MIHAILOVIC, DRAGOLJUB

born March 27, 1893, Ivanjica, Serbia died July 17, 1946, Belgrade, Yugos. Mihailovic also spelled Mihajlovic, byname Draza army officer and head of the royalist Yugoslav underground army, known as the Chetniks (q.v.), during World War II. Having fought in the Balkan Wars (191213) and World War I, Mihailovic, a colonel at the time of Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia (April 1941), refused to acquiesce in the capitulation of the Yugoslav army. He organized the royalist Chetniks, who operated mainly in Serbia. He was appointed general in 1941 and minister of war that same year by King Peter's Yugoslavian government-in-exile. Both the Chetniks under Mihailovic and the communist-dominated Partisans, who were led by Josip Broz Tito, resisted the occupying German forces, but political differences led to distrust and eventual armed conflict between them. Reports of Chetnik resistance in the early stages of occupation buoyed the Allies and made of Mihailovic a heroic figure. Fearful, however, of brutal reprisals against Serbians, Mihailovi c came to favour a restrained policy of resistance until the Allies could provide more assistance; the Partisans supported a more aggressive policy against the Germans. Favouring the latter policy and confronted with reports of Chetnik collaboration (particularly in Italian-held areas) directed against the Partisans, the Allies switched their support from Mihailovic to Tito in 1944. After the war Mihailovic went into hiding. He was captured by the Partisans on March 13, 1946, and charged by the Yugoslav government with treason and collaboration with the Germans. Although a U.S. commission of inquiry cleared Mihailovic and those under his immediate command of the charge of collaboration, the issue is still disputed by some historians. Mihailovic was sentenced to death and was executed in Belgrade in 1946.