BAILEY’S LAST STAY AMONG THE SERBS – VISIT TO NIŠ IN DECEMBER 1944, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Abstract

The paper reveals an attempt by a British mission to visit a part of the Serbian territory in December 1944. The fundamental purpose of the mission was to evaluate the situation in the wake of military operations in the Trepča mining complex in Kosovo and Metohija, with British interests in mind. Up until the 1941 April War, Britain’s Trepča Mines Ltd. held a majority stake in the Trepča lead and zinc mine. The observation operation was guided by Colonel William Bailey, head of the economic department of the British Mission in Sofia. Bailey, who as a prominent member of the British secret service SOE (Special Operations Executive) spent most of the war (1942-1944) leading or advising the British military mission to the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (JVuO), was stationed with General Dragoljub Mihailović. Before the war, Bailey had worked as a mining engineer at Trepča. An extensive report on this mission, which was a joint British-Soviet effort classified as top secret, sheds new light not only on the situation in Niš and its surroundings in the days following the liberation in 1944, but also on the conduct of high-ranking Partisan officers. The mission actually ended before it began: a Partisan commissioner, Vasilije Smajević, following orders from the “highest authorities,” commanded the Allies to leave the Serbian territory without delay, threatening with arrest. The documents used in this paper are stored by the National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNA) in London.