WI Operation Rösselsprung in 1944 is successful at killing Tito?

[raharris1973]

Operation Rösselsprung (1944) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Operation Rösselsprung (German: Unternehmen Rösselsprung, lit. 'Knight's move') was a combined airborne and ground assault by the German XV Mountain Corps and collaborationistforces on the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans in the Bosnian town of Drvar in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. It was launched 25 May 1944, with the goal of capturing or killing Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito and destroying the headquarters, support facilities and co-located Allied military missions.

If it succeeded in killing Tito, how does it change political timelines and outcomes in Yugoslavia related to the Partisans political triumphs over collaborators, Royalists and Chetniks, Yugoslav, presumably Communist, policy toward Greece and Trieste, and Soviet-Yugoslavia relations?

Presuming a Communist Yugoslavia, would Stalin get irritated with its leaders and mandate a change in leadership for them? Would they be able to resist without Tito? If there is no Soviet-Yugoslav tension, or if the USSR "disciplines" Yugoslavia easily, getting it to do its bidding and oust leaders Moscow disapproves of, what knock on effects does this have for relations with other Communist leaders and Parties throughout the globe, like China's Party and the West European parties?

 

[Canuck Wingnut]

If Rosselsprung is successful, presumably the British mission coordinating with Tito is also wiped out. Western Allied cooperation with the Yugoslav resistance is presumably significantly weakened, and the OSS officers pushing for support for the Chetniks get another chance to push for a non-communist postwar Yugoslavia. This in turn probably prevents anything quite like Operation Ratweek (which required tight cooperation between the RAF, the SBS, and the Partisans), with follow-on effects for how Yugoslavia is eventually liberated and how deeply into Yugoslavia Soviet troops are deployed. Not to mention any effects on the end of the war if the Germans successfully evacuate more of their forces out of the Balkans, though the advancing Red Army would, I suppose, act as something of an enormous butterfly net.

It's worth noting that Stalin opposed Tito's pursuit of Yugoslav claims to Italian territory around Trieste in 1945 OTL, and that earlier tensions between Tito (and other senior Yugoslav communists) and Stalin over strategy during the war had been papered over largely by the limited contact necessitated by guerilla operations. Even without earlier tensions, a postwar communist Yugoslavia without Tito still likely has a relatively greater sense of independence from the Soviet Union than countries entirely occupied by Soviet troops, so political disagreement with Stalin is highly likely. The question of whether Stalin could then successfully meddle in and change the leadership of Yugoslavia is an interesting one. There were certainly senior Yugoslav communist officials who strongly supported Stalin during the OTL Soviet-Yugoslav split; but on the other hand, the Balkan's reputation of cultural resistance to outside control is well-earned- Tito may have deliberately engineered a public confrontation with Stalin specifically to shore up his domestic reputation, depending on who you believe.

(In general, the Yugo-Soviet split has so many different claims made about what was "really" going on behind the scenes that its very difficult to sort out the truth about the various actors motivations. My personal favorite in Milan Djilas' account, where he claims that everyone else has things entirely backwards, Stalin was planning to pull support from ELAS, and Tito was initially confronting Stalin to support them.)

It is difficult to predict who would replace Tito, between the number of senior Partisan officials presumably killed or captured with him, and the communications, political, and personal difficulties any successor would have asserting control over the Partisan movement during the chaotic conditions of 1944. It's also difficult to predict what policies such a successor would pursue- most senior postwar communist Yugoslav officials actions being only a partial guide to their beliefs, since they were after all operating as members of a communist dictatorship strongly controlled by one man- Tito himself. So it's difficult to predict what effects such a different Yugoslavia would have.

 

[Seandineen]

The survival of King Peter, could lead to greater support for monarchs, who are not figure heads but non absolute.

 

[raharris1973]

My personal favorite in Milan Djilas' account, where he claims that everyone else has things entirely backwards, Stalin was planning to pull support from ELAS, and Tito was initially confronting Stalin to support them.

Is this from Milovan Djilas' "Conversations with Stalin"?

I remember an extended quote from there where Stalin voiced skepticism about the Greek Communists ever being able to win, given the importance of Greece to the British and Americans. I think as part of it there was some comparison made with China, and Stalin admitted he was (wrongly) overcautious about Chinese Communists prospects right after the war, and they turned out to be winning which was good. To me, in a book that was possibly intended to badmouth Stalin, who was a horrible murderous tyrant, it actually humanized him a little.

But who is this "everyone else" who believes that Stalin was supporting ELAS, and Tito did not want to and was pulling support? So that the opposite view would be "backwards". I almost never heard or read this. I only once heard the Communist positions on the Greek Civil War interpreted this way, in a lecture by Howard Morley Sachar over 30 years, no corroboration ever since, from any source, not in writing, not in any type of program. I always hear it/read it that Tito post-WWII was more enthusiastic post-WWII for ELAS......although, yes, *after* Tito was publicly expelled from the COMINFORM, and became aware Stalin was backing assassination attempts against him, started to fear an invasion threat, and yes, made out reach to the Americans and accepted their aid, yes then he did close the Yugoslav border off to ELAS.

 

[Canuck Wingnut]

Is this from Milovan Djilas' "Conversations with Stalin"?


