Draža Mihailović

Draža Mihailović
Nickname(s)	"Čiča Draža" ("Чича Дража") Serbian for "uncle"
Allegiance	Kingdom of Yugoslavia (nominally throughout WWII) 1942-1945, Axis powers (de facto)
Service/branch	Army
Years of service	1910-1946
Rank	General
Unit	Royal Yugoslav Army
Commands held	Chetnik movement
Battles/wars	Yugoslav People's Liberation War (part of World War II)
Awards	Legion of Merit Croix de Guerre

Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović (Cyrillic script: Драгољуб "Дража" Михаиловић; also known as "Чича Дража" or "Čiča Draža", meaning "uncle Draža"; April 27, 1893 - July 17, 1946) was a Yugoslav Serbian general. After having a military career in the Yugoslav Royal Army, he lead, during the war, the Chetnik movement which, though founded as a resistance force itself, increasingly aided the Axis powers in their effort to eliminate their main interin rivals, the Partisans led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, being considered, because of it, a World War II Axis collaborator,.

The Chetnik organization, officially named the "Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland" (JVUO, ЈВУО), was founded as a royalist/nationalist Serbian resistance movement, but by late 1941 and early 1942 began collaborating and assisted the Germans and the Axis occupation as an auxiliary militia for most of the war in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks' main adversaries were the Allied Yugoslav resistance forces, the Partisans.

After the war, Mihailović was tried and convicted of high treason and war crimes by the new Yugoslav communist authorities, and was consequently executed by firing squad.

Early life

Born in Ivanjica, Kingdom of Serbia, Mihailović went to the Serbian military academy in October 1910 and as a cadet fought in the Balkan Wars 1912–1913. In July 1913 he was given rank of Second Lieutenant as the top soldier in his class. He served in World War I and together with the Serbian Army marched through Albania in 1915 during the long retreat. He later received several decorations for his achievements on the Salonica front. Between the wars he became an elite staff officer and achieved the rank of colonel. He also served as military attaché in Sofia and Prague.

His military career almost came to an abrupt end after several incidents, the most important one being the idea of dividing the Yugoslav Royal Army along national lines, into (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), for which he was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. World War II found Mihailović occupying a minor position of assistant to chief of staff of the Second Army. In the last years before World War II, he was stationed in Celje, Slovenia (then Drava Banovina).

World War II

The Chetnik killing of 4 German Nazi officers led to the proclamation, and then the actual massacre of 2000 to 5000 Serbian children. The event was labeled as the Kragujevac massacre.

Following the Yugoslav Royal Governament capitulation in April 1941, a small group of officers and soldiers led by Mihailović escaped in hope of finding Yugoslav army units still fighting in the mountains. After arriving at Ravna Gora, Serbia on May 8, 1941, he realized that his group of seven officers and twenty four non-commissioned officers and soldiers was the only one. At Ravna Gora, Mihailović organized the Chetnik detachment of the Yugoslav Army, which became the Military-Chetnik Detachments and finally the Yugoslav Army of the Homeland (Југословенска војска у отаџбини or Jugoslovenska vojska u otadžbini).

The first Chetnik formations led by Mihailović were formed around Ravna Gora on June 14, 1941. Most of 1941 was spent consolidating the scattered army remnants elsewhere and raising new forces. The stated goal of the Chetniks was the liberation of the country from the occupying armies including mainly the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Ustaše fascist regime of the Independent State of Croatia. Mihailović gathered men and weapons in the easily defensible Serbian mountains, waiting for an Allied landing in the Balkans, upon which he could attack any Germans or Italians from behind. Mihailović discouraged sabotage due to German reprisals (such as more than 3,000 killed in Kraljevo and Kragujevac) unless some great gain could be accomplished; instead, he favored delayed sabotage that could not easily be traced.

Axis collaboration

Main article: Chetniks § Axis collaboration

File:Chetniks with German soldiers.jpg

Chetniks posing with soldiers of the German occupation forces during World War II in an unidentified Serbian village in occupied Yugoslavia

Since both the Axis and the Chetniks viewed the elimination of the Partisans was a priority, a large number of collaboration agreements were signed with Italian, German, and even Ustaše authorities. These were signed on several occasions by Mihailović's personal representatives. Since the very start of the war, Mihailović had unsuccessfully attempting to arrive at an understanding with the occupation, offering his forces against the Partisans. Having failed to convince the Germans of his willingness to cooperate during the first meeting in Divci (1941), General Draža Mihailović mets with representatives of the German Serbian Military Administration, the occupation authority in Serbia (with German knowledge and permission). Mihailović had by now been made Yugoslav Minister of War (Minister of the Army, Navy, and Air Force), and had "offered to place himself [the Yugoslav Minister of War] at the disposal of the Serbian Military Administration for the struggle against the communists". In spite of his status, his offer was at this time refused once more by the German commander, General Bader.

