Lieutenant Colonel Zaharije Ostojić (; 1907 – April 1945) was a Montenegrin Serb and Yugoslav military officer who served as the chief of the operational, organisational and intelligence branches of the Chetnik Supreme Command led by Draža Mihailović in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force prior to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, and was involved in the coup that deposed Prince Paul of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1941. After the coup, he escorted Prince Paul to exile in Greece, and was in Cairo during the invasion in April. In September 1941, he was landed on the coast of the Italian governorate of Montenegro along with the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Hudson and two companions. He escorted Hudson to the German-occupied territory of Serbia and introduced him to the Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito at Užice, then accompanied Hudson to Ravna Gora to meet Mihailović. Ostojić soon became Mihailović's chief of staff, and after the German attempt to capture the Chetnik leader during Operation Mihailovic in December 1941, brought the Chetnik Supreme Command staff to Montenegro where they were re-united with Mihailović in June 1942. During the remainder of 1942, Ostojić launched a counter-attack against Ustaše troops of the Independent State of Croatia returning to the eastern Bosnian town of Foča where they were expected to continue their genocidal anti-Serb policies. As many as 2,000 local Muslims were subsequently killed in the town by forces under Ostojić's command. Ostojić later oversaw large-scale massacres of civilians and burning of Muslim villages in the border region between Montenegro and the Sandžak.
While the Chetniks were an anti-Axis movement in their long-range goals and did engage in marginal resistance activities for limited periods, they also carried out for almost all of the war a tactical or selective collaboration with the occupation authorities against the Partisans. This was demonstrated in late 1942 and early 1943, when Ostojić planned and oversaw the Chetnik involvement in the large Axis anti-Partisan offensive Operation Weiss alongside Italian troops. In 1944, he became a leader of the Chetnik forces in Herzegovina, and along with Dobroslav Jevđević was involved in attempts to come to terms with the Allied forces. In late 1944, as the Partisans tightened their grip on the country and the Soviet Red Army assisted in the capture of Belgrade, he rejoined Mihailović in northeastern Bosnia but they could not agree on what course of action to take, continue fighting the Partisans or attempt to flee Yugoslavia. Ostojić, along with Chetnik leaders Pavle Đurišić and Petar Baćović and Chetnik ideologue Dragiša Vasić decided to move west to the area of the Ljubljana Gap in modern-day Slovenia where other collaborationist forces were concentrating. In early April 1945, faced with attacks by the Partisans and the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia (, HOS) along their route, the combined Chetnik force was defeated by HOS forces in the Battle of Lijevče Field, after which Ostojić was captured by the Ustaše in an apparent trap. He was killed alongside Đurišić, Baćović and Vasić.
Early life Zaharije Ostojić was a Montenegrin Serb, and was born in 1907 in the village of Gluhi Do in the Crmnica District, near the Adriatic seaport of Bar in the Principality of Montenegro. In 1910, the principality became the Kingdom of Montenegro, and after World War I, it became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and in 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After completing his schooling, Ostojić joined the Royal Yugoslav Air Force (, JKRV) and prior to the outbreak of World War II had risen to the rank of major. Little else has been recorded of Ostojić's early life, but his sister was married to Royal Yugoslav Army Brigadni đeneral Ljubo Novaković, another Montenegrin Serb who, like Ostojić, later became a Chetnik commander during World War II.
To Cairo and back
After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the government of Regent Prince Paul of Yugoslavia declared its neutrality. Despite this, and with the aim of securing his southern flank for the pending invasion of the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler began placing heavy pressure on Yugoslavia to sign the Tripartite Pact and join the Axis. After some delay, the Yugoslav government conditionally signed the Pact on 25 March 1941. Two days later a putatively anti-Axis bloodless coup d'état deposed Prince Paul and declared 17-year-old Prince Peter II of Yugoslavia of age. Ostojić had a close relationship with one of the main instigators of the coup, the deputy commander of the JKRV, Brigadni đeneral Borivoje Mirković, and was personally involved in the coup. Ostojić escorted Prince Paul to exile in Greece and then travelled on to Cairo.
