whenlack of resources forced him to abandonirredentism, he lost the nationalists’ support. His flirtation with obtainingtheSoviet Union’s aidsofrightened everyonethat he lost hisdomesticbase. WithYugoslav assistance and promises of economicconcessions to Italy andBritain, Zogu gathered an army in the Yugoslav Kingdom, invaded Albania (December1924), anddrove Noli out. In January 1925 Albania became arepublicwith Zogu as its first president. Despite outwardconstitutional trappings, hegoverned in dictatorial fashionfrom his hometown of Tiranë. Bribes won the allegiance of tribal chiefs, clan elders, and large landowners. Realizingthatthe Kosovosituationmade overt reliance on the Yugoslav Kingdom’s support impractical, Zogu opened closerrelationswithItaly, which waseager to remain involved withAlbania because itwas Albania’s primary export market and housed numerous Albanian émigrés. Anew Italian-controlled Albanian National Bank (1925) attracted foreign investment. An international conference fixed Albania’s borders asthey stood (1926), and Zogu signed the Treaty of TiranëwithItaly (November1926) recognizingtheterritorial status quo and minimizing Italian interference in Albanian affairs. 352 THEBALKANS

A1927 French-Yugoslav alliance worried bothAlbania and Italy. They signed a second Tiranë Treaty to counter that pact, establishing an Albanian-Italian defensive alliance, as aresultof whichAlbania became averitable Italian protector- ate. Zogu’s governmentgrew dependentonItalian loans made in return for extensive mineral concessions. Secret supplements to the secondtreaty gave Italy control of Albania’s military,whileovert legislation granted it rights to build roads, bridges, port facilities, andschools. WithMussolini’s approval, in September1928 Zogu was proclaimed KingZogI (1928-39), and anew constitution cementing royal authority was promulgated. Zog attempted to modernize his kingdom by enacting language reform to standardize Albanian, recognizing religious independence, andupdatingthe educa- tion system.Withhis headturned by the royal title, however, Zog brokewithhis Italian benefactors. He rejected an Italian-proposed customsunion (1932), tried some Italians in Albania for alleged antigovernment plots, andclosed Italian schools (1933). Zog was intimidated into reversing his anti-Italian policies byanItalian naval demonstrationalongthe Adriaticcoast (1934). There followed increased Italian control ofAlbania’s military,expanded Italian trading and financial invest- ments, and an influx ofItalian colonists. Not contentwith Zog, whocontinuously resisted Italian interference, Italy invaded Albania in the midst of the international furor surroundingGermany’s takeover of Czechoslovakia (1939). Zog, whose dictatorial ways had alienated all elements in Albanian society,enjoyed scantsupport andwas pushed out. Italian forces overran thestate, and arump Albanian governmentwas forced to accept Albania’s personal union withItaly and recognize as rulerItalian KingVictor Emmanuel III (1900-46). The king, who never set foot in his new acquisition, exerted his authority throughaSuperiorFascist CorporativeCouncil. In June 1939 Albania disappeared as an independentstate.

