Britain and the Resistance in Occupied Yugoslavia:

SOE, Tito and Mihailovi, 1941-1945

Greg Brew
7 May 2012
Prof. Aviel Roshwald

Brew 2
From 1940 to 1945, Great Britain maintained a presence in Yugoslavia dominated from
summer 1941 onwards by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an independent branch of the
special services tasked with organizing sabotage, subversion and general resistance within the
Nazi-occupied regions of Europe.1 SOE operated through liaising with native Yugoslav
resistance groups, offering supplies of arms and explosives, trained expertise and political
support from the British government or the Yugoslavian Government in Exile (YGE). Though
charged at its inception with setting Europe ablaze, by Prime Minister Winston Churchill,2 the
real contribution of SOE operatives on the Continent to the overall war effort, and to the
resistance movements they aimed to assist, was a constant source of uncertainty during the war.
The significance of SOEs activities is still being debated.3
However, the involvement of SOE in Yugoslavia and the infusion of British interests into
a contentious political climate had enormous consequences for the development of organized
resistance against the Axis occupiers.4 Over the 1941-1944 period, Britain attempted through
SOE to utilize the national resistance in Yugoslavia to accomplish key strategic goals, beginning
with the secret armies and detonator concept and eventually morphing into the Mediterranean
strategy adopted in 1943. The goals British planners sought to accomplish in Yugoslavia were
both military (diverting or distracting German forces) and political (supporting resistance leaders

An official history written on the SOE using confidential sources was written in 1948 by W.J.M. Mackenzie; it was
de-classified in 2000 and is now available to the public and non-official scholars at the National Archives. See
W.J.M. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE: the Special Operations Executive 1940-1945 (London: St. Ermins
Press, 2000), pp. ii-xi.
2
David Stafford, Churchill and SOE, Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman
(London: Routledge Press, 2006), p. 47
3
Due to a paucity of sources, early works on SOE in Yugoslavia were primarily the memoirs of former SOE
officers. See Fitzroy Maclean, Eastern Approaches (London: Cape Publishing, 1946) and Basil Davidson, Partisan
Picture (London: Bedford Books, 1946). Expansions in the literature occurred in the late 1970s and again in the late
1990s when more source material became available: the major participants in the discussion of SOEs contribution
to the war can be found in British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece, Eds. Phyllis Auty
and Richard Clogg (London: Macmillan, 1975) and Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed.
Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006).
4
The occupation of Yugoslavia included large contingents of Bulgarian, Italian and Croat nationalist soldiers;
Axis occupation is therefore slightly more accurate than German (Mackenzie, p. 444).

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who would indebted to Britain at wars end) in nature. British involvement in Yugoslavia was
initially focused on supporting the pro-Western government established by coup detat in March
1941. Following the German invasion in April, support shifted to the YGEs main representative
among the Yugoslav resistance movements and the leader of the pro-Serbian chetniks, General
Draa Mihailovi. Yet after a year of supporting the chetniks Britain faced a choice of which
resistance movement deserved support. The Serbian nationalists that made up the core of
Mihailovis forces were bitterly opposed to the communist Partisans of Yosip Broz Tito, and
the two groups were as determined to fight one another as they were to fight the Germans and
Italians. After a short period of attempting to bridge the gap and support both groups, concerns
over collaboration and ongoing failures to push Mihailovi into engaging in active resistance led
Britain to abandon the chetniks and the YGE in favor of Titos Partisans, consigning the proSerbian and pro-monarchy Yugoslav resistance faction to destruction and ensuring the rise of a
communist postwar Yugoslav order. 5
In the absence of reliable sources, postwar debate on the shift in British support from
Mihailovi to Tito focused around wild conspiracy theories, including accusations that SOE
itself was infiltrated by communist agents,6 but with the archives of SOE, the Foreign Office and
the Churchill Cabinet now open to the public, attention can instead be focused on the complex
character of British involvement in the Balkans and what David Stafford refers to as the

Narratives of the war in Yugoslavia include Elizabeth Barker, British Policy in South-Eastern Europe in World
War II. (London: Macmillan, 1976) and Mark C. Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia 1940-1943 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1980); a recent work on the subject is Heather Williams, Parachutes, Patriots and
Partisans: the Special Operations Executive and Yugoslavia, 1941-1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
2003). The most comprehensive work on occupation and collaboration in the country is Jozo Tomasevich, War and
Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2001).
6
Briefly, this was a popular explanation of how British attention could shift from Mihailovis chetniks to Titos
Partisans so quickly at the end of 1943: SOE officers James Klugmann in Cairo and Kim Philby in London, both of
whom were avowed communists, were accused of delaying reports from SOE operatives with the chetniks and of
favoring Titos Partisans, making them seem more deserving of military aid. The theory has since been satisfactorily
debunked, though it still enjoys a certain notoriety. See Roderick Bailey, SOE in Albania: the conspiracy theory
reassessed, Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press,
2006), pp. 185-190; Williams, pp. 247-248.

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political dimension of resistance.7 Resistance to Nazi occupation was motivated by a variety of
unique concerns, the goals of resistance groups were often very different and sometimes at odds
with each other, and in the context of war-time Yugoslavia the politics of resistance were more
complicated than merely striving to throw out the Germans. For Titos Partisans, militant
resistance was meant to pave the way for a communist future; Mihailovi, who was a Serb before
he was a Yugoslav, saw the war as a struggle for national defense and treated it as such, fighting
whomever seemed to pose the greatest threat.8 Britain attempted to impose upon these groups its
own strategic and political interests, eventually treating the Yugoslav resistance as a component
in the Allied war effort and switching its support from Mihailovi to Tito when the former failed
to accomplish the goals set before him. Of constant interest in London was how Yugoslavia
could be kept united in a postwar world, and the presumption that whomever triumphed in
resistance would lead the postwar government played a significant role in determining how
Britain supported the Yugoslav resistance. The case of the British SOE in occupied Yugoslavia
offers an insight into the effects outside forces can have on the development of resistance and
how the political interests of native resistance-fighters often conflict with those who seek to
utilize them.

