Really tries hard to give credit to a lesser known guerrilla fighter in the Balkans during WW2. Serbian Chetnik commander Dragoljub “Drazha” Mihajlovic. Having had a difficult task of being one of the few generals who happened to fight both the Nazis and the Communists at the same time, it isn’t surprising his story, and that of the movement he lead, was doomed to ultimately end in tragedy.
Although Serbs often like to point out they were the only ones who were both anti-Nazi and anti-Communists, as well as a staunch pro-Western ally during WW2, there are other examples. Greeks too had the same problem of a communist takeover, however their civil war (1946 - 1949) happened after the WW2 ended, while Serbs were cornered from both sides at the same time.
This attempt to put into a positive light a tragic historical figure who was caught up in a whirlwind of events is heavily compromised by a series of factual and embarrassing errors.
By the time I was fully annoyed with them and finally decided to start keeping track of these as they kept popping up, I was already in pages 200 and above. From the earlier pages I could only locate the one on page 65. Sorry, couldn’t bother re-reading this book again and going through it with a fine toothed comb. Oh, also on one of the photographs a group of Chetniks and Ustashas are mistakenly labelled as opposites.
Here are some factual errors I did wrote down:
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Page 228/
“…Massacre of 72 Croat Partisan sympathizers in Vranjic, a Croatian city near Osijek, on the beautiful northwest coast of that country...”
Osijek is a town in North East of Croatia, in the Croatia’s Slavonia region which is not adjacent to coastline.
Page 241/
“…Murder of poet Ivan Goran Kovacic in 1946…”
The great Croat poet (and a Partisan himself) I.G. Kovacic was killed by the Chetniks in the year of 1943 near Foca in Bosnia.
Page 253/
“…Southern Serbian town of Pearsonovatz named after Drew Pearson…”
Never heard of it. Let me check on Google or Google Maps. Nope. Doesn’t exist. Ok, maybe it's a very, very small village that doesn't even feature on the maps, but it certainly can't be then classed as a "town."
Page 289/
“…Djuic, from the Montenegerin village of Topolje…”
Momcilo Djuic, another famous WW2 Chetnik commander and the only one who managed to evade Tito, and die of natural death in San Diego in 1999, was born near Knin, Dalmatia, Croatian coastal region.
Page 65/
“…Maks Luburic… himself an Orthodox Christian from Montenegro…”
Probably the most outrageous claim of all. Maks Luburic, one of notorious Ustasha commanders was a Croat born near Ljubuski, Herzegovina.
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My belief is that Montenegrins have enough to deal with the fact that Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Arkan were all Montenegrins, without saddling them up with Djuic and Luburic who weren’t.
The story of the Serbian guerrilla fighter Drazha Mihajlovic, who died in the shadow of a much, much better known Croat communist leader Josip Broz Tito, his main enemy and rival, is an interesting one and should be re-examined now that so many years have gone past, with a new light cast on those faithful events.
From 1941 when a group of Royal Yugoslav Army officers decided not to accept the unconditional surrender, but withdrew to Ravna Gora, Serbia, to fight on against the Nazis, only to find themselves mostly fighting the Communists instead. To their showdown against the Communists in "Battle of the Neretva" in 1943 which they lost and their final stand and defeat on Zelengora mountain in 1945.
Sadly this book is falling short of being an accurate historical record. Here’s hoping something better will be written soon. Let it be warts and all but let it be accurate.
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