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This part of the Documentry "Secrets of War - The Balkan Tinderbox" on the History channel shows that Draza's Cetniks were more successful in fighting the Axis forces then the Partizans before the Allies switched support. And how the Communists distorted British intelligence to make the Partizans look better.
It just goes to show that Mihajlovic was fighting the Nazi's contrary to Tito's propaganda after the war. The myth that Cetniks were just hanging around in the woods singing songs and drinking while the Germans and Ustase were killing innocent people is all a lie. And that Mihajlovic only fought the nazi's in 1941 and then joined them is an even bigger lie. Sure some groups that also called themselves Cetniks were allied with the Nazi's (Nedic's and Pecanac's Cetniks) but they were enemies of Mihajlovic.
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CAPTAIN WALTER MANSFIELD, of the FIRST AMERICAN MISSION TO MIHAILOVICH DURING WORLD WAR TWO
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Speech given in Canada in 1953
“There is no nation which would, more than you Serbs, appreciate human freedoms and rights. Not only appreciate, but give everything for them. It happened on Kosovo, the Salonika Front and Ravna Gora. The first thing that I learned from your brothers in your mountains was “Freedom or Death.” The great law and ideal for great men and times.
…I have not many opportunities to meet many great men. One of them is my good and never forgotten Chicha [General Mihailovich]. He will live in my heart as long as I last. I observed him in all conditions, mostly difficult ones. Then one can see better. It made no difference whether the gunpowder was burning the eyes, or death was waiting, or injustice was hurting. He was always great and sincere in victory as well as in defeat. He loved his country, his people and the cause of freedom, sacrificing himself for the glory of living…
Calm, courageous, and resourceful, during all operations from Ivanjica, Drina, Zlatibor, Valjevo and Sabac, he remained always legendary. I remember one night near Rudo, when a battle lasted three hours and the Germans were firing on us from all sides and from the air, Chicha went from one to another, from one part of the battlefield to another, bringing fate and force into our weakened bodies. To him we have to be grateful for breaking out of the encirclement. Yes, I might add, and for our lives. If there was no General I would not be alive today…
He spared innocent blood and avoided hopeless battles at all cost – although it is always easier to sacrifice others for one’s own glory, or build that glory on thousands of innocent and unneeded graves.
‘When the times of*general uprising comes,’ said Chicha, ‘we will give everything for freedom and victory. But, for that day we must be ready so that we can hit harder and win for sure. Before that day arrived they chose Tito. By such an act, they have sinned against God, faithfulness, justice, victory and freedom,’ Chicha declared.
During the very difficult winter of 1943, together, we were pushing to break out of the Valley of Death. Already the perspective was changing. The BBC glorified a man who had been sent to Yugoslavia to convert the liberation struggle into fratricidal war, and on the ruins of a state to build a Communist ‘Celekula’. [The Turkish Pasha of Nish, in 1809, had ordered that the heads of Serbian insurgents who had tried to liberate a town near Nish be shaved [Cele] and used to erect a tower [kula] as testimony to what happened if Turkish control was challenged in Serbia.] There is no cruel, dishonest, or bestial road that this Red monster did not take to to accomplish his task. The naïve Allies, to accommodate Stalin, nurtured a snake in their bosoms.
On his account fables were converted into history. Other people’s successes into his red feather. We were in Rogatica after Ostojic’s troops won the victory at Visegrad. That same night the BBC gave our victory to Tito and announced that victorious Partisans had entered Rogatica. We, the Yugoslav Army of the Homeland, were in Rogatica. At that time, around the town there was not a single German or a Tito Commie.
When we parted after a brotherly hug, Chicha was smiling but his eyes were sad. We knew what kind of days were to follow.”
Captain Walter Mansfield
1953
In a Speech given in Canada
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American Military Forces treated as Prisoners by Tito's Partisans.
