GRIM BATTLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 28 June 1943, Page 5

GRIM BATTLE

GUERRILLAS IN YUGOSLAVIA MIKHAILOVITCH STILL IN COMMAND London, June 26. General Mikhailovitch is still leading the grim battle in southern Yugoslavia at the head of 50,000 to 60,000 guerrillas, harassing vital south Yugoslavian railways, according to an authoritative Yugoslav source. Chetniks are still attacking after a two months’ campaign by the eighth division of an Axis punitive corps, who are determinedly trying to wipe out resistance. Guerrillas recently recaptured Klin and Dalmatia. Fighting in the past month has taken place over a wide area in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Montenegro, and the Drina sector of Bosnia. The Axis failed to bring General Mikhailovitch to a standstill fight. He is master of big strength in the mountain country flanking the main Yugoslav railway connection with Greece, Belgrade, Nish and the Salonika line v Information reaching authoritative Yugoskv circles in Cairo affirms that General Mikhailovitch is safe with his men carrying on the fight. This refutes Axis assertions that General Mikhailovitch, following defeat of his forces in the mountains of Montenegro, fled the country. NEW YUGOSLAV CABINET M. Trifunovic succeeded in forming a new Yugoslav Cabinet. The solution followed weeks of political crisis in which there were intense deliberations between King Peter and Yugoslav political leaders in London. Trifunovic is deputy leader of the Serb Radical party and one of the most prominent Serb politicians. Trifunovic assumes responsibility for the effective introduction immediately after the war of a federal democratic constitution under a monarchy on the basis of political, economic and social equality for Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The new. Cabinet includes General Mikhailocitch as Minister of War.—P.A.