Eastern Approaches (52 page)

As the Russians still had no air bases of their own within range of Jugoslavia, the vital task of safely introducing the Mission into the country had to be entrusted to the R.A.F. We were without landing-strips, the enemy were in control of the coast, and it was therefore only possible to enter Jugoslavia by parachute.

A first difficulty was encountered when the Russians announced that they were not prepared to be dropped by parachute. Feverish attempts were made to clear a flat piece of ground of snow, so that at any rate the General might be brought in by light aircraft; but the harder the Partisans worked, the harder it snowed. As time passed and there were still no Russians there began to be whispers of ‘capitalist sabotage’, when fortunately someone had the brilliant idea of bringing them in by glider. Two Horsa gliders were borrowed from Airborne Forces, and one fine day we were told to stand by to receive them.

We collected on a neighbouring hill-top to watch their arrival. They made an imposing spectacle; the gliders, swimming along behind two Dakotas, with a fighter escort circling round them. Despite the latter, they would have made a fine target for enemy fighters, but fortunately none made their appearance, and the landing was safely accomplished, the gliders cutting adrift as we watched and circling down to the ground under the expert guidance of two glider-pilots, who now joined the strength of my Mission until a means could be found of evacuating them.

Naturally we were much interested to see what the Russians would be like. To our relief they turned out to be charming. In addition to a natural conviviality it was evident that they had been instructed to make themselves particularly agreeable to me and my staff. Furthermore they had filled the gliders with vodka and caviare, which, coming as they did after a long period of relative austerity, were exceptionally welcome. After one or two encounters we decided unanimously that they were a great social asset.

What other purpose they served was less clear. They had no bases within range from which they could bring in supplies, though later half a dozen American Dakotas, bearing Soviet markings, but under British operational control, made occasional appearances from Bari. Nor did they take any part in the direction of military operations or the technical training of the Partisans. Finally, it seemed most unlikely that they were there to interpret the Communist Party line for Tito, who, in my experience, usually knew instinctively what was in the Kremlin’s mind without being told and certainly did not need a Red Army General to direct his conscience.

General Korneyev, the Commander of the Mission, was a soldier of some distinction, who had served as Chief of Staff to an Army Commander on the Stalingrad front before taking up his present appointment. Like so many senior officers of the Red Army, he was not of proletarian origin and had held a commission in the Imperial Russian Army before the Revolution. I did not get the impression that he particularly enjoyed being in Jugoslavia or that he thought much of the Partisans. His second in command was a much younger man and an expert on guerrilla warfare, having commanded a Partisan band
behind the German lines in Russia. But he, too, seemed to find time hanging heavy on his hands. Of the other officers, I have no very clear recollection, save only of one who bore all the familiar marks of being the local representative of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.

The arrival of the Russians solved a problem which had been exercising me for some time, namely, how to get my old friend Sergeant (now Sergeant-Major) Charlie Button into Jugoslavia. With Sergeant Duncan, he had volunteered to come with me in the first place, but had, like General Korneyev, been forbidden to parachute on account of an old wound in the foot. Now the gliders provided an opportunity and, sure enough, on the day there was Button bringing up the rear of the Soviet party and looking as solid and as rubicund as ever. From now onwards he took charge of the Mission’s administrative arrangements, and Gospodin Charlie, as he was known, could be seen planning moves, negotiating for pack-horses, bartering strips of parachute silk for honey or eggs with buxom peasant girls, or instilling into our wireless operators a standard of smartness which would uphold the prestige of the British Army.

In all this his constant companion was the child Ginger, whose blazing red hair had at once won his heart and who had conceived for him in return a passion perhaps not entirely unconnected with the fact that he controlled the chocolate ration.

The task of imparting technical knowledge to the Partisans, which was one of my Mission’s functions, was not always an easy one. When introduced to completely new weapons and explosive devices, they were inclined to brush their instructors aside, exclaiming gaily that they knew all about that already, and give a spirited and often alarming demonstration of their alleged technical skill.

