Britain and the Resistance in Occupied Yugoslavia: SOE, Tito and Mihailović, 1941-1945

Greg Brew 7 May 2012

Prof. Aviel Roshwald  

  

Brew 2

From 1940 to 1945, Great Britain maintained a presence in Yugoslavia dominated from

summer 1941 onwards by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an independent branch of the

“special services” tasked with organizing sabotage, subversion and general resistance within the

Nazi-occupied regions of Europe.1 SOE operated through liaising with native Yugoslav

resistance groups, offering supplies of arms and explosives, trained expertise and political

support from the British government or the Yugoslavian Government in Exile (YGE). Though

charged at its inception with “setting Europe ablaze,” by Prime Minister Winston Churchill,2 the

real contribution of SOE operatives on the Continent to the overall war effort, and to the

resistance movements they aimed to assist, was a constant source of uncertainty during the war.

The significance of SOE’s activities is still being debated.3

However, the involvement of SOE in Yugoslavia and the infusion of British interests into

a contentious political climate had enormous consequences for the development of organized

resistance against the Axis occupiers.4 Over the 1941-1944 period, Britain attempted through

SOE to utilize the national resistance in Yugoslavia to accomplish key strategic goals, beginning

with the “secret armies” and detonator concept and eventually morphing into the “Mediterranean

strategy” adopted in 1943. The goals British planners sought to accomplish in Yugoslavia were

both military (diverting or distracting German forces) and political (supporting resistance leaders

                                                            1 An official history written on the SOE using confidential sources was written in 1948 by W.J.M. Mackenzie; it was de-classified in 2000 and is now available to the public and non-official scholars at the National Archives. See W.J.M. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE: the Special Operations Executive 1940-1945 (London: St. Ermin’s Press, 2000), pp. ii-xi. 2 David Stafford, “Churchill and SOE,” Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006), p. 47 3 Due to a paucity of sources, early works on SOE in Yugoslavia were primarily the memoirs of former SOE officers. See Fitzroy Maclean, Eastern Approaches (London: Cape Publishing, 1946) and Basil Davidson, Partisan Picture (London: Bedford Books, 1946). Expansions in the literature occurred in the late 1970s and again in the late 1990s when more source material became available: the major participants in the discussion of SOE’s contribution to the war can be found in British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece, Eds. Phyllis Auty and Richard Clogg (London: Macmillan, 1975) and Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006). 4 The occupation of Yugoslavia included large contingents of Bulgarian, Italian and Croat nationalist soldiers; “Axis” occupation is therefore slightly more accurate than “German” (Mackenzie, p. 444).

Brew 3 who would indebted to Britain at war’s end) in nature. British involvement in Yugoslavia was

initially focused on supporting the pro-Western government established by coup d’etat in March

1941. Following the German invasion in April, support shifted to the YGE’s main representative

among the Yugoslav resistance movements and the leader of the pro-Serbian chetniks, General

Draža Mihailović. Yet after a year of supporting the chetniks Britain faced a choice of which

resistance movement deserved support. The Serbian nationalists that made up the core of

Mihailović’s forces were bitterly opposed to the communist Partisans of Yosip Broz Tito, and

the two groups were as determined to fight one another as they were to fight the Germans and

Italians. After a short period of attempting to bridge the gap and support both groups, concerns

over collaboration and ongoing failures to push Mihailović into engaging in active resistance led

Britain to abandon the chetniks and the YGE in favor of Tito’s Partisans, consigning the pro-

Serbian and pro-monarchy Yugoslav resistance faction to destruction and ensuring the rise of a

communist postwar Yugoslav order. 5

In the absence of reliable sources, postwar debate on the shift in British support from

Mihailović to Tito focused around wild conspiracy theories, including accusations that SOE

itself was infiltrated by communist agents,6 but with the archives of SOE, the Foreign Office and

the Churchill Cabinet now open to the public, attention can instead be focused on the complex

character of British involvement in the Balkans and what David Stafford refers to as “the

                                                            5 Narratives of the war in Yugoslavia include Elizabeth Barker, British Policy in South-Eastern Europe in World War II. (London: Macmillan, 1976) and Mark C. Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia 1940-1943 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); a recent work on the subject is Heather Williams, Parachutes, Patriots and Partisans: the Special Operations Executive and Yugoslavia, 1941-1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). The most comprehensive work on occupation and collaboration in the country is Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). 6 Briefly, this was a popular explanation of how British attention could shift from Mihailović’s chetniks to Tito’s Partisans so quickly at the end of 1943: SOE officers James Klugmann in Cairo and Kim Philby in London, both of whom were avowed communists, were accused of delaying reports from SOE operatives with the chetniks and of favoring Tito’s Partisans, making them seem more deserving of military aid. The theory has since been satisfactorily debunked, though it still enjoys a certain notoriety. See Roderick Bailey, “SOE in Albania: the ‘conspiracy theory’ reassessed,” Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006), pp. 185-190; Williams, pp. 247-248.

Brew 4 political dimension of resistance.”7 Resistance to Nazi occupation was motivated by a variety of

unique concerns, the goals of resistance groups were often very different and sometimes at odds

with each other, and in the context of war-time Yugoslavia the politics of resistance were more

complicated than merely striving to throw out the Germans. For Tito’s Partisans, militant

resistance was meant to pave the way for a communist future; Mihailović, who was a Serb before

he was a Yugoslav, saw the war as a struggle for national defense and treated it as such, fighting

whomever seemed to pose the greatest threat.8 Britain attempted to impose upon these groups its

own strategic and political interests, eventually treating the Yugoslav resistance as a component

in the Allied war effort and switching its support from Mihailović to Tito when the former failed

to accomplish the goals set before him. Of constant interest in London was how Yugoslavia

could be kept united in a postwar world, and the presumption that whomever triumphed in

resistance would lead the postwar government played a significant role in determining how

Britain supported the Yugoslav resistance. The case of the British SOE in occupied Yugoslavia

offers an insight into the effects outside forces can have on the development of resistance and

how the political interests of native resistance-fighters often conflict with those who seek to

utilize them.

