Customer Reviews

The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia: A Military History, 1992-1994 (Eastern European Studies (College Station, Tex.), No. 23)

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Finally, a book that sheds some light on the military aspects of Muslim-Croat war in Central Bosnia. It makes you realize that Balkan wars were much more complicated than some authors want us believe. I highly recommend it for anyone who cares to understand the conflict beyond black and white clichés fed to us by naïve or ignorant media and publicity-hungry journalists.

It continually amazes me when people criticize Croats in Bosnia Herzegovina for protecting there interests. Prior to reading this book, it was obvious to me that the Bosnian Muslims never wanted want an ally in Croatia and the Bosnian Croats, which supplied them with arms, food, and took in refuges before they turned on them. Strategic error on there part that they will never overcome. This is from someone who defended there actions for a long time, but no more.

It always seems that the Yugoslav propaganda about Ustase killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs comes out. But the Fact remains, Hitler formed 2 divisions of SS from Bosnian Muslims who also were in Ustase (Pavelic's Vice President was a Croat-Muslim from Herzegovina), Serb Cetniks were allied with the Nazi's as well, and the Partisans (Tito) were butchers just as Hitler and Stalin were. Killing hundreds of thousands of Croats and Serbs after the war.

From the beginning of the war when Alija Izedbegovic always thought the Serb dominated Yugoslav army would defend him, a big mistake which he and the people of Bosnia paid for brutally. From a strategic stance this book makes the most sense that i have read to date. No one else has gone as deep to figure out what actually was happening on the ground. I wonder why?

People continually forget that reporters are not Military experts, nor do they have the expertise to assess a situation. This books view of a military point of view is key and understanding what the Bosnian Muslims were doing prior to break out of war between the two sides. This book just makes sense.

You have to also figure, why Dario Kordic received a 25 year sentence for not killing anyone or ordering an attack on anyone. You also have to wonder why The Hague convicts people of genocide for only 25 years. I wonder why Sefer Halilovic has not gone to The Hague for his atrocities when he commanded Yugoslav forces and the Bosnian Army. Doesn't make sense, does it?

I had a chance to attend a lecture given by Mr. Shrader when he was in Chicago, he said that no Bosnian Muslim would ever meet with him nor would the Bosnian government give him assistance in speaking with troops or opening up there archives to see what there actual plans were. Speaking to him shed more light on who was more open to documentation and who wasn't (Bosniaks).

Obviously the truth would hurt.
About time some light was shed on what actually happened, and the process that Croatia played in actually saving Bosnia, though to their dismay, getting back stabbed for their hard work.
The Muslims should be greatful.
Interesting read, from an Ex-Crni Gorac, and here's to our Independance.

After reading this book, I can tell you that the author is not as objective and un-biased as one can be lead to believe.

First of all the positives:
The book contains some quite good historical aspects of the ethnic conflicts in the area, as it accounts for the history of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina since the Middle Ages onward. The rule of the Ottoman Empire is one of the main aspects that created the growing grounds for the ethnic conflicts of the 20th century, combined with the fact that the ancient Bosnian state never got the oportunity to create its own national identity for all its people, regardless of religion, because of the fact that the country has been a part of different empires, and the fact that the Croatian and Serbian policy has been turned towards "nationalizing" Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs respectively, thus making a sort of diaspora of them.


Now the negatives:
The author, who is presented as an objective researcher with a military background, who therefore has a deeper understanding of the military (rather than the social) aspects of conflicts, has made one crucial mistake. In the book, he presents the conflict in "Operative Zone Central Bosnia" (OZCB - Vitez, Kiseljak, Busovaca, Travnik, etc.) as a conflict independent of any other context of the war (he wanted to keep it as simple as possible). The conflict in OZCB was secondary. The primary goal was to connect the Croat/HVO controlled territory of OZCB with the south and south-west parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which could not have been done without the Croatian forces seizng control over Gornji Vakuf and Prozor, and to a lesser extent, Bugojno, Jablanica and Konjic.

I will explain in due time...


The trouble is then, that when the author claims that the Bosnian Army (ABiH) had been preparing to attack the Croatian National Council (HVO) since February or March of 1993, we simply are left without the back-story. The conflict in OZCB does not stand without the ABiH-HVO conflict in other areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Already in June 1992 the HVO tried to seize control over Novi Travnik and Gornji Vakuf, which the ABiH resisted.

Why are Novi Travnik and Gornji Vakuf important? Well, they are because Novi Travnik was the only possible way that the HVO could connect its territory in OZCB with the south and south-west parts of Herzegovina. And Gornji Vakuf (and partly also Bugojno) were right in their way.

