Evdzhevich, Dobroslav

Dobroslav Yevdjevic was born on December 28, 1895 in the village of Milosevac ^[1] near the town of Praca and the town of Rogatica ^[2] in the territory of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bosnia and Herzegovina belonging to the Ottoman Empire occupied by Austria-Hungary. ). Parents are Bosnian Serbs Dimitrie Eudzhevich, a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church ^[3] , and Angela Evdzhevich (nee Kosoric) ^[1] . The family also had Montenegrin roots ^[4] . Evdzhevich was brought up according to Christian customs and attended school in Sarajevo ^[1] . There he joined a revolutionary organization called “ Mlada Bosna ” and became friends with Gavrilo Princip , who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 ^[5] . On the day of the attempted assassination of the Archduke, Dobroslav’s father was arrested by the police on charges of collaborating with the Serbian revolutionary organization People’s Defense ^[6] and was hanged in Banja Luka in April 1916 ^[7] .

In his youth, Eudzhevich was a successful writer and poet. He studied law at the universities of Zagreb, Belgrade and Vienna; besides his native Serbian, he spoke Italian, German and French ^[1] . In 1918, he began his political career ^[4] , becoming one of the most influential Serbian politicians of Bosnia in the interwar years ^[1] . He was a member of the Commonwealth of Serbian Chetniks - a radical Serbian nationalist organization of more than 500 thousand people, headed by Kosta Pechanac ^{[8] [9]} . Yevdjevic was also one of the leaders of the Independent Democratic Party of Yugoslavia and led his paramilitary wing, the Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists , which persecuted all Serbs who did not want to join their party ^[1] . Yevdzhevich later became a candidate from the opposition Yugoslav National Party in the elections to the National Assembly ^[10] and was elected there four times from Rogatica and Novi Sad ^{[11] [2]} , and during the reign of Alexander I from 1929 to 1934 he was in opposition ^{[11 ]} . His tendency to cooperate with the Yugoslav parties led to the fact that he had a reputation as a man “who wanted to sell himself to a political group in exchange for personal gain or promotion along the career ladder”. In 1935, Prime Minister Bogolyub Yevtich appointed him head of the propaganda and press department of the Yugoslav government ^[4] . Yevdjevic supported the formation of the Croatian Banovia in 1939 and also called for the creation of autonomy for the Serbs, which would include much of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which he received strong support from the Chetniks ^[10] .

Start of War

In 1941, the cousin of Dobroslav Yevdzhevich, Colonel Dusan Radovich, left the country at the height of the April war and joined the Royal Air Force of Great Britain ^[1] . Evdzhevich himself after the defeat of the Yugoslav troops fled to Budva , where he was hiding from arrest and internment ^[2] . In April, the puppet Independent State of Croatia was formed, at the head of which ustashi stood. They began mass persecution and extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies as persons threatening Croatian statehood ^[12] . The Serbian population has gone into the ranks of the resistance, and Evcevic led the resistance with the Chetniks against the NGH in Bosnia and Herzegovina ^[13] .

Evdzhevich was known for his sympathy for the Italians during the war, jokingly he was called Draža Mihailovic "an Italian who loves the Serbs" ^[4] . Yevdjevic and the leader of the pre-war Chetnik movement, Ilya Trifunovic-Birchanin, relied on the cooperation with the Italians to stop the NGH terror against the Serbs ^[14] , moreover Yevdjevic was counting on the creation of a Serbian state in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an Italian protectorate. However, the main goal of the Italians was the struggle against the communist partisans with the help of the Chetniks ^[13] . In the summer of 1941, Eudzhevich contacted the Italians and presented himself with Trifunovic-Birchanin as civilian representatives of the Bosnian Chetnik movement of Ezdimir Dangich ^[15] .

