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The Kingdom of Yugoslavia in World War Two

18/06/2021

Draza Mihailovich, second from left, with American Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. McDowell of the OSS, first on left, the chief of the U.S. Ranger Mission, 1944. Robert H. McDowell was a graduate of the University of Michigan, majoring in history

Documentary TV series: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia in World War Two

The war in the Balkans from 1941 to 1945, examined for the first time in a documentary that is not colored by ideology.

This exclusive series is based on actual documents from all of the participants in the war: The Military Archives in Belgrade, The Bundes Archives in Freiburg, The National Archives in Washington, DC…

The series includes thus far unseen archive footage of the little publicised visit of King Peter II to President Roosevelt in 1942 and Roosevelt’s gift of ” flying fortress’s” to the Yugoslav Royal Air Force in October 1943.

Plus testimony from more than 40 participants of the actual events, filmed in five countries.

Wartime photographic scenes are compared to the present day locations.

The documentary has been awarded prizes by the “Euro-In Film” festival in Novi Sad December 2014, for special historical importance and the “Golden Buklia ” festival in Velika Plana in May 2015, for it’s directing.

The author of the documentary, Miloslav Samardzic, has written over 30 books concerning the Second World War, and is a correspondent for the French magazine ” Magazine 39-45 ”, and is an associate of the ”44 blue” film company in Hollywood.

The historical consultant to the series is retired Colonel, Dragan Krsmanovic, former head of the military archives in Belgrade.

Country: Serbia.

Year: 2015 Language: Serbian and English.

Duration: 18 x 30 minute episodes

The first series, episodes 1-6:

What happened in the Balkans during World War II?

Episode One: 1914 – 1941.

Uncovering the link between the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars.

In 1918 failure to implement the Treaty of London (1915), and grant to Italy territory that had been promised under the agreement led to a wave of discontent which ultimately allowed Mussolini to gain power and so the first step to a new World War was taken.

The Second World War engulfs the Balkans; the course of events during the first years of the war.

Episode Two:

Italy and the Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia spring 1941; the Italians invaded as allies of Hitler and the Croatian Fuhrer Ante Pavelich, collectively forming the largest and most brutal enemy of the Serbian people. However, from 1941, the Italians begin to ‘save’ the Serbs and Jews from German and Croatian Nazi formations. Gradually the Italians changed their wartime allegiance and formed an Italian-Serbian opposition to the German-Croatian Nazi federation.

Episode Three:

Of Soldiers, Revolutionaries and Quislings

Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Sections of the Royal Yugoslav Army did not capitulate; they formed a resistance movement led by Colonel Draza Mihailovich, against the Axis powers. The quislings in a propaganda move accused them as ” English mercenaries ”. Then into the fray came the Communist Party, who announced the start of its revolution … In the autumn, opening the largest anti-Axis front in Europe beyond the Eastern Front, however so began the largest civil war.

Episode Four:

Mihailovich against Rommel

Balkans 1942. In Africa, there waged a decisive battle against Hitler’s best military leader, Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose shortest fuel supply route went through Serbia. The Yugoslav army (Chetniks), at the request of the Yugoslav government in London and the British government, took part in the “Battle of supply”. The Chetniks sabotage formation: ” Gordon ” carried out an unbelievable 1.499 acts of diversion and sabotage, which is a record for any sabotage group during the entire Second World War. Why has this story never been told?

Episode Five:

In anticipation of the Allied invasion of Adriatic

Balkans 1943; All were convinced that, after landing in Italy, the Western allies would deploy to the Balkans. All were preparing an answer to that: the Chetniks, Partisans, Germans, and Italians … This was a year of bloody showdowns with everyone.

Episode Six:

The Battle for Serbia.

After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the Western allies decided to no longer supply the Chetniks, but to direct all their help to the Partisans. In the first few months alone, the partisans received weapons and equipment for 60,000 people. However, these military supplies were not used to fight against the Axis forces. From the spring of 1944, all available Partisan manpower was used to seize control of Serbia from the Chetniks.

The second series, episodes 7-12:

Why were the Balkans and Eastern Europe abandoned to communist control?

Episode Seven:

The Final Chetnik Offensive against the Axis

September 1944, in the West (Italy) are the Western Allies, in the East (Romania and Bulgaria) is the Red Army. The Yugoslav Army, known as the Chetniks, attacked the Germans and Ustashi in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, anticipating the arrival of the Western Allies. However, the Chetniks were attacked from behind by the armed wing of the illegal Communist Party, known as the Partisans …

Episode Eight:

King Peter, Churchill and Roosevelt.

September 12^th 1944, the Supreme Commander of the Yugoslav Army, King Peter II Karadjordjevich, via Radio London urged his army to put themselves under the command of the Communists – whose first war aim was to depose the King and to destroy his army!

Why did the King do that?

