Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailovich

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Ally Betrayed

THE UNCENSORED STORY OF TITO AND MIHAILOVICH

by

DAVID MARTIN

FOREWORD BY REBECCA WEST

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 5

FOREWORD 6

PREFACE 9

CHAPTER 1 — Yugoslavia: Key to Europe 14

CHAPTER 2 — Yugoslavia Between the Wars 18

CHAPTER 3 — Revolution and Invasion 22

CHAPTER 4 — The Epic of Mihailovich 27

CHAPTER 5 — The Massacre of Kraguyevats 30

CHAPTER 6 — Enter Tito 33

CHAPTER 7 — The Campaign Against Mihailovich 37

CHAPTER 8 — The Ustashi Massacres (I) 48

CHAPTER 9 — The Ustashi Massacres (II) 59

CHAPTER 10 — Totalitarianism for Export 63

CHAPTER 11 — How Allied Military Intelligence Was Falsified 75

CHAPTER 12 — On Collaboration with the Enemy: The Generic History 89

CHAPTER 13 — The Monarchy 91

CHAPTER 14 — Mihailovich and the Soviet Union 95

CHAPTER 15 — Progressives and Reactionaries 98

CHAPTER 16 — On Accommodations with the Italians 109

CHAPTER 17 — Mihailovich and the Germans 123

CHAPTER 18 — The Conflict over Strategy 139

CHAPTER 19 — Down to Fundamentals 165

CHAPTER 20 — The Civil War 172

CHAPTER 21 — The Abandonment of Mihailovich 184

CHAPTER 22 — How Britain and America Made Tito 198

CHAPTER 23 — The Rescue of the American Airmen 208

CHAPTER 24 — The Liberation of Yugoslavia 221

CHAPTER 25 — Drazha Mihailovich: The Man and His Movement 237

CHAPTER 26 — The Case of Those Who Refused 246

CHAPTER 27 — The New Regime Takes Shape 258

CHAPTER 28 — Primer for Totalitarians 267

CHAPTER 29 — Letter to a Vacillating Socialist 274

CHAPTER 30 — Stations of the Cross 282

APPENDIX — The Activities of General Drazha Mihailovich as Seen by Enemy Sources 289

September 1942 to July 1943 289

I. Writings of the Enemy Press Declarations and Radio 289

II. Writings of the Belgrade Newspapers Novo Vreme and Obnova 290

III. Writings of the Croat Press and Radio Declarations 293

BIBLIOGRAPHY 294

General Background 294

The War and After 294

Pamphlets, Documentations, etc. 294

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 296

DEDICATION

TO BILL

GREAT NEWSPAPERMAN AND GREAT MAN

TO WHOM I OWE FAR MORE THAN HE IMAGINES

FOREWORD

THE TRIAL OF MIHAILOVICH WAS a masterpiece of a kind in which our age is not infertile. It was, of course, a work of art. It had none of the veiled quality of an event which will not disclose its meaning except under research and after the lapse of time. It produced an effect which could instantly be grasped by the human mind, for it had been planned not by Providence but by a human mind, which intended it to produce just that effect.

There were certain ends which had to be achieved at all costs by the planning mind. Mihailovich had to be killed, to teach those who will not obey the commands of Communism. He had to be presented in a ridiculous light, lest a legend should grow up round his name, and he should become the inspiration of those who wished to throw off the Russian domination of Yugoslavia. So sometimes he had to be sent into court shambling and maundering, and futile and eccentric witnesses had to be found to give testimony in his favor. The case that had been put for him in certain English and American periodicals had to be met; so sometimes he himself repeated it, so that they could be ridiculed by the prosecution; and repeat it he did, with odd fidelity, bearing out facts, often greatly to his advantage, which the English and American writers he was echoing had had to leave out because they wrote during the war and had to consider the censorship. It was necessary, too, in the opinion of the mind which planned this trial, that it should stir up ill feeling against Great Britain. Therefore Mihailovich had to give testimony that the officers of the British Military Mission had ordered him to fight the Partisans; so he gave this testimony with the precision of an automaton. But sometimes he had to be allowed to speak in his own person, with an unclouded mind, of the experience that was truly his, so that those of us who could recognize that experience should know that it was indeed Drazha Mihailovich who was being tried, and, if we were simple-minded, think that all through his ordeal he had been his sane and healthy self. Decidedly this trial was a work of art, evasive and subtle in conception, polished in execution. But practice makes perfect.

