 The Italians obliged in the hope that doing so would win the Chetniks over to collaboration and seriously weaken any future uprising in the area, which would have further disrupted rail traffic along the Split–Karlovac railway line.On 13 August, at a meeting in the village of Pađene northwest of Knin, Đujić and several other Serb nationalists agreed to collaborate with the Italians.They secretly signed a pact of non-aggression with the Italian military, and in exchange, the Italians approved Đujić raising a force of up to 3,000 Chetniks.