BALKAN POSTMORTEM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 23 September 1941, Page 5

BALKAN POSTMORTEM

THE GREEKS CAVED IN EM LRIORI I Y ( 0.V1P1.1 \ \<i \INSI (J lt.il A X S In Axis total war. diplomats are as much a part of the machine as lighter , dot a. d paiai 1 ute t ooj Tn t « a tank. ; and dive-bombers Timing of their military move is oft' n deter imnerl by non-military factor::. And writes Edmund Stevens in the "Chrispan Science Monitor.” One nißiit last October the Italian .Mini-|er in .Athens, Dr. 1 manuGC ( . <«ra/.zi, went to the* home ol an influential Greek friend for u quiet . game of bridge. As lie quietly bid his hands I doubt if either Dr Graz/i’s partner or the other players suspected that lie carried neatly tucked awav in his coat pocket , so milling far more explosive than gelignite. The bridge game, a.-, is the habit in 1 Greece, lasted far into the night, but. <' ,t 2.45 a.m. Dr. Grazzi excused him J ell, got into Ins ear and drove to - the Athenian .suburb of Kiphissia. Tiu n- be roused Prenuer John Mr laxas 1 !;om his bed and presented the Italian o; which would have meant bowing j ' 1-, Italian military occupation of the | But the Italian Dictator had already s bis course on war. That was why , the ultimatum, prepared long before, v. as not delivered until two hours before the first Italian troops crossed tho Albanian border and attacked the Cl reek frontier guards. The lirst round of the tight for the Eastern Mediter- j The events that followed are common knowledge; the brilliant Greek j victories in Albania, the winter dead lock in the snow-covered mountains, j and finally the tidal wave of German ! t But though the military side of the ‘ Greek war was reported at length, the I diplomatic and political front has been ] t : 1 most totally glossed over, chiefly be- j cause the subject was completely taboo with the censorship at the time. Yet j. this phase is essential to understand- 1 j ir.g Ihe reasons for the Greek success , a:, well as ultimate collapse, i RELATIONS WITH GERMANY From the outset the central j t weakness of Greece's political position i hinged on its relations with Ger-,1 many. Forced to fight by Mussolini’s ’ aggression, the Metaxas Government ‘ made every effort to maintain and bolster relations with the Nazis. To this 1 end the fiction was created, and foisted | ’ on the people through the press, that j Italy and Germany were sharply at I ( \ ariance on the Greek war issue, that j 1 Ihe Nazis would continue friendly to; Greece despite Italy’s blunder. Whether or not, as some maintain j with good evidence, Italy launched its , Greek adventure without the foreknowledge and consent of Reichsfuhrer Hitler, it was naive for Greek statesmen to hope they could pry apart the , Axis partners with one political straw, ; especially when Germany, as senior . partner, was ultimately responsible for • Italy’s commitments. But such was their game. And the co-ordinated Greek press from the out- j set. while attacking Italian Fascism, j took care by implication to differen- j bate between “good” and “had” brands < f Fascism, for obvious reasons. The j result was a tendency lo muddle ihe, fundamental issues of the war at the j fountain-head. C ALLED A LOCAL ISSUE Ignoring the obvious Nazi determin- > ation to dominate Europe and ulti- ; mately to subjugate every small inde- t pendent nation, the authoritarian rulers of Greece tried to create the im- i ! ression that the Greco Italian conflict was purely a local issue, unrelated to 1 the earth-shaking struggle between ; two incompatible philosophies and j. ways of living. This outlook gave Greece’s alliance i with Britain a contingent and limited against the main enemy, Nazi Ger- j The reasons for this were self-evi- ! bent: the Metaxas Government was it- 1 self authoritarian and moulded after j Fascist and Nazi models. It had been 1 equally zealous in its prosecution of ; the democratic forces. At the time the 1 war began more than 3900 Venizelists i —followers of the great Greek demo- • cratie statesmen. Eleuthurios Veni-, ztlos. firm friend of the Allies in the 1 World War, were still imprisoned on the penal islands. In one respect Metaxas excelled the other dictators. While they retained , shadow parliaments to rubber-stamp!, ! their edicts, he abolished the Greek! Parliament altogether, turning the building over to other purposes. SIMILAR TO AXIS TYPES There was good reason for this. With J the best manipulation it would have j 1 proved impossible to devise an election : j system in Greece that would return a satisfactory guarantee of pioper to-' j talitarian composition. For the Greek ; dictatorship differed from its Fascist ; and Nazi counterparts in lacking even ; a semblance of a mass basis, j The Greeks are strongly democratic ! almost to a man and few governments i in history have been less popular with I tneir subjects than the pre-war Mef taxas regime. The war had partly changed this. ! P> standing up to Italian aggression, ! Premier Metaxas. for the first time in j : his political career, brought his policy | in line with the tide of popular senti- ; incnt. Had he failed to do this he i would have been swept aside. As it , j was, he became the rallying point of |: ■ Greek unity and resistance. ! But while the Government tried to | limit tho scope of the war and divorce | il from fundamental issues, the people j themselves were fully aware of what ; they were fighting for. The liberty j loving legions of Greek patriots who , hurled the invader back knew they ‘ were striking a blow, not only at Mus- ; : cl ini alone, but at tyranny in general. ( They had no reservations. They were , wholeheartedly on the side of world HOW SOLDIERS FELT ! This was clearly expressed to me i < ;by soldiers whom I talke 1 to in the snows of Albania. "After the war.’ !' j one of them remarked, "we will have ! i i a few home scores to settle.” Premier Metaxas sensed this major- , < ity viewpoint, only too clearly. That i < was why. on the crest of the national ! 1 ( unity wave, he e ran led extensive am- j ( jnf slv to the Venizelists who. to a, j man. ofTercd their services. But it i | also explains why he was extremely;; i chary about placing them in positions ; : At tm time did Metaxas make n move I 1 , to include the.-o ropresci talive.- of the • men who il ther times ] 1 eclri c vornmont portfolios, serving « •them country junior officers on the j i ilii mg line than in the couloirs of the 11