The technique by which the artist works is still his secret. But how it came about that he had his opportunity is told in this volume, with commendable courage, by David Martin. The story he tells is not complete. This was a very large-scale operation. But so far as he tells it he has scrupulously followed fact. I, who derived my information from other sources, can vouch for that. The trouble is that to read this story, so honestly and industriously compiled, one must have a strong stomach and a willingness to admit that, as a community, we are morally and intellectually tainted.

Mihailovich was ground between the upper and the nether millstones of Communism and Militarism.

The Communists were obliged to discredit Mihailovich, because he represented the professional army of Yugoslavia, and it was part of the Communist line, as has been seen in every European country, to discredit all Resistance Movements except those under Communist leadership. He also might have become the nucleus of a movement for the establishment of a new Yugoslavia on Liberal but not Communist lines; for he was not, as has been pretended, of Fascist or even Right Wing sympathies, but was an old-fashioned Liberal. For this reason he had to be blackguarded as a traitor, at all costs, even to the total surrender of truth by the people who carried on the attack. To make their case the Communists piled lie upon lie, and should be recognized hereafter as a gang of liars. I will give one example of their lying, on which I can speak with absolute authority. Because I refused to be convinced of Mihailovich’s treachery on the bare statement of an Englishman of disreputable antecedents, a story was spread and printed that my husband and I had made an agreement with Mihailovich to purchase Yugoslav concessions for a sum amounting to many millions of dollars. My husband and I have never owned any property in Yugoslavia, nor held any stocks or bonds in any company remotely connected with Yugoslavia, nor have we ever sought to acquire such property or stocks or bonds. During the war my husband was chairman of a committee enquiring into the possibility of economic co-operation among the South-Eastern European powers, but he was unpaid and did not turn and could not have turned any of the proceedings to his personal profit. Neither has he or I acted as the agent of any person or corporation desiring to acquire any sort of material interest in Yugoslavia. This story was unimportant in its effect upon us; I do not think any intelligent person believed it. What is important is that it was told by persons who were perfectly acquainted with the true facts. They lied, and knew they lied. Never was there such a debauch of lying as the Communist campaign against Mihailovich; and nearly the whole of the Left Wing, Communist or not, opened its poor silly mouth and swallowed the revolting mess. I am a Socialist. But I have to admit that in the last few years the Left Wing has shown itself just about as good a custodian of the sacred principle of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, as the watchdog who was found holding a lamp in his mouth for the burglar who was cracking the safe. They should have recognized this campaign for what it was, and should have realized that the men who carried it on were as likely to give the people political and economic freedom as Al Capone and John Dillinger.

It unfortunately happened that this campaign was worthily seconded by a parallel movement in a department of the British Army. There was an unfortunate error known as the cover plan. A number of high-ranking officers believed that if we posted notices all over the Mediterranean littoral calling on the populace to rise because the Allied Forces were about to land, and if the Resistant Movements simultaneously committed acts of sabotage, the Germans would not realize at what point the Allies were about to strike and would be unprepared to meet the invasion of Sicily. Those futile risings brought down on the peoples involved hideous repressive action by the Germans, and the sabotage was punished by reprisals on a huge scale. It was the request of the Middle Eastern Command that Mihailovich should put into operation the cover plan and his refusal to consent which brought him into conflict with the Allies. Had he been a Hindu or an Abyssinian refusing to imperil the lives of his dusky followers, we would of course have had all the Kingsley Martins and Freda Kirchweys wailing in his defense against the brutality of British and American Imperialists. Since he was only working to save the lives of fifteen million unfortunate peasants he was of little interest to avowed humanitarians, who are slaves to fashion. These Army reactionaries were swept out of existence by their own fatuity. The cover plan failed both as short term and long term policy. The Brigadier chiefly associated with its nagging application to Mihailovich, a gentleman not named in Mr. Martin’s pages, has long been placed on the retired list. But their folly lives after them. It has been endorsed by unfastidious politicians, who are now too ashamed of their mistake to confess it, although it has cost a man his life, and there could be no baseness beyond making it cost him his reputation too.