“Setting Europe ablaze:” Early Ambitions of the SOE in Yugoslavia, 1940-1941

Before the official formation of the Special Operations Executive, it’s duties were

covered by a variety of organizations. Section D and MI(R) were both divisions of the Secret

Intelligence Service (SIS) formed in 1939 to organize sabotage within the German-occupied

                                                            7 David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance 1940-1945: A Survey of Special Operations Executive with Documents (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980) , p. 63. For the developing scholarship surrounding resistance to foreign occupation, see Jorgen Haestrup, European Resistance Movements, 1939-1945 : a Complete History (Westport, CT: Meckler Publishing, 1981), pp. 3-6. 8 Simon Trew, Britain, Mihailović, and the Chetniks, 1941-42 (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 3-6.

Brew 5 regions of Europe, and were combined with the Foreign Office’s small international propaganda

department to form the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in June 1940.9 Before the defeat of

France and the German victories of summer 1940 little thought had been given to organizing

campaigns of subversion or sabotage in the hinterlands of Continental Europe, yet in the context

of a “Britain-stands-alone” strategic situation the benefits of indirect warfare began to look more

appealing. In a paper written in May 1940 entitled “British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality,”

with such an eventuality implying the fall of France, alternatives to an interventionist strategy

based on Continental involvement included strategic bombing, economic warfare and the

assistance of “fifth column” groups operating behind enemy lines.10 The War Cabinet agreed in

late May that without a force on the Continent that could face Nazi Germany directly, Britain’s

remaining options were to husband its resources and use indirect means to harry and distract the

Germans.11 The initial brief for SOE when it was formed on June 22nd was an ambitious one: as

Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare and SOE’s first director, wrote to Lord Halifax in

July,

We must organize movements in every occupied territory comparable to the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland, to the Chinese guerillas now operating against Japan, to the Spanish Irregulars who played a notable part in Wellington’s campaign or—one might as well admit it—to the organizations which the Nazis themselves have developed so remarkably in almost every country of the world.12

                                                            9 Mark Seaman, “’A New Instrument of War:’ the Origins of the Special Operations Executive,” A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006), pp. 7-18. 10CAB 66/7/48, WP (40) 168, “British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality,” Chiefs of Staff Committee, May 25, 1940. All official government material cited here was obtained through the website service of the National Archives, Kew London. Go to http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ 11 Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 23. 12 Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Frederick Muller LTD, 1957) p. 368.

Brew 6 In Dalton’s opinion SOE was a force of revolutionary magnitude for the future of Europe,

capable of building and maintaining “secret armies” that could attack the German occupation

with overwhelming and unexpected force, a weapon of political potency and military utility.13

SOE’s aim would not be to incite immediate resistance against Germany, for that carried

with it the risk of immediate reprisals against civilian populations. Instead, the “secret armies”

would be supplied and maintained in hiding, until the signal to rise up was given by Britain, an

idea that David Stafford has labeled “the detonator concept.”14 It was, of course, a vague charter

that placed an enormous burden upon the occupied peoples of Europe, since it was expected that

British defiance would “kindle the spark of hope in the breasts of hundreds of millions of

downtrodden or despairing men and women throughout Europe,”15 giving them the moral thrust

needed to throw themselves against the Nazi security regime. The British grossly underestimated

the effectiveness of German control across the occupied territories while overestimating native

Europeans ability to resist in a practical sense: according to David Stafford, it was a case of

“optimistic insularity.”16 With few options, British leaders chose to pursue a strategy of imposing

their interests and aims upon the occupied people of Europe: given the high-handedness of this

posture, it is curious that expectations among SOE leaders and British policy-makers for the

“detonator concept” to succeed were so high.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a constitutional monarchy formed at Versailles out of

Serbia and various territories annexed from the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, entered into

British strategic thinking at the same time as SOE, in the summer of 1940.17 Traditionally Britain

                                                            13Neville Wylie, “Ungentlemanly warriors or unreliable diplomats? Special Operations Executive and ‘irregular political activities’ in Europe,” The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine Warfare: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946, Ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 109-112. 14 David Stafford, “The Detonator Concept: British Strategy, SOE and European Resistance after the Fall of France,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1975), pp. 185-217. 15 Winston Churchill, War Speeches 1938-1941 (London: Cassell, 1945), p. 239. 16 Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 26. 17 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 6-9.

Brew 7 had considered the Balkans strategically important in relation to other states, particularly Russia

and Turkey. However, growing German domination of Hungary, Bulgarian and Romania, and

the increasing dependence of Germany on Romanian oil and raw materials had raised the

region’s strategic profile by the summer of 1940.18 Apart from Greece, which had long been a

British interest, Yugoslavia was the only state in the region amenable to Western diplomatic

overtures. Moreover, its government had grown more and more threatened by Italian expansion

in the Adriatic following Italy’s invasion of Albania in April 1939. But there were reasons

Yugoslavia was not bound more closely to Britain. The kingdom was firmly within the German

economic sphere of influence; its military was small and would crumble in the face of a

determined assault (though memories of Serbia’s staunch resistance in World War I were still

fresh); and both the Foreign Office and Chiefs of Staff agreed in the early summer of 1940 that

only a massive intervention would preserve it in the face of combined Italian-German attack

(which was the likeliest scenario).19 Nevertheless, an opportunity was seen for SOE to “get up to

something” in the Balkans by using Yugoslavia as a base for forays into Romania and Bulgaria

SOE was also viewed as a useful tool in keeping the kingdom from turning entirely towards the

Axis.20 After the fall of France the Foreign Office and the newly-christened SOE became more

involved in supporting the government of Prince Paul21 and preparations for resistance in the

event of a German invasion were made. This involvement took on a new, more urgent tone

following the Italian invasion of Greece in October 1940, a move which increased the likelihood

of German armed intervention in the Balkans in order to support the Italians.22

                                                            18 Williams, pp. 19-22. 19 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 13-14; Williams, pp. 19-20. 20 Williams, p. 21. 21 Regent for the teenage King Peter, Trew p. 16. 22 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , pp. 20-21; Williams, pp. 25-27.

