THE reader must now go back to a fierce and sombre tale, which the main narrative has outstripped. Yugoslavia since Hitler’s invasion and conquest in April 1941 had been the scene of fearful events. The spirited boy King took refuge in England with such of Prince Paul’s ministers and other members of the Government as had defied the German assault. In the mountains there began again the fierce guerrilla with which the Serbs had resisted the Turks for centuries. General Mihailovic was its first and foremost champion, and round him rallied the surviving élite of Yugoslavia. In the vortex of world affairs their struggle was hardly noticeable. It belongs to the “unestimated sum of human pain”. Mihailovic suffered as a guerrilla leader from the fact that many of his followers were well-known people with relations and friends in Serbia, and property and recognisable connections elsewhere. The Germans pursued a policy of murderous blackmail. They retaliated for guerrilla activities by shooting batches of four or five hundred selected people in Belgrade. Under this pressure Mihailovic drifted gradually into a posture where some of his commanders made accommodations with the German and Italian troops to be left alone in certain mountain areas in return for doing little or nothing against the enemy. Those who have triumphantly withstood such strains may brand his name, but history, more discriminating, should not erase it from the scroll of Serbian patriots. By the autumn of 1941 Serbian resistance to the German terror had become only a shadow. The national struggle could only be sustained by the innate valour of the common people. This however was not lacking.
A wild and furious war for existence against the Germans broke into flame among the Partisans. Among these Tito stood forth, preeminent and soon dominant. Tito, as he called himself, was a Soviet-trained Communist who, until Russia was invaded by Hitler, and after Yugoslavia had been assailed, had fomented political strikes along the Dalmatian coast, in accordance with the general Comintern policy. But once he united in his breast and brain his Communist doctrine with his burning ardour for his native land in her extreme torment he became a leader, with adherents who had little to lose but their lives, who were ready to die, and if to die to kill. This confronted the Germans with a problem which could not be solved by the mass executions of notables or persons of substance. They found themselves confronted by desperate men who had to be hunted down in their lairs. The Partisans under Tito wrested weapons from German hands. They grew rapidly in numbers. No reprisals, however bloody, upon hostages or villages deterred them. For them it was death or freedom. Soon they began to inflict heavy injury upon the Germans and became masters of wide regions.
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It was inevitable that the Partisan movement should also come into savage quarrels with their fellow-countrymen who were resisting halfheartedly or making bargain for immunity with the common foe. The Partisans deliberately violated any agreements made with the enemy by the Cetniks—as the followers of General Mihailovic were called. The Germans then shot Cetnik hostages, and in revenge Cetniks gave the Germans information about the Partisans. All this happened sporadically and uncontrollably in these wild mountain regions. It was a tragedy within a tragedy.
I had followed these events amid other preoccupations so far as was possible. Except for a trickle of supplies dropped from aircraft, we were not able to help. Our headquarters in the Middle East was responsible for all operations in this theatre, and maintained a system of agents and liaison officers with the followers of Mihailovic. When in the summer of 1943 we broke into Sicily and Italy, the Balkans, and especially Yugoslavia, never left my thoughts. Up to this point our missions had only gone to the bands under Mihailovic, who represented the official resistance to the Germans and the Yugoslav Government in Cairo. In May 1943 we took a new departure. It was decided to send small parties of British officers and N.C.O.s to establish contact with the Yugoslav Partisans, in spite of the fact that cruel strife was proceeding between them and the Cetniks, and that Tito was waging war as a Communist not only against the German invaders but against the Serbian monarchy and Mihailovic. At the end of that month Captain Deakin, an Oxford don who had helped me for five years before the war in my literary work, was dropped by parachute to set up a mission with Tito. Other British missions followed, and by June much evidence had accumulated. The Chiefs of Staff reported on June 6: “It is clear from information available to the War Office that the Cetniks are hopelessly compromised in their relations with the Axis in Herzegovina and Montenegro. During the recent fighting in the latter area it has been the well-organised Partisans rather than the Cetniks who have been holding down the Axis forces.”
Towards the end of the month my attention was drawn to the question of obtaining the best results from local resistance to the Axis in Yugoslavia. Having called for full information, I presided at a Chiefs of Staff conference at Downing Street on June 23. In the course of the discussion I emphasised the very great value of giving all possible support to the Yugoslav anti-Axis movement, which was containing about thirty-three Axis divisions in that area. This matter was of such importance that I directed that the small number of additional aircraft required to increase our aid must be provided, if necessary at the expense of the bombing of Germany and of the U-boat war.