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^ Lt. Col. James M. Inks, United States Air Force
YUGOSLAV MILITARY ATTACHE QUESTIONS CAPTAIN OF THE U.S. AIR CORPS ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES IN WORLD WAR II YUGOSLAVIA AND LT. COL. JAMES M. INKS RESPONDS.
July 13, 1946
Dear Lt. Inks:
I have learned that you parachuted from your plane on the 28th of July, 1944, near Podgorica, Yugoslavia and that you were liberated by the Partisans April 26, 1945, and returned to your base. As the military attaché to the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington, your experiences and impressions regarding this matter, interest me very much and I would appreciate it very much if you would inform me in detail about your experience. I am especially interested in your impressions of our units and the various parts of the country through which you passed, their treatment towards you, what observations you can make concerning the enemy and how you happened to be liberated by the Partisans and returned to your authorities. I would like to know how you were received by the various units in Yugoslavia and how they treated you.
Anticipating a quick reply to my inquiries, accept my sincerest regards and my congratulations on your safe return to your home and to your loved ones after all you have gone through in this horrible war.
Sincerely yours,
Colonel Mihovil Tartalja
Military and Air Attache
Yugoslav Embassy
LT. COL. JAMES M. INKS REPLIES:
July 17, 1946
Colonel Mihovil Tartalja
Military and Air Attache
Yugoslav Embassy
Colonel Tartalja:
At dawn this morning, 17 July 1946, the Partisans took the life of the greatest man yet to show his face in the political situation of Yugoslavia. Yes, General Mihailovich was truly a great man. His honesty, integrity and straight-forwardness was in direct contract to the slinky and crafty Partisans that I was unfortunate enough to come in contact with.
I am writing this at your request, and my views are my own and are not to be interpreted as to represent those of the army or my government, however, you can rest assured that I am going to do my utmost to expose this monstrosity of a crime that your government has just this morning committed.
I spent months in Yugoslavia and came in contact with all of the factions there. I lived with General Mihailovich for three months and learned a great deal about the man and his ways of accomplishing things. I jumped in the same fox-holes with his Chetniks, when American and English planes bombed and strafed them on Tito’s information that Germans were there. True, the Chetniks were not openly fighting the Germans in the last year of the war, but they were powerless to do so. However I witnessed and took part in numerous skirmishes with the Germans, which we were forced to give the Partisans credit for.
As for the treatment by the different groups, the Chetniks treated us like free men and allies. They gave us food that should have normally gone to their underfed troops. They gave us guns and ammunition and money and allowed us to do just about anything we were physically able to. After we were captured by the Partisans, we were treated as prisoners and certainly not like allies. They took our guns and ammunition from us, kept us with their prisoners, and even forced us to carry wounded Partisans off the field of battle under fire.
I kept an accurate account of what happened to me and my comrades while we were in Yugoslavia. This has recently had its secret classification removed by the army and is now cleared for publication. I hope in the near future to have it before every citizen in the United States, in one of our popular magazines and you can rest assured that I will leave nothing out that reflects my contempt for your present form of Government. Furthermore, several hundred other American airmen are not going to forget General Mihailovich and I sincerely hope that we see to it that you are reminded forcefully of the supreme injustice that you have committed against him.
JAMES M. INKS
Captain, Air Corps
U.S.
Lieutenant Colonel James M. Inks of the United States Air Force flew 135 combat missions during twenty years of his distinguished military service. His Liberator bomber was forced to go down in Yugoslavia in July of 1944 as he was flying his 43rd mission, last mission during World War II. Inks and his fellow airmen would stay in Yugoslavia for 10 ½ months after being rescued by the Chetniks. He witnessed firsthand what was going on in Yugoslavia as he traveled with the Chetniks. Three of those 10 ½ months were spent directly with General Mihailovich near Loznica. Lt. Col. Inks would learn much about both the General and his forces and kept a diary during his time in Yugoslavia. This diary would later be published in book form in 1954. Eight Bailed Out, published by W.W. Norton & Company, New York, is the story of an American airman’s experience in World War II Yugoslavia among the people who were fighting not just for their lives against the Axis occupier but for the integrity and future of their nation after the war.
