Out of Context - The Yugoslav Government in London 1941-1945

Author(s): Stevan K. Pavlowitch

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 16, No. 1, The Second World War: Part 1
(Jan., 1981), pp. 89-118
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/260618 .
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Stevan K. Pavlowitch
Out of Context
-
The
Yugoslov
Government in London
1941-1945
When
King
Peter II and the nucleus of the
Yugoslav government
arrived in London at the end of June 1941 to
join
the
gathering
of
emigre
Allied
leaders, they
were received as heroes.
Deprived
as
they
were of the usual material assets of
government, they
found
moral assets
waiting
for them in
England,
in other words the credit
due to them for
having
sacrificed all to
defy
Hitler.
'Regardless
of
what
political
"realists" and those
benefiting
from
hindsight might
say,
the event of March
27,
1941 won universal admiration.'1
The events in the Balkans
during February-April
1941,
added to
the Italian defeats in
Africa,
had
given
the British the brief illusion
of
being
able to tackle the
conquering might
of the
Axis,
an illusion
which had also been felt in the
enemy camp.
The bold about-turn in
Belgrade
had contributed much to the illusion.
(The
several
risings
in
occupied Yugoslavia
over the
following
summer were to be seen
as a natural
sequel.)
Such was the cause of British
gratitude
and
goodwill,
which was
fixed,
in
particular,
on the romanticized
per-
sons of the
young King, symbol
of his
country's struggle
to
keep
its
freedom in alliance with Great
Britain,
and of General Dusan
Simovic,
his
prime
minister and
apparent
leader of the March
coup.
The exiled Council of Ministers under them was
anyhow
im-
pressive
as a
broadly
based coalition of all
parties
that strove for a
solution of
Yugoslavia's problems
within the restraints of a
representative system.
The new administration assembled under
Journail
of CoInteporarv
Hiistorv
(SAGE,
London and
Beverly Hills),
Vol. 16
(1981),
89-118
Journal
of Contemporary History
General Simovic on 27 March 1941 had been
brought
into existence
by
a
deep yearning
for a
fully representative government
in an hour
of
necessity.
Its moral
assets, however,
rested on weak foundations.
Compos-
ed of the leaders of all the
parties
that
had,
at one time or
another,
been in
opposition
since
1929,
when
King
Alexander had
suspended
the
original
Constitution of
1921,
the
government
had come into
being through
a
coup d'etat, yet
it had been
legalized
under the ex-
isting
Constitution of
1931, granted by King
Alexander and which
made ministers
responsible
to the
sovereign
alone. The
party
leaders did subscribe to a
theory
formulated
by
Slobodan
Jovanovic, according
to which the
coup had,
in intention at
least,
restored the National
Representation
as a constitutional factor
equal
to the
Crown;
and until such time as a
parliament
could be
elected,
its
rights
were deemed to be vested in the
political parties
represented
in the
government.
That
theory notwithstanding,
con-
stitutional
legality was,
for the time
being,
vested in the
King
alone.
Yet the
party
leaders were
fully
entitled to formulate con-
stitutional
theories,
for it could be
argued
that the Constitution of
1931 had been all but
destroyed
between
August
1939 and
April
1941. In view of the
approaching
war
crisis,
a
bargain
had been
struck between the
regency
and the Croatian Peasant
Party (HSS).
As a result of the Cvetkovic-Macek
Agreement (Sporazum)
of 23
August 1939,
an autonomous Province
(Banovina)
of Croatia had
been
instituted,
the Senate and the National
Assembly
had been
dissolved,
and the restructured
government
had been
empowered
to
prepare
a new electoral law.
Although they had,
in
fact,
initiated a
revision of the
Constitution,
the first and third of these measures
had been enacted on the basis of the Crown's reserved
emergency
powers
which authorized the
King,
in
exceptional circumstances,
to
issue
legislative
ordinances
ultimately
to be submitted to the Na-
tional
Representation.
There had been no formal constitutional
amendment. The new
parliament
would
presumably
have had a
constituent
role,
but it was never to be.
On 27 March 1941
King
Peter had
accepted
to assume the
royal
prerogative
six months before his
statutory majority
of 18.
Ma6ek,
the HSS
chairman,
had then made a further extension of the com-
petence
of the Croatian Banovina's administration a condition to
his
joining
Simovic's
government,
because he
suspected
that the
coup had,
in
part,
resulted from resentment
against
the
Sporazum.
Accepted by
the
prime
minister
personally,
this was not
given
of-
90
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
ficial formulation for lack of time before the
debacle,
but it was
confirmed, along
with the
Sporazum itself, by
a solemn declaration
of the
government
issued when it had arrived in
Jerusalem,
on 4
May.
General Simovic's
government
had been formed not
only
in a
constitutional
near-vacuum,
but also in the middle of a
foreign
policy
crisis. It had been made
up
as a
representation
of
parties,
to
compensate
for the absence of an elected
parliament.
These were a
collection of
very
different
political groups
-
the HSS and its In-
dependent
Democrat
(NDS) allies,
the Slovenian
Populists (SLjS)
and the
Yugoslav
Moslem
Organization (JMO),
the Radicals
(NRS)
and the Democrats
(DS),
the Serbian
Agrarian Party (SZS)
and the
Yugoslav
National
Party (JNS).
The whole
political spectrum
was
there, except
for the subversive
extremes and the
unrepented
time-servers of the makeshift
govern-
ment
Yugoslav
Radical Alliance
(JRZ)
of the late thirties. These
were men of
differing character, standing
and
background; politi-
cians who had been
against
the extent and the manner of the 1939
Sporazum
with Macek and then
against
the 1941
pact
with
Hitler,
politicians
who had been both for the
Sporazum
and for the
pact,
politicians
who had been for the
Sporazum
but
against
the
pact;
na-
tional
leaders, regional leaders,
ethnic
leaders, parliamentary party
leaders without a
parliament, along
with a
couple
of
distinguished
non-party personalities,
and with the
generals
who had
emerged
at
the head of the
coup.
In order to contain them
all,
the
government
had had to leave aside all controversial internal issues. Neither a
war cabinet nor a
working team,
it claimed to be a
revolutionary
government,
which it was
only
to the extent that it wanted in
princi-
ple
to return to
parliamentary solutions,
but even that it was never
able to do. It had had no choice but to be
legalized
under what re-
mained of the
existing
Constitution.
Finally,
in their few
days
of ef-
fective
power,
the ministers had had no time even to
begin working
out a
platform
which could unite them in more than
just
the
pious
desire to demonstrate national
unity
in the face of
danger,
let alone
to tackle
any
of the
country's
accumulated
problems.
Of the 22 ministers sworn in on 27 March in
Belgrade,
two had
been killed and five had decided not to leave
Yugoslavia.
Two new
ones had been
appointed,
to
readjust
the ethnic
balance, just
before
flying
out to Greece. These
changes
had reduced the cabinet to 17
and altered its character. When it reassembled in
exile,
the
acknowledged spokesmen
for the
Croats,
the Slovenes and the
91
Journal
of Contemporary History
Moslems were no
longer
with it. The JMO leader Kulenovic had
gone
over to Pavelic and
joined
the
government
of the
newly-
proclaimed, ustaSa-ruled, Independent
State of Croatia
(NDH);
there had been no one to take his
place.
The
SLjS
leader Kulovec
had lost his life
during
the
bombing
of
Belgrade,
and had been
replaced.
Most serious of
all,
Macek had decided not to
go
abroad
with the
government,
but to
stay
and share the ills of war with his
own
people
in Croatia. He had
delegated
to the
government
the
HSS
secretary general Krnjevic,
who had
only
in 1939 returned
from 10
years
of
self-imposed
exile.
No sooner had the
King
and his ministers been reunited in Athens
on 16
April
1941 than
they
issued statements to the effect that
they
would continue to
fight
until
victory,
statements that were
repeated
in fuller and more solemn form in Jerusalem on 4
May.
How would
the
emigre government
continue the war?
By
4
May
it had
probably
not
yet
realized that
only
a few hundred officers and men had been
able to leave
Yugoslav territory
and
join
the
British,
or to what ex-
tent the renown of the
Yugoslav army
had been shattered
during
the short and
hopeless April campaign.
Already
before the
coup
had been carried
out,
there had been
disagreement
between the
conspirators
as to what form the new
government
should take. General Mirkovic had favoured a
military
government
under a
general
who would head an authoritarian
regime. Simovic,
more
moderate,
had wanted to
preside
over a
'government
of national
salvation',
made
up
of
'distinguished per-
sonalities', representative
of the various ethnic
groups, churches,
regions
and
parties. Radoje Knezevic,
the civilian link with the
op-
position,
had
fought
these
proposals
and
argued forcefully
that the
new
government
had to seek its
legitimacy
from the nation
by being
made
up
of
representatives
from all the
political groups.
On the
whole,
the
generals
of 27 March had had to
give in,
but the
rivalry
between them and the
party
leaders remained as a
potential
source
of conflict.
