Loading summary
Transcript78 lines
- [00:01]
A
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. It's September 18, 1943. Just before 4:00am local time, we're in an RAF bomber Mahalifax flying 10,000ft over the Dinaric Alps, the jagged mountain range that runs through the middle of Bosnia. The plane has flown up from Cairo via Tunis, a journey of around 2,000 miles. It's a perilous mission, heading deep into the Nazi occupied Balkans in pitch black darkness, in complete radio silence. The plane has been refitted to drop not bombs, but people. The engines dip and it begins its descent at just 500ft. It levels out. A crewman cranks over open a modified hatch in the floor, what's known as the Joe Hole. 12 Special Ops paratroopers shuffle towards it. In the light of a dim red bulb, they clip on their release lines. When it turns green, the first man tumbles out into the blackness. These are remarkable men, the best of the best. And none more so than their leader. Age 32, a Scottish aristocrat, he's distinguished himself in combat operating behind enemy lines in North Africa with the unit he co founded, the Special Air Service, or sas. His devil may care swagger will bring him to the attention of an intelligence officer, Ian Fleming. When the war's over, Fleming hopes to become a novelist. He will need a model for his spy hero, the star of a book series he intends to write. The man's name is McClane Fitzroy MacLean, and his mission is of utmost importance, one that could turn the tide of the war. Under the auspices of the Special Operations Executive, the soe, Maclean has been dispatched by Winston Churchill personally. His orders seek out the Yugoslav resistance movement, the Partisans, and make contact with their leader. No one knows his true identity. All Maclean knows, all anyone knows, is that he goes by a single cryptic name, Tito. From the Noise of podcast network. This is part three of the Tito story and this is real dictatorship. In 1937, Josip Brus had returned to Yugoslavia from Russia. As a trained Soviet agent, he stood ready to lead a revolution. He has styled himself with a nickname, Tito. Unfortunately, pro Nazis have pushed the government into joining the tripartite pact. In March 1941, Serbian Air Force officers stage a military coup. They reinstall boy King Peter II as head of state. It's an outright rejection of Hitler's new order, a move as rash as its brave. But there will be no escaping the wrath of the Fuhrer. By now, the Nazis are an unstoppable force. From the Pyrenees to Poland. Continental Europe falls almost totally under Axis control. Yugoslavia, surrounded by hostile neighbours, is a lone holdout. It's also a sitting duck. Hitler had been counting on access across Yugoslavia for his troop trains, the better to bail out Mussolini, who'd botched his invasion of Greece. But his plans have hit the buffers. Now he must fight his way to Athens and delay his secret offensive against the Soviet Union. The invasion of Yugoslavia comes with sadistic retributive overtones. Fuhrer directive number 25 unter nehmen strafgericht. Operation Punishment. At dawn on April 6, 1941, Orthodox Easter Sunday, units of the Wehrmacht roll in. They're accompanied by troops from Italy and Hungary. They cross the length of Yugoslavia's 1,300mile land border, from Italy right the way round to Bulgaria. Though the most effective destruction comes by way of the Luftwaffe, which bombs Belgrade relentlessly. The capital is devastated, the bombing instilling a wave of terror. 17,000 civilians are killed. Yugoslavia has a decent sized standing army, about a quarter of a million men. But it's as shambolic as it's spirited. Of the half a million reservists called up, two thirds desert mainly Croats and Slovenes. This artificial construct, this Yugoslavia, is not worth fighting for. Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign Minister, has been exploiting the divisions. Allow the Nazis in, the Croatians are told, and they will be granted their own freedom. In Zagreb, the Germans are welcomed as liberators. The independent state of Croatia is declared on April 10. It is inevitably a puppet arrangement, effectively under the control of the Croatian fascist movement, the ustae. In the rump of the country, the Yugoslavia armed forces fight a heroic rearguard. But with its obsolete air force destroyed, the Nazis cut through like a hot knife through butter. On April 13, day eight, Hitler's Panzers rumble into Belgrade. To the south, axis troops surge in from Bulgaria to take Skopje. The Yugoslav retreat is cut off. With the fall of Sarajevo, it's game over. On the 17th, Yugoslavia surrenders. The campaign lasts just 12 days. The Germans take 300,000 Yugoslav POWs at a cost of just 558 casualties. Textbook Blitzkrieg. And then the dismemberment begins Dr. Richard Mills.
- [08:30]
B
Hitler is definitely an enemy of Yugoslavia as a concept. He is also no fan of the Serbs. We can trace this back to the First World War, to Serbia's remarkable performance in that conflict. Very small state with a small population is able to embarrass Austria. Hungary then emerges as this victor. After the First World War around which this new state is built, we see lots of settling of accounts.
- [09:01]
A
Ripping up the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler and Mussolini annex chunks of Slovenia. Il Duce declares Montenegro an Italian protectorate and bags the Dalmatian coast. Hungary and Bulgaria carve off land, the latter annexing much of Macedonia as one of nine occupation zones. The heart of the state is reduced to the German administered territory of the military commander in Serbia, Professor Christopher Catherwood.