That we were not wrong who upheld Mihailovich is proved by the last sentences of his speech: so honest, so wise, so mild.

I wanted nothing for myself...I never wanted the old Yugoslavia, but I had a difficult legacy...I had against me a competitive organization, the Communist Party, which seeks its aims without compromise...I believed I was on the right road and called on any foreign journalist or Red Army Mission to visit me and see everything. But fate was merciless to me when it threw me into this maelstrom. I wanted much, I started much, but the gale of the world carried away me and my work.

This man Mihailovich was a good man; and if, like David Martin, we are loyal to him, we take the side of good against evil.

REBECCA WEST

PREFACE

WHEN DRAZHA MIHAILOVICH was executed by a Partisan firing squad on July 17, there was hardly a single editorial column in the country which did not speak with indignation. The New York Times suggested a statue in Red Square dedicated to Mihailovich, savior of Moscow. Political murder was one of the milder terms used in describing the execution.

It is easy to swim with the stream: it is easy to write when one knows that the better part of the world is in a mood to applaud what one is saying. It is much more difficult to swim against the stream. The American public today requires little agitation on the subject of Tito, but the author derives some satisfaction from the knowledge that when this book was first written (September 1944 to March 1945) it was written full against the stream. We were very few, the group of journalists who swam against the stream in 1944: you could have counted us all, in both England and America, on the fingers of one hand. So strong were the pressures exerted in support of the official policy that it was virtually impossible to get anything into print which was in any way critical of Tito. It is small comfort to know that the stream of public opinion has now turned. For in order to bring this change about it required the crucifixion of Drazha Mihailovich and the martyrdom of his people.

***

This book is the result of a request for a 3,000-word article on The Truth About Yugoslavia. The request was sent to me in England by an American editor in August 1944.

I had done a number of articles of a general character on the subject; I had rewritten a book entitled Yugoslavia in Arms for a Yugoslav friend, and I could therefore boast a sketchy familiarity with the problem. About the conflict between Tito and Mihailovich I was uncertain. Britain and America had already abandoned Mihailovich, and, according to accounts emanating from the most authoritative sources, it was an established fact that Tito had the overwhelming majority of the Yugoslav people behind him. The one thing that made me uneasy was the completely one-sided presentation of the news.

Now, it is a fundamental tenet of democracy that an accused man has the right to defend himself; and it is an accepted principle of democratic journalism that where there are two sides to a story, it is the duty of the press to present both sides as nearly impartially as possible. Ever since the fall of 1943 the Allied press had been abusing Mihailovich as a collaborator and traitor. Obviously Mihailovich must have something to say on the matter himself. Obviously there was another side to the story. Why was this other side not being presented? Why was Mihailovich not being accorded the elementary democratic privilege of defending himself?

I began to investigate. My earliest investigations convinced me that there were powerful forces at work preventing the presentation of the other side of the story. Allied officers who had served with Tito were permitted to deliver eulogistic reports in public. Allied officers who had been attached to Mihailovich were subjected to a virtual quarantine. In all matters touching upon Yugoslavia—indeed, in all matters touching upon the Soviet sphere—the British and American press and the official British and American information services had accepted what was in effect a totalitarian Gleich-Schaltung.

The photostat on page 40 is only one example of how completely one-sided the news about Yugoslavia was. The Axis press offered a joint reward of 100,000 gold marks for the head of Tito and 100,000 gold marks for the head of Mikhailovich. But when the Allied press, the B.B.C., and the O.W.I, got around to reporting the advertisement—it became simply 100,000 gold marks for the head of Tito. Arithmetically speaking, this was a half-truth. From the point of view of political consequence, it was a complete untruth.

Under the circumstances, the truth was extremely difficult to come by. Official records were sealed even from the most enterprising journalist. One had to probe endlessly for little scraps of information. The writing of modern history was reduced almost to the level of archaeological excavation.

The first rough draft of my manuscript was prepared while I was still serving with the Canadian Air Force in England. By dint of utilizing every weekend and every evening, and with the providential assistance of several weeks’ leave, I was able to put together some 100,000 words over a space of six months. My research, however, was still incomplete. I scoured Fleet Street, and I probed in official and semi-official quarters. But the other side of the story was almost impossible to get at. Fleet Street knew nothing. Official sources, if they knew anything, remained as inscrutable as so many sphinxes.