The Croatian road from the south was: Neum-Mostar-Konjic-Jablanica-Prozor-Gornji Vakuf. If we continue north, we get to Bugojno-Donji Vakuf-Travnik-Novi Travnik, which was not a possible route, because Serbian forces held Donji Vakuf. Therefore, they had to move east from Gornji Vakuf over a mountain straight to Novi Travnik.

The HVO's road from western Herzegovina was: Siroki Brijeg-Livno-Kupres-Bugojno (or rather, a mile south of Bugojno). Here, again, we notice the importance of Gornji Vakuf, which was really the only way that the HVO could take to Novi Travnik and the OZCB.

In October 1992, the HVO took control over the town of Prozor, some 15 miles south of Gornji Vakuf, expelling the almost all the muslim population from the town and the villages in the municipality. Around the same time, more than a week's worth of battles were fought over Gornji Vakuf, but the town remained divided (not in complete control of neither the HVO nor the ABiH).

In January 1993, the HVO launched a full scale attack upon Gornji Vakuf, shelling the town and the surrounding villages, again targeting civilians, expelling the muslim population from the HVO-controlled territory, leaving nothing but plundered and burned houses behind.


During these battles, the HVO had a clear rout from the south and sout-west, through which they recieved logistical help (ammunition, weapons, food, and even military support in shape of forces of the regular Croatian army).

The battles around and in the town (and municipality) of Gornji Vakuf raged for around three months, before the central command of ABiH got involved, sending troop and logistics support to the town, and striking back at the HVO in other places in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And there we have it. If we do not hear the back-story of Gornji Vakuf, Prozor and other towns in the south-central region, we might as well believe that it was the ABiH who stabbed the HVO in the back, while in fact it was the other way around.

The author also failed to note that before the HVO was organized, there was a force called Croatian Defence Forces (HOS). HOS were a force lead by Blaz Kraljevic; they did not fight for any autonomous Croatian republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but for a united, multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina (even though they in fact were a para-military force that at times did spread terror among Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina). Blaz Kraljevic was assinated by the HVO, and thus HOS and its pro-Bosnian orientation seized to exist, leaving the only Croatian force fighting for the autonomus, self-proclaimed Croatian Community (later Republic) Herzeg-Bosnia (HZHB).

The author also failed to note that there was an agreement between the Bosnian government and the Bosnian Croat government that their respective forces would put themselves in each other's command in this very simple way: In municipalities where the Croat population is in a majority (no matter how small), the ABiH would put itself under HVO command. And vice-versa. The ABiH respected this agreement at first, but the HVO did not (as we can see in the examples of Travnik, Gornji Vakuf, Bugojno, Jablanica, Konjic, etc).

So you see, the author has willingly, or not, left out some very important facts about the conflict, which was bigger and earlier than the conflict in OZCB. In fact, viewd in the light of the de-facto politics of the HZHB politicians, and the statment of Croatia's president Franjo Tudjman, in which he claimed that the territorial shape of the state of Croatia is un-natural, and that it is only natural for Croat dominated parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina to become a part of Croatia (although he was willing to give "the Muslims" a little bit of territory, where they could do what they want; how very noble of him), one can clearly see that the conflict in OZCB was secondary. The primary goal was to connect the Croat/HVO controlled territory of OZCB with the south and south-west parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which could not have been done without the Croatian forces seizng control over Gornji Vakuf and Prozor, and to a lesser extent, Bugojno, Jablanica and Konjic.

I forgot one very important thing. The author clearly lies about there NOT being regular forces of the Croatian army (HV) operating in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Again, he is able to do this simply because he is looking only at the Operative Zone Central Bosnia (OZCB - Vitez, Travnik, Busovaca, Novi Travnik, Kiseljak). In fact, there are countless war documents and transcripts of meetings of the highest government and military figures in Croatia (president Tudjman, general Susak, etc.), in which they are talking about the Croatian troops operating in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or that are to be sent there, AND in which they are talking about the logistical help that they would be sending (or have already sent) to the HVO (mostly weapons and ammunition).

The author is trying to explain the complexity of the war, and the fact that no ethnic group was the sole victim, but he has taken an obvious bias towards the Croatian side in the conflict, by failing to mention many important details, concerning all areas outside of the OZCB, especially south and south-west parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Denying that there took place a military offencive cooperation between Bosnian Muslims and mujahedin troops in Central Bosnia (from 1992 onwards) is not a clever way of argumenting the facts built up steadily in this work of recent military history. That fact is too well documented to be questioned. Besides, this book is about the warfare in Bosnia from 1992, not about the Ustashe killing some Serbs during WWII. But of course, some people wouldn't want to see this book written. Rather another propagandic book about the niceness of all Serb actions (or Bosniak for that matter). Slowly, very slowly, well documented books about the war in Bosnia are starting to be published, written by historians rather than journalists with second hand oral information at disposal.

