ABSTRACT
Geography alone made Bosnia and Herzegovina a land likely to be heavily contested in the Second World War. Shaped as an interior triangle, it is sandwiched between Serbia and Montenegro to the east and Croatia to the north, west and south, and all those lands had harboured ambitions since the nineteenth century to annex it in whole or in part. Throughout history it has been a source of precious metals, industrial minerals and timber, and therefore coveted by neighbours near and far. To the conquering fascist Germans and Italians in the 1930s and 1940s, it was a geostrategic gem inviting conquest and exploitation in support of greater victories on other battlefields.