Primarily because of the lack of authoritative information I avoided categorical opinions in my first draft. The manuscript at that stage was in the form of a presentation for the prosecution (Tito) and for the defense (Mihailovich). Where it was impossible to take a stand on the basis of available information, I candidly avoided taking a stand. If my second manuscript is much more assertive, it is only because of the mass of information which subsequent research has brought to light.

***

Since, in dealing with so contentious a subject, the approach of the author must be of some interest, it might be in order at this point to put on record my personal credo.

I write this as a socialist in defense of a man and a movement with whose politics I have many serious disagreements. As a socialist, I reject the argument of some of my well-meaning socialist friends who hold that it is sometimes necessary not to speak the truth for fear that, if the truth is spoken, the reactionaries will be able to use this truth for their own reactionary purposes. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that ultimately the truth can confer only advantage upon the forces of progress. To accuse men who have given their lives in the struggle against Nazism of being Nazi agents is no small thing: indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of a grosser injustice. To remain silent about such an injustice for fear that, if the facts are revealed, the Hearst Press or the Rothermere Press may use these facts against the Soviet Union, involves not only a momentary betrayal of justice, but the ultimate betrayal of everything progressive.

The devil, after all, can quote scripture. But it has yet to be argued that Holy Scripture should be suppressed on this account.

The British imperialists find the undemocratic procedure of the Soviets vis-à-vis the small European nations repugnant, but they can see nothing wrong with British intervention in Java or the continued subjection of India. Liberals and socialists of the Soviet school roar their protest over British policy in Java, Greece, and India, but consider it the essence of progress for the Soviet Union to violate every tenet of democracy in the Russian zone by sponsoring regimes that are as completely without popular support as they are pliant to the Soviet will. Liberals and socialists who have retained their independence incur the wrath of both sides because they are categorically opposed to power politics at the expense of small nations, no matter who the Great Power involved. Theirs is an invidious position. The Soviet socialists can quote them against British imperialism; the imperialist press can quote them against the Soviets. And yet theirs is the only wholly consistent position.

***

In preparing my manuscript I have had access to certain special sources. More than anything else, however, it is a compendium of eyewitness accounts of men—Britons, Americans, and Yugoslavs—who were in Yugoslavia at different times and in different places, both on the side of the Partisans and on the side of the Chetniks. Wherever possible, I have sought multiple corroboration. The story of the British brigade at Dubrovnik is based on the account of several officers who were involved in the incidents related. The story of the blowing of the bridge at Vishegrad came to me first from Chetnik sources and I was not inclined to believe it. Subsequently it was corroborated by both British and American sources. Even the story of Brigadier Armstrong and the cake of soap was submitted to a plural verification by eyewitnesses before it was accepted.

There are certain types of evidence which I have tried to avoid. In my possession as I write I have several transcripts of documents purported to have been captured from the Partisans by the Chetniks. I incline to trust the men who provided me with these documents and, since I do not believe that communists are people of impeccable anti-fascist virtues, I am inclined to accept these documents as valid. But captured documents are so notoriously unreliable that, in the absence of substantial corroboration from other sources, I have deemed it safer to ignore them.

I make no personal accusations unless I am prepared to back them up in black and white with public records or admission in the first person. The history of Marko Mesich is based directly on the accounts of his military prowess in the Axis press. The record of Tito’s War Minister, General Ristich, is amply described in his own broadcast to Yugoslavia via B.B.C. Their biographies are, in short, matters of public record. It is because I have attempted to rely on this type of information primarily that I have resorted so frequently to direct quotations.

To seek proof in black and white on every single point would be a task beyond the scope of the most fastidious author. Here and there I have accepted the word of single individuals, but only when they were eyewitnesses of the events they described, and when previous experience has taught me that they were trustworthy. I do not pretend to be politically impartial. But I believe that it is possible to have a definite point of view and still retain a reasonable objectivity about one’s facts. In presenting what must be considered a defense of Mihailovich and the Chetnik movement, I have endeavored to discuss their faults and their weaknesses with complete frankness. Indeed, Chetnik propagandists will probably consider my chapter on accommodations with the Italians to be somewhat overfrank.

