Incredible Tito by Howard Fast

Author:Howard Fast
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC

THE PARTISANS FIGHT—AND GROW

FORTUNATELY, 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:

“We 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 young guerrilla leader, Principe, the nephew of the man who had assassinated the Archduke of Austria in 1914, had formed and was leading a smaller but well trained Partisan Army. Another Partisan group functioned in Slovenia, and in Serbia, the Partisans gained in strength day by day. In every case, when the Germans attacked a Partisan group, it was like attacking a bank of mist. The Partisans fought as long as it was profitable—and then melted away into the hills and forests.

At the beginning of June, 1942, a year after he first began operations, Marshal Tito tested the strength of his main army against a full-fledged German offensive. The Nazis attacked him in Bosnia.

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