The units that could really be used against the Partisans were Serbian and partly Russian volunteers and - Draža Mihailović's people. My liaison officer with them was a certain Major, Ritterkreuztraeger.

— General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, German military attaché in Zagreb

Mihailović's Chetniks found the authorities in the Italian occupation zone more willing to collaborate. The Italians (General Dalamazzo) looked favorably on these approaches and hoped first to avoid fighting the Chetniks, and then use them against the Partisans, which they thought would give them an "enormous advantage". An agreement was concluded on January 11 1942 between the representative of the Italian 2nd Army, Captain Angelo De Matteis and the Chetnik representative for southeastern Bosnia, Mutimir Petković, and was later signed by Mihailović's chief delegate in Bosnia, Major Boško Todorović. In a memorandum dated March 26, 1943 to the Italian Army General Staff entitled "The Conduct of the Chetniks", Italian officers noted the ultimate control of these collaborating Chetnik units remained in the hands of Draža Mihailović, and contemplated the possibility of a hostile reorientation of these troops in light of the changing strategic situation. The commander of these troops was vojvoda Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, who arrived in Italian-annexed Split in October 1941 and received his orders directly from Mihailović in the spring of 1942. The Germans insisted that the Italian authorities cease this unilateral collaboration, the Italians responded that if they were to do so, they would be unable to maintain the occupation in the majority of their zone.

To support the Chetniks sufficiently to make them fight against the communists, but not so much as to allow them too much latitude in their own action; to demand and assure that the Chetniks do not fight against the Croatian forces and authorities; to allow them to fight against the communists on their own initiative (so that they can "slaughter each other"); and finally to allow them to fight in parallel with the Italian and German forces, as do the nationalist bands [Chetniks and separatist Zelenaši] in Montenegro.

— General Mario Roatta, 1942

The Chetnik-Italian collaboration lasted until the Italian capitulation on September 8 1943, when Chetnik troops switched to supporting the German occupation in forcing the Partisans out of the coastal cities which they liberated upon the Italian withdrawal. After the Italian capitulation, however, the Germans found themselves in need of increased assistance in maintaining the occupation, and had shifted their policy towards the Chetniks entirely. Collaboration continued to take place until the very end of the war, with the tacit approval of Draža Mihailović and the Chetnik Supreme Command in Serbia. Though Mihailović himself never actually signed any agreements, he endorsed the policy for the purpose of eliminating the Partisan threat.

Though he himself [Draža Mihailović] shrewdly refrained from giving his personal view in public, no doubt to have a free hand for every eventuality (e.g. Allied landing on the Balkans), he allowed his commanders to negotiate with Germans and to co-operate with them. And they did so, more and more...

— Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs, 1945

When appraising the situation in western Serbia, Bosnia, Lika, and Dalmatia, Captain Merrem, intelligence officer with the German commander-in-chief southeastern Europe, was "full of praise" for Chetnik units collaborating with the Germans, and for the smooth relations between the Germans and Chetnik units on the ground.
In addition, the Chief of Staff of the 2nd Panzer Army observed in a letter to the Ustaše liaison officer that the Chetniks fighting the Partisans in Eastern Bosnia were "making a worthwhile contribution to the Croatian state", and that the 2nd Army "refused in principle" to accept Croatian complaints against the usage of these units.

Relations with the Partisans

In June 1941, Josip Broz Tito's Partisans started actively resisting the Germans, in what would become known as the Yugoslav People's Liberation War. However, while Tito favored full resistance, striking at the Germans and Italians with everything he had, Mihailović allegedly saw his strategy as wanting to "save his country with as few casualties as possible", while he believed that Tito wanted to "burn the country and the old order to the ground to better prepare it for communism". Lieutenant Colonel Živan L. Knežević, one of Mihailović's senior advisers and chief of the military cabinet for the Prime Minister of the royalist government stated that in his view "The communist Partisans wanted immediately to lead the people into an open fight against the forces of occupation although the people were completely bare-handed and the fight could not have benefited anybody ... [Mihailović] thought that the uprising was premature and that, without any gain in prospect, it would have brought disproportionately great sacrifices. He was not able to convince the Partisans that an open fight could have only one result, namely, the annihilation of the population."