- [09:33]
C
And it was then split up between the Germans and the Italians. Oh, and the Bulgarians got a bit too, of course, so they all had their bits. And Croatia was a kingdom nominally under an Italian prince, but in fact, I mean not really somebody who ever went there. And a lot of Yugoslavia was directly ruled by the Germans. And then of course there was a quisling regime which people forget in Belgrade, where it was sort of pro German.
- [09:56]
B
Serbs mineral riches are mined for the Axis war effort and we see horrendous reprisals against the Serbian population, massacres of innocent civilians, of children in some cases as well.
- [10:13]
A
Yugoslavia is no more. It ceases to exist. As if to demonstrate the efficiency of his war machine and to humble Mussolini, Hitler's stormtroopers roll on down to Greece. The swastika is flying over the Acropolis. In just three weeks, the entire Balkans has now fallen. British forces in Greece withdraw to the island of Crete. The Yugoslav government has already scarboroughed, flying via Athens to Jerusalem, then Cairo. In June, the 17 year old Peter II, along with his cabinet will form a government in exile in London, operating out of Claridge's hotel. But if Hitler thought he had an easy ride, he has another thing coming. For though Yugoslavia has been knocked down, it's far from out. Its incredible resilience is not only an unsung story of the war, but but will alter the very shape of it. Tito is in a quandary. Unthinkably, Nazi Germany and his beloved Soviet Union are now allies. Between them, they've divvied up Poland. To rob Solt and the wounds, Stalin invites the Yugoslav ambassador to the Kremlin. He informs him that his post has been dissolved. There is no longer any such thing as Yugoslavia, where the Comintern is usually overloading Tito with instructions. It gives only one command. Now do nothing. Uncle Joe has thrown him under the bus. And as leader of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, he is a prime target. But Tito has spent 20 years moving around, living under false identities. When the Germans march into Zagreb, should they have looked for him, they would have found only an engineer called Slavko Babic. And he has other attributes. Despite his age and he's approaching 50, Tito is a seasoned soldier and revolutionary. Plus, the Yugoslav Communists have spent years stashing weaponry all over the place, ready for an armed uprising. A sizable contingent too are Bigaristas, men with first hand experience of the Spanish Civil War. While Tito is ruminating, the narrative alters yet again. On Sunday, June 22, Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa. His set piece invasion of the Soviet Union. The non Aggression Pact was just a charade. There are sighs of relief all round. Tito is back in business. Author and intelligence consultant Neil Barnett.
- [13:23]
D
I think this is sometimes glossed over or sometimes not fully understood that the partisan war was a resistance to occupation and a communist revolution wrapped up in one. The two were indistinguishable. And that's, you know, the opportunity really that Yugoslav communists have been waiting for. And they got it.
- [13:42]
A
Tito slips away, first to Belgrade, then into the rugged interior of the Bosnian mountains. And wouldn't you know, the Comintern is back on the line.
- [13:54]
B
So it's not until the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 by the Germans that we suddenly see the Comintern mobilizing communist forces elsewhere in Europe. And at that point the Communist Party of Yugoslavia receives instructions to start an uprising and to resist the invasion forces.
- [14:19]
A
Tito puts out a call to his. The hour has struck to take up arms for your freedom against the fascist aggressors. He is not only party leader, but the most capable military man and thus appointed its commander. His fighting force has already been fashioned into brigades and has a Soviet style command structure. He is to fight Moscow decrees as part of the greater communist struggle, fronting the national liberation partisan detachments of Yugoslavia, or as everyone will call them, just the partisans. Professor Nicholas o'. Shaughnessy.
- [15:02]
E
So he's immediately made head of the communist army, which does astonishingly well because it's used to operating in conditions of clandestine secrecy. And what you have is in a hilly country, Londonist country, even occupied by the Third Reich, you have the need for clandestine forms of behavior and skills. And these Tito and in fact all the Yugoslavs had to an extreme degree.
- [15:40]
A
This July on the Noiser podcast network, founding an American dream continues. July 4th marks 250 years of the United States. Join Clark Peters for a deep dive into the country's origins. On Real Dictators, the story of Marshal Tito concludes as currents of global history converge on the Balkans. On Real Survival Stories, we're onboard a light aircraft over Canada following a couple on the holiday of a lifetime and watching on as an avalanche consumes a gold mine. On Short History of we'll delve into the amazing stories of the Brinks Mat gold robbery and the space shuttle Challenger disaster. And in Sherlock Holmes short Stories, Holmes sets out on a search for a missing pupil in the Adventure of the Priory School. Get all of these shows and more early and ad free on NoiserPlus. The partisans are not alone. Out in the mountains are the remnants of the Yugoslav army. They've regrouped under General Draza Mihailovi. They'll become known by the nickname they adopt, meaning a band or a troop. The Chetniks. Their immediate aim is the same, the eviction of the invaders. No reason why they can't coexist, though their long term goals will prove very different.