Balkan Developments into WorldWarII

Certain socioeconomic and political interwar trends were noticeable in every Balkan state: Their mainly agrarian economies, supplemented by small industrial sectors, lay atthe mercies of overpopulationandthe international market; agrarian and socialist movements arose; andgovernments grew highly centralized and authori- tarian. These trends, combined with continuing national issues andtheGreat Depression’s economic impact, drew theBalkan states into theorbitof the Axis Powers andeventually into WorldWar II. The economies of all Balkan states wereoverwhelmingly agricultural. Interwar- era land reformswerecarried out by all of thegovernments, which wished to eradicate all vestiges of “foreign” landownership (in Romania, Transylvanian Hungarians and THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 353

Bessarabian Russians), settle large numbersof immigrants (Greece andBulgaria), and forestall possible social revolution. Redistribution varied from some6percentof available arable land in Bulgaria to 38 percent in Greece. Land reform was more a matter ofpolitical necessity than economic policy: The Romanian peasants’ abject situation threatened a social explosion;Greece needed to cement a GreekMacedonian ethnonational presence; the Yugoslav Kingdom’s Serb-controlled government sought to weakennon-Serb nationalist opposition; Albania’s Zogu targeted ittofurtherhis political dominance; andStamboliiski’s Bulgarian reforms aimed to punish the political opposition of the Agrarian Union government. Despite widespread land redistribution,Balkan agriculture remained atorabit above subsistence level. Ironically, westernization contributed to thatsituation. Althoughhealthcare, hygiene, and nutrition were abysmal compared to the West, deathrates declined but birthrates were high,creating rural overpopulation. Arising “surplus” laborforce (generally over 50 percentof the rural populations)—those not needed to work the land—led to ever smaller family plots and more mouthstofeed. Technological advances were implemented slowly, and agricultural productivity remained low. Withlittle possibility of findingwork in urban centers(theexisting industries could not absorbthesurplus labor)or emigratingtothe West (where immigration was restricted in the 1920s and 1930s), permanent poolsofpoor, largely illiterate, anddisgruntled “unemployed” rural workers became susceptible to ultranationalist or socialist agitation. Increased industrialization was apriorityfor all Balkan states, who hoped that it wouldsolve looming social problems andopenlucrative markets. Industry expanded to some degree in most Balkan states but did not address thedesired goals. Foreign investmentdrove all industrial expansion, but atthe price of siphoning most capital generated out of thestates. Since foreigners soughtonly profits, theenterprises that they supported (raw materialsextractionandsemifinished products) paidscant attention to the local populations’ needs (finished products). The economic relation- shipsof theBalkan states with Western partners reduced them to semicolonial status. The few nativecapitalists concentrated on gaining monopolies through state support or favorabletariff and import laws, andthegovernments’ presence in the industrial sectors remained inordinately strong. Balkan state governments did not relievethe plights of their peasant majority populations. They generally failed to provide them withadequate access to credit, technological and instructional services for updatingtheir agricultural methods, oraproperreturn for their taxes. Governments concentrated on expanding and modernizingtheir militaries and featheringtheir functionaries’ nests. In time- honored, pre-westernized fashion,governmentoffices wereconsidered sources of personal benefit rather than positionsof civic responsibility.Corruptionat all government levels abounded. The outward formsof Western-type institutions meant little. 354 THEBALKANS

