Italian occupation zone in the Balkans (1941–1943)

Not to be confused with Italian occupation zone of the Independent State of Croatia or Italian governorate of Montenegro.

The Italian occupation zone in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro during the Second World War from 1941 to 1943.

The Italian occupation zone in the Balkans during the Second World War was established during negotiations between Fascist Italy and the Nazi Germany in Vienna in April 1941.

Italian occupation zone

Obligations

The Italian occupation zone in Greece during the Second World War.

On 7 April 1939, Italian troops invaded Albania and quickly occupied it. The campaign was part of the ambitions of the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini to build an Italian empire. After occupying Albania in 1939, Mussolini used the territory as a launchpad to invade Greece on October 28, 1940, aiming to annex Epirus.

On 28 October 1940, the Greco-Italian War broke out. Initially, the Italian army made gains, advancing into Greek territory, but the Italians were subsequently defeated and driven back, with hostilities shifting to Albanian territory. This forced Hitler to intervene on the side of his ally Mussolini. The Axis forces’ military operation against Greece took place simultaneously with that against Yugoslavia and began on 6 April 1941. In a blitzkrieg, they routed the far weaker armies of Yugoslavia and Greece; Yugoslavia capitulated on 17 April, whilst Greece put up effective resistance until 27 April with the help of British troops who landed on Greek territory.

Vienna Line

The Italian occupation zone in Yugoslavia during the Second World War.

Following the successful conduct of the joint military operations (known respectively as Aufmarsch 25 and Marita) on 21–24 April 1941, a meeting took place in Vienna between Ribbentrop and Galeazzo Ciano. At this meeting, the so-called ‘Vienna Protocol’ was signed, establishing a demarcation line that became known as the ‘Vienna Line’ and delineating the Italian zone in the Balkans. The occupation zone in Yugoslavia included, in the north, large parts of the territory of Slovenia and Croatia. Italy was also granted occupation of Montenegro, Albania and almost the whole of Kosovo. It was also granted part of Western Macedonia, including the towns of Tetovo, Struga, Debar, Kičevo and Gostivar, together with several villages south of Ohrid, with the aim of creating ‘Greater Albania’ . According to the ‘Vienna Protocol’, Italy was also granted the right to occupy vast areas of Greece – South-Western Macedonia (the districts of Paionia and Edessa, parts of Florina and Veria, Kastoria and part of Kozani), as well as Epirus, Thessaly, the Peloponnese, Euboea and the islands of the Cyclades archipelago.

Аdministration and issues in the area

Italian soldiers entered Durrës in April 1939.

An Italian tank destroyed near Këlcyrë in the winter of 1941 during the Italo-Greek War.

Following the negotiations, Italy had an army of half a million men in the Balkans. The country began to feel cheated because it had not achieved the full extent of its objectives. Subsequently, Germany annexed large territories in Slovenia, whilst Croatia, as an independent state, was to be placed under Italian protectorate, but German influence gradually prevailed there too. The Duke of Spoleto, appointed by Italy as King of Croatia, never actually ascended the throne. Territorial disputes arose between Zagreb and Rome, and between Budapest and Rome. Italy committed itself to proclaiming the independence of Montenegro, but not a single member of the Italian Queen’s family agreed to take the throne. During World War II, Axis occupation forces partitioned Greece. Italy held nominal sway over much of the country, while Germany held key strategic points like Western Aegean Macedonia, parts of Crete, and the Maritsa River. Italy used Albania to push for a "Greater Albania," sparking territorial friction with Bulgaria. The idea of a Greater Albania could be realised through expansion into Epirus (at Greece’s expense), Kosovo and Western Vardar Macedonia, where it clashed with Bulgarian claims. In Epirus, Macedonia and Thessaly, the pro-Italian Vlach separatist organisation, the Roman Legion, was active.

The Situation of the Jews and the Organisation of Resistance

During the war, the Italian authorities and individual officials took a number of measures to prevent the deportation of Jews from the territories occupied by Italy. Many Italian military officers, led by General Mario Roata, commander of the Second Army stationed in the Balkans, realising that handing over the Jews would result in their mass extermination, decided to sabotage the orders for their deportation. The situation of the Jews in the Italian zone was considerably better than in the Bulgarian zone and, in particular, in the German zone. No Jews were deported from the Italian occupation zone. Moreover, the Italians evacuated Jews from the German zone, saving them from death in the Nazi concentration camps. On the other hand, the Italians fiercely persecuted Resistance fighters and organised several mass massacres of partisans. The Italians also began ethnic cleansing in Slovenia with a view to exterminating and deporting the local Slavic population and replacing it with Italians.

