The Battle Of Bihac

Is there a winner in the battle of Bihac? Did the Bosnian Serbs win in that battle, as their leaders said they did in all the other battles in the Bosnian war ("our enemies haven't scored a single military victory over us yet," Karadzic said before the battle of Bihac)?

No one has done any serious research of that claim. And what could they research when the overall opinion here is that the "Serb victory" in the fighting in Western Bosnia is "indisputable and logical".

Since the warring parties fought bloody battles (and could fight again) for the Bihac area, it is logical to assume that the region is strategically important to all three warring sides: The military and political leaders in Knin and Pale are trying to preserve the continuity of Serb lands even at the cost of heavy casualties (notwithstanding its vital importance to the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK), the Knin-Grahovo-Kluc-Banja Luka-Serbia road and Samac-Benkovac railway which runs to the sea). There are some indications that one of the Sarajevo government's strategic goals is linking up the 5th, 7th and 3d Muslim army corps from the northwest, south and southeast somewhere along the Sana river and separating the two Serb para-states (unless peace breaks out). That would be an important step on the road to establishing a unitary Bosnia-Herzegovina. Finally, if Knin and Pale take over Western Bosnia, Zagreb's wish to reintegrate the RSK would remain just a wish.

The serious situation forced Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to put on a uniform for only the second time since the war broke out and, as supreme commander, call his demoralized and disorganized troops to "totally crush the enemy's military, immediately, today, since we have no other way out: either the enemy will destroy us and banish us forever or we will break them".

Since General Ratko Mladic disappeared mysteriously from the battle field in mid-September, General Manojlo Milovanovic took over. Most often, he and his commander just repeated the strategic and political goals of a "counterattack by combined Bosnian Serb forces": first, retake territory captured by the 5th corps; second, destroy the Muslim 5th corps completely; and third, restore Western Bosnia to its autonomous status with Fikret Abdic in charge.

The 5th corps command never showed it intended to keep the front lines at the positions they captured during the offensive. Military and political officials in Sarajevo said it was a great success as part of one of the strategic goals of the BH army: exhausting the enemy. That means that the primary goal of the 5th corps could only have been survival in the Bihac pocket (the Croats expect nothing from this battle).

The 5th corps is more or less unchanged (some reports said losses were very low): eight brigades, plus the Croat Defence Council (HVO) Bihac brigade and some commando type units, a total of 20-25,000 troops.

Since the Bosnian Serb high command set radical goals it took a risk and sent in all its strategic reserves to form the combined force of at least 10 brigades (two of them armored), several independent battalions and special forces, a total of 23-28,000 warriors. At the same time, covertly at first, at least two tactical-operative groups from the RSK (up to 10,000 men) joined in. In mid-November Abdic's 3-5,000 volunteers and "volunteers" joined the fighting.

All in all the attackers had twice the number of men. All the indications we have show that combat readiness and morale were on 5th corps commander Dudakovic's side. But the weaponry was on the Serb side. We also know the attackers were assisted by Jastreb bombers who flew at least two sorties.

Judging by the information available the Serb command envisaged two stages: in the first, after heavy artillery bombardment along the front and in depth, concentrated armored groups from the south, southeast and east frontally pushed the 5th corps back to Bihac, in the second the combined force along with the RSK and Abdic troops were to break up the corps along the Kulen Vakuf-Bosanska Krupa-Velika Kladusa-Licko Petrovo Selo line and force them to surrender somewhere around Cazin.

The defenders idea was also simple: withdraw with an elastic defence to the most fortified line and fight to every possible limit.

The 5th corps started its offensive towards Petrovac and Krupa between October 23 and 28. In five days it advanced 30 kilometers. The combined force took two months to recapture that territory.

Karadzic and General Milovanovic didn't even take the positions (Grabez) the 2nd Krajina Crops withdrew from let alone the Cazin area; the 5th corps has not been destroyed and has saved most of its men; Abdic (at least for now) is master only of parts of Velika Kladusa. So the combined force did not achieve any of its primary goals