
Instead it was decided to restart production of 98-type Mausers at Kraguyevac. Unlike most of the new communist states of Eastern Europe, the Yugoslavs displayed an independent streak and refused to adopt Soviet-pattern small arms. 24 Mausers, which became the 7.9mm Puška M.98(n) (“n” for nemacka, or “German,” in Serbian) and the 7.9mm Puška M.1924/52-Č respectively. Kraguyevac also reconditioned ex-German Karabiner 98k and Czech vz. The post-war Yugoslav Peoples Army reconditioned the thousands of pre-war Yugoslav and Belgian Mausers and designated them the Puška M.24/47. With the end of the conflict, the Communists, under Marshall Tito, were recognized as the leaders of liberated Yugoslavia. The Partisans gained the support of the Allies and performed a vital service by tying down many divisions of German troops that were sorely needed on other fronts. While the Chetniks and Partisans were equipped with a variety of rifles, their main weapons were the 1924-type Mauser of Belgian, Czech and Yugoslav manufacture, supplemented with captured German Karabiner 98k Mausers.

Both groups apparently spent as much time and energy fighting each other as they did the German and Italian occupiers, who were aided by various ethnic and religious groups seeking revenge for past wrongs (real and imagined). Guerilla bands that had quickly formed in the mountains soon coalesced into two factions: the Chetniks, who supported the deposed royal family, and the Partisans, who were dominated by the Communist party. When the Wehrmacht invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, resistance, while fierce, was uncoordinated, and the Germans handily defeated the Yugoslav army and occupied the main population centers. The 7.9mm mtak za pušku M.24 was a copy of the German 7.9mm Patrone S and consisted of a rimless, bottlenecked case that was 57mm in length and loaded with a 197-grain, FMJ, boat-tail spitzer bullet with a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,575 feet per second (fps). The rifle produced at Kraguyevac, the Pešadisjka Puška M.1924 (Infantry Rifle Model of 1924), was a copy of the FN Fusil Mle 1924. It was decided that rifle production would being locally, and the necessary machinery was ordered from FN and then installed at he state arsenal at Kraguyevac by 1927. Between 19, the Yugoslavs contracted 100,000 Fusil Ml3 1924 rifles from FN. However, Fabrique Nationale (FN) of Herstal, Belgium, and Ceskoslovenska Zbrojovka (CZ) of Brno, Czechoslovakia, were both producing 98-type Mausers and were only too happy to sign contracts with Belgrade. Beginning in the early 1920s, the Yugoslav army sought new Mauser rifles, but Allied restrictions prevented their traditional suppliers in Germany from providing them. In an attempt at standardization, Yugoslavia decided to adopt the 7.9x57mm cartridge, and the most suitable rifles were re-barreled for this round. Supplemented with French, Russian and captured Austrian weapons, these were the rifles the Serbs fought with in the Great War.Īfter WWI, Yugoslavia received Austrian, German, Turkish and Bulgarian rifles as reparations.
YUGO MAUSER SERIAL NUMBERS SERIES
This was followed by a series of rifles based on Mauser’s M95 and M98 actions and chambered for the 7x57mm cartridge: the Puška 1899, the Puška 99/07 and the Puška 1910.

In 1880, they adopted the Puška 78/80, a variation of Mauser’s Infanteriegewehr M.71 rifle. Having a history so interlaced with warfare, the Serbs attempted to equip their army with the most up-to-date weaponry. The new kingdom had a mixed population of Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians and Montenegrins who coexisted in a tense atmosphere acerbated by centuries of tribal and religious distrust. While Serbia ws occupied by the Central Powers, the Serbian army was evacuated by the Allies, reequipped and continued to see service on the Thesalonikii front in northern Greece until 1918, After the defeat of the Central Powers, Serbia formed the core of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or Yugoslavia. These actions led to the First World War. In 1914, Bosnian-Serb nationalists, who were financed and armed by Serbia, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Serbian independence was re-established in 1878, and in keeping with the best traditions of Balkan tribalism and vendetta, Serbia soon found itself at odds with most of its neighbors, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the Serbs could not stand against the might of the Ottoman Empire, and at the 1389 Battle of Kosovo the Serbian army was destroyed, resulting in almost 500 years of Turkish domination in the region.

600, and by the 12th century under their famous king, Stefan Dusan, they had displaced the Byzantines as the dominant power in the region. The Serbs were a Slavic tribe that settled in the Balkans around A.D.