How did his soldiers react to that? (their exclusive interviews included)

Film of King Peter’s visit to President Roosevelt in the White House … The “Euro In Film” festival in Novi Sad, December 2014 awarded this episode as being of particular historical importance.

Episode Nine:

In the Global Whirlwind.

Why did the British Prime Minister Churchill force the Yugoslav King to make a speech on September 12^th 1944?

Why did the BBC praise the Partisans from 1943 onwards?

What did British officers, Major Archie Jack and Michael Lees, who spent the war with the Chetniks have to say about that?

What the modern British historian Heather Williams said on this subject.

What was the truth concerning British Communist members (James Klugmann, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt…) embedded in the British secret service, SOE?

Why did British and American liaison officers to the Yugoslav Army High Command clash?

Episode Ten:

McDowell against Stalin.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in the late summer and early fall of 1944.

The US intelligence service OSS (later the CIA) sent Mission Ranger to the Supreme Command of the Yugoslav Army (the Chetniks).

Who was Colonel Dr.Robert McDowell, Head of the Mission Ranger?

What was the purpose of the mission, and what did its members report after visiting Chetnik held territory?

Why was the German offer to surrender their Balkans troops to Mission Ranger and the Chetniks not accepted?

Why did Allied aircraft bomb Serbian cities as if they were part of the Axis, and treat cities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) as if they were Allied?

Episode Eleven:

Red Army Invades in the fall of 1944.

Lieutenant Kramer, the fifth member of Mission Ranger was the only American officer captured by the Red Army during WW2.

How Lieutenant Kramer saved himself and why he had to flee even from Italy?

How the Chetniks liberated Krushevac from the Germans.

The battle between the Chetniks and the Red Army in Krushevac and the air battle between the Red Army and the Western Allies over Nish.

In the final stages of the war, why did Roosevelt’s relations with Churchill deteriorate and improve with Stalin?

Episode Twelve:

Battle for Democracy

Why were the nations of Eastern Europe – Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia allied to the Western allies – 1945, abandoned to the Communists?

Archival sound film of President Benesh of Czechoslovakia’s visit to President Roosevelt in the White House and recordings of the New York parade held in honor of the Poles.

Why did the Foreign Office ask General Drazha Mihailovich and the Chetniks to perform a tasks “which they certainly will not be able to perform” and to use it as an alibi for shifting support to the Communists?

The third series, episodes 13-18:

Final Abandonment of the Balkans to the Communists

Episodes Thirteen:

Red Hell (1)

At the end of September 1944, 414,000 Soviet troops entered Serbia. In the wake of their tanks, the Partisans begin to establish their authority. Their first action was to ‘mobilize’ 250,000 young men, many of whom were still minors. In this episode, some of them testify that they were thrown into locked cattle wagons and then taken under heavy guard to the front line at Srem to face a phalanx of German machine guns.

Episode Fourteen:

Red Hell (2)

The harrowing testimony of 12 witnesses who survived the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945 in communist prisons, where they were tortured and witnessed many murders. Displaying the original documents that ordered executions by shooting, a form whose only requirement was to enter the name of the victim. The harrowing story of the liquidation of over 100,000 people and the confiscation of hundreds of thousands of houses, apartments, factories, shops, craft workshops … of which 90 percent were never returned.

Episode Fifteen:

The Bosnian Calvary (1)

After invasion by the Red Army, the remaining units of the Yugoslav army, the Chetniks, during autumn 1944 retreated into Bosnia without shelter and without winter equipment. Therefore, their first objective was: to win over the urban areas so as to survive the harsh Bosnian winter. This was followed by attacks on garrisons that were held by either the Partisans or Ustasha.

Episode Sixteen:

Bosnian Calvary (2)

Spring 1945. The last area of territory located in northern Bosnia that was free of Partisan control. now came under attack from Partisans equipped with heavy weaponry. General Mihailovich ordered his forces in the west to re-direct back towards Serbia, in order to out maneuver his enemies. With eye-witness testimonies and recorded footage of the territory on which some of the key events occurred.

Episode Seventeen:

Withdrawal Montenegrins and Chetniks from western regions

Spring 1945 units from Montenegro, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Pavle Djurisic, separated from the main body of General Draza Mihailovic’s forces in an attempt to reach Slovenia. In Slovenia there were already significant elements of the Chetnik Supreme Command headed by General Miodrag Damjanovic, the largest force was the Dinara Chetnik Division led by Vojvoda ‘Duke’ Momcilo Djuic. In this episode the attack on the Dinara Chetnik division by a Partisan encirclement on 4 December 1944 is recounted and the unsuccessful maneuvers of Lieutenant Colonel Djurisic

Episode Eighteen:

In Exile

End of the Second World War. Units under the command of General Damjanovic withdraw to Italy into the hands of the Western Allies. The Allies disarm them and place them in camps in Italy and then in Germany. Life in the camps, the establishment of the first émigré associations, going into exile across the world, the memory of General Draza Mihailovic, the descendants of emigrants today …