Brew 8 Since its creation Yugoslavia had struggled with reconciling its enormous ethnic diversity

with its parliamentary political structure. A series of coalition governments had failed throughout

the 1920s to enact effective policy and the entire government was strong-armed in 1928 by King

Alexander, turning the state into a de facto absolute monarchy by 1931. King Alexander’s

assassination in 1934 led to the regency of Prince Paul, an indifferent leader who’s domestic and

foreign policies alienated the military (a body dominated by the old Serbian officer corps of

1914-1918) and generated uncertainty as to Yugoslavia’s international allegiances.23 Tensions

within Yugoslavia increased from the summer of 1940 onwards, as Italian expansionist

ambitions extended from Albania to Greece and Germany expanded its reach into Romania,

Bulgaria and Hungary in anticipation of the forthcoming attack on the Soviet Union. Despite

British pleas to maintain neutrality, Prince Paul met with Hitler on March 4th to discuss

Yugoslavian adherence to the Tripartite Pact, and an initial form of a Yugoslav-German

agreement was approved by the Yugoslav parliament two days later. Ensuring Yugoslav

neutrality now became a priority for Britain, as Yugoslav railroads could transport thousands of

German troops in a matter of days and effectively end the war in Greece. SOE operatives in

Yugoslavia immediately began plans for a military coup d’etat to overthrow Prince Paul’s

government and replace it with one that would resist German ambitions.24

The coup, when it came on March 27th, was less the result of British subversion and more

an expression of long-standing Serbian dissatisfaction with Prince Paul’s regime. The

ascendance of King Peter to the throne and the replacement of Prince Paul’s cabinet with one of

Serbian nationalists prompted jubilant cheers in Belgrade and quiet uncertainty in Zagreb and

                                                            23 Milan Deroc, British Special Operations Explored: Yugoslavia in Turmoil 1941-1943 and the British Response (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) pp. 6-9, Tomasevich, pp. 1-40. 24 Williams, pp. 27-31; Wheeler pp. 48-52; Mackenzie, pp. 104-114

Brew 9 Sarajevo.25 It was also quickly made apparent how little Britain actually stood to gain from the

regime change. The new Yugoslav premier, Dušan Simović, upon learning from Foreign

Secretary Anthony Eden that Britain could not assist Yugoslavia in the event of war with

Germany, immediately withdrew former promises of assistance for Greece and entered into

equivocating diplomacy with both Germany and Great Britain in a desperate effort to save

Yugoslav neutrality.26 SOE’s major goal in the region was to use Yugoslavia’s access to the

Danube River to block its flow from Romania to Austria, thereby denying supplies from the

Romanian oil fields to Germany, yet Simović’s government was unhelpful and the preparations

made for blocking the Danube were inadequate.27 When the German invasion came on April 6th

1941 the Yugoslav military folded quickly, surrendering territory and evaporating into traditional

Serbian bands of irregular guerillas called chetniks.28 General Simović, King Peter and the rest

of the Yugoslav government escaped and were flown to England where they formed the

Yugoslav Government in Exile (YGE). SOE was able to pull off a number of small operations

(blowing charges at the pass of Kazan and blocking the Danube to shipping for two months was

perhaps its largest contribution) before evacuating the country; its plans for “doing something in

the Balkans” came to nothing.29

Yugoslavia was reduced to a rump Croatian nationalist state (the NDH) ruled by Ante

Pavelić and the genocidal Ustashas, while its remaining regions were occupied by Axis forces.30

However, Yugoslavia remained an area of some interest to the SOE, which in the summer of

1941 was eager to engage in an active campaign of sabotage and subversion. The conditions

seemed ripe: following the genocidal attacks of the nationalist Ustasha on the Serbian population                                                             25 Deroc, p.11. 26 David Stafford, “SOE and British Involvement in the Belgrade Coup d'État of March 1941,” Slavic Review, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 1977), p. 399. 27 Williams, pp. 34-35. 28 Deroc, pp. 22-24. 29 Deroc, pp. 37-38; for the Kazan operation, see Mackenzie, pp. 112-115. 30 Tomasevich, pp. 47-50, 60-64; Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 62-63.

Brew 10 within Croatia and the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, unrest towards the

occupation exploded into active armed resistance across the country.31 Reports of chetnik bands

attacking German occupation forces and defending rebellious villages within Serbia soon

reached SOE’s officers in Istanbul and Cairo, with a particular focus on the activities of chetnik

leader Draža Mihailović. Here it seemed was the embryo of a “secret army” that could be armed

and organized by British support and unleashed upon the German occupier, tying down

thousands of German troops and actively contributing towards a decline in German military

power.32

In one aspect, however, the Yugoslav uprising was inconvenient: its timing, so soon after

Operation Barbarossa, had left the British with little opportunity to prepare plans for assisting the

rebels. With the main British war effort now focused in the North Atlantic and North Africa, as

well as Bomber Command’s operations over Germany, very few resources remained for SOE

activity in the Balkans.33 The Foreign Office and Chiefs of Staff was skeptical of the potential

benefits which could be gained from the rising, and throughout the fall of 1941 the BBC was

instructed to play down Yugoslav resistance in its propaganda.34 There was also discomfort in

the YGE as to what effect armed resistance would have on the Yugoslav civilian population,

since the preferred German tactic in fighting resistance was executing civilians en masse in

reprisals.35 Moreover, it could be argued that following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June

the entire “secret army” concept could be thrown out the window: with an ally on the continent

that could (and would) engage the bulk of the German forces, the strategic necessity or potential

                                                            31 Williams, p. 43; Stevan K. Pavolwitch, Hitler’s New Disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 82-83. 32 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 64-65. 33 Mackenzie, p. 121. 34 Williams, p. 46. 35 Williams, pp. 44-5; Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, p. 63.

Brew 11 viability of Dalton’s grander vision for the SOE significantly decreased.36 Nevertheless, with

Soviet defeat looking likely up until February 1942, SOE was committed to supporting the

Yugoslav resistance by whatever practical means it could. The resilience of the detonator

concept was due in part to Dalton and Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s enthusiasm for

inspiring popular revolt,37 the depressing performance of the British Army in North Africa and

the failures of the strategic bombing campaign against Germany.38 Thus, despite the very real

limitations it faced in resources and achievable results, SOE attempted in the fall of 1941 to turn

the Yugoslav rebels into a “secret army” capable of contributing to the Allied war effort.39

The propaganda offensive of October-December 1941 marked the beginning of Britain’s

return to Yugoslavia. After several months of silence, the newly-formed Political Warfare

Executive (PWE) began releasing propaganda films depicting Draža Mihailović as the leader of

Yugoslav resistance. With the Continent in a black mood following repeated German successes,

