Army general (Kingdom of Yugoslavia)

This rank was usually given to Kingdom of Yugoslavia senior officers in the Ministry of Defense and General Staff and also used to promoted division generals under Law on the Organization of the Army and Navy from 19 July 1923[1] and 1929 by law[2] and Decree on army formations from 1936. It was used for army and air officers while navy had its own rank of Admiral [3] that was equal to army general. In order to be promoted to army general an officer had previously to have finished higher Military Academy, had successfully commanded with divisional area or similar division formation one year, as division general commanded at least one year or had a position more important then division commander at least a year, had highest military degrees and it was capable of highest command in the opinion of senior officers or the defence minister.

After the dissolution of King and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army did not used this rank immediately but one similar to this was created under the name of General of the army. Only a few people in the Yugoslav People's Army held the title of 4 star General of the army - Veljko Kadijević, Nikola Ljubičić, Kosta Nađ and Ivan Gošnjak. In today's Serbian Armed Forces the equivalent is the rank of General - 4 star. For more see Military ranks of Serbia.

At beginning of war in 1941. Kingdom of Yugoslavia had 12 active army generals:

• Milorad Petrović commanded 1st Army Group
• Petar Nedeljković commanded the 4th Army under 1st Army Group
• Milutin Nedić commanded 2nd Army Group
• Dragoslav Miljković commanded 2nd Army under 2nd Army Group
• Milan Rađenković commanded 1st Army under 2nd Army Group
• Milan Nedić commanded 3rd Army Group
• Ilija Brašić commanded 3rd Army under 3rd Army Group
• Jovan Naumović commanded 3rd Territorial Army under 3rd Army Group
• Vladimir Cukavac commanded 5th Army
• Dimitrije Živković commanded 6th Army
• Živko Stanisaviljević commanded Coastal Army area
• Dušan Simović commanded Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force and later was Chief of the General Staff

Their job was to command total of 1.700.000 soldiers and officers during war since 1936. under Decree of military formation in mobile and war time. 1.700.000 soldiers and officers was within:

• Operational army
  • 3 HQ army groups
  • 7 HQ of army's totaling 28 infantry division, 3 cavalry division, 2 mountain detachment(13900 soldiers each - division in some other army), 15 joint detachments(one to three infantry regiments, one to three artillery regiments and zero to 1 cavalry regiments each),
  • 1 guard cavalry brigade
  • two coastal HQ
  • Special forces HQ
  • 4 regiments of heavy artillery
  • 1 motorized regiment of anti-tank artillery
  • 2 tank battalions
  • 1 chemical warfare battalion
  • one communication battalion
  • HQ of territorial air-defense
  • Many different transportation units and other units
• Reserve army
  • 6 Army territorial area with 16 divisional area, 49 military districts, 15 border fortress regiments
  • 49 infantry regiments and many other units.[4]

Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Yugoslavia rank of army general is comparable to NATO OF-9 level and equivalent to the UK and US ranks of general; It had same function as the French Army general because until 1930 most of Army formations was done using France army model. It was given to Chief of the General Staff and commanders of army or army groups that usually had few division under them. Divisions in Kingdom of Yugoslavia particularly after 1930 had been 27-28000 strong and thus similar to some other army's corps. Usual Italian infantry division like 64th Infantry Division Catanzaro at time of WWII had less than 7000 soldiers and US infantry division in 1943 consisted of 14,253 officers and soldiers while Soviet rifle division at same time had 9375 man. British division numbered 12772 man.[6] All this illustrate how big was Yugoslavia division formation compared to others thus responsibility of 3 star Yugoslavia army generals was same as in other countries 4 star generals.