A certain quota of minor inaccuracies is unavoidable in a book of this sort. If it can be demonstrated to me that I am in error on any point, then I shall be pleased to acknowledge my error, no matter who the demonstrator may be.

The truth is somewhat more important than a reputation for infallibility.

***

There are so many, many people to whom I am indebted for the material contained in this book, and so many whom I am unable to name, that I should like to thank them all equally without naming them. My technical assistants, however, I can name without fear of discrimination. My thanks are due to Miss Betty Eastgate for many hours of typing after work, often running into the wee hours, and to Miss Yvanka Tupanjanin for her patience and goodness in compiling a badly disorganized manuscript. I must make a particular acknowledgment to Miss Ruth Levin, who nursed the final version through typescript, galley proofs, and page proofs, never losing her temper.

Finally, my acknowledgments are due to World Review (London) and This Month (New York) for permission to reprint sections of articles which originally appeared under the pseudonym of R. V. Elson—a nom de plume de guerre necessitated by my service in the Air Force. I wish to thank the publishers for permission to quote from the following: The Sun, from an article by Gault MacGowan in the issue of June 12, 1946; Cosmopolitan Magazine, May 1944: Ray Brock, Russian Aims in the Balkans; Random House: Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China; Charles Scribner’s Sons: Leigh White, The Long Balkan Night.

DAVID MARTIN

P.S. The trial of Mihailovich and his purported confessions have not made it necessary to change a single paragraph in the original text.

D. M.

New York, New York

Ally Betrayed

IF EVER A NATION BOUGHT ITS UNION AND ITS liberty with blood and tears, the Serbs have paid that price. For five hundred years they have never been content to submit to slavery but have struggled unremittingly towards the light...They have kept faith with us to the utmost and have accepted the loss of all as better than surrender. Let us rather ask ourselves how it was that they came to be abandoned to their fate, and resolve that never now for lack of Great Britain’s sympathy and help shall they fail in the achievement of their national liberty.

(R. G. D. Laffan, in The Guardians of the Gates: The Serbs, Oxford University Press, 1918.)

CHAPTER 1 — Yugoslavia: Key to Europe

YUGOSLAVIA IS SIMULTANEOUSLY the key to Europe and the key to an understanding of modern European politics.

In the first place, Yugoslavia is the only European country in which Moscow has been able to set up a stable regime in its own image. Since the export of political regimes is still in process, it would be well to decide at this point on a definition of the new Yugoslav State. How closely is the satellite modelled after the prototype? Is it democracy—or is it totalitarianism? Is it socialist—or must one find a new descriptive to cover a regime which is neither capitalist nor socialist?

While there may be some argument as to the nature of the regime, there will be no argument as to its diplomatic and strategic significance. In October 1943, when the present struggle for spheres of influence was still in gestation, Louis Adamic presented the following forecast: We’ve welded ourselves irretrievably to an obsolescent British Empire...that will fall apart as soon as the war ends...It is clear, however, that the struggle for Europe that began as a battle between Stalin and Hitler has shifted. It has become virtually a struggle for the world, and Churchill has assumed the declining Hitler’s role...But Stalin is already winning...{1}

Strategically the significance of Tito’s triumph is that Russia has won her centuries-long struggle to reach the warm-water seas, while Britain finds herself for the first time without any possibility of constructing a European balance of power. The political conquest of Yugoslavia has brought Russia to the shores of the Adriatic and has established her as a Mediterranean power. Regarded statically, such an advance would still be of the utmost significance. The emergent Russian imperialism, however, gives no evidence of having become static, of having exhausted its dynamic. Considered in terms of strategic possibility, the control of Yugoslavia places Russia in a position to dominate the entire Mediterranean, and with it, the entire Eastern Hemisphere.

The internationalization of Trieste, unsatisfactory to Italy, is even more unsatisfactory to Yugoslavia. Ostensibly a permanent solution, the Paris Plan gives little promise of longevity. Tito has committed himself so heavily to the acquisition of Trieste that he can accept nothing less. An early dénouement is on the books.

