Terror in the Balkans (28 page)

Bosnian Communists could expect to draw their fi rmest support, the

148

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149

urban working class. But the rural population, nearly 85 percent of Bos-

nia’s population in total, was potentially fertile ground also.4 This was

due in large part to the Communists’ collaboration with the League of

Farmers. After defending the rights of Bosnian Serb peasants against

Muslim landlords during the interwar years, the League enjoyed a strong

following among the ethnic Serbs who in 1931 comprised almost half of

Bosnia’s rural population.5

More generally, the Bosnian Communists’ growth had been aided by

the interwar expansion of Bosnia’s education system. This had brought

together different ethnic groupings as well as urban and rural popula-

tions. It had also engendered an emerging left-wing intelligentsia, partic-

ularly among teachers and university students, from which the Bosnian

Communists drew much of their leadership.6 In the early days of the

Axis occupation the Communists sought to appeal to a collective “Bos-

nian patriotism” among the region’s population groups. They stressed

the brotherhood of all Bosnians and depicted the struggle against the

occupiers as a continuation of the struggle for Bosnian liberation that

had been waged against an oppressive, centralizing government in Bel-

grade during the interwar years.7

By the beginning of 1942, the Communists’ main strength was in

urban areas, western Bosnia, and certain parts of eastern Bosnia. It was

in these areas that the nascent Bosnian Partisan movement now devel-

oped.8 Throughout the war, the Serbs would predominate within the

Bosnian Partisan rank and fi le. But in time, Croats and Bosnian Muslims

would become more visible also.9 Yet in the eastern part of Herzegovina,

Bosnia’s southern region, the Communists were numerically strong but

organizationally weak. And among many population circles of eastern

Bosnia it was the Chetniks who held sway.10

On 25 January 1942, following its expulsion from Serbia and brief hia-

tus in Sandzak, the remnant of Tito’s own Partisan force arrived in Focˇa

in eastern Bosnia.11 Chetniks and Partisans had been tensely coexisting

in eastern Bosnia since the beginning of the Serbian national uprising.

The Chetniks here had even paid some lip service to the rights of Croats

and Muslims.12 But here as in Serbia, long-term cooperation was never

in prospect. As in Serbia, the leaderships of the two groups here had

fundamentally different aims—and already by mid-November 1941, the

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mere presence of Muslims and Croats in the Bosnian Partisans’ ranks

was becoming a particular deal-breaker for the Bosnian Chetniks.13 The

breakdown of relations between the two movements in Serbia further

removed any incentive to cooperate in eastern Bosnia.14

Moreover, from the early days of the Axis occupation, the Chetniks

were offered cooperation with the Italians instead. In July 1941, as the

interior of the NDH grew increasingly lawless, the Italians sought to

improve their Croatian territory’s economic security and safeguard its

inland communications. Thus, to the Ustasha regime’s great alarm, they

extended their area of occupation as far as Zone III in the NDH.15 To

avoid overstretching themselves, they began employing Chetnik groups

on the ground. They wooed the Bosnian Chetniks with offers of arms

and money to fi ght the Partisans, and wooed Bosnian Serbs more gener-

ally by pledging to protect them from the ravages of the Ustasha.16

But what Italian protection meant in practice would rapidly become

clear—it provided ideal cover for the Chetniks to vent themselves mur-

derously against their Croat and Muslim neighbors. Even without the

Ustasha massacres, Bosnian Chetniks felt intense hostility towards

the NDH’s other ethnic groups. They drew no distinction between

the Ustasha and other Croats, and referred to Bosnia’s Muslim popu-

lation as “Turks.” This particular antagonism was a legacy not just of

centuries-old Muslim–Christian enmity, but also of recent history. Bos-

nian Muslims in Habsburg service had often behaved savagely towards

Serbs during the Great War. During the 1920s, the League of Farmers

had defended Bosnian Serb peasants against Muslim landlords, and

throughout the interwar years Serb and Muslim political parties had

clashed bitterly. All this, and the fact that Bosnia’s Muslim population

was larger than its Croatian one, meant that Bosnian Serbs if anything

hated Muslims even more than they hated Croats.17

What the Italians gained in the Chetniks was relief from administrative

and security duty, and—they believed—a force they could use to increase

their leverage against the NDH. They also believed that, by co-opting

the Chetniks, they could drive the Partisans to more brutal lengths and

thus isolate them from the general population. But the Italians’ machina-

tions would eventually backfi re. It was not the Partisans but the Chet-

niks who would come to alienate many potential supporters, even among

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151

the Bosnian Serbs.18 Partly this was because their quiescence against the

occupiers, and their increasingly open collaboration with them, would

increasingly cause many among the population to perceive them as Axis

stooges. Partly, it was because of the fearful cruelty and massacre to which

they subjected the territory’s Croat and Muslim populations.

And the Chetniks were not just exacting revenge for Ustasha outrages;

indeed, in 1941 the Ustasha killings in eastern Bosnia had been consider-

ably less extensive than elsewhere.19 Their actions belonged instead to a

wider campaign of massacre, expulsion, and subjugation. The Chetniks

were conducting it not only to settle local scores but also to provide the

foundation of a “Great Serbia.” Unlike the Ustasha, the Chetniks lacked

the state apparatus, the strong (albeit vicious) ideology, or the practical

“expertise” that would have enabled them to conduct this program more

thoroughly. But commanders on the spot incited copious mayhem and

butchery in those areas they controlled.20 Mihailovic´ fully supported

the expulsions, though it is much less clear how much he knew of, or

approved of, the killings that were taking place. But there was little,

if anything, he could have done to prevent the killings even if he had

wanted to.21 Horrifi c as the Chetniks’ conduct was, the Partisans would

reap long-term benefi t from it.