Setting Europe ablaze: Early Ambitions of the SOE in Yugoslavia, 1940-1941

Before the official formation of the Special Operations Executive, its duties were
covered by a variety of organizations. Section D and MI(R) were both divisions of the Secret
Intelligence Service (SIS) formed in 1939 to organize sabotage within the German-occupied

David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance 1940-1945: A Survey of Special Operations Executive with
Documents (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980) , p. 63. For the developing scholarship surrounding
resistance to foreign occupation, see Jorgen Haestrup, European Resistance Movements, 1939-1945 : a Complete
History (Westport, CT: Meckler Publishing, 1981), pp. 3-6.
8
Simon Trew, Britain, Mihailovi, and the Chetniks, 1941-42 (London: St. Martins Press, 1997), pp. 3-6.

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regions of Europe, and were combined with the Foreign Offices small international propaganda
department to form the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in June 1940.9 Before the defeat of
France and the German victories of summer 1940 little thought had been given to organizing
campaigns of subversion or sabotage in the hinterlands of Continental Europe, yet in the context
of a Britain-stands-alone strategic situation the benefits of indirect warfare began to look more
appealing. In a paper written in May 1940 entitled British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality,
with such an eventuality implying the fall of France, alternatives to an interventionist strategy
based on Continental involvement included strategic bombing, economic warfare and the
assistance of fifth column groups operating behind enemy lines.10 The War Cabinet agreed in
late May that without a force on the Continent that could face Nazi Germany directly, Britains
remaining options were to husband its resources and use indirect means to harry and distract the
Germans.11 The initial brief for SOE when it was formed on June 22nd was an ambitious one: as
Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare and SOEs first director, wrote to Lord Halifax in
July,
We must organize movements in every occupied territory comparable to the Sinn
Fein movement in Ireland, to the Chinese guerillas now operating against Japan,
to the Spanish Irregulars who played a notable part in Wellingtons campaign
orone might as well admit itto the organizations which the Nazis themselves
have developed so remarkably in almost every country of the world.12

Mark Seaman, A New Instrument of War: the Origins of the Special Operations Executive, A New Instrument
of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006), pp. 7-18.
10
CAB 66/7/48, WP (40) 168, British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality, Chiefs of Staff Committee, May 25, 1940.
All official government material cited here was obtained through the website service of the National Archives, Kew
London. Go to http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/
11
Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 23.
12
Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Frederick Muller LTD, 1957) p. 368.

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In Daltons opinion SOE was a force of revolutionary magnitude for the future of Europe,
capable of building and maintaining secret armies that could attack the German occupation
with overwhelming and unexpected force, a weapon of political potency and military utility.13
SOEs aim would not be to incite immediate resistance against Germany, for that carried
with it the risk of immediate reprisals against civilian populations. Instead, the secret armies
would be supplied and maintained in hiding, until the signal to rise up was given by Britain, an
idea that David Stafford has labeled the detonator concept.14 It was, of course, a vague charter
that placed an enormous burden upon the occupied peoples of Europe, since it was expected that
British defiance would kindle the spark of hope in the breasts of hundreds of millions of
downtrodden or despairing men and women throughout Europe,15 giving them the moral thrust
needed to throw themselves against the Nazi security regime. The British grossly underestimated
the effectiveness of German control across the occupied territories while overestimating native
Europeans ability to resist in a practical sense: according to David Stafford, it was a case of
optimistic insularity.16 With few options, British leaders chose to pursue a strategy of imposing
their interests and aims upon the occupied people of Europe: given the high-handedness of this
posture, it is curious that expectations among SOE leaders and British policy-makers for the
detonator concept to succeed were so high.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a constitutional monarchy formed at Versailles out of
Serbia and various territories annexed from the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, entered into
British strategic thinking at the same time as SOE, in the summer of 1940.17 Traditionally Britain

13

Neville Wylie, Ungentlemanly warriors or unreliable diplomats? Special Operations Executive and irregular
political activities in Europe, The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine Warfare: Special Operations Executive,
1940-1946, Ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 109-112.
14
David Stafford, The Detonator Concept: British Strategy, SOE and European Resistance after the Fall of
France, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1975), pp. 185-217.
15
Winston Churchill, War Speeches 1938-1941 (London: Cassell, 1945), p. 239.
16
Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 26.
17
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 6-9.

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had considered the Balkans strategically important in relation to other states, particularly Russia
and Turkey. However, growing German domination of Hungary, Bulgarian and Romania, and
the increasing dependence of Germany on Romanian oil and raw materials had raised the
regions strategic profile by the summer of 1940.18 Apart from Greece, which had long been a
British interest, Yugoslavia was the only state in the region amenable to Western diplomatic
overtures. Moreover, its government had grown more and more threatened by Italian expansion
in the Adriatic following Italys invasion of Albania in April 1939. But there were reasons
Yugoslavia was not bound more closely to Britain. The kingdom was firmly within the German
economic sphere of influence; its military was small and would crumble in the face of a
determined assault (though memories of Serbias staunch resistance in World War I were still
fresh); and both the Foreign Office and Chiefs of Staff agreed in the early summer of 1940 that
only a massive intervention would preserve it in the face of combined Italian-German attack
(which was the likeliest scenario).19 Nevertheless, an opportunity was seen for SOE to get up to
something in the Balkans by using Yugoslavia as a base for forays into Romania and Bulgaria
SOE was also viewed as a useful tool in keeping the kingdom from turning entirely towards the
Axis.20 After the fall of France the Foreign Office and the newly-christened SOE became more
involved in supporting the government of Prince Paul21 and preparations for resistance in the
event of a German invasion were made. This involvement took on a new, more urgent tone
following the Italian invasion of Greece in October 1940, a move which increased the likelihood
of German armed intervention in the Balkans in order to support the Italians.22

18

Williams, pp. 19-22.

Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 13-14; Williams, pp. 19-20.
20
Williams, p. 21.
21
Regent for the teenage King Peter, Trew p. 16.
22
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , pp. 20-21; Williams, pp. 25-27.
19

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Since its creation Yugoslavia had struggled with reconciling its enormous ethnic diversity
with its parliamentary political structure. A series of coalition governments had failed throughout
the 1920s to enact effective policy and the entire government was strong-armed in 1928 by King
Alexander, turning the state into a de facto absolute monarchy by 1931. King Alexanders
assassination in 1934 led to the regency of Prince Paul, an indifferent leader whos domestic and
foreign policies alienated the military (a body dominated by the old Serbian officer corps of
1914-1918) and generated uncertainty as to Yugoslavias international allegiances.23 Tensions
within Yugoslavia increased from the summer of 1940 onwards, as Italian expansionist
ambitions extended from Albania to Greece and Germany expanded its reach into Romania,
Bulgaria and Hungary in anticipation of the forthcoming attack on the Soviet Union. Despite
British pleas to maintain neutrality, Prince Paul met with Hitler on March 4th to discuss
Yugoslavian adherence to the Tripartite Pact, and an initial form of a Yugoslav-German
agreement was approved by the Yugoslav parliament two days later. Ensuring Yugoslav
neutrality now became a priority for Britain, as Yugoslav railroads could transport thousands of
German troops in a matter of days and effectively end the war in Greece. SOE operatives in
Yugoslavia immediately began plans for a military coup detat to overthrow Prince Pauls
government and replace it with one that would resist German ambitions.24
The coup, when it came on March 27th, was less the result of British subversion and more
an expression of long-standing Serbian dissatisfaction with Prince Pauls regime. The
ascendance of King Peter to the throne and the replacement of Prince Pauls cabinet with one of
Serbian nationalists prompted jubilant cheers in Belgrade and quiet uncertainty in Zagreb and

23

Milan Deroc, British Special Operations Explored: Yugoslavia in Turmoil 1941-1943 and the British Response
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) pp. 6-9, Tomasevich, pp. 1-40.
24
Williams, pp. 27-31; Wheeler pp. 48-52; Mackenzie, pp. 104-114

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Sarajevo.25 It was also quickly made apparent how little Britain actually stood to gain from the
regime change. The new Yugoslav premier, Duan Simovi, upon learning from Foreign
Secretary Anthony Eden that Britain could not assist Yugoslavia in the event of war with
Germany, immediately withdrew former promises of assistance for Greece and entered into
equivocating diplomacy with both Germany and Great Britain in a desperate effort to save
Yugoslav neutrality.26 SOEs major goal in the region was to use Yugoslavias access to the
Danube River to block its flow from Romania to Austria, thereby denying supplies from the
Romanian oil fields to Germany, yet Simovis government was unhelpful and the preparations
made for blocking the Danube were inadequate.27 When the German invasion came on April 6th
1941 the Yugoslav military folded quickly, surrendering territory and evaporating into traditional
Serbian bands of irregular guerillas called chetniks.28 General Simovi, King Peter and the rest
of the Yugoslav government escaped and were flown to England where they formed the
Yugoslav Government in Exile (YGE). SOE was able to pull off a number of small operations
(blowing charges at the pass of Kazan and blocking the Danube to shipping for two months was
perhaps its largest contribution) before evacuating the country; its plans for doing something in
the Balkans came to nothing.29
Yugoslavia was reduced to a rump Croatian nationalist state (the NDH) ruled by Ante
Paveli and the genocidal Ustashas, while its remaining regions were occupied by Axis forces.30
However, Yugoslavia remained an area of some interest to the SOE, which in the summer of
1941 was eager to engage in an active campaign of sabotage and subversion. The conditions
seemed ripe: following the genocidal attacks of the nationalist Ustasha on the Serbian population

25

Deroc, p.11.
David Stafford, SOE and British Involvement in the Belgrade Coup d'tat of March 1941, Slavic Review, Vol.
36, No. 3 (Sep., 1977), p. 399.
27
Williams, pp. 34-35.
28
Deroc, pp. 22-24.
29
Deroc, pp. 37-38; for the Kazan operation, see Mackenzie, pp. 112-115.
30
Tomasevich, pp. 47-50, 60-64; Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 62-63.
26

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within Croatia and the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, unrest towards the
occupation exploded into active armed resistance across the country.31 Reports of chetnik bands
attacking German occupation forces and defending rebellious villages within Serbia soon
reached SOEs officers in Istanbul and Cairo, with a particular focus on the activities of chetnik
leader Draa Mihailovi. Here it seemed was the embryo of a secret army that could be armed
and organized by British support and unleashed upon the German occupier, tying down
thousands of German troops and actively contributing towards a decline in German military
power.32
In one aspect, however, the Yugoslav uprising was inconvenient: its timing, so soon after
Operation Barbarossa, had left the British with little opportunity to prepare plans for assisting the
rebels. With the main British war effort now focused in the North Atlantic and North Africa, as
well as Bomber Commands operations over Germany, very few resources remained for SOE
activity in the Balkans.33 The Foreign Office and Chiefs of Staff was skeptical of the potential
benefits which could be gained from the rising, and throughout the fall of 1941 the BBC was
instructed to play down Yugoslav resistance in its propaganda.34 There was also discomfort in
the YGE as to what effect armed resistance would have on the Yugoslav civilian population,
since the preferred German tactic in fighting resistance was executing civilians en masse in
reprisals.35 Moreover, it could be argued that following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June
the entire secret army concept could be thrown out the window: with an ally on the continent
that could (and would) engage the bulk of the German forces, the strategic necessity or potential

31

Williams, p. 43; Stevan K. Pavolwitch, Hitlers New Disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 82-83.
32
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 64-65.
33
Mackenzie, p. 121.
34
Williams, p. 46.
35
Williams, pp. 44-5; Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, p. 63.

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viability of Daltons grander vision for the SOE significantly decreased.36 Nevertheless, with
Soviet defeat looking likely up until February 1942, SOE was committed to supporting the
Yugoslav resistance by whatever practical means it could. The resilience of the detonator
concept was due in part to Dalton and Prime Minister Winston Churchills enthusiasm for
inspiring popular revolt,37 the depressing performance of the British Army in North Africa and
the failures of the strategic bombing campaign against Germany.38 Thus, despite the very real
limitations it faced in resources and achievable results, SOE attempted in the fall of 1941 to turn
the Yugoslav rebels into a secret army capable of contributing to the Allied war effort.39
The propaganda offensive of October-December 1941 marked the beginning of Britains
return to Yugoslavia. After several months of silence, the newly-formed Political Warfare
Executive (PWE) began releasing propaganda films depicting Draa Mihailovi as the leader of
Yugoslav resistance. With the Continent in a black mood following repeated German successes,
PWEs newsreels of Mihailovi leading his chetniks in guerilla raids against German targets
helped to alleviate the depressing state of Allied morale in late 1941; the bearded and
bespectacled Serbian became a hero of the European resistance to German rule.40 Useful though
the propaganda was for the purposes of building international attention around the Yugoslav
resistance, the myth of Mihailovi was both inaccurate and ineffective. Mihailovi was known
to be most active against the communist Partisans active in the eastern territories of the NDH and
within the German-occupied state of Serbia (whose leader, General Milan Nedi, was in contact

