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According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Lucien Karchmar's Draza Mihailovic and the Rise of the Cetnik Movement, 1941–1942 is the best scholarly work in Serbia's Part in World War II. I quote part of the conclusion in this work:
- "Certainly, Mihajlović did approach the Germans in November 1941 and offer cooperation against the Communists. He was in a desperate situation surrounded, attacked on both sides by foreign and domestic foes, and short of ammunition. In precisely the same situation, on March 11, 1943, during the battle of the Neretva, the Partisans did exactly the same thing: they sent emissaries to the Germans and offered cooperation against the Četniks. Like Mihajlović, they were rejected.
- Certainly,Mihajlović's forces attacked the Partisans alongside Axis troops during German and Italian offensives. In April 1942, the East Bosnian Četniks under attack by the Ustaša Black Legion, were also assaulted by the Partisans. To the astonishment of the Germans, Communists and Ustaše ignored each other as they concentrated on liquidating the Četniks. If fighting alongside fascists makes for treason, where does that leave the First Proletarian Brigade?
- Certainly, the nationalists negotiated truces with the enemy, which left the former the hills and villages, and the latter, the cities and the communication lines. In 1944, the Slovenian Partisans engaged in long negotiations with Germans to obtain just such an agreement. They were ultimately turned down. But the refusal was German, not Partisan. The conclusion is that it ill behooves the present masters of Jugoslavia to fling charges of treason at Mihajlović. What he tried or did, they also attempted, and for the same reason: expediency, and the desire to scotch the domestic enemy. The actual events prove only that the Partisans were less acceptable as partners to the Axis; not that they were morally purer.
- Nor are Western morals necessarly better. The British government justified its Jugoslav policy in 1944-45, by airing charges of collaboration against Mihajlović. When the Channel Islands were liberated in 1945, the British had a chance to demonstrate their moral purity, for there were some ugly accusations of collaboration. Yet no one was hanged, and official silence soon covered the whole affair.
- Treason, it has been said, is a matter of dates. Who remembers today the Channel Islands affair, or the fate of Dangić's Četniks? Had Mihajlović survived and won, the Nedićite connections or the antics of Jevdjevic would be equally buried in obscure histories. Was he a traitor? By the standard of a saint, perhaps yes, as well as everyone else in Jugoslavia; by the standards of his friends and enemies, hardly."
