Battle of Vukovar 1991
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 25 August 1991 – 18 November 1991 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1991 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Croatia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Croatian War of Independence | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 45.3742, 18.9625 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs and other ethnic groups. As Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbia's President Slobodan Milošević and Croatia's President Franjo Tuđman began pursuing nationalist politics. In 1990, an armed insurrection was started by Croatian Serb militias, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups, who seized control of Serb-populated areas of Croatia. The JNA began to intervene in favour of the rebellion, and conflict broke out in the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia in May 1991. In August, the JNA launched a full-scale attack against Croatian-held territory in eastern Slavonia, including Vukovar.
Vukovar was defended by around 1,800 lightly armed soldiers of the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) and civilian volunteers, against as many as 36,000 JNA soldiers and Serb paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery. During the battle, shells and rockets were fired into the town at a rate of up to 12,000 a day.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Vukovar (revision 1375698459), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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Other battles of the Croatian War of Independence
- Battle of Borovo Selo 1991
- Battle of Gospić 1991
- Battle of Kusonje 1991
- Battle of Logorište 1991
- Battle of Osijek 1991
- Battle of Zadar 1991
- Battle of the Barracks 1991
- Battle of the Dalmatian Channels 1991
- Battle of Šibenik 1991
- Battles of Glina (1991) 1991
All 21 battles of the Croatian War of Independence →
Browse more: battles in Croatia · Europe · Post-1945 battles