Simovic
appears
to have been a
patriotic general
but a
politically
incompetent prime
minister. He wanted to
play
a
great
role and did
not,
in
spite
of
appearances, really
trust
politicians.
On the
grounds
that
they
had lost in the turmoil of the
collapse
whatever
following
they
had ever
had,
he
opposed
the 'Jovanovic
theory'
and
put
for-
ward his own
-
that the cabinet formed
by
him on 27 March was a
92
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
revolutionary government
which had received the unanimous con-
fidence of the
nation,
and
that,
for the duration of the
war,
the
only possible expression
of
legitimacy
was a
government
led
by
him,
surrounded
by distinguished personalities
of his choice.
No sooner in London than the lionized hero of 27 March tried to
reorganize
the
government
as a smaller team in which he would
himself take over the main
portfolios,
flanked
by
two
represen-
tatives each from Croats and Slovenes. In no time at
all,
this had
degenerated
into a convulsive effort to retain
'power' by exploiting
the differences between the
politicians,
who reacted
by
soon
agree-
ing unanimously
on one
point:
that
Simovic,
in
spite
of his
patriotism,
was ill-suited to
preside
over them. His value in their
eyes
was
precisely
that of
being
the hero of 27
March,
but it had
been marred
by
his
part
in the
responsibility
for the
military
defeat.
It was now
yet
further marred
by
his
clumsy scheming against
them.
It was true that Simovic could not
easily
be discarded. The world
saw him covered with the
glory
of the
coup,
and the British feared
that his
replacement
would both
destroy
the cohesion of the
government
in London and threaten the existence of the resistance
in
Yugoslavia.
This was the reason
why,
under Jovanovic's in-
fluence,
the ministers
postponed
his downfall,
in the
hope
that he
could be made to mend his
ways.
But to no avail. Towards the end
of
1941, they
decided to remove him
by addressing
a collective let-
ter of
resignation
to
King
Peter motivated
by
the
prime
minister's
mishandling
of
government. Refusing
to
give in,
Simovic had to be
dismissed
by
the
sovereign
on 11
January
1942.
Paradoxically,
Simovic had created a measure of
agreement
among
the ministers. The belief had
prevailed
that it was time to
tackle some of the awkward
political problems they
had
brought
with them from
Yugoslavia
and that
they
stood a better chance of
doing
it
among themselves,
without the
generals
who had done
their bit
by handing power
over to the
party
leaders.
They
were
ready
to take over
immediately
as a new administration under Pro-
fessor
Jovanovic,
an influential intellectual and their senior.
Jovanovic's
original appointment
as
vice-premier, along
with
Ma6ek,
had been due to the
respect
that he
inspired generally.
He
was meant to be a Serbian
counterpart,
above the several
parties,
to
the overall leader of the Croatian
majority.
A combination of con-
stitutional
lawyer
and
historian,
he looked at
politics through
scholarly spectacles
tinted with
positivist,
non-romantic liberalism.
93
Journal
of Contemporary History
With
age,
he had become
antipathetic
to fascists and communists
even more than he had been to radicals in earlier
days,
but he had
no direct affiliation to
any political party. Along
with the exclusion
of General Simovic and of General
Ilic,
who had been
army
minister,
the
only
other
change
in the cabinet team was the inclu-
sion as
army
minister of General Mihailovic. Since he was in
Yugoslavia,
the
government
was
again safely
in the hands of
civilians.
Another
potential
source of conflict
resulting
from the events of
late
March-early April
1941 was the latent division
among
the of-
ficers between the
generals (backed,
to a certain
extent, by
the air-
force officers
- for both Simovic and Mirkovic were
airmen)
and
the
younger, mainly army,
officers who had
actually
carried out the
coup.
When the
government
had moved to London in the summer
of
1941,
the
army
minister General Ilic had been left in Cairo with
the additional
appointment
of chief of staff to a resurrected
Supreme Command,
to
supervise
what existed of the
Yugoslav
'forces' concentrated there. The
emigre
command had started off
with dreams of
creating
an
army
in exile
by enlisting
volunteers
from the
Yugoslav immigrants
in America.
Having quickly
woken
up
to
reality,
it had to
satisfy
itself with
rt
uiting
volunteers from
Slovenian-Italian POWs in the Near East.
Although
an
infantry
battalion had thus been formed
by
the
beginning
of
1942,
it could
obviously
not be used in
operations agr:nst
Italian
troops,
and in
terms of
military
forces available outside its
occupied
national ter-
ritory, Yugoslavia
was to be the least
important
of the Allies.
When Generals Simovic and Ilic were
dropped
from the
govern-
ment,
the latter was also
replaced
as chief of
staff,
and so was
General
Mirkovic,
the officer
commanding
the
Yugoslav troops
in
the Near East. All the stresses latent in the small officer
corps there,
out of touch with the
war, suddenly emerged.
The
junior army
ex-
ecutants of the March
coup,
resentful of the
ineptitude
of their
seniors
during
the
April campaign
and
feeling
the shame of
defeat,
sided with the
politicians against
Simovic. The
generals
in Cairo
panicked
and refused to
relinquish
their
posts, generally supported
by
the air-force
officers,
more numerous and more
likely
to become
involved in
combat,
who sided with Simovic
against
the
politicians.
The
government
was
powerless
to enforce its will
except through
the British. The chief mutineer was General Mirkovic who
enjoyed
British
sympathies going
back to before 27 March
1941, quite apart
from the fact that the crisis of the
Yugoslav military set-up
in
Egypt
94
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
was
taking place during
the summer of El Alamein. With the
British
military
on the
spot
reluctant to intervene
against,
if not ac-
tually
in
sympathy with,
the
mutineers,
the affair was not settled
until November 1942.
By
that
time,
the
simplified
command struc-
ture that had been introduced was more in
keeping
with the modest
size of the forces
involved,
but the
consequences
of the crisis were
far-reaching.
The
military
were even more
demoralized,
their
chances of
contributing
to the Allied war effort were even more
remote,
and the
prestige
of the
emigre
administration had fallen
sharply.
Until October 1941 the
government
had not been able to obtain
any precise
information about events in the
country,
let alone exert
any
influence over them. When Colonel Mihailovic was first heard
of
during
the
summer,
his movement was
reported
as
consisting
of
officers resentful of the ministers and
generals
who had
brought
about the defeat and fled. The
Yugoslav military
in exile were
quick
to
perceive
the
importance
and the
danger
of Mihailovic. The
generals
needed to tie him to the
government,
in order to defuse the
potential
subversiveness of his
movement,
but also in order to
make
up
for the
capitulation
and for the lack of
military
contribu-
tion to the Allied cause. This led to his first
promotion
and to the
first
approaches
to the British
government
for
help.
But the
younger conspirators
of the March
coup
now abroad were
classmates of their
colleagues
in the resistance whose
grievances
against
the
generals they
shared.
They
too were anxious to
support
Mihailovic.
A
professional
soldier with no wish to assume a
political role,
he
expressed
his
allegiance
to the
Yugoslav government.
The news of
the
uprising
in
Yugoslavia
was a
great
morale booster for the Allies
at that
time,
and Mihailovic was soon
being
built
up by Yugoslav
and British
propaganda
into an Allied
superman.
The
politicians
no
longer
needed Simovic. In Mihailovic
they
had another
figure
to
maintain the
Yugoslav image.
His second
appointment,
on 10 June
1942,
as chief of staff of the
Supreme Command,
transferred back
to the
occupied homeland, coupled
with his third
promotion
in six
months,
to full
general,
resurrected the
army
of the
Kingdom
of
Yugoslavia
and reduced to scale the awkward affair of the
military
in the Near East. There was no other instance of the leader of a
resistance movement
being
taken
directly
into an exiled
government
while
remaining
in the
occupied
national
territory.
The
territory
from which Mihailovic
operated appeared
to have become
impor-
95
Journal
of Contemporary History
tant for the outcome of the war in Africa. The
Yugoslav govern-
ment could thus contribute his
organization
to the cause of the
Allies,
while it
gained
a
military
arm at home.
The new
prime
minister was anxious to
strengthen
the link
between Mihailovic and the
government
so as to
improve
the stan-
ding
of both
partners
and of their
country's cause,
as he saw it.
Jovanovic feared
that,
as a result of the
collapse
and its
aftermath,
the Serbs had lost faith in their
government,
in their armed
forces,
in the
possibility
of ever
restoring
a
Yugoslav state,
in the Western
Allies,
in
democracy perhaps,
in themselves even. Mihailovic's
views and aims seemed to
correspond
to Jovanovic's: a
pro-
Western,
anti-fascist and anti-communist
line,
and the defence of
Serbian interests in a restored state
community
with the other
Yugoslavs.
Mihailovic could
help
to restore some of the confidence
that had been lost. He was also needed to
preserve
the
legal
and the
social
(though
not
necessarily
the
political) continuity
of
pre-war
Yugoslavia.
The
government
abroad could
perform
some useful
functions for his
movement,
and this would
provide
a
way
of exer-
cising
control over it.
