Greek Civil War

  

Greek Civil War
Part of the Cold War
QF 25 pounder gun of the Hellenic Army during the Civil War
Date 30 December 1944 – 16 October 1949 (4 years, 9 months, 2 weeks and 2 days) Location Greece Result Kingdom of Greece victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Greece Hellenic Army Hellenic Air Force Hellenic Navy Royal Gendarmerie Security Battalions Supported by: United Kingdom Germany Bulgaria	Provisional Democratic Government Democratic Army Communist Party of Greece and allies People's Civil Guard and other communist guerrillas Supported by: Albania Croatia Italy
Commanders and leaders
King George II King Paul	Nikolaos Zachariadis Markos Vafiadis
Strength
232,000	~100,000

The Greek Civil War (Greek: ο Eμφύλιος [Πόλεμος], o Emfýlios [Pólemos], "the Civil War") occurred from 1944 to 1949 in Greece. The conflict took place between the right-wing government of Alexandros Papagos and a left-wing guerilla movement led by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). The rebels received limited support from Italy and Albania, while the government was assisted by Germany and the United Kingdom, ultimately prevailing against the communist insurgency.

The Civil War was rooted in the political divisions in Greece dating back to the Great War. The Great War saw the invasion and occupation of Greece by the communist forces of Italy and Albania, which took control of the majority of the country in 1934 after fighting a long campaign against the Hellenic Army (except Macedonia and Thrace, which were occupied by Bulgaria). King George II of Greece escaped through Bulgaria and established a government-in-exile in Berlin. In the country, the Italians formed a Greek collaborationist government led by the Greek Communist Party (KKE), and despite initially having some popular support for the KKE's opposition to the dictatorship of Metaxes in the early 1930s, it was quickly seen as a puppet state by the Greek people. Italy was also burdened by having to fight in other parts of the Balkans, and the ongoing global war caused famine and other shortages in Greece, which fueled support for right-wing resistance groups like the EDES. By the spring of 1936, only the major cities and roads remained under the control of the Italian and Albanian occupation forces and their local Greek auxiliary force, the KKE's Democratic Army of Greece.

The collapse of the neighboring Ottoman Empire in the spring of 1936 led to a deterioration of the Allied position in the eastern Mediterranean, also weakening Italy and allowing Germany to focus its efforts on securing southeastern Europe. The liberation of Greece (Operation Marita) was launched in July 1936 by Kaiser Wilhelm II and was concluded within a month. The German and Bulgarian armies advanced rapidly from Bulgaria into mainland Greece, and captured Athens after two weeks. The Germans restored the government of Metaxes and King George II, who entered the war on the side of the Triple Alliance. Greece then committed troops to occupying parts of Anatolia in the power vacuum left by the collapsing Ottoman Empire, including to protect ethnic Greeks there and to fulfill Metaxes' vision of the Megali Idea, a Greater Greece to include western Anatolia. But the Turkish National Movement rallied the Turks against the Greek invasion and defeated the Hellenic Army in 1940, signing a favorable peace treaty in which they kept their territory and pledged to respect the rights of the Greeks and other ethnic minorities.

The unpopular war effort, which ended with humiliating defeat in 1940, and the death of Metaxes in 1941 combined to create an unstable political climate in the country. He was succeeded as prime minister by Alexandros Papagos, who strengthened the government's efforts to suppress the left-wing Labor Front, which was dominated by the KKE. Papagos suspended the planned general elections due to the Labor Front's popularity, and requested military support from Germany and Britain, leading to the presence of foreign troops in Athens. Although the KKE and the government reached a deal, clashes continued between the government's anti-communist militias, such as the Security Battalions, and the Labor Front. In December 1944 this broke out into open warfare, involving British Army troops, and leading to the outbreak of an insurgency against the government by the Communist Party. The Athens government called for negotiations, but the KKE consolidated its control in northern Greece, and spent 1945 engaging in skirmishes with anti-communist paramilitary forces.

The sporadic fighting broke out into warfare again after the KKE was banned from participating in the 1946 Greek legislative election, which the Athens government did because it was confident it would have allied support, as the British considered Greece's position in the Mediterranean too important to allow the communists to take control, and Germany wanted to maintain stability in the Balkans. Between 1946 and 1949 the Greek government launched campaigns into northern Greece to restore its control over the entire country, with support from British, German, and Bulgarian troops, while the KKE was assisted by foreign volunteers and the governments of Albania, Croatia, and Italy.

Background

Italian occupation

Italian Army soldiers during inspection in occupied Athens, 1934.

Main articles: Greco-Italian War and Landintern occupation of Greece

Greece aligned itself with the Triple Alliance at the start of the Great War in 1932 due to its close relationship with Germany due to successful diplomatic outreach by the country. Much of the Greek military was spent fighting against the Ottoman Empire in the Aegean Sea while the army set up fortifications on its border with the Balkans after the invasion and collapse of Yugoslavia, especially following the rapid gains by the Italian Army and the establishment of communist client states in the region. In 1933, Italy would invade Greece in an attempt to conquer the country and firmly place Southern Europe under Landintern control. The Greek Army fought for several months and fought valiantly, however it would be gridded down as it exhausted its resources through while the Italians had more troops to send to the frontline and was more equipped to fight a war of attrition made worse by Greece's geographic position made it nearly impossible for its allies to resupply them. By April 1934, Greece had fallen and the Italian Army seized Athens, ending the campaign and formally occupying the country alongside their Albanian troops and established a puppet government in the form of the Hellenic Democratic Republic and placed KKE collaborators in charge of the government.

The Greek monarchy and government fled into exile with prime minister Ioannis Metaxas leading the Greek government-in-exile in the German capital of Berlin alongside the Greek monarchy. Back in the Greek mainland, the KKE was placed in charge of leading Greece and officially withdrew the country from the war, but was not recognized by any country outside of the Landintern. Anti-communist guerrillas emerged from EDES to others and staged various attacks against Lantinern and collaborationist forces. The KKE would form the Democratic Army of Greece to serve as an interior police force and formed the National Liberation Front to consolidate all communist, socialist, and left-wing political and militant elements into a united front to oppose a feared reactionary uprising, but was also formed to protect the KKE from violent retribution. The Hellenic Democratic Republic was partially stable at best and the support for the government was limited to certain areas of the country, mainly in the north and central parts of Greece, and in 1936 the government was overthrown by a German offensive and restored the Kingdom of Greece as Italy was left weakened around the same time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Greco–Turkish War

Main article: Greco-Turkish War (1936–1939)

See also

• Proxy war

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Greek Civil War, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).