Croatian Home Guard
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Croatian Home Guard (Croatian: Hrvatsko domobranstvo, often abbr. to Domobrani) was the name used for the regular armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.
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[edit] Formation
The Croatian Home Guard was founded in April 1941, a few days after the founding of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) itself, following the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was done with the authorisation of German occupation authorities.
Its name was taken from the old Royal Croatian-Hungarian Home Guard - the Croatian section of the Honvéd component of the Austro-Hungarian Army.
Croatian Home Guard was originally limited to 16 infantry battalions and 2 cavalry squadrons - 16,000 men in total. Soon, due to the inability of the NDH to extend its authority throughout its entire territory, notably in the Serb-populated areas, the Germans allowed Croatian Home Guard to be expanded. The Home Guard reached its maximum size at the end of 1943, when it had 130,000 men.
Croatian Home Guard also included a small air force, and an even smaller navy, limited by a special treaty with fascist Italy. The navy comprised a few boats.
[edit] Weaknesses
Despite being best-armed, best-supplied and having the best logistics and infrastructure of all domestic military formations in World War II Yugoslavia, the Croatian Home Guard failed to become efficient fighting force for a variety of reasons.
The most immediate reason was the lack of professional officers. Although initially significant numbers of ethnic Croat officers from the old Yugoslav army joined the Croatian Home Guard, they were mistrusted by new Ustasha regime. Instead, the higher ranks were filled by presumably more reliable former Austro-Hungarian officers. Those men were old, retired and generally had little knowledge of modern warfare. NDH authorities tried to remedy this by forming officer schools and having junior staff trained in Italy and Germany, but effects of this policy came too late to affect the outcome of the war.
The other, more practical, reason was the rivalry between the Croatian Home Guard and the Ustasha Militia (Croatian Ustaška vojnica), the less numerous but yet more reliable military formation. Those two formations never properly integrated their activities and Militia was gradually taking more and more dwindling resources from Home Guard.
Third and, arguably, the most important reason was gradually declining support for Ustasha regime among ethnic Croats, first fueled by the abandonment of Dalmatia to Italy, then by the prospect of the Home Guard being used by Germans as cannon fodder on the Eastern Front - a repeat of generally traumatic experience from the First World War. This process intensified with more certain prospect of Axis powers, and NDH with them, losing the Second World War.
[edit] Defections
Even in 1941 this began to reflect in Croatian Home Guards being infiltrated by resistance groups. Partisans, who were based on non-sectarian ideology and had Croatian statehood as part of their platform, were more successful in making inroads into the Home Guard than Serb-dominated Chetniks. A year later, this manifested in Croatian Partisan commanders referring to Home Guard as their "supply depot", due to Home Guard personnel being reliable source of arms, ammunition, supplies and intelligence, or the fact that Home Guard units preferred surrender or retreat to any serious combat in anything less than completely favourable situatuon. On the other hand, among the more loyal and more pro-Axis elements of NDH, Home Guards developed reputation of cowards and traitors, although this reputation was not always justified, especially among units recruited from Bosnia or among the Bosnian Muslims.
Following the capitulation of Italy in September 1943 and the first aid shipments from the Western Allies, military situation in Yugoslavia began to even more dramatically shift in favour of the Partisans. By mid-1944, many Home Guard personnel and units began to openly side with Partisans, leading to mass defections that included battalion-size formations and officers in the rank of general. By November 1944 the defections and desertions reduced the size of the Croatian Home Guard to 70,000 men.
NDH government, under heavy German pressure, reacted to this by formally integrating Croatian Home Guard and Ustasha Militia. New and more reliable officers were appointed, and draconian measures introduced to increase discipline and prevent further defections. As a result, by May 1945, the NDH armed forces in total numbered 130,000 men.
In May 1945, following the final Partisan offensive and collapse of the NDH, remaining Home Guard units joined other Axis forces and civilian refugees in the last desperate attempt to seek shelter among Western allies. This resulted in many Home Guards becoming victims of Bleiburg massacre that followed and during which the victorious Partisans showed little mercy or even tendency to treat captured Home Guards separately from captured Ustashas. Those Home Guards who survived the ordeal, as well as members of their families, were mostly treated as second-class citizens in Tito's Yugoslavia, although there were some exceptions, most notably with the legendary sportscaster Mladen Delić.
[edit] Home Guard in modern Croatia
As Croatia gained independence during the Yugoslav wars, the new government under the presidency of Franjo Tuđman began the process of historical revision of the Home Guards and their role in World War II.
Instead of treacherous quislings, or at best, a ridiculously inefficient formation, as they were portrayed by the previous communist regime, they are hailed as a symbol of Croatian statehood and military virtue, drawing on the history of the Imperial Croatian Home Guard. The very name "Home Guard" is taken as a symbol of a true Croatian soldier not being involved in any aggressive war or attacking someone else's country. For many modern Croatian nationalists, this is part of a more positive appraisal of the Home Guards, in which Home Guards presumably didn't participate in the war's worst excesses (in the same way that many try to separate the Wehrmacht from Nazism).
The rehabilitation of Home Guards is officially reflected in surviving Home Guards receiving pensions and other state benefits.
The local-based Croatian ground army regiments are named the Home Guard Regiments (Domobranska pukovnija).