PWE’s newsreels of Mihailović leading his chetniks in guerilla raids against German targets

helped to alleviate the depressing state of Allied morale in late 1941; the bearded and

bespectacled Serbian became a hero of the European resistance to German rule.40 Useful though

the propaganda was for the purposes of building international attention around the Yugoslav

resistance, the “myth of Mihailović” was both inaccurate and ineffective. Mihailović was known

to be most active against the communist Partisans active in the eastern territories of the NDH and

within the German-occupied state of Serbia (whose leader, General Milan Nedić, was in contact

                                                            36 Trew, p. 35. 37 Churchill was a vocal and consistent supporter of SOE and of indirect warfare in general, and his support of the organization saved it more than once from the savagery of inter-departmental politics. See David Stafford, “Churchill and SOE,” A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006) pp. 47-60. 38 Stafford, “Detonator Concept,” p. 209-210. 39 The SOE directive to that affect was a memo from Dalton to Churchill on August 30 1941 (PREM 3/510/2, with a second copy in FO 371/30219). See Trew, p. 49. 40 Williams, pp. 79-80.

Brew 12 with Mihailović41), but apart from irregular reports from SOE’s single agent in Yugoslavia very

little accurate information could be ascertained as to what was actually happening in Yugoslavia.

The size of the chetnik forces under his command, for example, was wildly exaggerated.42

While SOE was unsure of what exactly Mihailović was up to in fall 1941, in accordance

with British policy following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and out of deference to

the YGE it assisted with organizing and supplying Mihailović without pressuring him to take

concentrated action that could result in mass reprisals against the Yugoslav people.43While this

suited Mihailović, who was at any rate more interested in defending the population than

launching suicide attacks, it conflicted with the accounts PWE was publicizing. There was also a

real danger in the propaganda, one that was not fully realized by SOE or the British government

until much later. Not only did it draw absurd attention to the “secret army” SOE was trying to

build in Yugoslavia, it also made Mihailović more sure of his own insurmountable legitimacy as

a representative of the YGE and the sole-recipient of British support.44 The propaganda

emboldened his movement to take action against its chief competition, the communist Partisans

of Josip Broz “Tito,” who were by the late fall 1941 very active throughout Bosnia and western

Serbia.45

The Partisans had begun resisting the occupation soon after the German invasion of the

Soviet Union. Unlike the chetniks, which were mostly ex-military and generally attempted to

shield the civilian population from German reprisals, the Partisan groups were made up of young

men displaced by German attacks on villages. Tito’s policy throughout the war was to remain as

                                                            41 The British were aware that Mihailović had a working relationship with Nedić and had infiltrated the Serbian puppet’s forces with his own men, but little attention was paid to this until the fall of 1943 when it was used to build the case that Mihailović collaborated with the Germans. See Mackenzie, p. 116, 436. 42 SOE reported to the YGE that Mihailović had perhaps “one hundred thousand men under arms,” when the actual figure was a few thousand at most (Trew, pp. 37-38.). 43 Trew, pp. 38-40. 44 Williams, p. 81. 45 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 79.

Brew 13 active as possible, and since the Partisans were driven by a revolutionary desire to reconstruct

Yugoslavian society they were not particularly averse to seeing the old order go up in flames;

nothing was done to avoid reprisals, which at any rate tended to furnish the Partisans with new

recruits.46 Encounters between the chetniks and Partisans occurred in the early months of the

uprising and an SOE-sponsored meeting between Mihailović and Tito took place in September

and October, but no agreement was reached for the simple reason that each movement had totally

incompatible objectives. The Serbians distrusted the Partisans affiliation with the Soviets and

their efforts to disseminate communist ideology wherever they went; Tito and the Partisans were

impatient with the defensive strategies of the chetniks and their connection to a defunct regime.47

Following a failed meeting on October 27th, both leaders became determined that the survival of

their movement depended upon the destruction of the other. Following a vigorous German

offensive (which fell primarily on the Partisans) in the late fall of 1941, both groups went

underground: the uprisings were over, but the civil war continued.48

For the British, the choice between the Partisans and the chetniks seemed a simple one in

the fall of 1941. Intent upon preserving Yugoslavia in its entirety once the war was over, the

British government wished the resistance in the country to be portrayed as “a fight for

Yugoslavia by all Yugoslavs,” rather than one “engineered from Moscow” that carried

revolutionary chaos in the place national allegiance.49 As a military officer, a man firmly

attached to the YGE (and who was from January 1942 the Minister of War for the Yugoslav

government) and an appropriate nationalist symbol, Mihailović seemed the best standard-bearer

for the YGE and therefore the best agent for SOE’s activities.50 Britain was prepared to support

                                                            46 Trew, pp. 41-44; Williams, pp. 60; Mackenzie, pp. 116-117. 47 Williams, pp. 59-62; Wheeler, pp. 81-84 48 Pavlowitch, pp. 91-92; Trew, pp. 87-93. 49 Williams, p. 61, see Mackenzie p. 124 for full quote (original in SOE Archives, AD/S.1) 50 Williams, pp. 61-63

Brew 14 Mihailović with whatever resources were available, which from November 1941 to June 1942

wasn’t much: between 400 and 500 tons of supplies was dropped to the chetniks and a few

successful SOE missions made contact with Mihailović’s forces, but real support for his

movement came mostly in the form of propaganda and international recognition.51 Tito’s

Partisans were driven into a corner for much of 1942 by combined German-chetnik pressure, and

while contact between the Comintern and Tito had been made early in the rising there was little

tangible assistance that Stalin could offer.52 Supporting Mihailović was therefore the best way to

both keep the Yugoslav resistance firmly in the scope of the Allied war effort and maintain a

British influence in the country through SOE.

November 1941- 1943: Changing Relationships and Strategies

Histories of the SOE in Yugoslavia have little to say on the period from November 1941

to early 1943, for simple reasons: there were few SOE operatives in the country, support for the

resistance was irregular and insufficient, and Britain’s resources were focused in other, more

crucial areas (the Far East, North Africa and the North Atlantic).53 There were, however,

important developments during this period which contributed to the shift in British support from

Mihailović to Tito, the major change in Britain’s policy towards the Yugoslav resistance which

came in mid-1943.

