The negotiations and the resulting agreements were supported and promoted by the World War IIAllies, especially the United Kingdom. The British saw the process as an opportunity to influence the formation of the post-war regime in Yugoslavia, which would otherwise be left entirely to Tito and, presumably, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which had spearheaded the Partisan resistance to the Axis occupation of the country. Tito saw the process as an opportunity to gain international diplomatic recognition of his power.
The Vis Agreement (Serbo-Croatian: Viški sporazum) was the initial document in the process; it was concluded on the island of Vis in June 1944. The central agreement in the series was initialled on 1 November 1944 in Belgrade, but its implementation was delayed by the need to resolve a dispute – between Tito, Šubašić, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia – regarding appointments to a regency council. The process was concluded on 7 March 1945 with the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Tito thus became the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia.
In April 1941, the Axis powers invaded and soon occupied Yugoslavia. When a Yugoslav defeat seemed imminent, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) instructed its 8,000 members to stockpile weapons in anticipation of armed resistance.[1] By the end of 1941, armed resistance had spread to all areas of the country except Macedonia.[2] Building on its experience with clandestine operations across the country, the KPJ proceeded to organise the Yugoslav Partisans,[3] as resistance fighters, led by Josip Broz Tito.[4] The KPJ assessed that the German invasion of the Soviet Union had created favourable conditions for an uprising. On 27 June 1941, in response, the KPJ politburo founded the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, with Tito as commander-in-chief.[5]
On 3 June, Tito was evacuated to Bari, after his headquarters in Drvar were overrun in consequence of a German airborne landing in late May 1944. Shortly afterwards, he was transported by destroyerHMS Blackmore to the island of Vis. By 9 June, British and Soviet missions had been established on the island.[10]
Vis Agreement
HMS Blackmore transported Tito to Vis to meet with Šubašić.
On 12 April 1944, British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill began pressuring Peter II to appoint a former governor of the Banovina of Croatia, Ivan Šubašić, to the position of prime minister of the government-in-exile. Peter II complied on 1 June, and Šubašić accepted the position, returning from the United States where he had been living since 1941. Šubašić met with Tito on the Island of Vis two weeks later.[11] Similarly, Churchill sent a letter to Tito ahead of the meeting, stating the importance the British government placed on a future agreement between him and the government-in-exile.[12]
The meeting produced the Vis Agreement, which declared that it was the will of the signatories to form a coalition government, but that the system of government in Yugoslavia would only be decided on once the war was over. Furthermore, Šubašić accepted the decisions made by the AVNOJ in November 1943, and he recognised the legitimacy of bodies established by the AVNOJ.[11] The question of retaining or abolishing the Yugoslav monarchy was left for after the war.[12] The agreement was signed on 16 June. At the time, Tito said that he was primarily concerned about the liberation of the country – and claimed that the establishment of a communist regime was not a major aim.[13]
Churchill deemed that Tito was not doing enough in return for British support, particularly citing British protection of the Yugoslav island of Vis. His discontent was echoed by the British Foreign Office. The situation led to a meeting between Churchill and Tito in Naples on 12 August. There, Churchill presented Tito with a British request that Tito publicly renounce any possibility of resorting to armed force to influence the adoption of a political system in post-war Yugoslavia. Churchill also wanted Tito to declare that he was not pursuing the establishment of a Communist regime after the war. Tito evaded these issues in the meeting.[14]
A month later, on 12 September, Peter II broadcast a proclamation that called upon national unity and allegiance to Tito.[11] On 18 September, Tito met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow and secured the promise of Red Army help in the upcoming Belgrade Offensive, as well as its departure shortly afterwards. Most significantly, the meeting signified Soviet recognition of Tito’s authority in Yugoslavia. The British realised that Soviet forces would enter Yugoslavia, which would limit British influence. During the Fourth Moscow Conference, in an attempt at mitigation, Churchill sought to limit Soviet influence in Yugoslavia through the Percentages Agreement.[15]
Shortly afterward, Šubašić returned to Yugoslavia, arriving at Tito’s headquarters in Vršac on 23 October 1944. As the two were scheduled to resume their talks on post-war government, both were sent a joint message from the British and Soviet foreign ministers – Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov – expressing hope that the talks would result in the establishment of a coalition government.[16] Tito and Šubašić resumed talks on 28 October. On 1 November, British and Soviet mission chiefs were asked to attend the initialling of the draft agreement as witnesses.[16]
