World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 105
Russian soldiers were already “collecting the waters of the Dnieper in their
helmets.” They crossed this river, the largest in Ukraine and the third-largest
in Europe, on 6 November, a date chosen in honor of the October Revolution,
and liberated Kiev.^298
In that same period, the Western Allies occupied Puglia in southern Italy,
where they organized a base in Bari. This was to be important in furnishing
provisions across the Adriatic to the Partisans and in evacuating their wounded,
together with thousands of civilians, women, children, and the elderly. The
connection between the Allies and Tito’s Supreme Staff allowed the Slovenes
and Croats from Venezia Giulia, enlisted by the Fascists in “special battalions”
and confined as untrustworthy to southern Italy and to the islands, to join the
Partisans. Together with compatriots who had fought as Italian soldiers in
North Africa and had been taken prisoner by the Allies, they organized the so-
called “Overseas Brigades” to fight for the freedom of their homeland. Through
Bari alone, thirty thousand Slovene and Croat soldiers reached the Dalmatian
coast in the following months.^299
The belief that Germany’s defeat was inevitable began to take hold among
the general populace and encouraged volunteers to join the Partisans. Within
a month of 8 September, Tito’s troops had nearly doubled in size to three
hundred thousand combatants. There were, however, serious problems as the
recruits had little to no military training. The Italian soldiers who decided
to continue to fight after the collapse of their army, although now for the Par-
tisans against the Germans, were much more efficient. “Garibaldi” units took
part valiantly in the resistance and were thus established among the Partisan
ranks.
Frustrated by this turn of events, the Chetniks tried to make the best of a
bad situation. In view of the fact that they still believed that the Communists
were their only enemies, they sought an agreement with the Germans, who
initially persisted in their hostility toward the Chetniks. Information about
these propositions reached the British, lending strength to those in the London
government who advocated breaking off relations with Mihailović.^300 The new
chief of the British mission at Tito’s Supreme Staff, Fitzroy Maclean, a diplo-
mat, writer, and brigadier in His Majesty’s Army, also supported the Partisans.
He came to Bosnia in mid-September as a representative of General Henry
Maitland Wilson, commander in chief of the Allied forces in the Mediterra-
nean, arriving, like his predecessor, by parachute. The fact that this was an
official mission implied at least a de facto recognition of the Partisan move-
ment as an Allied force, whereas the previous mission headed by Deakin, who
was only an SOE agent, was not at the same level. In an interview given years
later, Maclean said that he had come to Yugoslavia with an “open” but not