The Elite series #138 covers one part of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. This particularly nasty civil war was a result of the desire for complete autonomy on the part of several of the sections Yugoslavia following the break up of the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was basically held together by a strongly controlled central government starting with Tito in the post war era. Tito died in 1980 and power was shared amongst an eight-man presidency, a situation that was doomed to failure. Things started unraveling in the late 1980s with complaints of persecution of minority groups in the various provinces.

Once it was seen how 'easy' it was to break away following the release of so many countries from Soviet control, the old ethnic rivalries came to the surface and people who had lived side by side for generations now started to hate each other again over the usual senseless reasons of ethnicity and religion. Eventually, all of the previous regions except for Serbia and Montenegro broke away from the confederation, despite some rather brutal attempts by Serbian leadership to prevent this from happening.

This book concentrates on the warfare in Slovenia and Croatia. Slovenia's break-away was relatively peaceful culminating in the 'Slovene 10-day war',  but that of Croatia was not with a great deal of fighting, especially along the eastern portion of the country.

The authors have done a fine job of trying to make some sense of what seemed to most of us to be a very confused situation. In addition to the historical perspective, unit organizations (which seemed to be in constant flux), equipment, uniforms and rank/unit badges are detailed for us. This is further enhanced by superb illustrations and some very well done photographs of the combatants.

If you have found the Yugoslav wars to be as fascinating and incomprehensible as did I, then this is a book you must have. 

April 2006

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