)photo credit: National Defense University Press)
My forthcoming book, Dark Shadows Hover, will be released on January 26 to coincide with events surrounding International Holocaust Remembrance Day, annually recognized on January 27. I'm honored thatAmsterdam Publishers in the Netherlands, which specializes in Holocaust memoir and some fiction, is the book's publisher. PRE -ORDER ON AMAZON.
This weekly series of blog posts will introduce the reader to some basic history before reading my book, a biographical fiction based on the young life of Moris Albahari, who at the age of twelve became a Yugoslav Partisan. Though it’s not critical to read the posts to enjoy the book, I trust you’ll find them interesting. If you’d like to receive subsequent blog posts leading up to book publication, and are not already on my email list, subscribe at jordanstevensher.com.
The Nazis, their Collaborators, and Tito’s Partisans in World War II Yugoslavia
Part 11: The Allies Support the Partisans
The Monarchy in Yugoslavia remained the representative voice of the country while in exile in Great Britain. However, the Chetniks who were the fighting force for the royalists fell afoul of the Allies by 1943. Their primary intention was to defeat the Partisans whom they saw themselves in a civil war for control of the country once Hitler was defeated. However, the Partisans represented a movement of all the people—Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Bosnians, and Macedonians.
Meanwhile, the Allies, with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill as the presiding leaders over their war efforts, entered the war as key support elements for munitions, weapons, secret operations, and intelligence. Known as unconventional warfare (UW), the Allies saw that when Italy surrendered in 1943, and joined their forces, the opportunity to step up involvement in the Balkans had emerged.
Operatives and military advisors from the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and the American Office of Strategic Services (()SS), later to be renamed the CIA, and U.S. Special Forces combined in their support of Tito’s Partisans. With the Soviet Union responding to the German invasion in its country, the understanding that two communist participants in the war were allied with democracies was a fine line to tow. But it was the common enemy of the aggressor Germans that took precedence. And for the Soviets, their survival depended upon the military support they received from the Allies. Interestingly, it is this support of Yugoslavia that would pay dividends later during the Cold War where Tito took a much less hardline stance than the USSR.
During the Battle of Sutjeska, the British sent military advisors in to observe. This was one of the turning points in the decision to support the Partisans. An officer was even killed in the battle. However, the primary reason was that Tito's Partisans were a much more effective and reliable ally in the war against Germany.
The Allies provided intensive air attacks in support of Partisan operations through the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) and British Royal Air Force (RAF) against the German occupiers helping to send them in retreat beginning in 1944.
Of note is that the U.S. and UK acted within a high degree of tension between the two sides. The UK took the lead being that it had a sound knowledge of Yugoslavia, and much closer relationships with its key players. There were times when they worked at cross-purposes, letting competing political agendas for dominance in the cooperative get in the way. However, they managed to work together well enough agreeing that the overarching goal of victory over the Germans was paramount.
(Information attributed to multiple sources and National Defense University Press, “Challenges in Coalition Unconventional Warfare: The Allied Campaign in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945”)
Comentários