After the successful liberation of Amsterdam in the north there were growing calls for a victory in the south to reclaim Yugoslavian territory and potentially combine the Italian and Greek fronts into one once again. By the 4th of September a number of Axis divisions had moved north leaving only 13 divisions in Bjelovar and 6 in Banja Luka so it was felt that the time was right for an offensive.
At 3am the attack began with 8 French tank divisions leading the attack on Bjelovar with infantry support with most units beginning the offensive from Maribor and 5 additional divisions providing support from Zagreb. To aid the attack a secondary offensive was also launched from Zagreb against the lightly defended region of Banja Luka with support coming from the divisions in Rijeka. The short term aim of the attack was to regain the two provinces and if progress went well then a second attack would be launched to try and reach Belgrade and re unite the Italian and Greek fronts.
16 hours later and the German army in Bjelovar had been defeated whilst the attack on Banja Luka would reach a successful conclusion at 2am the next day. Our forces in Bjelovar arrived at the same time on the 7th and would successfully defeat the German counter attack whilst in Banja a tank and cavalry division were initially forced to retreat after capturing the province.
The major German counter attack was launched soon after the capture of Bjelovar with their forces targeting the weakened defences in Maribor. Diversion attacks were launched against Gyor and Graz to aid the defence whilst a number of reinforcement divisions coming from Venice and Zagreb would ensure that Maribor was held. For the next 8 days repeated German attacks were launched against our armies in Bjelovar however never with any significant numbers of troops to have a real chance of success.
At this point the plan was to allow the units to regain organisation for a potential further assault aimed towards Belgrade and the possible encirclement of a number of enemy divisions.
That plan now seems unlikely as the UK forces have been forced to retreat further. Perhaps tie would be on our side and we could hold onto Nis for an offensive on Belgrade however once the Soviet troops reach Craiova they are likely to launch an attack against the province. In addition its once again raised the issue that it would not be too clever to end up having the Italian front bordering the Soviets as for the time being their manpower advantage appears to be unstoppable.
If the expected does happen then our hope is to hold a defensive line on the three Greek border provinces as Ioannina and Salonika both have land forts.
As a minor edit I did continue for an extra 5 days and launched a successful attack on Split to capture it's two factories, port and airport as it seemed a no brainer. Plus the province is also a Yugoslavian victory point so we now have 3 secured on the Italian front.