The first development was the realization of the almost-irreconcilable differences existing

among the various groups. The major difference, of course, was between the chetniks and

Partisans, but equally important was the troubled relationship between Mihailović and the

British. By March 1942, with communications up and running again after a period of inactivity,

                                                            51 Mackenzie, pp. 121, 123-125. 52 Pavlowitch, p. 92 53 Williams, pp. 78-79.

Brew 15 it became clear that the chetniks were doing little to interfere with the Axis occupation and had

instead focused most of their attention on liquidating the communists.54 This was, practically

speaking, the best course open to Mihailović. His forces had taken heavy losses in the German’s

winter offensive and he had always been cognizant of protecting the civilian population from

German reprisals. Moreover, the picture on the ground in Yugoslavia looked bleak in the spring

of 1942: the Axis forces were well-entrenched in the major cities and towns, the Partisans were

undermining the chtenik movement by politicizing the resistance and turning a fight for national

survival into a campaign to reconstruct the country along communist lines.55 Certain by the

summer of 1942 that British support of his movement would be minimal and irregular,

Mihailović spent most of the year focusing his attentions on the Partisans and husbanding his

strength for a new uprising against the Germans. SOE operatives with Mihailović reported in late

summer that resistance activities against the Axis forces had dropped significantly from the

previous year, while frustration among the chetniks with the limits of British support were

growing daily.56

The realization that their Yugoslav champion was, at best, a reluctant resister was a bitter

pill for SOE. The organization’s leadership was preoccupied for much of 1942, as Dalton and

others fought for SOE’s survival in a series of interdepartmental skirmishes and government

shake-ups.57 The details of these squabbles are too Byzantine to be recounted here, but the final

result of months of debates within and without SOE came in late summer 1942. SOE had been a

product of the period when Britain had no allies to count on, yet with the entrance of both the

                                                            54 Pavlowitch, p. 92; Trew, pp. 94-96. 55 Trew, p. 96-99; Wheeler, pp. 71-74. 56 Williams, pp. 100-103 57 The interdepartmental politics are a major part of SOE’s story, though of only tangential interest here. Heather Williams and Simon Trew deal with it in relation to the struggle in Yugoslavia; see Saul Kelly, “A succession of crises? SOE in the Middle East, 1940-1945,” The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946. Ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge Press, 2007), pp.130-154, for an examination of the feuds within SOE Cairo.

Brew 16 Soviet Union and the United States that stance was no longer relevant. Indirect approaches to

confronting Nazi Germany, such as sabotage, propaganda and strategic bombing no longer

needed special emphasis (though they could not be abandoned entirely).58 The repercussions of

this shift in strategic thinking on SOE were dramatic. Hugh Dalton was replaced by the

conservative MP Lord Selbourne, the “secret armies” doctrine and Dalton’s ambitious plans to

“set Europe ablaze” were abandoned and SOE was placed firmly within the existing hierarchy,

subordinate to the Foreign Office, the Chiefs of Staff, even the Special Intelligence Service (SIS)

with which it had often feuded. Henceforth, SOE would work to encourage guerilla activity

throughout occupied Europe, without a particular focus on building large and complex national

organizations.59 This was the second major development to impact Britain’s relationship with

Yugoslav resistance.

This move, of course, came long after the “secret armies” concept had lost any relevance

to the situation in Yugoslavia. The British military had approved of supporting the Yugoslav

resistance in April 1942, though by then the uprisings had mostly petered out and both the

chetniks and Partisans had withdrawn from heavily-populated areas.60 SOE was eager to get the

ball of Yugoslav resistance rolling again, but it was hampered by a critical lack of resources. Due

to ongoing operations in North Africa and Malta SOE had access to only a few aircraft and some

poorly-placed airfields from which to launch missions into the Balkans.61 Mihailović wished for

practical support against the communists, and in the absence of British supplies he turned to the

Italians, though the British were unaware of this.62 The rift between Mihailović and his British

sponsors grew wider throughout 1942 over what he saw as their consistent betrayal (promising

                                                            58 Stafford, “Detonator Concept,” p. 209; Trew, pp. 68-70. 59 Mackenzie, pp. 250-255; Trew, p. 70. 60 Williams, p. 90. 61 Trew, pp. 71-72. 62 Williams, p. 91.

Brew 17 much, delivering little) and SOE’s frustration with his failure to act more aggressively, but

neither side could force the other in any meaningful way. In the long-term, Mihailović began to

look less and less useful as a resistance figurehead, while Mihailović viewed the British as an

increasingly valueless ally.63

Moreover, the usefulness of British propaganda support for Mihailović declined

considerably in midsummer when strong anti-chetnik radio broadcasts began emanating from

Moscow. Partially as a means to pressure the British to open a second front and partially out of

service to Tito (who was himself in constant contact with the Comintern), the Soviet Union set

up “Radio Free Yugoslavia” in July 1942 and used it to broadcast pro-communist messages

decrying Mihailović as a collaborator and King Peter as a coward.64 This was the first real Soviet

deviation from the British policy in Yugoslavia; with his focus previously fixed on halting the

German advance towards Moscow, Stalin had given the British a free rein in managing the

Yugoslav resistance. But his concern over the West’s delays to open a second front prompted the

Soviet government to take a greater interest in European resistance, particularly the ongoing

guerilla war in Yugoslavia. As Heather Williams surmises: “It is probable that once the Soviets

realized that the western Allies were not going to provide the necessary diversion, they felt less

compunction in breaking ranks on the common propaganda line.”65 This move by the Soviets to

pressure Britain was the third major development: henceforth, Anglo-Soviet relations would play

an important role in determining how SOE would support the Yugoslav resistance. In response to

the Soviet pressure, British propaganda began to favor Tito while decreasing the coverage of

                                                            63 Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, pp. 117-119. 64 Trew, p. 80. 65 Williams, p. 85; this is necessarily a speculative analysis, as records of Soviet decision-making on this issue are unavailable.

Brew 18 Mihailović, a move which added additional confusion and distrust to their relationship with the

chetnik leader.66

Thus, while the period from November 1941 to January 1943 saw few dramatic

developments on the ground in Yugoslavia, the situation surrounding Britain’s relationship with

Yugoslav resistance had changed in a number of significant ways. SOE itself was now an

instrument of Allied war strategy, not an independent builder and “detonator” of secret armies.