- [17:04]
B
The other resistance movement under General Dra Mihailovi, the Chetnik movement, is seeking a restoration of the kingdom of Yugoslavia with a Serbian monarchy. Now, as the war progresses, that movement, which is a fairly disparate organization, moves ever more closely towards Serbian nationalism.
- [17:26]
C
And of course, that's not what the Toan people want to do, because they were Yugoslavs and they wanted to be able to use the situation of being invaded to create the revolution.
- [17:36]
A
For the moment, it's the Chetniks who have the ear of the government in exile. Something underscored by yet another development. On July 12, 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union make a joint declaration. They are now allies and what's going on in Yugoslavia, Churchill and Stalin both agree, is of vital strategic importance. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing Nazi invasion, Stalin is unwilling to supply any weaponry to the Balkan theater.
- [18:10]
F
Professor Jeffrey Swain Tito was operating on the assumption that the Red army would come to his aid quickly. And of course we know that that didn't happen. Red army has to retreat. But the British could, and they did.
- [18:27]
A
From air bases in Egypt and Cyprus, the RAF begins to airdrop weaponry. The bad news for the partisans is that it is the Chetniks, the Continuity army, who are the chief beneficiaries. Tito's partisans are well tooled up. Nonetheless, on July 4, 1941, there are lightning raids on police stations and their armories. Knowing that there's no point in trying to take on the Germans in open warfare, they launch a hitten on guerrilla campaign. Their cells are modeled on the Haiduk, the bandit brigades which once battled the Ottomans. With Hitler unable to spare troops either, the German occupation has been concentrated in the cities. Both partisans and chetniks suffer around 4,000 casualties that first summer. But out in the countryside, they have a number of successes. In September 1941, Tito puts out a call for a general uprising across the country. It's met with over 200 acts of sabotage, the blowing up of trains, supply depots and military installations. With Tito leading from the front, the partisans even managed to liberate an entire area of western Serbia, about 5,000 square miles, which they declare the Republic of Uzice. It's the first patch of occupied Europe to be freed. But things are about to change yet again. To the Axis, Yugoslavia is a quintessential occupation state. They are to be exploited. And as for its people, it's a field day for the Nazis, who can play out their genocidal fantasies on the Slavs, Muslims, Jews and Gypsies. The atrocities plumb new depths. A tale of mass executions, torture, rape, the razing of villages and death camp deportations. In Serbia, it's conducted by the German governor, Franz Perma, alongside the collaborationist Serb regime of General Milaniedch. Though even by Burma's own sadistic standards, he will come a poor second to the Croatian USTAA leader Antej Pavelic. Professor Susan L. Woodward The Croatian government sided with the Axis powers and the ustae.
- [21:06]
F
Even the Nazis apparently thought they were
- [21:08]
A
more corrupt, cruel than their own.
- [21:09]
B
The whole ideology of that Ustasha movement is based upon a hatred of Serbs as a people. They are blamed for the abomination, as they see it, which was the interwar kingdom. And they are dehumanized to a significant degree. And we see a genocide against the Serbian population. In the independent state of Croatia,
- [21:35]
A
it's estimated that around 350,000 Serbs are killed in Ustashiran concentration camps. 7,000 more are murdered in the favored execution site, the forest of Dotrashina. Add the other Yugoslav ethnicities and some give a total figure exterminated as 700,000. It's a sad fact and a portent for decades later that more Yugoslavs will be killed by fellow Yugoslavs in the war than by any occupying power. Pavelic, it is alleged, keeps a macabre trophy in his office, 40 pounds of human eyeballs stored in jars. The German army, meanwhile, is on the rampage. Stories filter back of random Groups of villagers, men, women, children, the elderly being marched out to pits and shot en masse. One massacre in Serbia's matva region claims 6,000 lives.
- [22:41]
E
The Nazi crossages are far, far worse than almost anywhere else. So you get this claim that for every dead German soldier, 100 local people would be executed. So the Third Reich was at its most murderous in Yugoslavia. The figure we're given is a million people killed in Yugoslavia in World War II. But part of it is because the resistance actually resisted.
- [23:11]
A
It's to cause a split between Tito and Mihailovi.
- [23:16]
F
The Chetniks were terrified that if they took premature military action, there would be reprisals. And there were horrific reprisals. And so the Chetnik mantra became, well, we'll carry out little bits of sabotage, but we're not going to do anything in the way of real partisan fighting until there's a chance of an allied landing, until there's a chance of some sort of external support.
- [23:42]
C
So they did deal with the Italians and said, we're going to wait. And the aim of the Chetniks was wait until the British are coming or whoever's going to liberate the Walkins are coming. They did fight Germans sometimes, but most of the time they were trying to be low key because they didn't like the people to be slaughtered.
- [24:01]
A
For Tito, who'd lived through Stalin's purges, there can be no flinching at the barbarity.
- [24:13]
C
Tito's partisans didn't really care so much about casualties. And of course that was part of the moral dilemma the British had, because, you know, the question was who was fighting the most Germans? Well, of course it was the partisans.