In the new agreement, the parties spelled out a detailed plan for a coalition government as envisaged on Vis earlier that year. The agreement initially specified that the new government would have 18 members – 12 drawn from the ranks of the NKOJ and 6 from the government-in-exile. Tito was to be the prime minister, while Šubašić would be his deputy and the foreign minister.[11] The new government would call an election to decide the country's system of governance. In the meantime, Yugoslavia would theoretically remain a monarchy. Peter II would be the titular head of the country, but he would remain abroad. In his stead, the agreement provided for a council of three regents to represent the king in Yugoslavia, although it was also decided that the agreement would only be signed with the king's approval.[17]
Since Tito’s position was backed by a substantial Partisan force in the country, and Šubašić had no such power to press for a different agenda, the regency is interpreted as a concession by Tito to the government-in-exile, designed to promote good will among the Western Allies.[11] The agreement also determined that, once the war was over, the new government would issue a declaration supporting democratic liberties and personal freedoms, including the free practise of religion and a free press. However, Tito had started to publicly change his position by January 1945.[18]
British diplomats pointed out that the proposed government would actually have 28 voting members (with an additional 10 drawn from the NKOJ) and that half of Šubašić's contingent in the new government supported Tito – giving Tito a 25 to 3 edge. Furthermore, Šubašić went to Moscow on 20 November to seek Stalin's support for the agreement before returning to London. This course of action led Peter II to consider sacking Šubašić, and only Churchill's intervention dissuaded him.[19]
On 7 December, Tito and Šubašić signed two additional agreements dealing with the election of a constituent assembly, the disposition of the property of Peter II, and the regency council. In a meeting held that day, the head of British mission to Yugoslavia Fitzroy Maclean told Tito that the British would only consider diplomatic recognition of his authority if he and Šubašić successfully formed a coalition government.[20]
In a meeting with Churchill and Eden on 21 December,[21] and in his letters to the British Prime Minister of 29 December 1944 and 4 January 1945, Peter II rejected the proposed regency as unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Churchill pressed the king to accept all decisions of the future Yugoslav government regarding the regency. Regardless, on 11 January the king formally objected to the regency and the AVNOJ having legislative powers, and rejected the Tito-Šubašić Agreement. On 22 January, the king sacked Šubašić for concluding the agreement without consulting him on the matter.[22]
In response, the British sought, and received, United States support for Šubašić to proceed, over the king's objections, with implementation of the agreement with Tito, who was informed of, and accepted, such a proceeding. The British may have been motivated by fear that the USSR might unilaterally recognise the NKOJ as the Yugoslav government.[23] In the period of 25–29 January, Peter II retracted his dismissal of Šubašić after negotiating with him and agreeing that the government-in-exile would resign and Šubašić would be re-appointed with the task of furthering the king's views on his right to appoint the regency.[24]
As the Šubašić-led government was scheduled to return to Belgrade on 7 February, the king proposed a regency consisting of army general and former prime minister Dušan Simović, Juraj Šutej (a Croat in Šubašić’s government), and Dušan Sernec (a Slovene member of the NKOJ). On 5 February, Tito refused to accept Šutej and proposed Ante Mandić (a Croat member of the AVNOJ) instead. The next day, Šubašić opposed Simović’s appointment, citing his decision to surrender to the Axis powers in 1941 without consulting other government ministers. Instead, he proposed to appoint Sreten Vukosavljević, who was a member of his government in the period after the Vis Agreement. The dispute led to a delay in relocating the government.[25]
The Tito–Šubašić agreement was discussed and supported at the Yalta Conference, which issued a communique calling for implementation of the agreement, expansion of the AVNOJ to include members of old Yugoslav parliament who did not collaborate with the Axis powers, and submission of acts of the AVNOJ to ratification by an elected constituent assembly.[26] The Yalta communique was relayed to Tito by Maclean, and Tito accepted it in full. Peter II and Šubašić accepted the communique on 12 February. The king replaced Simović's regency nomination of Vukosavljević with that of Milan Grol, while persisting in nominating Šutej to the council. Tito rejected both appointments.[27]
On 26 February, Tito and Šubašić concluded a further agreement specifying Srnec and Mandić as Slovene and Croat members of the regency council and providing a list of four potential Serb members of the regency for the king to choose from. The king was informed that he had until the end of the week to comply, otherwise his consent would be presumed. Peter II complied and selected Srđan Budisavljević (a former minister in the government-in-exile). The king presented his decision to the president of the AVNOJ, Ivan Ribar, in London on 3 March. The Šubašić government resigned three days later. The regency council, in its only official act, then appointed a 28-member provisional government of Yugoslavia on 7 March, in compliance with the Tito–Šubašić Agreement[28]
Aftermath
The third session of the AVNOJ in 1945 included some pre-war members of the Yugoslav Parliament.