Provided, however, that sufficient tact was exercised, they made excellent pupils, grasping with remarkable rapidity the mechanism of a new weapon and showing the greatest ingenuity in applying it to the peculiar conditions of guerrilla warfare. They made, for instance, good use of the Fiat mortars, which had begun to reach us. These ingeniously constructed little weapons, which fired a rocket-like projectile of great
penetrating power and high explosive content, and were intended for use by infantry against tanks, were ideally suited for our present purposes and were used by the Partisans with devastating effect against houses, vehicles, railway engines, enemy strong-points and any other targets that presented themselves, to the dismay of the other side who at first could not make out what they were being bombarded with or where it was coming from. To Peter Moore, also, with his immense experience of tank warfare in the Western Desert and his great technical knowledge of explosives, the Partisans were prepared to listen on the subject of mines and anti-tank devices of one kind and another.

But, even so, with the greatest tact, accidents sometimes crept in through the excessive anxiety to assert their own independence. There was the sad case of some dehydrated food, which was dropped to us at a stage of the winter when we had run very short indeed of ordinary food. It was the first time that any of us had seen dehydrated food, and the pleasure with which we regarded the first sacks of strange dried-up looking flakes, variously labelled ‘milk’, ‘mutton’, ‘eggs’, ‘carrots’, ‘onions’ and ‘potatoes’, but all looking strangely alike, was mingled with curiosity and, to some extent, with misgiving. At any rate, before trying them, we read, and carried out meticulously the written directions which accompanied them, of which the principal was to soak them in water for twenty-four hours before cooking and eating them. The result was astonishing. On being soaked, the uninteresting looking flakes swelled up to several times their original size and became lumps of meat or slices of vegetable, as the case might be, and we soon found that a judicious mixture of dehydrated mutton, onions and potatoes properly soaked and then baked in Ginger’s mother’s oven made a very creditable shepherd’s pie, an undreamed-of luxury in our rather straitened circumstances. Clearly, dehydrated food was just the thing for us, especially as its light weight made it far more easily transportable than tinned food.

Delighted, we immediately signalled for further supplies in order that we might share with the Partisans the benefit of our new discovery. On their arrival, we handed them over to the Quartermaster’s department, being careful to add full instructions for their use. But these they brushed aside light-heartedly. ‘We know all about that,’ they said,
and started to distribute the sacks to various neighbouring units. We had our doubts, but thought it better not to voice them.

It was only afterwards that we heard what had happened. The dehydrated food had not been soaked, but gulped down as it was. This was dry work, or so the Partisans thought, and so they washed it down with copious draughts of water from the neighbouring brook. Then, with disconcerting suddenness, the stuff began to swell inside them until it had reached several times its original dimensions. Their ensuing discomfort was considerable, though not so acute as that of another Partisan, who at about this time ate a stick of plastic high-explosive, mashing it up with milk, under the impression that it was some kind of maize porridge.

The snow melted in the valleys. Food grew more plentiful. Movement became easier. The fighting flared up again. Meanwhile the Allied High Command had begun to direct their attention increasingly to Serbia.

The strategic significance of Serbia is obvious. It lies right across the Belgrade-Salonika railway, a vital enemy line of communication, of which the importance would have increased still further in the event of an Allied landing anywhere in the Balkans, which at that time was still a possibility.

Hitherto, Serbia had been regarded by us as being primarily a Četnik preserve. Such supplies as had gone there had been dropped to Mihajlović. But the results had in the view of G.H.Q. Middle East been disappointing. In particular there had been little or no interruption of traffic on the Belgrade-Salonika railway. It will be recalled that Mihajlović had been given a limited period in which to carry out a certain specific operation. This had now elapsed without his having complied with this request, and the important decision was accordingly taken to withdraw the Allied Mission from his Headquarters and send him no further supplies. Supplies ceased at once; the extrication of the British liaison officers took longer, and it was not until the end of May that Brigadier Armstrong, my opposite number in the other camp, took leave of a reproachful but still courteous Mihajlović. In the House of Commons Mr. Churchill explained the Government’s action. ‘The
reason,’ he said, ‘why we have ceased to supply Mihajlović with arms and support is a simple one. He has not been fighting the enemy, and, moreover, some of his subordinates have been making accommodations with the enemy.’

