Greece in World War II

Since the fall of 1940, the struggle between the Axis countries and the Anti-Hitler coalition for the Balkans has entered a new, more acute level. The rival states attached exceptional importance to the establishment of their superiority in this military theater.

The ruling circles of Britain viewed the Balkan Peninsula as a cover for the British possessions in the Near and Middle East, as well as a valuable source of human resources and a springboard for opening one of the fronts of the war with Germany.

Italy considered Greece as its future colony, thanks to which the Aegean and Ionian seas could be controlled. For the Italian fascists, Greece was to become part of the new "Roman Empire" - the territories washed by the Mediterranean Sea, which the Nazis called in Latin Mare Nostrum or Our Sea. In fact, Italy already owned some of the islands of the Aegean Sea, which it inherited after the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912 and disputed by Greece. From 1917 to 1920, Italy established a protectorate over Albania . In 1918, Italian troops occupied Northern Epirus , the southern part of Albania, where there was a Greek population, but in 1923 the Italians were forced to leave this territory, which was withdrawn from Greece. In the twenties, aggravation of relations between Italy and Greece continued. In 1923, the Korfi crisis broke out, when, under the pretext of killing its military, Italy occupied the Greek island of Kofrou , but under pressure from the League of Nations was forced to retreat. In 1939, Italian troops occupied Albania , creating their protectorate there. Thus, Albania became the bridgehead of Italy in the Balkans from which it would be possible to invade Yugoslavia and Greece.

The government of the Third Reich hoped to use the Balkans as one of the bridgeheads for the invasion of the USSR . The seizure of Norway with Denmark and the conclusion of an allied treaty with Finland secured Germany a blockade of the USSR from the north-western direction, and the seizure of the Balkan Peninsula was to create the southern flank and ensure the most important supplies of raw materials and food. Here it was supposed to concentrate a large grouping of the German army, the blow of which would have been sent to Ukraine with the further development of the offensive in the direction of the Caucasus . By controlling the Balkan Peninsula, Germany would be able to conduct combat operations against Britain and its allies in the Mediterranean , the Middle East and North Africa , as well as carry out a direct invasion of Asia and Africa . In addition, Germany would have the opportunity to place on the peninsula air and sea bases and control the Mediterranean areas along which oil supply routes to Britain from the Middle East passed.

In the second half of 1940 - early 1941, Germany significantly increased its influence on the Balkan Peninsula due to the accession of Hungary , Romania and Bulgaria to the tripartite pact . But the position of such large states in the region as Yugoslavia and Turkey was still uncertain. Their governments were outside the sphere of influence of the opposing blocs. Greece was under British influence.

In October 1940, Romania was occupied by German troops. However, the Italian government was not informed of this, in connection with which Mussolini told Foreign Minister Ciano :

“Hitler always confronts me with a fait accompli. But this time I will repay him with the same coin: he learns from the newspapers that I have occupied Greece ” ^[1] .

On October 15, an operational directive on the offensive against Greece was developed. It indicated that at the first stage of the operation Italian troops from the territory of Albania should strike a sudden blow at Yanina with the task of breaking through the defenses of the Greek army, defeating it and, developing success with the mobile group along the Girokastra- Ioannina highway, seize the north-western region of Greece - Epirus , to continue the attack on Athens and Thessaloniki . At the same time it was planned, after landing the navy, to occupy the Greek island of Corfu .

Greece was not industrial, but was a poor agrarian country. The Greek army was very poorly technically armed and had low mechanization. Up to half a million people fell under mobilization. The army consisted of only about two dozen units of armored vehicles: two Vickers 6-ton tanks purchased for reference in 1930 , about a dozen obsolete light tanks Renault FT , from the time of the First World War , several armored vehicles built in 1923 on the chassis of American 3-ton trucks Peerles . Already during the Italian-Greek war, the Greeks managed to seize several dozen Italian L-03/33 tankettes.

The Greeks' small arms were mainly British, French and American: Lee-Enfield rifles , Lebel , Mannicher , Thompson submachine guns and EPK (Thomson’s Greek version), Gochiss , Schwarzlose , Schoes machine guns. Artillery consisted of a small number of guns of French and British production.

The Greek Air Force had about 160 combat-ready airplanes, many of which were obsolete types: Polish fighters PZL P.24 and French Bloch MB.150 , British bomber Bristol Blenheim and Fairey Battle , French Potez 630 , three dozen French biplanes Breguet Br.19 , a half dozen German Henschel Hs 126 and others. The fleet of Greece was represented by several British-made Hound class destroyers, two cruisers, and six submarines.

