Chetniks

Oh dear god. What Chehoslovakia!!?? Movie is about Yugoslavian history. I must first find him to tell something more about movie since I haven't look him. If you want to know more about Draza Mihajlovic the lieder of Serbian old army (by the way, they fight with Germans against Tito and partisans) go and search internet, You will learn much. Till the day now in Serbia is big 'talking' about who he was. Traitor or Hero. The big sorrow fact of this kind of Yugoslavian history is that it was civil war against Draza army and partisans in the same time when WWII had played on this territory. Imagine this. Family with two brothers, one brother go to Tito army, other go to Draza army. And they becomes enemies!?

This is a story about a man, who ran the first resistance in Europe. A man that later on will be deserted by all of his allies because he had put national interest before any other. True Serbian hero, fighting and dying for his country and democratic cause. Yes, he was fighting against Communists, Nazis and Ustashe (croatians who performed the most monstrous genocide against Serbians). He did fought together with Italians in Dalmatia to protect Serbian population, but never on the same side with Germans. There were some divisions of Chetniks that did fight along with Germans but they were not under his command (Kosta Pecanac). During the II WW, he received a medal from president Truman for his "fight for democratic cause and freedom". After the war, because of the political games run by Soviets and English, his movement lost the support from the allies and he was left alone to fight against the enemies. His movement saved from certain death so many American airmen, and they wanted to save him, realizing that he would get murdered but he refused saying :"This is my country, i would die in my country". Anyway, president of the USA and survived American pilots did not forget him building a monument in his honor after the war.

I saw the movie just before going into service, little dreaming that I would see Gen. Draja Mihailovich in person. It is an excellent movie, well acted. I volunteered with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and parachuted into Mihailovich territory to rescue airmen shot down bombing the oilfields of Ploesti. The mission was called Operation Halyard and is depicted in the book, The Forgotten 500. The movie is an excellent depiction of the Serbs resistance to the German invasion. It has been a long time since I saw the movie and I have forgotten much of it, but, if you like adventure and romance, it has both. Today, there is much controversy surrounding Mihailoich, and this is an excellent source to get one viewpoint.

In the Second World War, Colonel Dragoljub Mihailovic did form a Chetnik movement for a guerrilla war against the Germans, but that movement very quickly became treacherous due to opposing conceptions of resistance and an ideological split with the partisans.

On 19 September 1941, Mihailovic met with Josip Broz Tito in the village of Struganik to discuss an alliance between the Partisans and the Chetniks, but the negotiations failed due to major differences in the goals of their movements. Tito advocated a broad joint offensive, while Mihailovic believed that the uprising was dangerous and started too soon and was afraid that it would trigger major reprisals. Tito and Mihailovic met again on 27 October 1941 in the village of Brajici near Ravna Gora to try once more to reach an agreement, but they agreed only on secondary issues. Immediately after the meeting, Mihailovic began preparations for an attack on the partisans, but he postponed it only because of a lack of weapons. Mihailovic told the Yugoslan Government in Exile that the capture of Uzice, where the weapons factory was located, was necessary to prevent the strengthening of the communists. Through his representative in Belgrade, Colonel Branislav Pantic, on 28 October 1941, Mihailovic contacted the president of the treacherous government, General Milan Nedic, and the next day with the German officer Josef Matl, with an offer to fight together against the partisans in exchange for weapons. This offer was conveyed to General Franz Böhme, the head of the Military Administration in Serbia, and the Germans offered a meeting for November 3rd 1941. In the meantime, the Chetniks attacked the partisans in Uzice, Ivanjica, Cacak, Gornji Milanovac and other places of free territory, the first in the enslaved Europe at the time, on the night between 31 October and 1 November 1941, but they were repulsed. Then, in the village of Slovac, about 350 partisans captured by the Chetniks were handed over to the Germans. This attack started the civil war in Serbia. Because of this, on November 3, 1941, Mihailovic postponed the meeting with the German officers until 11 November 1941. At the meeting in the village of Divci, which was led by Mihailovic and lieutenant colonel Rudolf Kogard, Mihailovic assured the Germans that his intention "was not to fight against the occupiers" and that "he never made a sincere agreement with the communists, because they do not care about the people. They are led by foreigners who are not Serbs..." giving the Germans incorrect information. At the meeting, Mihailovic proposed that the Germans help him in his fight against the partisans and that this cooperation remain hidden from the Serbian people, but the agreement was not reached because the Germans demanded the complete surrender of the Chetniks and believed that the Chetniks would attack them despite Mihailovic's offer.

Mihailovic carefully hid the negotiations with the Germans from the Yugoslav Government in Exile, as well as from the British and their representative Duane Tyrell Hudson, who was in Mijalovic's military staff at the time of the meeting in Divci. Having failed to defeat the Chetniks, faced with reports that the British considered Mihailovic to be the leader of the resistance and under pressure from the German offensive, Tito once again offered negotiations to Mihailovic, which led to negotiations and a subsequent armistice on 20 or 21 November 1941. Tito and Mihailovic had their last telephone conversation on 28 November 1941. Tito declared that he would defend himself against the Germans, while Mihailovic declared that he would hide.

With Mihailovic's approval, the commanders of his detachments decided on November 20 to join the legalized Chetniks under the command of General Nedic, in order to be able to fight against the partisans without fear of the Germans and to avoid compromising Mihailovic in the eyes of the British. About 2,000 to 3,000 Chetniks joined the army of Nedic's regime. Legalization enabled the Chetniks to receive a salary and alibi from the Quisling government, while Nedic received more soldiers to fight against the communists under the command of the Germans.

Apart from that, all the films in which the original languages, related to the place and time of the event, are not used, in this case Serbian-Croatian and German, are worthless regardless of their artistic achievement.