Its champion in Yugoslavia, Draža Mihailović, was by the end of 1942 not nearly as viable as he

had seemed a year earlier, though while propaganda support for him declined material support

continued in the form of aerial drops. The Soviet Union, as it shouldered the burden of bleeding

the German army white on the plans of Muscovy and in the streets of Stalingrad, had a greater

interest in the Yugoslav resistance though it still ceded the area to Britain for the time being. The

entire region had remained a strategic backwater for much of the period following the failed

March 1941 coup d’etat, but that would change in 1943 with the Allied “Mediterranean

strategy.”

1943-1944: Yugoslavia on the Center Stage and the Shift to Tito

Following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Allied strategy underwent a

change in direction. Following the successful invasion of North Africa in November 1942 and

the general agreement among the Allied high command that no European second front would be

opened until 1944, the focus of operations in 1943 would be to secure North Africa and the

Mediterranean while diverting German forces from the eastern front.67 Part of this new

“Mediterranean strategy” was a campaign of misinformation directed at the Germans designed to

                                                            66 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 112. 67 Ralph Francis Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941-1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), pp. 112-120, Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), pp. 7-12.

Brew 19 conceal the true targets of the planned Allied offensives (Sicily and Italy) by focusing on other

possible landing sights (southern France, Greece, and Yugoslavia).68 Along with the information

campaign, additional emphasis would be placed on supporting guerilla activities against the Axis

forces in the Balkans. The new strategy and the increase in available resources meant that SOE

support of Yugoslav resistance could finally reach a substantial level.69 However, the

implications of this new strategy were somewhat problematic. SOE would be arming and

supporting the Yugoslavs not as a means of achieving their independence but rather as a way of

tying down German forces: it was no longer important whether or not the Yugoslav people were

protected from reprisals (the chief goal of Mihailović and a primary consideration in the “secret

armies” concept) but instead how fiercely they resisted. 70 Britain was in a very real sense using

the Yugoslav resistance as a unit in the Allied army, but the sense of control over Mihailović and

later Tito which was imagined by Churchill, Eden, the British high command and SOE was more

illusion than fact as the events of 1943-45 would very clearly show.

The immediate problem facing Britain’s new approach to Yugoslav resistance was that

any remaining goodwill with Mihailović seemed to evaporate in early 1943. On February 28th,

Mihailović delivered a speech to a collection of Serbian nationalists and local townspeople

where he attacked the Yugoslav Government in Exile, the Soviet Union and the British Empire.

He blamed “Perfidious Albion” for promising guns and ammunition while delivering nothing

(which was quite close to the truth), and he declared that if no one would help him defend his

people, he would turn to the Germans and Italians for help.71 It was a disaster for SOE’s

operations: as soon as the Foreign Office learned of the speech plans to withdraw support from                                                             68 While highly touted by some military historians as one of the major intelligence coups of the war, it has been argued that the effect on the German military in the spring and summer of 1943 was largely minimal. See Klaus Jurgen Muller, “A German Perspective on Allied Deception Plans in the Second World War,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 1987), pp. 45-67. 69 Williams, pp. 103-104 70 Ibid, p. 157 71 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 221;

Brew 20 the chetniks were discussed and very nearly agreed upon, until a timely intervention from

Churchill tabled the issue.72

SOE operatives with Mihailović attempted for several weeks to shore up relations with

the general, but their attempts backfired as both the general and the Foreign Office began to

move farther away from one another.73 Since the spring of 1942, when the military advantages of

continuous guerilla warfare in Yugoslavia were clearly perceived by British leadership, doubt

and suspicion had grown around Mihailović’s apparent unwillingness to commit himself to

fighting the Axis, as well as the rumors and unsubstantiated reports of him making deals with

German and Italian commanders. The christening speech only confirmed what had long been

suspected: Mihailović was a Serbian nationalist at heart, he cared little for Yugoslavian unity (as

his disregard for the YGE seemed to show) and he was willing to accept arms from anyone to

achieve his goals.74 The Foreign Office recommended a “slow down” policy; SOE was to cut off

any supply shipments to Mihailović, an unusual order considering how little he was already

getting. Indeed, it was this lack of support from Britain which had prompted the general’s

outburst in the first place.75

Simultaneous to Mihailović’s outburst was a change in the ongoing Yugoslav civil war.

From its diminished state in 1942 the Partisan movement emerged in January 1943 to wage a

new campaign against the chetniks and disorganization among the Serbians allowed them to

make significant inroads into Serbian territory. By late February Mihailović had cut himself off

from his SOE liaisons and was in the field fighting the Partisans, while “Ultra” decryptions

revealed the extent of the Partisans control of the Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin

                                                            72 Mackenzie, p. 427 73 Williams, pp. 110-112. 74 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 222 75 Ibid, p. 125.

Brew 21 hinterlands.76 Along with the civil war, two German winter offensives (“Weiss” and “Schwarz”)

further pressured the chetniks while supplying the Partisans (who drew their strength from those

fleeing German attacks) with thousands of new recruits. SOE London continued to believe well

into 1943 that Mihailović had control of the country, was respected by Yugoslavs as the

representative of their government, and remained the best hope for a pro-British postwar

Yugoslav regime, but the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister and the military high command had

by late winter begun to seriously lose patience with Mihailović. His connections to the Italians,

his outburst in February, his pan-Serbian beliefs and his continual unwillingness to attack the

Axis occupying forces all combined to make him an unsavory candidate for continued support.77

By March the question of shifting support to the Partisans was being actively discussed

in the Foreign Office, but doubts remained over the danger of backing revolutionary

communists. The attitude in the FO had always been to preserve the constitutional monarchy of

Yugoslavia after the war. Competing with these concerns was the urge to back whatever group

could inflict the greater damage on the Germans (by the spring of 1943, there was no question

that the Partisans were that group), and the need to mollify the Soviets who remained cooperative

but were growing concerned over British ambitions in the Balkans.78 Short-term priorities had

precedence over long-term dangers. It was therefore decided that a compromise would be made:

both the chetniks and the Partisans would be supported, so long as they agreed to stop fighting

one another and focused on the Germans.79 The goal was to unify all resistance in Yugoslavia,

“as resistance to [the] Axis is of paramount importance.”80 SOE was instructed to contact the

Partisans and to establish a mission with Tito’s headquarters.. By September, SOE officer

                                                            76 Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 218-220. 77 Ibid, pp. 223-225. 78 Pavlowitch, pp. 181-185, Williams, pp. 144-45. 79 Mackenzie, pp. 423-425. 80 Williams, p. 146; see PREM 3/510/13 Eden to Churchill, 24 June 1943.