In the last
analysis,
both
partners
were to be
disappointed
in their
expectations.
The
government
could not be sure it had
successfully
bound Mihailovic's movement
(as
opposed
to the
general himself),
with its
important
element of resentment
against
all
politicians,
even less so the various
fellow-travelling
cetnik
groups
that had
more or less hitched their
waggons
to his star.
Anyhow
Mihailovic
himself was soon the
subject
of accusations of collaboration which
compromised
the
government through
its association with
him,
while accusations of cetnik vindictive atrocities made his movement
suspect
to
non-Serbs, especially Croats,
and this
again
was to com-
promise
the
government.
Cooperation
between the
government
and Mihailovic was made
difficult
by
the fact that the British denied the
Yugoslavs
the
right
of uncontrolled radio communication. This did not create
any
military difficulty since,
in
1942,
there
was,
on the
whole,
no dif-
ference between the British and the
Yugoslav governments' concep-
tions of Mihailovic's
military
role. But whereas the
Yugoslav
government
in London for a
long
time saw Mihailovic's movement
mainly
in its
militarty aspect,
in
Yugoslavia
it was
quickly
seen as a
political
movement
also,
and the
government
was not able to ob-
tain
enough
information about that
aspect.
At
any rate,
for most of
1942,
the
government
did
try
to
provide
96
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
Mihailovic with official
guidelines,
but this was at a time when
its
stand
agreed
with the British. On the
question
of resistance to the
occupation forces,
Jovanovic's instructions were clear. Mihailovic
was to avoid
premature
action. He was to
prepare
for
D-Day
when
the Allies would
land,
either in the Balkans or elsewhere in
Europe,
when he would launch a
general rising.
In the meanwhile he was to
link the various armed
underground groups
so as to
keep
under
pressure
a
greater
number of Axis
troops,
but in such a
way
as to
minimize
reprisals
on the
population
or the
disruption
of his own
forces. Otherwise he was to transfer westward as
many
of these as
possible,
to
protect
the Serbian
population
in the NDH from fur-
ther massacres.
Jovanovic was conscious of the
danger
involved in the break
between Mihailovic's men and the communist-led
partisans.
His
policy
was to
try
and
stop
the civil war from
developing
and to
reconcile the two rival movements under Mihailovic's command. If
that were
impossible, fighting
between the two should at least be
prevented
and some sort of coordinated action obtained
against
the
common
enemy.
The
government
could
hope
to influence
Mihailovic to a certain
extent,
but not the
partisans,
and so it tried
to enlist the
help
of the Soviet
government who,
at that
time,
was
interested in
any guerrilla
action so
long
as it
kept
German
troops
busy
outside Soviet
territory.
This
relatively conciliatory
attitude
towards the
partisans
was
kept by
the Jovanovic
government
until
the communist
propaganda campaign began against
Mihailovic in
late
1942,
and the
political
cabinets
were,
until the
very end, willing
to
go along
with
plans
for
placing
him
directly
under the British
Cairo command.
It is not
yet
clear when the
government
realized all that was
going
on under cover of nominal
allegiance
to
Mihailovic, particularly
in
the
Italian-occupied
territories. While it is
possible
to
argue
that it
was in
good
faith
during
the latter half of 1942 when it
protested
against
official Soviet followed
by
official British
accusations,
it
must be admitted
that, by
the turn of 1943-44 the
government
did
have a clearer idea of what was
going
on. Its denials then of accom-
modations
here,
of
passivity
there
(although they
were no better or
no worse than misinformation
issuing
out of the
partisan
move-
ment and its
supporters abroad, Yugoslav
or
British),
were to be a
powerful
factor in the erosion of its
credibility among
Allied
governments
and
public opinion following
on the erosion of its
prestige.
97
Journal
of Contemporary History
The attitude towards the resistance
adopted
at the end of 1941
and
pursued throughout 1942,
still
appeared legitimate
to the
Yugoslav government
in 1943. It saw no reason to
change
its at-
titude at a time when the British had
changed
theirs to one of ac-
tivism. When the
policy whereby
it had tried to
stop
the civil war
with the
partisans
had failed and Mihailovic had become the
target
of
accusations,
the
government proclaimed
its
solidarity
with its
army
minister. To their
critics,
Mihailovic's
supporters
in the
cabinet would
say
that
they
were in no
position
to
impose anything
on
him,
while
they appeared
to have come round to the
opinion
that it would be no bad
thing
if the armed communist movement
were
destroyed
before the end of the war. At the same time there is
no evidence that Mihailovic was ever
openly
told of
any
new line.
This was
partly
because the
government
could not have told him
anything by
radio which went
against
the British
line,
even if it had
wanted
to,
and
partly
because it was no
longer able,
from the end
of 1942
onwards,
to
agree
on
any
official
government policy
whatever.
By
the time that radio contact outside British control had
been established under the Puric
administration,
it was too late to
do either
partner
much
good.
The
question
of communications was
only
one of the
problems
on which
divergences
of views
developed
between the British and
the
emigre Yugoslav government,
and it was not a
specifically
Yugoslav
issue. While the ultimate British consideration was one of
military efficiency,
for the exiled leaders it was
perhaps primarily
one of
political importance.
The
Yugoslav government
was not
able to receive honest
political
evaluations from Miahilovic on the
situation at
home,
or on his relations with the British. Miahilovic
was not able to receive honest
political
evaluations from his
govern-
ment on the international
situation,
or on its relations with the
British.
Any
communication on vital but delicate
matters,
not for
British
ears,
between the
expatriate government
and its
supporters
in the
occupied
homeland was almost out of the
question.
Bearing
the brunt of the
struggle
for the survival of
Europe,
the
British assumed a total
identity
between their own war aims and
those of
their,
more or less
dependent,
lesser allies. For a
long
time
they
did not realize that resistance movements were
only
to a
point
concerned with
liberation,
and that
they
were
also,
and increas-
ingly,
concerned with seizure of
power
in the wake of an Allied vic-
tory. They
insisted on overall control of the resistance movements
98
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
until at least the end of
1942,
but were at the same time more
generous
in
promises
than in actual
supplies.
We now know that
this was
mainly
due to technical
reasons,
and that
Yugoslavia
was
never more than a
side-show,
at times
quite
relevant and at other
times almost
totally irrelevant,
in the context of the overall war
situation.
Yugoslavia
and Great Britain were not tied
by any
formal alliance
which would have
given
the
emigre government
certain claims on
its
hosts,
nor did
they,
in
spite
of
negotiations
to this effect under
the
political administrations,
ever conclude an
agreement
concern-
ing
the status of what
Yugoslav
armed forces there were with the
Allies. The
very impotence
of the exiled
Yugoslavs, living
off and
rapidly exhausting
their moral credit with the
British,
allowed the
latter to
adopt
a far more
proprietary
attitude towards them than
towards other allies. The
Yugoslavs
reacted
by stressing
their
'sovereignty'
to make
up
for their
humiliating dependence,
a
behaviour which
simply
increased British irritation. On the
Yugoslav side,
British actions were never taken at their face value.
We now know that
many
of them can be
explained by expediency,
weakness, incompetence, confusion,
lack of
unity
even. But the
Yugoslavs
could not
accept
that the British were in
any way
like
them,
and
always
had to
explain everything by
some hidden motive
or a vast
political
manoeuvre. As for the
British,
who had been
only
too
happy
to build
up
the exiled
government
of 27 March 1941
into
gallant
heroes and Mihailovic's men into a
powerful
Allied
force, they
were to
lay
their
disappointment
in 1943
exclusively
at
the door of the
Yugoslav government.
The
atmosphere
still had much of the
original
trust and admira-
tion when the
Yugoslav
and Greek
governments signed,
in
London,
on 15
January 1942,
an
agreement laying
the
groundwork
for one
of the
regional projects
the British were
promoting
at the time as a
way
of
ensuring
the small states of central and eastern
Europe
against
future Great-Power domination in the area. It established
the basis for a
post-war
Balkan
community,
but the
friendship
between the two exiled
governments,
based on a tradition of
good
neighbourliness
and on the events of
1941,
was to have little effect
on the situation in their
occupied
homelands. It
did, however,
fit
right
into
Foreign
Minister Ninfic's views. He was anxious that his
99
Journal
of Contemporary
History
country
should become
part
of a wider
bridge
between the
oppos-
ing
interests of the Great
Powers,
and not the instrument of
any
one of them.
That is
why
Nin&ic did not want to be tied
exclusively
to Great
Britain. His
policy
also led him to want
good
relations with the
USSR,
for such
long-term purposes,
but also for short-term
pur-
poses,
in order to obtain Soviet
help
in
coming
to terms with the
Yugoslav
communist
partisans. Yugoslavia
was
already
somehow
linked to the Soviet Union
by
an unratified
treaty
which had been
meant to demonstrate Stalin's
displeasure
with increased German
involvement in the Balkans. It had been
signed
in Moscow at the
last
moment, early
on the
morning
of the
day
of the Axis attack on
Yugoslavia,
and the Soviet
government
had continued to
recognize
the
Yugoslav government
for a month after the German
conquest.