Collaboration with Italians

On October 20, 1941, Eudzhevich and Trifunovic-Birchanin agreed to start cooperation with the head of the information department of the 6th Army Corps of Italian Forces ^[16] . At the end of January 1942, Eudzhevich agreed to help the Italians in the event of the occupation of Bosnia and create Chetnik guerrilla units that would fight on the side of the Italians against the communist partisans of Tito ^[11] . The talks involved Corps General Renzo Dalmazzo , Chetnik leaders Stevo Radzhenovic , Iliya Trifunovic-Birchanin, Ezdimir Dangic and Dobroslav Evdjevich ^[16] . In February, Yevdjevic consulted with one of Dangich’s supporters, Boshko Todorovich , who advised him to talk with General of the 2nd Italian Army Mario Roatt and persuade him to achieve the withdrawal of German and NGH troops from Eastern Bosnia, and in their place to create an Italian military administration. Yevdjevic and Todorovic impressed with their influence Dalmazzo himself, as the Bosnian Chetniks were convinced at the time. However, in late February, Todorovich was killed in battles with partisans. The influence of Evcevic intensified in Gorazde and Foca , when pro-Italian and anti-partisan sentiments were manifested among the partisans. Evcevic discussed plans for an Italian invasion of Eastern Bosnia, even with NGH Secretary of State Vekloslav Vrancic ^[17] . However, the Germans, having learned about these plans by April 1942, arrested Dangić upon his arrival on the territory of the German military administration in Serbia ^[17] .

Dalmazzo argued with Roatt that it was advantageous for Italian troops to have Serbian nationalist groups as allies. The Italians at the time were looking for allies to restore order and support their political influence on the territory of the NGH; they were impressed that the organization of the Chetniks was much more coherent than they thought. Roatt was surprised at how Herzegovinian Chetniks were loyal to Dangich. In early March, Evdzhevich and Trifunovich-Birchanin themselves told the Italians that they completely controlled the entire organization of the chetniks and were ready to cooperate on Italian terms. Yevdjevic explained Dalmazzo also that the Herzegovinian Chetniks were going to avenge the murdered Todorovich and specially gathered around Nevesin to prove their exactingness. However, the Italians did not yet believe in the military power of the Chetnik movement; not all groups recognized Yudzhevich as their leader, as was Trifunovic-Birchanin ^[17] .

In the spring - summer of 1942, Eudzhevich and Trifunovic-Birchanin constantly visited the villages near the cities of Gorazde , Kalinovik and Foch, inspiring local citizens and Chetnica troops to help the Italians ^[18] . Italians still could not get support from the Germans for the plan to use the Chetniks as auxiliary units during Operation Trio , which went from April to May of the same year ^[19] . In May, Yevdjevic met with German intelligence officers in Dubrovnik , and he was asked if he was ready to participate in the “pacification” of Bosnia ^[20] . Drazha Mihailovic did not react at all to these negotiations, which ran counter to Mikhailovich’s initial desire not to cooperate with the Nazis ^[21] . Yevdjevic and Trifunovic-Birchanin met in Split with the Chetnik commander Momchilo Djuich and argued for a long time about how to divide the financial assistance that the Italians handed them ^[22] .

In June 1942, Eudzhevich published a Chetnytsya leaflet, which said that the proletarian brigades of the Yugoslav partisans consisted only of Jews, Gypsies and Muslims. A month later he published “Appeal to the Serbs of Eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina”, in which he stated that the Ustashi directly helped the partisans ^[23] :

Tito , the supreme commander of the partisans - Zagreb Croat. Piade , the supreme political instructor of the partisans is a Jew. Four fifths of all partisans received weapons from the Croatian army Pavelic . Two thirds of their officers are former Croatian officers. Their movement is financed by the influential Croatian capitalists of Zagreb , Split, Sarajevo and Dubrovnik . Half of the Ustasha involved in the slaughter of the Serbs, now serve them!

Evcevic also began to accuse the partisans of destroying the Serbian Orthodox churches, erecting mosques, synagogues and Catholic churches ^[23] . In mid-1942, the Chetniks learned that the Italian troops would be withdrawn from a large part of the NGH territory they had previously occupied. Evdzhevich and Trifunovic-Birchanni warned the Italians that Mihailovic was going to evacuate the Serbian population from Herzegovina to Montenegro and send the Montenegrin Chetniks to the north to impose a battle on the Ustashi, who were about to bring down another wave of terror and violence on Serbian citizens ^[24] . From July 22 to July 23, 1942, Mikhailovich held a meeting in Avtovac (Herzegovina) with Evdzhevich and Trifunovic-Birchanin, and on the second day they went to Trebinje , where they discussed the situation with other leaders of the Chetniks - Radmilo Grdzic and Milan Santic . The German consulate in Sarajevo reported that the Herzegovina Chetniks announced six points of their political program ^[25] :

1. Create Great Serbia .
2. Destroy the communist guerrilla movement.
3. Evict or destroy Catholics and Muslims.
4. Do not recognize the statehood of Croatia.
5. Under no circumstances cooperate with Germany.
6. Conclude a temporary agreement with Italy on the supply of arms, ammunition and food.