Brew 22 Fitzroy Maclean was ensconced with the Partisans and was sending regular reports to SOE

Cairo, reports which were then transmitted to London along with reports from SOE’s chetnik

representatives.81

It is here that the conspiracy theorists find their fodder. During the spring and summer of

1943, SOE had missions with both Tito and Mihailović who regularly filed reports with SOE

Cairo. These reports were then sent to London, but there is evidence to suggest that officers in

SOE Cairo made some effort to delay or otherwise tamper with the reports filed from SOE’s

chetnik-based operatives. The possible perpetrator has been identified as Lt. James Klugmann, an

avowed communist and communications officer in Cairo. Revisionists who wish to complicate

Britain’s relationship with the Yugoslav resistance and with Tito’s postwar communist

government point to SOE Cairo as the chief reason for the eventual switch from Mihailović to

Tito, but without proper documents to display the activities of Klugmann or others, the

conclusions are necessarily speculative.82

Regardless of the tampering which may (or may not) have been taking place in Cairo, the

reports filed from SOE’s two missions differed greatly. Tito had at first been wary of SOE

support. Throughout the first half of 1943 he had nursed hysterical fears of a Serbian-Italian-

British conspiracy to return “imperialism” to the country, and unlike Mihailović he believed his

movement would be directly threatened by an Anglo-American second front opening in

Yugoslavia.83 However, he accepted the SOE officers into his company in March and in May

made a number of changes to the Partisans organization, downplaying the communist

propaganda and introducing ranks and administrative positions, in order to achieve a more

                                                            81 Mackenzie, p. 427-428. 82 Roderick Bailey, “Communist in SOE: explaining James Klugmann’s recruitment and retention,” The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946, ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge Press, 2007), pp.66-90. 83 Richard West, Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1995), pp. 144-45.

Brew 23 legitimate profile.84 The changes had a profound impact on his relationship with SOE. Fitzroy

Maclean, the SOE representative to Tito, filed glowing reports filled with brilliant details of

daring raids and energetic guerilla attacks. He also regularly commented on the discipline and

combat-readiness of the Partisans, which he found to be at British Army standards.85 Maclean,

who was joined by Churchill’s friend and non-SOE officer Sir William Deakin in June, urged

SOE to deliver more supplies to Tito, who he insisted was fighting the Germans and wished for

an end to the civil war.86 By comparison, reports filed from the chetnik camp were dispiriting,

confused and irregular, with more information coming to light regarding accommodations

Mihailović had made with Italian commanders in Montenegro and the Nedić’s puppet

government in Belgrade.87

The decision to support both Tito and Mihailović was undone in November by Maclean’s

“blockbuster” report. Maclean’s report determined that “the Partisans [were] the most important

element in Yugoslavia, both in terms of reconstituting the state after the war, and for organizing it on a

federal basis where racial harmony would prevail.” The YGE, by comparison, was filled with “traitors

and deserters,” while Mihailović was a pan-Serb and a collaborator. The Partisans possessed the

numbers (which Maclean wildly exaggerated) and the will to drive out the Germans, pacific the

country and establish an orderly postwar regime based on a united Yugoslavia. 88 The report

struck a chord with Churchill, who was beginning to think that Tito was someone “with whom

we can do business,” and like the FO and SOE he was fed up with both the Yugoslavian

government and Mihailović.89 Maclean’s report was the perhaps the most significant SOE

                                                            84 Williams, pp. 137-138. 85 Mackenzie, p. 435. Maclean himself repeats much of the same sentiments in his autobiography, Eastern Approaches (London: Cape Publishing, 1946), pp. 123-125. 86 Mackenzie, p. 436. 87; Williams, p. 166 88 FO 371/37615 “The Partisan Movement in Yugoslavia,” Fitzroy Maclean for Foreign Office, 6 November 1943; Williams, p. 184 89 Williams, pp. 185, 191-192.

Brew 24 document written on Yugoslavia in the entire war, and it marked the beginning of the end for

Mihailović and British support for the chetnik movement.

Despite the frustration with Mihailović in the fall of 1943 and the growing enthusiasm for

Tito, the chetnik general was not abandoned immediately: he could not be left “to rot off the

branch.”90 Tito was strong throughout Yugoslavia but he had not yet penetrated Serbia, where

the chetniks existed in force.91 British leaders still wished to use both groups to fight the

Germans if possible. There was also the YGE to consider; Churchill was especially keen on the

idea of King Peter heading a government organized by Tito and the Partisans, a sort of

communist-monarchy hybrid.92 A series of telegrams from SOE officers in Yugoslavia in late

November, however, put the final nail in Mihailović’s coffin. It was revealed that Mihailović, in

preparation for the Partisan push into Serbia, was actively collaborating with the Serbian puppet

government of Milan Nedić, receiving weapons, ammunition and fresh recruits to fight the

communists.93 Despite the fact that the information was unconfirmed, and was later largely

debunked by reports from SOE’s officers with Mihailović’s headquarters, the impact was

immediate. Churchill announced on December 1st that he wanted Mihailović gone by the end of

the year.94 SOE officers with the chetniks were instructed to link-up with Partisan groups (an

absurd order, considering how detached each group was from one another), while supply drops

to the chetniks ceased immediately. 95

Tito seized the opportunity granted him by launching vigorous campaigns against both

the Germans and the chetniks. The international recognition which he had sought since the

summer came at the Tehran Conference, when all three Allied governments agreed to support the

                                                            90 Williams, p. 193 91 Pavlowitch, p. 210. 92 Williams, p. 192 93 FO 371/37616 Howard minute, 22 Nov. 1943, on “Yugoslavia—Brigadier Maclean’s Report.” 94 CAB 66/17/23, Minutes from Meeting, 1 December 1943. 95 Stafford, Britain in European Resistance, p. 121.

