World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 127
price paid by the Partisans was, however, very high. The First and the Sixth
Divisions, which were under particular pressure, suffered about six thousand
casualties^404 while Tito and his collaborators were forced to seek refuge via Bari
on the island of Vis, where they arrived on 7 June 1944. In view of the crisis of
the Partisan movement, the Supreme Staff was obliged to accept the help of
the British, who had transformed the Dalmatian island into a fortress. Their
humiliation was such that for a long time they tried to hide Tito’s flight, fearing
the negative effect such news could have on the Partisan troops. The Politburo
found shelter in a cave on the slopes of Hum, one of the island’s highest
mountains, while in the valley the British transformed the vineyards into an
improvised airstrip, thus guaranteeing connections with Bari.^405 The retreat
to the Dalmatian island was later explained by Kardelj in these terms: “We
went to Vis because it was well fortified on the sea.... If we had stayed in
Bosnia, we would have been subject to continuous attacks and cut off from the
world for a month or two. That was the moment when the epicenter of our
struggle passed into the field of foreign policy; therefore we wanted to move...
from the embattled area, to be able to intervene directly in the international
political situation surrounding us.”^406 This, however, was an explanation given
in hindsight.
British hospitality did not attenuate the hostility Tito and his comrades felt
toward the Western Allies. The fact that the British and American missions
had abandoned Drvar and sought a more secure place outside it on the eve
of the German attack corroborated their worst suspicions. The British were
unaware of that state of mind and were trying to exploit the “God-sent oppor-
tunity” offered by Tito’s flight into their territory in order to arrange a meet-
ing between him and Šubašić and unite the two Yugoslav camps. Although the
landing in Normandy was imminent, Churchill and Eden spared no time or
energy in achieving this aim.^407
Thanks to their perseverance, but also thanks to Stalin’s advice to the Yugo-
slavs not to refuse a dialogue with Šubašić, the latter arrived at Vis on 14 June
1944.^408 There he presented his optimistic and naïve proposals to Tito, Edvard
Kardelj, Vladimir Bakarić, Ivan Ribnikar, and Josip Smodlaka, the “foreign min-
ister” of the National Liberation Committee. He felt that the Partisan move-
ment should recognize the royal government and participate with some of its
exponents in order to create a truly representative body. First of all, Tito should
replace Mihailović as minister of war. There were no Serbs at the negotiation
table, which gave their nationalist supporters a chance to complain later that
the meeting was an anti-Serb plot. In reality, this occasion showed the weak-
ness of Šubašić and his Western patrons, which was further confirmed by sub-
stantial financial aid from the Soviet government, signed for by the Yugoslav