The agitation for a united Macedonia, affiliated to a federal Yugoslavia, and the parallel accusations against the Greek Government must inevitably culminate in some kind of action. If, by means of pressure from without and within, Tito should succeed in taking over Greek Macedonia together with the port of Salonika, what remains of Greece would have no alternative but to enter a Balkan Federation under Tito. Once Turkey has been thus outflanked, it would be extremely difficult for her to resist Russian pressure for concessions, and even more difficult for Britain and America to support her with effective assurances. The demand for Tripolitania, temporarily in abeyance, is also organically related to the political conquest of Yugoslavia. The acquisition of Trieste and Salonika would almost certainly revive the demands in sharper form.

Confronted with this situation, Britain is striving desperately to preserve an increasingly tenuous influence in the Mediterranean countries. The United States, partly emancipated from its traditional isolationism, is, despite many differences, approaching a position of solidarity with the British. In doing so it is guided not so much by altruistic or ideological considerations as by considerations of national security. A Russia dominating the entire Eurasian land-block is something which, for the most elementary reasons of security, no American Government, no matter what its politics, could tolerate. Since the balance of power in Europe has lapsed irreparably, and since the UN is, as at present constituted, very far from being an effective international authority, the one remaining safeguard is the organization of a balance of power on a world scale.

Many unpleasant things have been said about the balance of power. It is the system of the balance of power, according to most Marxists and liberals, that has been responsible for all wars. Given the existence of independent nation-states, however, it is inevitable that each should strive to create a balance of power in its own defense. It is not the balance of power, per se, which causes war; it is, rather, the breakdown of the balance of power.

***

In view of the now-obvious political consequences, it becomes all the more remarkable that Tito was established in power not as a result of Russian intervention, but as a result of American and British intervention. It will be part of the purpose of this book to explain how it came about that Britain and America threw their support behind a minority movement, transparently dominated by the Communist Party and implicitly hostile to Western democracy, and helped it to install its dictatorship over the Yugoslav peoples.

In an opening chapter, especially when one is addressing a public which should, by the nature of things, be unconvinced, one must speak with restraint. There are certain statements, however, that permit of little qualification. How, for example, can one moderate the declaration that Tito came to power as a result of the most monstrous propaganda fraud in history?

Day in and day out, for over two years, we were informed that Tito was the incarnation of democracy. I am convinced, said Randolph Churchill, that the principles of tolerance and liberalism which are so characteristic of the National Liberation Movement will ensure Yugoslavia a happier future. Today some of the staunchest supporters of Tito during his rise to power are constrained to admit that freedom of expression and political democracy have ceased to exist in Yugoslavia and that the present regime is entirely dominated by Tito’s political police, the dread OZNA.

We were informed that Tito’s movement was a national movement, embracing all tendencies. Today it is a self-evident fact that the Communist Party has monopolized power for itself.

We were assured that Tito was an ally of Britain and the United States. Today there can be no doubt about the Marshal’s orientation. We want to create an army, said Tito, ...capable of mounting guard on our frontiers, an army which will be a worthy ally of the great and glorious Red Army.{2} Not a word about his allies, Britain and the United States.

We were assured that Tito had the enthusiastic support of the overwhelming majority of the Yugoslav people. But almost every American correspondent who has visited Yugoslavia has reported that, despite the terror of the OZNA—or perhaps because of it—the vast majority of the people in Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia are violently anti-Tito.

In short, on every point we were deceived.

***

To understand the intricacies of Soviet foreign policy, it is first of all necessary to understand how Soviet foreign policy is correlated with the activities of the communist parties abroad. To understand this correlation, it is first necessary to know something of the technique of totalitarian penetration. Yugoslavia affords the classic example of the application of this technique.

One of the terrible lessons to be learned from the case of Yugoslavia is that even in the heart of democratic England and America, the Soviets are able to exercise certain totalitarian controls in their own interest. Employing the instrument of fear on the one hand and the influence of party members and of fellow-travellers in key positions on the other hand, they were able to compel the suppression of news, to obtain currency for expedient lies, and even to contrive the falsification of British and American military intelligence.

The simple fact is that Britain and America were duped into supporting Tito. They were duped because British and American information on Yugoslavia was subjected to such wholesale falsification that it became virtually impossible for the press or the experts in charge of foreign policy to know the truth.