It had then returned to a
policy
of
accepting
faits
accomplis
in
German-occupied territory,
and sent
away
the
Yugoslav
minister.
But when it had in turn been
invaded,
the USSR resumed
diplomatic
relations with all the
emigre governments
of the Euro-
pean continent, including
the
Yugoslav.
The Soviet Union was in a
desperate military
situation.
Anything
which tied down Axis
troops,
that could otherwise have been sent to the Russian
front,
was welcome. It also resented the anti-Soviet
potential implications
of the
British-sponsored
East
European regional pacts.
These were the
probable explanations
for its
approach
to the
Yugoslav government,
on the heels of the Greek
treaty,
about a
revival of the
Yugoslav-Soviet agreement
of
April
1941. The over-
ture was
eagerly
taken
up.
The British
Foreign Office,
which had
originally
raised no
objection
to the
idea,
later
objected,
when the
drafting stage
was
reached,
several weeks
later,
to what was
basically
a
treaty
of mutual assistance with a
government
devoid of
territory
or armed forces.
The Soviet
government preferred
not to tone down the
draft,
which was then
quietly dropped by
the Russians whose
friendly
at-
titude towards the
Yugoslav government
was nevertheless main-
tained. In
August
1942
legations
became embassies on Soviet in-
itiative, following
in the wake of similar British and American
moves. Even
though
this coincided with its first accusations
against
Mihailovic,
the Soviet
government
was careful not to
identify
him
with his
government,
so that
NinSic
continued to believe the Rus-
sians were anxious for direct contacts. The
political
administrations
were
always
of the
opinion
that the Soviet
government could,
if it
100
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
so
wished, get
the
Yugoslav
communists to take orders from
Mihailovic
or,
at
least,
desist from the civil war.
They
were anxious
to maintain
friendly relations,
while the Soviet
government
even-
tually
retreated into an
equivocal
attitude until the summer of 1944.
Once
again,
the
probable explanation
is that
Yugoslavia
did not
have a
high
claim to consideration
by
the Soviet
leadership,
who
never
really expected
a communist revolution to succeed there until
quite
late
-
perhaps
as late as the summer of 1944.
The
Yugoslav government similarly hoped
to
get
American
help
in order to break
away
from its
dependence
on the British. There
appeared
to be a tremendous amount of
goodwill
to be
exploited
across the
Atlantic,
and the
government
invested much
energy
to
exploit
it. Part of the cabinet was established there as a ministerial
mission,
in order to obtain
political
and material
support.
There
was a
public
relations
campaign
to 'sell' Mihailovic to the
American
public
and to mobilize the
Yugoslav-Americans.
All this
was successful at first.
King
Peter's visit to the USA in June 1942
was followed
by
a lend-lease
agreement.
In
addition,
in the latter
half of 1943 the
government
also
began
to look to the US for
pro-
tection
against
British
pressure
to discard Mihailovic and then to
establish a 'coalition' administration with Tito's movement.
These
repeated requests brought
forth
expressions
of
sympathy
and
promises
of
aid,
but
remarkably
little real benefit for the
Yugoslav government.
To start
with,
it was not able to wield
enough
sustained
political
influence. Ambassador Fotic was liked
and
respected,
but he seemed to be
losing
faith in the
very concept
of
Yugoslavia,
and
part
of his
government
wanted him dismissed.
The members of the ministerial mission were soon at odds with him
and between themselves. From November
1941,
when the news of
the massacres in the NDH
split
the
Yugoslav-American community
into
bitterly feuding factions, Yugoslav government
ministers and
officials in the US were themselves divided
by
the same issue. From
the summer of
1942,
a new
split began
to form on the issue of com-
munist
charges against
Mihailovic. All this had its
repercussions
on
the attitude of American
public opinion
to
Yugoslavia.
Then there was a
persistent misunderstanding by
the
Yugoslav
government
of the
practical
limitations of American
goodwill.
The
USA were not interested
enough
in the Balkans to want to
get
in-
volved in a side-show which
they accepted anyhow
as
being
a
British
responsibility.
While the
Yugoslavs undoubtedly
realized
that,
in
trying
to obtain American
interference, they
incurred
101
Journal
of Contemporary History
British
displeasure, they
were never told the truth about their
chances. To the
very end,
US officials
kept making
small
gestures
that did not affect real
issues,
but fed the wishful
thinking
of
emigre Yugoslavs
who continued to believe that their
country
would not be abandoned to communism.
Tension had
dropped
as soon as the
government
had
passed firmly
into the hands of the
party representatives.
Jovanovic was to
preside
over the London-based administration without
any ap-
parent
crisis for the whole of 1942 and
again,
after a first
crisis,
for
another six months in
1943, though
in more difficult cir-
cumstances. The ministers had some reason to be satisfied. The
British had been
pleasantly surprised
to see that Serbo-Croatian
concord had not
only
been
preserved,
but
actually
seemed to have
improved
with the fall of the
generals.
The belief that
Anglo-
American influence would be decisive
during
and after the war was
helped by
the
British-sponsored programmes involving
economic
reconstruction and
political
federation. Serbs tended to think that
Mihailovic
was,
in one
way
or
another,
their defence
against
all the
dangers
that threatened them. Croats were satisfied that
they
could
weather the storms of the war
by sitting
it out in the
government
until the
end,
after which the Serbo-Croatian
problem
would be
sorted out on a new basis with Allied
blessing.
But there
precisely
was the rub. In exile and under the shock of
recent events in the
occupied homeland, party
leaders were faced
again
with the
pre-war
Serbo-Croatian
issue, hideously magnified.
The first clashes had occurred in Athens and in Jerusalem. Ma~ek's
decision to
stay
behind had been
accepted
with some distrust
by
Serbian ministers. Croatian ministers had reacted
nervously
to ac-
cusations that
they
had favoured the
pact,
and that the
treachery
of
Croatian
military personnel
was one of the causes of the debacle.
This sort of recrimination could have subsided had it not been for
the massacres. In
London, however, many contradictory reports
reached the
government
about the
tragic developments
in
Yugoslavia
until, by
the
autumn, they
were clear
enough
and
created an
atmosphere
of
desperation among
Serbian
ministers,
of-
ficials and
refugees
in
general
who
began
to visualize
complete
'genocide'.
Of the Croatian
ministers,
some believed the
reports
to
be
exaggerated,
while all
suspected
their Serbian
colleagues
of wan-
ting
to use the news as a means of
discrediting
the Croats. The
102
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
Serbo-Croatian
problem,
from a mere
political
or constitutional
issue,
turned into a fundamental one about the
very
existence of the
state.
So it had
appeared during
the
stormy
cabinet
meetings
of Oc-
tober and
early
November
1941,
but
having
reached the brink the
two sides had then realized that a break between the London
representatives
of Serbian and Croatian
political groups
could
only
worsen the situation at
home,
and
they
recoiled. On 15 November
1941 Simovic
had,
in a
broadcast, repeated
that the
programme
of
the
government
remained the restoration of
Yugoslavia, stressing
that there
lay
the
only
chance of salvation for all its
components
alike.
Simultaneously,
the three
deputy prime ministers,
the Serb
Jovanovic,
the Croat
Krnjevic
and the Slovene
Krek, got together
to draft a declaration for the future constitutional
pattern
of
Yugoslavia
based on the
principles
of the Atlantic Charter.
Not all the Serbian ministers had been keen on that
part
of the
Jerusalem Declaration of 4
May
1941 which had stated
explicitly
that the 1939
Sporazum
remained 'one of the cornerstones of state
policy'.
Of the Serbian
parties, only
the smaller NDS and SZS had
endorsed it at the time. Just as most Croats had felt
politically
alienated
by
the introduction of the first constitutional
instrument,
that of 1921 which had set
up
a
parliamentary yet
centralist
system
of
government,
so most Serbs had felt
politically
alienated
by
the
last constitutional
change,
that of 1939 which had not federalized
the authoritarian
system
of
1931,
but introduced a Croatian
corpus
separatum
in an otherwise centralist state. The HSS ministers had
enjoyed
a
position
of
strength
in Cvetkovic's
government. They
could claim
justifiably
to
represent
the Croatian nation in a cabinet
otherwise
bearing
the colours of an artificial and
heterogeneous
government
movement whose founder
Stojadinovic
was no
longer
there to lead it. In Simovic's
government, they
faced the leaders of
parties which, although they
could not
compete
in
organization
and
mass
following,
were nevertheless true
political parties. They
realized that the March
coup
had been carried out
partly
in reaction
to the
Sporazum,
even if this was not admitted. And the
partners
with whom
they
had struck the
bargain
-
Prince
Paul,
Cvetkovic
and the JRZ
-
were no
longer
there. So
they
had to
press
for an of-
ficial
public
confirmation from the new
government
at
every
turn.
Yet new factors were
constantly intruding
to alter the
picture.
The Axis Powers had
granted
extreme Croatian nationalists a state
of their own. Before the
Yugoslav government
had even flown out
103
Journal
of Contemporary History
to
Greece,
Ma&ek had
appealed
over the wireless to Croats to
obey
the new
regime.