But in January 1942, the Partisans seemed far from gaining the upper

hand. For one thing, they faced a diffi cult balancing act. The mainstay of

Partisan rank-and-fi le manpower, as well as Chetnik manpower, was the

Bosnian Serbs. But the Partisans’ Communist leadership did not wish

to appear too partial to Serb interests for fear of alienating the NDH’s

Muslim and Croat populations. As yet though, they lacked the resources

necessary to properly reeducate their Serb rank and fi le to embrace

Yugoslavism.22 The result was that rank-and-fi le Bosnian Serb Partisans

could feel as antagonistic towards Muslims as did Bosnian Chetniks.

And even if they themselves did not perpetrate massacres against Mus-

lims, they were not above actively enabling the Chetniks to do so.23

Yet it was not just rogue Partisan groups, but also the Communist

leadership of the Partisan movement whose exercise of terror in early

1942 was stymieing the support levels the movement might otherwise

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terror in the balk ans

have enjoyed. Already the Communists had lost much ground to the

Chetniks in Montenegro because, since the July revolt there, they had

spent too little time building popular support and too much time indulg-

ing in terroristic class war. They had been eliminating opponents real or

perceived with a zeal that not only was excessively ruthless, but had also

alienated the wider population. Tito had lambasted the Montenegrin

Communists for their actions. But in winter 1941–1942 the Communists,

despite losing Serbia also, were again infected with hubris. The cause

this time was the Red Army’s defeat of the Wehrmacht before Moscow

in early December. Certain of the Red Army’s imminent triumph, they

devoted too much energy to ruthlessly digging out and eliminating sup-

posed fi fth columnists. The brutality of this “red terror” increased Chet-

nik support at the Partisans’ expense.24

In February, however, the Partisan movement began to change its

approach. Tito at last sought an end to violent sectarianism and rigid ide-

ology. The Communist leadership of the Partisan movement was as set as

ever on achieving postwar power, but for the duration of the war itself the

movement’s language and approach would extol the cause of national lib-

eration rather than of class struggle. The Partisan leadership now issued

the “Focˇa Instructions,” directing that the movement, and the NOOs

it was establishing, work to establish a broad front of popular support.

Among other things, NOOs operating on Bosnian territory strove to place

the administration of the liberated areas on a more ethnically equitable

footing.25 Tito also recognized that the Partisans could potentially garner

mass support simply by conducting themselves in a morally irreproach-

able fashion towards the general—in other words, non-Chetnik—popula-

tion. This did not always happen in practice, but it happened more than

enough to set the Partisans’ behavior apart from that of the Chetniks and

Ustasha.26 The Partisans also sought to increase their appeal to the Brit-

ish, by making great play of Mihailovic´’s “collaboration” with the Axis.27

The Partisans also stood to gain from the Chetniks’ manifold defects.

The Bosnian Chetniks did benefi t from their links, using Bosnian Serb

refugees as middlemen, with the Nedicŕegime and Mihailovic´’s “Supreme

Command.” But this did not make them more coordinated. Led, as many

were, by assorted local warlords, they were impervious to anything more

than the most fragmentary supervision by the centre.28 Thus, though

Standing Divided
153

Mihailovicśought to co-opt all Chetniks in Yugoslavia, his authority in

real terms extended only as far as Serbia. By and large the Bosnian Chet-

niks were Great Serb in outlook, but concerned fi rst and foremost with

their own narrow interests.29 Squabbles and rivalries between local Chet-

nik commanders became legion; some turned murderous. And although

the Bosnian Chetniks would come to nominally accept Mihailovic´’s lead-

ership, they usually did so only in the hope of acquiring more arms and

legitimacy.30 All this hampered attempts to unify the Chetnik movement,

if indeed a movement it was, more effectively.

And if the Mihailovic´ movement encountered obstacles to mobilizing

the Bosnian Chetniks effectively, its focus on Serb interests prevented it

from gaining broader support. In fact, the MihailovicĆhetniks’ whole

standpoint was rigidly conservative, supporting the monarchy and

organized Church but thereby alienating large strands of urban opin-

ion. They also alienated women, failing to utilize them as the Partisans

did, whether as fi ghters in the fi eld or administrative personnel in the

areas they controlled. Mihailovicánd his commanders, though possess-

ing some military ability, were unsuited to developing their movement’s

political organization and propaganda. Correspondingly, they also

underestimated the Partisans’ abilities on these counts. The Mihailovic´

movement’s leadership compounded its failure to take these weaknesses

more seriously by relying too heavily on the Allies and believing that the

movement was indispensable to them.31

But in early 1942, the Germans were too concerned with the MihailovicĆhetniks—whom they perceived as the main threat to security, particularly security of the rail route to Greece—to take the embryonic Parti-

san movement in the NDH as seriously as they should have. Whether

because they were seeking to impress the Allies, or because they simply

did not wish to dispense with resistance entirely, some Chetnik groups

in both Bosnia and Serbia did persist with sabotage acts during 1942.32

The MihailovicĆhetniks launched a particularly extensive campaign

against the railway line to Greece that autumn.33 But by the end of the

year there could be no reasonable doubt that it was the Partisans who

were the most rapidly growing threat. The most important effect of the

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Germans’ misjudgment was that it would not be until 1943 that they

would commit genuinely powerful forces to combating them. In 1942,

they relied too heavily on their Italian and Ustasha allies to do the job.

The Germans, with their forces committed to the eastern front or

spread across occupied Europe, relied on the Italians in Yugoslavia in

large part out of necessity. The Italian Second Army comprised a two

hundred thousand strong, albeit poorly trained and led, body of man-