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In 1943, the Nazis issued a standing offer for the capture of General Draza Mihailovich, dead or alive. The reward was 100,000 gold Reichsmarks.The Germans did not succeed.
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.Adolf Hitler on Mihajlovic
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'Having in view the danger contained in the Mihailovich movement, I have already, in anticipation of all eventualities, issued orders for the destruction of all his supporters on the territory occupied by my troops. The liquidation of Mihailovich's movement at the present time will no longer be an easy matter because of the forces he has at his disposal.' (February 16, 1943)
Heinrich Himler issues orders to destroy Mihailovich
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‘The basis of every success in Serbia and in the entire southeast of Europe lies in the annihilation of Mihailovich. Concentrate all your forces on locating Mihailovich and his headquarters so that he can be destroyed. Any means may be used to achieve this end. I expect the smoothest cooperation between all agencies concerned, from the Security Police and Security Service to all other branches of the SS and police. The head of the SS and police Meissner has already received instructions from me in this regard. Please let me know which clues we already have of Mihailovich’s whereabouts. Please inform me weekly about the progress of this action.’”
Heinrich Himmler
Nazi Commander of the SS and Gestapo
July 17, 1942
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.By Lt. Col. Albert B. Seitz
There remains little for the physical record of Draza Mihailovic; sparkplug of resistance; abandoned Minister of War to the throne of Yugoslavia.
On April 18, 1946 a news item appeared in Il Giornale della Sera in Rome from an unidentified Yugoslav source. It reported that on 13 March, after a sustained air-ground attack, in which poison gas was used, Mihailovic had been captured with eleven living followers. They were all that remained of a force of 1020 men. He became a martyr in July.
Three things must be considered in evaluating the greatness of Mihailovich.
First - He set the example for Europe and its conquered people in resistance.
Second - He was of incalculable benefit to Russia in defeating Germany. His revolt at Ravna Gora caused Hitler to delay his time table of attack on Russia from April to June of 1941, with the result that the Germans found themselves stalled outside Moscow in the middle of the bitter Russian winter. That precious time and the subsequent siphoning of 30 sorely needed Axis divisions to keep the Yugoslavs quiet plus the lend lease from the Allies, was the saving grace of a nation whose salvation was of questionable usefulness to the world.
Third – He was a bulwark to the British in their North African Campaign. With Europe occupied, the Germans were able to turn their attention to the Italian war effort in North Africa. In June 1942 Rommel and his Africa Korps in a long counter offensive against Ritchie, had captured Tobruk with 25,000 and pushed on within 70 miles of Alexandria. Auchinleck replaced Ritchie, with Cunningham and Tedder commanding sea and air components. There was no cause for British optimism as the build-up of her ground and air had been seriously influenced by her disastrous campaign in Greece which had cost her 50,000 men.
Mihailovich was asked to harass the Germans in this area and retard the flow of supplies through the Vardar Valley to Salonika. How well he did this was attested to by radio messages from Auchinleck, Cunningham and Tedder on 16 August 1942.
By October Allied reinforcements swelled the British command in North Africa sufficiently to permit Montgomery to match strength with Rommel in El Alamein. With the Allied landing in French North Africa on 8 November the Axis were through in Africa.
During this period Mihailovich suffered 20,000 casualties stopping the German supply route, and on 16 December 1942, 2500 hostages were executed by the Nazis in Belgrade.
These are debts of Britain and her Allies! To Mihailovic not Tito.
