Army general (Kingdom of Yugoslavia)


Army general was a military rank of the Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Established in 1886, 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.

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 then 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 used 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 war in 1941. Kingdom of Yugoslavia had 12 active army generals:
Their job was to command total of 1.700.000 soldiers and officers during war since 1936. under Decree of military formation in mobile and war time. 1.700.000 soldiers and officers was within:
Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Yugoslavia rank of army general is comparable to NATO OF-9 level and 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.