Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- PART I
- PART II
- PART III
- 7 The political uses of military intelligence: evaluating the threat of a Jewish revolt against Britain during the Second World War
- 8 The politics of asylum, Juan Negrín and the British Government in 1940
- 9 Churchill and the British ‘Decision’ to fight on in 1940: right policy, wrong reasons
- 10 Britain and the Russian entry into the war
- 11 Crowning the revolution: the British, King Peter and the path to Tito's cave
- 12 Franklin Roosevelt and Unconditional Surrender
- PART IV
- Notes
- Bibliography of the writings of F. H. Kinsley
- Index
11 - Crowning the revolution: the British, King Peter and the path to Tito's cave
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- PART I
- PART II
- PART III
- 7 The political uses of military intelligence: evaluating the threat of a Jewish revolt against Britain during the Second World War
- 8 The politics of asylum, Juan Negrín and the British Government in 1940
- 9 Churchill and the British ‘Decision’ to fight on in 1940: right policy, wrong reasons
- 10 Britain and the Russian entry into the war
- 11 Crowning the revolution: the British, King Peter and the path to Tito's cave
- 12 Franklin Roosevelt and Unconditional Surrender
- PART IV
- Notes
- Bibliography of the writings of F. H. Kinsley
- Index
Summary
In July 1943 Fitzroy Maclean came to London for confirmation of his appointment as Churchill's ‘daring Ambassador-leader’ to Tito's ‘hardy and hunted guerillas’, as well as for successive promotion from captain to lieutenant colonel to brigadier. Maclean was advised in a brief prepared by the Foreign Office and his nominal employers, the Special Operations Executive, that British policy was now to promote, organize and support resistance by all anti-Axis forces wherever they might be in Yugoslavia. The first aim, therefore, was to seek to co-ordinate the activities of the Serb Četniks of General Draža Mihailović with those of the Partisans under the control of Britain's Middle East Command. A stiff directive had already been sent to Mihailović designed to compel him to reorient his movement's objective from fighting the Partisans in collaboration with the Axis to fighting the Axis in tandem with the Partisans; the latter, similarly, were being asked as a condition of British assistance to abjure action against the Četniks except in self-defence.
Although negotiations on the unification of all anti-Axis elements should not be rushed lest ‘internal rivalries’ be exacerbated, Maclean was informed that Britain's ultimate purpose was to create sufficient concord among the country's racial, religious and ideological groups as would preserve its unity and make possible a democratic settlement of its many problems.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Diplomacy and Intelligence During the Second World WarEssays in Honour of F. H. Hinsley, pp. 184 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985