title: Draža Mihailović

text: Tito and Mihailović met again on 27 October 1941 in the town of Brajići near Ravna Gora in an attempt to achieve an understanding, but found consensus only on secondary issues. Immediately following the meeting, Mihailović began preparations for an attack on the Partisans, delaying the attack only for lack of arms. Mihailović reported to the Yugoslav government-in-exile that he believed the occupation of Užice, the location of a gun factory, was required to prevent the strengthening of the Partisans. On 28 October, two Chetnik liaison officers first approached Nedić and later that day German officer Josef Matl of the Armed Forces Liaison Office, and offered Mihailović's services in the struggle against the Partisans in exchange for weapons. This offer was relayed to the German general in charge of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, and a meeting was proposed by the German for 3 November. On 1 November, the Chetniks attacked the Partisan headquarters at Užice, but were beaten back. On 3 November 1941 Mihailović postponed the proposed meeting with the German officers until 11 November, citing the "general conflict" in which the Chetniks and Partisans were engaged requiring his presence at his headquarters. The meeting, organized through one of Mihailović's representatives in Belgrade, took place between the Chetnik leader and an Abwehr official, although it remains controversial if the initiative came from the Germans, from Mihailović himself, or from his liaison officer in Belgrade. In the negotiations Mihailović assured the Germans that "it is not my intention to fight against the occupiers" and claimed that "I have never made a genuine agreement with the communists, for they do not care about the people. They are led by foreigners who are not Serbs: the Bulgarian Janković, the Jew Lindmajer, the Magyar Borota, two Muslims whose names I do not know and the Ustasha Major Boganić. That is all I know of the communist leadership." It appears that Mihailović offered to cease activities in the towns and along the major communication lines, but ultimately no agreement was reached at the time due to German demands for the complete surrender of the Chetniks, and the German belief that the Chetniks were likely to attack them despite Mihailović's offer. After the negotiations, an attempt was made by the Germans to arrest Mihailović. Mihailović carefully kept the negotiations with the Germans secret from the Yugoslav government-in-exile, as well as from the British and their representative Hudson.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Mihailović's assault on the Partisan headquarters at Užice and Požega failed, and the Partisans mounted a rapid counterattack. Within two weeks, the Partisans repelled Chetnik advances and surrounded Mihailović's headquarters at Ravna Gora. Having lost troops in clashes with the Germans, sustained the loss of approximately 1,000 troops and considerable equipment at the hands of the Partisans, received only one small delivery of arms from the British in early November, and been unsuccessful in convincing the Germans to provide him with supplies, Mihailović found himself in a desperate situation.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In mid-November, the Germans launched an offensive against the Partisans, Operation Western Morava, which bypassed Chetnik forces. Having been unable to quickly overcome the Chetniks, faced with reports that the British considered Mihailović as the leader of the resistance, and under pressure from the German offensive, Tito approached Mihailović with an offer to negotiate, which resulted in talks and later an armistice between the two groups on 20 or 21 November. Tito and Mihailović had one last phone conversation on 28 November, in which Tito announced that he would defend his positions, while Mihailović said that he would disperse. On 30 November, Mihailović's unit leaders decided to join the "legalized" Chetniks under General Nedić's command, in order to be able to continue the fight against the Partisans without the possibility of being attacked by the Germans and to avoid compromising Mihailović's relationship with the British. Evidence suggests that Mihailović did not order this, but rather only sanctioned the decision. About 2,000–3,000 of Mihailović's men actually enlisted in this capacity within the Nedić regime. The legalization allowed his men to have a salary and an alibi provided by the collaborationist administration, while it provided the Nedić regime with more men to fight the communists, although they were under the control of the Germans. Mihailović also considered that he could, using this method, infiltrate the Nedić administration, which was soon fraught with Chetnik sympathizers. While this arrangement differed from the all-out collaboration of Kosta Pećanac, it caused much confusion over who and what the Chetniks were. Some of Mihailović's men crossed into Bosnia to fight the Ustaše while most abandoned the struggle. Throughout November, Mihailović's forces had been under pressure from German forces, and on 3 December, the Germans issued orders for Operation Mihailovic, an attack against his forces in Ravna Gora. On 5 December, the day before the operation, Mihailović was warned by contacts serving under Nedić of the impending attack, likely by Milan Aćimović. He closed down his radio transmitter on that day to avoid giving the Germans hints of his whereabouts and then dispersed his command and the remainder of his forces. The remnants of his Chetniks retreated to the hills of Ravna Gora, but were under German attack throughout December. Mihailović narrowly avoided capture. On 10 December, a bounty was put on his head by the Germans. In the meantime, on 7 December, the BBC announced his promotion to the rank of brigade general.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Mihailović did not resume radio transmissions with the Allies before January 1942. In early 1942, the Yugoslav government-in-exile reorganized and appointed Slobodan Jovanović as prime minister, and the cabinet declared the strengthening of Mihailović's position as one of its primary goals. It also unsuccessfully sought to obtain support from both the Americans and the British. On 11 January, Mihailović was named "Minister of the Army, Navy and Air Forces" by the government-in-exile. The British had suspended support in late 1941 following Hudson's reports of the conflict between the Chetniks and Partisans. Mihailović, infuriated by Hudson's recommendations, denied Hudson radio access and had no contact with him through the first months of 1942. Although Mihailović was in hiding, by March the Nedić government located him, and a meeting sanctioned by the German occupation took place between him and Aćimović. According to historian Jozo Tomasevich, following this meeting, General Bader was informed that Mihailović was willing to put himself at the disposal of the Nedić government in the fight against the communists, but Bader refused his offer. In April 1942, Mihailović, still hiding in Serbia, resumed contact with British envoy Hudson, who was also able to resume his radio transmission to Allied headquarters in Cairo, using Mihailović's transmitter. In May, the British resumed sending assistance to the Chetniks, although only to a small extent, with a single airdrop on 30 March. Mihailović subsequently left for Montenegro, arriving there on 1 June. He established his headquarters there and on 10 June was formally appointed as Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme Command of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland. A week later he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army. The Partisans, in the meantime, insisted to the Soviets that Mihailović was a traitor and a collaborator, and should be condemned as such. The Soviets initially saw no need for it, and their propaganda kept supporting Mihailović. Eventually, on 6 July 1942, the station Radio Free Yugoslavia, located in the Comintern building in Moscow, broadcast a resolution from Yugoslav "patriots" in Montenegro and Bosnia labelling Mihailović a collaborator.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In Montenegro, Mihailović found a complex situation. The local Chetnik leaders, Bajo Stanišić and Pavle Đurišić, had reached arrangements with the Italians and were cooperating with them against the communist-led Partisans. Mihailović later claimed at his trial in 1946 that he was unaware of these arrangements prior to his arrival in Montenegro, and had to accept them once he arrived, as Stanišić and Đurišić acknowledged him as their leader in name only and would only follow Mihailović's orders if they supported their interests. Mihailović believed that Italian military intelligence was better informed than he was of the activities of his commanders. He tried to make the best of the situation and accepted the appointment of Blažo Đukanović as the figurehead commander of "nationalist forces" in Montenegro. While Mihailović approved the destruction of communist forces, he aimed to exploit the connections of Chetniks commanders with the Italians to get food, arms and ammunition in the expectation of an Allied landing in the Balkans. On 1 December, Đurišić organised a Chetnik "youth conference" at Šahovići. The congress, which historian Stevan K. Pavlowitch writes expressed "extremism and intolerance", nationalist claims were made on parts of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy, while its resolutions posited the restoration of a monarchy with a period of transitional Chetnik dictatorship. Mihailović and Đukanović did not attend the event, which was entirely dominated by Đurišić, but they sent representatives. In the same month, Mihailović informed his subordinates that: "The units of the Partisans are filled with thugs of the most varied kinds, such as Ustašas – the worst butchers of the Serb people – Jews, Croats, Dalmatians, Bulgarians, Turks, Magyars, and all the other nations of the world."


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In the NDH, Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, a leader of pre-war Chetnik organizations, commanded the Chetniks in Dalmatia, Lika, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He led the "nationalist" resistance against Partisans and Ustaše and acknowledged Mihailović as the formal leader, but acted on his own, with his troops being used by the Italians as the local Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (MVAC). Italian commander Mario Roatta aimed to spare Italian lives, but also to counter the Ustaše and Germans, to undermine Mihailović's authority among the Chetniks by playing up local leaders. Chetniks, led by Dobroslav Jevđević, came from Montenegro to help the Bosnian Serb population against the Ustaše. They murdered and pillaged in Foča until the Italians intervened in August. The Chetniks also asked the Italians for protection against Ustaše retribution. On 22 July, Mihailović met with Trifunović-Birčanin, Jevđević, and his newly appointed delegate in Herzegovina, Petar Baćović. The meeting was supposedly secret but was known to Italian intelligence. Mihailović gave no precise orders but expressed his confidence in both his subordinates, adding, according to Italian reports, that he was waiting for help from the Allies to start a real guerrilla campaign, in order to spare Serb lives. Summoned by Roatta upon their return, Trifunović-Birčanin and Jevđević assured the Italian commander that Mihailović was merely a "moral head" and that they would not attack Italians, even if he should give such an order.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Having become more and more concerned with domestic enemies and concerned that he be in a position to control Yugoslavia after the Allies defeated the Axis, Mihailović concentrated from Montenegro on directing operations, in the various parts of Yugoslavia, mostly against Partisans, but also against the Ustaše and Dimitrije Ljotić's Serbian Volunteer Corps (SDK). During the autumn of 1942, Mihailović's Chetniks—at the request of the British organization—sabotaged several railway lines used to supply Axis forces in the Western Desert of northern Africa. In September and December, Mihailović's actions damaged the railway system seriously; the Allies gave him credit for inconveniencing Axis forces and contributing to Allied successes in Africa. The credit given to Mihailović for sabotages was maybe undeserved:


