Ten-Day War
The Ten-Day War (Slovene: desetdnevna vojna), or the Slovenian War of Independence (Slovene: slovenska osamosvojitvena vojna), was a brief armed conflict that followed Slovenia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. It was fought between the Slovenian Territorial Defence together with Slovene Police and the Yugoslav People's Army (or JNA). It lasted from 27 June 1991 until 7 July 1991, when the Brioni Accords were signed.
| Ten-Day War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Yugoslav Wars and the Cold War | |||||||||
Yugoslav T-55 hit by Slovenian anti-tank fire on the Italian border post, Rožna Dolina, Nova Gorica, during a Slovenian ambush. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Yugoslavia | Slovenia | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Ante Marković Veljko Kadijević Blagoje Adžić Konrad Kolšek Aleksandar Vasiljević Milan Aksentijević Andrija Rašeta |
Milan Kučan Lojze Peterle Janez Janša Igor Bavčar | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
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Territorial Defence National Police | |||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 22,300 personnel |
35,200 soldiers 10,000 policemen | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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45 killed 146 wounded 4,693 captured |
19 killed 182 wounded | ||||||||
| 6 Slovenianand 12 foreign civilians killed | |||||||||
It was the second of the Yugoslav Wars to start in 1991, following the Croatian War of Independence, and by far the shortest of the conflicts with fewest overall casualties. The war was brief because the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA, dominated by Serbo-Montenegrins, although still made up of all the nationalities of Yugoslavia) did not want to waste resources on this campaign. Slovenia was considered "ethnically homogeneous" and therefore of no interest to the Yugoslav government. The military was preoccupied with the fighting in Croatia, where the Serbo-Montenegrin majority in Yugoslavia had greater territorial interests. In the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia, which used archival footage, Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia, is recorded stating that "I was against using the Yugoslav Army in Slovenia." while Borisav Jović, President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, stated that: "With Slovenia out of the way, we could dictate the terms to the Croats."