British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War

British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War

STUDffiS IN RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN IDSTORY Phyllis Auty and Richard Clogg (editors) British Policy towards Wartime Resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece Elisabeth Barker British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War Richard Clogg (editor) The Movement for Greek Independence, 177o-1821 Olga Crisp Studies in the Russian Economy before 1914 D. G. Kirby (editor) Finland and Russia, 18o8-1920: Documents Martin McCauley (editor) The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State, 1917-1921: Documents Further titles in preparation

British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War ELISABETH BARKER

ISBN 978-1-349-02198-7 ISBN 978-1-349-02196-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02196-3 Elisabeth Barker 1976 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1976 978-0-333-15994-1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1976 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New Tork Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 15994 2 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement

Contents Foreword Vll PART ONE: A FOOTHOLD WON AND LOST The Eve of War 2 Salonika Front or Balkan Bloc? 3 Britain, Russia and South-East Europe, I939-4I 4 Economic War, Sabotage and Subversion, I939-4I 5 Albania, I939-4I: the Revolt That Never Happened 6 Bulgaria, I939-4I: No Key for Britain 7 Hungary, I939-4I: a Corridor, Not a Base? 8 Rumania, I939-4I: Maniu or Nothing? 9 Yugoslavia: Prince Paul or a Coup? IO The Balkan Campaign, I94I 3 II 20 28 47 55 62 7I 78 96 PART TWO: UNWILLING AL LIES AND RELUCTANT ENEMIES I I South-East Europe in British War Strategy, I94I-5 III I2 Britain, Russia and South-East Europe, I94I-5 I26 I3 Britain and the Resistance Movements of Yugoslavia and Greece, 194I-5 I48 I4 Albania: Britain and the Resistance 173 I5 The British, the Balkan Communists and Macedonia 184 16 Britain and the Reluctant Satellites, I941-5 204 I7 Britain and Bulgaria, 194I-4 2I2 I8 Britain and Rumania, I94I-4 223 I9 Britain and Hungary, I94I-4 244 20 Pos~cript 266 Notes 269 Select Bibliography 307 Index 3IO

Foreword First, what this book is not. It is not a history of South-East Europe in the Second World War. Nor is it even a comprehensive record of British policies (or lack of policy) in the area; space does not permit. It aims rather to provide the essential materials and pointers for an understanding of British dealings with South-East Europe. Even then, for the period after April I94I, it gives a good deal less space to Greece and Yugoslavia than their importance to Britain would merit. This is because so much has already been written, in the way of authoritative first-hand records, about British relations with these two countries; so this book merely tries to set out the broad lines of the story, as far as possible on a comparative basis, adding here and there fresh material when it offered itself. Proportionately more space has been given to the countries about which less has already been written - Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Albania. Turkey only comes into the story in so far as its policy directly influenced British relations with the area. Why South-East Europe? The area was treated as a convenient and in some ways logical unit of concern by the British Middle East and Mediterranean Commands, by the Special Operations Executive, and by the Political Warfare Executive. In the Foreign Office, Hungary belonged to the Central Department and the other countries to the Southern Department, but efforts were fairly often made to look at the area as a whole, for instance when British representatives from South East Europe were summoned to London in April I 94 I. My main sources have been the official documents now available in the Public Record Office. They reveal a great deal even though some documents- how many, and how important, it is hard to tell- are still withheld. The volume is enormous and I am grateful to the staff of the P.R.O. for the help they gave me when I got hopelessly lost. Extracts are published by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. Maps 2-5 and 7--g, from J. F. Horrabin's Atlas History of the Second World War (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, I946), are republished by permission. I have tried to round out this source with the first-hand records of those who took part in events, whether British or non-british, but I make no claim to have read them all, and I have not attempted a serious study of German documents since that seemed outside my brief. But I have made a particular effort to find indications of the attitude

V1ll Foreword and actions of the Communist parties of South-East Europe, in so far as these were relevant to Britain. Where I have been especially lucky is in the extremely generous help given by individuals who played some part in events. In my 'note on sources' (page 26g), I have particularly mentioned George Taylor, Bickham Sweet-Escott, lvor Porter, Lazl6 Veress and Professor W. J. M. Mackenzie, and to them I am particularly grateful. Among others whom I should like to thank for information or pointers to the interpretation of events are Sir Fitzroy Maclean, the Hon. C. M. Woodhouse, Sir Alexander Glen, Colonel W. S. Bailey (now, to my sorrow, dead), Sir John Henniker-Major, Sir Eric Berthoud, Dr C. A. Macartney, General Veress de Dalnok and Sir Frank Roberts. Bojan Dimitrov of the Macedonian Ministry of Information in Skopje gave me useful books and documentation on the Macedonian question, and I should like to thank him; so, too, Sir William Deakin for encouraging me to undertake the book and Krsto Cviic for keeping up my spirits while I was writing it and lending me important books which I could not get otherwise. Finally, a word of self-defence. It may be said that it is irrelevant or unfair to quote the bad-tempered or despairing outbursts or scrawls of exhausted and overburdened ministers or senior officials as valid historical evidence. It seems to me that they can reveal more about the way in which courses of action (or inaction) were actually adopted (or drifted into) than the formal policy papers, often composed after the event to justify (or throw a decent veil over) actions already taken or at least begun, for the benefit of Cabinet colleagues or Allied governments.