In recognition of the new Yugoslav government, British, Soviet, and US ambassadors were posted to Belgrade in the second half of March.[29] Initially, the new government opted to proclaim its anti-fascism, the "brotherhood and unity" of nations living in Yugoslavia, and general humanistic values. However, as the elections scheduled for autumn of 1945 were approaching, Communists were gradually appointed to key positions, and civil rights and freedoms were increasingly curtailed. Also, legislation was introduced to prosecute real and perceived enemies of the people and the state.[30]
On one hand, the government-in-exile and Šubašić meant to limit communist control over the government of post-war Yugoslavia through the agreements with Tito, possibly with British assistance. On the other hand, Tito sought to use the agreements to boost the legitimacy of his claim to power by associating himself with the government-in-exile and the formation of a broad governing coalition. The provisional government established in March 1945 included Tito as the prime minister and Šubašić as the foreign minister, the latter as one of eleven non-communist government ministers.[31] However, only six of the eleven were previously members of the government-in-exile. Out of that six, only three were not supporters of, or not otherwise affiliated with, the Partisans – Šubašić, Šutej, and Grol, all of whom resigned their positions within months – Grol in August and the others in October.[32]
Peter II was the last king of Yugoslavia, reigning from October 1934 until his deposition in November 1945. He was the last reigning member of the Karađorđević dynasty.
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, also known as Democratic Federative Yugoslavia, was a provisional state established during World War II on 29 November 1943 through the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ). The National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (NKOJ) was its original executive body. Throughout its existence it was governed by Marshal Josip Broz Tito as prime minister.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from its foundation in the aftermath of World War II until its dissolution in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. Covering an area of 255,804 km2, the SFRY bordered the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west, Austria and Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east, and Albania and Greece to the south. It was a one-party socialist state and federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and made up of six socialist republics—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia—with Belgrade as its capital; it also included two autonomous provinces within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina.
The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia commonly abbreviated as the AVNOJ, was a deliberative and legislative body that was established in Bihać, Yugoslavia, in November 1942. It was established on the instigation of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans – an armed resistance movement led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to resist the Axis occupation of the country during World War II.
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the founding and ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919 as the main communist opposition party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and after its initial successes in the elections, it was proscribed by the royal government and was at times harshly and violently suppressed. It remained an illegal underground group until World War II when, after the Invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, the military arm of the party, the Yugoslav Partisans, became embroiled in a bloody civil war and defeated the Axis powers and their local auxiliaries. After the liberation from foreign occupation in 1945, the party consolidated its power and established a one-party state, which existed until the 1990 breakup of Yugoslavia.
The State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia, commonly abbreviated ZAVNOH, was first convened on 13–14 June 1943 in Otočac and Plitvice as the chief political representative body in World War II Axis-occupied Croatia. It was dominated by the Communist Party of Croatia, a nominally-independent political party active in the territory largely corresponding to present-day Croatia. Despite its nominal independence, the party was a de facto branch of the Josip Broz Tito-led Communist Party of Yugoslavia. ZAVNOH also included representatives or former members of peasant organisations, trade unions, the Croatian Peasant Party, and the Independent Democratic Party.
Ivan Šubašić was an Yugoslav Croat politician, best known as the last Ban of Croatia and prime minister of the royalist Yugoslav Government in exile during the Second World War.
The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World War II. Although presented by both sides as an ideological dispute, the conflict was as much the product of a geopolitical struggle in the Balkans that also involved Albania, Bulgaria, as well as the communist insurgency in Greece, which Tito′s Yugoslavia supported and the Soviet Union secretly opposed.
The prime minister of Yugoslavia was the head of government of the Yugoslav state, from the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 until the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.
The State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly abbreviated as the ZAVNOBiH, was convened on 25 November 1943 in Mrkonjić Grad during the World War II Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. It was established as the highest representative and legislative body in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina under control of the Yugoslav Partisans.