Thus ended a connection which from the first had been based on a misapprehension. With the help of our own propaganda we had in our imagination built up Mihajlović into something that he never seriously claimed to be. Now we were dropping him because he had failed to fulfil our own expectations.

The decision to drop the Četniks having once been taken, it became our policy to build up Partisan strength in Serbia as quickly as possible. The Partisan Movement had had its origin in Serbia, but, after the first bloody set-backs of 1941, the main body of Tito’s forces had withdrawn northwards and westwards into Bosnia and Montenegro, and such Partisans as remained had largely gone underground, whence they waged a bitter and uphill struggle against both Germans and Četniks, making raids and ambushes and attacking communications in true guerrilla fashion, but for the most part not operating as formed units, as they did elsewhere in Jugoslavia.

The Serbian Partisans were now given a high degree of priority in allotting supplies, while Tito, for his part, sent no less a person than Koča Popović, himself a Serb, to take command of them. In order that we should also have a good man to represent us there, I now recalled John Henniker-Major from 8th Corps and dispatched him to Serbia, where he arrived by parachute at the end of March or beginning of April. His knowledge of Serbo-Croat was by now extremely fluent and, as well as being a good fighting soldier, he was a trained political observer. Meanwhile I decided that I would take the first opportunity of visiting Serbia myself.

Apart from its military importance the situation in Serbia possessed considerable political interest. The peasants were believed to be in the main loyal to the monarchy and were certainly not communistically inclined; the rather half-hearted collaborationist regime of General Nedić was by no means as unpopular as it might have been; finally, the influence of the Četnik Movement was considerable. Partisan
strength on the other hand was to all intents and purposes an unknown quantity. For us it was important to be able to form some estimate of the degree of popular support which the Partisans, in these by no means favourable circumstances, might be able to command there — important both for the purpose of our military planning and in order that we might be able to forecast with reasonable accuracy the course of events in Jugoslavia after the end of the war.

The latter subject was by now beginning to engage the attention of all concerned to an increasing extent. Hitherto the British Government had tended to regard the group of Jugoslav politicians who had come to England with King Peter in 1941 as adequately representing the Jugoslav people. It now became clear that during the years which they had spent in exile these gentlemen had, not unnaturally, lost touch with what was going on in their own country. The Serbs among them had, it is true, managed to establish wireless contact with General Mihajlović, who in his absence had been given the position of Minister of Defence in the Royal Jugoslav Government. The Partisan Movement, on the other hand, they appear to have regarded as a disagreeable and unimportant phenomenon which was on the whole better ignored.

Automatically the decision, taken on military grounds, to drop Mihajlović and support Tito posed a political problem. In the first place, it provoked the strongest opposition from the Royal Jugoslav Government and from King Peter’s entourage, although the King himself eventually acquiesced in it. Secondly, it raised the question whether or not our military recognition of Tito as an ally was to be accompanied or followed by any measure of political recognition.

The problem which faced the British Government was an awkward one. The assumption that the London Jugoslavs really represented the people of Jugoslavia and would be able to return upon the cessation of hostilities and start again where they had left off had now worn very thin. By breaking off relations with Mihajlović, we had undermined it still further. Tito, on the other hand, was, for his part, becoming more and more inclined to expect some measure of political recognition in return for the services which, as we had repeatedly recognized, he was rendering to the Allied cause. In support of this claim he could also
point to the impressive administrative and political organization which he possessed throughout the country, and to the popular support which his Movement at that time undoubtedly possessed, facts which it was no longer possible to ignore. On the other hand, the Royal Jugoslav Government in exile, however little relation it might possess to the realities of the situation in Jugoslavia, was recognized by us and by the remainder of the United Nations as an Allied Government, and, as such, could not simply be left out of account. Nor could we forget that we were under a very real obligation towards King Peter personally for the part he had played in entering the war on our side at a time when we were fighting entirely alone against tremendous odds. Each side clung with equal intransigeance to its point of view, and showed equally little inclination to compromise or come to terms.