- [24:26]
A
The Nazi revenge policy, meanwhile, intended as a deterrent, soon proves counterproductive. Whole villagers start decamping en masse into the forests to join the armed struggle. With the partisans welcoming all comers, it is to them whom they flock.
- [24:45]
B
They are now appealing on a multi ethnic basis to anyone that wants to join them. We also see the partisans embracing women as fighters, for example. It's an inclusive movement.
- [25:01]
A
Editor and publisher Branko Perkic I mean,
- [25:05]
G
Communist Party has inflated its role later. History has been written by the winners. So they inflated their original role in starting all those uprisals against the Germans and Italians. So they were basically people who just want to fight. And the crimes committed by Ustashas and committed by Germans was so egregious that people basically would not care if they die because the horror in u justice was so big that they were basically saying, I don't care If I die.
- [25:32]
C
They weren't always too fussy. It was run totally on Communist lines. You didn't have to be a Communist in order to be a partisan, but you had to buy into the idea of Yugoslavia.
- [25:42]
A
By the end of 1941, there are around 80,000 partisans in the mountains. Serbs, antifascist, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnian Muslims or Bosniaks, as well as around 2,000 escaping Jews. They're drawn in no small part by the lure of the mysterious Tito, who assumes an almost superhero status, often with his operatives claiming to be acting on his behalf, or sometimes even to be Tito himself, a nom de guerre.
- [26:15]
E
Well, Tito is an idea, he's a concept, he's something beyond the human. He's a kind of demigod. And like Robin Hood, he's here, he's there, he's everywhere.
- [26:33]
A
In the liberated republic of Uzicia, Tito lays out his vision. He has at his disposal an armaments factory, a bank, a printing press, even a railway.
- [26:44]
B
These tools enable them to gain some momentum. They run this small piece of territory in a way that they look to run the entire country in the future as a kind of blueprint. Look what we will do for you if we are in power. The partisans aren't able to hold Uzice for very long, but what they do is they slowly learn to move into territory, to occupy it for as long as they can, and then to move on again without having to engage in full frontal armed combat. Tito's forces become the masters of survival.
- [27:25]
A
This rolling Bolshevik utopia is not the new Yugoslavia envisaged by the Chetniks, however. In fact, it's not always welcomed by its citizens.
- [27:36]
B
In Montenegro in 1941, we see a situation which, depending on who is framing it, is, is referred to as either the Red Terror or the deviation, where basically militant Communists go too far and they start to plunder and burn villages, to target more affluent peasants, and basically to fight a Communist revolution at a time when things are not in their favor. To do so and they alienate huge sections of the peasantry, Tito learns that
- [28:09]
A
running revolutionary microstates on Soviet lines is not always the way to win hearts and minds.
- [28:16]
F
So although Communists always talk about leading the people and being in touch with the people, he really had to learn to be in touch with the people.
- [28:27]
A
Mihailovi, meanwhile, is beginning to resent Tito. It is he who is the exiled king's appointed men Minister of War after all. But the bearded, black clad Chetniks, with their skull and crossbones regalia, as well as their fondness for plum brandy are not doing themselves any favors either.
- [28:47]
D
The Chetniks, they didn't have the discipline and organization of the partisans. You know, drunkenness and massive consumption of slivovitz and excesses were their thing. Their strategy was to try and preserve Serbia because they were Serbian nationalists. But this then developed into local understandings with German commanders and then sometimes local collaboration with the Germans against the partisans.
- [29:13]
A
Along with the puppet regime in Belgrade, Mihailovic starts painting Tito as a Soviet stooge as dangerous as any invader. Isolated incidents soon turn into open civil war. In November 1941, when Mihailovi's army attacks the partisans in Zhip, the Germans simply sit back and enjoy the show. As Tito's army flees into Bosnia, The Chetniks capture 365 partisans and hand them over. The collaboration is now overt. Some Chetniks form an alliance with the Italian general Mario Ruata, a frothing anti communist known as the Black Beast. The Chetniks will go on to kill around 68,000 fellow Yugoslavs, including Croats, Bosniaks and especially partisans. Over a thousand will be massacred near the Serbian village of Ravnar Eka.
- [30:22]
C
Having said that, Peter also did deals with the Germans, if doing a deal with the Germans meant doing down all the Chetniks and the Serb nationalists. So nobody was perfect. But it all got very complicated. Everybody was betraying everybody else to everybody else.
- [30:36]
A
In fact, when Tito's wife Herta is captured by the Germans, he will barter with them for her return. She swapped in a prisoner exchange for a Wehrmacht officer. The partisans live out the Alpine winter in sub zero temperatures, scavenging for food and weaponry. Tito is forever changing locations, staying one step ahead of his enemies. And in light of the forces ranged against him demanding blind loyalty, there is no mercy shown, either to the enemy or to traitors. Up in the mountains, he runs a tight ship. He cannot afford breaches in discipline. Despite living rough, Tito has an image to protect. He is always shaved and clad in an immaculate dress uniform complete with brass buttons. Even while having slept in a cave. Drinking alcohol is outlawed, as is fraternizing with female recruits.