When the Serbs attacked Bosnia the first people to resist were the Croats through the Croatian Defence Council (HVO). Had it not been for the HVO, Bosnia would have been overwhelmed almost immediately. Charles Shrader's superlative new history establishes that it was the Bosniak side that started the war in order to cleanse Central Bosnia of its Croats. Shrader also points out the transit of arms via Croatia to Bosnia and the continued co-operation of HVO and Bosnian forces throughout the Muslim-Croat conflict.

Shrader is a respected American military historian. Further, his book is published by American Texas A&M University press's Eastern European Studies. These studies have an editorial board which contains people sympathetic to the Bosnian state, and who were critical of Tudjman. In other words, this is a book that is credible and cannot be dismissed as Croat propaganda.

Thousands of Bosniaks were accepted as refugees in Croatia. If Croatia were an aggressor on the level of Serbia why would Bosniaks seek refuge there? And why would Croatia accept them - especially when it had its own refugees to contend with - if the intent of the Croats was to establish a Croat state on Bosnian soil?

The Muslim-Croat war was over in 1994 - with many Croats ethnically cleansed from Central Bosnia. Croat and Bosnian forces then devoted all efforts against the Serbs. In 1995, Croatia launched Operation Storm. Croat forces recaptured last swathes of its territory. In the process, the beleaguered Bihac pocket in Northwestern Bosnia was saved from a Srebrenica style fate. Serb forces were rolled back and peace in Bosnia was achieved. And then 49% of BiH was given to the Serbs by the international community!! Incredible.

If you compare the population consensus of 1991 to the post-war 1999, you will quickly see that the proportionate number of Croats in Central Bosnia is dramatically lower. And that the number of Bosniaks living in Western Hercegovina is almost the same as the pre-war level. The number of Bosniaks living in Western Hercegovina was never great. Someone well versed in the history of Bosnia should know that very well. Why don't you mention anything about the large number of ethnically cleansed Bosniaks (and Croats) from Serb-held territory? Makes me wonder...

This is by far the most biased book I've read about the bosnian war. This is the thing you have to understand. Yes Croats wanted to assist the bosnian troops, invited them to join the HVO and offered them support against the serbs, but only if the country becomes croat, which means, that they would sell their own country. Why would Bosnia attack Croats? They did not have any weapons to do so. HVO was far better equipped for the war than any Bosnian company, so why would they start a war against a far superior force, when they had to fight the Serbs as well?
Tudjman and Milosevic separated Bosnia into two parts, having in their plan to cleanse the region of Muslims, the only country still represented (somewhat) as a muslim state. Look at the damage to the cities. I come from a city that is half-bosnian half-croatian. When you look at Gornji Vakuf, you can see exactly which side had the weapons, and which one just defended their own homes. The croatian side, which they renamed Uskoplje, was nowhere near the destruction of the muslim side. I mean the general editor from this book is a croat for crying out loud. The insignia the soldier wears on the cover is croatian (by the way, which was also an ustasha symbol during WW2, when they were helping out the Nazis) and nobody says a word. Yes, the checkered insignia was also part of their kingdom, but it wasn't in the shape of an U, which is the same as it was during the Ustasha regime. Everything in croatia was changed when Tudjman came to power to make it the way it was during that regime, the currency, the flag, the language, everything, and nobody says a f-ing thing. How would jews feel if Germany would start promoting SS on their uniforms, or the swastika on their flag???
Finally, Croatia is changing now, for the good. They have outlawed the ustasha symbols and are going back to their good roots.
All I am saying is, use your brain... why would an inferior force attack somebody they are bound to lose against? This is not a history book. but a propaganda tool used to make the muslim race seem aggressive. I am an atheist, so don't label me to either crazy party, but this needs to stop. This is just putting more fuel into the fire, and let's face it, it will explode again. The truth needs to come out, and 99% of all the books have it, but it's the 1% that can start everything up again. This book needs to be re-labeled and removed from the history category.

I was hoping that this book would deliver the goods as Norman Cigar's Genocide in Bosnia and Takis Michas' Unholy Alliance are quality thought provoking books from the same publisher and this topic is certainly crying out for an unbiased and objective warts and all account of the Bosnian Muslim-Croat war. Unfortunately this book is little more than a puff piece for Tudjman's vile and ultimately self defeating assault on Bosnia.

