Battle of Vukovar

Overview

The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs and other ethnic groups. As Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbia's President Slobodan Milošević and Croatia's President Franjo Tuđman began pursuing nationalist politics. In 1990, an armed insurrection was started by Croatian Serb militias, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups, who seized control of Serb-populated areas of Croatia. The JNA began to intervene in favour of the rebellion, and conflict broke out in the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia in May 1991. In August, the JNA launched a full-scale attack against Croatian-held territory in eastern Slavonia, including Vukovar.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege conducted by the Yugoslav People's Army, reinforced by Serbian paramilitary forces, against a Croatian-held town in eastern Slavonia beginning in August 1991. The assault was part of a broader JNA offensive against Croatian-held territory in eastern Croatia following the outbreak of conflict in the region in May 1991. Vukovar's fall represented a critical moment in the Croatian War of Independence: the JNA and allied Serbian paramilitaries committed forces of roughly 36,000 against a Croatian defensive force of approximately 1,800, underscoring the severe asymmetry of the early conflict. Before the war, Vukovar had been a prosperous, ethnically mixed Baroque town; the siege transformed it into a symbol of the wider pattern by which armed Croatian Serb militias, backed by Belgrade and Serbian paramilitary groups, seized Serb-populated areas of Croatia as Yugoslavia disintegrated under rival nationalist pressures from Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (13)