OCCUPATION, RESISTANCE & LIBERATION

Capturing Greece was key to helping the Axis powers fulfil their wider strategy, but they underestimated the indomitable spirit of the Greeks to fight back

As conflict erupted in Europe with the outbreak of the Second World War, Greece’s prime minister, right-wing strongman Ioannis Metaxas, was faced with the dilemma of whether to involve his country or stay out of the fight. He opted to steer the Greeks down the path of armed neutrality, determined to protect the Greek population and territory.

Metaxas was concerned about aggressive over tures from the Kingdom of Bulgaria, as its Tsar Boris III and Prime Minister Bogdan Filov started closely aligning with the Axis powers. He was also concerned by Benito Mussolini and Italy’s ambitions in the Balkans, and believed that allying with any side in the war would mean Greece would either lose its arms to Bulgaria and Italy or its legs to Britain.

However, all that changed from October 1940, after what Metaxas called “the unjust attack” by Italy. He saw that it was best to side with Britain, declaring that “time is not in favour of the Axis” and that “the war was lost to the Axis the moment England declared: ‘We will fight until we are victorious.’”

By early 1941 the Italian assault on Greece was failing, and Mussolini’s forces had been pushed into Albania. By the spring of 1941 Hitler had grown tired of his ally’s inability to conquer the country quickly, and was seeking to secure the region in order to protect German resources, support its African campaign and undermine Britain’s lines of communications with its forces in the east. The Germans launched a blitzkrieg offensive into Greece through Nazi- controlled Yugoslavia and new Axis member Bulgaria. Britain, seeing the threat to its war effort, poured over 50,000 Commonwealth troops into Greece to stop the German advance, but this was to no avail and Athens fell on 27 April 1941, beginning the Axis occupation of Greece. With this defeat, the bulk of the Greek and British Forces, the Greek government and royal family withdrew to Crete and then Cairo once the Axis powers had established their occupation over the entire country and its islands.

The Axis powers split Greece between Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and the newly created puppet government, an arrangement that was only altered two years later after Italy’s own split and its surrender to the Allies. During the occupation, the Axis powers unleashed a system of terror on Greece, extracted its natural resources to fuel their war efforts, plunged its economy into turmoil, drove thousands into poverty and lumbered Greece with the cost of occupation and forced ‘war loans’ to be paid to the Third Reich.

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