All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [292]
In the spring of 1941, Hitler bludgeoned Prince Paul into signing the Tripartite Pact, to secure Yugoslavia’s mineral resources and acquiescence in his invasion of Greece. This provoked a violent reaction from Serb nationalists. On 27 March they staged a coup to overthrow the regency and install an anti-Axis government in the name of young King Peter. Hitler, enraged by this supposed betrayal, responded by invading the country on 6 April. The king and government fled, and the Germans achieved an almost bloodless occupation. Hitler set about dismembering the country. Northern Slovenia was incorporated into the Reich. Croatia was granted independence and its fascist Ustaše militia assumed a powerful and bloody role in sustaining Axis control of the country. In May 1941, the Ustaše unleashed a reign of terror designed to cleanse Croatia of its two million Serbs. Meanwhile, Dalmatia and southern Slovenia were ceded to Italy. Macedonia, which was given to Bulgaria, experienced brutalities which turned its people decisively against rule from Sofia. As a result of wholesale ethnic cleansing, only 2,000 of Skopje’s pre-war population of 25,000 Serbs, for instance, remained in the city by the spring of 1942. The whole country was thrown into turmoil, a cycle of repression, sporadic resistance and a struggle for survival by millions of hapless people.
In London, the British welcomed the exiled Yugoslav rulers as heroes, and began to give what little assistance was in their power to the Chetnik resistance movement in Serbia led by royalist Colonel Draža Mihailovi. Yet in 1943 it became increasingly clear that the Chetniks were more interested in gaining political control of Yugoslavia than in challenging the Axis occupiers. Mihailovi was persuaded by the ferocity of reprisals – one hundred Yugoslavs shot for each German killed – that it was futile to challenge the Axis at such a cost.
Communists led by the Croatian Josip Broz – ‘Tito’ – appeared to be fighting more actively. Their propaganda was skilfully conducted, to persuade both the Yugoslav people and the Western Allies that they would resist the occupiers as the Chetniks would not; Tito also won support across ethnic divides. ‘The army of Mihailovi was completely peasant-based and hadn’t got much discipline,’ said a British liaison officer, Robert Wade, ‘whereas Tito’s lot, ruthless though he was, behaved like the Brigade of Guards by comparison. No drilling, but when they were told to keep their distance they kept their distance – they were properly led and you could see the difference.’ Charles Hargreaves agreed: ‘Sometimes [the Chetniks] would be quite prepared to do small things, perhaps to ambush a train or convoy, but nothing very big, nothing that would have involved too much German loss of life … Their main intention was to secure control of the country after the war.’ Major Basil Davidson of SOE, an impassioned supporter of Tito, said cynically: ‘Unfortunately the Chetniks took the view that it was up to us to win the war against the Germans and up to them to win the war inside Yugoslavia against the communists, who had meanwhile formed a much stronger and more effective resistance.’
In December 1943, Churchill shifted his support decisively towards the communist leader, who claimed to have 200,000 men under arms. In this, the prime minister was influenced by some illusions: that Tito’s partisans ‘were not real communists’; that they could be persuaded to forge an accord with King Peter; and that they were single-mindedly committed to the struggle against the Axis. Communist sympathisers in SOE’s Cairo headquarters contributed to this roseate perception; London was ignorant of the fact that for some months in 1943 Tito negotiated with the Germans for a truce which would enable him to crush Mihailovi, and committed most of his forces to kill Chetniks. Milovan Djilas