"FOR THE KING AND HOMELAND": CHETNIKS AT SLOVENIAN LITTORAL IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR (363-380)

The article provides the insight of the attempts to establish the resistance movement and units of the "Yugoslav Army in Fatherland" at Primorska Slovenia, or Slovenian Littoral in the period after the capitulation of the Italy in autumn 1943 and during the 1944. Since 1920 this area inhabited with Slovenes was part of the Kingdom of Italy. During the Second World War, in the period between 1943 and 1945 this area was organized as German military-controlled province Operations Zone Adriatic Littoral. The communist Partisans and Slovene Homeland forces were main domestic militaries in this area, while the Yugoslav Army in Fatherland (Chetniks) represent only a token of military force. They managed only to establish a single detachment of a company size, several political councils and network of intelligence in the area. Most of the activities occurred in the first half of the 1944. After the defeat by the Partisans at Panovac in June 1944, the "Primorska Chetniks" withdrew from the area deeper in Slovenia and remained mostly inactive until spring of 1945. Together with Serbian and other Slovenian anti-communist forces they surrendered to British 8th Army by the beginning of May 1945, and remained in diaspora later. The article is result of the mutual work of two historians, one from Slovenia and another one form Serbia, based on archival sources that are kept in both countries.