The
right wing
of the HSS had then
joined
the
ustasa movement.
Krnjevic
was on the
defensive, fearing
that all
this would
give
the Serbs an excuse to
disqualify
his
party.
He and
the finance minister ?utej
were the
only
two HSS ministers who had
gone
abroad with the
government,
and
they
had the
feeling
of
being
greatly
outnumbered. When ustasa
killings
and atrocities became
known, Krnjevic
could not
accept
for a
long
time that there
really
had been massacres on such a scale. He
apparently
believed that it
had all been
grossly
distorted in order to blacken the Croats
yet
fur-
ther in the
eyes
of the Allies. He was anxious that the Croats in
general
and the
leadership
of the HSS in
particular
should in no
way
be made
responsible
for what had
happened.
He found it dif-
ficult to
speak
out
against
the
atrocities,
and he failed to
express
real
sympathy
for the
plight
of the Serbs under
ustaSa rule,
but at
the same time continued to insist on
obtaining
from the
govern-
ment an ironclad constitutional
guarantee
of the
post-war safety
and
privileges
of the Croatian
people.
As a
result,
most
emigre
Serbs became convinced that
Krnjevic
too
secretly aspired
to a
separate Croatia,
a
peaceful
version of
Pavelic's
bloody NDH, especially
as he had
belonged
to the more
intransigent wing
of the HSS. Thus was created a
gulf
of
suspicion
that
proved impossible
to
bridge.
Most Serbian ministers had been
converted to a
post-war
federal
reorganization
of
Yugoslavia,
but
in view of the recent
tragic experiences,
this was no
longer
so much
to
satisfy
the Croats as to
protect
the Serbs.
They
had confirmed
the
Sporazum
once,
in Jersualem.
Now,
with the horrors
perpetrated
over the Serbs under Croation
rule, they
refused to
revalidate it
yet again. They
felt it would lose them the confidence
of Mihailovic's movement and of
outraged
Serbs at home
general-
ly.
Even the
representatives
of the
SZS,
which had drawn its
sup-
port precisely
from the Serbian
peasantry
of those Bosnian districts
attributed to the Croatian
Banovina,
no
longer
wanted to com-
promise
themselves in 1942. The
Sporazum
was
anyhow,
in con-
stitutional
terms, only
a
temporary
measure to be looked at
again
after a
post-war general
election. The most
important problem
for
the
reorganization
was seen rather in terms of
guaranteeing
the
physical security
of the Serbs
by making
sure that no
important
number of them would ever
again
be under Croatian rule. Even
those Serbian
politicians
who were still
willing
to understand their
Croatian
colleagues' point
of view and to meet them
half-way
104
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
deemed it essential that the latter should
clearly
and
loudly
con-
demn the
massacres,
without
any qualifications.
The more the
Serbs insisted on
this,
the more the outnumbered Croats
fought
back with
charges
of 'Serbian chauvinism'.
What did
Krnjevic really
think? One can
only
surmise on the
basis of indirect
evidence,
since he has never said so himself. It
seems
that,
concerned
exclusively
with the
rights
and
privileges
of
Croatia,
he wanted to
keep
his freedom of choice for the
future,
on
the basis of an
acknowledged
Croatian
political
unit. The Second
World War had
destroyed
the factual existence of the
Yugoslav
state that had
emerged
from the First World War. If it were to be
restored,
it would be
negotiated
all over
again,
and since the Serbs
would,
once
again,
be in an
advantageous position
as initial victims
and final victors of the
war,
it was as well that the Croats should
stand on as
well-acknowledged
a
position
as
possible.
If Serbs and
Croats failed to
agree
and
parted company,
then
again
a well-
established
starting position
would be an
advantage
for Croatia.
He considered himself to be the
plenipotentiary representative
of
the Croatian nation in the Allied
camp,
but he could
only
act as
such from his
position
as
vice-president
of the
government
of
Yugoslavia
in London. The events of
March-April
1941 had shat-
tered the
impressive unity
of the HSS. It was difficult to know what
the Croats at home
wanted,
or even the HSS which was in a dif-
ficult
situation,
for
Krnjevic
too had his communications
pro-
blems. These meant
trying
to contact HSS cadres at home without
any
British or Serbian
control,
while
trying
to
get
to know what
Serbian ministers would not trust him with.
Fearing
that
Mihailovic's movement could turn out to be an instrument of Ser-
bian
predominance
if not of Serbian
revenge,
he tried to minimize
its
importance
and then to discredit it. He refused to
engage
in
any
genuine
debate
regarding
the future of
Yugoslavia,
believed that he
would fare best in an
atmosphere
of strained relations within the
cabinet which
prevented
Serbian ministers from
leaguing up against
the
Croats,
and ended
up by fixing
himself in an
intransigent
posture
which
greatly
contributed to the
paralysis
of the
emigre
government.
Serbian
politicians,
on the other
hand,
did not form a monolithic
majority
bloc in the
government.
The JNS and the NDS saw
things
from a
Yugoslav point
of
view,
above Serbo-Croatian
quarrels,
while the
SZS,
which had veered to a more Serbian
stand,
tended to
keep
itself for
post-war
action. The most active of the Serbian
105
Journal
of Contemporary History
ministers in the wartime
government
were the
representatives
of the
two
big parties.
The NRS defended Serbian interests and attacked
the
Croats,
but it did not conceive of a
Yugoslav government
without HSS
representatives,
even
though
it would
gladly
have
done without some of the
'Yugoslav'
intermediaries. The DS too
stood for Serbian
interests,
but it wanted to
try
and build
bridges,
and
thought that,
in view of the
dangerous
situation
brought
about
by
the
war,
it was
imperative
not to make the
conflagration
worse.
All of them
agreed
that it was not the time to
go
back on the
Sporazum
or to
deny it,
but that it was not the time either to make
what
they
saw as new concessions to the HSS. All of them believed
that the common state was still in the interests of the Serbs
(as
in-
deed
they
believed it to be in the interests of the Croats and
Slovenes
too),
but most of them wanted it as a three-unit federa-
tion.
The horrors of the war
did, however,
cause some of the Serbian
members of the
government
to become
increasingly
bellicose in
their nationalistic
approach.
A few
probably began
to hesitate
between a three-unit federation and
rejection
of
any
further
association with the Croats -
although they
never said so and there
is no record of it. This in turn led to a
split
between these Serbian
ministers,
and others who
began
to fear for the survival of
Yugoslavia,
but the
split
was
hardly along party
lines or even en-
tirely along regional
lines. Since
Sutej
was less
uncompromising
than
Krnjevic,
and since there were
other,
lesser and more con-
ciliatory,
Croatian
politicians
outside the
cabinet,
some Serbian
party
leaders did
cooperate
with Croats
against
other Serbian
leaders
throughout
1942. Their
attempts
to
get
some
compromise
afloat were
usually
blown off course
by
attacks on the Croats in the
Allied
press
believed to be
insidiously inspired by
Serbian col-
leagues,
before
being
wrecked
by
what was seen as the
implacable
intolerance of the HSS
vice-premier.
As chairman of the Serbian Cultural
Club,
founded in 1937
by
a
number of
political
and intellectual
opposition-minded per-
sonalities to work as a
pressure group
in favour of Serbian in-
terests,
Jovanovic had been
against
the
Sporazum,
but he did not
think that a Serbian nationalist
approach
would
help
Serbian in-
terests
any
more than had the
previous
unitarist
position,
and he
had wanted to reach a
negotiated compromise
between Serbian and
Croatian interests
acceptable
to both sides. The war had reinforced
his belief. Ustasa massacres and the Serbian reaction to them had
106
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
finally destroyed any
idea of an
integrated Yugoslav
national feel-
ing,
but it was in the interests of
Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes alike to
salvage
at least the
concept
of a
joint state,
for it was
only
in a
Yugoslav community
that the three
groups,
now dismembered
severally
as well as disunited
collectively,
could be reunited in
one
same
country
to advance both their
respective
and their collective
welfare. Little
hope
would be left if
Yugoslavia's
exiled
politicians
were to fall out
among
themselves.
He
agreed
with the British
government
that it was essential for
the
Yugoslav government
to issue a declaration
placing
above
any
doubt that it was the
government
of
Yugoslavia.
To state
clearly
its
commitment to federation and
democracy
would answer criticism
from the Croats that the
Serbs,
in so far as
they
wanted
Yugoslavia,
wanted it
simply
as a cover for Serbian
hegemony,
and from the
communists that the exiled
politicians simply
wanted to
get
back to
the authoritarian status
quo
ante bellum.
Most
politicians agreed,
and
yet
the issue
dragged
on. Jovanovic
was the
right
man to be in the
chair,
but he was not a leader and
proved
unable to create a team
spirit
where none existed. The
Yugoslav politicians
had taken with them into exile all their
unresolved
conflicts,
not to mention their
personal
animosities.
