80 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
The shared adversities did not reconcile Tito and Mihailović. In December,
they resumed their fratricidal struggle, carrying it on until the end of the war.
Meanwhile in Serbia, an uneasy peace was restored. According to a report by
Blagoje Nešković, one of the leaders of the local CPY, only thirty-two Parti-
sans remained alive by the end of the year.^168 It took a long time before the
Partisan movement recovered, while many Chetniks joined Nedić’s police
forces, a move that offered the communists the opportunity to denounce them
as traitors. The royal government in exile was of a different opinion: it pro-
claimed the Chetnik movement as its “Home Army,” conferring the rank of
general on Draža Mihailović on 7 December 1941, and including him in its
team on 9 January 1942 as minister of war. Every Yugoslav subject who refused
to recognize him as commander in chief would be guilty of high treason.^169
The Crisis and the
Development of the Civil WarThe autumn offensive, which caused the fall of the “Soviet Republic of Užice,”
was a hard lesson for Tito, since it destroyed the illusion that the Partisan state
had a solid base on which to build. In his attempt to show his military qualities
to Hudson, who was in the town, he made the mistake of ordering one of his
battalions to defend one of its access points at all costs, although it was obvi-
ous that it was impossible to block the advance of the enemy. The entire bat-
talion was killed in an unequal clash with German tanks, creating the myth of
a Partisan Thermopylae.^170 The remaining troops, who had underestimated the
Wehrmacht’s might, evacuated Užice at the last moment. Chaos and violence
reigned as the Germans crushed the wounded Partisans with their tanks or
shot them and threw them into the river. Dragojlo Dudić, the first president
of the Committee for the National Liberation of Serbia, openly attacked Tito
for having needlessly sacrificed so many lives.^171
Apparently Tito had also retreated in such a rush that even his aide-de-camp
lost track of him. He was lucky, however, for the Germans only chased his units
as far as the banks of the river that demarcated the German and Italian zones
of occupation.^172 The telegram Walter sent to “Grandpa” on 1 December 1941,
in which he once more asked for military help, came to the attention of Stalin,
his commissars for internal affairs, L. P. Beria, and for foreign affairs, V. M.
Molotov, but remained unanswered.^173 At the time the Germans were just
south of Moscow, the Soviet leaders obviously had other priorities. To many
Partisans, the entire Yugoslav resistance seemed doomed as a result of the
defeat at Užice. “We had no efficient defense,” Kardelj affirmed, “and were
hunting for isolated Partisans in order to block the Germans on the slopes of
Zlatibor and give us at least enough time to evacuate the wounded.”^174