I always hear it/read it that Tito post-WWII was more enthusiastic post-WWII for ELAS......although, yes, *after* Tito was publicly expelled from the COMINFORM, and became aware Stalin was backing assassination attempts against him, started to fear an invasion threat, and yes, made out reach to the Americans and accepted their aid, yes then he did close the Yugoslav border off to ELAS.

This is indeed from Djilas' "Conversations with Stalin".

Given the Bled Agreement included (Greek-claimed) Macedonia inside its proposed Yugoslav-Bulgar federation, Tito's support for ELAS is hard to classify as "enthusiastic". (Of course, Stalin was also less than enthusiastic about supporting the Greek communists- ELAS must have felt very lonely by '49)

 

[raharris1973]

This is indeed from Djilas' "Conversations with Stalin".

Given the Bled Agreement included (Greek-claimed) Macedonia inside its proposed Yugoslav-Bulgar federation, Tito's support for ELAS is hard to classify as "enthusiastic". (Of course, Stalin was also less than enthusiastic about supporting the Greek communists- ELAS must have felt very lonely by '49)

His support for Greek nationalism wasn't enthusiastic, but ELAS, while containing nationalistic and patriotic Greeks, was less nationally chauvinistic and more welcoming of linguistic minorities than pretty much any other parties in the Greek political spectrum.

Anyway, my questions was where you hear/read, or how you formulated this

everyone else has things entirely backwards,

impression.

I mean, I recall Djilas relating what Stalin said, but I do not remember Djilas saying anything about what "everybody else" thought. Or who "everybody else" was saying that Stalin had some viewpoint different from what he had Stalin say.

 

[Canuck Wingnut]

Anyway, my questions was where you hear/read, or how you formulated this
impression.

At the time Djilas was writing (in the 1960s) the conventional view was that the Soviets had both instigated and supported the Greek communists, and that the Yugoslavs had initiated the split with Stalin, in the knowledge that this would cut off aid to the DSE, partially thanks to the Greek Communist Party's official restatement of its position on nationhood for Macedonia, which was not the same as (though not as incompatible as it is sometimes portrayed) that of Yugoslavia.

John Iatrides, in his article on communist strategy in the Greek Civil War, lays this out and cites a variety of authors from the time, including big names like Dean Acheson and Bruce Kunilholm.

Of course, later revisionists disagree with this interpretation and view things as the other way around, in agreement with Djilas. Post-revisionist scholars are harder to pin down as a group, so I'll avoid too-hasty generalizations. Still, Djilas was definitely pushing against the dominant viewpoint in his time, in both the West and Russia (though not, of course, Yugoslavia itself).

 

[raharris1973]

At the time Djilas was writing (in the 1960s) the conventional view was that the Soviets had both instigated and supported the Greek communists, and that the Yugoslavs had initiated the split with Stalin, in the knowledge that this would cut off aid to the DSE, partially thanks to the Greek Communist Party's official restatement of its position on nationhood for Macedonia, which was not the same as (though not as incompatible as it is sometimes portrayed) that of Yugoslavia.

John Iatrides, in his article on communist strategy in the Greek Civil War, lays this out and cites a variety of authors from the time, including big names like Dean Acheson and Bruce Kunilholm.

Of course, later revisionists disagree with this interpretation and view things as the other way around, in agreement with Djilas. Post-revisionist scholars are harder to pin down as a group, so I'll avoid too-hasty generalizations. Still, Djilas was definitely pushing against the dominant viewpoint in his time, in both the West and Russia (though not, of course, Yugoslavia itself).

Thank you for the historiographical tour, I obviously didn't read the scholarship in exactly the order it was written. Though, in a way, although a child of the 80s and collegiate of the 90s, I "sort of" received it that way, with that one undergrad lecture by Sachar matching what you say was "standard" in the 60s, only to be overturned one or two years later when, still an undergrad, I took a grad-level Soviet Communism seminar, and had Djilas as a reading. So that's the "traditional" order I encountered things in classwork that ventured a specific opinion, I may have seen the more revisionist review in side-reading a little earlier, or not.

 

[Canuck Wingnut]

Thank you for the historiographical tour, I obviously didn't read the scholarship in exactly the order it was written. Though, in a way, although a child of the 80s and collegiate of the 90s, I "sort of" received it that way, with that one undergrad lecture by Sachar matching what you say was "standard" in the 60s, only to be overturned one or two years later when, still an undergrad, I took a grad-level Soviet Communism seminar, and had Djilas as a reading. So that's the "traditional" order I encountered things in classwork that ventured a specific opinion, I may have seen the more revisionist review in side-reading a little earlier, or not.

It's only natural- we all learn history in our own time, and frankly the earlier period where Stalin was viewed as plotting the Greek Civil War, the Korean War, and a wide variety of other conflicts as part of a complicated plot to overthrow capitalism and conquer the world ended up being embarrassingly wrong once more information was available. That said, Yugoslavia's involvement in the Greek Civil War is a good example of a conflict that can remind historians how our earlier predecessors held the beliefs they did- reliable information is scarce, everyone who wrote about it had an agenda (at least in terms of primary sources) and even now its hard to determine what was a planned-for intentional effect and what was a completely unexpected surprise to the leadership on all sides- Soviet, Yugoslav, Greek (communist or royalist), American... the Balkans in the late 1940s were a very complicated place! (As the Balkans tend to be, in any time period.)