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Early in September 1942, Mihailović called for civil disobedience against the Nedić regime through leaflets and clandestine radio transmitters. This prompted fighting between the Chetniks and followers of the Nedić regime. The Germans, whom the Nedić administration had called for help against Mihailović, responded to Nedić's request and to the sabotages with mass terror, and attacked the Chetniks in late 1942 and early 1943. Roberts mentions Nedić's request for help as the main reason for German action, and does not mention the sabotage campaign. Pavlowitch, on the other hand, mentions the sabotages as being conducted simultaneously with the propaganda actions. Thousands of arrests were made and it has been estimated that during December 1942, 1,600 Chetnik combatants were killed by the Germans through combat actions and executions. These actions by the Nedić regime and the Germans "brought to an abrupt conclusion much of the anti-German action Mihailović had started up again since the summer (of 1942)". Adolf Hitler wrote to Benito Mussolini on 16 February 1943, demanding that in addition to the partisans be pursued the chetniks who possessed "a special danger in the long-term plans that Mihailovic's supporters were building." Hitler adds: "In any case, the liquidation of the Mihailovic movement will no longer be an easy task, given the forces at its disposal and the large number of armed Chetniks". At that time, General Mihailovic was with his Supreme Command in Montenegro, which was under Italian occupation. From the beginning of 1943, General Mihailovic prepared his units for the supports of Allied landing on the Adriatic coast. General Mihailovic hoped that the Western Alliance would open the Second Front in the Balkans.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Mihailović had great difficulties controlling his local commanders, who often did not have radio contacts and relied on couriers to communicate. He was, however, apparently aware that many Chetnik groups were committing crimes against civilians and acts of ethnic cleansing; according to Pavlowitch, Đurišić proudly reported to Mihailović that he had destroyed Muslim villages, in retribution against acts committed by Muslim militias. While Mihailović apparently did not order such acts himself and disapproved of them, he also failed to take any action against them, being dependent on various armed groups whose policy he could neither denounce nor condone. He also hid the situation from the British and the Yugoslav government-in-exile. Many terror acts were committed by Chetnik groups against their various enemies, real or perceived, reaching a peak between October 1942 and February 1943.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Brigadier Charles Armstrong reported to his command °"that Mihailovic believed that Britain had left Yugoslavia to Soviet influence ..."°. Mihailovic's units in Serbia during the arrival of the Soviet army in September 1944, do not lead any fighting against the Soviets. Some Chetnik corps commanders, such as Dragutin Keserovic, Predrag Raković, Vlastimir Vesic and Dusan Smiljanic, are trying to co-operate with the Soviet Army


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Chetnik ideology encompassed the notion of Greater Serbia, to be achieved by forcing population shifts in order to create ethnically homogeneous areas. Partly due to this ideology and partly in response to violent actions undertaken by the Ustaše and the Muslim forces attached to them, Chetniks forces engaged in numerous acts of violence including massacres and destruction of property, and used terror tactics to drive out non-Serb groups. In the spring of 1942, Mihailović penned in his diary: "The Muslim population has through its behaviour arrived at the situation where our people no longer wish to have them in our midst. It is necessary already now to prepare their exodus to Turkey or anywhere else outside our borders."


title: Draža Mihailović

text: According to the historian Noel Malcolm, there is "... no definite evidence that Mihailović himself ever called for ethnic cleansing". However, instructions to his Montenegrin subordinate commanders, Major Đorđije Lašić and Captain Pavle Đurišić, which prescribe cleansing actions of non-Serb elements in order to create Greater Serbia have been attributed to Mihailović by some historians, but some historians argue that the document was a forgery made by Đurišić after he failed to reach Mihailović in December 1941 after the latter was driven out of Ravna Gora by German forces. According to Malcolm, if the document was a forgery, it was forged by Chetnik commanders hoping it would be taken as a legitimate order, not by their opponents seeking to discredit the Chetniks. The objectives outlined in the directive were:


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Whether or not the instructions were forged, Mihailović was certainly aware of both the ideological goal of cleansing and of the violent acts taken to accomplish that goal. Stevan Moljević worked out the basics of the Chetnik program while at Ravna Gora in the summer of 1941, and Mihailović sent representatives to the Conference of Young Chetnik Intellectuals of Montenegro where the basic formulations were expanded. Đurišić played the dominant role at this conference. Relations between Đurišić and Mihailović were strained, and although Mihailović did not participate, neither did he take any action to counter it. In 1943, Đurišić followed Chetnik Supreme Command orders to carry out "cleansing actions" against Muslims and reported the thousands of old men, women and children he massacred to Mihailović. Mihailović was either "unable or unwilling to stop the massacres". In 1946, Mihailović was indicted, amongst other things, of having "given orders to his commanders to destroy the Muslims (whom he called Turks) and the Croats (whom he called Ustashas)." At his trial Mihailović claimed that he never ordered the destruction of Croat and Muslim villages and that some of his subordinates hid such activities from him. He was later convicted of crimes that included having "incited national and religious hatred and discord among the peoples of Yugoslavia, as a consequence of which his Chetnik bands carried out mass massacres of the Croat and Muslim as well as of the Serb population that did not accept the occupation."


title: Draža Mihailović

text: On 15 November 1942, Captain Hudson cabled to Cairo that the situation was problematic, that opportunities for large-scale sabotage were not exploited because of Mihailović's desire to avoid reprisals and that, while waiting for an Allied landing and victory, the Chetnik leader might come to "any sound understanding with either Italians or Germans which he believed might serve his purposes without compromising him", in order to defeat the communists. In December, Major Peter Boughey, a member of SOE's London staff, insisted to Živan Knežević, a member of the Yugoslav cabinet, that Mihailović was a quisling, who was openly collaborating with the Italians. The Foreign Office called Boughey's declarations "blundering" but the British were worried about the situation and Mihailović's inactivity. A British senior officer, Colonel S. W. Bailey, was then sent to Mihailović and was parachuted into Montenegro on Christmas Day. His mission was to gather information and to see if Mihailović had carried out necessary sabotages against railroads. During the following months, the British concentrated on having Mihailović stop Chetnik collaboration with Axis forces and perform the expected actions against the occupiers, but they were not successful.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In January 1943, the SOE reported to Churchill that Mihailović's subordinate commanders had made local arrangements with Italian authorities, although there was no evidence that Mihailović himself had ever dealt with the Germans. The report concluded that, while aid to Mihailović was as necessary as ever, it would be advisable to extend assistance to other resistance groups and to try to reunite the Chetniks and the Partisans. British liaison officers reported in February that Mihailović had "at no time" been in touch with the Germans, but that his forces had been in some instances aiding the Italians against the Partisans (the report was simultaneous with Operation Trio). Bailey reported that Mihailović was increasingly dissatisfied with the insufficient help he was receiving from the British. Mihailović's movement had been so inflated by British propaganda that the liaison officers found the reality decidedly below expectations.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: On 3 January 1943, just before Case White, an Axis conference was held in Rome, attended by German commander Alexander Löhr, NDH representatives, and by Jevđević who, this time, collaborated openly with the Axis forces against the Partisans, and had gone to the conference without Mihailović's knowledge. Mihailović disapproved of Jevđević's presence and reportedly sent him an angry message, but his actions were limited to announcing that Jevđević's military award would be withdrawn. On 3 February 1943 Charles de Gaulle awarded Mihailović with Croix de Guerre, a French military decoration to honour people who fought with the Allies against the Axis forces at any time during World War II.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: On 28 February 1943, in Bailey's presence, Mihailović addressed his troops in Lipovo. Bailey reported that Mihailović had expressed his bitterness over "perfidious Albion" who expected the Serbs to fight to the last drop of blood without giving them any means to do so, had said that the Serbs were completely friendless, that the British were holding King Peter II and his government as virtual prisoners, and that he would keep accepting help from the Italians as long as it would give him the means to annihilate the Partisans. Also according to Bailey's report, he added that his enemies were the Ustaše, the Partisans, the Croats and the Muslims and that only after dealing with them would he turn to the Germans and the Italians.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: While defenders of Mihailović have argued that Bailey had mistranslated the speech, and may have even done so intentionally, the effect on the British was disastrous and marked the beginning of the end for British-Chetnik cooperation. The British officially protested to the Yugoslav government-in-exile and demanded explanations regarding Mihailović's attitude and collaboration with the Italians. Mihailović answered to his government that he had had no meetings with Italian generals and that Jevđević had no command to do so. The British announced that they would send him more abundant supplies. Also in early 1943, the tone of the BBC broadcasts became more and more favourable to the Partisans, describing them as the only resistance movement in Yugoslavia, and occasionally attributing to them resistance acts actually undertaken by the Chetniks. Bailey complained to the Foreign Office that his position with Mihailović was being prejudiced by this. The Foreign Office protested and the BBC apologized, but the line did not really change.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: During Case White, the Italians heavily supported the Chetniks in the hope that they would deal a fatal blow to the Partisans. The Germans disapproved of this collaboration, about which Hitler personally wrote to Mussolini. At the end of February, shortly after his speech, Mihailović himself joined his troops in Herzegovina near the Neretva in order to try to salvage the situation. The Partisans nevertheless defeated the opposing Chetniks troops, who were in a state of disarray, and managed to go across the Neretva. In March, the Partisans negotiated a truce with Axis forces in order to gain some time and use it to defeat the Chetniks. While Ribbentrop and Hitler finally overruled the orders of their subordinates and forbade any such contacts, the Partisans benefited from this brief truce, during which Italian support for the Chetniks was suspended, and which allowed Tito's forces to deal a severe blow to Mihailović's troops.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In May, the German intelligence service also tried to establish contact with Mihailović to see if an alliance against the Partisans was possible. In Kolašin, they met with a Chetnik officer, who did not introduce himself. They assumed they had met the general himself, but the man was possibly not Mihailović, whom Bailey reported being in another area at the same period. The German command, however, reacted strongly against any attempt at "negotiating with the enemy".


