Milorad Petrović, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMilorad Petrović
Yugoslav general
Date of Birth: 18-Apr-1882
Place of Birth: Sumrakovac, Zaječar District, Serbia
Date of Death: 12-Jun-1981
Profession: military personnel
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Milorad Petrović
- Milorad Petrovic (Serbian Cyrillic: ??????? ????????; 18 April 1882 – 12 June 1981) was an Armijski deneral (lieutenant general) in the Royal Yugoslav Army who commanded the 1st Army Group during the April 1941 German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia of World War II.
- Petrovic was commissioned into the Royal Serbian Army in 1901, and served in staff positions during the Balkan Wars.
- During World War I he served in various staff roles at army and divisional level during the Serbian Campaign and later on the Macedonian Front.
- After the war ended he participated in military operations along the disputed northern border of the nascent Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).
- During the interwar period, Petrovic was steadily promoted, performing key roles at the Ministry of the Army and Navy and reaching the rank of armijski deneral in 1937.
- At the time of the 27 March 1941 Yugoslav coup d'état, he was the military commander of the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. In the wake of the coup, Petrovic urged immediate mobilisation, but this did not occur until 3 April, by which time Adolf Hitler had already issued orders for the invasion.
- Petrovic was appointed to command the 1st Army Group, responsible for the northern borders of Yugoslavia with Italy, Germany and Hungary.
- His formations were only partially mobilised by the time the invasion began on 6 April, and significant fifth column activities affected them from the outset.
- On 10 April, two determined armoured thrusts by the Germans caused the 1st Army Group to disintegrate, and the following day Petrovic was captured by fifth columnists.
- He was soon handed over to the Germans and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Germany.
- After the war, he opted to return to the new communist-led Yugoslav state.
- He was lifelong president of the veteran's association for those that had participated in the 1915 withdrawal through Montenegro to Albania.
- When he returned, he lived in Belgrade, and died there in 1981, aged 99.
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