Geoffrey Swain
speaker
127 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 14 Jul
Geoffrey Swain’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Churchill had been hoping with the percentages agreement about spheres of influence after the war.
Greece would be Western.
Most of Eastern Europe would be Soviet.
But Yugoslavia would be 50-50.
The Serbian bit would be pro-Western.
The Croat bit, maybe not, but it would be 50-50.
He quickly signed an economic agreement with Romania, he went on a visit to Hungary, he did an economic deal with Bulgaria, and he started talking again about a Balkan federation, and also made it clear that in his vision the Balkan federation would include Greece.
And the final straw that broke the camel's back was when Tito placed troops in Albania without clearing it first with Moscow.
And at that point, the Stalin thought, this man is getting out of control.
Something's got to be done.
Tito was operating on the assumption that the Red Army would come to his aid quickly.
And of course, we know that that didn't happen.
The Red Army has to retreat, but the British could, and they did.
The Chetniks were terrified that if they took premature military action, there would be reprisals.
And there were horrific reprisals.
And so the Chetnik mantra became, well, we'll carry out little bits of sabotage, but we're not going to do anything in the way of real partisan fighting until there's a chance of an Allied landing, until there's a chance of some sort of external support.
So although communists always talk about leading the people and being in touch with the people, he really had to learn to be in touch with the people.
So when Italy surrendered, the whole of the Dalmatian coast was suddenly lost to them.
The partisans charged quite dramatically into the area.
A lot of the weaponry that the Italians left finds its way into the hands of the partisans.
Showing 41–60 of 127 · page 3 of 7
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