BATTLE OF EUROPE: The Balkan Way

Biggest island of freedom in Europe is the wild mountainous triangle of old Serbia dominated by General Draja Mihailovich. The Yugoslavs fight in a bumptiously Balkan way: in separate groups divided by ancient hates. Thus, within Mihailovich’s domain operates a separate force directed by the Yugoslav Communist Party.

Elsewhere in old Yugoslavia at least six smaller Axis-surrounded islands carry on the struggle: 1) in the mountains behind Split, bands of Croats fight the Italians; 2) farther north, around Delnice, other Croats strike hard & often at Italian garrisons near Fiume; 3) eastward on the Croat plain, patriot guerrillas are so active that the Germans have acknowledged the necessity of sending flotillas down the Danube to fight them; 4) in the Croat forests, an underground peasant organization, Zeleni Kadar (Green Quarters), resists both the Germans and their puppet terrorist, Ante Pavelich; 5) Slovenes in the farthest northern section resist when possible; 6) in old Montenegro, a Communist-led guerrilla army controls the capital, Cetinje, and surrounding territory.

Such division in the face of the enemy might seem a setup for Nazi divide-&-conquer tactics. But a prime guerrilla lesson learned in China has been that guerrilla effectiveness is increased if the bands are free to strike where split-second opportunities arise. Thus the Balkan way seemed the best way, and last week that method could point to these accomplishments :

> The town of Ljubushki, near the Adriatic, and a Bosnian garrison of 1,200 Axis soldiers were captured.

> Reports reaching London said Mihailovich’s forces had killed or captured 10,000 Axis soldiers in three recent engagements.

Overblown Rome accounts of difficulties in Yugoslavia were open to suspicion, however, because such stories provided a convenient excuse to Italy’s Nazi masters for not sending more Italian divisions to the Russian front. And quite a few of those difficulties could be traced to Italian ways: some of Il Duce’s quartermasters were selling arms to their Yugoslav foes.