British History on General Mihailovic & Marshall Tito

and the Chetniks operated in nDH, while in nedic’ Serbia there were
no partisan units that are even worth mentioning. numerous german
reports were associated with these events, including those on the exe-
cutions of thousands of Serbs. at this point the germans introduced a
new measuring standard: 100 civilians were executed for each german
soldier killed and 200 for every bridge destroyed.
There is probably no need to mention that none of these reports we-
re apprehended by the British bureau at Bletchley Park and this is exac-
tly why Cripps was unaware of the report from the german group Wi-
neke, which investigated the case regarding a Chetnik sabotage group
known as gordon group and its activities in the nis region. The ger-
mans captured 733 saboteurs from gordon group; following the inte-
rrogations, 396 were executed and 35 were killed in action. according
to the report from Wineke, gordon group was able to execute an un-
believable amount of 1499 acts of sabotages, making it the greatest do-
cumented success of a single group of saboteurs in the whole world du-
ring World War II. Please keep in mind that this number only states the
amount of officially recorded acts, there most certainly had to be more
of them. gordon group was not assigned to the destruction of bridges;
this was the task for the other units that were in pursuit of german
troops. group Wineke was of the opinion that the Chetnik units from
lapovo, and especially those from Kraljevo and Krusevac, were very
successful. However, these units were outside of their supervision.
Cripps begins the year 1943 with the description of two german
plans: one for the destruction of the Partisans called Weis, and the
other one for the annihilation of the Chetniks called Schwartz. Cripps
says: “Churchill must have been excited when he learnt about these
plans. at the time, he saw Bill Deakin, his pre-war research assistant
who was then working for the SoE in Cairo. The operational head of
SoE Cairo, Brigadier Keble, had previously worked for military intel-
ligence in Cairo and was still receiving a limited number of abwehr
decrypts, which were analyzed by Deakin and his superior officer Ba-
sil Davidson. Churchill demanded a report from Keble, who advocated
that the Partisans should be contacted”. It was written that the “conspi-
racy in Cairo” discovered partisan success, which persuaded Churchill
to offer them full support. now, after the transcripts were revealed, it
became clear that the Prime Minister was informed about the events
well before he met with Deakin and Keble.
The decrypts reveal in detail the course of the operation Weiss. The
Partisans provided such a strong resistance to the german land troops
that luftwaffe air force had to be deployed. By february 16, 1943 the
first phase of the operation was announced to be completed, but the
reports pointed out that some Partisans had escaped the perimeter
by moving towards the Bauxite region and the rest by resurfacing on
the free zones. a copy of Kebley’s report to Churchill was received by
the head of general’s staff, who made a decision to contact the Parti-
sans, but not before Colonel Bateman from the Command for Military
operations suggested that it was appropriate to support “the active
and fighting the Partisans instead of lethargic and slow Chetniks”…
Thus the second phase of the operation Weiss was completed. received
transcripts give evidence that livno Partisans had advanced towards
the Bauxite zone together with the local units.
nevertheless, Cripps does not provide any details on the operation
Weiss, and therefore we cannot see the basis for a conclusion made by
Britain about “solid resistance” of Partisans. If we take a look at the
german documents from this operation, such a conclusion seems hi-
ghly improbable. on the contrary, a day after the first and the most
important phase of the operation, february 17, 1943, general arthur
Phleps, the Commander of the main german unit, the 7th mountain
SS division Prince Eugen, wrote: “It may be expected that the enemy
will give its first resistance”. on the basis of the documents from com-
munists it is clear that Phleps was not exaggerating as he spoke about
the split within the movement and about a quick fall of the Bihac re-
public. Even the Partisans themselves did not regard their retreat as
advancement; it seems this was the case for Cripps only.
Even more interesting is the fact that the British failed to notice
that the Partisans, at the onset of the operation Weiss, did not send
their best units against the germans and the ustashe, but against the
Chetniks in the Knin region. Since the British code-breakers overloo-
ked the key documents, their analysts were not able to put two and
two together.
