HE SAVED RUSSIA

Editorial Note:

There has been widespread recognition of the fact that the Yugoslav Revolution on March 27 and the Mihailovich resistance during the early months of the occupation - there was no Tito resistance at that time ! - saved the Soviet Union from being crushed by the Nazi legions. The pages that follow contain some excerpts from articles and editorials which appeared in major American newspapers, and a few paragraphs from David Martin's classic book: "Ally Betrayed: the Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailovich":

DAVID MARTIN:

Human history records no greater act of national heroism than the Revolution of March 27 (1941). When Poland resisted, the Poles knew little of the terror of totalitarian warfare. When Belgium and Holland resisted, they did so with the knowledge that the French and British Armies stood at their borders. But when the Serbian people overthrew the Regency of Prince Paul and hurled the Tri-Partitite Pact back into the face of Ribbentrop and Hitler, they did so with the examples of Warsaw, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and London fresh in their memories and with the certain knowledge that their act meant war, that they could look for no help from the hard-pressed British, and that the Germans would exact a terrible vengeance for their "betrayal". Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland were not given the alternatives of compromise. Yugoslavia, if it had wished, could have compromised with the Germans on terms no more degrading than those accepted by Sweden and Turkey. No one could have blamed the Yugoslav Government if it had done so; strategically, its position was utterly impossible. But the Serbs said "No" to compromise. "Bolje rat nego pakt" they shouted. The consequences were far-reaching.

At one stroke the Revolution of March 27 disrupted Germany's economic hinterland, invalidated her dispositions, disorganized her timetable, and destroyed the myth of the Nazi New Order. And, what is perhaps most important, the example of this small nation defying the might of the unconquered Wehrmacht, preferring all the horrors of war and subjugation to the loss of its spiritual freedom this example did more than anything else that had happened up until that time to inspire the conquered peoples of Europe to resist. Instead of incorporating Yugoslavia peacefully into the European New Order, the Nazis were compelled to deal with Yugoslavia as an enemy nation. Instead of adding to their reserves of available manpower, they were compelled to divert thirty-three divisions for the conquest of Yugoslavia and to maintain an army of occupation that varied between ten and twenty divisions. Instead of launching their attack on Russia in mid-May, as soon as the roads had hardened, they were compelled to postpone their invasion for five whole weeks of the strategically priceless dry-weather season.

The Germans were able to overcome the Yugoslav Army in twelve days. But the Revolution of March 27 cost them the war.

(David Martin, "Ally Betrayed, the Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailovich," Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1946, pp. 17, 18.)

The fingers of history, rustling through the pages of the Second World War, may provide an ironic postcript to the scene that took place at dawn yesterday somewhere in the vicinity of Belgrade when General Drazha Mihailovich crumpled before the bullets of a Yugoslav firing squad. The record is fairly obvious now. A more complete search and study of the files of the German General Staff, and a historical assessment of the various factors that entered into the successful defence of Moscow by the Red Army during the fall and winter of 1941, may show that the one most important factor was the time that was bought for the Russians in the spring of 1941 by Yugoslavia and Mihailovich. On the record written thus far, the Russian-controlled Tito Government has taken the life of a man to whom Russia owes a great debt. .

The recorded facts of the German attack on Yugoslavia and Soviet Russia in 1941 are these, as testified to by von Paulus, the German commander at Stalingrad, and by Jodl, the former German Chief of Staff, before the Allied Tribunal at Nuremberg.

Hitler drew his plan for the attack on Russia in December 1940. At that time he hoped to absorb the Balkans without a fight. This would have secured his right flank for the attack on Russia. Mihailovich, then a Colonel, was among an influential group in Yugoslavia that resisted an alliance with Germany, overthrew the pro-Nazi Government and installed one favourable to the Allies. When it became evident that Yugoslavia would not yield without a fight, von Paulus tells us, Hitler set the date of the drive on Yugoslavia for March and that against Russia for five weeks later. The attack on Yugoslavia actually was launched on April 6th, 1941.

While Hitler was preparing his move against Yugoslavia, the new Yugoslav Government at once sent emissaries to Moscow seeking a mutual assistance pact. The best that it could get was, first, a promise to remain neutral, and then a treaty of friendship. The Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact still was in force then.

The initial German attack on Yugoslavia made swift progress. The Government was driven from Belgrade. In the hills, however, a new Yugoslav hero emerged. Mihailovich, fighting a gallant delaying action, rallied the remnants of the Yugoslav Army and began an open and effective guerrilla resistance to the German Army. Because of this unexpected resistance, the German Army's time-table of five weeks between the attack on Yugoslavia and the drive on the Soviet stretched to ten weeks. When it began, June 22nd, it was weakened by the necessity of maintaining several divisions in Yugoslavia to hold that Rank.

Everyone knows the rest of the story. Delayed three months beyond the time originally set for the attack, the German Army failed to reach Moscow before the dreaded Russian winter had set in. With the help of winter, the Red Army held the line in front of Moscow. Hundreds of thousands of Germans who had expected to garrison in the shelter of the Russian capital died instead in the icy trenches a few miles away. There is good reason to believe that this - even more than the defence of Stalingrad - was the turning point of the GermanRussian conflict.

History may decide that it is not Tito - who was in safety while Mihailovich was fighting in the hills in those early days - but the executed Chetnik leader whose statue should stand in Red Square in Moscow. But Mihailovich fell yesterday in Belgrade.

(New York Times, New York, July 18, 1946)

General Mihailovitch's contribution to the Allied cause does not, however, have to rest entirely on America's say-so.The Nazis, themselves; have admitted that the General and his Chetniks played havoc with their plans. Hitler has credited these Yugoslav guerrilas with delaying his Balkan operations two months and thus upsetting his whole war schedule.

(Neal Stanford, The Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 1946)

On March 27, 1941, Winston Churchill declared:

"Early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul'.'

He referred to the ousting of Regent Prince Paul and his pro- Nazi cabinet - and the decision of the Yugoslavs to fight Hitler.

One of the men who helped make that decision was Draza Mikhailovitch.

As a result of the resistance of the Yugoslavs and their later guerrilla warfare led by Mikhailovitch, Hitler's time- table was delayed two months. That meant that Hitler's attack on Russia was delayed two months.

Now Mihailovitch has been arrested as a traitor. The man who arrested him is Marshal Tito, who as a Russian agent was collaborating with Hitler when Mikhailovitch was killing Germans".

(Record, Philadelphia, Pa, April, 1946)

The facts are these: Mihailovic was commanding a regiment in the Yugoslav Army when the Germans invaded. The army soon was overwhelmed and the government of King Peter Red. Mihailovich withdrew to the mountain fastnesses and recruited about him a guerrilla army of Chetniks. Thanks largely to their efforts, the supply lines of the Axis were never safe in Yugoslavia. Ironically, it was due in considerable part to the effectiveness of Yugoslav and Greek resistance during this period that upset Hitler's time table and delayed his turning against Russia for a number of weeks. This delay meant that Moscow was saved by winter, and perhaps all of Russia as well.

(Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 16, 1946)

In a letter published in Reynolds News, London, on May 19, 1946, Mr. Churchill said, among other things that he has

..."no sympathy with the Communists and crypto-Communists in this country who are endeavouring to deny General Mihailovich a fair trial. He it was who took the lead in making the revolution in Yugoslavia which played a part in delaying the German attack on Russia by several weeks".