Donja Morača, Gornja Morača, Boan, Đurđevića Tara, Nikšić, Šavnik and Žabljak. Jovanović ordered his troops to take the city of Pljevlja at any cost, and manoeuvres were made to surround the city. The Battle of Pljevlja commenced on December 1 when the majority of the forces entered the city itself. Jovanović was among his fighters, and ordered charge, then retreat, followed by another charge. The Komski, "Bajo Pivljanin" and "Zetsko-lješanski" battalions all participated in this battle. The city was almost taken, but the enemy counter-attack was so strong that Jovanović had to order a retreat. The Axis forces suffered 74 dead, compared to 253 among the partisan units. Following this defeat partisans plundered villages and executed captured Italians, party "sectarians" and "perverts". After the unsuccessful battle for Pljevlja, which was intended to connect the communist-controlled territory in Sandžak and Montenegro, Jovanović was called up to supreme command. He thought that he would be relieved of duty, but (instead of Captain Branko Poljanac) Jovanović was appointed on December 12, 1941, as head of the Supreme Command of Yugoslavia's partisan forces. He held this post until the end of the war. Jovanović wrote an extensive report on the uprising in Montenegro and the reasons for the unsuccessful attempt on Pljevlja. In this report he described the shortcomings of the partisan forces. After the war When Joseph Stalin broke with Josip Broz Tito in 1948, Jovanović, along with other political and military personnel sided with the Soviet Union. He was killed by Yugoslav border guards while trying to escape to Romania with Vlado Dapčević and Branko Petričević. According to the scholars Vlatka Vukelić and Vladimir Šumanović, in the initial years after the war Jovanović was "one of the most influential and most quoted figures of the restored Yugoslav state" but that after accepting the informbiro resolution in favor of the Soviet Union, he was declared an "enemy of the state" and "was literally cut out of the official Yugoslav account of World War II". See also Titoism Informbiro Partisans (Yugoslavia) Yugoslav People's Army References Sources Further reading 1907 births 1948 deaths Military personnel from Podgorica People of the Principality of Montenegro Yugoslav Partisans members Chiefs of Staff of the Yugoslav People's Army Generals of the Yugoslav People's Army Montenegrin soldiers Montenegrin communists Stalinism Anti-revisionists Yugoslav dissidents People murdered in Serbia Assassinated Montenegrin people Assassinated Yugoslav people 1948 murders in Europe