- [31:41]
D
I mean, he was, you know, enormously capable, militarily and enormously charismatic. And he was up in the hills with the partisans and sharing their risks and privations. He was a proper leader and he didn't reserve any particular privileges for himself, except for partisans generally weren't allowed to fraternize with those of the opposite. And he gave himself a pass on that count. But apart from that, he was walking
- [32:09]
A
the walk, as Herta will discover when she stumbles in on them. Her husband is already conducting an affair with a female partisan. His 20 year old personal secretary, Dava Yanka Paunovic. She will become his live in partner for the rest of the war. The good news for the partisans is that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union is going disastrously and for which Yugoslavia can claim some credit. The belgrade coup of 1941 had forced Hitler to delay operation Barbarossa by several weeks, leaving him unable to wrap up phase one of his operation before the first snows set in. Over the second winter, the German 6th army is now encircled, locked in a fight to the death at Stalingrad. But Hitler in a corner, is at his most vengeful. In January 1943, the Fuhrer dispatches 90,000 Axis troops in a full on offensive against the partisans, an operation known as Case White. The Ustasha and Chetniks join the party. By March, 15,000 of Tito's men are dead. And Tito himself has dodged several bullets. It's March 1, 1943. We're on the steep wooded gorge of the Neretva river, A fast flowing waterway that winds down from the Bosnian highlands. On its eastern bank around the town of Yablanika, 20,000 partisans are holed up, including four and a half thousand wounded in desperate need of evacuation. Surrounding them are 150,000 Axis troops, including the fearsome 7th SS Division. And by the hour they're closing in, crawling through the snow. Partisan scouts lead Tito to a vantage point on the cliffs. Through binoculars he sees the skeletal steel structure of the bridge, the strategic crossing point. The partisans only means of escape. But knows Tito. The enemy will be counting on this. Chetniks and Italians are moving up on the other side. To the consternation of his officers, he gives an blow the bridge up dutifully. Members of the Pioneer corps scramble down to wriggle underneath the steelwork, laying charges. But Tito has issued an added instruction stage, a sufficient level of destruction to give the impression that the bridge has been put out of use, but with enough of the superstructure left intact for it to be hastily reassembled. Sure enough, the image presented to German reconnaissance aircraft is exactly that one of a bridge destroyed. To the Germans it means the partisans surely will begin their breakout to the north. They redeploy accordingly. Hours later, working through the night, the pioneers will begin the process of reattaching the bridge's girders. By March 6, there are enough in place to enable Tito to spirit his men across the water, including the wounded, beating back the Chetniks as they go. This daring action will become known as the Battle of Neretva, or the Battle for the wounded. It will allow the partisans to regroup, taking out a further 9,000 of the enemy. Hitler will follow up with Case Black, an even more intense assault on the partisans in southeast Bosnia. But by now, Tito's forces are capable of tying down a whole 20 German divisions, less a guerrilla band now than a tactical fighting force. By the summer of 1943, the Axis had been beaten in North Africa, and its troops are being withdrawn from everywhere else to stop the Red army steamrollering westwards. The whole Fascist house is falling down. With the Allied invasion of Italy, Its troops in Yugoslavia simply turn on their heels and march home.
- [37:02]
F
So when Italy surrendered, the whole of the Dalmatian coast was suddenly lost to them. The partisans charge quite dramatically into the area. A lot of the weaponry that the Italians left finds its way into the hands of the partisans. So the partisans, by the second half of 1943 are a real force.
- [37:25]
B
1943 becomes a hugely important moment for the partisan struggle, and actually some Italian forces more or less hand over weaponry to the partisans. And some Italian soldiers join the Partisans at that point.
- [37:43]
A
Back in London, the Allies quaintly are still clinging to their patronage of the Chetniks. They would seem to be backing the wrong horse now.
- [37:54]
B
Initially in the Balkans, Mihailovic is lauded as this great warrior fighting for the cause. National newspapers in Britain write odes to Mihailovic and his movement. By 1943, there's some suspicion emerging around this, and especially when agents start to be attached to Tito's pyazzan forces. And it quickly becomes clear that the Partisans are a much more effective fighting force, that they are willing to take suicidal risks to damage the Axis.
- [38:37]
A
Though the US has since entered the war, it's the British who remain the chief suppliers of arms to the Balkan theater. Churchill, some say, to atone for his mismanagement of the Dardanelles or Gallipoli campaign in the First World War, has been an especially keen encourager of resistance there. He still sees it as the soft underbelly of Europe, a means he had hoped of opening a second front against Germany. In the end, the Allies had chosen to land in Italy, though Churchill still insists on flooding arms and equipment into Yugoslavia. Looking ahead to the post war order, and with intelligence coming in continually from Bletchley park, it's no longer a question of defeating Germany, but stemming Soviet expansion. Churchill is on the horns of a dilemma. A swift victory in the region can only come if the Allies ditch the duplicitous chetniks. That, however, means endorsing a partisan liberated Yugoslavia, which would likely be run as a communist state ripe for Soviet vassalage.
