NEWS ANALYSIS : Bosnian Serb Schism Comes at Crucial Time : Balkans: Political leader Karadzic may be the loser in power struggle with military chief Mladic.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s attempts to demote his army commander appeared to backfire Sunday, and his own hold on power was in jeopardy.

Ratko Mladic, in an emergency military session in the hard-line Serbian bastion of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, received the backing of the Bosnian Serb army’s top 18 generals.

They swore loyalty to their commander and rebuffed Karadzic’s unusually public power play.

Karadzic, meanwhile, won a vote of confidence from the Parliament of his self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic, which expressed “wholehearted” support for his decision to shuffle the military command.

The mutiny by the generals and the Parliament’s opposing stance are part of a widening schism between the Bosnian Serbs’ political and military leaders. It comes at a crucial time for the Serbs, who have suffered their first significant battlefield losses and must find a way to counter an emboldened, advancing Croatian army.

However the power struggle between Karadzic and Mladic--both indicted by an international tribunal on war crimes charges--plays out, the Bosnian Serb leadership will probably emerge substantially changed for the first time in 40 months of brutal warfare.

At this point, analysts and diplomats give the edge to Mladic, who has the support of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the intellectual author of the bloody quest to carve a Greater Serbia out of Muslim-dominated Bosnia.

“I think we may soon see that Karadzic is no longer running things,” a Western official who monitors Serbian politics said from Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

Serbia signaled its support for Mladic on the Sunday night news in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. The report on state-controlled television blamed Karadzic for the loss of two Serb-held Bosnian cities that fell to Croatian forces late last month, positioning the Croats to take Knin, the capital of the breakaway Krajina region of Croatia.

On Friday, Karadzic had blamed Mladic for exactly the same loss, claiming he had ordered Mladic nearly two years ago to begin forming mobile quick-reaction units for just that sort of emergency.

In a speech broadcast Friday on Bosnian Serb television and radio, Karadzic also implied that the general had been secretly negotiating political matters with international mediators, an overstepping of authority that he said was tantamount to treason.

Karadzic then announced he was transferring Mladic to a fabricated post coordinating military action with the defeated Krajina Serbs.

Mladic immediately refused and labeled Karadzic’s action “illegal.”

On Sunday, Karadzic responded with what a military man such as Mladic would undoubtedly consider fighting words: Mladic’s reaction was “emotional,” Karadzic said, adding that he must obey the orders of his “supreme commander.”

Karadzic, a former psychiatrist, has probably taken on a fight he cannot win, analysts said. In addition to drawing immediate opposition from the generals, Karadzic has had increasing difficulty in rallying support during recent visits to Banja Luka and another key Serb-held town, Brcko, sources said.

Mladic, a veteran of the Yugoslav National Army who is considered a hero by Bosnian Serb soldiers, remains popular, despite the recent military setbacks.

Ultimately, though, it will be Milosevic’s call. The Serbian president placed Karadzic in his position, and he can remove him.

Karadzic and Milosevic had their first public falling-out over the Bosnian Serb leader’s refusal to accept an international peace plan that would have allowed the Serbs to keep most, but not all, of the Bosnian land they had captured.

When the Bosnian Serbs seized nearly 400 U.N. peacekeepers in May after North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strikes, it was Milosevic who forced Karadzic to back down and free his hostages.

Mladic has continued to enjoy good relations with Milosevic.

Whether Bosnian Serbs under Mladic’s command would be more likely to accept a settlement, which Milosevic is said to advocate, remains to be seen. Mladic’s troops have been accused of widespread atrocities--including rapes and summary executions--as recently as last month, following the Bosnian Serb conquest of the U.N.-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica.

But the Bosnian Serb army has motivation to end the war now, while it is still way ahead. The Muslim-led Bosnian government is getting stronger. And then there is the more immediate problem of Croatia. The political turmoil within the Bosnian Serb leadership hurts its ability to plot its strategy.

Flush with its victories, the Croatian army could easily set its sights on other territory, including the 70% of Bosnia-Herzegovina the Bosnian Serbs have captured.

“These Serbian lands will disappear,” Croatian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Ivan Tolj warned Sunday. “We know where Serbia is, where Bosnia-Herzegovina is and where Croatia is.”