Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels declared a people's republic, the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, which was governed by the Communist Party of Greece and its military branch, the Democratic Army of Greece. The rebels were supported by Albania and Yugoslavia. With the support of the United Kingdom and the United States, the Greek government forces ultimately prevailed.
The war had its roots in divisions within Greece during World War II between the left-wing Communist-dominated resistance organisation, the EAM-ELAS, and loosely-allied anti-communist resistance forces. After the December events in late 1944 and the violence preceding the 1946 elections and referendum, the division escalated into a major civil war between the Greek state and the Communists. The DSE, despite a transition to conventional warfare in 1947 and military victories, was defeated by the Hellenic Army, under the command of Marshal Alexandros Papagos in its final stages. It was noted for the scale of war crimes, including massacres and child abductions, committed by both factions during the war, and its high casualty rate.
The war resulted from a highly polarized struggle between left and right ideologies that started when each side targeted the power vacuum resulting from the end of Axis occupation during World War II. The struggle was the first proxy conflict of the Cold War and represents the first example of postwar involvement on the part of the Allies in the internal affairs of a foreign country, an implementation of the containment policy suggested by US diplomat George F. Kennan in his Long Telegram of February 1946. The Greek royal government in the end was funded by the United States and joined NATO, while the insurgents were demoralized by the bitter split between the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, who wanted to end the war, and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, who wanted it to continue.
After the Civil War concluded, KKE leadership and DSE loyalists fled to the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc, while captured communist leaders were sentenced to death. With the KKE remaining banned and with Greece's vehement anti-communist security apparatus following the Greek state's victory, DSE or ELAS fighters and suspected sympathizers were often persecuted, imprisoned and exiled, most prominently in prison islands such as Gyaros and Makronisos, with purges and internments peaking during the military dictatorship. The KKE, which had ousted longtime leader Nikos Zachariadis in Tashkent in 1956 owing to de-Stalinization, was decriminalised following Greece's transition to democracy in 1974, and secured official recognition of the conflict as a "civil war", as opposed to the term Bandit War, in 1989 along with the complete recognition of all Greek soldiers of the Resistance in 1982. With much of the mainland ravaged after a decade of warfare, the predominantly rural population began to move to urban areas, contributing to the subsequent Greek economic miracle. The Civil War remains a subject of political and historiographic debate.
Background: 1941–1944
Origins
While Axis forces approached Athens in April 1941, King George II and his government escaped to Egypt, where they proclaimed a government-in-exile. At the same time, the Germans set up a collaborationist government in Athens, which lacked legitimacy and support.The power vacuum that the occupation created was filled by several resistance movements that ranged from monarchist to Communist in ideology. Resistance was born first in eastern Macedonia and Thrace, where Bulgarian troops occupied Greek territory. Soon large demonstrations were organized in many cities by the Defenders of Northern Greece, a patriotic organization. However, the largest group to emerge was the National Liberation Front, founded on 27 September 1941 by representatives of four left-wing parties.
Although controlled by the Communist Party of Greece, the organization had democratic republican rhetoric. Its military wing, ELAS was founded in February 1942. Aris Velouchiotis, a member of KKE's Central Committee, was nominated Chief of the ELAS High Command. The military chief, Stefanos Sarafis, was a colonel in the prewar Greek army who had been dismissed during the Metaxas regime for his views. The political chief of EAM was Vasilis Samariniotis.
The Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle was founded as EAM's security militia, operating mainly in the occupied cities and most particularly Athens. A small Greek People's Liberation Navy was created, operating mostly around the Ionian Islands and some other coastal areas. Other Communist-aligned organizations were present, including the National Liberation Front, composed mostly of Slavic Macedonians in the Florina region. They would later play a critical role in the civil war. The two other large resistance movements were the National Republican Greek League, led by republican former army officer Colonel Napoleon Zervas, and the social-liberal EKKA, led by Colonel Dimitrios Psarros.
