The Incredible Tito: Man of the Hour Read Free Page B

acted as a signal to anti-Nazis everywhere. At Valjevo, in northern Serbia, the ground had been well prepared. Javonavich, a reporter, killed the first German in Valjevo on July 5th. His detachment swung into action and launched a fullscale attack, with rifles, pistols and grenades on the German guards. Simultaneously, Tito led the Belgrade uprising. A group of young Communists attacked and burned part of the German press. Other Communist groups attacked the telephone building and the station. In Zagreb, the telephone building was successfully stormed and destroyed. In Slovenia, an Italian garrison numbering more than two hundred was attacked and wiped out. In Serbia, eighty truckloads of oil and munitions belonging to the Germans were blown up. Other bands stormed German prisons, and carried off Yugoslav prisoners. One of the prisoners rescued at this time, Alexander Rankovich, is today a part of the Liberation Front government. Stores of precious rifles and grenades were looted; Partisans attacked and killed Germans, afterwards stripping them of uniforms and arms.
    And then, as suddenly as they arose, the Partisans faded away. They were not yet ready for full-scale warfare. They had accomplished their first objective, to completely disrupt German communications, to capture some arms and ammunition, and to let the people of Yugoslavia know that there were strong forces within the country actively fighting for their freedom.
    Immediately after this first uprising, Tito proclaimed a further period of consolidation. His organization was strong enough now for him to make specific plans for an army. How huge a task that was, he well knew. There was neither arms nor ammunition nor leaders for a new Yugoslav Army.
    His first duty was to keep the fire of revolt burning, and to build it up slowly as Partisan strength grew. The concentration at the beginning was on arms. Italian guard houses were attacked without respite, and in every case where the Partisans succeeded, uniforms and arms were seized. Six Croatians, armed with four old muskets, held up twenty occupational police and disarmed them. A woman and three men in Slovenia attacked a munitions cache with grenades, home manufactured, and escaped with three thousand cartridges. Peasants lay in waiting for German truck convoys, leaped aboard them as they labored up the steep mountain grades, killed the drivers and guards, and then held the trucks until Communists appeared and drove them to arms depots.
    Marshal Tito swiftly outlined plans for five divisions of Partisan troops to operate in Serbia. There was still not enough equipment for seventy-five thousand men, but the military structure, including officers, supply, and liaison, was already being set up.
    Tito sent certain organizers south to the little, mountainous Yugoslav state of Montenegro. For many years, Montenegrians have had the reputation of being men who knew the meaning and value of freedom, and were ready to fight for it at the drop of a hat. The Montenegrians were already at the boiling point. Their little country was occupied by Italians—and they felt that would not be too difficult a matter to remedy.
    Two exceptionally competent officers of the Yugoslav Regular Army were in Montenegro at the time, Colonel Oravich and Major Arbe Jovanavich. They met with Tito’s organizers. Hostile at first, they resented the idea of collaborating with Communists. The Partisans talked with the regular officers, explained to them the structure of the People’s Liberation Front, and pointed out what had already been accomplished. Finally, the two army officers agreed to work with the Partisans. Today, Jovanavich is a Partisan major general and the head of Marshal Tito’s operational and intelligence commands.
    Once the Communists had made common cause with the regular officers, they set about to organize revolt in Montenegro. The peasants were ready, most of them armed, all of them skilled in a knowledge of their