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Conclusion
Th e mission of the Karlovac Corps District was very demanding. It was one of the small
corps districts and it was given a more demanding mission than other corps districts. It
faced the complete Kordun Corps, one brigade of the Lika Corps, an artillery brigade
of the SVK General Staff and the main body of the SVK Special Unit Corps. Th e corps
had no professional troops, and the brunt of its mission rested on reserve units. Th e
reinforcements it received were also from the reserve. Th is made the mission of the Corps
even more diffi cult because it included the forced crossings of the rivers Kupa, Korana
and Mrežnica. Th e operation showed that some of the attached units were not up to
the task assigned them and that they were not a match for the Corps’ line units. In this
regard command during the operation was demanding and had a signifi cant impact on
the outcome of the operation. 328 Th e Serbian defence was very strong, and their forces
even mounted several counterattacks with some success. Strong defence was the only way
out for the Kordun Corps because it was the only formation with no direct link to the
Bosnian&Herzegovinian Serbs. Th e ARBiH was in its rear, and it did not crumble to the
extent observed with the other corps. It can be assumed that the fi ghting in the region of
Kordun was the closest to what might have been expected throughout the theatre if the
RSK Supreme Defence Council had not ordered the evacuation of the population from
Dalmatia. M. Sekulić speculates that Kordun should have been exploited to demonstrate
the “Croatian genocidal character” because the Serbian population, allegedly, had not been
informed about the decision to withdraw from Krajina. 329 Because of this the operation
developed diff erently as compared to the other theatres. Th e Special Units Corps and
its armoured brigade played no role of any signifi cance. 330 During the operation up to 8
August the casualties of the Karlovac Corps District totalled 33 killed and 262 wounded,
106 of them severely. 331
327 MORH, GSHV: ZZP Karlovac, cl. 8/95-01/01, reg. no. 1078-03/2-95-568 of 9 August 1995; Operational
report.
328 According to the CIA analysis the role of the Karlovac Corps District under Major-General Miljenko
Crnjac was a minor one compared to the other three HV corps. Crnjac’s mission was to conduct a holding
attack against the SVK Kordun Corps to pin it down and keep it away from the fl anks of the Zagreb and
Gospić Corps Districts. His forces would also try to capture SVK-held areas south of Karlovac, around the
town of Vojnić, to limit Serbian shelling of Karlovac. On 4 August the Karlovac Corps District succeeded
in its primary mission of pinning down the Kordun Corps, but fared poorly in terms of ground gained. Th e
Kordun Corps, continues the analysis, held fast on 5 August as well at Slunj and south of Karlovac, where
the HV was not able to wrest much from the SVK, with the exception of Primišlje, seized by the 14th Home
Guard Regiment. Nevertheless, concludes the analysis, the days of the SVK Kordun Corps were numbered,
especially when the Karlovac Corps District, now reinforced and led by the 1st Guards Brigade, mounted on
7 August a concentric attack on the SVK 21st Corps around Vojnić and when, on the same day, the ARBiH
5th Corps overwhelmed the forces of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia and marched into Velika
Kladuša. Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Confl ict, 1990-1995; 368-369, 371.
329 M. Sekulić, «Knin je pao u Beogradu» (Knin Fell in Belgrade), 220-221.
330 Ibid., 222-223.
331 MORH, GSHV: ZZP Karlovac, cl. 8/95-01/88, reg. no. 1078-03/1-95-557 of 4 September 1995; Analysis
of Storm-2.