Of all the modern Machiavellians, Tito is perhaps the most remarkable. In making his bid for power he entered into numerous alliances with non-communist and even anti-communist elements only to discard his allies, one by one, as soon as he no longer had any use for them. Churchill and Randolph Churchill, Brigadier Maclean and King Peter, Subasich and Milan Grol—he had no scruples about enlisting the support of all of these when he needed it. He signed agreements when agreements were demanded. He pronounced himself a democrat when this was demanded. He impressed the world by creating a façade of generals with himself as Marshal. He added to his forces by recruiting into his ranks the most notorious quislings and dressing them up as democrats.

There were a few people on the left and a few people on the right who were not taken in by the myth of Tito. But on the whole, Left and Right were equally deceived. The most ironical feature of the entire situation is, however, that Tito was created not by the political Left but by the political Right, not by the Labor Party and Roosevelt, but by Churchill, Leopold Amery, Brigadier Fitzroy MacClean, Seton-Watson, the most conservative of the Yugoslav politicians, and lastly by the most conservative influences in the British Foreign Office.

In defense of Tito’s chief creators, it must be said that they acted honestly and in what they considered to be the best interest of Europe. They, too, were deceived.

CHAPTER 2 — Yugoslavia Between the Wars

THERE ARE IN YUGOSLAVIA, OR there were before the war, 8,250,000 Serbs, 3,750,000 Croats, 1,250,000 Slovenes, and 900,000 of sundry minority peoples. Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes come of the same south-Slav stock, and in the case of Serbs and Croats, they speak the same language. But common blood and a common language do not automatically result in a common understanding or a common political attitude.

The Yugoslav State was a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles. There were solid reasons—economic, geographic, and political—in favor of the creation of a United South Slav State. So long as the Croats and Slovenes had been under Hapsburg rule there had, moreover, been a real and very strong desire for union with the Serbs. The one difficulty was the unavoidable clash of ideologies and national temperaments once unity was attained.

The ultimate differences between Serbs and Croats are probably rooted deep in physical environment. The Serbs are a people of the mountains. The Croats are, for the most part, peoples of the plains.

The Serbs are Eastern Orthodox. The Croats and Slovenes have been subject to the somewhat more authoritarian influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Serbs have a history of centuries of unremitting revolt against their Turkish oppressors, culminating in the heroic uprising of Karadjordje in 1804 and the final victorious insurrection under Milosh Obrenovich in 1815. The twentieth century made many demands on them. Their spirit steeled in two Balkan wars, they refused to flinch before the ultimatum of the Central Powers in 1914. Their suffering in the Great War was terrible beyond description—it is questionable whether any other allied nation suffered as much. The Serbs purchased their independence dearly, and they were compelled to defend it dearly. And out of their turbulent history has emerged a proud and soldierly people, uncompromising to the point of fanaticism.

In the epic poem that tells the story of the battle of Kossovo, Tsar Lazar, confronted with the choice between an earthly kingdom on the one hand and destruction on the battlefield and a heavenly kingdom on the other hand, chooses the heavenly alternative. Kossovo is more than a part of Serbian literature. It is a mystique—an expression of national spirit.

The history of the Croats, in contradistinction to that of the Serbs, is that of an oppressed people who tried to regain their freedom but failed. Forced into a union with Hungary in the year 1102, they did not recover their independence until they were liberated from the Hapsburg yoke by the Treaty of Versailles. They revolted several times, and, apart from their aristocracy, they never fully accepted the overlordship of the Hapsburgs. But after the bloody suppression of the great rebellion under Matija Gubec in the sixteenth century they were never again strong enough to challenge the power of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Justly proud of the part they had played in the Great War, the Serbs were inclined to take full credit for the liberation of Croatia and to consider the Yugoslav State their own private creation. Their attitude toward the Croats was the inevitably superior attitude of a people who had succeeded in emancipating themselves toward a people who had failed. Nor did it occur to the average Serb that this historical contrast may have been due to the fact that it was much easier for a mountain people to cope with the decaying power of the Ottoman Empire than it was for a people of the plains to cope with the relatively virile power of Austro-Hungary.

The Croats, for their part, reciprocated the contempt of the Serbs on other grounds. Having lived for centuries as a part of Europe while the Serbs were