Before leaving for Quebec I decided to pave the way for further action in the Balkans by appointing a senior officer to lead a larger mission to the Partisans in the field, and with authority to make direct recommendations to me about our future action towards them. Mr. Fitzroy Maclean was a member of Parliament, a man of daring character, and with Foreign Office training. This mission landed in Yugoslavia by parachute in September 1943, to find the situation revolutionised. The news of the Italian surrender had reached Yugoslavia only with the official broadcast announcements. But, in spite of complete absence of any warning by us, Tito took quick and fruitful action. Within a few weeks six Italian divisions had been disarmed by the Partisan forces, and another two went over to fight with them against the Germans. With Italian equipment the Yugoslavs were now able to arm 80,000 more men, and to occupy for the moment most of the Adriatic coastline. There was a good chance of strengthening our general position in the Adriatic in relation to the Italian front. The Yugoslav Partisan army, totalling 200,000 men, although fighting primarily as guerrillas, was engaged in widespread action against the Germans, who continued their violent reprisals with increasing fury.
One effect of this increased activity in Yugoslavia was to exacerbate the conflict between Tito and Mihailovic. Tito’s growing military strength raised in an increasingly acute form the ultimate position of the Yugoslav monarchy and the exiled Government. Till the end of the war sincere and prolonged efforts were made both in London and within Yugoslavia to reach a working compromise between both sides. I had hoped that the Russians would use their good offices in this matter. When Mr. Eden went to Moscow in October 1943 the subject was placed on the Conference agenda. He made a frank and fair statement of our attitude in the hope of securing a common Allied policy towards Yugoslavia, but the Russians displayed no wish either to pool information or to discuss a plan of action.
Even after many weeks I saw little prospect of any working arrangement between the hostile factions in Yugoslavia. “The fighting”, I telegraphed to Roosevelt, “is of the most cruel and bloody character, with merciless reprisals and executions of hostages by the Huns. … We hope soon to compose the Greek quarrels, but the differences between Tito’s Partisans and Mihailovic’s Serbs are very deep-seated.”
My gloomy forecast proved true. At the end of November Tito summoned a political congress of his movement at Jajce, in Bosnia, and not only set up a Provisional Government, “with sole authority to represent the Yugoslav nation”, but also formally deprived the Royal Yugoslav Government in Cairo of all its rights. The King was forbidden to return to the country until after the liberation. The Partisans had established themselves without question as the leading elements of resistance in Yugoslavia, particularly since the Italian surrender. But it was important that no irrevocable political decisions about the future régime in Yugoslavia should be made in the atmosphere of occupation, civil war, and émigré politics. The tragic figure of Mihailovic had become the major obstacle. We had to maintain close military contact with the Partisans, and therefore to persuade the King to dismiss Mihailovic from his post as Minister of War. Early in December we. withdrew official support from Mihailovic and recalled the British missions operating in his territory.
Yugoslav affairs were considered at the Teheran Conference against this background. Although it was decided by the three Allied Powers to give the maximum support to the Partisans, the rôle of Yugoslavia in the war was dismissed by Stalin as of minor importance, and the Russians even disputed our figures of the number of Axis divisions in the Balkans. The Soviet Government however agreed to send a Russian mission to Tito as a result of Mr. Eden’s initiative. They also wished to keep contact with Mihailovic.
On my return from Teheran to Cairo I saw King Peter, and told him about the strength and significance of the Partisan movement and that it might be necessary for him to dismiss Mihailovic from his Cabinet. The only hope which the King possessed of returning to his country would be, with our mediation, to reach some provisional arrangement with Tito without delay and before the Partisans further extended their hold upon the country. The Russians too professed their willingness to work for some kind of compromise and I received almost unanimous advice as to what course to pursue in this disagreeable situation. Officers who had served with Tito and the commanders of missions to Mihailovic presented similar pictures. The British Ambassador to the Royal Yugoslav Government, Mr. Stevenson, telegraphed to the Foreign Office: “Our policy must be based on three new factors: The Partisans will be the rulers of Yugoslavia. They are of such value to us militarily that we must back them to the full, subordinating political considerations to military. It is extremely doubtful whether we can any longer regard the monarchy as a unifying element in Yugoslavia.”
By January, 1944, I had been convinced by the arguments of men I knew and trusted that Mihailovic was a millstone tied round the neck of the King, and he had no chance till he got rid of him. The Foreign Secretary agreed, and I wrote to Tito in this sense. But 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, and it was not until nearly the end of May that Mihailović was dismissed, and a moderate politician, Dr. Subašić, was asked to form a new Administration. Neither was I able to bring Tito and Subašić together until I met them in Naples in August, where, as will be related in due course, I did what I could to assuage the torments bodi of Yugoslavia and of her southernmost neighbour, Greece, to whose affairs and fortunes we must now turn.
