Matteo J. Milazzo, The Chetnik Movement and the Yugoslav Resistance, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1975. 208 pp. $12.00.

The opening up in recent years of much previously classified source material has enabled historians to take a new look at the mythomania that has surrounded the history of resistance in Yugoslavia during World War II. Two recent books look at the Chetnik side of this story. The first to come out was '1'he Chetniks: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941-1945 by Professor J. Tomasevich; the second is the volume under review. Milazzo's book confirms Tomasevich's major general conclusion: that the idea of Mihailovic as a great Yugoslav resistance leader was a myth propagated by the Yugoslav government-in-exile for its own political purposes and disseminated by the Allies as wartime propaganda. It also adds considerable evidence, mainly from the huge mass of German and Italian war documents captured by the Allies. Milazzo has made detailed use of records of the Italian Comando Supremo, especially those concerning German-Italian dealings about Chetniks, and Italian occupying forces' relations with Chetniks. He also uses documents showing decoded intercepts of Chetnik radio messages as well as some private papers of Mussolini; it should be added that he has made considerable use of Yugoslav sources and of some Yugoslav histories of the war written from a pro-Partisan standpoint. Milazzo's book presents a lucid and compact account of what must be the most complex story of resistance in any country occupied by the Axis. He traces the history of the Chetnik movement from its inception after the capitula- tion of Yugoslavia in 1941, when a few Royal Yugoslav army officers including Colonel Dra�a Mihailovic took to the hills in Serbia, through the various phases of their attempts in 1942 to build a resistance movement, through the many phases of their collaboration with Italians and negotia- tions with Germans, to their ultimate disintegration in the final stages of the war. The newest material in Milazzo's book deals with the Chetnik movement-which he characterises as "The Serbian National Movement" (pp. 42-61)-in the Italian zones of occupation. He shows how the revolt in Montenegro in the summer of 1941 polarized resistance between Chet- niks and Communists; it also sowed the seeds of distrust between Germans and Italians since the former realized that the Italians would never be able to assert their authority effectively outside the larger cities (p. 44). It was a catalyst in other ways since it led to the final breakdown in relations between Partisan and Chetnik detachments and to the vision of some of Mihailovic's officers and probably of Mihailovic himself of how the Chetniks could exploit both the Axis and Great Britain. The Chetniks in this first period were unable to persuade the Germans to accept them as allies or to rearrange the occupation system in eastern Bosnia in exchange for an armistice; they also failed to impose their plans and leadership on the Partisans. But it should be pointed out that their success in persuading the British to accept them as the only recognized resistance movement in Yugoslav territories was a major achievement which was only subverted by their own crass political mismanagement, their unwillingness to engage in fighting other than civil war against the Partisans, and by the violently Pan-Serb nationalism of the political program which they drew up early in 1942. This program (p. 92) included the restoration of King Peter II; the "crea- tion within a Greater Yugoslavia of a Greater Serbia ethnically pure, which will include Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Syrmia, Banat and Backa," and the removal from state terri- tories of all minorities and a-national elements; as well as the colonization of those territories by Montenegrins. It is not surprising that the movement failed to attract support from other than extreme right-wing elements in regions outside Serbia and parts of Montenegro. Milazzo analyses the Chetniks' dilemma of tactical collaboration with German and Italian occupying forces and with the German-controlled puppet leader Nedic in Serbia. That negotiations with all three started from September, 1941, is established by irrefutable evidence and destroys the myth for so long prevalent in some circles that Mihailovic and the Chetniks were a heroic force fighting alone, backed by the British but not helped by them. In fact the British were informed in detail-from 1942 by intercepts as well as other sources of intelligence-of Mihailovic's and other Chetnik leaders' devious attempts to gain support from the Axis; up to 1943 they turned a blind eye for political reasons. Milazzo goes into considerable detail about relations between Italians and Chetniks in 1942 and 1943, exposing the reasons why both sides thought to make a profitable deal by working together. Mihailovic hoped to gain military aid against the Partisans (in this he succeeded up to 1943); he also hoped to establish Chetnik units in areas of eastern Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia, which would give him a squatter's right at the end of the war, whatever its outcome. The Italians wanted to used the Chetniks to occupy this same territory which they were