By
the end of
1942,
as no
progress
had been made on the collective
declaration,
the
prime
minister went ahead on a number of
measures to make it clear that the
government
was committed to
renewing
the
Yugoslav
state over its whole
territory,
on a federal
basis,
in the interest both of its different
components
and of that of
Europe
as a whole. Such was the
gist
of the
King's speech
broadcast
on Unification
Day (1 December) 1942,
of Jovanovic's firm direc-
tives to Mihailovic on 5
December,
and of his
strongly
worded in-
structions of 14
January
1943 to Ambassador Fotic in
Washington,
followed
by
a direct rebuke on 11
February. By
that
time, however,
the two extremes had hardened to the
point
where the Serbian end
was confident that the Americans would intervene to let the Serbs
decide on the future of
Yugoslavia,
and the Croatian end
thought
that the British would intervene to arbitrate between Serbs and
Croats. The
attempt
to make the declaration
acceptable
to all
pro-
duced
only generalities,
and even so the debate over its formal
ap-
proval degenerated
into
personal
clashes and
squabbles
over words.
The result was that the cabinet could not tackle
any
of the real
major problems.
It could not
put
an end to the mutual recrimina-
tions between Serbs and
Croats,
or
put
forward a
single propagan-
107
Journal
of Contemporary History
da line to
occupied Yugoslavia,
or
attempt
to coordinate its
policy
with that of the Great Allied Powers. It was unable to
give
Mihailovic the amount of
guidance
he was entitled to
expect
from
his
government,
or the
population anything
to counteract the
psychological impact
of the
partisans.
It failed to
provide
leader-
ship
for the
pro-Yugoslav
moderate forces from the different
regions
of the
occupied homeland, wedged
between fascism and
communism,
that looked to their exiled leaders.
Increasingly,
from
the end of 1941 and
throughout 1942, messages
from
Yugoslavia
reached the
government
in
London, urging
it to
speak
with a
single
voice and to
adopt policies designed
to
put
an end to the war of
mutual
extermination,
because the forces of
separatism,
left to
their own
devices,
were
playing
into the hands of the
enemies,
foreign
and domestic. But the
emigre government
was fast
losing
the
possibility
of
doing anything
constructive to
bring
the civil war
to an
end,
or even to establish a common front
against
the com-
munists,
and all the time it was
losing prestige
in British
eyes.
Such a climate
produced
cabinet crises
only remotely
connected
with
developments
in
Yugoslavia
or in the councils of the Allies. It
eventually destroyed
the Jovanovic
government
-
ironically
at a
time when Tito's
movement,
also
going through
a
crisis,
was will-
ing
to
stop fighting
the Germans in order to concentrate all its
energies
on its native
opponents and,
if
necessary, oppose
a
landing
on the
Yugoslav
coast
by
the Western Allies.
In the first week of 1943 the cabinet was thrown into a crisis from
which it
emerged
with the same
prime minister,
a few concessions
here and
there,
and a
feeling
of sobered satisfaction. To start
with,
it was reduced to 10
members,
all from the
outgoing government:
Jovanovic
president,
Mihailovic
army
minister,
Krnjevic
and
Sutej
for the
HSS,
and one
representative
each for all the other
parties.
It
was realized
that,
as a result of ethnic
massacres,
the communist-
led
partisan
movement had obtained a hold on the mixed areas. It
was
necessary
to
repair
the
emigre government's prestige,
and it
was
thought
desirable to
bring together
Mihailovic and Matcek.
Sensing
a new
feeling
of
urgency,
the British
government put
pressure
in the
spring
with a formal
plea
for
unity,
for the forma-
tion of a unified resistance
movement,
and for a declaration on the
future of
Yugoslavia.
In
May,
Prime Minister Jovanovic had
completed
his draft of a
108
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
'Declaration on the War Aims and the General Aims of the State
Policy
of the
Yugoslav
Government'. This
solemnly
committed it
to the liberation and the reunification of the dismembered
parts
of
Yugoslavia,
to its federal
reorganization,
and to the revision of its
political
institutions in a democratic
spirit.
It was submitted to the
cabinet,
debated at
length,
and
approved by
all its
members,
in
principle. Krnjevic, however,
then added a
personal proviso:
Jovanovic was not the
right
man to
carry out,
as
prime minister,
the new
policy
embodied in the Declaration. He asked that formal
approval
of it be
postponed
until the
government
had been
reorganized by
a new
prime
minister.
Disillusioned,
Jovanovic
resigned
on 17 June. In
spite
of
appearances
at its
birth,
his second
cabinet had not been able to formulate
any policy
or start on
any
course of
action,
and the
British,
in the
meanwhile,
had decided to
establish relations with the
partisans.
The
King's
consultations with the
party
leaders on the formation
of a new cabinet took almost a
fortnight. Eventually they
came
up
with two nominees for the
premiership,
an NRS and a DS. The
monarch chose the Radical
MiloS Trifunovic,
at first
sight
a
strange
choice.
Very
much a
pre-1929 politician,
he was 72 and had been
out of office between 1927 and 1941. As an old Radical he had both
opposed
the
Sporazum
and
constantly put
Serbian interests first in
the
emigre government.
But the NRS
had,
after
all,
been the
largest
party
in the
days
of
parliamentary rule,
and
Krnjevic
had
actually
expressed
his
preference
for
Trifunovic, saying
that at least he
knew where he stood with his former
opponent.
On 26 June 1943
Trifunovic assembled two
representatives
from each of the
parties
except
the
NDS,
with Mihailovic
again
as
army minister,
and
keep-
ing
Jovanovic on as an additional
deputy premier.
It had been ex-
pected
that the
adoption
of the Declaration was to be a mere for-
mality,
which the new
government duly performed, only
to be fac-
ed
immediately
with a set of HSS
amendments, including
a
reference to the
Sporazum
as 'one of the cornerstones of state
policy'. Krnjevic justified
them with the
argument
that the new
prime
minister had stated
privately
that he did not
recognize
the
Sporazum.
It was thus
necessary
to
spell
out a few
points,
and to
go
back on the
previous agreement
that the Declaration should be
limited to a statement of
general principles.
It all had to start from
scratch
again,
and the whole of
July
was
spent
in
exchanging
new
drafts.
The main issue was
complicated by
side
issues,
taken over un-
109
Journal
of Contemporary History
solved from Jovanovic
-
ambassadorial
appointments,
the British
request
for the
government
to
go
to the Near
East,
and the
King's
wish to
marry. Naturally
it was
impossible
to settle the other
pro-
blems raised
by
the British
government,
such as demands concern-
ing
the resistance. The Croatian ministers ended
up by stating
that
they
considered
any
further collaboration with their Serbian col-
leagues impossible,
but that
they
would not
resign. Yugoslavia
could not
possibly
survive with its
pre-war personnel.
Trifunovic
resigned
on 10
August 1943,
after 45
days
in office. As a last-
minute
attempt
was
being
tried to obtain an
exchange
of conces-
sions
-
Krnjevic accepting
the Declaration in
exchange
for the
Serbs
sacrificing
Ambassador Fotic
-
a new cabinet was sworn
in,
two hours after Trifunovic had handed in his
resignation.
United
against
the
generals,
the
politicians
had won the
day
at
the
beginning
of
1942,
but
they
had
quickly
found themselves
divided on other
issues,
with the result that their cabinets survived
at the whim of the immature monarch who had inherited the
shadow of the
powers
of his father's made-to-measure statute.
King
Peter was both
exploited
and flattered. Serbian ministers'
seemed,
on the
whole,
unable to resist
him,
and the Croats showed
every sign
of
wanting
to continue the
practice
of
dealing directly
with the Crown. His
propensity
to be
swayed
this
way
or that
by
persuasion
or
pressure
soon made the
King
the focus of
political
in-
trigue.
Peter II himself
appears
to have
enjoyed
the shadow
play
of
'ruling',
as much as he disliked the
dreary duty
of
'reigning',
ever
since he
formally
came of
age
in
September
1941. It was because he
resented Simovic's
tutoring
that he
readily gave
in to the
politi-
cians'
request
and dismissed his first
prime
minister. Then
again,
it
was due to the King's
intervention with Churchill and Eden in
December 1942 that NinEic's
opponents
obtained the head of the
foreign
affairs minister. If the full
'parliamentary'
ritual of con-
sulting group
leaders
through
one or more 'mandators' was
observed before a new cabinet was formed on Jovanovic's
resigna-
tion,
no such forms were observed after Trifunovic's fall. The
British
government, having
lost confidence in the sense of
reality
of
the
Yugoslav politicians
in
exile,
had decided to neutralize them
by
exploiting,
in its
turn,
the
King's
constitutional
position.
Peter II contributed
powerfully
to the chaos within the
emigre
administration
by insisting
on
getting
married
despite opposition
from most of his ministers. Blown
up
out of all
proportion
to reali-
ty
in the rarefied
atmosphere
of
London,
this
helped
to
bring
about
110
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
the fall of the Jovanovic
government.
