Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1944 YUGOSLAV RIDDLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 23 May 1944, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1944 YUGOSLAV RIDDLE

WHILE the British and American forces fight in the full glare of the limelight, and the Russian victories in the Carpathians are broadcast to the world, a tenuous and shadowy war against the Axis is being conducted in the mountains of Yugoslavia. Occasionally the curtain is lifted to give outsiders a glimpse of this phantom struggle, but for the most part the operations are carried on in secret. Guerrilla bands, owing a loose allegiance to fierce and desperate chiefs, slip out from the hills, destroy a German garrison or blow up a railway, and then vanish as silently as they came. Even the leader of this phantom army is a figure of mystery; for though the world knows him as Marshal Tito, and he is said on good authority to be a certain Josip Broz, Croat Communist and soldier, his real iden*> tity is by no means established. No more Colourful story has come out of the war than that of the correspondent who was recently conducted by arm-fed guards to his secret headquarters in a cave far back in the mountains, reached by a narrow path along the side of a rocky ravine, down which torrents and waterfalls unceasingly thundered. Tito’s Partisans have received the imprimatur of the Allies, who maintain liaison with them and supply them with arms. They are a nightmare to the Germans, for though their equipment ft limited and their organisation is primitive, they are numbered in thousands, and when they are harried in one place they merely disappear to turn up a week or two later in another. They assert they control over 100,000 square miles of territory, inhabited by 5,000,000 people. Unfortunately their claim to be the true liberators of their country is contested by a rival party, the Chetniks of General Mikhailovitch. Although both armies are supposed to be fighting against Axis oppression, they reserve their bitterest enmity for each other, and their constant denunciations and skirmishes are sowing the seed for grave difficulties not only now, but for years after the war is over. New Zealanders, who have readily sunk their party differences to present a united front to the enemy, find it hard to understand the internecine rivalry of these patriot bands. A survey of the background of Yugoslav politics, however, will show that this fratricidal strife is almost inevitable. Yugoslavia, the enlarged Serbia of former days, presents a typically Balkan hotchpotch of nationalities. The Serbs, though the dominant race, comprise only 46 per cent, of the population; the Croats number 28 per cent., and the Slovenes 8 per cent., the balance being made up of Rumanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Hungarians and Germans. The Serbs and Croats are racially akin, but their outlook and traditions are so different as to cause bitter animosity. The Serbians were for many centuries part oi the Byzantine and Turkish Empires; their civilisation, such as it is, came from the East, and their religion is that of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Croats on the other hand were civilised and Christianised from Rome, and their historical associations have been with the ancient empires of Venice and Austria. The- attempt to

ioin these harmoniously in a single I state Was almost as hopeless as try- j ing to mix oil and water, and the determination of the Serbs to make the fullest use of their superiority in numbers led to violent clashes, culminating in the killing of party leaders in the National Assembly, and the murder of the Dictator-King Alexander in Marseilles ten years ago. Unfortunately this national rivalry is intensified by a conflict of political ideology, the Serbs preferring a totalitarian regime, while the Croats are fiercely democratic in their views. These racial and political differences are reflected in the rival bands of Chetniks and Partisans. The former, representing the part of the Serbian nation that refused to accept German occupation in 1941, were first in the field, and for some time it seemed that Mikhailovitch vvas destined to be the liberator of his country. Britain and America decorated him and openly applauded his efforts; Russia however, denounced him as a collaborationist with the Italians. Evidence on this last point is contradictory, but Mikhailov itch’s adhesion to the exiled government of King Peter in London stamped him in the eyes of the Croats as a reactionary, and destroyed any hope of his leading a united crusade. Meanwhile Tito’s Partisans grew in strength; they put forward a programme in which they advocated a democratic form of government (without King Peter), federal national rights for the various Yugoslav peoples, and close friendship with the other Balkan races. The Partisans are now recognised not only by Russia but also by Britain and America as the Yugoslav Army of Liberation, and Mikhailovitch is slipping into the discard. A few days ago he was fiercely denounced by Tito as a traitor; now we are told that he is assisting the Germans against the Partisans, and there is even a rumour that he has been killed. These reports should be accepted with reserve, but it does seem likely that Mikhailovitch’s day is over, and that the liberation of Yugoslavia will depend on Tito and his Partisans, aided by the United Nations.