In July - August 1942, with the tacit consent of the Italians, the Chetniks staged an ethnic cleansing of the Croats and Muslims in the east of Herzegovina ^[26] . In August, a massacre against the non-Serb population took place in Foca, and Yevdzhevich, in response to this, issued an appeal to the Muslims of East Herzegovina, urging them to stand under the banner of the Chetniks and join the battle against the Ustashes. He said: “I personally believe that in the future state, Muslims will have only one option - to irrevocably accept Serbian citizenship and stop their constant maneuvering between Serbs and Croats, since all the lands on which Muslims live will definitely and irrevocably belong to the Serbian state” ^[27] . In the same month, Roatta contacted Eudjevic and officially recognized him as his ally along with 3,000 Chetniks, allowing them to begin operations in East Herzegovina ^[21] .

In the fall of 1942, Eudzhevich changed his approach to Bosnian Muslims and spoke of the possibility of creating Muslim units among the Chetniks to fight against the Ustashis and partisans ^[28] . He welcomed similar tolerance in those areas where the Bosnian Muslims were guarded by the Germans ^[29] , but he repeated tirelessly that this was a tactical necessity, since there can be no unity with them ^[30] . In late September - early October 1942, Dobroslav Evdzhevich and Petar Bachovich , another commander of the Chetniks, met with the leader of Muslims Ismet Popovats and agreed to create a Muslim Chetnik organization ^[31] . Yevdjevic appealed to the Italians to occupy the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to put an end to Ustash rule and announced that 80% of the population consisting of Serbs and Bosnian Muslims would support this idea. At the same time, he demanded from Germany to grant autonomy to Bosnia and Herzegovina until the end of the war, arguing that Muslims are “trusted friends of Germans in the past and present”. He tried to recruit Muslims, taking advantage of their desire to expand autonomy and trying to get support from above. But all his requests remained unanswered ^[28] .

Operation Alpha

At the end of August 1942, Mikhailovich handed directives to all the troops of the Chetniks (including Yevdzhevich) with a call to prepare for an operation against partisans with the participation of the troops of Italy and Croatia ^[32] . In September 1942, the Chetniks realized that they could not cope with the partisans alone, and called on the Italians to support the operation against the partisans in western Bosnia. On September 10 and 21, Elijah Trifunovic-Birchanin met with Mario Roatt and persuaded him to support the operation in order to dislodge the partisans from the Prozor-Rama - Livno zone, and also offered 7,500 of his men as an aid in exchange for their full supply, receiving in exchange for guarantees of participation Italy in the operation and a certain number of weapons ^[33] . Ante Pavelic and the overly cautious Italian command spoke out against the operation, but after the promise of Evcevic and Trifunovic-Birchanin to cooperate with the Croatian Ustashes and the Bosnian Muslims, the matter shifted from the dead center ^[34] .

In early October 1942, Eudzhevich and Bachovich with 3 thousand Chetniks from Herzegovina and southeastern Bosnia took part in the Italian operation, codenamed Alpha ^[33] . During the operation, it was planned to surround the area of ​​Prozor: the Germans and Croats came from the north, the Italians and Chetniks from the Neretva River ^[35] . The city of Prozor and numerous villages were taken by the Chetniks and Italians, but individual groups of the Chetniks set about looting and burned a number of Muslim and Catholic villages: from their hands were killed from 543 to 2500 people ^{[33] [35] [36] [37]} . In frenzy, the NGH government ordered the operation stopped. Part of the troops dispersed, others went to the north of Dalmatia to Momchilo Juic ^[33] . A month after the failed operation, Evdzhevich and Bachovich wrote an explanatory Dragee to Mikhailovich, trying to prove that they were not involved in vandalism and robbery ^[37] .

Operation Weiss

In November 1942, at a meeting with Roatta, Eudzhevich asked the Italians to recognize another 3,000 Chetniks as allies and declare almost all of Eastern Herzegovina the area of ​​responsibility of Chetniks, promising not to attack civilians from Croats and Bosnian Muslims, and also to accept an Italian adjutant in each unit, in terms of numbers and power equivalent to an infantry regiment. On November 15, Eudzhevich also agreed to support the Italian initiative to create anti-partisan Muslim groups. For this, he almost paid his head when several Chetniks almost attacked him in Mostar , who opposed the creation of such detachments from Croats and Bosnian Muslims ^[38] .

