helmodww2d

GREECE IN WW II - GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE AND POST-OCCUPATION GOVERNMENT

Official British policy, and Churchill in particular, favoured the restoration of King George II, whereas the resistance, communist-controlled or not, that soon came into existence was overwhelmingly republican in orientation. This created a serious dilemma for British policy-makers. The British military authorities were in general anxious to maximize the anti-Axis military effort with little regard for the political consequences, while the foreign office was primarily concerned with ensuring a postwar Greece that well-disposed to British interests, preferably monarchist, and certainly not communist.

This contradiction was present from the outset and the situation was further complicated by the fact that relations between the two principal resistance movements in Greece, the National People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the National Republican Greek League (EDES), were poor and co-operation minimal.

In the winter of 1943-4 a fighting broke out between the two organizations but a truce was negotiated between them in February 1944; the Communist-dominated political wing of ELAS, the National Liberation Frond (EAM), created a Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA) whose function was to administer the large areas of rural Greece under its control.

Although PEEA was careful not to claim that it constituted a rival government, it clearly posed a threat to the government-in-exile, whose influence within Greece was marginal throughout the period of occupation. Within days of the establishment of PEEA, mutinies broke out in the Greek armed forces in the Middle East, the leaders of which demanded the creation of a government of national unity based on PEEA. An incensed Churchill ordered the forcible suppression of the disorders but not before they had provoked a profound crisis within the government-in-exile.

This resulted in the veteran liberal politician and staunch anti-communist George Papandreou (1888-1968), becoming prime minister. Seeking to isolate the left, he organized a conference in Lebanon in May 1944 to which he invited representatives of all political parties and resistance groups.

EAM, ELAS, PEEA, and the KKE (Communist Party) all sent delegates, but only two were communists, despite the power, deriving from genuine popular support reinforced by terror, wielded by the far left in the country.

EAM/ELAS, by now by far the most powerful political and military formation in occupied Greece, was to disown the concessions made by its delegates in Lebanon. Instead it demanded control of key ministries and the removal of Papandreou from the newly formed government of national unity.

<High-level understandings elsewhere...>

The deadlock was to be resolved, unbeknown to the principal protagonists, by high-level horse-trading between Churchill and Stalin. Churchill, in the early summer of 1944, had become obsessed with preventing the communist tide that he foresaw would follow in the wake of the red Army's drive through eastern Europe from reaching Greece, which he looked upon as a vital link in the protection of the UK's imperial communications.

For this reason, in May 1944 he offered to accept Soviet preponderance in Romania in exchange for British preponderance in Greece, a deal that was subsequently widened to include Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in the 'percentages agreement' that he negotiated with Stalin in Moscow in October 1994. In this the 'percentage' of British interest in Greece and, conversely, of Soviet interest in Romania was put at 90%.

This agreement was to overshadow all subsequent developments in Greece. Churchill's understanding with Stalin may indeed -although there is no direct evidence- explain EAM's sudden abandonment at the beginning of August 1944 of its uncompromising line towards Papandreou and the government of national unity.

Only a week earlier a Soviet military mission, headed by Colonel Grigori Popov, had parachuted to ELAS headquarters. It has been speculated that Popov brought instructions to EAM to co-operate, or at least indicated that Stalin was indifferent to the fate of the Greek left and that, for this reason, the communist leadership of EAM felt that it had to make some accommodation with a Britain that appeared likely to be the predominant power in Greece after the liberation as it had been before the war.

Be that as it may, EAM now agreed to enter the Papandreou government on the original terms that had been agreed in the Lebanon in May, though these did not reflect the strength of the EAM/ELAS power base in Greece.

Six EAM nominees entered the government in relative junior positions and, even more significantly, ELAS, together with the much smaller EDES, agreed to place its armed forces (some 60,000 strong) under the command of Lt-Gen Ronald Scobie, the commander of the small (smaller than Churchill would have wished) British expedition to Greece which accompanied the Papandreou government's return on 18 October 1944. This was recognized as the legitimate government by the Allies and was ultimately backed up by British arms. Moreover, Churchill had prevailed upon King George not to return with his government.

