116 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
missions from Chetnik headquarters. Between 1943 and 1944, the British and
Americans aided the Partisans yet continued their (frosty) relations with
Mihailović. In the meantime, their planes had successfully prevented the Wehr-
macht from occupying all the Dalmatian islands. The island of Vis, off the coast
of Spalato, remained under the control of both the British and the Partisans. In
December 1943, the military circles in Cairo decided to test Mihailović once
more. The Allied command for the Middle East asked him to blow up two
bridges in order to block the railway traffic between Belgrade and Thessaloniki.
“In mid-January,” Colonel Bailey, who was still at his headquarters, wrote in his
memoirs, “it appeared obvious that the two bridges would never be mined.”^343
Under the pressure of the Sixth Offensive, unleashed by the Germans in
Bosnia and in Sandžak on 6 January 1944, the Partisan leadership abandoned
Jajce, where it had found refuge for 145 days. The Politburo decided to split
into two groups: the first, with Kardelj, would go to Croatia; Tito and his polit-
ical and military collaborators would remain in Bosnia. The new offensive was
not as devastating as the previous two, but since it took place in the midst of
winter, many Partisan units suffered greatly. The Supreme Staff was practically
untouched, having found shelter in the small town of Drvar on the Unac
River.^344 The town was practically in ruins and Tito therefore decided to stay
in a grotto on the right bank of the river, in front of which a wooden cottage,
fitted with three rooms, was erected. The grotto was on the slopes of Mount
Gradina, about twenty meters above the surrounding plain, with a splendid
view over the entire valley. It was reached by steep steps hewn out of the rock,
and its walls were hung with parachute silk. Randolph Churchill, son of the
British prime minister, who had been sent to Tito and who could be brilliant
(when he was not drunk), wrote to his father in March 1944 with mocking
irony: “His office is more like the love nest of an expensive prostitute than that
of a Par tisan leader.”^345
As the Germans, still fearing an Allied landing, were concentrated in Dal-
matia to strengthen their position on the Adriatic coast, in Western Bosnia the
situation was relatively calm, so that the newly promoted marshal found time for
chess games with Ranković and Djilas, and for practicing in Cyrillic the signa-
ture of his name, TITO, which was so distinctive that after his death his faith-
ful wore it as a golden pin. He also paid great attention to his clothing, ordering
a uniform from a Slovenian tailor that was in keeping with his high rank.
In spite of their primitive living conditions, the comrades maintained certain
standards and as Djilas recounts did not, apart from Moša Pijade, use exple-
tives. But, as Djilas, who had hated Moša Pijade since their time in jail together,
sarcastically said, bad words were in his blood as a result of his Levantine spir-
itual and linguistic heritage.^346