World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 95
improving them as the situations changed.^243 However, it is only fair to agree
with Koča Popović, who said that Tito had the gifts of an authentic leader:
ability, courage, decisiveness, and imagination. “He was, so to say, a real wolf,
or a condottiere, which is in my opinion his characteristic feature. He was able
to find a way out of even the most complex situations, to destroy enemy resis-
tance without thinking twice or foreseeing danger.”^244
At the start of the offensive, General Löhr said that he would establish peace
in the country, if necessary the peace of the graveyard. He had 105,000 sol-
diers at his disposal, whereas Tito had only forty-four thousand. Although
unlike Tito, Löhr had planes, tanks, and guns, he also had three weak points:
the morale of his troops was low, the alliance with the Italians shaky, and the
Partisans were motivated and able to adapt to unexpected conditions. At the
beginning of the war, the German soldiers considered service in the Balkans
preferable to that on the Russian front or in North Africa. After two years of
fighting, this opinion changed. General Lothar Rendulic, who came to Croatia
in 1943, wrote in his memoirs that after his arrival about a thousand men asked
to be transferred to other fronts, even to the Eastern front, in order to escape
the guerrilla war with the Partisans on the rugged Bosnian terrain. In addition,
disagreements with the Italians, who were not at all convinced that strengthen-
ing German power in the Balkans would be to their advantage, intensified from
one day to the next.^245
In February 1943, Tito’s units occupied Prozor, which was defended by the
Italian Murgia Division, at the cost of a large number of casualties. This created
a new problem for the Partisans, since despite the lack of vehicles and carriers,
the wounded had to be evacuated. On 5 March, it was decided that the Partisan
army should cross the Neretva in order to take refuge in the hills of northern
Herzegovina and Montenegro. Tito planned to conquer the city of Konjic,
which was still in the hands of the Italians, reach the paved road, and transport
the sick and wounded to safety across a nearby bridge. At the same time, in
order to secure his rear he ordered the destruction of all other bridges on the
Neretva. As General Velimir Terzić wrote later, provoking Tito’s ire, the destruc-
tion of the bridges was a mistake that resulted in heavy and unnecessary losses.^246
The resistance of the Italians at Konjic was more resolute than foreseen
and consequently the Partisans found themselves trapped with the Germans at
their heels, and the only way out across another bridge near Jablanica. The
bridge had collapsed into the river gorge but nevertheless still precariously
connected the two banks. In this desperate situation, even more dangerous
because of the presence on the other bank of numerous Chetniks and Italians,
Tito was forced to order a retreat. The operation, celebrated later by regime
propaganda as a “brilliant military trick,” was successful. On 9 March 1943, the