30 / CHRONICLESnBetrayed by Britain by Momcilo Selicn”And hung my head and wept at Britain’s name.”n—Samuel Taylor ColeridgenTito’s Flawed Legacy by NoranBeloff, Boulder, CO: WestviewnPress.nIf there be monsters, they yawn fromnwithin.nIt is hard not to see justice in thenstory of an empire, brought low by itsnunwilhngness to defend itself “Thisnbook is in part a penance for unquestioninglynaccepting the Titoist biasnshared by most of my countrymen,”nwrites Nora Beloff, former British correspondentnfrom Belgrade, in her newnbook, Tito’s Flawed Legacy. But therenwas no bias. Instead, there was shortsightednself-interest, rationalized intondoctrine, sentiment, or worse.n”Do you intend to make Yugoslavianyour home after the war?” WinstonnChurchill asked Brigadier FitzroynMaclean, in 1943 in Alexandria.n”No Sir,” replied his envoy to Tito.n”Neither do I,” Churchill had saidnthen. “And that being so, the less younand I worry about the form of governmentnthey set up the better.”nJohn Donne long forgotten,nChurchill was only continuing hisngovernment’s policy towards Yugoslaviansince 1941. If Czechoslovakia wasnsacrificed in 1936, why shouldn’t anothernEastern European impedimentnbe used to buy a gasp of life? Thoughnamong individuals there is a name fornsuch behavior, among states only survivalncounts. Maybe that’s why sonmany of them have disappeared fromnthe face of the earth.n2r. FiTZnnnBeloff, as Her Majesty’s subject, didnnot initially question such policy.nAfter all, wasn’t it perfectly commonnthat lesser people and races shouldnsacrifice themselves for their betters?nMercifully, no one in the West hasnsaid that publicly, except Hitier. Butnfacts have a way of speaking by themselves.nIn 1941, Great Britain aided a coupnin Belgrade that brought down a governmentnintent on keeping Yugoslavianout of Wodd War II. The new government,npraised by Churchill, had asnlittle to place in Hitler’s way as the old.nThe Germans overran Yugoslavia inn10 days and then began a program ofndismemberment and of genocide committednagainst its Serb, Jewish, andnGypsy population. The British, unablenand unwilling to aid Yugoslavia evennas littie as Greece, lauded the resistancenmovement of Colonel DrazanMihajlovic, until the Communist Partisansnappeared. Then, disregardingntheir own previous Special OperationsnExecutive (SOE) directives, they askednthe Yugoslavs to do what they counsellednother Europeans to avoid,nnamely, to attack the Germans ennmasse. When Mihajlovic refused tonpermit 100 Serbs to be shot for eachnGerman slain, 50 for each wounded,nthe British transferred their support tonthe Partisans, who felt no suchnqualms. Thus the Communists,nwhose chief worry was the safety of thenSoviet Union and whose aim wasnCommunist revolution, became angambit used by Churchill to offsetnStalin’s demands for a second front innEurope. In Teheran, Churchill curiouslynupheld Yugoslavia as just such anfront, while the Soviet dictator justiynpointed to the marginal effect of thenPartisan war effort.nPossibly, Churchill may havenplanned an Allied Front in the Balkans,nbut his idea was vetoed by PresidentnRoosevelt, because too manynAmericans would die in such an attempt.nYugoslavs were allowed to dieninstead.nEven after the war ended, as Beloffnrecords, and as Nikolai Tolstoy documentsnin his new book (The Ministernand the Massacres), the British forciblynrepatriated from Austria some 40,000nMomcilo Selic is an expatriatenYugoslav writer.n