Milorad Petrović

Milorad Petrović (Serbian Cyrillic: Милорад Петровић; 18 April 1882 – 12 June 1981) was an Armijski đeneral (lieutenant general) in the Royal Yugoslav Army who commanded the 1st Army Group during the April 1941 German-led invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in World War II. Petrović was commissioned into the Royal Serbian Army in 1901 and served in multiple staff positions during the Balkan Wars. During World War I, he served in various staff roles at the army and divisional level during the Serbian Campaign and later on the Macedonian front. Following the war, he took part in military operations along the disputed northern border of the nascent Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. During the interwar period, Petrović was steadily promoted, performing key roles at the Ministry of the Army and Navy. He reached the rank of armijski đeneral 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, Petrović urged immediate mobilisation, but this did not occur until 3 April, by which time Adolf Hitler had already issued orders for Yugoslavia's invasion. Petrović was appointed to command the 1st Army Group, responsible for the country's northern borders with Germany, Italy 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, Petrović 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, Petrović chose to return to the newly established communist-led Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, and settled in Belgrade. He was the lifelong president of a veterans' association for those who had participated in the Royal Serbian Army's 1915 withdrawal to the Greek island of Corfu. He lived in Belgrade until his death in 1981, aged 99.