19
To the south, John Denvir and his fellow Partisans had been successful. It was July 1942. In North Africa, the Italians and Germans prepared for the climactic battles with the British. In the Soviet Union, the Italians sent hundreds of thousands to prop up the faltering German offensive and hold the German flanks at Stalingrad. Yet something strange was happening. Instead of supplying further reinforcements against the British or Soviets, Italy diverted 80,000 troops, aircraft, and its newest tanks to Slovenia.1 They were determined to destroy the Slovenian Partisans.
By 15 July they were ready. By Italian order, no one was to move between villages. Possession of arms or false documents would carry the death penalty. Any homes containing contraband would burn, and sympathizers would be sent to concentration camps. The Italian 2nd Army set fire to Slovenia. Entire communities were annihilated. In a little over a month, the Italians reported they had killed in battle or captured 3,600 Partisans.2 If this were accurate, the rebellion was over and the Partisans were all dead – but it was not true. Murdered civilians were usually counted as dead rebels, as was the case in the town of Sodražica. A fire there sprawled out of control, consuming the village. Italian officers fled, but their men moved into the flames and committed grave atrocities. To cover their crimes, the commander reported, ‘Rebels killed in combat: six. Thirty-five executed by firing squad.’3 Sometimes, the dead were indeed rebels. An Italian military chaplain described the execution of a Partisan:
He died as well as all true rebels. He didn’t fret and didn’t beg. He was very calm, although they had beaten him until he was swollen. While walking he said to the soldiers, ‘Today you will shoot me, tomorrow someone else will shoot you.’ He received absolution, and kissed the crucifix with great devotion, and he too died reciting Hail Mary.4
Outnumbered thirty-two to one, John and the Partisans never stood a chance, so they did the only thing they could: they ran. Often they broke out at night, swallowed by noise and darkness, and with Italian positions visible from their gunfire.5 With the Partisans unable to defend liberated territory, civilians were left behind to suffer to consequences; 26,000 people were sent to Italian concentration camps.6 Swathes of land were left barely populated. Many who remained had been broken by the trauma. One old, ethnic German man appeared in a number of villages where there had been fighting. He busied himself as a grave-digger, telling passers-by the number of people he’d buried. He was aiming for a hundred. Then, he could sing Nunc dimittis: ‘Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace. You have fulfilled your promise.’7 Still the Partisans fought on, though their worst deficiencies had been laid bare. If they were to triumph, they had to change.
As summer turned to autumn, another force made itself felt. The Slovenian Communist Party had downplayed the fact that it was not actually an independence movement but was subordinate to a larger Yugoslav Communist Party, led by the enigmatic Josip Broz Tito.8 He commanded his own Yugoslav Partisan Army. In 1941 they had fought in Serbia and Montenegro, now they were strongest in Bosnia and Croatia. To assert his own authority and fix the Slovenians’ problems, Tito dispatched his Chief of Staff and a dozen experienced officers to reorganize the Slovenians.9 The surviving battalions merged into larger units: brigades. Criminal or incompetent officers were demoted and sent to remote postings with high fatality rates. This fate befell John’s battalion commissar Mirko – given a remote posting in Gorenjska and later killed in action.*10
Competent officers were retained, or promoted. John was just such a man. He survived the Italian offensive but his poor horses had been worked to death, and John himself had sustained many minor wounds. The cavalry was disbanded, and John took a new commission as company officer, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Strike Brigade Ljubo Šercer.11 Finally, the Partisans made themselves felt as an effective force. They moved further away from Ljubljana and linked up with their Yugoslav comrades in Croatia. As the battles of El-Alamein and Stalingrad began in autumn 1942, the Slovenians continued to do their part for the Allies. Several large ambushes each caused more Italian casualties than the whole southern summer offensive had.12
Things were also looking up in the north. Commander Stane had set his sights on a new goal: Pohorje. A vast massif of dense forest, sparsely populated mountains and few roads, Pohorje was the key to the north. It had rural smallholdings and food in plenty. If the Partisans could hold it, there were many avenues of entry or escape. Anyone fleeing the Germans in Maribor could be deep in Pohorje’s embrace within a day. It could be a source of new recruits. And for Ralph and the other prisoners, it could be their way out. In late 1942, Stane assigned ninety Partisans to the newly formed Pohorje Battalion, and ordered them to storm the hills. The battalion ran amok for four months, fighting the same brutal and ghostly battles they always had. They were not the only ones to recognize Pohorje’s importance. Their activities drew the personal attention of Hitler himself.13
The Partisans held the area through until New Year 1943, but they made a calamitous error: rather than keep moving, or break up over winter, the Pohorje Battalion built a fortified camp deep in the woods where they holed up. Trenches were dug, tents erected, and stores gathered. It would be the battalion’s grave. German reinforcements brought in over the summer still remained in the region. Tracking the battalion through winter snow was straightforward enough. On 6 January 1943 German operational orders were issued and 2,000 troops from the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmannschaft, and SS moved on Pohorje. By 8 January the Partisans’ camp was surrounded. It was a slaughter. Though a few dozen Germans died with them, the entire battalion was butchered, save for a single survivor, later executed.14 News of the victory was conveyed to Hitler, while hopes of a Partisan escape line from Maribor lay dead in the snow.