The soldier-premier caught between a coup and defeat
In November 1918, reporting from Zagreb, Simović wrote that the overwhelming majority were 'taken with the idea of Yugoslav solidarity', and he blocked Italy's attempt to occupy Ljubljana by having the Serb Army enter the city first.
Dušan Simović was a Royal Yugoslav air force general who led the 27 March 1941 coup and became prime minister amid crowds cheering the overthrow of the pact with Germany. Yet in power he refused to formally repudiate the Tripartite Pact, hoping to avert a German invasion, and after the German attack he headed the London government-in-exile until 1942.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1900Graduated from the Belgrade Military Academy, commissioned second lieutenant of artillery
- 1912–1918Served in the Balkan Wars and First World War; commanded the 7th Infantry Regiment on the Salonika Front
- 1918Serbian government and Supreme Command delegate to the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in Zagreb
- 1936–1938Commander of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force
- 1938–1940Chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army; resigned after advocating resistance to a German attack
- 1941.3–1942.1Prime Minister and Chief of the General Staff after the 27 March coup
- 1941–1942Head of the Yugoslav government-in-exile in London
- 1945–1946Returned to Belgrade and testified at Mihailović's trial
Related historical events
The Coup of 27 March 1941
The event that secured Simović's place in history was the military coup in Belgrade in the early hours of 27 March 1941. Two days after the government signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on 25 March, the streets of Belgrade echoed with the cry 'Better war than the pact, better the grave than a slave'. Simović was the nominal leader of a coup whose operational command rested with air force Brigadier-General Borivoje Mirković; together they deposed the regent, Prince Paul, and proclaimed the 17-year-old King Peter II of age. Simović became prime minister and chief of the general staff of a new national unity government.
Yet on the question of the Tripartite Pact the new government temporised: fearing German retaliation, it declined to repudiate the signature outright, which blunted the coup's meaning at home and abroad. Hitler had already signed the directive for the invasion of Yugoslavia on the evening of the coup, and the attack began on 6 April. Overwhelmed in eleven days, Yugoslavia surrendered; Simović fled with the king and headed the government-in-exile in London until his dismissal in January 1942 amid dissension within the exiled government.
Whether the coup delayed Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, remains disputed. Churchill hailed that 'Yugoslavia has found its soul', while the military historian Martin van Creveld concluded the Yugoslav invasion had if anything accelerated the Balkan campaign.