Mihailović supposedly came to view the Partisans as no better than the Nazis. A telegram sent on February 22, 1943 described an alleged incident where the Partisans brought a German/Ustaše force upon a town in the Bihać Republic (a Partisan-governed part of Yugoslav territory which they liberated); the town fled, but the Partisan force allegedly "abandoned" them to the enemy, which massacred them. Mihailović concluded that "[T]his is the fight that the Communists wage, a fight which is directed by foreign propaganda with the aim of systematically annihilating our nation." The Partisans and Royalists descended into a brutal civil war. Whenever territory changed hands between them, anyone thought sympathetic to the other side was publicly executed.

Kosta Milovanović Pećanac, a First World War uprising leader and former Chetnik himself, considered the Partisans so grave a threat that he opted for collaboration with the Germans against them. Pećanac and Mihailović became rivals, both claiming a shared Serbian heritage and with Pećanac commanding a much smaller force than Mihailović. Due to the rivalry between the two Chetnik commanders, Pećanac was shot in 1944 upon his capture by Mihailović's Chetniks. By 1944 Mihailović's Chetnik formations were openly aiding the German efforts against the Partisans and the Red Army. Allegedly, General Milan Nedić, the head of the Serbian collaborationist state (with whom Pećanac sided), transferred command of all of his , by now swiftly diminishing, forces to Mihailović in 1944.

Relations with the British and Americans

Main article: Yugoslavia and the Allies

In autumn 1941, the British recognized the Royalists as the official resistance in Yugoslavia and, through the Special Operations Executive, sent aid to them.. Mihailović rose in rank, becoming the Minister of War of the exile government in January 11, 1942 and General/Deputy Commander-in-Chief on June 17, 1942. At first, the British had a policy of aiding anyone fighting the Germans, however, as the civil war between the Partisans and the Royalists intensified, the British realized that many of the precious resources being committed to Yugoslavia were being used to further the civil war. In May 1942, Captain Duane Hudson of the SOE reported that while Mihailović could be trusted to participate in a "grand finale against the Axis", he and his forces were currently taking a more passive stance. Additionally, they had dealings with Italian forces in Montenegro. Later British military missions of William Deakin and Fitzroy Maclean confirmed the initial report; that while Mihailović clearly hated the Germans, he hated the Partisans even more. The British were not impressed with Mihailović seemingly sitting out the war while Tito was actively fighting Germans and blowing up installations. The British requested Mihailović carry out more attacks, though without much success.

By early 1943, the Royalists' support from the British was beginning to wither. This was due to several factors. Randolph Churchill, the Prime Minister's son, was stationed at Tito's headquarters, where he reported directly to his father with reports of the Partisan's victories. On February 28, 1943, Mihailović delivered an ill-advised speech to a group of his supporters saying that the Serb people were now "completely friendless" and that the "English are now fighting to the last Serb in Yugoslavia". Mihailović said, according to this source, that his enemies were now the Partisans, the Ustaše, the Moslems, and the Croats. When he had dealt with them, he would turn his attention toward the Italians and Germans. He then stated, at least according to the British liaison, that he needed no further contact with the Western democracies whose "sole aim was to win the war at the expense of others". These comments doomed hopes of continued British support.

By the middle of 1943, the Partisan movement had survived a period of intense Axis pressure and thus were viewed as the more effective fighting force. Consequently, on June 1 1943, the British Middle East Command sent a telegram to Slobodan Jovanović explaining that Mihailović’s forces did not represent a significant force but that the Partisans did. The telegram also instructed Mihailović to take as many of his loyal followers as possible to Tito’s headquarters and join up with the Partisans. Since the Partisans and the Royalists had been fighting since 1941, Mihailović essentially saw this as an order to surrender to the Partisans and refused. Prior to the Tehran Conference in November 1943, the British had decided to cease support of the Chetniks, and switch to supporting only Tito's Partisans, see Yugoslavia and the Allies. In December 1943, as agreed upon in Tehran, the British recognized the Partisans as the official resistance in Yugoslavia and ceased support for Mihailović.