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The Germans then turned to their next operation, code-named Schwarz, and attacked the Montenegrin Chetniks. Đurišić appears to have suggested to Mihailović a short-term cooperation with the Germans against the Partisans, something Mihailović refused to condone. Đurišić ended up defending his headquarters at Kolašin against the Partisans. On 14 May, the Germans entered Kolašin and captured Đurišić, while Mihailović escaped.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In late May, after regaining control of most of Montenegro, the Italians turned their efforts against the Chetniks, at least against Mihailović's forces, and put a reward of half-a-million lire for the capture of Mihailović, and one million for the capture of Tito.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In April and May 1943, the British sent a mission to the Partisans and strengthened their mission to the Chetniks. Major Jasper Rootham, one of the liaison officers to the Chetniks, reported that engagements between Chetniks and Germans did occur, but were invariably started by German attacks. During the summer, the British sent supplies to both Chetniks and Partisans.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Mihailović returned to Serbia and his movement rapidly recovered its dominance in the region. Receiving more weapons from the British, he undertook a series of actions and sabotages, disarmed Serbian State Guard (SDS) detachments and skirmished with Bulgarian troops, though he generally avoided the Germans, considering that his troops were not yet strong enough. In Serbia, his organization controlled the mountains where Axis forces were absent. The collaborationist Nedić administration was largely infiltrated by Mihailović's men and many SDS troops being actually sympathetic to his movement. After his defeat in Case White, Mihailović tried to improve his organization. Dragiša Vasić, the movement's ideologue who had opposed the Italian connection and clashed with Mihailović, left the supreme command. Mihailović tried to extend his contacts to Croats and traditional parties and to revitalise his contacts in Slovenia. The United States sent liaison officers to join Bailey's mission with Mihailović, while also sending men to Tito. The Germans, in the meantime, became worried by the growing strength of the Partisans and made local arrangements with Chetnik groups, though not with Mihailović himself. According to Walter R. Roberts, there is "little doubt" that Mihailović was aware of these arrangements and that he might have regarded them as the lesser of two evils, his primary aim being to defeat the Partisans.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: From the beginning of 1943, British impatience with Mihailović grew. From the decrypts of German wireless messages, Churchill and his government concluded that the Chetniks' collaboration with the Italians went beyond what was acceptable and that the Partisans were doing the most severe damage to the Axis.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: With Italy's withdrawal from the war in September 1943, the Chetniks in Montenegro found themselves under attack by both the Germans and the Partisans, who took control of large parts of Montenegrin territory, including the former "Chetnik capital" of Kolašin. Đurišić, having escaped from a German camp in Galicia, found his way to Yugoslavia, was captured again, and was then asked by collaborationist prime minister Milan Nedić to form a Montenegrin Volunteer Corps against the Partisans. He was pledged to Nedić, but also made a secret allegiance to Mihailović. Both Mihailović and Đurišić expected a landing by the Western Allies. In Serbia, Mihailović was considered the representative of the victorious Allies. In the chaotic situation created by the Italian surrender, several Chetnik leaders overtly collaborated with the Germans against the reinforced Partisans; approached by an Abwehr agent, Jevđević offered the services of about 5,000 men. Momčilo Đujić also went to the Germans for cover against the Ustaše and Partisans, although he was distrusted. In October 1943, Mihailović, at the Allies' request, agreed to undertake two sabotage operations, which had the effect of making him even more of a wanted man and forced him, according to British reports, to change his headquarters frequently.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: By November and December 1943, the Germans had realized that Tito was their most dangerous opponent; German representative Hermann Neubacher managed to conclude secret arrangements with four of Mihailović's commanders for the cessation of hostilities for periods of five to ten weeks. The Germans interpreted this as a sign of weakness from the Mihailović movement. The truces were kept secret but came to the knowledge of the British through decrypts. There is no evidence that Mihailović had been involved or approved, though British Military Intelligence found it possible that he was "conniving". At the end of October, the local signals decrypted in Cairo had disclosed that Mihailović had ordered all Chetnik units to co-operate with Germany against the Partisans. This order for cooperation was originally decrypted by Germans, and it was noted in the "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" War Journal.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The British were more and more concerned about the fact that the Chetniks were more willing to fight Partisans than Axis troops. At the third Moscow Conference in October 1943, Anthony Eden expressed impatience about Mihailović's lack of action. The report of Fitzroy Maclean, liaison officer to the Partisans, convinced Churchill that Tito's forces were the most reliable resistance group. The report of Charles Armstrong, liaison officer to Mihailović, arrived too late for Anthony Eden to take it to the Tehran Conference in late November 1943, though Stevan K. Pavlowitch thinks that it would probably been insufficient to change Churchill's mind. At Tehran, Churchill argued in favour of the Partisans, while Joseph Stalin expressed limited interest but agreed that they should receive the greatest possible support.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: On 10 December, Churchill met King Peter II in London and told him that he possessed irrefutable proofs of Mihailović's collaboration with the enemy and that Mihailović should be eliminated from the Yugoslav cabinet. Also in early December, Mihailović was asked to undertake an important sabotage mission against railways, which was later interpreted as a "final opportunity" to redeem himself. However, possibly not realizing how Allied policy had evolved, he failed to give the go-ahead. On 12 January 1944, the SOE in Cairo sent a report to the Foreign Office, saying that Mihailović's commanders had collaborated with Germans and Italians and that Mihailović himself had condoned and in certain cases approved their actions. This hastened the British's decision to withdraw their thirty liaison officers to Mihailović. The mission was effectively withdrawn in the spring of 1944. In April, one month before leaving, liaison officer Brigadier Armstrong noted that Mihailović had been mostly active in propaganda against the Axis, that he had missed numerous occasions for sabotage in the last six or eight months and that the efforts of many Chetnik leaders to follow Mihailović's orders for inactivity had evolved into non-aggression pacts with Axis troops, although the mission had no evidence of collaboration with the enemy.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In the meantime, Mihailović tried to improve the organization of his movement. On 25 January 1944, with the help of Živko Topalović, he organized in Ba, a village near Ravna Gora, the Ba Congress also meant to remove the shadow of the previous congress held in Montenegro. The congress was attended by 274 people, representing various parties, and aimed to be a reaction against the arbitrary behaviour of some commanders. The organization of a new, democratic, possibly federal, Yugoslavia, was mentioned, though the proposals remained vague, and an appeal was even made for the KPJ to join. The Chetnik command structure was formally reorganized. Đurišić was still in charge of Montenegro and Đujić of Dalmatia, but Jevđević was excluded. The Germans and Bulgarians reacted to the congress by conducting an operation against the Chetniks in northern Serbia in February, killing 80 and capturing 913.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: After May and the withdrawal of the British mission, Mihailović kept transmitting radio messages to the Allies and to his government but no longer received replies.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In July and August 1944, Mihailović ordered his forces to cooperate with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and 60th Troop Carrier Squadron (TCS) in the successful rescue of hundreds downed Allied airmen between August and December 1944 in what was called Operation Halyard; for this, he was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit by United States President Harry S. Truman.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: According to historian Marko Attila Hoare, "On other occasions, however, Mihailović's Chetniks rescued German airmen and handed them over safely to the German armed forces ... The Americans, with a weaker intelligence presence in the Balkans than the British, were less in touch with the realities of the Yugoslav civil war. They were consequently less than enthusiastic about British abandonment of the anti-communist Mihailović, and more reserved toward the Partisans." Several Yugoslavs were also evacuated in Operation Halyard, along with Topalović; they tried to raise more support abroad for Mihailović's movement, but this came too late to reverse Allied policy. The United States also sent an intelligence mission to Mihailović in March, but withdrew it after Churchill advised Roosevelt that all support should go to Tito and that "complete chaos" would ensue if the Americans also backed Mihailović.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In July, Ivan Šubašić formed the new Yugoslav government-in-exile, which did not include Mihailović as a minister. Mihailović, however, remained the official chief-of-staff of the Yugoslav Army. On 29 August, upon the recommendation of his government, King Peter dissolved by royal decree the Supreme Command, therefore abolishing Mihailović's post. On 12 September, King Peter broadcast a message from London, announcing the gist of 29 August's decree and calling upon all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to "join the National Liberation Army under the leadership of Marshal Tito". He also proclaimed that he strongly condemned "the misuse of the name of the King and the authority of the Crown by which an attempt has been made to justify collaboration with the enemy". Though the King did not mention Mihailović, it was clear who he meant. According to his own account, Peter had obtained after strenuous talks with the British not to say a word directly against Mihailović. The message had a devastating effect on the morale of the Chetniks. Many men left Mihailović after the broadcast; others remained out of loyalty to him.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: At the end of August 1944, the Soviet Union's Red Army arrived on the eastern borders of Yugoslavia. In early September, it invaded Bulgaria and coerced it into turning against the Axis. Mihailović's Chetniks, meanwhile, were so badly armed to resist the Partisan incursions into Serbia that some of Mihailović's officers, including Nikola Kalabić, Neško Nedić and Dragoslav Račić, met German officers on 11 August to arrange a meeting of Mihailović with Neubacher and to set forth the conditions for increased collaboration. Nedić, in turn, apparently picked up the idea and suggested forming an army of united anti-communist forces; he arranged a secret meeting with Mihailović, which apparently took place around 20 August. From the existing accounts, they met in a dark room and Mihailović remained mostly silent, so much so that Nedić was not even sure afterwards that he had actually met the real Mihailović. According to British official Stephen Clissold, Mihailović was initially very reluctant to go to the meeting, but was finally convinced by Kalabić. It appears that Nedić offered to obtain arms from the Germans, and to place his Serbian State Guard under Mihailović's command, possibly as part of an attempt to switch sides as Germany was losing the war. Neubacher favoured the idea, but it was vetoed by Hitler, who saw this as an attempt to establish an "English fifth column" in Serbia. According to Pavlowitch, Mihailović, who was reportedly not enthusiastic about the proposal, and Nedić might have been trying to "exploit each other's predicaments", while Nedić may have considered letting Mihailović "take over". At the end of August, Mihailović also met an OSS mission, headed by Colonel Robert H. McDowell, who stayed with him until November.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: As the Red Army approached, Mihailović thought that the outcome of war would depend on Turkey entering the conflict, followed at last by an Allied incursion in the Balkans. He called upon all Yugoslavs to remain faithful to the King, and claimed that Peter had sent him a message telling him not to believe what he had heard on the radio about his dismissal. His troops started to break up outside Serbia in mid-August, as he tried to reach to Muslim and Croat leaders for a national uprising. However, whatever his intentions, he proved to have little attraction for non-Serbs. Đurišić, while leading his Montenegrin Volunteer Corps, which was related on paper to Ljotić's forces, accepted once again Mihailović's command. Mihailović ordered a general mobilization on 1 September; his troops were engaged against the Germans and the Bulgarians, while also under attack by the Partisans. On 4 September, Mihailović issued a circular telegram ordering his commanders that no action can be undertaken without his orders, save against the communists. German sources confirm the loyalty of Mihailović and forces under his direct influence in this period. The Partisans then penetrated Chetnik territory, fighting a difficult battle and ultimately defeating Mihailović's main force by October. On 6 September, what was left of Nedić's troops openly joined Mihailović. In the meantime, the Red Army encountered both the Partisans and Chetniks while entering from Romania and Bulgaria. They briefly cooperated with the Chetniks against retreating Germans, before disarming them. Mihailović sent a delegation to the Soviet command, but his representatives were ignored and ultimately arrested. Mihailović's movement collapsed in Serbia under the attacks of Soviets, Partisans, Bulgarians and fighting with the retreating Germans. Still hoping for a landing by the Western Allies, he headed for Bosnia with his staff, McDowell and a force of a few hundred. He set up a few Muslim units and appointed Croat Major Matija Parac as the head of an as yet non-existent Croatian Chetnik army. Nedić himself had fled to Austria. On 25 May 1945, he wrote to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, asserting that he had always been a secret ally of Mihailović.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Now hoping for support from the United States, Mihailović met a small British mission between the Neretva river and Dubrovnik, but realized that it wasn't the signal of the hoped-for landing. McDowell was evacuated on 1 November and was instructed to offer Mihailović the opportunity to leave with him. Mihailović refused, as he wanted to remain until the expected change of Western Allied policy. During the next weeks, the British government also raised the possibility of evacuating Mihailović by arranging a "rescue and honorable detention", and discussed the matter with the United States. In the end, no action was taken. With their main forces in eastern Bosnia, the Chetniks under Mihailović's personal command in the late months of 1944 continued to collaborate with Germans. Colonel Borota and "vojvoda" Jevđević maintained contacts with Germans for the whole group. In January 1945, Mihailović tried to regroup his forces on the Ozren heights, planning Muslim, Croatian and Slovenian units. His troops were, however, decimated and worn out, some selling their weapons and ammunition, or pillaging the local population. Đurišić joined Mihailović, with his own depleted forces, and found out that Mihailović had no plan. Đurišić went his own way, and was killed on 12 April in a battle with the Ustaše.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: On 17 March 1945, Mihailović was visited in Bosnia by German emissary Stärker, who requested that Mihailović transmit to the Allied headquarters in Italy a secret German offer of capitulation. Mihailović transmitted the message, which was to be his last. Ljotić and several independent Chetnik leaders in Istria proposed the forming of a common anti-communist front in the north-western coast, which could be acceptable to the Western Allies. Mihailović was not in favour of such a heterogeneous gathering, but did not reject Ljotić's proposal entirely, since the littoral area would be a convenient place to meet the Western Allies, and to join Slovene anti-communists, while Germany's collapse might make an anti-communist alliance possible. He authorized the departure of all who wanted to go, but few Chetniks ultimately arrived on the coast, with many being decimated on their way by Ustaše, Partisans, sickness and hunger. On 13 April, Mihailović set out for northern Bosnia, on a 280 km-long march back to Serbia, aiming to start over a resistance movement, this time against the communists. His units were decimated by clashes with the Ustaše and Partisans, as well as dissension and typhus. On 10 May, they were attacked and defeated by the Yugoslav Army, the reorganized force of the Partisans, in battle of Zelengora. Mihailović managed to escape with 1,000–2,000 men, who gradually dispersed. Mihailović himself went into hiding in the mountains with a handful of men.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The Yugoslav authorities wanted to catch Mihailović alive in order to stage a full-scale trial. He was finally caught on 13 March 1946. The elaborate circumstances of his capture were kept secret for sixteen years. According to one version, Mihailović was approached by men who were supposedly British agents offering him help and an evacuation by aeroplane. After hesitating, he boarded the aeroplane, only to discover that it was a trap set up by the OZNA. Another version, proposed by the Yugoslav government, is that he was betrayed by Nikola Kalabić, who revealed his place of hiding in exchange for leniency.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The trial of Draža Mihailović opened on 10 June 1946. His co-defendants were other prominent figures of the Chetnik movement as well as members of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, such as Slobodan Jovanović, who were tried in absentia, but also members of ZBOR and of the Nedić regime. The main prosecutor was Miloš Minić, later Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Yugoslav government. The Allied airmen he had rescued in 1944 were not allowed to testify in his favour. Mihailović evaded several questions by accusing some of his subordinates of incompetence and disregard of his orders. The trial shows, according to Jozo Tomasevich, that he never had firm and full control over his local commanders. A "Committee for the Fair Trial of General Mihailović" was set up in the United States, but to no avail. Mihailović is quoted as saying, in his final statement, "I wanted much; I began much; but the gale of the world carried away me and my work."


