Germans conducted major operations against Partisans tying down thousands of troops that couldve fought Americans or Russians but you are claiming Partisans didnt fight?? Smh

And what does all that other extra stuff about rations etc got to do with the Partisans fighting Nazis?? Im sure the Russians told people they didnt get any supplies from USA cause they wanted to show commies needed no help but we know that aint true.

Partisans fought against Chekniks and Axis.

Kemp talking bullshite if he saying Partisans didnt fight.

This post was edited on 2/23/21 at 2:56 pm

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Posted by Lima Whiskey

Member since Apr 2013

19056 posts

Posted on 2/23/21 at 6:19 pm to stateofplay

One of the major problems is that the Soviets had thoroughly penetrated the English universities, and in turn, the government.

Major Peter Kemp writes about the Captain James Glugmann, the County Section Intelligence Officer for Yugoslavia.

quote:
I was surprised to find Klugmann occupying such a confidential position, because when I had last seen him, in 1936, he had been the secretary and inspiration of the Cambridge University Communists. I had innocently supposed that Communists were strictly excluded from S.O.E., for I myself had been required to sign a declaration that I belonged to no Communist or Fascist party before I was enrolled in (SOE) ... but I was wrong; like his contemporary, Guy Burgess, he was one of the hard core and today he is a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Great Britain

This was a major problem, many of the people in the British chain of command were Communists, and they ensured that Communist forces were strongly supported, and that nationalist alternatives were sidelined. The official policy was to support both sides, but as the war progressed, the balance heavily favored the Communists.

What were these forces, the partisans, like?

quote:
Following the general practice, the Partisans leaders declined to call themselves Communists. Their movement, they pretended, was a 'democratic' movement which all who held 'democratic' view were welcome...

In practice, exclusive control of the movement was retained in the hands of a small committee, all of whom were Communists. This committee, besides directing policy, appointed the guerrilla commanders, the political commissars, and the regional organizers. The former were most often, and the two latter invariable, Communists; while, in accordance with the best conspiratorial traditions, all three were kept under observation by Party members who held no official position at all, By these methods, seconded by the salutary liquidation of those who disobeyed or disagreed, the Partisan movement presently achieved a degree of discipline and cohesion of which few observers believed the Albanians to be capable

They were ruthless, killing anyone who fell out of line with the Party.

Commisars were very powerful though.

quote:
It as only gradually that I came to appreciate the influence exercised by Political Commissars in this guerrilla army... for neither Ever Hoxha or any of his colleges would admit to us that the policy of their movement was Communist, even when, later on, they must have realized that it was obvious to us... In theory the responsibilities of the Commissars were limited to political discipline, administration and welfare: in practice, on all matters outside the actual conduct of military operations his authority overrode that of the Commander to whom he was nominally an adviser.

Getting the Partisans to fight, was difficult to impossible though. In this passage Kemp is trying to persuade a man named Mehmet to attack a German post. The Partisans have gone into the field to attack this post, after considerable pressure from the British.

quote:
Our reconnaissance had already shown us that the German post consisted of a platoon party of from eighteen to twenty men with a light machine-gun.

But now they're at the inflection point, Mehmet refuses. He declares it too dangerous.

And Kemp's colleague explodes.

quote:
'So eight hundred of your "patriotic Albanians", with all the armament and all the training we have given them, are to be frightened away by twenty Germans!'

800 vs 20. And they refuse to do it.

They do inflict one casualty on the Germans the following day though.

quote:
'You'll be pleased to hear that the Brigade has been in action,' was Smiley's greeting to me.

I looked at him in astonishment, for I had heard no shooting.

'Yes, they killed a solitary German who had wandered into village near here in search of food. He was unarmed of course.'

This is Kemps experience with the Partisans, again and again.

Kemp is critical of the aid though, and ultimately his own work.

quote:
It gradually became apparent that the arms and money which S.O.E. was dropping so lavishly into Albania were being conserved by L.N.C. and Balli Kombëtar alike for use against each other.

The Communists and Nationalists respectively.

What was the situation like in Yugoslavia though? Kemp writes about Tito and Mihailovic.

quote:
By the end of 1941 their hostility to each other had flared into open warfare, so that their efforts were wasted in internecine strife. Now British Liaison Officers are being dropped to both sides in the hope of persuading them to concentrate on fighting the Germans rather than each other.

One of the major problems that Kemp and the other officers of the SOE dealt with, was trying to get the natives to focus their energies on the Germans.

Kemps efforts were largely unsuccessful, he was forced out of the country by the Communists, after attempting to start a royalist resistance in Albania.

quote:
I never returned to Albania. Within the year the Communist forces of the L.N.C. and the Kosmet had overrun the country. Implacable in their hatred of the British who had nursed them they were determined to destroy all those whom they considered to be our friends. In the eyes of the new rulers of Albania collaboration with the British was a far greater crime than collaboration with the Germans. Our allies ... were marked for destruction because their fighting record gave the lie to the Communist claim that the Communist Party alone represented the Albanian people in their fight for independence.

From this murderous holocaust only a few of my friends escaped.

The Communists simply murdered anyone with ties to the British.

But Evelyn Waugh

quote:
Mr. Evelyn Waugh in one of his stories has referred to S.O.E.--though not by name--as an organization engaged in setting up hostile and oppressive governments in the countries of eastern and south-eastern Europe

This is a conclusion that Kemp ultimately shares.

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