From the air, the Greeks were assisted by 30 British Air Force squadrons sent to the country six days before the Italian invasion.

Invasion

October 28, 1940 Italian troops began to invade Greece. In the early days, they were opposed only by weak barriers in the form of border units. However, the Greek covering troops, reinforced by five infantry and one cavalry divisions, resolutely resisted. On November 1, according to the order of the commander-in-chief of the Greek army, A. Papagos , a counterstrike was launched on the enemy ’s left open flank. Over the next two days of fighting, Italian troops in the Korca area were forced back into Albanian territory. In Epirus, in the valleys of the river Vios , Kalamas , resistance to the invasion increased so much that already on November 6 Ciano was forced to make an entry in his diary: "The fact that on the eighth day of the operation the initiative passed to the Greeks is a reality." ^[2]

Axis Action

On March 27, 1941, a coup d'etat was committed in Yugoslavia. The pro-German government Dragisha Cvetkovic fell, and Dusan Simovic stood at the head of the new government. In connection with this event, the German government decided to accelerate the overall implementation of its plans in the Balkans and move from methods of political pressure to open aggression.

Defeat of the Greco-British Army

Evacuation of British troops

At sea, the evacuation was led by Vice-Admiral G. Pridham-Whippel ( en: Sir Henry Daniel Pridham-Wippell ), and on the shore was Rear-Admiral G. T. Bailey-Groman and army headquarters.

The final evacuation figures for the army:

In total, 50,662 people were taken out, including the personnel of the British Royal Air Force and several thousand residents of Cyprus, Palestine, Greeks and Yugoslavs. This constituted about 80 percent of the forces originally sent to Greece ^[3] .

By mid-May, Greece was fully occupied by the Nazis , who began to rule the most important regions of the country, including the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. Other regions of the country were transferred to the satellites of Germany: fascist Italy and Bulgaria (see maps). The collaborationist government of Greece was created immediately after the defeat of the country.

The occupation led to dire consequences for the Greek civilian population. More than 30,000 civilians died in Athens from starvation, tens of thousands as a result of repression by the Nazis and collaborators; the country's economy was also destroyed. Most of the navy and parts of the Greek army went into exile in the Middle East ^[4] .

At the same time, the Greek Resistance was formed, one of the most effective resistance movements in occupied Europe. Resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying forces, fought against collaborationist "security battalions" and created a large intelligence network, and at the end of 1943 they began to fight each other. In September 1943 and in September 1944, Italy and Bulgaria signed a truce with the anti-Hitler coalition and declared war on Germany, after 1943 and 1944 the Italian and Bulgarian troops fight together with the Greek partisans against the Germans.

When the country was liberated in October 1944 (largely due to the efforts of the local Resistance, and not to the English troops landing in September 1944 during Operation Manna), Greece was in a state of extreme political polarization, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war. .

12,898 Greek Jews fought on the side of the Greek army. One of the most prominent members of the Jewish community was Lieutenant Colonel Mordechai Frizis ( Μαρδοχαίος Φριζής ), who successfully resisted the Italian invasion ^[5] . 86% of Jews, especially in the areas occupied by Germany and Bulgaria, were killed, despite the efforts of the Greek Orthodox Church and many Greeks to shelter them. Despite the fact that a large number of Jews in the occupied territory were deported, many found shelter from their neighbors ^[6] .

On July 11, 1942, the Jews of the city of Thessaloniki were ordered to prepare for deportation to German concentration camps . The local community paid a release fee of 2.5 million drachmas , but the deportation was postponed only until next March. 46,091 Jews were sent to Auschwitz . 1950 of them returned ^[7] and found most of the synagogues and schools destroyed ^[8] . Many survivors emigrated to Israel and the United States ^[7] .

In early June 1944, during the Allied Corfu Allied bombings, conducted as a false maneuver, the purpose of which was to distract the German command from landing in Normandy , the Gestapo assembled the island’s Jewish community for temporary imprisonment in Fort Palay-Froeau and their expulsion on 10 June Auschwitz ^[9] . However, about 200 people out of 1,900 (the entire Jewish population of Corfu) managed to flee ^[10] . Many of the local population provided shelter to these surviving Jews ^[9] . The 275 Jews of Zakynthos also survived the persecution ^{[* 1]} . The population of the island sheltered every Jew ^[11] .

