Mihailovich's Second Front

First nation to re-establish headquarters on the Continent to fight the Axis, Yugoslavia last week transferred its army high command from Cairo back to the homeland and made hawk-beaked, fabulous General Draja Mihailovich chief of staff. Because some of his most effective support comes from Communist partisans, who were probably better organized among Slavic peoples than any others in Europe, it was a good guess that General Mihailovich's appointment had the assent of the U.S.S.R. Like most other Serbs, Mihailovich had been pro-Russian in the long-standing Balkan struggle between Teuton and Slav.

Now his forces number somewhere near 200,000, spread through most of Serbia, Montenegro and part of Croatia--an island surrounded by the hostile forces of Germany, Italy and their satellites. For months at a time little is heard from Yugoslavia's private second front, and this arouses fear that resistance is ending. But last week reports from southeast Europe told of widened Yugoslav operations that spread even across the Croat frontier into Italy. South of Zagreb fighting was in progress for two communications centers, while in Serbia Mihailovich's forces had repulsed an onslaught by one German, one Bulgarian and two or three Italian divisions, far outnumbering the Yugoslav patriots.

The raids into Italy, hitting in the vicinity of Fiume and Trieste, were part of guerrilla operations that constantly harass Axis communication and supply lines, keep the Italians in jittery jeopardy. Russian reports said that several railway stations had been captured by General Mihailovich's Yugoslavs from German-Italian forces; they claimed that 39 locomotives and quantities of rolling stock had been destroyed.

Mihailovich and his hardy warriors have faced not only huge odds, but also staggering tool and supply problems. Most of their arms were Yugoslav army equipment hauled hastily into the mountains before the Germans advanced beyond Belgrade. Since then a little materiel has been dropped by parachute to Mihailovich, and some smuggled into Serbia from dissident elements in the Hungarian army.

(A United Press dispatch from Turkey reported that 300 Hungarian officers had been arrested last week for aiding Yugoslav, Polish and Russian guerrillas.) Mostly, however, the Yugoslavs fight with the same inferior weapons they had when the struggle started 16 months ago. But they fight an unflaggingly bitter war, as witness this tribute from the Italian press: "Italian troops are faced with terrible suffering in this fight against an irreconcilable foe, against a hostile population, in a country where death lurks behind every rock."

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