36

Trew, p. 35.
Churchill was a vocal and consistent supporter of SOE and of indirect warfare in general, and his support of the
organization saved it more than once from the savagery of inter-departmental politics. See David Stafford,
Churchill and SOE, A New Instrument of War, Ed. Mark Seaman (London: Routledge Press, 2006) pp. 47-60.
38
Stafford, Detonator Concept, p. 209-210.
39
The SOE directive to that affect was a memo from Dalton to Churchill on August 30 1941 (PREM 3/510/2, with a
second copy in FO 371/30219). See Trew, p. 49.
40
Williams, pp. 79-80.
37

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withMihailovi41), but apart from irregular reports from SOEs single agent in Yugoslavia very
little accurate information could be ascertained as to what was actually happening in Yugoslavia.
The size of the chetnik forces under his command, for example, was wildly exaggerated.42
While SOE was unsure of what exactly Mihailovi was up to in fall 1941, in accordance
with British policy following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and out of deference to
the YGE it assisted with organizing and supplying Mihailovi without pressuring him to take
concentrated action that could result in mass reprisals against the Yugoslav people.43While this
suited Mihailovi, who was at any rate more interested in defending the population than
launching suicide attacks, it conflicted with the accounts PWE was publicizing. There was also a
real danger in the propaganda, one that was not fully realized by SOE or the British government
until much later. Not only did it draw absurd attention to the secret army SOE was trying to
build in Yugoslavia, it also made Mihailovi more sure of his own insurmountable legitimacy as
a representative of the YGE and the sole-recipient of British support.44 The propaganda
emboldened his movement to take action against its chief competition, the communist Partisans
of Josip Broz Tito, who were by the late fall 1941 very active throughout Bosnia and western
Serbia.45
The Partisans had begun resisting the occupation soon after the German invasion of the
Soviet Union. Unlike the chetniks, which were mostly ex-military and generally attempted to
shield the civilian population from German reprisals, the Partisan groups were made up of young
men displaced by German attacks on villages. Titos policy throughout the war was to remain as

41

The British were aware that Mihailovi had a working relationship with Nedi and had infiltrated the Serbian
puppets forces with his own men, but little attention was paid to this until the fall of 1943 when it was used to build
the case that Mihailovi collaborated with the Germans. See Mackenzie, p. 116, 436.
42
SOE reported to the YGE that Mihailovi had perhaps one hundred thousand men under arms, when the actual
figure was a few thousand at most (Trew, pp. 37-38.).
43
Trew, pp. 38-40.
44
Williams, p. 81.
45
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 79.

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active as possible, and since the Partisans were driven by a revolutionary desire to reconstruct
Yugoslavian society they were not particularly averse to seeing the old order go up in flames;
nothing was done to avoid reprisals, which at any rate tended to furnish the Partisans with new
recruits.46 Encounters between the chetniks and Partisans occurred in the early months of the
uprising and an SOE-sponsored meeting between Mihailovi and Tito took place in September
and October, but no agreement was reached for the simple reason that each movement had totally
incompatible objectives. The Serbians distrusted the Partisans affiliation with the Soviets and
their efforts to disseminate communist ideology wherever they went; Tito and the Partisans were
impatient with the defensive strategies of the chetniks and their connection to a defunct regime.47
Following a failed meeting on October 27th, both leaders became determined that the survival of
their movement depended upon the destruction of the other. Following a vigorous German
offensive (which fell primarily on the Partisans) in the late fall of 1941, both groups went
underground: the uprisings were over, but the civil war continued.48
For the British, the choice between the Partisans and the chetniks seemed a simple one in
the fall of 1941. Intent upon preserving Yugoslavia in its entirety once the war was over, the
British government wished the resistance in the country to be portrayed as a fight for
Yugoslavia by all Yugoslavs, rather than one engineered from Moscow that carried
revolutionary chaos in the place national allegiance.49 As a military officer, a man firmly
attached to the YGE (and who was from January 1942 the Minister of War for the Yugoslav
government) and an appropriate nationalist symbol, Mihailovi seemed the best standard-bearer
for the YGE and therefore the best agent for SOEs activities.50 Britain was prepared to support

46

Trew, pp. 41-44; Williams, pp. 60; Mackenzie, pp. 116-117.

Williams, pp. 59-62; Wheeler, pp. 81-84
48
Pavlowitch, pp. 91-92; Trew, pp. 87-93.
49
Williams, p. 61, see Mackenzie p. 124 for full quote (original in SOE Archives, AD/S.1)
50
Williams, pp. 61-63
47

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Mihailovi with whatever resources were available, which from November 1941 to June 1942
wasnt much: between 400 and 500 tons of supplies was dropped to the chetniks and a few
successful SOE missions made contact with Mihailovis forces, but real support for his
movement came mostly in the form of propaganda and international recognition.51 Titos
Partisans were driven into a corner for much of 1942 by combined German-chetnik pressure, and
while contact between the Comintern and Tito had been made early in the rising there was little
tangible assistance that Stalin could offer.52 Supporting Mihailovi was therefore the best way to
both keep the Yugoslav resistance firmly in the scope of the Allied war effort and maintain a
British influence in the country through SOE.

November 1941- 1943: Changing Relationships and Strategies

Histories of the SOE in Yugoslavia have little to say on the period from November 1941
to early 1943, for simple reasons: there were few SOE operatives in the country, support for the
resistance was irregular and insufficient, and Britains resources were focused in other, more
crucial areas (the Far East, North Africa and the North Atlantic).53 There were, however,
important developments during this period which contributed to the shift in British support from
Mihailovi to Tito, the major change in Britains policy towards the Yugoslav resistance which
came in mid-1943.
The first development was the realization of the almost-irreconcilable differences existing
among the various groups. The major difference, of course, was between the chetniks and
Partisans, but equally important was the troubled relationship between Mihailovi and the
British. By March 1942, with communications up and running again after a period of inactivity,

51

Mackenzie, pp. 121, 123-125.