In 1941 when the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, King Peter II formed a Government in exile in London, and in January 1942 the royalist Draža Mihailović became the Minister of War with British backing. But by June or July 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided to withdraw support from Mihailović and the Chetniks he led, and support the Partisans headed by Josip Broz Tito, even though this would result in "complete communist control of Serbia". The main reason for the change was not the reports by Fitzroy Maclean or William Deakin, or as later alleged the influence of James Klugmann in Special Operations Executive (SOE) headquarters in Cairo or even Randolph Churchill, but the evidence of Ultra decrypts from the Government Code and Cipher School in Bletchley Park that Tito's Partisans were a "much more effective and reliable ally in the war against Germany". Nor was it due to claims that the Chetniks were collaborating with the enemy, though there was some evidence from decrypts of collaboration with Italian and sometimes German forces.
Milan Grol was a Serbian literary critic, historian and politician. He was also director of the National Theatre of Serbia.
The National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia or NKOJ, was the World War II provisional executive body of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. The NKOJ was elected by the AVNOJ during its Second Session in Jajce in late November 1943. During the Session, the AVNOJ also appointed Josip Broz Tito the Prime Minister in the NKOJ.
The Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was the state's temporary national government formed through the merger of the Yugoslav government-in-exile and the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (NKOJ). It existed from 7 March to 11 November 1945. It then became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in late 1945, which in turn became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1963 to 1992.
The Greek-Yugoslav confederation or federation, or Balkan Union, was a political concept during World War II, sponsored by the United Kingdom and involving the Yugoslav government-in-exile and the Greek government-in-exile. The two governments signed an agreement pushing the proposal ahead, but it never got beyond the planning stage because of opposition from within the Yugoslav and the Greek governments, real world events, and the opposition of the Soviet Union. The proposal envisioned the creation of a confederation of Greece and Yugoslavia.
The Government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Exile was an official government of Yugoslavia, headed by King Peter II. It evacuated from Belgrade in April 1941, after the Axis invasion of the country, and went first to Greece, then to Palestine, then to Egypt and finally, in June 1941, to the United Kingdom, and hence it is also referred to as the "Government in London".
The Ba Congress, also known as the Saint Sava Congress or Great People's Congress, was a meeting of representatives of Draža Mihailović's Chetnik movement held between 25 and 28 January 1944 in the village of Ba in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II. It sought to provide a political alternative to the plans for post-war Yugoslavia set out by the Chetnik's rivals, the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans, and attempted to reverse the decision of the major Allied powers to provide their exclusive support to the Yugoslav Partisans while withdrawing their support of the Chetniks.
The Croatian Republican Peasant Party was a political party formed from a faction split from the Croatian Peasant Party in 1941. The HSS was once the most popular political party among the Croats in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the HSS splintered in several groups including the faction that would become the HRSS. It joined the Yugoslav resistance led and dominated by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and by its branch in Croatia – the Communist Party of Croatia (KPH). The prewar leader of the HSS Vladko Maček opted to wait for the war to end, while another faction joined the Ustaše movement that ruled the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
During World War II, the Croatian Peasant Party splintered into several factions pursuing different policies and alliances. Prior to the German invasion of Yugoslavia, it was the most powerful political party among ethnic Croats, controlled the administration and police in Banovina of Croatia, and commanded two paramilitary organisations. After the successful invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Nazi Germany proposed that HSS leader Vladko Maček could rule Croatia as a puppet state. He declined, but the Ustaše agreed and proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia. Under duress, Maček called on Croats to support the regime. A splinter of the HSS and all HSS-controlled infrastructure went over to the Ustaše.
Juraj Šutej was a lawyer and Croatian and Yugoslavian politician. He was a member of the Croatian Peasant Party. He was elected member of the Yugoslav Parliament from Duvno and Split districts in 1927, 1935, and 1938 elections. He served as the Yugoslav Finance Minister in the cabinets of Dragiša Cvetković and Dušan Simović in 1939–1941, as well as in the Yugoslav government-in-exile under Ivan Šubašić. In the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia dominated by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and led by Josip Broz Tito, Šutej was a minister without portfoilio. He resigned the post in October 1945 along with Šubašić in protest against KPJ's breaches of the Tito–Šubašić Agreements which were the basis of the government. The HSS boycotted the 1945 Yugoslavian parliamentary election, but Šutej unsuccessfully tried to revive its political work in 1946 before being overruled by the HSS leadership – prompting him to retire from politics.
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