The Incredible Tito: Man of the Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

lips and nodded. If it had to be this way, then it had to be this way. Five thousand rifles to Mikhailovich would mean five thousand less for the Partisans, but unity was what they stood for. If five thousand rifles and a money bribe would buy unity, then Mikhailovich should have them.
    Mikhailovich’s men carried away the rifles and ammunition; and then, a few weeks later returned with them—only this time to attack Tito’s Uzice headquarters. It was as bald, as grotesque a betrayal as any the Axis had perpetrated; it was a preview of what Mikhailovich would attempt later.
    Perhaps Tito had expected the betrayal. At any rate, the Partisans beat off the Chetnik attack, and late in November, 1941, Tito once again proposed to Mikhailovich that they meet and discuss cooperation instead of civil war. Perhaps with his tongue still in his cheek, Mikhailovich agreed. Tito sent Colonel Dedier to Chachak to meet Mikhailovich and reason with him. While these discussions were going on, Tito received word that a large German force, four full divisions, was advancing on Uzice.
    Tito telephoned Dedier and impressed on him that their only hope of withstanding the German attack was to effect a combination of Mikhailovich and Partisan forces.
    When Mikhailovich heard this, he shrugged and shook his head. Bluntly, he said that it was no use—his force was hardly able to resist the German attack.
    â€œBut the Partisans will fight,” Dedier pleaded. “Don’t you understand?”
    â€œI understand that it would be folly to resist the Germans,” Mikhailovich smiled.

THE PARTISANS FIGHT—AND GROW
    F ORTUNATELY, this piece of business came to light through an English captain, an officer attached to Mikhailovich by the British, who happened to be at Tito’s headquarters when the German attack started. It began a chain of circumstances that resulted in a British withdrawal of support from Mikhailovich and a transfer of support and liaison to Tito’s Partisans.
    That day, the Stukas struck at Uzice. Wave after wave peeled off over the little town and grimly shattered building after building into rubble. With a grim face, Tito watched his headquarters being destroyed, his men being killed as they fired at the Stukas with rifles and pistols. A little later, the German tanks hurtled into the devastation the Stukas had left. Tito was one of the last to leave the town, the British officer with him.
    Late that night, a battered, weary group of Partisan officers gathered at Zlatiber, some twenty miles distant from shattered Uzice. Tito and the British officer were the last to arrive. Their car had been strafed and destroyed. They had lain in a ditch, and then walked almost all of the twenty miles on foot. When Tito’s discouraged officers asked him, “What now?” he answered:
    â€œWe start again. They’ll give us no peace now. They understand that we arc an army.”
    Actually, the disaster was not as bad as it might have been. The Partisans managed to bring most of their arms out of Uzice. Also, the bulk of their army was intact. Tito and his officers decided to move southwest into the wild mountains of Herzegovina, establish headquarters at Foca, and build their strength to a point where they could conduct an active offensive against the Germans. Five brigades of troops were singled out to accompany Tito and form the nucleus of the new army. The rest of the Partisans were divided into small guerrilla bands, and ordered to go south into Serbia, harass the enemy, cut communications, and in general seek support from the Serbians.
    Foca continued to be Tito’s headquarters until May, 1942. Here, he and his staff whipped the new army into shape. Already, they constituted some of the hardest and most experienced troops in the world; by May, they were in shape to match strength with the Germans.
    Meanwhile, the Partisan movement gathered strength in every part of Yugoslavia. In east Bosnia, a