As the last of the German forces withdrew from Greece, harassed by guerrilla units and by British raiding forces, Papandreou and his government were greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm. Yet, within less that three months the legitimacy of the government of national unity was to face a fierce challenge in the communist insurgency of December 1944; Papandreou was ousted from the premiership; and King George was forced to agree at last to the creation of the regency that he had so long resisted.

The reasons for this turn of events are complicated and controversial.

The most intractable problem was the question of the demobilization of the guerrilla formations and their replacement by a national army that would underpin the authority of the Papandreou government.

Throughout November 1944, Papandreou and the left-wing ministers in the government were engaged in protracted negotiations over the demobilization issue. Amid charges and counter-charges of lack of good faith and in a climate of mounting tension, the left-wing ministers resigned from the government on 2 December and EAM called a general strike for 4 December, to be preceded by a mass demonstration in Syntagma Square, in the center of Athens, on Sunday 3 December.

The mistakes and miscalculations of those involved, the left-wingers, the national government, and the British, all contributed to the creation of a situation that was moving rapidly and seemingly inexorably towards a tragic climax.

Thousands of pro-EAM demonstrators converged on Syntagma Square, and, at the height of the demonstration, in circumstances that are still not wholly clear, panic-stricken police opened fire, leaving some fifteen dead and many more wounded.

The shooting provoked attacks by ELAS on police stations and within a few days ELAS and British troops were locked in bloody street fighting.

Churchill, who for some time had made it clear that he did not flinch from the prospect of outright confrontation with EAM/ELAS, cabled Scobie, the British military commander, that he should treat Athens as a conquered city which he held even at the price of bloodshed. The leaking of this telegram in the American press contributed to the policy of ostentatious neutrality adopted by the US administration throughout the fighting in December 1944. The Soviets likewise stood aloof from this vicious conflict, unique in the Second World War, between erstwhile allies.

The small number of British troops in the capital were rapidly thrown on the defensive and before long controlled only a small area of the city centre. With the inflow of reinforcements, which could be ill spared from the Italian campaign, the military tide began to turn.

The communists' motives in launching the December insurgency still remain unclear. If bent on an outright seizure of power there were a number of curious features in their tactics, notably their decision (apart from an irrelevant attack on the forces of EDES in Epirus) to restrict the fighting to Athens despite their effective de facto control of much of the rest of the country. It seems that they were not so much after outright power as the de-stabilization of the Papandreou government and ousting him from office, for he was clearly perceived as the principal obstacle to the left to achieve power through constitutional or quasi-constitutional means.

Whatever the motives behind the insurgency, it was characteristic of Churchill's obsession with Greek affairs that, to the astonishment of his staff and with the war in the west still far from over, he made the impulsive decision to fly with Eden to Athens on Christmas Eve 1944 in an effort to negotiate a settlement. Not even Churchill's great prestige could effect a deal but he was not aware of the pressing need to establish a regency and, on his return to London, pressured King George into appointing Archbishop Damaskinos as regent.

In early January Papandreou was replaced as prime minister by the seemingly more conciliatory General Nikolaos Plastiras. The insurgency was essentially supressed by military means, in which British control of the air was vital.

A ceasefire, negotiated on 11 January 1945, was followed by a political settlement at Varkiza on 12 February. Given the bitterness of the December conflict, the terms imposed on the left were not as oppressive as might have been expected. ELAS had to give up its arms but EAM and the KKE remained legal organizations and the government undertook to purge the administration, security battalions, and police of collaborationist elements and to hold a plebiscite on the monarchy, to be followed by elections.

The peace that appeared to have been secured by the Varkiza agreement proved, however, to be illusory. A succession of weal governments proved incapable of holding in check the anti-communist backlash that followed the December 1944 insurgency.

Moreover, with the KKE itself vacillating between a policy of seeking power, or a share of it, through constitutional means, and preparing for further armed conflict, the country slithered towards chaos.

The liberation of the country from Axis occupation proved to be the prelude to a bitterly fought civil war (1946-9) which was to set back the process of post-war reconstruction for a further five years.

R.Clogg,

Oxford Companion to the Second World War (1995), pp.505,507-508