The
King
wanted to
get
rid
of
Jovanovic and of those ministers who
opposed
his
marriage,
and
he
kept complaining
about them to all those
who,
for other
reasons,
were
beginning
to be fed
up
with them and
ready
to
exploit
the
King's
dissatisfaction. A
paradoxical conjuncture
of reasons ad-
vanced
by
the
King
of
Yugoslavia,
the Prime Minister of the UK
and the
Secretary
General of the HSS
eventually brought
about the
demise of the
emigre political
administration.
Trifunovic's cabinet was no more than a transition. Jovanovic's
successor understood well
enough
that the monarch considered him
as a mere
stop-gap
before
finding
a
government
of new men
willing
to
approve
his
marriage.
Just as
Krnjevic
was
coming up
with his
amendments to the
Declaration, King
Peter asked Trifunovic at
least to make an official announcement of his
engagement.
The lat-
ter
gave
in to this
request,
in order to
gain
time. After the fall of
Jovanovic's
administration, General Simovic had
again
offered his
services to the
King
and
suggested
a
working government
without
the senior
politicians.
The idea was
gradually
to catch
on,
both with
the
King
and with the British. No sooner had the
royal engagement
been
announced,
at the end of
July 1943,
than both Trifunovic and
Krnjevic
had outlived their
usefulness,
as far as the
King
was con-
cerned. The British
were, by
that
time, insisting
on the
appointment
of an
emergency, non-political, purely
administrative
government,
ready
to follow their
advice,
and
they
were
putting
forward names.
With Trifunovic's cabinet stuck in an
impasse,
the
King's personal
government
of civil servants
emerged,
sanctioned
by
Churchill. It
was
ready
to be sworn in
by
the time Trifunovic
resigned.
The new
prime
minister was Bolidar
Puric,
a senior
diplomat and,
until
1941, Yugoslav
minister to France. The
King
wanted him to
underwrite his
marriage.
Churchill wanted him to
drop
Mihailovic.
Actually
Puric wanted to do
neither,
but he
accepted
the fact that
there was
nothing
to be done
against
the
King's
absolute determina-
tion to
marry, except
stall for as
long
as he could. On the other
hand,
it was on the
express
condition of
keeping
Mihailovic on that
he
agreed
to form a
government.
Puric's
non-political 'working
party'
was to be the most
thoroughly
committed to Mihailovic of
all the
emigre
cabinets. If it had
any governing principle,
it was that
the latter must at all costs remain a member of the
cabinet,
and so
Mihailovic was
reappointed
minister, along
with a
serving
naval of-
111
Journal
of Contemporary History
ficer and four other civil servants
representing
the usual ethnic
spectrum.
With no
political authority whatsoever,
the
government
suffered a further fall in
prestige,
while its existence now
depended
entirely
on the confidence of a
20-year
old monarch in
exile, play-
ing
at
being
an autocratic
ruler,
who
merely
wanted a cabinet to
ap-
prove
his
marriage, and, increasingly,
on the toleration of the
British
prime
minister.
The first acts of the Puric cabinet were to extricate itself from the
tangled
situation of the Declaration
by shelving it,
with the
argu-
ment that it would be worthless
coming
from a team of civil ser-
vants;
to decide to
go
to
Cairo;
and to
appoint
at last an am-
bassador to London. No sooner was it in
office, however,
than
complications
started. The
Yugoslav political
establishment in exile
was alive with
opposition
to Puric. It was thus not difficult for the
King
to threaten to
get
rid of
him,
no sooner had Puric tried to ad-
vise the monarch to
postpone
his
marriage
until his return to
Yugoslavia.
King
Peter had met Princess Alexandra of
Greece,
niece of
King
George
II of the
Hellenes,
in London in
April 1942,
and had im-
mediately proposed
to her. The
Yugoslav government
did not ob-
ject
to the
choice,
but Prime Minister Jovanovic and all the Serbian
ministers considered that to announce the
engagement,
let alone to
perform
the
marriage,
would be
inopportune
in time of war. The
King
did not raise the
question formally again
until
April
1943,
when he
requested
that General Mihailovic be consulted
and,
in the
meantime,
asked all members of the
government
for their
opinions
in
writing.
The Serbian ministers
repeated
their
objections,
and
Mihailovic answered that no announcement should be made until
he had had time to
prepare public opinion
for it.
Having
obtained
the announcement of his
engagement
from
Trifunovic, King
Peter
took the matter
up again
in Cairo. Puric advised
postponing
and it
was
only
when he had been invited back to London for talks with
the British
government,
that he relented. The
royal wedding
was
performed
in the British
capital
on 20 March 1944.
Peter II and his
government
had left for Cairo
just
after
Italy
had
withdrawn from the war and
thereby greatly strengthened
Tito's
movement in
Yugoslavia;
and after the Cairo and Tehran con-
ferences there had
been,
in December
1943,
another
change
in
British
policy
towards
Yugoslavia.
Pressure on Puric increased to
get
him to
negotiate
an
arrangement
with the
partisans.
Puric
disputed
the
validity
of Churchill's assessment of the situation in
112
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
Yugoslavia.
He
hoped
that he could
improve
Mihailovi6's
position
by obtaining
American
backing, by mobilizing
the freed
Yugoslav
POWs and internees in
Italy, by
a
rapprochement
to the Soviet
Union even. When it became obvious that he could not be
budged,
British
pressure
switched to
King Peter,
at the time of his return to
London from
Cairo,
to
appoint
a more reasonable
prime
minister
and to
give up
Mihailovic. Churchill believed that he
could,
through
the
King,
retain a measure of
continuity
and a measure of
British influence in
Yugoslavia,
a belief that fitted in with his no-
tion of 'client' monarchies elsewhere in the Mediterranean area
whose main function would be to serve as anchors for the continua-
tion of British influence.
The
spring
of 1944 saw the British
trying
to
get
Tito to
recognize
King Peter,
and
King
Peter to dismiss
Puric,
who
had,
in his
turn,
outlived his usefulness.
Losing
his
bearings, ruthlessly pressed by
the
British,
afraid of what he had
done,
King
Peter returned for ad-
vice to the senior
party
leaders. A
feeling
of
panic brought
them
together
for a while. Jovanovic had talks to see whether an all-
party government
could not be
put together again,
but the
representatives
of the two main Serbian
parties,
NRS and
DS,
could not team
up.
Churchill, anyhow,
had
suggested
Ivan
Subagic,
HSS ban of
Croatia since
1939,
who was in the USA. After the
marriage,
the
King
summoned him for consultations. Churchill
proceeded
to in-
form Tito that
Suba?i6,
who had arrived in London in
May,
would
be
appointed prime minister;
then the House of Commons that
King
Peter had
accepted
the
resignation
of the Puric
government,
and that he was in the
process
of
forming
a new
one,
without
Mihailovic,
in which gubaSic would be an
important
factor
-
all
that at a time
when,
in
fact,
Puri6 had not
resigned
and the
King
was still
refusing
to dismiss him.
Broken, King
Peter
eventually
gave in,
almost a week after Churchill's
announcement,
and
without the
previous resignation
of Puric or of his ministers.
The
young monarch,
who had tried for 10 months to
play
a
political
role over and above the heads of his
country's
traditional
parties,
now became a
simple
instrument.
Subasic
was
appointed
and sworn
in,
on 1 June
1944,
as the entire
government, combining
the
presidency
of the Council of Ministers with all 14 ministerial
portfolios.
The main factor in ?ubasic:'s favour was
that, along
with the
King, he,
as the
pre-war royal-appointed
head of the exe-
cutive of the Croatian
Banovina, represented
the
legitimacy
of the
113
Journal
of Contemporary History
state. He was also
willing
to talk with Tito. A Croat and a
promi-
nent member of the
HSS,
he was more docile than Krnjevic.
Loyal
to the
dynasty,
he had been Prince Paul's nominee for the office of
ban. In 1935-41 he had acted as
intermediary
between Ma&ek and
the
Belgrade government.
In
1944,
he was to act as
intermediary
between Churchill
(nominally King Peter)
and Tito. His one-man
government
had been called into
being
for the
express purpose
of
coming
to an
arrangement
with
Tito, although
he
vainly thought
that he
had,
once
again,
been called to reconciliate all the
parties
in
Yugoslavia,
and boasted that he could do so.
Ten
days
after his
appointment,
he left for the island of Vis to
begin
the
long
series of
negotiations
with
Tito,
intended to lead to
the formation of a coalition
government.
Tito
granted
that the
issue of the
monarchy
would not be raised before the war had come
to an end. The
King's government recognized
the
provisional
ad-
ministration set
up by
the
People's
Liberation Movement as the
only authority
on
Yugoslav territory
and the
People's
Liberation
Army
as the
only fighting
force.
Subasic
would form a cabinet
made
up
of
progressive
elements that had not taken
up
a stand
against
the
People's
Liberation Movement. Its main task would be
to
organize support
for the
partisans
from
abroad,
and Tito
put
forward the names of two
personalities
he wished to be included.
An
agreement
was drawn
up
on these lines and
signed
between
Subasic and Tito on 16 June 1944. ?ubasic had consulted
nobody,
not even the
King.
