860H.01/580: Telegram
The Ambassador to the Yugoslav Government in Exile (MacVeagh) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 17—1 p.m.]
5. Yugoslav Series. I secured yesterday from Ambassador Stevenson a copy of his telegram to the Foreign Office reporting Mr. Churchill’s talk with King Peter (see my telegram No. 4, Yugoslav series [Greek 129?] of December 12, 11 a.m.) and also a subsequent talk with Mr. Puritch. I believe the Department may be interested in this telegram in connection with my No. 124, Greek Series, December 8, 1 p.m., and as background to messages now being prepared in this Embassy. I am therefore paraphrasing it as follows, forwarding the original text by airgram:
“During the course of an audience with King Peter on December 10 Mr. Churchill told him how much he was impressed by the Partisan movement’s significance and strength. At the same time he informed King Peter that the British Government possesses evidence which is irrefutable to the effect that Michailovitch has been collaborating with the enemy and he gave King Peter a warning that the desirability of eliminating Michail[ovitch] from the Cabinet might be suggested to him in the fairly near future by the British Government.
“Mr. Churchill saw the Yugoslav Prime Minister that same evening and after repeating to him his impressions regarding the Partisans informed him of the British Government’s intention both to continue and to increase as much as possible British military support to their movement. He then told the Prime Minister of the evidence we possess concerning Michail[ovitch]’s collaboration with the enemy and told him that the British Government’s decision in these circumstances might be to cease supporting him.
“The Prime Minister reacted with a strong protest refusing to accept Mr. Churchill’s allegations concerning the collaboration by Michail[ovitch] and saying that the British Government would assume a terrible responsibility should it withdraw its support from him since the country would then be subjected to a bloodthirsty regime of communism which the Yugoslav peasantry would resist desperately thus causing a long and destructive civil war. He besought the British Government to think this decision over very carefully in the light of its possible results which he said would be a matter of life [Page 1029] and death to Yugoslavia though doubtless of small importance to Great Britain as a great power involved in a war of world-wide dimensions.
[“]Claiming that the rise of the party’s power had been due to British publicity organs and institutions and accusing the British Government of putting a muzzle on his own Government and preventing it from talking with its people, he added an appealing description of his country’s suffering which he said involved losses exceeding those of the United States and Great Britain put together.
“Pointing out that the armed forces of the Partisans now number more than 200,000 men, that they are containing about 14 divisions of the Germans and that they are fighting strongly and with success against the enemy while Michailovitch remains inactive, Mr. Churchill said that though the latter’s reasons for such inaction might seem good to him it is obviously to the advantage of the common cause that every assistance that can be spared at present should be withheld from the forces which are not fighting and given to those which are. In this connection he also pointed out the great disparity between the numbers of Partisans and the Chetniks and said this proves a similar disparity in the appeal made to the Yugoslav people by the respective movements.
“The Yugoslav Prime Minister replied that he could not accept such a high estimate of the Partisan forces or that they are containing so many divisions of the enemy and stated that the reason for the presence of all these enemy divisions in the northwestern and western parts of the country is the resistance of the whole people of Yugoslavia encouraged by Michail[ovitch’]s forces. He recalled that Michail[ovitch] himself had made the statement that the whole Yugoslav people would rise up to help the Allied troops once they set foot in the Balkans but that the savageness of the reprisals of the Germans was something to which he could not expose the civil population in the meantime should it engage now in destroying communications and other sabotage.
“To the remark that the danger of reprisals was something which was not bothering the Partisans, Mr. Puritch answered that so long as the ideas of Moscow triumphed what might happen to the people did not concern the Communists. Finally the interview was closed by Mr. Churchill with regrets that he could not see eye to eye with Mr. Puritch though he was happy to have been able to learn his ideas. He said that the Ambassador would communicate the British decision to Mr. Puritch in due course.”