World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 79
Later, in Čačak, not far from Užice, the delegations of the two parties met and
agreed on a ceasefire but it did not last.^159 In the following days, tragic incidents
happened one after the other: On 21 November a bomb with a timed detonator
exploded in the vaults of the National Bank, where the Partisans had installed
their munitions factory. There were between 120 and 160 victims. Tito, just a
few meters from the explosion, barely managed to survive. It was the most ter-
rifying experience of his life.^160 When, four days later, the Germans attacked
Užice, Mihailović withdrew his proposal that Partisans and Chetniks fight side
by side.^161
In spite of Hudson’s efforts to mediate, it was impossible to overcome this
mutual hostility. The reason for the definitive split between Mihailović and
Tito is to be found not only in their ideological, political, and strategic diver-
gences but also in the colonel’s firm belief he had been appointed by London
as commander in chief of the Yugoslav resistance—not to mention the dra-
matic retaliations against the civilian population recently undertaken by the
Wehr macht, which stirred his heart and soul. In fact, at the Führer’s request,
on 16 September 1941, General Wilhelm Keitel, commander in chief of the
German troops in the Balkans, ordered that one hundred Serbs be shot for
every German soldier killed, and fifty for every wounded.^162 This ferocious
reaction to Partisan and Chetnik sabotage was immediately put into practice,
reaching its peak in the small town of Kragujevac on 21 and 23 October 1941,
when 2300 hostages, among them students and teachers of a local high school,
were gunned down.^163
This and other atrocities left deep marks on Serb public opinion. As Hitler
had hoped, the Serbs began to distance themselves from the Partisans, going
so far as to denounce them to Nedić’s gendarmes. The Germans, emboldened
by the success of their policy, decided in mid-November to launch the so-
called “first offensive” against both the Partisans and Chetniks.^164 At the end of
the month, the Germans succeeded in driving the Partisans out of Serbia into
the nearby Sandžak territory, where, because of the Italian occupation, the con-
ditions were easier for the guerrillas. Vladimir Bakarić, the most prominent
Croat com munist leader after the war, later wrote, “The uprising in Serbia was
heavily defeated and, if it had not been for Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, noth-
ing would have been done.”^165 Tito, however, did not fully acknowledge this
tragic situation. A month after he lost more than a thousand combatants at
Užice and Zlatibor, a mountain region in the western part of Serbia, he wrote
to his Slovenian comrades: “Our troops are intact, nearly without losses.... The
situation in Serbia is decidedly better.”^166 Not until thirty years later did he
confess: “I nearly lost my life at the crossroads between the villages of Zabučje
and Ljubanja.”^167