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Roberts considers that the trial was "anything but a model of justice" and that "it is clear that Mihailović was not guilty of all, or even many, of the charges brought against him" though Tito would probably not have had a fair trial either, had Mihailović prevailed. Mihailović was convicted of high treason and war crimes, and was executed on 17 July 1946. He was executed together with nine other officers in Lisičiji Potok, about 200 meters from the former Royal Palace. His body was reportedly covered with lime and the position of his unmarked grave was kept secret.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In March 2012, Vojislav Mihailović filed a request for his grandfather's rehabilitation in the high court. The announcement caused a negative reaction in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia alike. Željko Komšić, presidency member of Bosnia and Herzegovina, advocated the withdrawal of the Bosnian ambassador to Serbia if rehabilitation passes. Former Croatian President Ivo Josipović stated that the attempted rehabilitation is harmful for Serbia and contrary to historical facts. He elaborated that Mihailović "is a war criminal and Chetnikism is a quisling criminal movement". Croatian foreign minister Vesna Pusić commented that the rehabilitation will only cause suffering to Serbia. In Serbia, fourteen NGOs stated in an open letter that "the attempted rehabilitation of Draža Mihailović demeans the struggle of both the Serbians and all the other peoples of the former Yugoslavia against fascism". Members of the Women in Black protested in front of the higher court.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The High Court rehabilitated Draža Mihailović on 14 May 2015. This ruling reverses the judgment passed in 1946, sentencing Mihailović to death for collaboration with the occupying Nazi forces and stripping him of all his rights as a citizen. According to the ruling, the Communist regime staged a politically and ideologically motivated trial.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: In 1920, Mihailović married Jelica Branković; they had three children. One of his sons, Branko Mihailović, was a Communist sympathizer and later supported the Partisans. His daughter, Gordana Mihailović, also sided with the Partisans. She spent most of the war in Belgrade and, after the Partisans took the city, spoke on the radio to denounce her father as a traitor. While Mihailović was in prison, his children did not come to see him, and only his wife visited him. In 2005, Gordana Mihailović personally came to accept her father's posthumous award in the United States. Another son, Vojislav Mihailović, fought alongside his father and was killed in battle in May 1945. His grandson, Vojislav Mihailović (born 1951, named after his uncle) is a Serbian politician, member of the Serbian Renewal Movement and later of the Serbian Democratic Renewal Movement. He was the mayor of Belgrade for one year, from 1999 to 2000 and ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Yugoslav presidential elections.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Historians vary in their assessments of Mihailović. Tomasevich suggests one main cause of his defeat was his failure to grow professionally, politically or ideologically as his responsibilities increased, rendering him unable to face both the exceptional circumstances of the war and the complex situation of the Chetniks. Tomasevich also criticizes Mihailović's loss of the Allied support through Chetnik collaboration with the Axis, as well as his doctrine of "passive resistance" which was perceived as idleness, stating "of generalship in the general there was precious little." Pavlowitch also points to Mihailović's failure to grow and evolve during the conflict and describes him as a man "generally out of his depth". Roberts asserts that Mihailović's policies were "basically static", that he "gambled all in the faith of an Allied victory," and that ultimately he was unable to control the Chetniks, who, "although hostile to the Germans and the Italians ... allowed themselves to drift into a policy of accommodations with both in the face of what they considered the greatest danger."


