Fitzroy Maclean, Churchill's emissary to Tito, tells the following anecdote:
"In due course it proved possible to arrange a meeting between Mr. Churchill and Tito. It was to cause me a moment of the most acute anxiety. In fact my worst experience of the war. The meeting took place in the high summer of 1944 in a rather stuffy villa overlooking the Bay of Naples once occupied by Queen Victoria. It was an immediate success. By this time Tito or "Toty" as [Churchill] insisted on calling him had become one of the Prime Minister's favorite subjects and now here was Toty, in the flesh, in Naples where he could meet him. Nor was Tito any less delighted. He had on a splendid, if rather thick, new uniform, built for the occasion, and although suffering from the heat looked every inch a Marshal, which he'd just made himself. With him were two gigantic bodyguards, Bosko and Prlja, who with submachine guns at the ready kept a constant watch over him.
"Having greeted each other enthusiastically the two great men, Prime Minister and guerrilla leader, got down to work. At one o'clock precisely, we broke for lunch. The villa was large enough to provide freshening-up facilities for each delegation. Accordingly the Prime Minister and I disappeared down one long corridor, Tito and the two bodyguards, their submachine guns still at the ready, went off down another, running at right angles to each other. Five minutes later, having washed our hands, we made our way back, converging from different directions on the same corner. It was thus that the Prime Minister on rounding the corner found himself looking down the barrels of two submachine guns.
"This, I realized too late, was the sort of situation that appealed to him immensely. He at once entered into what he imagined to be the spirit of the thing. In his pocket he was carrying, as usual, a heavy gold cigar case, about the size of a Colt automatic. Whipping this out of his pocket like a pistol and suddenly lunging forward as he did so, he presented it in one abrupt movement at Tito's stomach.
"What he didn't know, but I did, was that Bosko and Prlja, after three years as guerrillas, were men of lightening reflexes who took no chances at all. If they thought their Marshal's life was in danger they would gladly have wiped out all three of the Big Three in a single burst. In the space of a split second I saw their trigger fingers twitch. I only had time to hope that I for one would not survive what came next.
"Then Tito began to laugh. Winston, seeing that his little joke had been a success, laughed too. Bosko and Prlja, observing that the danger had passed, lowered their guns. Following on into Queen Victoria's fusty dining room I took out a large khaki handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat off my brow."
http://winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=560
Okay, you can see where this is going.
Put aside for the moment the interesting consequences for Anglo- Yugoslav relations. What happens to the larger Allied war effort if Churchill is killed in August 1944? Who takes over his government, and what differences (if any) might that make to Britain's war?
Doug M.
"In due course it proved possible to arrange a meeting between Mr. Churchill and Tito. It was to cause me a moment of the most acute anxiety. In fact my worst experience of the war. The meeting took place in the high summer of 1944 in a rather stuffy villa overlooking the Bay of Naples once occupied by Queen Victoria. It was an immediate success. By this time Tito or "Toty" as [Churchill] insisted on calling him had become one of the Prime Minister's favorite subjects and now here was Toty, in the flesh, in Naples where he could meet him. Nor was Tito any less delighted. He had on a splendid, if rather thick, new uniform, built for the occasion, and although suffering from the heat looked every inch a Marshal, which he'd just made himself. With him were two gigantic bodyguards, Bosko and Prlja, who with submachine guns at the ready kept a constant watch over him.
"Having greeted each other enthusiastically the two great men, Prime Minister and guerrilla leader, got down to work. At one o'clock precisely, we broke for lunch. The villa was large enough to provide freshening-up facilities for each delegation. Accordingly the Prime Minister and I disappeared down one long corridor, Tito and the two bodyguards, their submachine guns still at the ready, went off down another, running at right angles to each other. Five minutes later, having washed our hands, we made our way back, converging from different directions on the same corner. It was thus that the Prime Minister on rounding the corner found himself looking down the barrels of two submachine guns.
"This, I realized too late, was the sort of situation that appealed to him immensely. He at once entered into what he imagined to be the spirit of the thing. In his pocket he was carrying, as usual, a heavy gold cigar case, about the size of a Colt automatic. Whipping this out of his pocket like a pistol and suddenly lunging forward as he did so, he presented it in one abrupt movement at Tito's stomach.
"What he didn't know, but I did, was that Bosko and Prlja, after three years as guerrillas, were men of lightening reflexes who took no chances at all. If they thought their Marshal's life was in danger they would gladly have wiped out all three of the Big Three in a single burst. In the space of a split second I saw their trigger fingers twitch. I only had time to hope that I for one would not survive what came next.
"Then Tito began to laugh. Winston, seeing that his little joke had been a success, laughed too. Bosko and Prlja, observing that the danger had passed, lowered their guns. Following on into Queen Victoria's fusty dining room I took out a large khaki handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat off my brow."
http://winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=560
Okay, you can see where this is going.
Put aside for the moment the interesting consequences for Anglo- Yugoslav relations. What happens to the larger Allied war effort if Churchill is killed in August 1944? Who takes over his government, and what differences (if any) might that make to Britain's war?
Doug M.