Yugoslavia And The Allies
In 1941 when the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, King Peter II formed a Government in exile in London, and in January 1942 the royalist Draža Mihailović became the Minister of War with British backing. But by June or July 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided to withdraw support from Mihailović and the Chetniks he led, and support the Partisans headed by Josip Broz Tito. The main reason for the change was not the reports by Fitzroy Maclean or William Deakin, or as later alleged the influence of James Klugmann in Special Operations Executive (SOE) headquarters in Cairo or even Randolph Churchill, but the evidence of Ultra decrypts from the Government Code and Cipher School in Bletchley Park that Tito's Partisans were a "much more effective and reliable ally in the war against Germany". Nor was it due to claims that the Chetniks were collaborating with the enemy, though there was some evidence from decrypts of collaboration with Italian and sometimes German forces.
Read more about Yugoslavia And The Allies: Contact With Yugoslavia, Churchill's Sources, British Intelligence Sources, Discovery of Collaboration, British Mission, Switching Support To The Partisans, Allied Bombings
Famous quotes containing the words yugoslavia and/or allies:
“International relations is security, it’s trade relations, it’s power games. It’s not good-and-bad. But what I saw in Yugoslavia was pure evil. Not ethnic hatred—that’s only like a label. I really had a feeling there that I am observing unleashed human evil ...”
—Natasha Dudinska (b. c. 1967)
“They tell us that women can bring better things to pass by indirect influence. Try to persuade any man that he will have more weight, more influence, if he gives up his vote, allies himself with no party and relies on influence to achieve his ends! By all means let us use to the utmost whatever influence we have, but in all justice do not ask us to be content with this.”
—Mrs. William C. Gannett, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5, ch. 8, by Ida Husted Harper (1922)