Within monthsof WorldWar I’s end, small Communist and agrarian movements openly operated in many Balkan states. Whereasby theearly 1920s, fearful of the Russian and Hungarian examples, Communists everywherewere declared illegal and forced underground, the agrariansenjoyed amodicum of success. Their calls foranegalitarian society, agricultural cooperatives, public ownership ofrestricted industry,true democraticgovernment, universal suffrage, and pacifistic foreignpolicy won thempopularityamongthestates’ peasant majorities. Bulgaria’s Stamboliiski dreamed ofa“GreenInternational”— apeasant organization counteringtheCommunist “Red International,” the reactionary monarchists and landowners, andtraditional ultranationalists. Only theBulgarian agrarians attained political powerimmediately after thewar, but traditional political forces ended their rulewithin fouryears. Elsewhere, agrarian movements either weresuppressed (thatofRomanian PremierIuliu Maniu[1928- 30]) orforced to espouse more nationalist than agrarian programstosurvive(Radid’s Croatian Peasant party). Agrarianism declined as a viable movement because its ideology was flawed fatally:By opposing industrialization, it attacked theonly optionfor creating a workablestate economy in the face of growing“surplus” rural populations, reduced Western agricultural markets (because ofprotectionism), and depressed agricultural prices. All of theBalkan states soughtsolutions in traditional autocratic political authority grounded in military power. The military dictatorshipstookadvantage of the failed peasant movements andeconomic hardships inflicted by theGreat Depression to gain absolute political control while maintaining a thin veneer of Western-style liberal democracy. For the largely illiterate peasant majorities, the overt reemergence ofauthoritarian rule almost wastakenfor granted as“natural”— it harmonized with their accepted traditional notionsof government. Their acceptance of (if not outright loyalty to) the authoritarian regimes wasencouraged by thedictators’ use of emotional nationalist propaganda. Nationalismremained apotent force in the interwar Balkans. TheSerbs and Romanians attained their “Greater”goals atVersailles, but success broughtthem gravedomestic national problems. All of theotherseitherlost “national”territories or failed to gain them. Four semiofficial “Balkan Conferences” (Athens[1930], Istanbul [1931], Bucharest [1932], and Thessaloniki [1933]) did not overcomethe states’ burning national tensions. TheBalkans’ interwar situation somewhat resem- bled Western Europe’s, in thatsimilar national stresses led to similar dictatorial results in Germany and Italy.UnliketheBalkan states, Italy andGermany (especially the latter)transformed their post-Versailles national grievances into explosive extremist movements capableof threateningtheVersailles order. General European war weariness anddreadof the past war’s unparalleled devastationaided the rise to power of Benito Mussolini’s Fascists (1922) in nationalistically unrequited Italy (where failure to securetheBalkan Adriatic THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 355 territories promised by theEntente duringthe past war rankled) and Adolf Hitler’s Nazis(National Socialists) in defeated Germany (1933). Those two revisionist states—wedded togetherasthe Axis Powers(1936)—highlighted theweaknesses of theVersailles order.Both demonstrated to the“loser”states thatultranationalist authoritarian (totalitarian) military dictatorships couldbreak Versailles’s restric- tions. Their apparentearly economic and political successes, achieved through militant mass mobilizationsof their human and material resources in the nameof national rights, initially wonadmirationand partial imitation throughout Europe (evenintheUnited States). TheBalkan states—all national “losers” in some fashion—paidclose attention. Throughout theBalkans, nationalists ofallstripes adopted fascist trappings— military dress, youthful uniformed paramilitary units, mass publicdemonstrations, authoritarian-tinged slogans andchants. Both theCroatian Ustase andtheBulgaro- Macedonian IMRO established contacts with the Italian Fascists andGerman Nazis. In most states, pseudofascist, ultranationalist expression becamethe norm. Romania spawned a true fascist movement. Founded by Corneliu Codreanu (1927), theLegion of the ArchangelMichael (knownasthe Iron Guard) displayed axenophobic fear of “foreigners” (domestic minorities, outside investors, and Communists), aRomanticespousal of traditional Orthodox values, and arabid anti- Semitism grounded in disgruntled peasants’ perceptions(holding post–WorldWar IPolishand Russian Jewish immigrant land managers responsible for thecontinuing abject sociopolitical situation). The Iron Guarddistrusted thegovernment and traditional politics, but KingCarolII(1930-40) patronized the movement and used it forhisownpolitical advantage until its growing powerand influence threatened his authority. In 1938 Carol declared aroyal dictatorship, abolished all political parties, and had Codreanutried