Upon joining the Ustashi, the novitiate was immediately indoctrinated with its mystery and authority. The initiation rite required that one swear before a crucifix framed by a dagger and a revolver an oath promising total devotion:

"I swear before God and all that I hold sacred that I will observe the laws of this society and will execute without condition all that I am ordered to do by the Poglavnik.

"I will scrupulously preserve all secrets entrusted to me, and I will betray nothing, no matter what it might be.

"I swear to fight in the Ustashi army for a free, independent Croat state under the absolute control of the Poglavnik. Failing in my oath, I shall accept death as the penalty. God help Me, amen."

The choice of the three symbols - the crucifix, the dagger, and the revolver - was not a casual one. The Ustashi "call to blood" that Pavelic was demanding of his followers would be a religious calling. The intensity of Croatian Catholicism would now be transferred, Pavelic hoped, to a political movement. The devotion, duty and bloodletting which the Ustashi promised, would become a holy war to create a Croatian state, a state which would be both separate and Catholic...