He had acted alone
and, except
for a few tem-
porary
concessions of form obtained from
Tito,
the 'Tito-Subasic
Agreement'
was a
complete capitulation by Subaisic.
On his
return,
and after 37
days
as
prime
and sole
minister,
Subasic
appointed
five other ministers.
Along
with Tito's two
nominees,
there were three
emigre politicians
now
drifting
to a
policy
of
compromise
with
Tito,
one of them
being Sutej.
Mihailovic was not
reappointed army
minister. He refused to
recognize
Suba'sic's
cabinet, yet
he did not
organize
a counter-
government
and
proclaimed
his
loyalty
to the
King. During August
there started a
purge
of all those who did not
approve
of the new
trend
among
the civil servants of the
emigre
administration.
Mihailovic was dismissed from his
remaining
office of chief of staff
to the
Supreme
Command on 29
August. Finally,
on 12
September,
the
King
broadcast an
appeal
to all
Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes to
rally
round
Tito, adding
that 'the
stigma
of treason' would stick to
all those who did not answer the call.
Having joined
Tito in
114
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
liberated
Belgrade,
?ubasic
signed
another
agreement
with him on
1 November.
Pending
a
plebiscite
on the
monarchy
to be
organized
after the
complete
liberation of the
country,
the
King
would remain
abroad and
delegate
the exercise of the
royal prerogative
to a
regency
council
appointed
in
agreement
with Tito. A
provisional
government
would be set
up
from ?ubaric's cabinet and from
Tito's committee. When the
prime
minister returned to
London,
the
King
refused to
accept
the new
agreement,
tried to resist and ac-
tually
dismissed
Subasic
on 23
January 1945, only
to reinstate him
reluctantly
under
strong
British
pressure
six
days later, having
swallowed the
regency.
Then a
fortnight later,
Suba?ic and the members of his cabinet
left London for
Belgrade. When,
on 7 March
1945,
Tito formed the
new
provisional government
of
Yugoslavia,
with a
majority
of 25
to 3 in the
merger,
the
'Royal Yugoslav
Government in exile' was
no more.
During
the Second World
War,
all Allied leaders in
London,
to a
greater
or lesser
extent,
had to live with the mistakes of the
pre-war
situation and with
military
defeat. The
Yugoslavs
also took with
them the burden of unresolved ethnic
questions.
A
government
in
exile could
support acquiescence
in the homeland where a
majority
of the
population recognized
a bond between themselves and that
government
which not even
enemy occupation
could break. It was
obvious that in dismembered and
occupied Yugoslavia,
there was
neither the
political
consensus nor the
homogeneous patriotic
feel-
ing
which could make such a bond
possible
for a
majority
of the
population.
Whatever the
Yugoslav government represented,
it was not
unity.
It had been formed in the eleventh hour as a
government
of
union,
and between that hour and the time when it arrived in Lon-
don,
one could even
say
that an element of chance had
gone
into
filling
the
places emptied by
the circumstances of the debacle.
Union,
like the
Yugoslav government
of that
time,
is made
up
of
divergences;
unlike the
Yusoglav government,
it overcomes its con-
tradictions,
and starts off
by facing
them. Not
having
had the time
to set
up
a common
platform,
the
Yugoslav politicians
were frozen
by
defeat and exile into the attitudes which
they
had had on the eve
of
having
been
brought together,
and
they
were
trapped together
in
a Sartrian huis-clos 'for the duration'. The disaster that
destroyed
115
Journal of
Contemporary History
Yugoslavia
was so
great that, among
the survivors of her crew who
found their
way
to the
safety
of the British
shore,
there were not
enough people
with
enough
will even to face these contradictions.
The crucial
problems
that
they
should have tackled demanded
unity
and maximum mutual
confidence,
so that the
Yugoslav govern-
ment
proved incapable
of
concentrating
on the real issues.
Indeed,
for most of the
time,
most of the
politicians
acted as if
they
could
only
survive the war
together by deliberately running away
from
the real issues. Reduced as
they
were to
trying
to save
acquired
positions,
based on
past considerations,
for sectional and in-
dividual
points
of
view,
for which
they
all considered themselves to
be
indispensable
and sacred
depositories,
their
only
real
policy
could be one of
wait-and-see, paralysed
furthermore
by
use of the
liberum veto.
For
long
out of
office,
and then all
together
in office but without
a
country,
the
government
leaders in London were
already,
to a
certain
extent,
men with manners and
grievances
of another
age.
The framework in which
they operated
was one of the
past,
and the
models to which
they
referred went back to the
1930s,
the First
World
War,
the
early years
of the
century,
even the 1860s. Without
the corrective of a
visionary imagination, they
did
not,
in their
historicism,
realize that their
achievements,
their ideals and their
followings
were
being destroyed
in the chaos of the war.
Usually
labelled
'royalist', they
were so to the extent that
they
were the
government
of HM the
King
of
Yugoslavia,
and also to
the extent that their
political
culture knew of no other con-
stitutional form. In
fact,
the
Yugoslav monarchy
meant little else in
former
Austro-Hungarian
territories and in Macedonia. In
spite
of
much
sentimentalizing
about
Karageorge, King
Peter I and the
boy
Peter
II,
the authoritarian and semi-authoritarian
experiments
of
the inter-war
period
had
damaged
the
image
even
among
Serbs.
Royal authority
was soon no more than a word to be bandied about
by
various factions until it lost the
legal
content
everyone
still
pretended
it had.
The British were
perhaps
the most ruthless
exploiters
of the con-
cept,
and the more so since the
Yugoslav 'governmentals'
believed
that the British
-
or the Allies at
any
rate
-
would settle all their
difficulties for them.
They
admired and feared but did not love the
'English',
and in order to
gain
their
confidence,
took to
revealing
most of their secrets and dissensions to them. In
exchange
for
116
Pavlowitch:
Yugoslav
Government in London
which
they
were
despised,
and
kept
in deliberate
ignorance
of
many
aspects
of British
policy
towards their own
country.
The
Yugoslav
exiles viewed the
'English'
as
being
-
all of
them,
from
King George
VI and Churchill down to the last BBC
official,
SOE
country-desk
liaison man or M15
agent
-
spokesmen
for the
one
policy
of the
mighty
monolithic British
Empire.
Different
Yugoslav politicians
had different contacts with British of-
ficialdom,
and
every Yugoslav
believed that 'British
policy'
was
what his contact told him. British
policy
was all too often difficult
to
perceive.
Even if its dominant voice is more or less clear to us
now,
it was not
necessarily
so to the
Yugoslavs
in London at the
time,
and there were
always
counter-voices to choose from. Cut off
from their
homeland,
with no
regular
confidential channels of
communication, they
had to
rely
on distorted
scraps
of informa-
tion. And since there was no consensus and no trust
among them,
these
scraps
were not
collated,
so that each
politician
came to ac-
cept
as true
only
that which fed his wishful
thinking,
whether about
the situation at home or about British
policy
towards
Yugoslavia.
The exiled
Yugoslavs
were alien to the milieu and to the mentali-
ty,
of the British.
Transplanted
to
London,
the
Yugoslavs
were
utterly lost,
and found the corridors of Whitehall
(not
to mention
all the secret
addresses)
much more insidious than
any
Balkan
highway
had ever been. Most of them never
really
understood
why,
having
been overwhelmed with the emotional avowal of British
gratitude
on their
arrival, they
were shoved off the
stage
as irrele-
vant nuisances three
years
later.
In the
Foreign
Office
documents, they
all too often
appear
as
mere
cyphers,
set characters out of a Ruritarian comedia dell'arte
or a Levantine shadow
play, whereas,
in
fact,
as
individuals, they
were neither
stupid
nor
dishonest,
and were not devoid of
political
ideals,
of acumen or of
experience.
Hitherto
they
have been
ap-
proached
from the
outside,
and labelled
away
with cliches. The aim
of this
study
is to
open
the
way
to an
understanding
of the men-
talities,
the
motivations,
the
political
culture and the historical
framework of a
group
of
personalities
who were
projected,
then re-
jected, by
the issues
over,
above and behind them.
117
118 Journal
of Contemporary History
Notes
This
study
is intended as a critical evaluation of the wartime
Yugoslav government
'from
within',
so to
speak.
The author has made full use of sources close to the
London-based
government,
but avoided reference
to,
while
assuming knowledge of,
British and American sources.
1.
Wayne
S.
Vucinich, preface
to
DraglSa
N.
Ristic, Yugoslavia's
Revolution
of
1941
(University Park, USA,
and London
1966),
13.
Stevan K. Pavlowitch
is Senior Lecturer in the
History
of the
Balkans,
University
of
Southampton.
He is the author of
Anglo-Russian Rivalry
in
Serbia,
1837-1839
(The Hague
and
Paris, 1961), Yugoslavia (Lon-
don and New York
1971)
and
Bijou
d'Art
(Lausanne 1978).
He is
currently working
on
Italy
in
Yugoslavia
1941-1943.