andexecuted on trumped-up treason charges. The next year (1939) heordered theGuard’s leadership murdered. Thereafter,theGuard cameunder the influence ofHitler’s Nazis. In thewakeof theGreatDepression,which struck theBalkans in theearly 1930s, the Axis Powers becametheBalkan states’ primary trading partners—they purchased Balkan cereals and tobacco products whennooneelse would. While Italy monopolized Albania,the rest of theBalkan market lay open to Germany.Eager to acquirecheap foodstuffs forhis populationand raw materials forhis military, Hitler paidtheBalkan states well and bought in large quantities. Histrade agreements tied payments to credits against their purchases of German products set atcompetitive prices andwithout product restrictions. By1939 Germany dominated theBalkan economies (except Albania’s), and, when war erupted in that year, its economic position translated into political influence. The kings of Bulgaria, Romania, andGreece ethnically wereGerman and held pro-German sympathies. Bulgaria’s Tsar Boris had personal reasons forfavoringthe Axis—hewasGerman by birthand married to thedaughter ofItaly’s KingVictor 356 THEBALKANS

Emmanuel.With war imminent in 1939, the Ribbentrop-MolotovAgreement partitioningEastern Europe between Germany and Russia opened the possibility of Bulgaria aligningwith Germany without offending its traditional Russian ally. Althoughnot afascist bynatureorinclination,Borisdrew closer to Nazi Germany hopingtogain Macedonia and Dobrudzha. In the Treaty of Craiova (September 1940) Hitlerforced his Romanian ally to return southern Dobrudzha to Bulgaria, and in December, Mussolini havingstarted an unsuccessful war with Greece, he infiltrated German troops into Bulgaria foranattack on Greece in supportof the Italians. In March1941 Bulgaria officially joined the Axis pact. AfterHitler’s 1939 annihilation of Czechoslovakia, Romania signed a trade agreementwith Germany,tying itclosely to Hitler. The need to bail out afaltering economy overcamethe fact that Hungary, Romania’s national enemy, already was Hitler’s satellite. Hitlerneeded bothHungary and Romania to dominate Eastern Europe. A faithfulHungary, itchingtorevise Trianon byforce and kept atbay only byHitler’s power,ensured that its neighbors remained subservienttohiswill. Romania was a source ofmuch-needed petroleum (which Germany lacked) and a potential source of manpower whenHitlerinitiated a planned invasion of theSoviet Union (“Operation Barbarossa”). Hitlerforced Romania to relinquish Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviets (asstipulated in the Ribbentrop-MolotovPact) and headed off an impending war over Transylvania betweenHungary and Romania byimposing a compromise solution to the“Transylvanian Question.” Without discussionswith either state, he dictated to them the SecondVienna Award(August 1940), givingthe northern two- fifthsof Transylvania to Hungary. The region’s partitionmade no geographic, economic, orpolitical sense, andbothHungary and Romania considered the award a temporary settlementuntil Germany won thewar. Its immediate resultwasthe disaffection of both states. Romanian nationalists found itdifficulttoacceptthestate’s territorial losses. Carol wasoverthrown byanationalist military coup (September1940) and hisson Mihai I (1940-47) installed as successor. True powerrested withPremier-Marshal IonAntonescu, whowas forced to accepttheCraiova Treaty grantingBulgaria southern Dobrudzha and a German “protective” occupation of the Ploiepti oil fields (October) in return forHitler’s recognition ofhisdictatorship. As nationalist public outrage swelled, Antonescu expediently called on the Iron Guard, whose reign of terror on Jews andotherpolitical opponents brought Romania to thebrink of economiccollapse and political anarchy. Finally Antonescu crushed theGuardby military force (January 1941)withHitler’s blessings. Hitlerpreferred a subservient Romanian dictator (whomhe personally admired) to anarchistic fascists as he prepared to intervene against Greece beforeturningon theSoviet Union. Bykeeping Mussolini in thedark concerning his planned invasion of theSoviet Unionanddemandingthat Italy make no move in theBalkansthat mightdisrupt THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 357 hissecret preparations, Hitler’s dispatch of troopstoRomania in October1940 convinced Mussolini thatGermany intended to taketheBalkans foritself and leave Italy only Albania.Without informing Hitler, Mussolini invaded Greece from Albania (late October)toensure