Following the subsequent German-led invasion of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav capitulation 11 days later, Ostojić remained in Cairo until he was selected to join a combined British–Yugoslav Special Operations Executive team which was to infiltrate into occupied Yugoslavia and make contact with resistance groups. The other members of the team were: Captain Bill Hudson; a fellow JKRV officer, Major Mirko Lalatović; and a radio operator. They flew from Cairo to Malta on 13 September 1941, before being landed from the British submarine HMS Triumph on the coast of the Italian governorate of Montenegro near Petrovac between 20 and 22 September 1941. They quickly came into contact with the communist-led Montenegrin Partisans, including Milovan Đilas and Arso Jovanović, who escorted Hudson and Ostojić to Partisan-held Užice in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. While Hudson familiarised himself with the Partisans, Ostojić went on to visit the Chetnik leader Pukovnik Draža Mihailović's headquarters at Ravna Gora. After briefing Mihailović, Ostojić went back to escort Hudson to Ravna Gora, arriving there on 25 October. When he first arrived at Ravna Gora, Ostojić had delivered a message to Mihailović from the War Minister of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, Armijski đeneral Bogoljub Ilić, assuring him of the official support of the government-in-exile, but stating that "a rebellion would not be tolerated". Ostojić also told Mihailović that the communists had taken control of Montenegro. Ostojić and Lalatović then assumed senior staff positions in Mihailović's supreme command headquarters.
From the very beginning the Chetnik strategy was to organise and build up their strength, but postpone armed operations against the occupation forces until they were withdrawing in the face of a hoped-for landing by the Western Allies in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks did half-heartedly join the initially successful Partisan-initiated uprising in Serbia after it started in July 1941, but almost as soon as they did, it became apparent that the aims of the two movements were too different for any real cooperation. Once Mihailović realised that the goal of the Partisans was to recreate Yugoslavia along multi-ethnic and communist lines, which was directly opposed to the Chetniks main objective of creating a "Greater Serbia", with a planned return to the monarchy and Serbian hegemony, they determined that the Partisans were their main enemy, and were willing to ally themselves with anyone that would help them defeat the Partisans, including the occupying powers and those that collaborated with them, such as the fascist Ustaše in the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH). On 1 November the Chetniks unsuccessfully attacked the Partisan headquarters at Užice, and from then on, the hostility between the two movements gradually spread from the occupied territory of Serbia to the rest of Yugoslavia.
Move to Montenegro After the successful German counter-insurgency operations Uzice and Mihailovic, and the split with the Partisans, Mihailović went on the run in early December 1941. Ostojić maintained a small headquarters consisting mainly of the intelligence staff, which remained close to Mihailović and his small personal staff as he moved around the Rudnik Mountain area during the rest of the winter, ending in February 1942. Mihailović eventually made his way to Montenegro, where he arrived in June 1942. Ostojić, Hudson and other officers joined him soon after, travelling through Italian-held towns by truck disguised as troops of the Nedić regime, a puppet government in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. By this time, the Chetnik movement had determined not to fight the Germans, and had commenced collaborating with the Nedić regime soon after they attacked the Partisans at Užice. By the time Mihailović reached Montenegro, an increasing proportion of Chetnik detachments throughout Yugoslavia were also collaborating with the Italians in Montenegro and the areas of the NDH they occupied.
In a directive letter dated 30 July 1942, Ostojić urged all Chetnik commanders to "develop the strongest possible oral and written propaganda". He stated that, "the people must be persuaded that the Chetniks are their only friends and that it is from them that they can expect freedom and a happy life" and instructed the Chetniks to "work day and night and maintain the spirit of the people". He wrote, "the hour of freedom is near. Allied aid for the Chetniks is assured, and the whole world is admiring them." In August, he launched a counter-attack against Ustaše troops returning to Foča as the Italians withdrew their garrisons from the hinterland. The Chetniks feared the Ustaše were about to unleash another round of genocidal violence on the Serb population in the area. After they occupied the town, at least 2,000 local Muslims were killed in Foča by forces under Ostojić's command. The Chetnik commander in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, Petar Baćović, reported the massacre to Mihailović. The historian Marko Attila Hoare states this massacre was part of a "systematic effort to exterminate or expel the Muslim and Croat population" from parts of Yugoslavia that were to form part of Greater Serbia. The historian Jozo Tomasevich agrees, observing that expulsion of the non-Serb population from this and other areas was done in pursuit of the principal Chetnik ideology of achieving an ethnically homogenous Greater Serbia.
In accordance with the Chetniks' Greater Serbia ideology, in November 1942, Ostojić was encouraged by Mihailović to wage a campaign of terror against the Muslim population living along the borders of Montenegro and the Sandžak, and subsequently reported that Chetniks had destroyed 21 villages and killed about 1,300 people. Between 30 November and 2 December 1942, Ostojić represented Mihailović at the Conference of Young Chetnik Intellectuals of Montenegro at the village of Šahovići near Bijelo Polje in the Sandžak, which was also attended by the Montenegrin Chetnik leader Pavle Đurišić. The conference was dominated by Đurišić and its resolutions "expressed extremism and intolerance", as well as an agenda which was focused on restoring the pre-war status quo in Yugoslavia implemented in its initial stages by a Chetnik dictatorship. It also laid claim to parts of the territory of Yugoslavia's neighbours. During the conference, Ostojić attempted to moderate the influence of the other delegates.