Pavlowitch, p. 92
53
Williams, pp. 78-79.
52

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it became clear that the chetniks were doing little to interfere with the Axis occupation and had
instead focused most of their attention on liquidating the communists.54 This was, practically
speaking, the best course open to Mihailovi. His forces had taken heavy losses in the Germans
winter offensive and he had always been cognizant of protecting the civilian population from
German reprisals. Moreover, the picture on the ground in Yugoslavia looked bleak in the spring
of 1942: the Axis forces were well-entrenched in the major cities and towns, the Partisans were
undermining the chtenik movement by politicizing the resistance and turning a fight for national
survival into a campaign to reconstruct the country along communist lines.55 Certain by the
summer of 1942 that British support of his movement would be minimal and irregular,
Mihailovi spent most of the year focusing his attentions on the Partisans and husbanding his
strength for a new uprising against the Germans. SOE operatives with Mihailovi reported in late
summer that resistance activities against the Axis forces had dropped significantly from the
previous year, while frustration among the chetniks with the limits of British support were
growing daily.56
The realization that their Yugoslav champion was, at best, a reluctant resister was a bitter
pill for SOE. The organizations leadership was preoccupied for much of 1942, as Dalton and
others fought for SOEs survival in a series of interdepartmental skirmishes and government
shake-ups.57 The details of these squabbles are too Byzantine to be recounted here, but the final
result of months of debates within and without SOE came in late summer 1942. SOE had been a
product of the period when Britain had no allies to count on, yet with the entrance of both the

54

Pavlowitch, p. 92; Trew, pp. 94-96.

Trew, p. 96-99; Wheeler, pp. 71-74.
56
Williams, pp. 100-103
57
The interdepartmental politics are a major part of SOEs story, though of only tangential interest here. Heather
Williams and Simon Trew deal with it in relation to the struggle in Yugoslavia; see Saul Kelly, A succession of
crises? SOE in the Middle East, 1940-1945, The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations
Executive, 1940-1946. Ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge Press, 2007), pp.130-154, for an examination of the
feuds within SOE Cairo.
55

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Soviet Union and the United States that stance was no longer relevant. Indirect approaches to
confronting Nazi Germany, such as sabotage, propaganda and strategic bombing no longer
needed special emphasis (though they could not be abandoned entirely).58 The repercussions of
this shift in strategic thinking on SOE were dramatic. Hugh Dalton was replaced by the
conservative MP Lord Selbourne, the secret armies doctrine and Daltons ambitious plans to
set Europe ablaze were abandoned and SOE was placed firmly within the existing hierarchy,
subordinate to the Foreign Office, the Chiefs of Staff, even the Special Intelligence Service (SIS)
with which it had often feuded. Henceforth, SOE would work to encourage guerilla activity
throughout occupied Europe, without a particular focus on building large and complex national
organizations.59 This was the second major development to impact Britains relationship with
Yugoslav resistance.
This move, of course, came long after the secret armies concept had lost any relevance
to the situation in Yugoslavia. The British military had approved of supporting the Yugoslav
resistance in April 1942, though by then the uprisings had mostly petered out and both the
chetniks and Partisans had withdrawn from heavily-populated areas.60 SOE was eager to get the
ball of Yugoslav resistance rolling again, but it was hampered by a critical lack of resources. Due
to ongoing operations in North Africa and Malta SOE had access to only a few aircraft and some
poorly-placed airfields from which to launch missions into the Balkans.61 Mihailovi wished for
practical support against the communists, and in the absence of British supplies he turned to the
Italians, though the British were unaware of this.62 The rift between Mihailovi and his British
sponsors grew wider throughout 1942 over what he saw as their consistent betrayal (promising

58

Stafford, Detonator Concept, p. 209; Trew, pp. 68-70.

Mackenzie, pp. 250-255; Trew, p. 70.
60
Williams, p. 90.
61
Trew, pp. 71-72.
62
Williams, p. 91.
59

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much, delivering little) and SOEs frustration with his failure to act more aggressively, but
neither side could force the other in any meaningful way. In the long-term, Mihailovi began to
look less and less useful as a resistance figurehead, while Mihailovi viewed the British as an
increasingly valueless ally.63
Moreover, the usefulness of British propaganda support for Mihailovi declined
considerably in midsummer when strong anti-chetnik radio broadcasts began emanating from
Moscow. Partially as a means to pressure the British to open a second front and partially out of
service to Tito (who was himself in constant contact with the Comintern), the Soviet Union set
up Radio Free Yugoslavia in July 1942 and used it to broadcast pro-communist messages
decrying Mihailovi as a collaborator and King Peter as a coward.64 This was the first real Soviet
deviation from the British policy in Yugoslavia; with his focus previously fixed on halting the
German advance towards Moscow, Stalin had given the British a free rein in managing the
Yugoslav resistance. But his concern over the Wests delays to open a second front prompted the
Soviet government to take a greater interest in European resistance, particularly the ongoing
guerilla war in Yugoslavia. As Heather Williams surmises: It is probable that once the Soviets
realized that the western Allies were not going to provide the necessary diversion, they felt less
compunction in breaking ranks on the common propaganda line.65 This move by the Soviets to
pressure Britain was the third major development: henceforth, Anglo-Soviet relations would play
an important role in determining how SOE would support the Yugoslav resistance. In response to
the Soviet pressure, British propaganda began to favor Tito while decreasing the coverage of

63

Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, pp. 117-119.

Trew, p. 80.
65
Williams, p. 85; this is necessarily a speculative analysis, as records of Soviet decision-making on this issue are
unavailable.
64

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Mihailovi, a move which added additional confusion and distrust to their relationship with the
chetnik leader.66
Thus, while the period from November 1941 to January 1943 saw few dramatic
developments on the ground in Yugoslavia, the situation surrounding Britains relationship with
Yugoslav resistance had changed in a number of significant ways. SOE itself was now an
instrument of Allied war strategy, not an independent builder and detonator of secret armies.
Its champion in Yugoslavia, Draa Mihailovi, was by the end of 1942 not nearly as viable as he
had seemed a year earlier, though while propaganda support for him declined material support
continued in the form of aerial drops. The Soviet Union, as it shouldered the burden of bleeding
the German army white on the plans of Muscovy and in the streets of Stalingrad, had a greater
interest in the Yugoslav resistance though it still ceded the area to Britain for the time being. The
entire region had remained a strategic backwater for much of the period following the failed
March 1941 coup detat, but that would change in 1943 with the Allied Mediterranean
strategy.