Brew 25 Partisans “to the greatest possible extent.”96 He declared his new government, the National

Committee of Yugoslavia, in December and set about engaging Soviet support for an eventual

push on Belgrade.97 British leaders, meanwhile, were initially hopeful that Tito could be turned

into a better agent of Allied strategy than his predecessor and in the first months of 1944 sent

him thousands of tons of supplies and hundreds of trained SOE officers. Bombers were promised

for his summer offensive into Serbia, while propaganda touted Tito as the man who would “free

the Balkans.”98

While he treated the British cordially, allowing them to follow his Partisan groups and

occasionally advise him, Tito kept SOE at a distance; information on the Partisans real activities

was carefully guarded, while SOE officers were aware only of Partisan attacks on the Germans.99

According to Stevan Pavlowitch, it seems likely that Tito never fully trusted the British and was

constantly suspicious of their intentions regarding Mihailović and the YGE. He spent the first

half of 1944 importuning Stalin for rapid assistance; is plans focused on establishing a

communist order after the war, and there was no room for the old regime.100 Churchill’s plans for

a communist-monarchy after the war therefore came to nothing, and although Tito signed an

agreement with the YGE he never accepted the idea of a government with King Peter at its

head.101 In fact, all attempts by the British government or SOE to influence Tito during 1944

were failures, as the Yugoslav resistance became more and more fixed on securing Soviet

support.

                                                            96 Stafford, Britain in European Resistance, p. 122. 97 Williams, p. 230. 98 Pavlowitch, pp. 215-216, 235 99 Williams, p. 231-235. 100 Pavlowitch, p. 220. 101 Williams, p. 225-226.

Brew 26

That support was forthcoming. In August 1944, the Red Army took a detour as it tore

through the Balkan states to capture Belgrade and secure it for occupation by Tito’s forces.102

The loss of the Serbian capital and the destruction of much of the chetnik forces in the region

brought the pro-Serbian resistance to an end. By this point the opinion of Tito in London had

changed and suspicions of his true intentions were mounting, but after the capture of Belgrade it

was impossible to change matters. The communists were thoroughly established in Yugoslavia,

the resistance was over, and rather than maintaining its influence in the region (as had been

established at the October meeting between Churchill and Stalin, where influence in Yugoslavia

would be “50-50” between the two powers103), Britain found itself with very little left worth

holding onto in the country. The early months of 1945 were taken up with a dash by Soviet,

Partisan and Allied forces to secure Slovenia and the Trieste hinterland, at which point combat

operations in Yugoslavia came to an end.104

Conclusion

From the March 1941 coup d’etat to the end of the war, Great Britain used SOE to utilize

the Yugoslav resistance towards accomplishing specific military and political war aims. Initially,

these aims revolved around the “secret armies” and “detonator” concepts, whereby British arms

and officers would train a large native Yugoslav force to rise up and expel the German occupier

at an appropriate moment. When that strategy became irrelevant after the United States and

Soviet Union entered the war, SOE switched to an approach that encouraged active resistance

against the Germans as a means of tying down German forces and distracting German attention

from Allied offensives in other areas. The British government, chiefly the Foreign Office and

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, also attempted to support Yugoslav resistance as a means of

                                                            102 Pavlowitch, pp. 230-231 103 Ibid, p. 245 104 Williams, p. 238

Brew 27 maintaining the pre-war political order, though this concern was gradually modified according to

war-time strategic needs. Above all, the emphasis focused on using the resistance for British

purposes: when the interests of the resistance groups conflicted with those of Britain, attempts

were made to turn the resistance in more constructive directions until eventually a move was

made to shift support from the chetniks to the Partisans, reckoned by British leaders to be more

useful wartime allies.

The failure of SOE and Britain to effectively harness the Yugoslav resistance and

accomplish these military and political goals was in large part a product of the differences

between Britain and the two Yugoslav resistance groups. Britain sought to tie down and drain

away German military strength through active resistance while preserving the integrity of the

Yugoslav state (embodied by the Yugoslav Government in Exile and the monarchy of King

Peter), but neither Mihailović nor Tito were interested in these goals. Mihailović sought to

preserve Serbian nationhood and defend the Serbian people from the communist threat and when

British aid for his cause was lacking he turned to the Serbian puppet government of Milan Nedić

and local Axis commanders for support. Tito was focused throughout the war on bringing about

a communist revolution in Yugoslavia and was comfortable with accepting British support,

though his ties to the Soviet Union and the encroaching Red Army in 1944 drove him to courting

Stalin’s favor more than Churchill’s. Until Yugoslavia became the “center stage” of the Allied

misdirection campaign in early 1943, SOE never had the resources to provide meaningful

support to Mihailović, a fact that contributed to his collaborationism, but the chetnik leader never

pursued the kind of aggressive strategy Britain asked of him. While more aggressive, Tito had no

interest in preserving the existing Yugoslav state; though enthusiasm for Tito in the British

government was high, and Churchill himself thought some compromise could be reached to save

Brew 28 King Peter his thrown, a communist Yugoslavia led by Tito was the only possible result as soon

as Mihailović lost British support in late 1943.

The involvement of SOE in Yugoslavia and Britain’s attempts at using Yugoslav

resistance is therefore a tale of largely spoiled ambitions.105 More significantly, however, it

displays the importance of the “political dimension of resistance” and the effects outside forces

can have on native resistance movements. British support for Mihailović in 1941 gave him

international recognition and cemented his status as the legitimate leader of Yugoslav resistance.

The withdrawal of that support in 1943 gave Tito the edge he needed to win the Yugoslav civil

war and establish a communist state after the war. Since the British were driven by both political

and military considerations, their support for Yugoslav resistance was by necessity strategic in

nature. Mihailović was supplied with arms, munitions and professional assistance by SOE

because he was initially regarded as the best leader for the resistance; when accusations of

collaboration against him began piling up and it became clear he was not actively engaged in

fighting the Germans, SOE shifted its support to Tito. When Yugoslavia emerged from war in

1945, after losing between 1 million and 1.6 million people from a population of 17 million106, it

was a country shaped not only by the horrors and savagery of the Axis occupation and Pavelić

regime but by the lengthy and vigorous struggle between chetniks and Partisans. The role of

Britain and SOE within that struggle speaks to the folly of an outside force using a nation in

chaos to pursue its own ends and the foolishness inherent in a venture as poorly-resourced and

under-staffed as SOE attempting to harness the collective energies of a country at war with itself

for a few simple yet unachievable political and military goals.

                                                            105 Unlike some views of Britain’s activities in Yugoslavia, which point to the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 as proof of Britain’s success, I do not believe Britain deserves any credit for pursuing a successful policy in Yugoslavia. See Williams, pp. viii-ix. 106 Tomasevich, p. 737.

Brew 29

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