A credible book on this topic will need to address how moderate and pro-Bosnian alliance Croats were deliberately marginalised or removed from power by Tudjman and his local cronies; how both Croatian and Bosnian forces were increasingly drawn into corrupt cooperation with their Serbian counterparts; how atrocities against Bosnian-Muslim (and to a lesser extent Croatian) civilians were used as a means of destroying the fabric of cooperation between the two communities; and how these local strategies fed Tudjman's historicist vision of himself as a grand and visionary statesman who would achieve both a historic golden handshake with Belgrade that would end not only the war and the (contrived)centuries old Serbo-Croat dispute, but also save western civilisation from the oriental scourge of Islam and Christian Orthodoxy.

The military history of the Croatian assault on Bosnia can only be explained through the prism of Croatian polictics during the Tudjmanistan regime.

See the following for a more thought provoking and credible reference:

Flag on the Mountain: A Political Anthropology of War in Croatia and Bosnia

Well, forget about objectivity in this book. All of Shrader's acknowledgements are to Americans and Croats at the beginning of the book. Not a single Bosniac or Serb is acknowledged in helping him write his book (not surprised).

His brief history of the former Yugoslavia at the beginning of the book is quite one-sided and the Ustashe genpcide in the Independent State of Croatia is minimised. He describes the genocide of Serbs from 1941-1945 as Ante Pavelic fighting his "Serbian enemies". When describing the recent Croat war crimes of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995) there is one instance when he refers to HOS (Croatian Defense Forces), a neo-Nazi paramilitary formation, war crimes against Serbs in the Herzegovinian town of Capljina. He refers to them as "excesses".

How shallow and immoral can you go!? Now, getting back to the conflict in central Bosnia. According to Shrader, the Bosnian Muslims started the aggression against the poor Croats in January 1993, supported by foreign mujahideen. So, he believes that it was the Bosniacs who "stabbed the Croats in the back". Yet, the take over by Croatian nationalists of the town of Novi Travnik in October 1992, and the ethnic cleansing of the town of Prozor of its Bosniac inhabitants in the same month is strangely omitted.

Anti-Bosniac and militant Catholic hard-liners like president of the self-proclaimed "Herceg-Bosna" statelet, Mate Boban, former mayor of Busovaca, Dario Kordic (who was sentenced to 25 years in the Hague, by the way) and others are not criticised one bit. In fact, Mate Boban is presented in a positive light! He only strongly criticises the HVO in the barbaric attack on the Muslim village of Ahmici. He believes that was the only time when the Croats used "disproportionate" force to achieve their military objectives. There was also a group in the Zenica area called the "Jure Francetic Brigade" led by Zivko Totic. For those who are unaware of who Francetic was, he was a fascist butcher during WW2, responsible for the slaughter of numerous Serb civilians. He was kidnapped and his 4 bodyguards were killed. I say: good job! I certainly won't shed any tears over someone who's idol was the cut-throat butcher Jure Francetic.

Also according to Shrader, Croats were completely cleansed from the region of Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez and Zenica and attacked in Busovaca, Kiseljak and Zepce. Funny how according to the Repatriation Information Centre consensus of 1999 concerning the Croat population of these areas, proportionately there are alot more Croats living in these municipalities, compared to their Bosniac counterparts in Herzegovina, completely cleansed of its Bosniac population during the war.

(...)Also, unlike mosques in Herzegovina which were all dynamited or burned down by Croat extreme nationalists, the vast majority of Catholic churches were left alone in central Bosnia.

So, there you have it. Shrader's book may well fool those who are not well versed in the history of Bosnia but for those like me who are, this book is nothing more than a lame attempt to prove that the Croats were only defending themselves from Bosniac aggression. How is it that only Mr. Shrader knows the "truth" about the Muslim-Croat war, and all other historians and journalists have managed to get it wrong??? Puh-leeze!

What a biased book. I don't know what's agenda behind his writings, but this is of no historical of educational value to anyone. Boy, did we have more than our share of "knowledgeable" people like him. Without his book I would never have known what happened in Bosnia (lol). Please, give this man a candle, don't leave him in total darkness. Maybe a pair of glasses. Just today (04/12/2004), I was reading his interview to a leading Croatian newspaper and was shocked. Biased, anti-islamic, anti-serb, but pro-croatian to the last drop of his blood. I hope they give him the citizenship for this bunch of lies. He'd just like to be a Croat, but he can't.