Italy’s Armistice with the Anti-Hitler Coalition and its Consequences

An encounter between Italian and German soldiers in Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Italian troops during the capture of Ohrid on 12 April 1941

On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was overthrown in Italy. A new Italian government was appointed, headed by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, which in September included representatives of all Italian anti-fascist parties. Italy began to shift away from the Axis. On September 3, an armistice was secretly signed in Sicily between the new Italian government and the Anti-Hitler Coalition, and it was announced on September 8, 1943. On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Nazi Germany. Chaos ensued in the occupied zone of the Balkans. Some of the Italian troops stationed on the Balkan Peninsula were captured by the Germans after putting up some resistance. Such was the case with the 33rd “Acqui” Infantry Division on the island of Cephalonia, 8,400 of whose men were executed. The same fate befell the 13th Motorized Infantry Regiment “Pinerolo” in Kastoria, where 1,200 soldiers and officers were executed by the Germans. The Second Italian Army in Yugoslavia also put up sustained armed resistance; for the most part, it defected to the Yugoslav partisans, forming the “Garibaldi” Division. Part of the Ninth Italian Army, specifically the “Arezzo” and “Florence” divisions, formed the “Antonio Gramsci” Division, which fought alongside Enver Hoxha’s Albanian partisans. Most of the 24th “Pinerolo” Infantry Division joined the Greek partisans of the EAM and ELAS. Some Italian units declared their allegiance to the new Italian Social Republic, a puppet state of Nazi Germany; this was the case in Slovenia with former units of the Fascist Volunteer Militia for the Protection of National Security, which fought alongside German troops. Overall, the Italian occupation zone in the Balkans was taken over by the Germans supported by Albanians, Croats, and Bulgarians and by the end of November. In November 1943, the Second Occupation Corps was established, a unit of the Bulgarian Army with headquarters in Drama, which was stationed in the area between the Vardar and Struma rivers, which until then had been a German occupation zone, with the aim of replacing the German army, which had been sent to occupy territories previously held by the Italian army.

The Italian Occupation Zone and Bulgaria

Italian and Bulgarian soldiers at the border in Macedonia examine a disassembled Schwarzlose machine gun in the summer of 1941.

Bulgaria did not participate with military forces in the defeat of Yugoslavia and Greece. To counter any potential Italian claims on Macedonia, Bulgaria sought Germany’s cooperation. King Boris III urgently arranged a meeting with Hitler, and on April 19, 1941, the king flew to German headquarters. No minutes of the talks were kept, but Bulgaria evidently succeeded in its efforts, as the king returned to Sofia on April 20, visibly pleased. The previous day, Bulgarian troops had already entered Yugoslavia and Greece. As with many other territorial issues in Europe, German diplomacy adopted Hitler’s position; during his meeting with the king, Hitler had agreed that Macedonia should be ceded to Bulgaria.

On the very first day of the negotiations in Vienna, Ribbentrop informed his Italian counterpart that Tsar Boris III’s claims extended to the whole of Macedonia up to the former Yugoslav-Albanian border.

Furthermore, the Bulgarian king strongly insisted on the Italian-occupied city of Ohrid, considering it a Bulgarian national shrine.On April 22, 1941, the German foreign minister also raised the issue of Thessaloniki, but Count Chano stated that he had no authority to speak on the matter. The Italians reluctantly agreed to hand over Ohrid and Resen, which they had occupied, to Bulgaria. On April 23, the Italians, who were dissatisfied, insisted that the border run immediately west of Skopje and that Bitola also be included in Albania, but their request was rejected by the German side. On April 24, 1941, the final compromise protocol establishing the new border line was signed in Vienna. Attached to the protocol was a topographic map at a scale of 1:1,000,000, on which the border line did not take into account the specific features of the terrain. When the line was transferred to topographic maps at a scale of 1:100,000, discrepancies arose due to their adaptation to the terrain. Furthermore, the ink line from the Vienna map, when transferred to topographic maps, encompassed an indistinct border strip 12 km wide.

Border Disputes

The handover of Ohrid by the Italians to Bulgarian administration, with German mediation, in May 1941.

The meeting between Mussolini and Filov to settle the border issue took place in Rome in July 1941.

To prevent future disputes, Boris III traveled to Italy. On June 9, he met with King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, who advised him to speak directly with Mussolini. The meeting with Il Duce took place on June 12, 1941, and an agreement was reached that the border disputes would be resolved during a future visit by Bogdan Filov and Foreign Minister Popov to the Italian capital. Meanwhile, Italy skillfully exploited the irregularities along the demarcation line to make persistent claims, which also led to border incidents. On the night of July 10–11, 1941, the Italians issued an ultimatum to the Bulgarian border authorities demanding that the chromium mine northwest of Ljuboten be ceded to them. The Bulgarians refused and opened fire, resulting in casualties on both sides. On July 21, 1941, Prof. Bogdan Filov and Minister Ivan Popov met in Rome with King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Benito Mussolini. An agreement was reached that the Vienna Agreement would serve as the basis for the border between Bulgaria and Italy, with its precise demarcation to be determined by a joint Italian-Albanian-Bulgarian commission, which would decide on the necessary adjustments and the issue of population exchange. However, the commission never actually began its work due to obstruction from both sides, and the contentious issues remained unresolved.

An Italian military unit in the Balkans in 1942

Refugees from Debar who fled the Albanian-controlled zone in 1942 and entered the Bulgarian-controlled zone.