ministries and general staff headquarters in Athens. Attempts by the Venizelists to get the Government on record against totalitarianism and to declare the principles they were lighting for were ignored. Even mild attempts by progressive newspaper editors to treat the wider issues were suppressed. The censorship also deleted from the stories of foreign correspondents all references that might conceivably annoy the Nazis either directly or by implication. On the other hand, there was no attempt to purge those elements from high Government and Army positions who in the past had been conspicuous for their pro-German bias. Such figures as Kostas Kodzias, Governor of Athens, whose personal friendship with Herr Hitler and close ties with the German Legation were well known, and Theologus Nicoulodis. Minister for the Press, who had also been a frequent guest of the Fuhrer, remained at their posts after public declarations of loyalty. APPEASEMENT OF GERMANY Strong backing for the Government policy of appeasement toward Germany came from highly placed members of the Greek general staff. These officers had received their military education 11 Germany and had many close personal ties with the Reich. It was they who ordered most of the Greek Army equipment from Germany—when the Halo Greek war broke out there were still large Greek oiders for equipment outstanding in German armament fac tcries. The fact that these orders were immediately cancelled by the German Government should have helped open the eyes of General Metaxas and his followers to Germany’s real position Those officers were convinced that if Greece made a good enough show ing against Italy, the Got mans would be so favourably impressed as to force their ally to sue for peace. So long as to them there seemed hope of this they were willing to light, but the moment the Germans stepped in they gave up without a struggle. That was the fundamental reason why the Greek Army, after its brilliant record in Albania, surrendered so swiftly to the Germans. was not primarily because of war weariness, lack of transport, and similar factors that they failed to make their strategic withdrawal from Albania in time and consolidate with the British oil their right flank. The Greek soldiers are made of sterner stuff than that The basic trouble was that officers in key positions considered the struggle hopeless the moment the Germans stepped In. That is why General Tseulacoglu. tin dashing cavalry officer who engineer, eo the capture of Kon Isa, the mos brilliant Greek victory of the whole war. was the First to surrender his en lire corps. A few day »' r. on 23rd April, two days after >ic King and Cabinet had lied from Athens to Crete. General Tsoulacoglou consented to head a puppet government under the German occupation. Stating that tin King, because of is. ' hameful flight” no longer had a l ight to represent the nation. Gene•a! I'm mi. i cog lou declared that the Greek Army had fought bravely and i 'tlogic " rich transformed tin* • Tt.e i:: t cm nilaror before the Nazi drive was tha same logic of appease. : cut that I worked similarly in