Nevertheless, Chetnik forces continued to aid American airmen who were shot down over Yugoslavia, and relations between the Chetniks and the Americans on the ground remained friendly. Mihailovic's forces sheltered as many as 500 downed Allied airmen and their rescue was eventually achieved in Operation Halyard. Operation Halyard has often been cited as "evidence" of the Chetniks' continuing strong pro-Allied sympathies. However, having by now lost all Allied support to the Partisans (along with the recognition of the King Peter II), and with the Axis defeat in Europe a certainty, Mihailović was going to great lengths to regain Allied support, and to depict himself in a favorable light to the western Allies. However, the Allies were aware that Mihailović's troops were at the same time also rescuing German and Ustaše aviators from the Partisans (as indicated in a Nedić government report of February 1944) and, on other occasions, even hunted down Allied aviators on behalf of the Axis occupation.

In 1943, Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas, a major Hollywood war film, was produced by Twentieth Century Fox documenting the role of Draža Mihailović and his guerrillas. The film starred Philip Dorn, Anna Sten, and Martin Kosleck and was directed by Louis King, based on a story by Jack Andrews, who co-wrote the screenplay.

Bosnia

The Royalists advanced into eastern Bosnia in 1943 where they engaged in combat with the Ustaše, resulting in several incidents of ethnic cleansing on both sides. For instance, Croatian historian Vladimir Žerjavić claims that roughly 40,000 lost their lives to forces affiliated with the Chetniks. Towards the end of the war, Mihailović went into hiding in East Bosnia.

Ethnic cleansing

Draža Mihajlović's infamous "Instrukcije" ("Instructions") of 1941, ordering the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks, Croats, and others.

File:Report Djurisic.jpg

Chetnik Commander Đurišić reporting to Mihailović on the execution of his "Instrukcije" ("Instructions") in 1943.

See also: Ethnic cleansing

As part of his opportunist policies in support of the creation of Greater Serbia, Mihailović issued the following Instructions (Serbian: Instrukcije) to his commanders on December 20, 1941:

The mission of our units is:

1. The struggle for the freedom of all of our people under the scepter of His Majesty, the King Peter II;
2. The creation of Greater Yugoslavia, and within it Greater Serbia, ethnically clean within the borders of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srem, Banat, and Bačka;
3. The struggle for the incorporation into our social structure of those non-liberated Slovenian territories under Italy and Germany (Trieste, Gorizia, Istria, and Kaernten), as well as Bulgaria and Northern Albania with Skadar;
4. The cleansing of all collaborationist national minorities and anti-state elements from state territory;
5. The creation of direct common borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Serbia and Slovenia by cleansing the Muslim population from Sandžak, and the Muslim and Croat populations from Bosnia and Herzegovina;
6. The punishment of all Ustashas and Muslims who have mercilessly destroyed our people in these tragic days;
7. The settlement of the areas cleansed of national minorities and anti-state elements by Montenegrins (to be considered are poor, nationally patriotic, and honest families).

There may be no collaboration with the communists [Yugoslav Partisans], as they are fighting against the Dynasty and in favor of socialist revolution. Albanians, Muslims, and Ustashas are to be treated in accordance with their merit for the horrendous crimes against our population, i.e., they are to be turned over to the People's Court. The Croats living on the territory under Italian occupation are to be treated based on their disposition at the given moment.

The exact number of Bosniak, Croat and other civilians who died at the hands of the Chetniks has never been officially established. In Crimes Against Bosnian Muslims 1941-1945, a Bosnian historian Šemso Tucaković estimated that out of 150,000 Bosniaks who lost their lives in World War II, some 100,000 were murdered by Chetniks. He also listed at least 50,000 Bosnian Muslim names directly known to have been killed by Chetniks. According to World War II Croatian historian Vladimir Žerjavić, approximately 29,000 Muslims and 18,000 Croats were killed by Chetniks during World War II. Žerjavić's figures have been cited as too conservative by some sources and figures of up to 300,000 non-Serbs have been suggested, but these cannot be confirmed unanimously.

Some of the major World War II Chetnik massacres against ethnic Croats and Bosniaks include:

• July 1941, Herzegovina (Bileca, Stolac) - approximately 1,150 civilians killed;
• December 1941/January 1942, eastern Bosnia (Foča, Goražde) - approximately 2,050 civilians killed;
• August 1942, eastern Bosnia and Sandžak (Foča, Bukovica) - approximately 1,000 civilians killed;
• August 1942, eastern Bosnia (Ustikolina, Jahorina) - approximately 2,500 civilians killed;
• October 1942, central Bosnia (Prozor) - approximately 1,250 civilians killed;
• January 1943, Sandžak (Bijelo Polje) - approximately 1,500 civilians killed;
• February 1943, eastern Bosnia and Sandžak (Foča, Čajniče, Pljevlja) - approximately +9,200 civilians killed.

