90 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
Churchill and his closest collaborators were aware of the fact that Mihailović
was cooperating with the Italians. But they also knew that the Germans still
considered him an enemy and therefore kept hoping that he would be able
to take over leadership of the Yugoslav resistance. The condemnation from
Moscow, being the first open attack against Mihailović, was therefore seen as a
bad omen, especially because it was soon confirmed by the Soviet government.
On 3 August 1942 the NKID (the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs)
sent a diplomatic note to the Yugoslav minister, Dušan Simović, officially con-
demning the Chetnik leader.^220 Four days later, Ivan M. Maisky, the Soviet
ambassador in London, did likewise, approaching the British foreign minister,
Anthony Eden. The Yugoslav and British governments, suspecting that Stalin
wanted to take over the Balkans, reacted vigorously in defense of Mihailović.
Nevertheless, the British were not indifferent to the Muscovite note and, from
August 1942 onward, started to pay closer attention to events in Yugoslavia,
asking themselves whether the general was “playing a fair game” there.^221
Between July and August 1942, the Italians moved an army of 120,000 men
against the Partisans in the province of Ljubljana and succeeded, with the help
of local collaborators, in inflicting a heavy blow on the Liberation Front. The
“integral results” that Mussolini predicted at the start of the operation were not
achieved, however, since the Partisans managed to organize their troops into a
more or less regular army, as Tito had done in Bosnia. In spite of setbacks and
retreats, they emerged in the eyes of foreign observers as the most vital force
against the Axis in the Balkans. This was confirmed by the creation, in autumn
1942, of a free territory in Bosnian Krajina, Lika, and North Dalmatia, an area
of forty-eight thousand square kilometers—larger than Switzerland, Belgium,
or Holland—with 2 million inhabitants. The center of this vast area was the
city of Bihać, taken by Tito’s troops after intense fighting with the Ustaša on
4 November 1942, just in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October
Revolution. The booty was substantial, but even more important was the psy-
chological effect of the victory, since it showed the public, at home and abroad,
that the Partisan army was a force to be reckoned with. The collaboration
between the Partisan shock troops in Bosnia and Dalmatia fueled a popular
revolt that brought together fighters from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and the
Adriatic coast.^222
In London, where Churchill was already considering an attack against the
“lower belly of Europe’s crocodile,” the question of whether Britain should
continue to support Mihailović, or whether it would not be better to bet on
the “Partisan horse,” was becoming increasingly urgent. In order to spur the
Chetnik leader into action, at the end of October the BBC mentioned Parti-
san activities together with Mihailović’s, while the SOE invited him to prove