Josip Broz Tito was a man who demanded attention. Estranged from Moscow and wary of Washington, communist yet non-aligned, the Yugoslav president worked hard to carve a role between East and West in postwar Europe. Nestled amid Nato’s southern flank and offering access to the warm water ports of the Mediterranean, Tito’s Yugoslavia was of interest to decision makers in both blocs. Yet in the shadow of superpower rivalry, Tito found an unlikely ally in successive British governments, who sought to maintain Britain’s declining world influence while countering the spread of Soviet power.
From royal waltzes to arms contracts, Britain’s relationship with Tito’s Yugoslavia was a blend of spectacle and strategy, based on wartime camaraderie, pomp, pageantry, and diplomatic pragmatism as leaders in London and Belgrade found enough common ground to forge an improbable Cold War friendship.
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