The following summary represents what key information was mi-
ssed. Three days prior to the beginning of the operation Weiss, on
January 17, 1943 Broz received a report from the Head of Command
stating the following: “We ought to make these ustashe negotiators –
parliamentarians aware, that it is mandatory for them to bring origi-
nal – official permission from the Pavelic government, and not from
various delegates.” The Croatian leader, ante Pavelic, gets the messa-
ge and immediately dispatches it to nikola rushinovich, the Minister
and the ambassador to the Vatican (in those days ambassadors were
called ministers). on January 18th, the Commander of the 4th zone of
the “People’s liberation army of Croatia” (Croatian Partisans), Vicko
Krstulovic, wrote about the arrival of the Minister to the Supreme
Headquarters: “… Pavelic has sent his Minister with the sole purpose
of establishing contact with the Partisans; we ought to prevent this
action (operation Weiss) and the killing of the Partisans and the Cro-
atian army in any way possible. In order to do this negotiation and
agreement with the Partisans must absolutely be kept secret from
the germans and Italians. They (Pavelic and his government) hold a
position that government without people is not worth much. Minis-
ter and the district Prefect (n. leutic, the great Prefect in omis), ex-
pressed their confidence towards the Partisans, but fear that the Serbs
will regain leadership among them and the future Yugoslavia will fall
under their command.”
after receiving the letter from Josip Broz, Tito personally arrives
for the meeting with Pavelic. This meeting between the two conflicting
sides was of the highest importance: on one side there was a Minister
and a personal envoy of the Supreme Commander and on the other,
the Supreme Commander himself. This was similar to Churchill send-
ing his Minister to meet with Hitler and to betray roosevelt and Stalin.
The Italians were the first ones to find out about the meeting that was
held in a roman Catholic monastery. Earlier in his work, Cripps men-
tioned that the British code-breakers caught both Italian and Croatian
messages, but now it seems those messages eluded them. nevertheless,
there is a shift of focus here: for both Weiss and Scwartz operations, the
germans concentrated huge units near the adriatic Sea. The reason for
that lies not in the fear of the Partisans and Chetniks, but in the confi-
dence that their allies would soon be landing their invading troops on
these territories. That was the opinion of all parties concerned. That is
why the Partisan commissars broadcasted such slogans as: “If those
fat Englishmen arrive, they will be met with our machine guns;” and
“The Partisans, prepare your machine guns to greet the King and the
Englishmen.” on January 17, 1943 the radio program “free Yugoslavia”
emitted its broadcast from uSSr and came under the direct super-
vision of the Comintern issuing the following threatening statements:
“If a single soldier from anglo-american army lands in the Balkans
with the intent of establishing an anti-national Yugoslav government
in london, the Yugoslav people will resist them with all of their might.”
This radio program was not ciphered of course, but it still went
unnoticed by the British. on one hand, they still did not believe Mi-
hailovic who contacted them on february 26, 1943 with the following
message: “according to the latest reports from Serbia, the communists
are spreading propaganda and recruiting people to fight against the
British and the americans if they were to land in the Balkans. They are
doing the same in Slovenia and Istria. However, the people are of a dif-
ferent disposition.” on the other hand, the British never seemed to be
able to catch the key messages that Broz intended for the Comintern.
for example: “There are still about 25 British officers dressed in Serbian
traditional clothes at Mihailovic’s headquarters…The British are de-
laying the opening of the second front in Europe and hatred for them
is escalating not only amongst us but among other people in Yugoslav-
ia…” The Comintern’s reply where the Partisan Supreme Command is
alerted about “the possibility of the opening of the second front in the
Balkans and the arrival of the anglo-american troops with the intent
of eliminating the Partisans” went unnoticed as well.
This is what Cripps had to say about ensuing truce between the
Partisans and the germans: “During the month of March the ger-
mans did not make any advances towards the Partisans, nor did they
take any action against the Chetniks.” Many years later it became
clear that there really was an armistice between the Partisans and the
germans. In the beginning this truce was supported by the exchange
of prisoners, but later however the Partisans wanted the germans
to recognize them as a legitimate army with regards to any possible
common actions against the Chetniks. However, Hitler put an end to