- [39:48]
C
What we knew in the Balkans was because of we were reading the codes and because if you read the codes then the people killing most of the people, most of the Germans were the partisans. But of course nobody could say that at the time. And this was part of the problem because it all had to be hushed up because you couldn't reveal how you knew what you knew.
- [40:07]
A
Churchill will throw his wholehearted support behind the partisans only if he can be assured that a post war Yugoslavia pursues a path independent from Moscow. It's a huge leap of faith, moreover, one based on a man, Tito, who no one has ever met. On July 25, 1943, Churchill summons Brigadier Fitzroy MacLean to check us. Schooled at Eton and Cambridge, Maclean is quite the character. Fluent in Russian and German, he was before the war a diplomat serving in Moscow and is currently a sitting Conservative mp, a member for Lancaster, but he is above all a hard as nails soldier. Eschewing privilege, he enlisted in the army as a private and has worked his way up to Brigadier. Arriving in the wee small hours, Maclean finds the Prime Minister's entourage in a surreal moment of light relief, sitting around watching a cine reel, a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Churchill breaks off to greet Maclean and to wave a dispatch of important news that in Italy, Mussolini has just resigned. It only goes to underline what he is about to ask. At Maclean, affairs, the other side of the Adriatic are more important than ever. He needs McClane to track down this Tito fellow. He must look him in the eye and determine whether he is a man whom they can trust. After weeks of intense training, Maclean's men land safely in central Bosnia in the early hours of September 18, 1943. They are a specialist team of engineers, intelligence officers and good old fashioned commandos, there to run the rule over the partisans. Responding to coded messages, Partisans meet them by moonlight and lead them on horseback up into the mountains. It's a hair raising tale in itself. Dodging German patrols, diving for cover when enemy planes swoop over. Two days later, they're in a ruined castle near the village of Jaitse. Wait there, they're told in what seems a recurring literary motif. Maclean, the putative James Bond, has already had a conversation with another SOE agent. His name is Evelyn Waugh. Waugh had been in the field in Yugoslavia and claims to have got close to Tito without meeting him personally or indeed her. For according to Waugh, Tito is a woman, indeed a lesbian. But then he emerges, the broad shouldered middle aged man Maclean had always guessed him to be, doing up the buttons of his jacket. Tito introduces himself and offers his guests plum brandy Slibovitz. The rules regarding drinking not applying to himself either. Maclean is introduced to Edvard Kardelch and Alexander Rankovic, a Slovene and a Serb, old colleagues from Tito's prison days, now key members of his staff. With Tito holding court, they spend the evening round an open fire out under the stars, discussing how they can conspire to give the Germans a good kicking and how Tito's vision of a post war Yugoslavian republic will brook no interference from Stalin. Tito caps it off in his faltering English with a passionate recitation of Edmund Lear's the Owl and the Pussycat. Maclean is not just a conservative and a monarchist, but from his days in Moscow, a witness to Stalin's purges. He's about as anti Bolshevik as you can get, but there is something about this Tito, he concedes. He has an aura, a certain X factor. Exiting Yugoslavia involves a traumatic journey by land and sea. But once out, Maclean is able to relay his message back to Churchill. Tito, he tells him, is the real deal. A man with whom they can do business. The Tehran Conference of November December 1943 marks the first meeting of the big three Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. In the west, the planning for D Day is at an advanced stage. In the east, the Russians have rolled the Wehrmacht back as far as Poland. To the south, Italy has formally switched sides. In Germany, strategic bombing is turning the fatherland into a wasteland. To which end the Allies announces Churchill, in the interests of a swift victory, should now back Tito's partisans as the official army of Yugoslav liberation. The conference is in agreement. Maclean will meet Churchill personally in Cairo as he makes his way back from Persia. There, in Churchill's hotel, he finds the PM in his pyjamas, sitting up in bed, looking out at a spectacular view across the pyramids. Have they done the right thing? Maclean wonders. Kicking out the Germans is of course a necessity. But what if Tito does go rogue?
- [46:01]
C
There was a chat that Churchill had with Maclean. You know, he said, do you intend to live in Yugoslavia after War one? And Maclean said no. He said, well, nor do I.
- [46:08]
E
They just want want to back the toughest side fighting Hitler. If those people happen to be communists, they happen to be communists. Not only are the Yugoslav communists by far the most effective, best led the most rigorously organized and trained. But the Chetniks, you actually cannot trust them anymore. Whereas the partisans, the Communist partisans, are utterly reliable because they hate the Nazis with a murderous and passionate intensity.
- [46:46]
A
It's not just the Allies who appreciate Tito's worth. To the Germans he remains a key target. In September 1943, a mission led by the commander Otto Skorzeny had snatched Benito Mussolini from his mountain top captivity. In the fabled Gran Sasso raid in May 1944. Skorzeny tries to repeat the trick, flying gliders into the hills around Dirva, the Bosnian town where the partisan HQ is relocated. Tito escapes by a whisker, though is wounded by bomb fragments during the process.
