Army general (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Armijski đeneral) was a military rank of the Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Established in 1900, it was abolished for some period after 1901, but it was again created in Kingdom of Yugoslavia after 1918 as Kingdom of Serbia passed along insignia and military ranks to newly named state. It was a high rank for Yugoslav generals, inferior only to the Vojvoda. Yugoslav army generals commanded armies, group of armies and held position of Deputy Commander in Chief of the Yugoslav Armed Forces, Chief of the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force and Chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army. It was adopted and based on the similar French "commandant d'armée" later known as "général d'armée " - Army general.
Contents
Promotion and use
This rank was usually given to Kingdom of Yugoslavia senior officers in the Ministry of Defense and General Staff and also used to promoted division generals under Law on the Organization of the Army and Navy from 19 July 1923 and 1929 by law and Decree on army formations from 1936. It was used for army and air officers while navy had its own rank of Admiral that was equal to army general. In order to be promoted to army general an officer had previously to have finished higher Military Academy, had successfully commanded with divisional area or similar division formation one year, as division general commanded at least one year or had a position more important than division commander at least a year, had highest military degrees and it was capable of highest command in the opinion of senior officers or the defence minister.
After the dissolution of King and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army did not use this rank immediately but one similar to this was created under the name of General of the army. Only a few people in the Yugoslav People's Army held the title of 4 star General of the army - Veljko Kadijević, Nikola Ljubičić, Kosta Nađ and Ivan Gošnjak. In today's Serbian Armed Forces the equivalent is the rank of General - 4 star. For more see Military ranks of Serbia.
List of army generals
At beginning of the war in April 1941, the Yugoslav armed forces had 13 active army generals:
Milorad Petrović commanded the 1st Army Group
Petar Nedeljković commanded the 4th Army under 1st Army Group
Milutin Nedić commanded the 2nd Army Group
Dragoslav Miljković commanded the 2nd Army under 2nd Army Group
Milan Rađenković commanded the 1st Army under 2nd Army Group
Milan Nedić commanded the 3rd Army Group
Ilija Brašić commanded the 3rd Army under 3rd Army Group
Jovan Naumović commanded the 3rd Territorial Army under 3rd Army Group
Vladimir Cukavac commanded the 5th Army
Dimitrije Živković commanded the 6th Army
Sara Bjelica commanded the 7th Army
Živko Stanisavljević led Coastal Defence Command
Dušan Simović commanded the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force and later was Chief of the General Staff
Their job was to command a total of 1,700,000 soldiers and officers during war, within an organisation specified in the 1936 decree regarding military formations under mobilisation and time of war. The 1,700,000 personnel were divided among:
Other notable army generals
Milan Milovanović first Chief of the General Staff with that rank.
Milan I of Serbia
Danilo Kalafatović
Stevan Hadžić - army general since 21. October 1923., 4 times served as minister of army and navy until his death
Krsta Smiljanić - army general since 1923, commander of 3 army that hold civilian position as ban of Zeta and senator in Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Before in 1916 during WWI he was commander of Drina division that achieved breakthrough in Monastir offensive on Macedonian front under command of Field Marshal Petar Bojović.
Comparative to other army ranks
Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Yugoslavia rank of army general is equivalent to the UK and US ranks of general; It had same function as the French Army general because until 1930 most of Army formations was done using France army model. It was given to Chief of the General Staff and commanders of army or army groups that usually had few division under them. Divisions in Kingdom of Yugoslavia particularly after 1930 had been 27-28000 strong and thus similar to some other army's corps. Usual Italian infantry division like 64th Infantry Division Catanzaro at time of WWII had less than 7000 soldiers and US infantry division in 1943 consisted of 14,253 officers and soldiers while Soviet rifle division at same time had 9375 man. British division numbered 12772 man. All this illustrate how big was Yugoslavia division formation compared to others thus responsibility of 3 star Yugoslavia army generals was same as in other countries 4 star generals.