1943-1944: Yugoslavia on the Center Stage and the Shift to Tito

Following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Allied strategy underwent a
change in direction. Following the successful invasion of North Africa in November 1942 and
the general agreement among the Allied high command that no European second front would be
opened until 1944, the focus of operations in 1943 would be to secure North Africa and the
Mediterranean while diverting German forces from the eastern front.67 Part of this new
Mediterranean strategy was a campaign of misinformation directed at the Germans designed to

66

Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 112.

Ralph Francis Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941-1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), pp. 112120, Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
1968), pp. 7-12.
67

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conceal the true targets of the planned Allied offensives (Sicily and Italy) by focusing on other
possible landing sights (southern France, Greece, and Yugoslavia).68 Along with the information
campaign, additional emphasis would be placed on supporting guerilla activities against the Axis
forces in the Balkans. The new strategy and the increase in available resources meant that SOE
support of Yugoslav resistance could finally reach a substantial level.69 However, the
implications of this new strategy were somewhat problematic. SOE would be arming and
supporting the Yugoslavs not as a means of achieving their independence but rather as a way of
tying down German forces: it was no longer important whether or not the Yugoslav people were
protected from reprisals (the chief goal of Mihailovi and a primary consideration in the secret
armies concept) but instead how fiercely they resisted. 70 Britain was in a very real sense using
the Yugoslav resistance as a unit in the Allied army, but the sense of control over Mihailovi and
later Tito which was imagined by Churchill, Eden, the British high command and SOE was more
illusion than fact as the events of 1943-45 would very clearly show.
The immediate problem facing Britains new approach to Yugoslav resistance was that
any remaining goodwill with Mihailovi seemed to evaporate in early 1943. On February 28th,
Mihailovi delivered a speech to a collection of Serbian nationalists and local townspeople
where he attacked the Yugoslav Government in Exile, the Soviet Union and the British Empire.
He blamed Perfidious Albion for promising guns and ammunition while delivering nothing
(which was quite close to the truth), and he declared that if no one would help him defend his
people, he would turn to the Germans and Italians for help.71 It was a disaster for SOEs
operations: as soon as the Foreign Office learned of the speech plans to withdraw support from

68

While highly touted by some military historians as one of the major intelligence coups of the war, it has been
argued that the effect on the German military in the spring and summer of 1943 was largely minimal. See Klaus
Jurgen Muller, A German Perspective on Allied Deception Plans in the Second World War, Intelligence and
National Security, Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 1987), pp. 45-67.
69
Williams, pp. 103-104
70
Ibid, p. 157
71
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 221;

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the chetniks were discussed and very nearly agreed upon, until a timely intervention from
Churchill tabled the issue.72
SOE operatives with Mihailovi attempted for several weeks to shore up relations with
the general, but their attempts backfired as both the general and the Foreign Office began to
move farther away from one another.73 Since the spring of 1942, when the military advantages of
continuous guerilla warfare in Yugoslavia were clearly perceived by British leadership, doubt
and suspicion had grown around Mihailovis apparent unwillingness to commit himself to
fighting the Axis, as well as the rumors and unsubstantiated reports of him making deals with
German and Italian commanders. The christening speech only confirmed what had long been
suspected: Mihailovi was a Serbian nationalist at heart, he cared little for Yugoslavian unity (as
his disregard for the YGE seemed to show) and he was willing to accept arms from anyone to
achieve his goals.74 The Foreign Office recommended a slow down policy; SOE was to cut off
any supply shipments to Mihailovi, an unusual order considering how little he was already
getting. Indeed, it was this lack of support from Britain which had prompted the generals
outburst in the first place.75
Simultaneous to Mihailovis outburst was a change in the ongoing Yugoslav civil war.
From its diminished state in 1942 the Partisan movement emerged in January 1943 to wage a
new campaign against the chetniks and disorganization among the Serbians allowed them to
make significant inroads into Serbian territory. By late February Mihailovi had cut himself off
from his SOE liaisons and was in the field fighting the Partisans, while Ultra decryptions
revealed the extent of the Partisans control of the Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin

72

Mackenzie, p. 427
Williams, pp. 110-112.
74
Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia , p. 222
75
Ibid, p. 125.
73

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hinterlands.76 Along with the civil war, two German winter offensives (Weiss and Schwarz)
further pressured the chetniks while supplying the Partisans (who drew their strength from those
fleeing German attacks) with thousands of new recruits. SOE London continued to believe well
into 1943 that Mihailovi had control of the country, was respected by Yugoslavs as the
representative of their government, and remained the best hope for a pro-British postwar
Yugoslav regime, but the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister and the military high command had
by late winter begun to seriously lose patience with Mihailovi. His connections to the Italians,
his outburst in February, his pan-Serbian beliefs and his continual unwillingness to attack the
Axis occupying forces all combined to make him an unsavory candidate for continued support.77
By March the question of shifting support to the Partisans was being actively discussed
in the Foreign Office, but doubts remained over the danger of backing revolutionary
communists. The attitude in the FO had always been to preserve the constitutional monarchy of
Yugoslavia after the war. Competing with these concerns was the urge to back whatever group
could inflict the greater damage on the Germans (by the spring of 1943, there was no question
that the Partisans were that group), and the need to mollify the Soviets who remained cooperative
but were growing concerned over British ambitions in the Balkans.78 Short-term priorities had
precedence over long-term dangers. It was therefore decided that a compromise would be made:
both the chetniks and the Partisans would be supported, so long as they agreed to stop fighting
one another and focused on the Germans.79 The goal was to unify all resistance in Yugoslavia,
as resistance to [the] Axis is of paramount importance.80 SOE was instructed to contact the
Partisans and to establish a mission with Titos headquarters.. By September, SOE officer

76

Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, pp. 218-220.