- [47:24]
E
Napoleon said, don't give me good generals, give me lucky ones. Tito has extraordinary luck throughout his life.
- [47:31]
G
I don't know if you know about this little detail. Tito was the only general or marshal or army leader who was actually injured, wounded in a second World War. He was almost killed.
- [47:43]
A
He's sailing too close to the wind now. It's too dangerous for him to stay in the field. At the Allies insistence, Tito removes himself from the front line and bases himself offshore. His new HQ is the Dalmatian island of Vis, 30 miles off Split.
- [48:04]
B
The partisan movement increases its territory throughout 1943 and into 1944. One of those places is the island of Vis, which is way out in the Adriatic Sea. We see a rudimentary air base being built there. We see allies, naval forces coming in there. And it becomes a place where not only can the partisans plan for the future, they can also interact with their other allies. And so it starts to incorporate them into the wider European struggle as well.
- [48:40]
A
In June 1944, Tito is visited there by Ivan Subacic, the Yugoslav King's Prime Minister in London, who informs him that His Majesty finally is endorsing Tito and the partisans over the Chetniks. Politically they are now constituted as the anti fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia. A treaty is signed on June 17 with Tito agreeing to retain some kind of place for the King in the new provisional government.
- [49:13]
F
By time of the Treaty of Tehran, Churchill has accepted that Yugoslavia is going to have a new government and that it's going to be dominated by Tito. But he wanted Tito to bring in some pre war non communist politicians and he wanted the King to at least be allowed to return.
- [49:37]
A
But can Tito keep his word again? There is only one way to find out. It's August 12, 1944. We're in Naples on the terrace of the villa Rivalta, overlooking Mount Vesuvius and the stunning Neapolitan bay. It's a sumptuous spread. Queen Victoria used to holiday. Here, amid the terracotta pots and sculpted balustrades stands not a monarch, but its ideological opposite, Josip Prowess Tito, or rather now Marshal Tito, given his position as both supreme military commander and the country's leader in Wei Ting. Flanked by two burly bodyguards toting submachines, Tito shuffles his feet and waits. Something he's unaccustomed to doing. It's normally up to him to keep others in suspense. Unfortunately, Winston Churchill can't be found. A lax timekeeper. This is nothing unusual. When Winston's assistants do locate him, he's down on the beach. He'd gone for a swim. Hastened back up to the villa, he dries off, throws on his white linen suit and marches up the steps to the house. When he approaches Tito, he thrusts his right hand inside his jacket, at which the bodyguards spring forward, shoving their guns in Churchill's face. He was in fact reaching for his his gold cigar case, the better to offer his guest a hand rolled Romeo e Julieta. The two leaders laugh and shake hands. They will, through interpreters, get along like a house on fire.
- [51:39]
D
I think Churchill liked his sort of piratical personality and appreciated this sort of, you know, of Balkan haiduck in appeal to his romantic side.
- [51:55]
A
With Paris liberated and the Western Allies pushing toward the Rhine, Churchill tells him the end for Germany is nigh. And he has more good news. The RAF and US Army Air Force can now supply not just air cover to the partisans, but actual planes, including a squadron of Spitfires. In return, Tito gives assurances about leading a provisional government as a broad coalition. He is no Stalinist poodle. Amid considerable bonhomie, the two men part. Churchill has looked Tito in the eye personally. He's convinced more than ever that he can use the new Western facing Yugoslavia as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Within days of Naples, both Romania and Bulgaria fall under Soviet control. It's all systems go. Tito returns to the island of Vis to plot the liberation's end stage. In the meanwhile, with airstrips laid in, partisan held territory, supplies are ferried in like never before. Before
- [53:07]
E
you've got huge amounts of ammunition coming in, planes, so forth, and supplies. But you also have the supply of a lot of experts, men skilled in sabotage, skilled in leadership, who can advise the partisans. Because the partisans have guts, they have drive, they have zeal, they have enormous courage. But they're not regular professional soldiers. What they need is professional help.
- [53:37]
A
There are over 300,000 Yugoslavs who now count themselves as partisans. There are women's brigades, youth brigades, and by now an air force. It's no longer a resistance movement, but an army comparable in size to the Free French. Pound for pound, it's the most effective people's army in Europe. On September 22, an intelligence communique comes in from the British military detachment on Vis. Tito has vanished. Despite nervous excuses proffered by the marshal's guards that he's gone for a walk. It seems Tito, along with his inner circle, has disappeared into thin air. There's not a trace. Events are pieced together. Apparently under cover of darkness, an unidentified aircraft had flown into the island. It seems it might have been Russian. It will soon transpire that Tito has popped up in Moscow, cozying up to his old bit ma Stalin.
- [54:55]
C
So he was in touch with Turchill, of course, you know, through Soe and Maclean and all those. But he was also directly in touch with Stalin. So he was playing both sides against the middle. He's a genuine communist hoping to spread world communism, you know, that was the idea. So he was in handing gloves with us and son at the same time.
