Mačva operation

Mačva operation
	Part of the Uprising in Serbia during World War II in Yugoslavia
	; German soldiers, aided by Ustaše lead a column of Serb civilians to the Šabac internment camp
Date	24 September – 9 October 1941
Location	Western Serbia, Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (now in Serbia)
Result	Failure of Axis forces to capture or destroy rebel forces which retreated from Mačva; massive reprisals against civilians;
Belligerents
Yugoslavia Communist Party of Yugoslavia	Germany; Independent State of Croatia; Hungary
Commanders and leaders
Yugoslavia:; Dragoslav Račić; Bogdan Ilić – Cerski; Communist Party of Yugoslavia:; Nebojša Jerković	Germany:; Franz Böhme; Walter Hinghofer; Croatia:; Slavko Kvaternik
Units involved
Chetniks:; Cer Detachment; companies: Čokešina; Mačva; Machine gun; Prnjavor; Martinović-Zečević unit; ; Partisans Detachments; Mačvanski or Podrinski Detachment; Posavski; Valjevski;	Wehrmacht; 704th Division 3rd battalion of the 724th Infantry regiment; ; 718th Division 5th company of 750th regiment of; ; 342nd Infantry Division 697 Infantry Regiment; 698 Infantry Regiment; 699 Infantry Regiment; ; 125th Infantry Regiment; squadron of Junkers Ju 87; Ustaše Militia unknown unit; Einsatzstaffel; Hungarian Danube river fleet
Strength
1,500 Military Chetniks; 1,100 Partisans	More than 12,000 soldiers, 10 tanks, 16 heavy guns Unknown; 300 Einsatzstaffel;
Casualties and losses
742 rebels killed; Civilians: about 6,000 killed; 21,500 imprisoned; most of the populated places in Mačva completely burned; ;	The 342nd Infantry Division had 32 dead and about 130 wounded soldiers;

The Mačva operation or Cleaning Up the Sava Crescent (Serbian: Чишћење лука Саве, German: Säuberung des Save-Bogens) was a German military operation during the uprising in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This operation was in some contemporary German documents and in some works was referred to as operation Cleansing of Mačva.

The aim of operation was the destruction of rebel forces of Chetniks and Partisans in the region of Mačva and their headquarters on the mountain Cer-Iverak and committing mass massacres of the local population with the intention to set a "terrifying example" to the rest of the population of Serbia.

The commander of the German forces was the newly appointed military commander of the occupied territory Franz Böhme who brought the 342nd Infantry Division with 12,000 soldiers of younger age from France to western Serbia to support poorly equipped and undertrained soldiers of older age in the 718th Division and parts of the 704th Division.

The operation started on 24 September 1941 when 342nd Infantry Division crossed river Sava and attacked rebel forces besieging Šabac who retreated toward Cer-Iverak mountain. The German forces, supported by the Ustaše Militia, organized massive massacres of the civilian population and killed about 6,000 and imprisoned more than 21,000 civilians. The operation ended on 9 October 1941 with the failure of Axis forces to destroy rebels and their headquarters because the rebel forces were forced to retreat to the south after suffering casualties of 742 men. To complete the aim of this operation and prepare preconditions to suppress the uprising in the rest of Serbia, Böhme ordered another military operation (Cer-Iverak) and series of other operations that eventually crushed the Uprising in Serbia, with total number of about 4,000 rebels killed during the uprising and about 35,000 civilians killed in reprisals.