Closing the Ring (66 page)

One supreme object stands before us, namely, to cleanse the soil of Europe from the filthy Nazi-Fascist taint. You may be sure that we British have no desire to dictate the future government of Yugoslavia. At the same time we hope that all will pull together as much as possible for the defeat of the common foe, and afterwards settle the form of government in accordance with the will of the people.

I am resolved that the British Government shall give no further military support to Mihailovic and will only give help to you, and we should be glad if the Royal Yugoslavian Government would dismiss him from their councils. King Peter the Second however escaped as a boy from the treacherous clutches of the Regent Prince Paul, and came to us as the representative of Yugoslavia and as a young prince in distress. It would not be chivalrous or honourable for Great Britain to cast him aside. Nor can we ask him to cut all his existing contacts with his country. I hope therefore that you will understand we shall in any case remain in official relations with him, while at the same time giving you all possible military support. I hope also that there may be an end to polemics on either side, for these only help the Germans.

You may be sure I shall work in the closest contact with my friends Marshal Stalin and President Roosevelt; and I earnestly hope that the Military Mission which the Soviet Government are sending to your Headquarters will work in similar harmony with the Anglo-American Mission under Brigadier Maclean. Please correspond with me through Brigadier Maclean, and let me know anything you think I can do to help, for I will certainly try my best.

Looking forward to the end of your sufferings and to the liberation of all Europe from tyranny …

It took nearly a month to get an answer:

Marshal Tito to the Prime Minister
    [
received February
3, 1944] Your Excellency,

Your message brought by Brigadier Maclean is valuable proof that our people have in their superhuman struggle for freedom and independence a true friend and Ally at their side who deeply comprehends our needs and our aspirations. For me personally your message is an honour, for it expresses your high acknowledgment of our struggle and the efforts of our National Liberation Army. I thank you heartily for your photographs from the Teheran Conference, with your dedication. Your Excellency may be sure that we will endeavour to keep your friendship won in a most difficult hour of our people’s history, and which is extremely dear to us. The devastation of the country, and the people, exhausted with suffering, need, and will need in future, the help of our great Allies not only during the war, but also in peace to enable us to heal the terrible wounds inflicted on us by the ignoble Fascist invader. It is our wish to fulfil to the utmost our duty as an Ally in the common military effort against our common enemy. Aid tendered to us by our Allies very much contributes to ease our situation on the battlefield. We also hope, with your help, to obtain heavy armament (tanks and aircraft), which in the present phase of the war and owing to the present strength of our National Liberation Army is indispensable to us.

2. I quite understand your engagements towards King Peter II and his Government, and I will contrive, as far as the interests of our people permit, to avoid unnecessary politics and not cause inconvenience to our Allies in this matter. I assure you, however, your Excellency, that the internal political situation created in this arduous struggle for liberation is not only a machine for the strivings of individuals or some political group, but it is the irresistible desire of all patriots, of all those who are fighting and long connected with this struggle, and these are the enormous majority of the peoples of Yugoslavia. Therefore, the people have set [themselves] difficult tasks and we are bound to accomplish them.

3. At the present moment all our efforts turn to one direction, and that is, (1) assemble all patriotic and honourable elements so as to render our struggle against the invader as efficient as possible; (2) to create union and brotherhood of the Yugoslav nations, which did not exist before this war, and the absence of which caused the catastrophe in our country; (3) to create conditions for the establishment of a state in which all nations of Yugoslavia would feel happy, and that is a truly democratic Yugoslavia, a federative Yugoslavia. I am convinced that you understand us, and that we will have your valuable support in these strivings of our people.

Yours very sincerely,
                           T
ITO
          
                              Marshal of Yugoslavia

  I replied at once:

Prime Minister to Marshal Tito
(
Yugoslavia
)    5 Feb. 44

I am very glad my letter has reached you safely, and I have received your message with pleasure. I can understand the position of reserve which you adopt towards King Peter. I have for several months past been in favour of advising him to dismiss Mihailovic and to face the consequent resignation of all his present advisers. I have been deterred from doing this by the argument that I should thus be advising him to cast away his only adherents. You will understand I feel a personal responsibility towards him. I should be obliged if you would let me know whether his dismissal of Mihailovic would pave the way for friendly relations with you and your Movement, and, later on, for his joining you in the field, it being understood that the future question of the Monarchy is reserved until Yugoslavia has been entirely liberated. There is no doubt that a working arrangement between you and the King would consolidate many forces, especially Serbian elements, now estranged, and that it would invest your Government and movement with added authority and provide them with numerous resources. Yugoslavia would then be able to speak with a united voice in the councils of the Allies during this formative period when so much is in flux. I much hope that you will feel able to give me the answer you can see I want.

2. His Britannic Majesty’s Government desire to assemble all patriotic and honourable elements so as to render your struggle against the invader as efficient as possible; secondly, to create union and brotherhood of the Yugoslav nations; and, thirdly, to create conditions for a truly democratic and federative Yugoslavia. You will certainly have the support of His Majesty’s Government in all this.

3. I have asked the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean to form immediately an amphibious force of Commandos, supported by air and flotillas, to attack, with your aid, the garrisons which the Germans have left in the islands they have taken along the Dalmatian coast. There is no reason why these garrisons should not be exterminated with forces which will shortly be available. Secondly, we must try to get a through line of communication with you from the sea, even if we have to move it from time to time. This alone will enable tanks and anti-tank guns and other heavy munitions, together with other necessary supplies, to be brought in in the quantities which your armies require. You should talk all this over with Brigadier Maclean, who has my entire confidence and immediate access to me as well as to the Supreme Commander.

