Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrators, template
296,336
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 851:
Line 851: + + + + + + + +
→Africa campaign
The Battle also cemented the reputation of Montgomery as a victorious general. He was a cautious commander, and carefully built up a great superiority in arms, equipment and men, before launching his attack. Criticized by some for over‐caution in action, and over‐exuberance, not to say arrogance, in his dealings with other generals and politicians, his care for the welfare of his men made him a popular leader.
The Battle also cemented the reputation of Montgomery as a victorious general. He was a cautious commander, and carefully built up a great superiority in arms, equipment and men, before launching his attack. Criticized by some for over‐caution in action, and over‐exuberance, not to say arrogance, in his dealings with other generals and politicians, his care for the welfare of his men made him a popular leader.
==Balkans==
[[File:Nazi diversity.jpg|right|300px|thumb|[[Muslim]] members of the Waffen SS 13th division at prayer during their training at Neuhammer, Germany, in November 1943.]]
The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ''Handschar'' (1st Croatian) was a mountain infantry division of the Waffen SS, an armed branch of the German [[Nazi Party]] that served alongside the [[Wehrmacht]]. From March to December 1944, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against Yugoslav anti-Nazi partisan resistance forces in Independent State of Croatia, a [[fascist]] [[puppet state]] of [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Italy]] that encompassed almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] and parts of [[Serbia]].
The division was named Handschar, after a local fighting knife or scimitar carried by [[Ottoman]] [[police]]men during the centuries that the region was part of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. It was the first non-Germanic Waffen-SS division, and its formation marked the expansion of the Waffen-SS into a [[multiculturalism|multi-ethnic]] military force. Composed mainly of [[Bosnian]] [[Muslims]] and mostly German Yugoslav ''Volksdeutsche'' officers and non-commissioned officers, the members of the division took an oath of allegiance to [[Adolf Hitler]] and the Croatian ''Poglavnik'' Ante Pavelić.
The division earned a reputation for brutality and savagery, not only during [[combat]] operations but also for atrocities committed against [[Serb]] and [[Jew]]ish civilians. Most of the members became [[prisoners of war]] of the [[British]]. Subsequently, 38 officers were extradited to communist [[Yugoslavia]] after the war to face criminal charges, and ten were executed. Hundreds of former members of the division fought in the 1947–48 [[jihad]] in [[Mandatory Palestine]] and against the [[1948 Israeli War for Independence]].<ref>Seth J. Frantzman, [https://www.jpost.com/magazine/features/strange-bedfellows Strange bedfellows], ''JPost'', May 7, 2008.<blockquote>Muslim Bosnians trained by the Nazis later volunteered to fight against Israel in 1948.</blockquote></ref><ref name=rm13apr22/>
==Situation in the West==
==Situation in the West==