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GERMANS SHATTER MYTH ABOUT MIHAILOVICH COLLABORATION
“Gerhard Emscotter was a German war correspondent (and intelligence agent) in Yugoslavia throughout the occupation. While communist torturers were preparing Mihailovich for trial in the spring of 1946, Emscotter gave the following statement to the American press:
‘I attended numerous confidential (German) meetings in connection with General Mihailovich throughout the war and the occupation while I was stationed in the Balkans. Based on what I learned about Mihailovich at those meetings and the information I obtained about him from our other sources, the accusation that Mihailovich collaborated with us is without any support or foundation. Our leaders regarded the Serbs and Mihailovich as sworn enemies. All our attempts to make contact with Mihailovich remained fruitless. There were several such efforts and they all remained fruitless. Therefore, there was never any communication between us, nor were we able to accomplish anything in this direction. We were hoping that, once he had been betrayed by all his allies, Mihailovich would finally realize that cooperation with us was his only remaining alternative. But he did not desire to cooperate with us, nor did he ever receive our emissaries, something that American and British officers attached to his staff could confirm.’
The head of the German intelligence service in Eastern Europe was General Gehlen, who acted in the capacity of a super-ambassador for all German intelligence agencies. In the days when Churchill was becoming suspicious of Mihailovich’s loyalty, based on Bailey’s intrigues and Deakin’s fantasies, Hitler’s general declared Mihailovich ‘Germany’s most dangerous enemy on the entire Southeastern sector.’ His reports (as well as others), all uniformly hostile to Mihailovich, were not unfamiliar to Himmler. As Churchill was abandoning Mihailovich , Himmler was dictating to his assistant, Miller, a new order ‘against the Mihailovich bands’ instructing that they be annihilated. Himmler’s order contained the following observation: ‘We cannot hope for success in Serbia or anywhere on the territory of pre-war Yugoslavia unless we destroy Mihailovich and his movement.’
.The Nazi police colonel and chief of the Gestapo for Serbia, Dr. Fuchs, when asked by the communist prosecutor about the relationship between General Mihailovich and the German police forces which he headed, responded unambiguously:
‘The Gestapo, which I headed throughout the war, maintained no contacts with General Mihailovich. Moreover, we always considered Mihailovich the number one enemy of the German people. That is why members of Mihailovich’s movement were persecuted without mercy by the Gestapo. The Germans were unanimous in the opinion that the nationalist movement in Serbia under Mihailovich’s command presented the greatest danger for the security of German troops in the Balkans. Finally, that is the movement which gave the most trouble to the Germans and which...’
Dr. Fuchs was not allowed to complete his sentence. The president of the court silenced him and adjourned the proceedings so that the world would never learn the truth about Mihailovich and the Germans from the mouth of a most competent witness, the man responsible for implementing Hitler’s laws in Serbia and over whose signature thousands of hostages were shot. The following day Dr. Fuchs trial was continued on camera.
The head of the German economic apparatus in Serbia was engineer Franz Neuhausen. At his trial in Belgrade, after the war, prosecutor Minic boasted that ‘The German Reich was unable to export food from Serbia because of the operations of our Partisan forces.’ Neuhausen serenely exploded this communist fable:
‘We did not even feel the presence of the Partisans, or communists, in Serbia. If our warehouses were constantly under attack, pillaged, or destroyed, that was the responsibility of Mihailovich’s men, not of the Partisans. They [Mihailovich’s men] were the ones who curtailed our access to the villages and food stockpiles and thus frustrated German export from Serbia.’
Neuhausen’s testimony ends here because, he too, was silenced by the communist court
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Winston Churchill Regrets Decision to Abandon Mihailovich
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Even after General Draza Mihailovich was abandoned by the Allies, he and his forces continued to aid them, which is probably the single most significant indicator of the nature of his character. Unfortunately, despite the aid that he had given to the British, continued to give to the British and the British lives he saved, the disinformation campaign against him continued. Richard Lamb, in Churchill as War Leader describes one such rescue operation and its aftermath:
“Some British Liaison Officers traveled 150 miles from their operational areas in southern Serbia to Pranjani for evacuation. The party, after picking up rescued air crews, totaled 110 men, and they encountered no Partisans (Tito’s forces) on the march which was all through Chetnik held territory. Mihailovich’s troops defended the aerodrome against the Germans for their departure. On arrival in Bari, Italy, they were shown a map with pins showing the whole of their escape route held by Tito’s forces. An identical map was prepared for the Prime Minister by SOE in Cairo. The British Liaison Officers were so angry that they pulled out the pins. This shows how Klugmann in Cairo was duping his superiors.”