Ibid, pp. 223-225.
78
Pavlowitch, pp. 181-185, Williams, pp. 144-45.
79
Mackenzie, pp. 423-425.
80
Williams, p. 146; see PREM 3/510/13 Eden to Churchill, 24 June 1943.
77

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Fitzroy Maclean was ensconced with the Partisans and was sending regular reports to SOE
Cairo, reports which were then transmitted to London along with reports from SOEs chetnik
representatives.81
It is here that the conspiracy theorists find their fodder. During the spring and summer of
1943, SOE had missions with both Tito and Mihailovi who regularly filed reports with SOE
Cairo. These reports were then sent to London, but there is evidence to suggest that officers in
SOE Cairo made some effort to delay or otherwise tamper with the reports filed from SOEs
chetnik-based operatives. The possible perpetrator has been identified as Lt. James Klugmann, an
avowed communist and communications officer in Cairo. Revisionists who wish to complicate
Britains relationship with the Yugoslav resistance and with Titos postwar communist
government point to SOE Cairo as the chief reason for the eventual switch from Mihailovi to
Tito, but without proper documents to display the activities of Klugmann or others, the
conclusions are necessarily speculative.82
Regardless of the tampering which may (or may not) have been taking place in Cairo, the
reports filed from SOEs two missions differed greatly. Tito had at first been wary of SOE
support. Throughout the first half of 1943 he had nursed hysterical fears of a Serbian-ItalianBritish conspiracy to return imperialism to the country, and unlike Mihailovi he believed his
movement would be directly threatened by an Anglo-American second front opening in
Yugoslavia.83 However, he accepted the SOE officers into his company in March and in May
made a number of changes to the Partisans organization, downplaying the communist
propaganda and introducing ranks and administrative positions, in order to achieve a more

81

Mackenzie, p. 427-428.
Roderick Bailey, Communist in SOE: explaining James Klugmanns recruitment and retention, The Politics and
Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946, ed. Neville Wylie (London: Routledge
Press, 2007), pp.66-90.
83
Richard West, Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1995), pp. 144-45.
82

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legitimate profile.84 The changes had a profound impact on his relationship with SOE. Fitzroy
Maclean, the SOE representative to Tito, filed glowing reports filled with brilliant details of
daring raids and energetic guerilla attacks. He also regularly commented on the discipline and
combat-readiness of the Partisans, which he found to be at British Army standards.85 Maclean,
who was joined by Churchills friend and non-SOE officer Sir William Deakin in June, urged
SOE to deliver more supplies to Tito, who he insisted was fighting the Germans and wished for
an end to the civil war.86 By comparison, reports filed from the chetnik camp were dispiriting,
confused and irregular, with more information coming to light regarding accommodations
Mihailovi had made with Italian commanders in Montenegro and the Nedis puppet
government in Belgrade.87
The decision to support both Tito and Mihailovi was undone in November by Macleans
blockbuster report. Macleans report determined that the Partisans [were] the most important
element in Yugoslavia, both in terms of reconstituting the state after the war, and for organizing it on a
federal basis where racial harmony would prevail. The YGE, by comparison, was filled with traitors
and deserters, while Mihailovi was a pan-Serb and a collaborator. The Partisans possessed the

numbers (which Maclean wildly exaggerated) and the will to drive out the Germans, pacific the
country and establish an orderly postwar regime based on a united Yugoslavia. 88 The report
struck a chord with Churchill, who was beginning to think that Tito was someone with whom
we can do business, and like the FO and SOE he was fed up with both the Yugoslavian
government and Mihailovi.89 Macleans report was the perhaps the most significant SOE

84

Williams, pp. 137-138.

Mackenzie, p. 435. Maclean himself repeats much of the same sentiments in his autobiography, Eastern
Approaches (London: Cape Publishing, 1946), pp. 123-125.
86
Mackenzie, p. 436.
87
; Williams, p. 166
88
FO 371/37615 The Partisan Movement in Yugoslavia, Fitzroy Maclean for Foreign Office, 6 November 1943;
Williams, p. 184
89
Williams, pp. 185, 191-192.
85

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document written on Yugoslavia in the entire war, and it marked the beginning of the end for
Mihailovi and British support for the chetnik movement.
Despite the frustration with Mihailovi in the fall of 1943 and the growing enthusiasm for
Tito, the chetnik general was not abandoned immediately: he could not be left to rot off the
branch.90 Tito was strong throughout Yugoslavia but he had not yet penetrated Serbia, where
the chetniks existed in force.91 British leaders still wished to use both groups to fight the
Germans if possible. There was also the YGE to consider; Churchill was especially keen on the
idea of King Peter heading a government organized by Tito and the Partisans, a sort of
communist-monarchy hybrid.92 A series of telegrams from SOE officers in Yugoslavia in late
November, however, put the final nail in Mihailovis coffin. It was revealed that Mihailovi, in
preparation for the Partisan push into Serbia, was actively collaborating with the Serbian puppet
government of Milan Nedi, receiving weapons, ammunition and fresh recruits to fight the
communists.93 Despite the fact that the information was unconfirmed, and was later largely
debunked by reports from SOEs officers with Mihailovis headquarters, the impact was
immediate. Churchill announced on December 1st that he wanted Mihailovi gone by the end of
the year.94 SOE officers with the chetniks were instructed to link-up with Partisan groups (an
absurd order, considering how detached each group was from one another), while supply drops
to the chetniks ceased immediately. 95
Tito seized the opportunity granted him by launching vigorous campaigns against both
the Germans and the chetniks. The international recognition which he had sought since the
summer came at the Tehran Conference, when all three Allied governments agreed to support the

90

Williams, p. 193
Pavlowitch, p. 210.
92
Williams, p. 192
93
FO 371/37616 Howard minute, 22 Nov. 1943, on YugoslaviaBrigadier Macleans Report.
94
CAB 66/17/23, Minutes from Meeting, 1 December 1943.
95
Stafford, Britain in European Resistance, p. 121.
91