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Political views of Mihailović cover a wide range. After the war, Mihailović's wartime role was viewed in the light of his movement's collaboration, particularly in Yugoslavia where he was considered a collaborator convicted of high treason. Charles de Gaulle considered Mihailović a "pure hero" and always refused to have personal meetings with Tito, whom he considered as Mihailović's "murderer". During the war, Churchill believed intelligence reports had shown that Mihailović had engaged "... in active collaboration with the Germans". He observed that, under the pressure of German reprisals in 1941, Mihailović "drifted gradually into a posture where some of his commanders made accommodations with German and Italian troops to be left alone in certain mountain areas in return for doing little or nothing against the enemy", but concluded that "those who have triumphantly withstood such strains may brand his [Mihailović's] name, but history, more discriminating, should not erase it from the scroll of Serbian patriots." In the United States, due to the efforts of Major Richard L. Felman and his friends, President Truman, on the recommendation of Eisenhower, posthumously awarded Mihailović the Legion of Merit for the rescue of American airmen by the Chetniks. The award and the story of the rescue was classified secret by the State Department so as not to offend the Yugoslav government.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Generalfeldmarschall von Weichs, German commander-in-chief south east 1943–1945, in his interrogation statement in October 1945, wrote about Mihailović and his forces in section named "Groups Aiding Germany":


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Almost sixty years after his death, on 29 March 2005, Mihailović's daughter, Gordana, was presented with the posthumous decoration by president George W. Bush. The decision was controversial; in Croatia Zoran Pusić, head of the Civil Committee for Human Rights, protested against the decision and stated that Mihailović was directly responsible for the war crimes committed by the Chetniks.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Amongst many Serbian emigres, Mihailović remains the Serbian hero par excellence as the American scholar Paul Hockenos wrote: "...to emigres loyal to the Mihailović movement, their larger-than-life 'Draža' was a resolute anti-fascist and Western-minded Anglophile who fought the Germans tooth-and-nail". Hockenos described the Chicago headquarters of the Serbian National Defense Council of America as being almost a shrine to Mihailović with photographs of him together with newspaper articles about him covering the walls. Hockenos wrote for the groups such as the National Defense Council, Mihailović is a symbol of Serbdom itself, being presented as a noble and successful guerrilla leader who was sadly betrayed by cynical Anglo-American leaders. Hockenos noted that Serb-American groups have argued that Serbia is a "natural ally" of the United States and the West in general as proved by Mihailović's wartime career and that for such groups Mihailović serves as a symbol of both Serbian virtue and victimhood. Hockenos noted that the historically inaccurate claim is often made by such groups that all Serbs supported the Chetniks, which serves as a way of projecting Mihailović's travails onto the entire Serb nation, which in turn is used to present the war as a collective national martyrdom at the hands of "genocidal peoples" such as the Germans, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Hockenos stated after he interviewed various Serb-American leaders that he was struck by the way such individuals denied accounts of atrocities during the Bosnian war with the claim being made that because Mihailović fought the "genocidal peoples" in the 1940s that it was impossible for Serbs to commit atrocities in the 1990s.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: With the breakup of Yugoslavia and the renewal of ethnic nationalism, the historical perception of Mihailović's collaboration has been challenged by parts of the public in Serbia and other ethnic Serb-populated regions of the former Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, political and economic problems within Yugoslavia undermined faith in the communist regime, and historians in Serbia began a re-evaluation of Serbian historiography and proposed the rehabilitation of Mihailović and the Chetniks. In the 1990s, during the Yugoslav Wars, several Serbian nationalist groups began calling themselves "Chetniks", while Serb paramilitaries often self-identified with them and were referred to as such. Vojislav Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party formed the White Eagles, a paramilitary group considered responsible for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, which identified with the Chetniks. Vuk Drašković's Serbian Renewal Movement was closely associated with the Serbian Guard, which was also associated with Chetniks and monarchism. Reunions of Chetnik survivors and nostalgics and of Mihailović admirers have been held in Serbia By the late 20th and early 21st century, Serbian history textbooks and academic works characterized Mihailović and the Chetniks as "fighters for a just cause", and Chetnik massacres of civilians and commission of war crimes were ignored or barely mentioned. In 2004, Mihailović was officially rehabilitated in Serbia by an act of the Serbian Parliament. In a 2009 survey carried out in Serbia, 34.44 percent of respondents favored annulling the 1946 verdict against Mihailović (in which he was found to be a traitor and Axis collaborator), 15.92 percent opposed, and 49.64 percent stated they did not know what to think.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: The revised image of Mihailović is not shared in non-Serbian post-Yugoslav nations. In Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina analogies are drawn between war crimes committed during World War II and those of the Yugoslav Wars, and Mihailović is "seen as a war criminal responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocidal massacres." The differences were illustrated in 2004, when Serbian basketball player Milan Gurović, who has a tattoo of Mihailović on his left arm, was banned by the Croatian Ministry of the Interior Zlatko Mehun from traveling to Croatia for refusing to cover the tattoo, as its display was deemed equivalent to "provoking hatred or violence because of racial background, national identity or religious affiliation." Serbian press and politicians reacted to the ban with surprise and indignation, while in Croatia the decision was seen as "wise and a means of protecting the player himself against his own stupidity." In 2009, a Serb group based in Chicago offered a reward of $100,000.00 for help finding Mihailović's grave. A commission formed by the Serbian government began an investigation and in 2010 suggested Mihailović may have been interred at Ada Ciganlija.


title: Draža Mihailović

text: Monuments to Draža Mihailović exist on Ravna Gora (1992), Ivanjica, Lapovo, Subjel, Udrulje near Višegrad, Petrovo and within cemeteries in North America. In Republika Srpska, streets and squares named after him are very common (East Sarajevo, Bijeljina, Ugljevik, Šekovići, etc.)


title: Draža Mihailović

text: As of 2019, a street in Kragujevac is named after him. Several memorial plaques were placed on Ravna Gora, on one of them writes: ""We'll never forget ČiČa Draža - your children, your young Chetniks of Serbia""


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The solicitor general of the United States is the fourth-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. Elizabeth Prelogar has been serving in the role since October 28, 2021.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The United States solicitor general represents the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The solicitor general determines the legal position that the United States will take in the Supreme Court. In addition to supervising and conducting cases in which the government is a party, the Office of the Solicitor General also files "amicus curiae" briefs in cases in which the federal government has a significant interest.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The Office of the Solicitor General argues on behalf of the government in virtually every case in which the United States is a party, and also argues in most of the cases in which the government has filed an "amicus" brief. In the federal courts of appeal, the Office of the Solicitor General reviews cases decided against the United States and determines whether the government will seek review in the Supreme Court. The solicitor general's office also reviews cases decided against the United States in the federal district courts and approves every case in which the government files an appeal.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The solicitor general of the United States is subservient to, and directly reports to, the United States Attorney General.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The solicitor general is assisted by four "deputy solicitors general" and seventeen "assistants to the solicitor general". Three of the deputies are career attorneys in the Department of Justice. The remaining deputy is known as the "principal deputy," sometimes called the "political deputy" and, like the Solicitor General, typically leaves at the end of an administration.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The solicitor general or one of the deputies typically argues the most important cases in the Supreme Court. Other cases may be argued by one of the assistants or another government attorney. The solicitors general tend to argue six to nine cases per Supreme Court term, while deputies argue four to five cases and assistants each argue two to three cases.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The solicitor general, who has offices in the Supreme Court Building as well as the Department of Justice Headquarters, has been called the "tenth justice" as a result of the close relationship between the justices and the solicitor general (and their respective staffs of clerks and deputies). As the most frequent advocate before the Court, the Office of the Solicitor General generally argues dozens of times each term. Furthermore, when the Office of the Solicitor General endorses a petition for "certiorari", review is frequently granted, which is remarkable given that only 75 to 125 of the over 7,500 petitions submitted each term are granted review by the Court.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Other than the justices themselves, the solicitor general is among the most influential and knowledgeable members of the legal community with regard to Supreme Court litigation. Six solicitors general have later served on the Supreme Court: William Howard Taft (who served as the 27th president of the United States before becoming Chief Justice of the United States), Stanley Forman Reed, Robert H. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall, and Elena Kagan. Some who have had other positions in the Office of the Solicitor General have also later been appointed to the Supreme Court. For example, Chief Justice John Roberts was the principal deputy solicitor general during the George H. W. Bush administration and Associate Justice Samuel Alito was an assistant to the solicitor general. The last former solicitor general to be successfully nominated to the court was Justice Elena Kagan. Only one former solicitor general has been nominated to the Supreme Court unsuccessfully, that being Robert Bork; however, no sitting solicitor general has ever been denied such an appointment. Eight other solicitors general have served on the United States Courts of Appeals.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Within the Justice Department, the solicitor general exerts significant influence on all appeals brought by the department. The solicitor general is the only U.S. officer that is statutorily required to be "learned in law." Whenever the DOJ wins at the trial stage and the losing party appeals, the concerned division of the DOJ responds automatically and proceeds to defend the ruling in the appellate process. However, if the DOJ is the losing party at the trial stage, an appeal can only be brought with the permission of the solicitor general. For example, should the tort division lose a jury trial in federal district court, that ruling cannot be appealed by the Appellate Office without the approval of the solicitor general.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: When determining whether to grant "certiorari" in a case where the federal government is not a party, the Court will sometimes request that the solicitor general weigh in, a procedure referred to as a "call for the views of the solicitor general" (CVSG). In response to a CVSG, the solicitor general will file a brief opining on whether the petition should be granted and, usually, which party should prevail.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Although the CVSG is technically an invitation, the solicitor general's office treats it as tantamount to a command. Philip Elman, who served as an attorney in the solicitor general's office and who was primary author of the federal government's brief in "Brown v. Board of Education", wrote, "When the Supreme Court invites you, that's the equivalent of a royal command. An invitation from the Supreme Court just can't be rejected."