In August 1942, there was yet another Bulgarian-Italian border incident involving new casualties, once again related to the mine near Ljuboten. It was only after the incident was resolved that the joint commission was established. The head of the Bulgarian delegation was General Vasil Boydev, commander of the Fifth Army stationed in Macedonia. The commission held meetings in October and November 1942 and in March 1943. It did not decide on any significant adjustments to the border. In effect, the joint commission legitimized the old border line. Thus, on March 29, 1943, the final protocol on the Bulgarian-Italian border in Macedonia was signed. It did not enter into force until July 15, 1943.

The border between the Italian Protectorate of Albania and the Kingdom of Bulgaria roughly begins in present-day Kosovo along a line that runs west of Kaçanik, through Lesok, and then east of the Zhelezna River and Novosej; it then follows the Treska River near the town of Kiçevo and heads south toward Lake Ohrid. It passes west of the villages of Staroec, Belitsa, Velmej, Mešeišta, and Gorenci. As it proceeds southwest, the Bulgarian-Albanian border crosses the ridge of the Ilinska Mountain. At a point west of the village of Podmol, it reaches the northern shore of Lake Ohrid. From there, the border heads southeast across the waters of the lake toward the Monastery of St. Naum. From that monastery, the border runs almost in a straight line eastward, passing north of the villages of Shipokno, Evla, and Kozyak and south of the cities of Ohrid and Resen. After the lake, the line emerges on the eastern shore, north of Peštani, continues through Galichitsa, proceeds east of Koziak, and along the ridge of Baba Mountain reaches the former Greek-Yugoslav border.

The Formation of “Ohrana” and the Consequences of Italy’s Truce with the Anti-Hitler Coalition

Italian soldiers on the island of Corfu, taken prisoner by German forces in September 1943.

In light of the growing strength of the Greek Resistance, in the winter of 1943, on the orders of Ivan Mihaylov, the Bulgarian officer Andon Kalchev contacted the Italian commandant of Kastoria, Lieutenant Giovanni Ravali, and insisted on measures to protect the Bulgarian population in these westernmost parts of Greek Macedonia from Greek attacks. Since the Italians were unable to stop the attacks, they agreed. On March 5, 1943, the Bulgarian Committee “Freedom or Death” was officially established in Kastoria. On March 12, 1943, General Giuseppe del Giudice arrived in the city with an order from the Italian command to deploy regular Italian units to support Bulgarian self-defense against Greek nationalists and Macedonian-oriented communists. Kastoria became the center of the “Ohrana” organization, which included former members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization as well as ordinary Bulgarians wishing to defend themselves against attacks by Greek paramilitary bands. On July 25, however, the fascist regime in Italy fell, and anarchy began to take hold in its occupied zone. Beyond the demarcation line, the situation became critical for the Bulgarian population. Local Albanian bandits and Greek nationalists stopped at nothing to abuse, loot, and even kill the Bulgarians living there. On August 14, Tsar Boris III was summoned to a meeting at Hitler’s headquarters regarding the dire situation facing Germany and its allies, both on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans. At the meeting, Hitler insisted that Bulgarian divisions occupy the parts of Macedonia falling within the Italian occupation zone in Greece and Albania, while Boris III attempted to deflect the possibility of Bulgarian participation on the Eastern Front, citing a shortage of manpower and equipment, as well as the need for defense against a potential attack by Turkey. Vladimir Židovec, the Croatian Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia, also confirmed the existence of such ideas. A plan for cooperation was outlined to the Croatian diplomat, based on the annexation of all of Western Macedonia—which had until then been part of the Italian occupation zone—to Bulgaria. According to Židovec, the king sincerely believed that Italy’s defeat made this possible, provided that the support of the IMRO could also be secured. The death of the Bulgarian monarch shortly thereafter halted the development of this initiative.

Italian defeat and German occupation of Italian occupation zones

In September 1943, following Italy’s surrender, its zone was occupied primarily by German troops. Bulgaria also benefited in part from Italy’s withdrawal from the Axis as a German ally. It managed to secure a slight adjustment to the border in the southwestern sector of Vardar Macedonia. Thus, the Bulgarian zone was expanded by about 500 square kilometers. This included about 20 villages in the Ohrid and Resen regions. This border remained in effect until the withdrawal of the Bulgarian army from Vardar Macedonia and most of Aegean Macedonia in early September 1944, when the Bulgarian-controlled parts of the former Italian occupation zone were evacuated by Bulgarian troops.

See also

• Greco-Italian War
• Bulgarian rule of Macedonia, Morava Valley and Western Thrace (1941–1944)

Sources

• Yanko Gochev. "24 МАЙ 1941 г. ОХРИД ВЛИЗА ОКОНЧАТЕЛНО В БЪЛГАРИЯ" [May 24, 1941: Ohrid was finally incorporated into Bulgaria]. All Bulgarians United (in Bulgarian). Retrieved 11 August 2026.
• Nikolay Kochankov (2007). "От надежда към покруса: Западна Македония в българската външна политика (1941-1944)" [From Hope to Despair: Western Macedonia in Bulgarian Foreign Policy (1941–1944)] (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Heron Press.