Since the beginning of the war, the Yugoslav government-in-exile was split along an ethnic line between the HSS and Serb ministers from several disunited parties. The divisions deepened in late 1941 as the HSS ministers proved reluctant to publicly discuss and condemn Ustaše atrocities against Serbs. In January 1942, Prime Minister Slobodan Jovanović decided to support the Chetniks, widening the rift with the HSS ministers. Jovanović chose to overlook Chetnik collaboration with the Axis powers due to their pro-monarchy and anti-Communist orientation. Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović was appointed the Minister of the Army, Navy and Air Forces on 11 January 1942. In January 1943, Mihailović approached Krnjević regarding possible collaboration, but those talks only produced a BBC radio broadcast from Krnjević, in which his call to Croats to join Chetniks was mostly ignored. On 22 July, Krnjević made another appeal, asking the party members to take up arms without specifying who to join, considerably increasing the number of HSS members joining the Partisans. In late 1943, the British Foreign Office wanted to bring Maček to London to bolster the Yugoslav government-in-exile. The Partisans, whose assistance was necessary to carry out the operation, declined to help.