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: The Court typically issues a CVSG where the justices believe that the petition is important, and may be considering granting it, but would like a legal opinion before making that decision. Examples include where there is a federal interest involved in the case; where there is a new issue for which there is no established precedent; or where an issue has evolved, perhaps becoming more complex or affecting other issues.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Although there is usually no deadline by which the solicitor general is required to respond to a CVSG, briefs in response to the CVSG are generally filed at three times of the year: late May, allowing the petition to be considered before the Court breaks for summer recess; August, allowing the petition to go on the "summer list", to be considered at the end of recess; and December, allowing the case to be argued in the remainder of the current Supreme Court term.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Several traditions have developed since the Office of Solicitor General was established in 1870. Most obviously to spectators at oral argument before the Court, the solicitor general and his or her deputies traditionally appear in formal morning coats, although Elena Kagan, the first woman to hold the office on other than an acting basis, elected to forgo the practice.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: During oral argument, the members of the Court often address the solicitor general as "General." Some legal commentators have disagreed with this usage, saying that "general" is a postpositive adjective (which modifies the noun "solicitor"), and is not a title itself.


title: Solicitor General of the United States

text: Another tradition is the practice of confession of error. If the government prevailed in the lower court but the solicitor general disagrees with the result, the solicitor general may confess error, after which the Supreme Court will vacate the lower court's ruling and send the case back for reconsideration.


title: Michael Apted

text: Michael David Apted, (10 February 1941 – 7 January 2021) was a British television and film director and producer.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted began working in television and directed the "Up" documentary series (1964–2019). He later directed "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included "Gorillas in the Mist" (1988), "Nell" (1994), "James Bond" film "The World Is Not Enough" (1999), and "Enigma" (2001). His film "Amazing Grace" (2006) premiered at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival that year.


title: Michael Apted

text: On 29 June 2003, he was elected president of the Directors Guild of America, a position he served until 2009. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted was born in 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, as the son of Frances Amelia (née Thomas) and Ronald William Apted. He was educated at City of London School and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied law and history.


title: Michael Apted

text: He began his career in television as a trainee for six months at Granada Television in Manchester, where he worked as a researcher. One of his first projects at Granada would become his best known: the "Up "series, which began in 1964 as a profile of 14 seven-year-old children for the current affairs series "World in Action." As a researcher and assistant to Canadian director Paul Almond, Apted was involved in selecting the children, who came from a variety of backgrounds and classes. Though originally conceived as a one-off documentary, the series has become an institution. When it was suggested that they revisit the subjects at ages fourteen and twenty one, Apted accepted the offer to direct and directed every subsequent episode in the series. It explores Apted's thesis that the British class system remains largely in place. It studies the participants based on the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man", looking at how they develop during their lives, compared to when they were seven. The series looks at the lives of these people over the years; the latest instalment, "63 Up", was produced in 2019. It won a Peabody Award in 2012 "for its creator’s patience and its subjects' humanity."


title: Michael Apted

text: During his seven-year period of working at Granada, Apted also directed a number of episodes of "Coronation Street," then written by Jack Rosenthal, among others. Apted and Rosenthal later collaborated on a number of popular television and film projects, including the pilot episodes for "The Dustbinmen" and "The Lovers". They worked together again in 1982 for the TV movie "P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang", the first film commissioned by Britain's Channel 4. In 1976 Apted directed a play in the Granada TV series "Laurence Olivier Presents". The episode was "The Collection" by Harold Pinter. The play starred Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted used his idea from the "Up" series a second time in "Married in America" and "Married in America 2". The idea was to interview nine married couples every two years over a ten-year period to tell a more complete story of their marriages. In 2005, he directed the first three episodes of the TV series "Rome".


title: Michael Apted

text: For his work in television, Apted won several British Academy Awards, including two Flaherty Documentary Awards for his work on 28 "Up" and "35 Up" and a BAFTA for Best Dramatic Director for the single play "Kisses at Fifty" in 1974.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted made his first feature film in 1972, "The Triple Echo", starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, and he directed two films for David Puttnam. "The Triple Echo" was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. He alternated this work with working on the TV series "Play for Today". He directed six plays including "Stronger than the Sun", written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Francesca Annis as a young woman who places her life in danger to expose a crime, a theme Apted returned to several times.


title: Michael Apted

text: In 1979 he directed the Hollywood-financed "Agatha", featuring Vanessa Redgrave. The majority of Apted's feature films since then were based around a female protagonist. He went to the United States in 1980, where he directed "Coal Miner's Daughter", which received seven Academy Award nominations, winning best actress for Sissy Spacek. Both Spacek and Loretta Lynn, the subject of the film, have said that they believe Apted's outsider point of view was crucial to the movie's success in securing the participation of Appalachian residents and to the avoidance of stereotypes that previously had marred portrayals of mountain culture. In 2019, "Coal Miner's Daughter" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted also made several films with a strong social message or that deal with an ethical dilemma. In 1983 he directed "Gorky Park", a political thriller based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, that deals with police corruption in the former Soviet Union. "Class Action" deals with a corporate whistleblower, and "Extreme Measures" is about medical ethics. "Class Action" was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.


title: Michael Apted

text: In 1994, he directed "Nell", which received three Golden Globe Award nominations and one Academy Award nomination.


title: Michael Apted

text: In addition to the "Up" series, Apted made other documentaries, including "Bring On the Night", a feature-length concert film about the making of Sting's first solo album. He directed the documentary "The Long Way Home", which was released in 1989. It chronicled the UK, US and USSR adventures of Boris Grebenshchikov, the first Soviet underground musician allowed to record in the West.


title: Michael Apted

text: Before the making of "Thunderheart", Apted made the documentary "Incident at Oglala" about Leonard Peltier. "Incident at Oglala" then informed "Thunderheart" in the casting of actors for the fiction film.


title: Michael Apted

text: In 1997, he explored the creative process in "Inspirations" through candid discussion with seven artists from diverse media, including David Bowie, Louise Lecavalier and Roy Lichtenstein among others.


title: Michael Apted

text: In a departure from his earlier work, from 1992 to 1994, Apted ventured into China's rapidly changing popular culture. In a project backed by Trudie Styler, Apted directed "Moving the Mountain", a feature documentary which probed the origins of the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square and the consequences of the movement in the lives of several of the movement's student leaders.


title: Michael Apted

text: In 2006, Apted co-directed "The Official Film of the 2006 FIFA World Cup", narrated by Pierce Brosnan.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted was the collaborator and subject of the documentary: "Michael Apted – Visions on Film", by artist and filmmaker Melinda Camber Porter.


title: Michael Apted

text: Apted married Paige Simpson, his third wife, in January 2014. Apted was divorced from his second wife of ten years, the screenwriter Dana Stevens, with whom he had a son, John. From his first marriage to Jo, he had two sons, Paul and Jim. Paul Apted was a sound editor who worked on movies such as "The Wolverine"; he died from colon cancer in 2014. In 2007 Apted became a father for the fourth time to a girl, Lily Mellis Apted, who lives with her mother Tania Mellis.


title: Michael Apted

text: He served as president of the Directors Guild of America from 2003 to 2009 and served as the secretary-treasurer from 2011 to his death.


title: Armor Wars

text: "Armor Wars" is a seven-issue Iron Man story arc written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton with art by Mark D. Bright and Barry Windsor-Smith and published by Marvel Comics. The arc first appears in "Iron Man" #225–232.


title: Armor Wars

text: While "Armor Wars" is the popular name for the storyline and is the name used for the trade paperback collection, the actual story is referred to as "Stark Wars" within the issues themselves. The source of the name "Armor Wars" stems from the fact that the storyline was advertised in other Marvel titles with full page ads reading: "TIME FOR THE AVENGER TO START AVENGING. THE ARMOR WAR BEGINS IN IRON MAN #225." The storyline ran through "Iron Man" (Vol. 1) #225 (December 1987) to #231 (June 1988), plotted by David Michelinie and Bob Layton with art by Mark Bright, though much of the groundwork for the story itself occurred during Iron Man #219-224. Iron Man encounters the Spymaster, who steals the Stark technology. Iron Man also encounters Force, which sets up the plot of "Armor Wars" in the following issues.


title: Armor Wars

text: An epilogue to the storyline was published in "Iron Man" (Vol. 1) #232 (July 1988), co-plotted by Michelinie and Barry Windsor-Smith with art by Windsor-Smith.


title: Armor Wars

text: After Iron Man finishes a training session in order to impress a general, he returns to Stark Enterprises. Upon analyzing Force's armor, Tony discovers that the armor is based in part on his own designs which were stolen before his current Iron Man armor was developed. He compiles a list of several armored criminals: Beetle, Shockwave, Doctor Doom, Stilt-Man, the Crimson Dynamo, Controller, Mauler, Professor Power, Titanium Man, the Raiders, and others. Distraught about the damage his technology might inflict, Iron Man teams up with Scott Lang to find out who stole his designs. Tony uncovers that the Spymaster was the one who sold Tony's designs to his rival Justin Hammer. Iron Man goes after the Stilt-Man, who is attempting to break into a high-rise office building, and renders the armor inoperable with a negator pack which destroys Stark circuitry. A short time later, Iron Man gets Mauler to surrender his battlesuit without a fight, and then defeats the Controller and negates his armor. Unable to pursue legal means to reclaim his technology, Tony plans to take out every armored warrior who is suspected of having his designs.


title: Armor Wars

text: Iron Man intercepts and negates the Raiders, and later finds out one name is missing from Hammer's database due to a glitch in the upload. Tony and Jim Rhodes run a search of other armor-using individuals, which prompts Tony to identify the government-sponsored Stingray as the best candidate, as other known armored heroes and villains are either not advanced enough or would not use others' designs. Tony's actions draw the West Coast Avengers' attention, but he declines the Avengers' offer of assistance, saying that his problems are personal. Iron Man travels to the Hydro-Base, where he confronts Stingray and insists that he be allowed to test his armor for stolen circuitry. When Stingray refuses, Iron Man chases him throughout the ocean and incapacitates him. He then unsuccessfully attempts to negate Stingray's armor; Stingray's armor really was not based on Stark's designs. Due to this incident, Tony is informed that the government wants Iron Man to be shut down. Reluctantly, Tony announces that Iron Man's contract has been terminated.


title: Armor Wars

text: Iron Man ruthlessly attacks the Beetle as he tries to steal exotic pieces of art. Beetle attempts to escape Iron Man's wrath, but is defeated and his armor negated. Iron Man returns to his base, where he has a talk with Hawkeye. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. meets with Tony and demands that Iron Man be handed over to him for attacking Stingray. Tony gives Fury Iron Man's file, having prepared a fake identity for Iron Man as 'Randall Pierce' in the event of such a scenario. Tony secretly intends to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Mandroid armors - which he also designed - to prevent their technology being replicated. He tells Fury that 'Pierce' has set up a hidden base in New York and suggests Fury dispatch the Mandroids to bring Iron Man in. Tony, as Iron Man, engages the Mandroids and disables all five, much to Fury's dismay. Tony fakes evidence to suggest that Iron Man knew about their plan because he planted a bug in their equipment. Later, Tony arranges to create a new shield for Captain America.