hoping to take over as German troops were removed for operations on the Eastern front. In the long run neither party gained from the Italo-Chetnik alliances, though the Chetniks were able to recruit, arm, feed, and quarter their troops with Italian aid from 1942 until the Italian capitulation in the fall of 1943. The account of Chetnik negotiations with the Nedic authorities is not dealt with in any great detail; this will no doubt be dealt with in the forthcoming second volume of Tomasevich's trilogy. Milazzo devotes a useful and interesting chapter (pp. 113-39) to operation Weiss, the German military operation to encircle and exterminate the numerous and increasingly well- organized Partisan army. The operation began on 20 January 1943 and German military units, Italians, and 20,000 Chetnik troops were involved. By the end of April, Chetniks and Italians had been routed, the Germans had failed in their objective, and Tito's troops had broken through the ring that had almost encircled them. This operation has become an heroic victory in Partisan mythology and was undoubtedly a major triumph for Tito. Milazzo attempts to give a clear account of the actions of the different Chetnik groups involved. Yet it seems likely that this is a battlefield which will continue to be fought over by military historians, and the interaction of political and military considerations affecting all participants both during the operation and in the short aftermath before operation Weiss merged into operation Schwarz is still unclear. Milazzo does establish that the failure of this operation marked the watershed in the civil war between Chetniks and Partisans. It led to a crisis in Chetnik leadership and according to Milazzo "marked the defini- tive collapse of the non-Communist resistance in Yugoslavia" (p. 140). Milazzo contends that the crisis in leadership was the fault of Mihailovic who stayed away from the troops and left direct command operations in the inexpert hands of Ostojic who was completely unable-as was Mihailovic himself-to control other Chetnik leaders. Many Chetniks left the movement and some joined the Partisans, who received British officers in May and an official British mission in September. One of the German aims of operation Schwarz had been to disarm all Chetniks. As Professor Milazzo shows from official German documents, they were also receiving emissaries from Tito to discuss a temporary arrangement "whereby they [the Partisans] would call off hostilities against occupation troops in return for a 'free hand' to settle accounts with Mihailo- vic" (p. 133). Milazzo points out that Tito was asking only for temporary freedom of action and it was not "the sort of ongoing collaboration which the Chetniks developed with the Italians." In any case, the Germans refused the suggestion and a few weeks later Captain Deakin arrived at Tito's headquarters. This was the crucial phase of the war when the Germans, as well as both Mihailovic and Tito, were expecting an Allied landing in the Balkans. The Germans knew of Mihailovic's intention to support the expected invasion, they knew that Italy's support for the war was rapidly diminish- ing, and were determined that in the event of an Allied landing and Italian capitulation, no Chet- niks and as few Partisans as possible should be in a position to profit by it. In fact, no such invasion was planned. Mihailovic's disappointment when the invasion turned out to be southern Italy added to his already embittered attitude to the British and fuel was added to the flames of his anger when he was given no prior warning of the Italian capitulation. He believed that the British officer at his headquarters, Colonel Bailey, knew about the Italian surrender and had been ordered not to warn him. Colonel Bailey himself informed this reviewer that he had no prior knowledge whatsoever about the Italian capitulation. It is ironical that Tito made the same infuriated complaint to the British officer, Brigadier Fitzroy MacLean, who was at his headquarters at this time. In his final chapter on "Collaboration and Defeat," Milazzo describes how the Germans-as well as the general war situation and the increasing success of the Partisans-contributed to the demoralization of the remaining Chetniks who became for the most part auxiliaries for the Germans (p. 162), who ex- ploited their Serb nationalist feelings by using them in some operations against the Partisans. The Germans realized by this time that the estrangement between Chetniks and the Allies was final, in spite of some tolerated extra-curricular contacts between General Donovan and Mihailovic. By this time Mihailovic's illusions, cruelly supported by these activities, bore no relation to reality. Indeed, Milazzo states (p. 176) that "Donovan's staff, which had nourished so many of the [Chetnik] officers' illusions, rejected a British request that they evacuate Mihailovic on the grounds that 'serious complications' would obviously result from such an action." All evidence that we have of Mihailovic's character seems to suggest that he would, in any case, have refused such an offer. He may have lived throughout the whole of the Chetnik operations in a backward-looking, unrealistic life of illusion, ridden with Serbian folk mythology, but he was never accused of being a coward.