By the end of 1942, the cooperation of the Chetniks and the Italians remained only on paper ^[21] . The troops of the Chetniks participated in the preparation for Operation Weiss, a large-scale anti-partisan offensive, which was to begin on January 20, 1943. On January 3, Eudzhevich took part in a meeting in Rome with the participation of the German, Italian and Croatian command ^[39] . The plans included the use of 12 thousand Chetniks under the command of Evcevic ^[40] . On February 23, Evdzhevich agreed with the Germans that they would not cross the Neretva and that contact between the Chetniks and the Germans would be stopped in every way ^[41] . In the early stages of the operation, Evdzhevich also agreed with the command of the NGH in Mostar on mutual assistance ^[42] . During the operation through the Italians, Evdzhevich turned for help to the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division, Prince Eugen, in order to protect Nevesinje from the advancing partisans who had broken through the Chetnik lines of defense. However, the Germans refused, citing the employment of the division ^[43] .

In February 1943, after the illness, Ilya Trifunovic-Birchanin died. Yevdzhevich, along with Momchilo Djuich, Petar Bachovich and Radovan Ivanishevich, called on the Italians to continue the close cooperation they had begun with Trifunovic-Birchanin in the fight against partisans. The Italians could also exert pressure on Yevdjevic, since his brother and fiance were interned in Italy ^[44] . Mikhailovich soon took part in the fact that Yevdjevic exceeded his authority by attending a meeting in Rome before the operation — while the Yugoslav Government in exile awarded Yevjevic with the Order of the Karageorgiy Star for protecting the Serbian population from the Ustash massacre in 1941, Mihailovic opposed this initiative because of the Yudzhevich’s inclination to cooperate with the Italians, although there is a version that he knew that the Chetniks cut down the Catholic and Muslim population of Herzegovina as a sign of revenge for the murder of Orthodox Ustashi in Khor vatiy ^[45] . Relations between Mikhailovich and Yevdzhevich were heated to the limit, and Drazha Mikhailovich threatened to “pull him up on the nearest tree” ^[46] . In March, Yevdjevic called for an end to the killing of Croats in Herzegovina ^[47] , and in May, Benito Mussolini , succumbing to German pressure, ordered the Italians to disarm all Chetniks troops. Evdzhevicha put under house arrest ^[48] .

A month later, Mikhailovich sent Yevjevic to Slovenia to talk about the situation to the local Chetniks ^[2] . Evdzhevich established contact with the German command after the capitulation of Italy ^[49] . On September 3, he traveled to Rome via Rijeka and contacted German intelligence ^[2] , starting his collaboration with the Germans ^[50] . After the Germans occupied the NGH, which was previously occupied by the Italians, Eudzhevich went to Trieste , where he remained at the Continental Hotel ^[1] . From there, he helped the disparate groups of the Chetniks and organized for them the transition to the city of Opatija ^[2] . Until January 1944, he was in Trieste ^[1] until he moved to Opatija with the Chetniks from Trieste and went to Ilirsku Bistrita ^[2] , continuing to cooperate with the Germans until the end of the war ^[50] .

Retreat

In December 1944, the 3,000 soldiers remaining under Yudžević’s control ^[51] joined the Chetniks of Momčilo Djuich and the Serbian SS Volunteer Corps, Dimitrie Lötić , as well as the remnants of the Serbian state guard Milan Nedić commanded by the head of the Adriatic coastal operations zone Obergrudenführer SS and General Odilo Globochnik ^[52] . However, Evdzhevich's Chetniks tried to establish contact with the Western allies in Italy in order to secure help for the restoration of the monarchy in Yugoslavia and the expulsion of the Communists ^[53] . They were blessed by the Orthodox Bishop of Ohrid and Nikolai Ziczky on arrival in Slovenia ^{[54] [55]} . On April 11, 1945, the Chetnik Yevdzhevich detachment and three more regiments of the Serbian Volunteer Corps went to the south-west of Croatia to establish contact with the Montenegrin Volunteer Corps Pavle Djurisic , who was going through Bosnia to Slovenia. However, they came too late: the Montenegrin corps was already defeated by the Ustashes in the battle of Lievce-Pole , and Djurisic was captured and killed. The remnants went north to Slovenia and after the fighting against the partisans left for Austria. Many of them were extradited by the Allies and deported to Yugoslavia, where almost all were executed by the court of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ^[52] . Evdzhevich retained his influence among the Chetniks until the end of the war ^[8] .