a significantshareof Balkan spoils. Hitler’s annoyance withhis ally’s moveturned to anger when the incompetently led Italian forces were routed by theGreeks. Despite hisgrowing prewar ties to Germany, Metaxas retained traditional British support. Britain rushed troops and planes to Greece. Reinforced, theGreeks counterattacked into Albania, andthe Italiansbarely managed to hold a tenuous defensive front in northern Epiros. Desperate to bail out hisbumbling ally while continuing his invasionpreparations against theSoviets, Hitlerforced Romania and Hungary to join the Axis alliance officially (late November). Bulgaria’s March1941 Axis membership permitted Hitler to mass German troopson Greece’s northern border. In a final efforttoensure a swift, conclusive assaulton Greece (and simultaneously secure his southern flank for the planned Soviet invasion), Hitler turned his attention to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was in internal turmoil. The rift between Serbian andCroatian nationalists remained wide followingtheconcordat fiasco. Fearful ofHitler’s record of swallowingVersailles-created East European states, Regent Pavel drew closer to the Nazi strongman andtried to settlethe internal divisions lest hetake a hankering forYugoslavia. Pavel granted theCroats an autonomous territory (the Sporazum) within thestate (August 1939) andoffered their leader, Peasant party chief Vladko Macek, avice-premiership.Extremists on both sides remained unhappy, andthe two otherpolitically powerful groups in thestate—theSlovenes andtheBosnian Muslims—immediately demanded similar autonomy.Despite Pavel’s efforts, the internal turmoil continued into early 1941. Serbian nationalists had no affinityfor Germans, whom they traditionally equated with their formerHabsburg nemesis. Already unhappy with Pavel’s compromise, they were in no mood to acceptthe regent’s reluctant agreementto join Yugoslavia to the Axis alliance (25 March1941). Nationalist anti-German army officers ousted Pavel (27 March), recognized King PetrII, and renounced the Axis pact. Infuriated, Hitler ordered an immediate assaultonYugoslavia andGreece. Afteradevastatingterror bombingof Belgrade (6 April), German, Italian, and Hungarian forces poured into Yugoslavia fromAustria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.Overrun before its army was mobilized, Yugoslavia collapsed in eleven days andsurrendered unconditionally (17 April). King Petrfled to London. Greece underwentsimultaneous invasion. Pushing out of Bulgaria,German forces swiftly tookThessaloniki anddroveback thedefendingBritish troops. Threatened by encirclement fromMacedonia,theGreekforces retreated from Albania.On 23 April Greece surrendered. TheBritish troops foughttheir way to the Peloponnese, wherethey wereevacuated to Crete (27 April). Amonthlater 358 THEBALKANS

German airborne assaults conquered that island aswell. In under two months, Hitler was master of theBalkans: Yugoslavia,Greece, and Albania wereconquered outright; Bulgaria and Romania were allies. Conquered Yugoslavia wasdismantled. Slovenia wasdivided between Germany and Italy.Vojvodina wasshared betweenHungary and local Germans. Most of Macedonia wenttoBulgaria. The Italians acquired a slice of western Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, most of Dalmatia, and portionsof Bosnia-Hercegovina. Croatia Proper,Slavonia, most of Bosnia-Hercegovina, andthe remainder of Dalmatia wereturned over to aneofascist Croatian puppet state ruled by the Ustase’s Ante Pavelid,who ostensibly wasthe Italian king’s viceroy.Whatwas leftof Serbia cameunder direct German military control,with SerbGeneral Milan Nedid serving as puppet chief. (See Map 11.) Althoughnot dismembered, conquered Greece was forced to cede most of southern Epiros to Italian-dominated Albania (whichalso received Kosovo fromits masters), whileBulgaria acquired Western Thrace and partof GreekMacedonia, includingthe Aegean portof Kavala. Italy annexed the Ionian Islands. The rest of Greece fell under direct German orItalian occupation,operatingthroughaGreek puppet government in Athens. All of theconquered states wereexploited rapaciously by their Axis masters. Arbitrary governance and police intimidation werethe rule. Theconquerors manipu- lated existingethnonational rivalries and antagonismstoensuretheir own domination and ignored the resulting pervasive atrocities. Thatespecially wassoin dismembered Yugoslavia,where such discordwasdiverse, deep-seated, andwidespread. Theethnonational situation