After the withdrawal of the Allies in April 1941 Greece, like Yugoslavia, was occupied by the Axis Powers. The collapse of the Army and the retirement of the King and his Government into exile revived the bitter controversies of Greek politics. Both in the homeland and in Greek circles abroad there was hard criticism of the monarchy, which had sanctioned the dictatorship of General Metaxas, and thereby directly associated itself with the régime which had been defeated. There was much famine in the first winter, partially relieved by Red Cross shipments. The country was exhausted by the fighting and the Army was destroyed, but at the time of the surrender weapons were hidden in the mountains, and in sporadic fashion, and on a minor scale, resistance to the enemy was planned. In the towns of Central Greece starvation provided plenty of recruits. In April 1942 the body calling itself the National Liberation Front (known by its initials in Greek as E.A.M.), which had come into being in the previous autumn, announced the formation of the People’s Liberation Army (E.L.A.S.). Small fighting groups were recruited during the following year, while in Epirus and the mountains of the north-west remnants of the Greek Army and local mountaineers gathered round the person of Colonel Napoleon Zervas. The E.A.M.-E.L.A.S. organisation was dominated by a hard core of Communist leaders. The adherents of Zervas, originally Republican in sympathy, became as time passed exclusively anti-Communist. Around these two centres Greek resistance to the Germans gathered. Neither of them had any sympathy or direct contact with the Royalist Government in London.
On the eve of Alamein we decided to attack the German supply lines leading down through Greece to the Piraeus, the port of Athens and an important base on the German route to North Africa. The first British Military Mission, under Lieut.-Colonel Myers, was accordingly dropped by parachute and made contact with the guerrillas. A viaduct on the main Athens railway line was destroyed and Greek agents made brilliant and daring sabotage against Axis shipping in the Piraeus. During the following summer the British missions were strengthened, and special efforts were made to convince the enemy that we would land in Greece on a large scale after our victory in Tunis. Anglo-Greek parties blew another railway bridge on the main Athens line, and other operations were so successful that two German divisions were moved into Greece which might have been used in Sicily. But this was the last direct military contribution which the Greek guerrillas made to the war.
The three divergent elements, E.L.A.S., numbering 20,000 men, and predominantly under Communist control, the Zervas bands, known as E.D.E.S., totalling 5,000, and the Royalist politicians, grouped in Cairo or in London round King George II, all now thought that the Allies would probably win, and the struggle among them for political power began in earnest, to the advantage of the common foe. When the Italians capitulated in September 1943 E.L.A.S. was able to acquire most of their equipment, including the weapons of an entire division, and thus gained military supremacy. In October E.L.A.S. forces attacked E.D.E.S. (Zervas), and the British Headquarters in Cairo suspended all shipments of arms to the former.
Every effort was made by our missions on the spot to limit and end the civil war which sprawled across the ruined and occupied country, and in February 1944, British officers succeeded in establishing an uneasy truce between the two factions. But the Soviet armies were now on the borders of Roumania, and as the chances of a German evacuation of the Balkans increased, and with them the possibilities of a return of the Royal Government, with British support, the E.A.M. leaders decided on a Communist coup d’état.
A Political Committee of National Liberation was set up in the mountains, and the news broadcast to the world. This was a direct challenge to the future authority of the Royal Government, and the signal for trouble in the Greek armed forces in the Middle East and in Greek Government circles abroad. On March 31 a group of officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force called on the Premier, M. Tsouderos, in Cairo to demand his resignation. The 1st Brigade of the Greek Army, which I was hoping could take part in the Italian campaign, mutinied against its officers. Five ships of the Royal Hellenic Navy declared for a republic, and on April 8 a Greek destroyer refused to put to sea unless a Government was formed which would include representatives of E.A.M.
I was at this time in charge of the Foreign Office, owing to Mr. Eden’s absence. I thus had all the threads directly in my hands and with my support and personal encouragement, General Paget, who commanded the British forces in Egypt, surrounded the Brigade, which numbered 4,500 men and over fifty guns, all deployed in defensive positions against us. On the evening of the 23rd the ships were boarded by loyal Greek sailors and with about fifty casualties the mutineers were collected and sent ashore. Next day the Brigade surrendered and laid down its arms, and was evacuated to a prisoner-of-war cage, where the ringleaders were arrested. There were no Greek casualties, but one British officer was killed. The naval mutineers had surrendered unconditionally twenty-four hours earlier.
Meanwhile the King had arrived in Cairo, and on April 12 issued a proclamation that a representative Government composed largely of Greeks from within Greece would be formed. Steps were taken in secret to bring out representatives from metropolitan Greece, including M. Papandreou, the leader of the Greek Social Democratic Party, and on the 26th he took office. In May a conference of all parties, including leaders from the Greek mountains, met at a mountain resort in the Lebanon. Here it was agreed, after a fierce debate lasting three days, to set up an Administration in Cairo in which all groups would be represented under the Premiership of Papandreou, while in the mountains of Greece a united military organisation would continue to struggle against the Germans. The difficulties and struggles which lay before us all in this nerve-centre of Europe and the world will be recounted in their proper place. We may now leave this scene for others not less convulsive but larger.
