On the sweltering day of June 25, 1991, European newspapers and television stations—especially those in our country—were far from focusing, as usual, on the heat and traffic jams on the highways. The geopolitical situation in Europe was rapidly heating up. Beyond the barriers at the border crossings between Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Yugoslavia—which were usually crossed by thousands of Italian vacationers eager for pristine beaches, full tanks of gas, and fishing contests—a decade-long series of wars was beginning, to everyone’s astonishment, that would lead to the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The End of a World
The Berlin Wall had fallen two years earlier, and the former socialist GDR had been annexed by the Federal Republic of Germany a little over eight months prior. The Hungarian communist regime had fallen in October 1989, just as the Czechoslovakian regime had surrendered to the peaceful “Velvet Revolution” on December 10, while two weeks later Romania had narrowly avoided a bloody civil war through the dramatic execution of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu following weeks of fierce repression. Five days later, on December 30, Poland’s communist government also collapsed in the face of the winds of change. The socialist regime in Bulgaria survived for one more year, finally dissolving in November 1990. On March 31, 1991, Albania, too, capitulated, declaring an end to the socialist experiment inaugurated by Enver Hoxha at the end of World War II. To the east, the Soviet Union was in its death throes, torn by centrifugal forces and internal feuds within the Communist Party: Lithuania had already proclaimed its independence on March 11, and Georgia followed suit less than a month later. Incredible as it may seem, with the exception of the violent protests on Romanian soil, all these events had unfolded more or less peacefully, sparing Europe a disastrous “everyone-against-everyone” war in the East like the one that occurred during the simultaneous dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Tsarist Empire in 1919. In the Balkans, Yugoslavia stood alone, still dominated by the SKJ, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which had established itself at the end of World War II at the expense of the old Serbian-origin Karađorđević monarchy.
Yugoslavia in Crisis
The charismatic head of the federation, Croatian Marshal Josip Broz Tito—the undisputed leader of the anti-fascist and anti-Nazi resistance during World War II, who had, however, opposed Stalin by refusing to join the Warsaw Pact—had died in 1980, and the transfer of power to his successors had taken place without a hitch. The Balkan country (which had never adopted a strictly socialist economy like the other satellite states of the USSR, but rather a participatory mixed-economy model) was nevertheless in the throes of a severe economic and political crisis. Already at the time of Tito’s death, economic growth—which had been tumultuous during the 1970s—had ground to a halt under the weight of rampant inflation. Belgrade’s public debt grew exponentially to the astronomical figure of twenty-one billion dollars, while waves of strikes swept through the major industrial and working-class cities. This climate of economic instability was compounded by political instability: Yugoslavia, which had had only one president from 1953 to 1980, saw as many as twelve presidents come and go between 1980 and the summer of 1991. The nationalist sentiments of the federation’s various ethnic groups—which had smoldered beneath the surface since World War II—flared up again in the wake of the economic crisis, with the push for autonomy by the wealthier republics (Slovenia and Croatia) pitted against the centralist tendencies of the poorer ones, such as Serbia and Montenegro. The fact that the constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia allowed, at least in theory, for the secession of the republics only served to encourage the various separatist movements within the already ailing federation, which was also divided along confessional and religious lines between Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims. In 1990, as communist regimes in neighboring countries came to an end, it became increasingly clear that the Communist League’s rule in Yugoslavia, too, had its days numbered. Discussions on how to dismantle the socialist system while simultaneously saving the Federation dragged on for a long time, with Slovenians and Croats determined to continue down the path of democratization, and Serbs and Montenegrins, on the other hand, intent on saving the now-dying regime. The 14th Congress of the League of Communists in January 1990 ended in a stalemate, and the individual republics held, for the first time in their history, free multiparty elections.
The Rise of Nationalism
Between April and November 1990, elections were held in all the republics, and pro-autonomy platforms triumphed in Slovenia, Croatia, and—against all expectations—also in Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia and Montenegro, which had always been aligned with centralist interests, instead voted for lists linked to Slobodan Milošević’s former League of Communists, thereby exacerbating the center-periphery divide within the Federal Republic. In the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, the so-called “DOS coalition” emerged victorious, formed by the union of all anti-communist forces, including Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens, and the Slovenian Agrarian League.