Tito replied:

Marshal Tito to Prime Minister
    9 Feb. 44

I was obliged to consult the members of the National Committee of Liberation of Yugoslavia and members of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation on the points raised in your messages. The analysis of these points led to the following conclusions:

(1) The Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, as you know, confirmed at their second session on November 29, 1943, that they firmly stand for the Union of Yugoslav Nations. However, as long as there are two Governments, one in Yugoslavia and the other in Cairo, there can be no complete union. Therefore the Government in Cairo must be suppressed, and with them Draza Mihailovic. That Government must account to the Government of A.C.N.L.Y. for having squandered enormous sums of the nation’s money.

(2) The National Committee of Liberation of Yugoslavia should be acknowledged by the Allies as the only Government of Yugoslavia and King Peter II, in support, should submit to the laws of A.C.N.L.Y.

(3) If King Peter accepts all these conditions, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation will not refuse to co-operate with him on condition that the question of the monarchy in Yugoslavia be decided after the liberation of Yugoslavia by the free will of the people.

(4) King Peter II should issue a declaration to the effect that he has only the interests of his Fatherland at heart, which he wishes to be free and organised as the people themselves decide after the war is over by their free will, and until then he will do all in his power to support the arduous struggle of the peoples of Yugoslavia. …

Prime Minister to Marshal Tito
    25 Feb. 44

I fully comprehend your difficulties, and I welcome the spirit in which you approach them. I thank you for understanding mine. The first step for us is to withdraw our liaison officers safely from Mihailovic. Orders have been issued accordingly, but may take a few weeks to fulfil. Meanwhile, can you not assure me that if King Peter frees himself from Mihailovic and other bad advisers he will be invited by you to join his countrymen in the field, provided
always that the Yugoslav nations are free to settle their own Constitution after the war? If I judge this boy aright, he has no dearer wish than to stand at the side of all those Yugoslavs who are fighting the common foe, but you can understand that I cannot press him to dismiss Mihailovic, throw over his Government, and cut off all contact with Serbia before knowing whether he can count on your support and co-operation.

I have suggested to King Peter that he should return to London to discuss these matters with me. I hope therefore that you will on reflection be ready to modify your demands, and thus enable us both to work for the unification of Yugoslavia against the common enemy. Do not hesitate to make me precise and specific requests. If meanwhile I cannot do all you wish, be sure it is not from lack of good will to you or your country.

*  *  * *  *

When I was able to explain all this to Parliament in February 1944, I told the following tale:

Led with great skill, organised on the guerrilla principle, the partisans were at once elusive and deadly. They were here, they were there, they were everywhere. Large-scale offensives have been launched against them by the Germans, but in every case the partisans, even when surrounded, have escaped, after inflicting great losses and toil upon the enemy. The partisan movement soon outstripped in numbers the forces of General Mihailovic. Not only Croats and Slovenes, but large numbers of Serbians joined with Marshal Tito, and he has at this moment more than a quarter of a million men with him, and large quantities of arms taken from the enemy or from the Italians, and these men are organised into a considerable number of divisions and corps.

The whole movement has taken shape and form, without losing the guerrilla quality without which it could not possibly succeed. Around and within these heroic forces a national and unifying movement has developed. The Communist element had the honour of being the beginners, but as the movement increased in strength and numbers, a modifying and unifying process has taken place and national conceptions have supervened. In Marshal Tito the partisans have found an outstanding leader, glorious in the fight
for freedom. Unhappily, perhaps inevitably, these new forces came into collision with those under General Mihailovic. Their activities upset his commanders’ accommodations with the enemy. He endeavoured to repress them, and many tragic fights took place and bitter feuds sprang up between men of the same race and country, whose misfortunes were due only to the common foe.

For a long time past I have taken a particular interest in Marshal Tito’s movement, and have tried, and am trying, by every available means to bring him help. A young friend of mine, an Oxford don, Captain Deakin, now Lieutenant-Colonel Deakin, D.S.O., entered Yugoslavia by parachute nearly a year ago, and was for eight months at Marshal Tito’s Headquarters. On one occasion both were wounded by the same bomb. They became friends. Certainly, it is a bond between people, but a bond which, I trust, we shall not have to institute in our own personal relationships. From Colonel Deakin’s reports we derived a lively picture of the whole struggle and its personalities.

*  *  * *  *

For two months longer the political wrangle over Yugoslav affairs continued in
émigré
circles in London. Each day lost diminished the chances of a balanced arrangement.

Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary
    1 Apr. 44

I consider that the King should be pressed to the utmost limit to get rid of his present fatal millstone advisers. As you know, I thought this would have been accomplished before the end of last year. I do not know what has been gained by all the spinning out that has gone on. … My idea throughout has been that the King should dissociate himself from Mihailovic, that he should accept the resignation of the Puric Government or dismiss them, and that it would not do any great harm if he remained without a Government for a few weeks. … I agree that King Peter should make a suitable declaration. I fear we must leave things at this for the time being.

… I have seen somewhere that three German divisions have been recalled out of Yugoslavia to hold down Hungary, and of course it will be of the greatest importance for Tito’s forces to make contact with the Hungarian partisans and take the fullest
possible advantage of the situation now opening to his northward.

All these developments help us and help Tito, but they certainly do not help the King and his bedraggled Government. Unless he acts promptly, as the sense of your minute indicates, his chances of regaining his throne will, in my opinion, be lost. Since we discussed these matters in Cairo, we have seen the entry of a grandiose Russian Mission to Tito’s Headquarters, and there is little doubt that the Russians will drive straight ahead for a Communist Tito-governed Yugoslavia, and will denounce everything done to the contrary as “undemocratic.”