As a result of the occupation in 1941-1944. The Greek economy lay in ruins; significant damage was caused to the country's foreign trade and agriculture, two of the most important components of the Greek economic system. Requirements of the German side to pay significant "costs of occupation" caused hyperinflation . The average inflation rate during the years of occupation was 8.55⋅10 ⁹ % / month (doubling of prices every 28 hours). The highest inflation rate in the entire history of Greece was reached in 1944. If in 1943 a note of 25,000 drachmas had the highest price value, then already in 1944 - 100 billion drachmas. One of the consequences of hyperinflation was the general famine that began in the winter of 1942 and lasted until 1944. The stratification of monetary savings caused by hyperinflation and black markets made the post-war economic development much more difficult ^[12] .

According to the model proposed in October 1944 by the governor of the central bank of Greece K. Zolotas ( Ξενοφών Ζολώτας ), when the Greek economy reaches one-fifth of the pre-war level, the accumulated money supply must first be spent on paying the state. debt and inflation stabilization. However, even achieving the value of the money turnover of 20% of the pre-war level was an unattainable task. National income was minimal even considering the fact that the bulk of the population was at the level of the subsistence minimum . The only available form of trade was barter exchange ^[12] .

Based on an analysis of the current situation, Zolotas chose an economic policy, the initial condition of which was the rejection of the monetary system. This meant that an organizational production infrastructure had to be created first, production itself was set up, and money circulation should be stimulated using the quantitative theory of money and taking into account the velocity of money ^[13] .

Zolotas also proposed a plan by which the government can avoid inflation - full support of the national currency by the Greek emigrant Treasury or through foreign lending along with the introduction of the free convertibility of the national currency. Zolotas’s plan also included the promotion at the state level of the import of goods and raw materials to subsidize the domestic market ^[12] .

The most famous at that time representative of the movement for state intervention in the economy was K. Varvareos , who took over the post of K. Zolotas on February 2, 1945 , was a supporter of the “1/5 formula”. His position was to reduce the number of trade transactions by about 50%. Taking into account the increase in world prices by 50%, he indexed the ratio of the drachma rate to the pound . Based on his calculations, this ratio should be increased several times. Taking into account psychological factors and the deterioration of living conditions up to the time of the withdrawal of German troops, Varvaresoz declared a turn in 1/5 of the pre-war level as a stable anti-inflation basis for economic recovery in the post-war period ^[12] .

In the fall of 1944, EAM appointed Zoltos on the post of co-governor of the central bank of Greece, on a par with Varvares. The latter refused to acknowledge this by resigning, but she was not accepted. On November 11, a new drachma of £ 1,600 was issued. The previous drachmas were turned into new ones in the ratio of 50 billion / 1. The central bank has implemented a policy of selling gold sovereigns in order to bolster public recognition of the new currency. However, the adoption of this policy was an irreversible phenomenon. Political instability led to the release of the KKE from EAM and contributed to the rapid growth of prices. In June 1945, the ratio had already reached 1/2000. Between May and October 1945, Varvaresos was called to the post of prime minister. His plan was to create, first and foremost, a strong government, and not economic recovery. The plan envisaged immediate humanitarian aid from the UN, expressed in products and raw materials, taxation of military acquisitions and basic provision of the population through the administration of the government. However, in September 1945, this plan, essentially the only one proposed, was rejected due to lack of support from both the right and the left. The end result was the stabilization of the national currency only 7 years later ^[12] .

• Greek Navy in World War II
• Greek merchant navy in World War II
• Greek military aircraft in World War II
• Greek cavalry in World War II
• Greek artillery in World War II
• Greece in the First World War

Ohi Day

Celebrated in Greece, Cyprus and Greek communities around the world on October 28th of each year, Ohi Day ( Greek Επέτειος του "'Οχι" ) commemorates the refusal of Ioannis Metaxas of accepting the ultimatum presented by Mussolini on October 28, 1940.

In fiction

The novels are translated into Russian:

• James Aldridge . "A matter of honor" [1]
• Alistair Macklin . "Guns of Navarone", "10 points from Navarone" [2]
• Louis de Bernier . Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Footnotes

• Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East
• Gorgopotamos Bridge Explosion
• 13th Light Bomber Squadron (Greece)
• Stephanida, Sofia

Notes

• The history of World War II 1939–1945 in twelve volumes (edited by A. A. Grechko, D. F. Ustinova), M., Military Publishing House of the USSR Ministry of Defense, 1973–1982

• Greece in World War II - how events developed
• The story of Greece in World War II