Author Lamb summarizes his assessments of the Mihailovich-Allies problem with a review of how the Allies viewed this problem in immediate hindsight. He touches on the American role in the abandonment by writing:
“Roosevelt had always believed Tito to be a ruthless communist, and he had never shared Churchill’s short lived enthusiasm for the man in late 1943 and early 1944. . .Churchill’s decision to back Tito against Mihailovich produced little if any military benefits and was a disaster for the people of Yugoslavia.”
Lamb concludes that Winston Churchill himself knew this well and never denied it after the war was over. At a dinner in Brussels, Belgium in December of 1945, Churchill made the following comment, a comment which still resonates today:
“During the war I thought I could trust Tito. . .but now I am aware I committed one of the biggest mistakes of the war.”
Lest the “mistake” be attributed to Churchill being a “victim of deceit”, it is a fact that there were those British officials, both in London and on the ground in Yugoslavia, who witnessed first-hand what was going on and reported on it, who warned Churchill about Tito, and the misguided decision to abandon General Draza Mihailovich. As much as he was misled, when one looks at everything that transpired in those few years of war, one must conclude that Winston Churchill chose to be misled.
After the war was over, Anthony Eden, head of the British Foreign Office in London, who had always believed in Mihailovich, stated unequivocally that
“My biggest regret of the war was abandoning Mihailovich.”
Even though Lamb attributes the abandonment of Mihailovich to Churchill being a victim of deceit, he does concede that this is a big mark against Churchill when one appraises his legacy as a wartime leader:
“Churchill and his advisors had been misled by SOE in Cairo into believing that the Royalist guerrilla leader, Mihailovich, was collaborating with the Germans and fighting only against the Partisan communists under Tito. The reverse was true. Tito’s communists were not fighting the Germans, and his sole aim was to make Yugoslavia a communist state after the war. Against the advice of Eden and the Foreign Office, Churchill insisted on all-out support for Tito and none for Mihailovich. This was a disastrous error.”
There is another implication in all of this, which is outside the realm that Lamb discusses, but that is integral to any discussion of this appraisal. Despite all the British provisions and support provided to Tito and his forces, despite the brutal bombings of Mihailovich positions in Yugoslavia by the Allies which compounded the tragedy of the betrayal and abandonment, and despite the fact that Mihailovich was not receiving help or aid from anyone in the world, Tito and his communists could not have taken Serbia from Mihailovich without the direct involvement of the Soviet Army and Tito knew that.
Tito therefore insisted that the Soviets break the Yalta Agreement which prohibited foreign troops from entering Yugoslavia, by sending their Third Ukrainian Front into Serbia, and the Soviets complied. At the same time, the former Nazi troops of Bulgaria entered Serbia from the east. Finally, Tito’s partisans were able to successfully penetrate into Serbia and enter Belgrade after it was “liberated” by the Soviet troops.
The reason this is relevant here is that had the British not built up Tito and his communists and abandoned Mihailovich and his freedom fighters, Yugoslavia may never have fallen to communism with all of the subsequent consequences that were to follow, consequences we see unfolding daily as the country succumbs to civil war today, a half century later.
Richard Lamb has written an important work, if for no other reason but that he is a British historian who has honestly investigated and exposed certain historical facts about the role that the British leadership of his nation has played in the Balkan arena. Although he ends his analysis by concluding that “Churchill was a great wartime leader,” he does concede that:
“Churchill falsified history. . . his memoirs are tendentious in places. . . he put pressure on the official historians in the Cabinet Office to conceal chunks from the archives. . . and many facets of the history of the war have been distorted.”