- [55:14]
D
Churchill's eyes were open and he was furious. At a crucial stage, Churchill used the word levanted. Tito disappeared in an airplane sent by Stalin for talks with Stalin. And this was very badly received by Churchill.
- [55:30]
A
With Churchill howling of betrayal, Tito's riposte is deadpan. Only recently, Mr. Churchill went to Quebec to see President Roosevelt. And I only heard of this visit after he returned turned, and I was not angry. There is a reason for Tito's Russian dash. While he had always prided himself on the fact that Yugoslavia is on the verge of liberating itself without any direct external help, for this last push on Belgrade, he will need on the ground military support, artillery, tanks and street fighting. Know how.
- [56:13]
F
The situation on the Eastern Front had changed dramatically in October 1944 because Romania had surrendered and joined the Allies. So instead of the Red army having to fight its way through Romania, it could walk through Romania. It got to Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian partisans immediately staged an insurrection which brought the Red army pretty close to the border with Serbia. And so suddenly the Red army really can help Tito. And what Tito had been summoned to Moscow for was for talks to agree that the Red army would help with the liberation of Belgrade.
- [56:58]
B
Because what the partisans have been able to do is actually thrive in the countryside and to take and hold large swathes of rural Yugoslavia. What they haven't been able to do until 1944 is take any major city. And now suddenly the Red army is in the Balkans and it's able to sweep up through Serbia to liberate Belgrade, to basically put Tito's partisan movement in power.
- [57:25]
A
And so the Soviets are invited in. Together. In October, the Partisans and Red army launch the Belgrade offensive. Tito rallies his troops beforehand in Belgrade. We began the uprising in Belgrade. We shall end it in victory. Its brutal stuff clawing back the city inch by inch. There are 150,000 Germans to be evicted. It will take 16 days and cost the partisans another 3,000 casualties. But on October 20th, 1944, Belgrade falls. Serbia and much of eastern Yugoslavia are now free. It's October 27, 1944, seven days after the first troops entered the capital, two months after his meeting with Churchill. On the broad avenue Kneza Miloza streets, upon a platform stands Marshal Tito, resplendent in his dress uniform. As columns of triumphant soldiers march past, he gives his salute. The lines of troops which seem to stretch on forever, respond in kind. The partisans are a real mixture. Serb, Croat, Sloven, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia. Male, female, tall, short, old, young, Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim. Their uniforms are a mix of patched up khaki and bits of German and Italian kit. They're scavenged, everything emblazoned with a bright red communist star. Tanks and trucks rumble in with them.
- [59:35]
G
You need to understand that Tito was not just another dictator, just another power hungry corruption man. He was the man with a serious vision to survive what Tito survived in second World War. Just, just to give you an idea, the entire movement Titus Partisans was very, very optimistically numbered at 80,000 at the end of the 1941. By the time the war was over, it was more than a million people that joined by the by the end of the war this was a proper army. And what he built, he built something which was from ground up and which was actually built by the people of Yugoslavia. It's really important that this was not a recruitment, classical state recruitment, repression type recruitment. This was people who actually willingly wanted to fight the Germans and the Italians and everybody else.
- [60:30]
A
The watching crowds are ecstatic, swarming these heroes and heroines who have freed them from three and a half years of hell. There are Yugoslav tricolors waved, Soviet hammers and sickles flutter. Somewhere in the mix are a pair of jeeps flying the Union Jack and stars and stripes, Fitzroy Maclean and a group of allied agents. He'd returned to Yugoslavia to help coordinate tt big push. Thirty years ago, Josip Broz was A humble impoverished Croatian, a citizen of Austria, Hungary. Today he walks Belgrade as the leader designate of the new free Yugoslavia and whose name is being chanted to the rooftops.
- [61:23]
E
We're really trying to talking in the end about the only conquered country in World War II, which self liberated and that was Yugoslavia. The Soviets play a marginal role right at the end, but it's a fact of self liberation which gives Tito his great status for the rest of his life, but also Yugoslavia its great status.
- [61:55]
A
The war is not over, not yet. It will take another four months for the German High Command to call for all remaining Wehrmacht troops to evacuate Yugoslavia, leaving the country wide open. Meanwhile, a partisan army is thrusting north to depose the Ustase regime in Zagreb. Old foes, the Chetniks are back on the scene too, fighting alongside the partisans as they did at the start of the war. They're probably wishing to rehabilitate themselves, but they have sensed what lies ahead to be directed by Tito's own hand. Retribution. In the next episode. In the war's aftermath, Tito exacts his bloody revenge, maneuvering the King out of the picture. Tito's Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is swiftly consolidated under communist rule. A clash with the US risks further conflict, even a nuclear strike. Though the biggest showdown is to come with Joseph Stalin. That's next time. You can listen to the next two episodes of Real Dictators right now without waiting and without adverts by joining Noiser Plus. Click the banner at the top of the feed or follow the link in the episode description.