Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "The Chetniks of WW2 Yugoslavia - Resistance or Axis Collaborators?" video.

In a sense it was a bit of a "Catch 22" situation of his own, and the Yugoslavian government-in-exile's making. Mihailovic and the Yugoslavian government wanted to protect the civilians, so didn't fight. But to get arms, he needed to have active resistance, which would have resulted in civilian casualties. Had Mihailovic chosen to "bite the bullet" and accepted the civilian losses, he might have garnered the Allied support and weapons he needed, garnered civilian support (as happened in France) and may even have been able to build a stronger position with the other forces. Of course, this is all speculation, and as we saw when Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991-1992 (as well as watching the TimeGhost episodes on Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s), there are a lot of very strong ethnic feelings in the area. And very long memories. So, it is also possible that anything Mihailovic tried would have been doomed from the very start as, unlike the Communists under Tito, they didn't have a philosophical or ideological "glue" to get them all fighting for a common cause against a common enemy.
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@eldragon4076 Yes, between that and trying to herd cats (i.e. trying to coordinate the various other disparate resistance groups), it was a very difficult row to hoe. Tito's biggest advantage was being able to gain control of and coordinate the activities of all the communist groups in Yugoslavia. Because of this, and the fact that the Chetniks were receiving weapons from, and sometimes working with, the Axis powers alienated them from the Allies and ruined any chance the Chetniks could form what the Allies would have considered to be a legitimate resistance movement worth supporting.
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@vvkth2500 Sadly, the Germans and Ustasi didn't listen or believe that argument. And I agree that the Partisan movement was mostly Serbian in nature, although I believe (I hope not mistakenly) that Tito actually believed in the concept of Yugoslavia. Put another way, he was a Yugoslavian nationalist, not just a Serbian nationalist. I think the fact that he kept his country more or less at the periphery of (if not out of) the Soviet sphere after the war illustrates this. But, he was still Communist nonetheless, with all the baggage that entailed.
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@ThreeFontStreet As shown by how quickly Yugoslavia fell apart even with a central ruling council. Then again, this seems to happen with the majority of communist regimes - once the original "strongman" has left the scene, it all rapidly falls apart.
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