Skip to main content

Posts

Featured

Eighty years ago Churchill and Tito back down when challenged

    Tito backed down in the first major confrontation between communist and democratic states. Yugoslav partisan forces had occupied the Italian port of Trieste where they conducted a reign of terror against Italian Fascists and non-communist Slovenes. None of the various agreements between Stalin and the US or UK had specified a post-war frontier and the Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito hoped to include Trieste in his country. The British, however, had major military forces with heavy weapons notably the 2nd New Zealand division. Tito agreed with General Alexander, the British commander, to withdraw his men. The Yugoslavs, though, were left with the territory of Trieste's hinterland east of the so-called Morgan Line, which still belongs to the Yugoslav successor state Slovenia. A proposal to allow candidates serving in the armed forces to wear their uniforms while campaigning in Britain's general election provoked furious protest from Labour in Parliament. It would have ...

Latest posts

Eighty years ago this week Churchill makes a catastrophic speech

Eighty years ago Himmler is arrested and kills himself

Eighty years ago this week Labour declines to remain in coalition with Churchill

Eighty years ago Germany was to be placed under military rule

Eighty years ago this week a shrivelled Reich surrenders in the midst of diplomatic squabbles

Eighty years ago this week the curtain falls on Europe's dictators

Eighty years ago the Third Reich enters its death throes

Eighty years ago this week Roosevelt's death inspires deluded hopes in Berlin

Eighty years ago this week the Luftwaffe adopts kamikaze tactics

Eighty years ago this week the largest amphibious operation of the Pacific war begins