Croatia, on the other hand, shifted much further to the right, and the nationalist HDZ party came to power—a development that alarmed the sizeable Serbian minority, and unrest and attempts to raid the People’s Army (JNA) weapons depots continued in the months that followed. As early as September, the Slovenian government—anticipating a violent escalation of the tensions unfolding throughout Yugoslavia—had placed the Teritorjalna Odbrana (TO) under its sole authority. The TO was the old territorial police force that had existed since the time of Tito, a great champion of the concept of “people’s defense,” and it would go on to form the nucleus of the future Slovenian Army. At the same time, the local government secretly established the “National Protection Operations Structure” (MSNZ), a sort of secret General Staff tasked with protecting Slovenians from any repressive measures emanating from the Yugoslav central government. Faced with the heterogeneous and poorly equipped Yugoslav People’s Army, the Slovenians thus found themselves with over twenty thousand men at their disposal—the vast majority of whom were Slovenian—lightly armed but potentially capable of seizing the poorly defended JNA barracks on Slovenian territory, especially in Ljubljana and along the Italian and Austrian borders. The neighboring Socialist Republic of Croatia, moreover, had already taken similar measures as early as the beginning of April, when the brand-new Zbor Narodne Garde (ZNG) had been triumphantly reviewed in the Zagreb stadium by the highest authorities of the Croatian local government.
The Referendum and Slovenian Mobilization
In December, faced with the increasingly threatening proclamations of Milošević—whose role as president of the Socialist Republic of Serbia was by then overshadowing even the federal authorities themselves—who announced a series of measures to centralize the police and defense forces, the Christian Democratic-inspired Slovenian autonomist government realized it could no longer procrastinate and called a referendum on complete independence from Belgrade. All Yugoslav citizens residing in Slovenia were eligible to vote, and the referendum was held on December 23. The JNA did nothing to prevent the referendum—which, after all, was still entirely legal from a constitutional standpoint—while the TO was deployed to protect the polling stations. The referendum saw the cause of independence prevail with 88% of the vote, and the population poured into the streets of Ljubljana to celebrate. Belgrade made it clear that Slovenian independence would not be accepted under any circumstances, but as early as November, the new Slovenian President Milan Kučan had tasked the MSNZ with drafting a defense plan for Slovenia in the event that it was invaded by the JNA.
Mobilization in Ljubljana was therefore immediate, while in Belgrade, utter chaos reigned regarding the course of action to take toward Slovenia. The JNA General Staff, composed largely of Serbs, split almost immediately into two factions: on one side were the doves, led by General and Minister of Defense Velijko Kadijević, and on the other were the hawks led by the Chief of the General Staff, Colonel Blagoje Adžić.
The latter openly advocated for a large-scale invasion of Slovenia, pointing out that the Federal Republic was on the verge of collapse: the JNA’s response should have been as harsh and resolute as possible, in order to deter any further secessionist movements by the remaining republics. The doves, however, countered with a realistic assessment of the situation: the morale of the JNA troops was extremely low, and—at best—one could count only on the loyalty of Serbian and Montenegrin conscripts. The central government in Belgrade’s popularity was waning by the day, not to mention the fact that Slovenia was an ethnically homogeneous territory and that harsh repression by central government forces would only have exacerbated the push for independence. Kadijević also underestimated the Slovenians’ determination to fight, judging the democratic government in Ljubljana to be weak and indecisive. He therefore proposed a symbolic invasion of the Republic, one that would be content with seizing the most important border crossings to prevent the influx of weapons from abroad and, at the same time, intimidate the pro-independence leadership, which was backed by only a few police officers. In the end, the doves’ line prevailed, though it was put on hold pending the actual proclamation of Slovenian independence—which was by no means certain—scheduled for June 26, 1991.
Belgrade’s Reaction
Contrary to expectations, Slovenia instead declared independence on June 25—exactly thirty-five years ago—followed shortly thereafter by Croatia, throwing the JNA’s plans into disarray; the JNA had not anticipated taking action before the 26th, trusting the Slovenian government. Sticking to the plan drawn up eight months earlier, the TO proceeded to close all border crossings between the newly formed country and the rest of Yugoslavia, blocking access points with buses and trucks, while Croatia, at least for the time being, took no action. The JNA immediately mobilized its units stationed in Slovenia—the most important of which were based in Ljubljana, Maribor, Vhrnika, and Tolmin—while additional units entered Slovenia from the Croatian cities of Rijeka, Karlovac, Zagreb, Varazdin, and Čakovec. The border guards stationed at the crossings with Italy and Austria—mostly Slovenes—almost all declared their loyalty to the new pro-independence government, while the TO took control of the Ljubljana-Brnik airport and the Slovenian television studios. The day ended with the international media reacting in disbelief to a new European war that did not seem to bode well. June 27 saw the first Yugoslav attempt to launch a counteroffensive, but the morale of the troops—composed largely of Albanians from Kosovo and Croats, who were in no mood to die for Yugoslav unity, immediately undermined the effectiveness of the JNA’s counteroffensives, while desertions—particularly among Slovenian conscripts (about 8% of conscripts)—numbered in the hundreds. Ljubljana and the major Slovenian cities were bombarded with Yugoslav propaganda leaflets announcing the imminent destruction of the pro-independence army, but the credibility of these statements was undermined from the very beginning by the JNA military command itself, which informed the Slovenian government that the People’s Army would limit itself to peacefully occupying the border crossings without taking hostile action first. This was the sign of weakness the Slovenians had been waiting for, and in response, two JNA combat helicopters flying over Ljubljana were shot down by Slovenian anti-aircraft fire that afternoon.
