Petar Baćović (; 1898 – April 1945) was a Bosnian Serb Chetnik commander within occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. From the summer of 1941 until April 1942, he headed the cabinet of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Milan Nedić's puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. In May and June 1942, Baćović participated in the joint Italian–Chetnik offensive against the Yugoslav Partisans in Montenegro. In July 1942, Baćović was appointed by the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović and his Supreme Command as the commander of the Chetnik units in the regions of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). In this role, Baćović continued collaborating with the Italians against the Yugoslav Partisans, with his Chetniks formally recognised as Italian auxiliaries from mid-1942.
Along with other Chetniks, in August and September 1942 Baćović and his Chetniks carried out massacres of Bosnian Muslim and Croat civilians and those sympathetic to the Partisan movement, amounting to more than 5,000 dead. The following month, while participating in a joint Italian–German operation around Prozor, Operation Alfa, Baćović and his Chetniks burnt Croat and Muslim villages and killed between 500 and 2,000 Croats and Muslims. The Italians reacted strongly to this and threatened to withdraw their support for the Chetniks, after which Baćović attempted to distance himself from the killings. Baćović's Chetniks committed further atrocities against Croats and Muslims in Mostar and Konjic in November and Vrlika in January 1943. In early 1943, Baćović was appointed as a vojvoda (warlord) by the ailing principal Chetnik leader in Herzegovina, Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin. Baćović engaged in considerable antisemitic propaganda aimed at the Partisan leadership.
In April 1945, he was captured near Banja Luka by elements of the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia (HOS) along with Chetnik leaders Pavle Đurišić and Zaharije Ostojić, and Chetnik ideologue Dragiša Vasić in what was apparently a trap. According to some sources, Baćović and the others were taken to the area of the Jasenovac concentration camp, where they were killed.
Early life Petar Baćović was born in 1898 in Kalinovik, a village within the Bosnia Vilayet, a province of the Ottoman Empire that was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878. It is now in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His father Maksim was a clan chief. Prior to World War II, Baćović was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army reserve. He also studied law, did legal work, and was a governor's notary immediately prior to the outbreak of war.
World War II
Ministry of Internal Affairs under Nedić From the summer of 1941, Baćović headed the cabinet of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Milan Nedić's German-installed puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović, with no direct control over the many independent Chetnik bands throughout partitioned and occupied Yugoslavia, had been corresponding with some of their leaders via letter and courier. Following an agreement between Nedić and Mihailović, in April 1942 Baćović left Belgrade and went to join the Chetniks operating in eastern Bosnia, then part of the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH). He was sent as Mihailović's permanent representative to Dobroslav Jevđević and Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, the main spokesmen for the Chetniks operating in Herzegovina.
1942 Montenegro offensive From mid-May to early June 1942, Baćović took part in the joint Italian-Chetnik 1942 Montenegro offensive against the Partisans, which also included operations in eastern Herzegovina. Baćović led Chetnik forces fighting against the Partisans in the Sandžak region that straddled the border between the Italian governorate of Montenegro and the German-occupied territory of Serbia. His troops fought alongside Sandžak Chetniks led by Zdravko Kasalović and Vojislav Lukačević, and the Požega Chetnik detachment led by Vučko Ignjatović and Miloš Glišić. The Požega Chetniks had been "legalised" as auxiliaries by the Nedić puppet government with the approval of the Germans. These forces also fought alongside the Italian 19th Infantry Division Venezia and 5th Alpine Division Pusteria, and were one of three main Chetnik formations involved in the joint offensive, the others being led by the Montenegrin Serbs Pavle Đurišić and Bajo Stanišić. In the face of the three-pronged assault, the outnumbered Partisan forces withdrew from Montenegro and eastern Herzegovina into southeastern Bosnia, and then undertook the Partisan Long March to western Bosnia. At the end of May, Baćović submitted a report to Mihailović on Đurišić's troops and the significant amounts of weapons and equipment he had received from the Italians.
Legalization by the Italians In the summer of 1942, after order had been established in significant parts of the Italian occupation zone of the NDH, Chetnik detachment leaders including Petar Samardžić, Momčilo Đujić, Uroš Drenović, Jevđević, Trifunović-Birčanin, and their principal political spokesmen with Italian Second Army headquarters were recognized as auxiliaries by the Italians. Early in that summer, the commander of the Italian Second Army, Generale designato d’armata (acting General) Mario Roatta, agreed to the delivery of arms, munitions, and supplies to the Chetniks. On 16 July 1942, Baćović, acting as one of Jevđević's military organizers, informed Mihailović that the vast majority of the 7,000 Chetniks in Herzegovina were well-equipped with small arms and had been "legalized" by the Italians. Combined with Đujić's group, the number of "legalized" Chetniks in the Italian zone of the NDH stood at 10,000 or more.
