All the Absurdities of the Myth of Draža

Višegrad and the nearby village of Undrulje, which since the mid-1990s has been called Draževina, were once again the gathering place for members of various branches of the Ravna Gora movement. Bearded men dressed in black marked the date of the arrest of Draža Mihailović, the Chetnik leader from World War II, who was tracked down and arrested in a brilliant operation in March 1946 in the forests and ravines around Višegrad by members of the OZNA. The iconography is already familiar – black flags with skulls, daggers and knives, glorification of crimes, and other usual elements of Ravna Gora folklore were seen and heard at the sites marking the date when the Chetnik leader, handcuffed, ended his military path in a stream near Undrulje.

The crimes of members of his movement and his quisling nature have long been known and documented, but that did not prevent Serbia from institutionally rehabilitating him and declaring the Ravna Gora movement anti-fascist, despite literally thousands of pieces of evidence of direct cooperation with occupation units. However, the foundations on which this was done cannot withstand even a basic examination of historical facts, and that is what would make such gatherings meaningless, were it not for these threatening symbols. These people gather to glorify something that never existed – they glorify a meaningless and unsustainable myth of Draža as some kind of "first guerrilla of enslaved Europe."

The entire rehabilitation process is based on a drastic falsification of historical facts, with claims that the communist regime after World War II, by falsifying archives, declared the Chetniks a collaborationist, fascist movement. The problem for the advocates of rehabilitation, however, is not the communist archives, but the German, Italian, British, and other archives containing numerous pieces of evidence and documents about direct Chetnik collaboration with the occupier, even receipts by which Chetnik commanders received weapons, ammunition, and even bags of pasta and cans from the Italians and Germans. There is not a word in those archives about the great battles that the Chetniks allegedly fought against occupation units.

The rehabilitation of Mihailović's movement is based almost exclusively on the testimonies of his former subordinate officers, who wrote their memoirs abroad after the war, and whose beginnings date back to the April War of 1941 and Mihailović's alleged role in it. The myths about some great battles under Mihailović's command at the very beginning of the war against the Germans near Doboj and on Han Pijesak, on which the propaganda about the first guerrilla of Europe was based, are not only factually but also logically inexplicable. First of all, near Doboj he did not have units with which to lead such battles after the complete collapse and disintegration of the Yugoslav Royal Army in the April War, and besides, evidence of any battles does not exist in any German archive. Particularly absurd is the alleged fierce battle near the railway line at Han Pijesak during his retreat to Serbia with a handful of officers and soldiers after the capitulation. It is practically a blind branch of a forest railway, primarily intended for forest exploitation, without any strategic significance. Why would Mihailović, as a trained general staff officer who was trying to reach Serbia as soon as possible, waste two days in an absurd battle for this completely unimportant mountain railway communication?

Having convinced himself of the complete collapse and terrible defeat of the Yugoslav Royal Army in those April days, he could not have known what the situation was in Serbia, and therefore could not have had any clear plans for any action or uprising against the Germans. The vague formulation that he did not want to surrender to German units and that he intended to gather officers and soldiers for raising an uprising could only take on clearer contours later, after crossing into Serbia, when the Partisans already had a clear vision of the uprising. The key strategy of Mihailović's actions was "waiting for the opportune moment," and the most important accusation against the Partisan leadership was that "communists and various scoundrels prematurely and unnecessarily pushed the Serbian people into an uprising, which led to German reprisals." HOW CAN MIHAILOVIĆ, AS THE ALLEGED FIRST GUERRILLA OF ENSLAVED EUROPE, ACCUSE SOMEONE ELSE OF A PREMATURE UPRISING AND AN ADVENTURISTIC COMMUNIST ACTION THAT PLUNGED THE SERBIAN PEOPLE INTO TROUBLE AND BLOODSHED!!!

Claims that capable Serbian officers and patriots were on the Chetnik side, while the Partisan leadership consisted of adventurers and incompetent agents of the Comintern, are also nonsensical. If that were the case, how did the Chetnik units with such capable officers lose the war against the Partisans, led by "incompetent communist scoundrels"?

The myth of Draža Mihailović as a great military leader also cannot withstand any more detailed analysis. Mihailović, as clearly stated in Chetnik documents, directly commanded his units only twice during the entire war. The first time was during the Battle of the Neretva, when the Chetnik units suffered a great defeat after which they no longer represented a significant military force until the end of the war. The second time he had direct command in his hands was in the spring of 1945 in the great battle in the upper reaches of the Neretva and Jezerica rivers and on Zelengora, when his units were practically wiped out and he managed to escape from that area with only a handful of followers. He commanded twice and both times suffered terrible defeats – where is the immense military wisdom and skill that those who today try to present him as a great military leader talk about?

Claims about the anti-fascist character of the Chetnik movement are logically paradoxical. This can best be seen by looking more closely at the formulation that was often heard at the time when certain political forces, primarily in Serbia, systematically sought to rehabilitate him and his movement – that Draža Mihailović enjoyed great prestige among his commanders. If he enjoyed such great prestige, how is it possible that a whole series of his subordinate high-ranking commanders voluntarily and without his knowledge, as he claimed at his trial, collaborated with the occupier – the Italians, and later the Germans, about which, incidentally, there is a multitude of documents in the archives of Italian and German units? Either they did this with his knowledge, which confirms the extremely collaborationist, quisling character of his movement, or his commanders did not consider him a military and political authority at all, so they did as they pleased. What kind of prestige of a military leader can be spoken of here?

Post-war interpretations by Ravna Gora circles that Mihailović was treacherously betrayed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill due to major world political calculations, siding with the Partisans, are particularly illogical. For three years, the British, through their envoys in Mihailović's headquarters, tried to get him and his units to take any action against the Germans, and during that time not a single attack was carried out, not even a diversion against German units and the communications that those units maintained and secured. Why would Churchill, one of the most hardened anti-communists in history, just out of the blue start favoring a resistance movement led by communists, and why would he send his own son to the Supreme Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia at a time when a new political map of the world was being drawn at Yalta and Tehran? Out of admiration or love for communists? Due to concessions to Stalin? Not at all! There must have been only one, much stronger reason – no one in London or the world could any longer hide the numerous pieces of evidence of direct Chetnik collaboration with the occupier and the fact that the Chetnik movement never fought against the Germans and Italians.

The myth of Draža, on the basis of which his movement was rehabilitated in Serbia, thereby institutionally trampling and rendering meaningless its anti-fascist past, is one of the emptiest and most meaningless historical falsifications from the time of World War II.