The Forgotten Mission: SOE Force 133 in Yugoslavia
Nick Ilić shares the story of SOE Force 133 in the Second World War and examines its role in changing the political landscape of Yugoslavia.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created, in the words of Winston Churchill, to ‘set Europe ablaze’. Force 133 was the designation given to its operations in the Balkans and the islands of the Aegean Sea.
Force 133 played an important role in the Belgrade Coup in March 1941, prompting the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by Axis forces the following month. This delayed the start of Operation Barbarossa for six critical weeks. Had it not been for the invasion, Moscow may have fallen before the end of 1941.
Active resistance by the Royalists and later the communist-led Partisans soon turned into a civil war, with British officers at one stage finding themselves supporting both sides.
This talk will examine the little-known role played by the SOE mission sent to aid the Royalist resistance in Yugoslavia and the factors leading to its evacuation in June 1944. It will also describe the role played by Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean’s mission to the Yugoslav Partisans. Maclean’s reports were often at odds with those being sent by SOE officers and ultimately led to Britain providing full support to the Partisans, who took power in 1945.
About the speaker
Nick Ilić served as an infantry and later general staff officer in the British Army for 34 years. During this career, he carried out numerous operational and non-operational deployments to the Balkans, starting during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and ultimately as the UK Defence Attaché to the Republic of Serbia and Head of the Western Balkans Regional Military Network.
Nick regularly gives talks on the history of the region, and leads battlefield tours to Serbia and Bosnia covering 20th-century conflicts. He is also a member of the Salonika Campaign Society, which is dedicated to the memory of all those who served in the Balkans during the First World War.