title: Armor Wars

text: (Note: The "Nick Fury vs S.H.I.E.L.D." mini-series hinted the "Fury" in this story was a Life Model Decoy, the real Fury claiming to have no idea of these events).


title: Armor Wars

text: The Captain (an alias used by Steve Rogers at that time) thanks Tony for the new shield, but after having learned of Tony's crusade, he tries to dissuade him fron continuing. Meanwhile, Rhodes, disguised as the villain Electro, lets himself captured by the Guardsmen to infiltrate the Vault. Iron Man sneaks into the prison to neutralize the Guardsmen, but is followed by the Captain and engaged by several Guardsmen. Rhodes accidentally breaks out all the prisoners at the Vault after he tricks a Guardsman who ambushed him. While the Captain tries to save a Guardsman from dying, Iron Man temporarily paralyzes him, but the reproachful look Rogers gives him in turn gnaws at his conscience.


title: Armor Wars

text: The West Coast Avengers arrives at Tony's home, where they try to make Tony stand down, which he refuses. In the Soviet Union, Crimson Dynamo and Gremlin (as the Titanium Man) meet with the KGB, who tell them of Iron Man's crusade and that he will soon come for them as well. Gremlin refuses to heed the warning and departs for his hidden base Bitterfrost, thereby unintentionally making himself a bait for Iron Man. Tony constructs a modified version of the Stealth armor to sneak into Russia undetected and go after Titanium Man. The KGB sends the Crimson Dynamo in to take out Iron Man and the Gremlin, distracting Iron Man and giving the Gremlin time to enter his Titanium Man armor. Iron Man defeats and negates the Crimson Dynamo, but is overwhelmed and grabbed by Titanium Man. Iron Man flies up to space to try to shake him off, but his boot jets ignite Titanium Man's armor, which combusts, killing the Gremlin. Back at the West Coast Avengers Mansion, Iron Man is stripped of his Avengers membership.


title: Armor Wars

text: Edwin Cord, Tony's rival, demonstrates his Firepower armor, piloted by Jack Taggert, to his sponsors Senator Boynton and US Army General Maede regarding the US Government's plan to neutralize rogue superheroes, starting with Iron Man. After safeguarding his technology from later thefts by introducing a "tapeworm" virus into the worldwide computer network, Tony discovers that Firepower is the missing name from Hammer's list. Later, Maede asks Tony to help lay a trap utilizing Firepower against Iron Man, and Tony decides to spring it in order to eliminate this final security risk. But as he encounters Firepower, he finds himself heavily outgunned and barely escapes with the help of Rhodes. But when the military prepares to continue the attack, thereby putting Rhodes' life at risk, Tony sends out the empty Iron Man armor by remote control. Firepower launches a nuclear missile at Iron Man, seemingly killing him.


title: Armor Wars

text: With Iron Man officially declared dead, Tony refuses to contruct new armor, deciding to let his Iron Man identity rest. Elsewhere, Boynton and Maede try to make Cord hand over Firepower, but Cord blackmails them by threatening to leak their plans about using Firepower as a means of crowd control to the public, should they try any form of legal action against him. Firepower then disrupts Stark Enterprises' commercial operations and reveals to Tony that Cord wants revenge on both Tony and Iron Man for destroying Cord Conglomerate. Determined, Tony invents another version of the Iron Man armor to combat Firepower. Days later, Firepower attacks Stark Enterprises' San Francisco bureau, only to face off against the "new" Iron Man. After a lengthy battle, Iron Man defeats Firepower, and an attempted taunt by Taggert makes him reconsider continuing as Iron Man.


title: Armor Wars

text: Tony battles the Iron Man armor in a nightmare and has to come to terms with the innocent victims his company created and his struggle with alcoholism.


title: Armor Wars

text: The storyline was collected in a trade paperback in 1990. The book quickly fell out of print and would not be re-released until 2007, when Marvel released a new printing (with a new cover) (). The book collects issues #225-#231 as well as the epilogue to the story presented in issue #232.


title: Armor Wars

text: The Prologue story (#215-224) was published in a trade paperback in March 2010 (). A collection of the sequel story, "Armor Wars II" (#258-266), was released in May 2010 ().


title: Armor Wars

text: There was an issue called "What If Iron Man Lost the Armor Wars" in which Justin Hammer still manages to obtain Stark Technology. Scott Lang ends up passing out from the knock-out gas when gathering info on who has the stolen technology and ends up captured by Justin Hammer's men. When Tony Stark dons his Iron Man armor, Justin Hammer takes control of it and manipulated the Iron Man armor to reveal his identity and place a mind-control collar on him when it turns out that Scott Lang and his daughter Cassandra are his hostages. Justin Hammer then makes Tony Stark destroy Stark Enterprise, with James Rhodes now in a coma, and reveal his identity to the press. Afterwards, Tony Stark shaved his mustache and dyed his hair yellow after discarding the armor and the collar. When A.I.M. steals the technology from Justin Hammer, they start targeting the armored warriors and one of their attacks kill two of the Raiders. Tony meets up with Controller, Mauler, Stilt-Man, Beetle, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, and the surviving Raider to infiltrate the A.I.M. Omega Branch where Tony takes control of the Firepower armor to defeat A.I.M. When he suggests to the armored villains to turn themselves in, they attack Tony Stark only to be stopped by Captain America, Wonder Man, and Hank Pym. Hawkeye tells Tony that they would have to take him to jail for his actions. Rather than attack the heroes, Tony Stark decides to take his chances in court for he knows that if he did attack, Justin Hammer would have won.


title: Armor Wars

text: The first issue of the two-part new-artist-introduction series "Breaking Into Comics the Marvel Way" has a short story that shows a final resolution to the Armor Wars, depicted as happening shortly after the events. Tony is recording a video will that declares that should events ever escalate to such a point again, he would activate a program called Project Icarus that would seal him in a suit of his armor, activate his other armors and all technological devices derived from Stark technology, and all of them would fly directly into the sun.


title: Armor Wars

text: A 4-issue mini-series titled "Iron Man & The Armor Wars", a modernization of the Armor Wars concept for a new audience, debuted in August 2009, written by Joe Caramagna with art by Craig Rousseau. A hardcover collection of the story was published in February 2010 (ISN 978-0-7851-4448-9).


title: Armor Wars

text: A four-issue mini-series titled "Ultimate Comics: Armor Wars" began in September 2009. It is written by Warren Ellis. It takes place after Ultimatum where Iron Man tries to find his remaining armors and save his enterprise.


title: Armor Wars

text: A new "Armor Wars" mini-series appears as part of the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline. The Battleworld domain associated with this mini-series is called Technopolis where its inhabitants are forced to wear Iron Man armors due to a disease and will have that area's Tony Stark and Arno Stark as rival manufacturers.


title: Armor Wars

text: In the futuristic domain of Technopolis, War Machine (who is the Thor Corps operative of Technopolis) answers a challenge to fight Titanium Man while suspecting that he's being tested. Titanium Man mocks War Machine's position as the Thor of the Domain of Technopolis, but is easily defeated. Iron Man arrives and the two banter about Tony's political position as Baron before talk turns to War Machine's gut feeling over the reasoning behind the duel. Tony suspects Kingpin, but Jim is unsure. They then discuss vigilantes in Technopolis including Spider-Man and Radar Devil. Iron Man suggests they should be arrested, but informs War Machine that he's off to meet with Spider-Man anyway. Meanwhile, Iron Man's brother Arno Stark meets with Kingpin at Stark Tower and assesses the valuable data compiled by having paid Titanium Man to fight War Machine. Kingpin assures Arno that Titanium Man's silence has been bought and that failsafes are in place. Elsewhere in the city, Spider-Man is late for work as he heads to his planned meeting with Iron Man. He reveals himself to be Peter Urich and plans to tell Tony that he had uncovered the truth about the origin of the disease that forced Technopolis' citizens to wear armor just to survive.


title: Armor Wars

text: It was revealed that Baron Tony Stark and Arno Stark's father Howard Stark encouraged a friendly rivalry between them to promote affection, but ended up creating a bitter never-ending competition between the two brothers to provide Technopolis with life and mobility. Tony was chosen to become the domain's Baron during Howard's sickness that ultimately took his life. Tony promised Howard to allow Arno free market in the city as long as he didn't break any laws. Even though Arno constantly opposed Tony and even provided technology for criminals, Tony had not been able to prove his brother's illicit activities and opposed the idea to use his power as Baron to get rid of Arno. Also, Stark had tried to acquire Mobairu Yōsai Mechaniks to help Kiri Oshiro (who was the daughter of Rumiko Fujikawa) as well as to protect the company from Arno. Spider-Man was later killed while escaping Kingpin's men.


title: Armor Wars

text: When Spider-Man's body was found, the autopsy and the analysis of the memory banks in his armor revealed that he had been killed because he had discovered the origin of the disease affecting the residents of the domain. Meanwhile, Arno Stark had sent Stingray to infiltrate the workshop of Kiri Oshiro, the owner of Mobairu Yōsai Mechaniks which is one of the few companies not under Stark's umbrella. Stingray's mission was to discover what technologies was she developing as Stark had recently tried to buy the company. He was defeated by Kiri when he tried to kill her friend Lila Rhodes.


title: Armor Wars

text: As Grand Marshal James Rhodes informed Kiri Oshiro of the lead on Spider-Man's murderer, Tony Stark confronted Arno Stark for Stingray's attack on Kiri. Some of the information decrypted from the memory banks of Spider-Man's suits made mention of the Kingpin of Crime which was a reason valid enough to make Rhodes pay a visit to Fisk. However, Jim found opposition in the form of Fisk's armored henchmen. Rhodes expected Fisk's opposition and deployed the War Machines from the Hall of Law and Order to assist him.