Exemption

In the spring of 1945, Eudzhevich flew to Italy, where he was arrested by the Allies and sent to prison in Grottaglie ^[56] . Another 10 thousand Chetniks arrived in Italy and Momchilo Juich personally ^[1] . In the same cell, Yevdzhevich was held with the former Ustash commander of Banja Luka, Viktor Gutich ^[56] . During this time, the Yugoslav communist authorities have already begun a lawsuit in Sarajevo: they accused Evcevic that in the first half of October 1942, in the Prozor area, he, along with the Chetniks and Italians, killed 1,716 people - Croats and Muslims - of both sexes, and also plundered and burned 500 homes ^[37] . Yevdjevic retained the support of the Allies in Italy, although the British were wanted by the fact that these allegations seemed plausible to them ^[1] . Formally it was believed that the Chetniks were surrendered enemy soldiers who had become prisoners of war, but they were not pursued by their allies for their anti-German convictions: they were sympathetic to Chetniks. Many of the Chetniks were given a British army uniform and allowed to carry military service in Italy, including the protection of ammunition depots ^[57] . In August 1945, Eudzhevich led the camp of the disarmed Chetniks in Cesena ^[1] , and soon was completely released. Yugoslavia’s Yevdzhevich’s deportation requirements were ignored ^[37] .

Information gathering

According to the documents of the CIA , Evdzhevich lived in Rome, having with him documents in the names of "Giovanni Saint-Angelo" ^[1] and "Enrico Serrao" ^[4] . He spent most of his time and money on constant disputes and swearing with Yugoslav emigration, trying to justify his cooperation with the Italians by protecting the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina from partisans, Germans and Ustashes ^[1] . He joined the Association of Free Journalists of Central and Eastern Europe, became an informant for Italian intelligence in 1946-1947, and began publishing the Royal Yugoslav Intelligence Bulletin, which he shared with the Italians. His other works include articles in a number of newspapers and magazines, including the Srbobran newspaper of the Serbian nationalists, and since 1946 in the Srpske Noviné panserbic and anti-Croat newspaper in Eboli, with the permission of Aquilla Marazza. In the same year of 1946, Evdzhevich established the Serbian National Committee in Rome, he also established contact with the Italian neo-fascists and the anti-communist group “Committee of the peoples oppressed by Russia” ^[4] .

In mid-1947, another quarrel broke out between Dobroslav Yevdzhevich, Momchilo Djuich and General Miodrag Damyanovich about who should have headed 10 thousand runaway Chetniks ^[1] . In March 1945, Damyanovich was appointed Mikhailovich as commander of troops who were to go to northwestern Italy ^[58] . Evdzhevich and Dzhuich opposed this, calling themselves the only successors of Mihailovic ^[1] .

By 1949, the CIA announced that the intelligence material collected by Yudjevichem was used by the Italian Interior Ministry , the US Counterintelligence Corps , the British Judicial Scientific Service in Trieste, and the French special services in Rome and Paris. Among the sources of information were Momchilo Juic, who distributed his reports to the CIA; Konstantin Fotić , former ambassador of Yugoslavia to the USA; and Miro Didek , Croatian politician and one of the followers of the intelligentsia, Vladko Macheka . The reports were collected on the basis of evidence from refugees from Yugoslavia, who arrived in Italy through Trieste and as part of immigrant groups in Italy and Greece. In 1949, Eudzhevich claimed that he had created a large network of anti-communist propaganda that operated in Italy, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. The CIA was skeptical of such statements, considering them even fiction ^[4] . In 1951, Eudzhevich began to publish again brochures and leaflets in support of the Chetniks, who began to regularly go to the USA, Canada, Australia and European countries to the Serbian communities where fugitive Chetniks lived ^[1] .

In May and June 1952, Yevdjevic visited Canada and spoke before a meeting of the Serbian national defense in Niagara Falls , telling about the successes of the Serbian community in Italy and its cooperation with the Italian authorities. A year later, in Chicago, he and Dzhuic made a statement that Miodrag Damjanovic, who had fled to Germany, had to be eliminated, but soon Yevdjevic began receiving letters with threats and demands not to touch Damjanovic, otherwise Serbian emigration would again be split. Since 1953, its traces are almost completely lost ^[1] , but it is known for certain that on October 2, 1962, Evcevich died in Rome ^[56] .

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