within thedivided state rapidly degenerated. Albanians, Hungarians, and Vojvodina Germans indiscriminately massacred Serbs in the regionsunder their control.Bulgarians pressured Macedonian Slavstoadopt Bulgarian identities. Pavelid’s Croatia wastheworst culprit. His Ustase regime set out to either exterminate all Serbs and Jews in Croatia orforcibly convertthem to Catholicism. Alitany ofmassacres occurred, andgruesome prison camps filled to overflowing. In Bosnia,the Muslimsturned on theSerbs withavengeance and joined in thebloodlettingonce political power shifted to theCroats. Thesituation in Bosnia cametoresemble averitable religious-cultural war,with Catholics and Muslims pitted against theOrthodoxand Jews. TheSerbs retaliated as best they could, and formerYugoslavia became a cultural battleground. AlthoughHitler’s allies Romania andBulgaria suffered economicexploitation, the presence of German troops, and internal ethnonational problems, at least they preserved nativeself-rule and made national territorial gains. Romania, lyingon the Soviet Union’s border, could not avoid involvement in Hitler’s assaulton thatstate (began 22 June 1941). In return for direct participation, Romania received Bessarabia and occupied additional territory to its east beyondtheDniester River (“Transnistria”). The fruits ofRomania’s pro-German involvement proved short- THE INTERWAR YEARS ANDWORLD WAR II 359 lived. In November1942thecollapse ofRomanian forces on theEastern Front led to decisiveGerman defeat in theBattleof Stalingrad, initiating a gradual Axis retreat. In 1943the Ploiepti oil fields were destroyed byAmerican andBritish air bombardment. ByAugust 1944 theSoviets retook “Transnistria” and Bessarabia and lay ready to invade Romania. The price Hitler paid for Bulgaria’s participationinthe 1941 Balkan Campaign was Macedonia. The secondBulgarian foray into the regioninas many worldwars proved evenless happy than the first. TheBulgarianscomported themselves as occupiers andearned littlegratitude from the natives forfreeingthem of Serbian control.Unlike Romania,Bulgarian KingBoris refused an active role in Hitler’s war against theSoviets, contenting himself withmeetingthe minimum demands ofhis treaty obligations and attemptingtoconsolidate control overMacedonia.Boris also somewhatundeservedly earned thedistinction of savingBulgaria’s Jews from exterminationinNazi death camps. Morethroughhis minister Bogdan Filov’s efforts and hiswife’s compassion than through Boris’s own decision,trains loaded with some 15,000 Jews set to depart for thecamps in 1943 neverleftSofia. (Jews in Bulgarian-controlled Macedonia, however,were not as fortunate.) Because Boris refused to declarewar on theSoviets, Hitler summoned him to Berlin (1943). Soon afterreturning, hedied undermysterious circumstances andthe leaderless Bulgarian government lapsed into ineffectiveness. Theturn of theEastern Front’s military tide against Hitlerin1943sparked anti- Axis resistance movements throughout theBalkans. Although they shared a common general enemy,they weredivided ideologically. Traditional nationalists (suchasthe Serbs led by the Hercegovinian SerbColonel Dragoljub [Draza] Mihailovid andthe Greeksunder Colonel Napoleon Zervas) soughttorestore prewar governing institu- tions andconditions. More radical movements—Communists, agrarians, and assorted socialists—espoused wide-ranging reformsorrevolutionary changes. Radical anti-Axis guerillas, dominated by Communist partisans(particularly the Yugoslav Communist partisans led by Josip [Broz] Tito), werethe most active andconsistently effective. The anti-Axis Allies (Britain,theSoviet Union, andtheUnited States), eager to assist those who inflicted the most damage on theenemy and initially willingtopostpone ideological problemsuntil after thewar,concentrated supporton the radical guerrillas. (Tito’s Communist partisans received more allied military assistance than Mihailovid’s Serbian nationalists.) Thedecision to supportCommunist partisans had repercussions for the postwar Balkans. In August 1944 Romanian King Mihai ousted Antonescu, ended military dictatorship, andjoined the anti-Axis Allies. Romania’s about-face opened the BalkanstotheSoviet Red Army,whichpoured throughRomania into Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Axis resistance collapsed and, in its wake, the various heavily armed Communist partisans, relyingonimmediate Soviet military support, swiftly gained control of the political situationson thegroundeverywhereexcept in Greece.