title: Armor Wars

text: After being defeated by War Machine, Kingpin made clear at his deathbed that didn't have anything to do with Peter's death. War Machine returned to the Hall of Law and Order to continue investigating the memory banks when he was confronted by Tony Stark. While Arno dealt with the War Machines, Tony revealed to War Machine the link between Technopolis' disease, his father's supposed hand in its creation, and Spider-Man's death. Tony ultimately killed War Machine to prevent the domain from learning the truth. However, War Machine had been able to record and transmit Stark's confession sending it to Kiri. Kiri and War Machine's niece Lila Rhodes unleashed Kiri's secret weapon, a giant suit of armor to stop Tony Stark and Arno Stark once and for all.


title: Armor Wars

text: As the fight between the Starks and Kira and Lila's giant suits of Armor commences, it's revealed all of Tony Stark's evil machinations. It is revealed that Howard Stark was the creator of the Technopolis Virus and he created it so the city's population would be reliant upon it to survive. The problem was the virus was proven too virulent and hence everyone who caught it instead of the small populace it was intended for became ill including the Starks. As the fight continually rages on. Tony also admits to Kiri why he murdered Spider-Man, Kiri's parents and Peter's father Ben Urich. Tony Stark had implemented a neural inhibitor in the Armor everyone was fitted for and it made the wearer forget if ever they began to question where the virus started from. Kiri's parents who were programmers were able to bypass the inhibitor as was Peter whose Spider-Man armor was capable had to be silenced along with Ben Ulrich who was a news reporter approached with the truth by Kira's parents. Tony Stark also decides to tell Kiri believing he has the upper hand that he was playing both sides and the Kingpin was in his employ to keep tracks on her and his brother Arno. Like Arno, he also tried to hack into her files but was surprised he could never get past Kiri and Lila program's defenses hence the reason he wanted to purchase her technology. Kiri had already figured out this point and to her advantage while they are engaged in combat she incorporates a virus into the Stark's Armor weakening them. The Thor Corps members King Thor of Earth-14412, Storm of Earth-904, Stormbreaker Ray, and Thor of Earth-1610 arrive to deal with Tony and Arno. They are led away to be sentenced by Doom's law. It is also revealed Lila Rhodes is made a Thor Corps member (as her uncle previous), Happy Hogan is the new Sheriff, and Kiri is named new Baroness of Technopolis where she creates new and safer tech for its citizens leading them into a new age.


title: Line of Duty (series 5)

text: The fifth series of "Line of Duty", consisting of six episodes, began broadcasting on 31 March 2019 on BBC One. The series follows the actions of Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), DI Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) and DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) as they investigate an Organised Crime Group with links to missing undercover officer DS John Corbett (Stephen Graham). Anna Maxwell Martin stars in episodes five and six as DCS Patricia Carmichael. Supporting characters include underboss Lisa McQueen (Rochenda Sandall) and the special counsel to the police and crime commissioner Gill Biggeloe (Polly Walker).


title: Line of Duty (series 5)

text: Despite less positive reviews than the previous series, series 5 was still ranked highly among critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes holds an approval rating for series 5 at 90%, with an average rating of 8.40/10, based on 29 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads: “Line of Duty's sterling ensemble all maintain a stiff upper lip, but audiences' limbs will be quavering throughout this tense fifth season that dives deep into moral murk.” On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the series has a score of 88 out of 100 based on 5 critics.


title: Line of Duty (series 5)

text: "Radio Times" drama editor Eleanor Bley Griffiths wrote: "With epic interrogation scenes, surprise betrayals, grisly murders, untold secrets, massive twists... " Pat Stacey of "The Irish Independent" wrote: "Episode by episode, the plot is thickening, like soup that's been left sitting on a hot stove for too long." Rachel Cooke of the "New Statesman" was less complimentary in her review, suggesting that Mercurio struggled to give the audience a logical resolution – leading her to call series five “Jed Mercurio’s ropiest bit of work ever sent our way.” Brian Donaldson of "The List" had solid praise for the actors, but felt the series's plot was somewhat vague; he was critical of the script, stating: “The writing leaves many of them discussing the gravest of matters as though they're reading the contents on the back of a shampoo sachet.”


title: Line of Duty (series 5)

text: Series 5 saw a major increase in viewing ratings from previous series. By the May 2019 series finale, it was the BBC’s most watched programme of year. The show was reported to have had an average peak of 12.34 to 13.67 million viewers per episode.


title: Shrine

text: A shrine ( "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: "escrin" "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated. A shrine at which votive offerings are made is called an altar.


title: Shrine

text: Shrines are found in many of the world's religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto, indigenous Philippine folk religions, and Asatru as well as in secular and non-religious settings such as a war memorial. Shrines can be found in various settings, such as churches, temples, cemeteries, museums, or in the home. However, portable shrines are also found in some cultures.


title: Shrine

text: Many shrines are located within buildings and in the temples designed specifically for worship, such as a church in Christianity, or a mandir in Hinduism. A shrine here is usually the center of attention in the building and is given a place of prominence. In such cases, adherents of the faith assemble within the building in order to venerate the deity at the shrine. In classical temple architecture, the shrine may be synonymous with the cella.


title: Shrine

text: Historically, in Hinduism, Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, and also in modern faiths, such as Neopaganism, a shrine can commonly be found within the home or shop. This shrine is usually a small structure or a setup of pictures and figurines dedicated to a deity that is part of the official religion, to ancestors or to a localised household deity.


title: Shrine

text: Small outdoor yard shrines are found at the bottom of many peoples' gardens, following various religions, including historically, Balinese Hinduism, Christianity. Many consist of a statue of Christ, Virgin Mary or a saint, on a pedestal or in an alcove, while others may be elaborate booths without ceilings, some include paintings, statuary, and architectural elements, such as walls, roofs, glass doors and ironwork fences.


title: Shrine

text: In the United States, some Christians have small yard shrines; some of these resemble side altars, since they are composed of a statue placed in a niche or grotto; this type is colloquially referred to as a "bathtub madonna".


title: Shrine

text: Religious images, usually in some sort of small shelter, placed by a road or pathway, sometimes in a settlement or at a crossroads.


title: Shrine

text: Shrines are found in many religions. As distinguished from a temple, a shrine usually houses a particular relic or cult image, which is the object of worship or veneration. A shrine may also be constructed to set apart a site which is thought to be particularly holy, as opposed to being placed for the convenience of worshipers. Shrines therefore attract the practice of pilgrimage.


title: Shrine

text: Shrines are found in many, though not all, forms of Christianity. Roman Catholicism, the largest denomination of Christianity, has many shrines, as do Orthodox Christianity, Anglicanism and some forms of Lutheranism.


title: Shrine

text: In the Roman Catholic 1983 Code of Canon Law, canons 1230 and 1231 read: "The term shrine means a church or other sacred place which, with the approval of the local Ordinary, is by reason of special devotion frequented by the faithful as pilgrims. For a shrine to be described as national, the approval of the Episcopal Conference is necessary. For it to be described as international, the approval of the Holy See is required."


title: Shrine

text: Another use of the term "shrine" in colloquial Catholic terminology is a niche or alcove in most – especially larger – churches used by parishioners when praying privately in the church. They were also called devotional altars, since they could look like small side altars or bye-altars. Shrines were always centered on some image of Christ, Mary or a saint – for instance, a statue, painting, mural or mosaic, and may have had a reredos behind them (without a Tabernacle built in).


title: Shrine

text: However, Mass would not be celebrated at them; they were simply used to aid or give a visual focus for prayers. Side altars, where Mass could actually be celebrated, were used in a similar way to shrines by parishioners. Side altars were specifically dedicated to The Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph as well as other saints.


title: Shrine

text: A nativity set could also be viewed as a shrine, as the definition of a shrine is any holy or sacred place.


title: Shrine

text: Islam's holiest structure, the "Kaaba" (within the Al-Haram Mosque) in the city of Mecca, though an ancient temple (in the sense of a "house of God"), may be seen as a shrine due to it housing a respected relic called the "Hajar al-Aswad" and also being the partial focus of the world's largest pilgrimage practice, the Hajj. A few yards away, the mosque also houses the "Maqam Ibrahim" ("Abraham's station") shrine containing a petrosomatoglyph (of feet) associated with the patriarch and his son Ishmael's building of the Kaaba in Islamic tradition. The Green Dome sepulcher of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (where his burial chamber also contains the tombs of his friend Abu Bakr and close companion Umar) in Medina, housed in the Masjid an-Nabawi ("The Mosque of the Prophet"), occurs as a greatly venerated place and important as a site of pilgrimage among Muslims.


title: Shrine

text: Two of the oldest and notable Islamic shrines are the Dome of the Rock and the smaller Dome of the Chain built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The former was built over the rock that marked the site of the Jewish Temple and according to Islamic tradition, was the point of departure of Muhammad's legendary ascent heavenwards ("al-Mi'raj").


title: Shrine

text: More than any other shrines in the Muslim world, the tomb of Muhammad is considered a source of blessings for the visitor. Among sayings attributed to Muhammad include one stated as: "He who visits my grave will be entitled to my intercession." Visiting Muhammad's tomb after the pilgrimage is considered by the majority of Sunni legal scholars to be recommended.


title: Shrine

text: The early scholars of the "salaf", Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH), Ishaq Ibn Rahwayh (d. 238 SH), Abdullah ibn Mubarak (d. 189 AH) and Imam Shafi'i (d. 204 AH) all permitted the practice of "ziyāra" to the Prophet's tomb. The "hadith" scholar Qadi Ayyad (d. 554 AH) stated that visiting the Prophet was ""a Sunna of the Muslims on which there was consensus, and a good and desirable deed.""