From March 1942 on, Mihailović had been looking for opportunities to create a "national corridor" connecting all the Chetnik groups operating in the Italian-occupied areas of the NDH, from Montenegro, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, to Lika and western Bosnia. In June, to advance Mihailović's aim, Jevđević offered to send 2,000 Herzegovinian Chetniks to Dalmatia, where they would be placed under the control of Trifunović-Birčanin. Transfer of Chetnik forces to Dalmatia also created an opportunity to strike at the major concentration of Partisan strength at that time, which was in western Bosnia.
In early June 1942, Chetniks under the command of Baćović and Glišić combined to attack the Partisans. They quickly advanced on Foča forcing the Partisans to retreat to Gacko. The Chetniks encountered NDH forces, and captured the town from them on June 10. On this occasion the Muslim population of the town was not harmed. Their capture of the town was only temporary, as the Italians, pressured by the Germans and NDH authorities, order the Chetniks to withdrawn on 13 June, and Baćović released NDH soldiers his forces had captured. Following the withdrawal of the Chetniks, NDH troops attacked them, but after a skirmish the Chetniks repelled the attack. Baćović complained to the Italian general Giovanni Esposito about this incident.
Zimonjić Kula conference On 22 and 23 July 1942, Mihailović held a conference at Zimonjić Kula, near Avtovac in eastern Herzegovina, which was attended by Trifunović-Birčanin, Đurišić, Jevđević, Zaharije Ostojić, Radovan Ivanišević, Milan Šantić and a group of Chetnik commanders from Herzegovina. The purpose of the meeting was to establish co-operation between the Herzegovinian and Montenegrin Chetnik leaders. Baćović was appointed as the Chetnik commander for eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, replacing Boško Todorović, who had been captured and executed by the Partisans in late February 1942. Trifunović-Birčanin was appointed the Chetnik commander for Dalmatia, Lika and western Bosnia.
The historian Fikreta Jelić-Butić believes that the idea of an anti-Partisan offensive was also discussed at the conference as a potential response to the Zagreb agreement concluded between Italy and the NDH in June. The Zagreb agreement heralded a major drawdown of Italian occupation forces from large areas of the NDH, including areas of Bosnia south of the Italian-German demarcation line, as well as Kordun, Lika and Dalmatia, and the Chetnik leaders believed that this would reduce the area in which they could operate with Italian consent. On the second day of the conference, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin travelled to nearby Trebinje and conferred with two other Chetnik commanders, Radmilo Grđić and Milan Šantić, who agreed on a set of goals and a strategy to achieve them: the creation of Greater Serbia; the destruction of the Partisans; the removal of the Catholics (Croats) and Muslims; non-recognition of the NDH; no collaboration with the Germans; and temporary collaboration with the Italians for weapons, munitions and food.
The Chetniks addressed a crowd in Trebinje, announcing that they had cells in every village in eastern Herzegovina, and were establishing a Greater Serbia. Only five days after Baćović's appointment, the commander of the Mountain Staff of the Bosnian Chetnik Detachments, Stevan Botić, demanded Baćović be replaced. Botić had appointed himself as commander of the Mountain Staff after the previous commander, Jezdimir Dangić, had been arrested in Bajina Bašta in April 1942. Botić and his allies opposed Mihailović's control because they favoured a political rather than strictly military organisation, wanted to continue the alliance with the Nedić regime that Dangić had forged, and opposed the control of Bosnian Chetniks by non-Bosnians. Botić also wanted to remain independent of Mihailović so that he could freely kill Muslims and Bosnian Croats without damaging Mihailović's standing with the Serb people through close association with Botić's activities. Soon after the conference, both Baćović and Trifunović-Birčanin were negotiating with Italian VI Corps and XVIII Corps headquarters staff regarding the proposed offensive against the Partisans in western Bosnia.
By August, Baćović was advocating the "liquidation" of Botić's Mountain Staff because they were creating disunity, and trying to politicise the Chetnik movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the model of the League of Farmers, which had defended the interests of Bosnian Serb peasants against Muslim landowners during the interwar period. On 6 August 1942, in a continued Chetnik effort to eliminate external enemies and purge their own ranks, Baćović ordered the subordinate commanders of all corps and brigades to submit lists of such individuals with suggestions on how to deal with them. Brigade commanders were required to send three assassins to kill any person whom they labelled with the letter "Z" (from the , meaning "to slaughter") within 24 hours of receiving the name. Baćović demanded that "the killing has to be done exclusively through the use of slaughtering knife".
Capture of Foča and massacres of Muslims and Croats