Trial

Main article: The Trial of Draža Mihailović

Mihailović was captured on March 13, 1946 by agents of the new governament Yugoslav security agency OZNA. He was charged on 47 counts. In the end the court found him guilty on 8 counts, including war crimes and high treason. The trial lasted from June 10 to July 15, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad on July 15. The Presidium of the National Assembly rejected the clemency appeal on July 16. He was executed together with nine other officers in the early hours of July 18, 1946, in Lisičiji Potok, about 200 meters from the former Royal Palace, and buried in an unmarked grave on the same spot. His main prosecutor was Miloš Minić, later Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Yugoslav government. This conviction was by many considered inevitable, since the Tito´s new governament has showed no mercy for any of his former adversaries, specialy for anyone from the Chetnik movement, and it was an important step towards an early elimination of any possible internal oposition. Same faith had the majority of Mihailović´s troops, having been mostly killed or emprisoned, having escaped the ones in the exile.

After the war

File:Drazam.jpg

General Dragoljub Mihailović, portrait by Jim Pollard, St. Sava Cultural Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA 1981

Due to the efforts of Major Richard L. Felman and his friends, President Harry S. Truman, on the recommendation of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, posthumously awarded Mihailović the Legion of Merit, for the rescue of American airmen by the Chetniks. For the first time in history, this high award and the story of the rescue was classified secret by the State Department so as not to offend the communist government of Yugoslavia.

"General Dragoljub Mihailovich distinguished himself in an outstanding manner as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslavian Army Forces and later as Minister of War by organizing and leading important resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia, from December 1941 to December 1944. Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General Mihailovich and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause, and were instrumental in obtaining a final Allied victory." (March 29, 1948, Harry S. Truman)

Almost sixty years after his death, on May 9, 2005, Draža Mihailović's daughter, Gordana, was presented with a decoration bestowed posthumously on her father by United States President Harry S. Truman in 1948, for the assistance provided to the crews of US bombers that were gunned down on the territory under Chetnik control in World War II. , July 2009 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Remains

In April 2009, the Government of Serbia launched a commission to discover the remains of Mihailović, who was executed at an unknown site. This led to the archives on Mihailović being unsealed in Serbia, and a request by the Serbian government for British and American archives to reveal any information on the execution. This commission evolved into the Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Serbia by late 2009.

See also

• Chetniks
• Trial of Draža Mihailović
• Yugoslavia and the Allies

Bibliography

• Freeman, Gregory A. (2007). The Forgotten 500. 80 Strand, London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-451-22212-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
• Juce, Sinoc. Pjetlovi nad Tigrovima, Sanski Most, BiH: Begovic-Bosanska Krajina Press 2007
• Martin, David. Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailović. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946.
• Martin, David. Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailović: Proceedings and Report of the Commission of Inquiry of the Committee for a Fair Trial for Draja Mihailović. Hoover Archival Documentaries. Hoover Institution Publication, volume 191. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1978.[6]
• Roberts, Walter R. Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
• Trew, Simon. Britain, Mihailović, and the Chetniks, 1941–42. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press in association with King's College, London, 1998.
• Tucaković, Semso. Srpski zlocini nad Bosnjacima Muslimanima, 1941 - 1945. Sarajevo: El Kalem, 1995.

External links

• Execution of Draža's Instructions by his Commander, "Bloody Priest" Momcilo Djujić
• Trial of Draža Mihailović
• General Mihailovich on TIME Magazine cover, 1942
• V-E Day celebrations in Serbia with Chetnik and U.S. veterans
• Mihailović's bio at Columbia Encyclopedia
• Biography of Dragoljub-Draža Mihailović at Vojska.net
• Australian Government - Historical Publications on Mihailović
• SUC Biography
• Congressional Record on Mihailović
• General Mihailović's Legion of Merit
• Erection of Mihailović monument in US
• Stenographic record of trial
• Chetniks movie

Photos

• Photo gallery Template:Fr icon
• 100th Anniversary of Chetnik Movement