While the long convoys of JNA trucks and armored vehicles moved sluggishly toward the borders, the Slovenian TO launched simultaneous attacks against all the Slovenian JNA barracks—which were by then nearly empty—where the garrisons almost all surrendered without a fight, leaving substantial quantities of ammunition and weapons of various calibers in the hands of the besiegers. Furthermore, the Slovenian barricades—made of logs, buses, and trucks—paralyzed the long Yugoslav convoys for hours, trapping them in long lines on the winding forest roads of Alpine Slovenia and Carniola, thus making them extremely vulnerable to pro-independence guerrilla attacks. On June 28, as expected, the Slovenians began to capitalize on their position of strength before the JNA could extricate itself in any way: Yugoslav convoys were attacked with small arms and RPGs near the Austrian border crossing at Spielfeld, but the most serious clashes occurred along the border with Italy. Around the border crossings of Nova Gorica, Vertoiba, and Rožna Dolina, on the immediate outskirts of the Italian city of Gorizia, heavy fighting broke out between the TO and JNA tanks; two of these tanks, along with a Yugoslav bulldozer, were destroyed by Slovenian anti-tank rockets. Two JNA tank crew members were killed, and several wounded from both sides were taken to Italy, while another hundred Yugoslav soldiers surrendered to the Slovenians, handing over a large quantity of weapons. At the same time, heavy clashes erupted around the Austrian border crossing at Bleiburg, where another hundred Yugoslav soldiers surrendered to the Slovenians, with only two of them killed.
Belgrade wavers, Ljubljana holds firm
Faced with an increasingly likely débâcle, the JNA reacted with a furious aerial bombardment of the television studios in Ljubljana and what was believed to be the headquarters of the Slovenian General Staff, but to no avail. Long convoys of truck drivers, mistaken for TO forces, were also bombed by JNA aircraft, killing several innocent civilians—mainly Austrian and Bulgarian truck drivers—and irreparably tarnishing the prestige of the central government in Belgrade. On June 29, hostilities continued: surrenders to the Slovenians occurred in ever-greater numbers. Yugoslavia played the Navy card, attempting to land its special forces on the beaches of Koper, but the attempt was quickly repelled, and the JNA forces had to re-embark rapidly to avoid being overwhelmed by the TO forces in the coastal district. On June 30, the entire JNA garrison at the Dravograd-Rabenstein border crossing—one of the best-equipped in Slovenia—surrendered to the independence forces with all 400 of its men, and the same fate befell the People’s Army garrisons at the Italian border crossings of Tolmin, Caporetto, and Passo del Predil. That evening, Belgrade played the diplomatic card, issuing a somewhat implausible ultimatum to the Slovenians, demanding the immediate cessation of all hostile acts. Ljubljana saw through the all-too-obvious bluff, being well aware of the JNA’s true situation, and decided to continue hostilities.
July 1 was a day of plunder for the Slovenians: vast quantities of ammunition and tanks abandoned by the JNA were seized by the independence fighters, significantly improving their position on the ground, while TO troops trapped the 306th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in the dense Krakovski Forest, holding it in check for over 24 hours. At sunset, the JNA General Staff in Belgrade realized that the “doves’ plan” had failed: despite the “counteroffensive,” the Slovenians still controlled virtually all border crossings with Italy, Austria, and Hungary, and had considerably expanded their arsenals, even adding a fair number of tanks and anti-aircraft artillery. Furthermore, it was unclear how much longer nationalist Croatia would tolerate the transit of Yugoslav troops through its territory en route to Slovenia. On the evening of July 1, during a chaotic and heated meeting, the hawks on the Yugoslav General Staff went all out, trying to persuade the government to impose martial law in Slovenia and authorize a full-scale occupation of the entire rebellious republic. The central government, however, did not approve the plan, plunging the JNA into even greater chaos and deepening the sense of frustration and abandonment among its generals and troops. The next day, the 306th Regiment and the entire column of tanks escorting it surrendered to the Slovenians to avoid a needless massacre, while the border crossings near Trieste—Fernetti and Krvavi Potok, the last ones still controlled by the JNA—also fell into the hands of the independence fighters. B