Word: balkanize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Biggest island of freedom in Europe is the wild mountainous triangle of old Serbia dominated by General Draja Mihailovich. The Yugoslavs fight in a bumptiously Balkan way: in separate groups divided by ancient hates. Thus, within Mihailovich's domain operates a separate force directed by the Yugoslav Communist Party...
Such division in the face of the enemy might seem a setup for Nazi divide-&-conquer tactics. But a prime guerrilla lesson learned in China has been that guerrilla effectiveness is increased if the bands are free to strike where split-second opportunities arise. Thus the Balkan way seemed the best way, and last week that method could point to these accomplishments...
...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...
Renner's Europe consists of nine great states: a commonwealth of Great Britain and Holland, a Fennoscandic Union (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Esthonia), Czecho-Polska ("already being planned by the Czech and Polish Governments-in-exile" and including Lithuania), a Balkan Union ("Some trouble may be expected from the Bulgars"), Italy (plus Dalmatia, Tunisia, Corsica, Nice), France (minus Alsace-Lorraine, plus the Spanish Basque provinces and parts of Switzerland), an Iberian Union (Spain and Portugal), Russia (with Latvia, and a corridor to the Dardanelles), a German-Magyar State (Germany, Austria, Alsace, part of Switzerland, Hungary...
...Nazi press has reviled Mihailovich's army as "rebels, Jews and Communists." Unquestionably they are rebels. Unquestionably some are Jews, some are Marxist Communists of one shade or another. Many more, probably, are Balkan "Communists," which usually means partisans of the country as against the city, the farmer as against the businessman. These people in general have Slavic, pro-Russian (Tsarist or Stalinist) leanings. The United Nations press has often referred to Mihailovich's forces as Chetniks -the name of a Serbian patriotic body which long fought guerrilla wars against Serbia's oppressors. Doubtless many are Chetniks...