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Partisans to the greatest possible extent.96 He declared his new government, the National
Committee of Yugoslavia, in December and set about engaging Soviet support for an eventual
push on Belgrade.97 British leaders, meanwhile, were initially hopeful that Tito could be turned
into a better agent of Allied strategy than his predecessor and in the first months of 1944 sent
him thousands of tons of supplies and hundreds of trained SOE officers. Bombers were promised
for his summer offensive into Serbia, while propaganda touted Tito as the man who would free
the Balkans.98
While he treated the British cordially, allowing them to follow his Partisan groups and
occasionally advise him, Tito kept SOE at a distance; information on the Partisans real activities
was carefully guarded, while SOE officers were aware only of Partisan attacks on the Germans.99
According to Stevan Pavlowitch, it seems likely that Tito never fully trusted the British and was
constantly suspicious of their intentions regarding Mihailovi and the YGE. He spent the first
half of 1944 importuning Stalin for rapid assistance; is plans focused on establishing a
communist order after the war, and there was no room for the old regime.100 Churchills plans for
a communist-monarchy after the war therefore came to nothing, and although Tito signed an
agreement with the YGE he never accepted the idea of a government with King Peter at its
head.101 In fact, all attempts by the British government or SOE to influence Tito during 1944
were failures, as the Yugoslav resistance became more and more fixed on securing Soviet
support.

96

Stafford, Britain in European Resistance, p. 122.

Williams, p. 230.
98
Pavlowitch, pp. 215-216, 235
99
Williams, p. 231-235.
100
Pavlowitch, p. 220.
101
Williams, p. 225-226.
97

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That support was forthcoming. In August 1944, the Red Army took a detour as it tore
through the Balkan states to capture Belgrade and secure it for occupation by Titos forces.102
The loss of the Serbian capital and the destruction of much of the chetnik forces in the region
brought the pro-Serbian resistance to an end. By this point the opinion of Tito in London had
changed and suspicions of his true intentions were mounting, but after the capture of Belgrade it
was impossible to change matters. The communists were thoroughly established in Yugoslavia,
the resistance was over, and rather than maintaining its influence in the region (as had been
established at the October meeting between Churchill and Stalin, where influence in Yugoslavia
would be 50-50 between the two powers103), Britain found itself with very little left worth
holding onto in the country. The early months of 1945 were taken up with a dash by Soviet,
Partisan and Allied forces to secure Slovenia and the Trieste hinterland, at which point combat
operations in Yugoslavia came to an end.104
Conclusion
From the March 1941 coup detat to the end of the war, Great Britain used SOE to utilize
the Yugoslav resistance towards accomplishing specific military and political war aims. Initially,
these aims revolved around the secret armies and detonator concepts, whereby British arms
and officers would train a large native Yugoslav force to rise up and expel the German occupier
at an appropriate moment. When that strategy became irrelevant after the United States and
Soviet Union entered the war, SOE switched to an approach that encouraged active resistance
against the Germans as a means of tying down German forces and distracting German attention
from Allied offensives in other areas. The British government, chiefly the Foreign Office and
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, also attempted to support Yugoslav resistance as a means of

102

Pavlowitch, pp. 230-231

Ibid, p. 245
104
Williams, p. 238
103

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maintaining the pre-war political order, though this concern was gradually modified according to
war-time strategic needs. Above all, the emphasis focused on using the resistance for British
purposes: when the interests of the resistance groups conflicted with those of Britain, attempts
were made to turn the resistance in more constructive directions until eventually a move was
made to shift support from the chetniks to the Partisans, reckoned by British leaders to be more
useful wartime allies.
The failure of SOE and Britain to effectively harness the Yugoslav resistance and
accomplish these military and political goals was in large part a product of the differences
between Britain and the two Yugoslav resistance groups. Britain sought to tie down and drain
away German military strength through active resistance while preserving the integrity of the
Yugoslav state (embodied by the Yugoslav Government in Exile and the monarchy of King
Peter), but neither Mihailovi nor Tito were interested in these goals. Mihailovi sought to
preserve Serbian nationhood and defend the Serbian people from the communist threat and when
British aid for his cause was lacking he turned to the Serbian puppet government of Milan Nedi
and local Axis commanders for support. Tito was focused throughout the war on bringing about
a communist revolution in Yugoslavia and was comfortable with accepting British support,
though his ties to the Soviet Union and the encroaching Red Army in 1944 drove him to courting
Stalins favor more than Churchills. Until Yugoslavia became the center stage of the Allied
misdirection campaign in early 1943, SOE never had the resources to provide meaningful
support to Mihailovi, a fact that contributed to his collaborationism, but the chetnik leader never
pursued the kind of aggressive strategy Britain asked of him. While more aggressive, Tito had no
interest in preserving the existing Yugoslav state; though enthusiasm for Tito in the British
government was high, and Churchill himself thought some compromise could be reached to save

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King Peter his thrown, a communist Yugoslavia led by Tito was the only possible result as soon
as Mihailovi lost British support in late 1943.
The involvement of SOE in Yugoslavia and Britains attempts at using Yugoslav
resistance is therefore a tale of largely spoiled ambitions.105 More significantly, however, it
displays the importance of the political dimension of resistance and the effects outside forces
can have on native resistance movements. British support for Mihailovi in 1941 gave him
international recognition and cemented his status as the legitimate leader of Yugoslav resistance.
The withdrawal of that support in 1943 gave Tito the edge he needed to win the Yugoslav civil
war and establish a communist state after the war. Since the British were driven by both political
and military considerations, their support for Yugoslav resistance was by necessity strategic in
nature. Mihailovi was supplied with arms, munitions and professional assistance by SOE
because he was initially regarded as the best leader for the resistance; when accusations of
collaboration against him began piling up and it became clear he was not actively engaged in
fighting the Germans, SOE shifted its support to Tito. When Yugoslavia emerged from war in
1945, after losing between 1 million and 1.6 million people from a population of 17 million106, it
was a country shaped not only by the horrors and savagery of the Axis occupation and Paveli
regime but by the lengthy and vigorous struggle between chetniks and Partisans. The role of
Britain and SOE within that struggle speaks to the folly of an outside force using a nation in
chaos to pursue its own ends and the foolishness inherent in a venture as poorly-resourced and
under-staffed as SOE attempting to harness the collective energies of a country at war with itself
for a few simple yet unachievable political and military goals.

105

Unlike some views of Britains activities in Yugoslavia, which point to the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 as proof of
Britains success, I do not believe Britain deserves any credit for pursuing a successful policy in Yugoslavia. See
Williams, pp. viii-ix.
106
Tomasevich, p. 737.

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