As the army advanced with tanks and air support, the people of Voloshin turned to one of their most distinguished citizens, civil engineer and architect Dr. Tugomir Karadzic. Karadzic agreed to help prepare a defense for the city on the condition that absolutely no violence be allowed. As an avowed pacifist, he was determined to prove that it was possible to stand up to aggression without recourse to bloodshed. The city council pushed back, insisting that at least some weapons and live ammunition were needed, if only for warning shots. Dr. Karadzic reluctantly agreed, but gave the town a warning: if he saw a single round fired in anger, he would walk away.
With that agreement in place, Karadzic oversaw a rapid fortification of the town. And while some of the fortifications, like anti-tank ditches and barricades, were very real, most were fabricated. Large numbers of broomsticks were collected and painted to resemble machine gun nests, logs were set up and staged under tarps to look like artillery pieces, and a number of fake surface to air missile sites. Karadzic, who had some experience as a telecommunications engineer, also did his best to coordinate fake signals indicating that the Voloshin area was strongly held and should be bypassed.
For the first part of the army’s operations, the ruse worked. Most of the troops were local irregulars, more interested with cleaning out unarmed civilians, and they were completely unsuited to taking fortified positions and what artillery they had was severely vulnerable to counter-battery fire. Voloshin was largely left alone as the fighters targeted positions that seemed less strongly held.
Once regular army units appeared, though, this changed. Well trained and well equipped, they demonstrated with tanks and small arms fire outside of the city, answered only by a few warning shots and pyrotechnics that Dr. Karadzic had prepared. Soon, however, one of the town guardsmen lost his nerve and fired a burst of live ammunition which hit and killed the commander of one of the lead tanks. The column retreated, but upon seeing this, Dr. Karadzic dropped his field glasses, stripped off his military tunic, and walked back to his home. The commanders of the city defense followed, begging him to reconsider, but Karadzic calmly packed a suitcase and left the city on foot that night, saying only that he was honoring the agreement and that he would return for the contents of his house if it survived.
The next day, Voloshin was subjected to a combined artillery and aerial assault, followed by a lightning advance that occupied the area in less than an hour. The town was systematically leveled, with many inhabitants winding up as refugees. As for Dr. Karadzic, he was never seen again and it is believed that he was shot making his way through army lines.
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