Guerrilla control over rural areas
The Greek landscape was favourable to guerrilla operations, and by 1943, the Axis forces and their collaborators were in control only of the main towns and connecting roads, leaving the mountainous countryside to the resistance. EAM-ELAS in particular controlled most of the country's mountainous interior, while EDES was limited to Epirus and EKKA to eastern Central Greece. By early 1944, ELAS could call on nearly 25,000 fighters, with another 80,000 working as reserves or logistical support. EDES had roughly 10,000 members, and EKKA had under 10,000.Ioannis Rallis, the Prime Minister of the collaborationist government sought to combat the rising influence of the EAM, and was fearful of an eventual takeover after the German defeat. In 1943, he authorised the creation of paramilitary forces, known as the Security Battalions. Numbering 20,000 at their peak in 1944, composed mostly of local fascists, convicts, sympathetic prisoners of war, and forcibly impressed conscripts, they operated under German command in Nazi security warfare operations and soon achieved a reputation for brutality.
First conflicts: 1943–1944
As the end of the war approached, the British Foreign Office, fearing a possible Communist upsurge, observed with displeasure the transformation of ELAS into a large-scale conventional army more and more out of Allied control. After the September 8, 1943, Armistice with Italy, ELAS seized control of Italian garrison weapons in the country. In response, the Western Allies began to favor rival anti-Communist resistance groups. They provided them with ammunition, supplies, and logistical support as a way of balancing ELAS's increasing influence. In time, the flow of weapons and funds to ELAS stopped altogether, and rival EDES received the bulk of the Allied support.In mid-1943 the animosity between ELAS and the other movements erupted into armed conflict. The Communists, and EAM and EDS, accused each other of being 'traitors' and 'collaborators'. Other smaller groups, such as EKKA, continued the anti-occupation fight with sabotage and other actions. By 1944, ELAS had the numerical advantage in armed fighters, having more than 50,000 of them and an extra 500,000 working as reserves or logistical support personnel. In contrast, EDES and EKKA had around 10,000 fighters each.
After the declaration of the formation of the Security Battalions, KKE and EAM implemented a pre-emptive policy of terror, mainly in the Peloponnese countryside areas close to garrisoned German units, intending to ensure civilian allegiance. As the Communist position strengthened, so did the numbers of the "Security Battalions", with both sides engaged in skirmishes. The most notorious example of these skirmishes is the Battle of Meligalas. The ELAS victory was followed by a massacre, during which prisoners and civilians were executed near a well.
"Mutiny" in Cairo and the Lebanon Conference
In March 1944, EAM established the Political Committee of National Liberation, in effect a third Greek government to rival those in Athens and Cairo. PEEA was dominated by, but not composed exclusively of Communists.The movement threatened Allied unity, angering Great Britain and the United States. British and Greek troops loyal to the exiled government moved to suppress the PEEA. Approximately 5,000 Greek soldiers and officers were disarmed and deported to prison camps. After the mutiny, Allied economic aid to the EAM almost stopped.
In May 1944, representatives from all political parties and resistance groups came together at the Lebanon Conference under the leadership of Georgios Papandreou. The conference ended with an agreement for a government of national unity consisting of 24 ministers.
Confrontation: 1944
By 1944, EDES and ELAS each saw the other to be their great enemy. They both saw that the Germans were going to be defeated and were a temporary threat. For the ELAS, the British represented their major problem, even while the majority of Greeks saw the British as their major hope for an end to the war.From the Lebanon Conference to the outbreak
By the summer of 1944, it was obvious that the Germans would soon withdraw from Greece, as Soviet forces were advancing into Romania and towards Yugoslavia, threatening to cut off the retreating Germans. The government-in-exile, now led by prominent liberal Georgios Papandreou, moved to Italy, in preparation for its return to Greece. Under the Caserta Agreement of September 1944, all resistance forces in Greece were placed under the command of a British officer, General Ronald Scobie. The Western Allies arrived in Greece in October, by which time the Germans were in full retreat and most of Greece's territory had already been liberated by Greek partisans. On October 13, British troops entered Athens, the only area still occupied by the Germans, and Papandreou and his ministers followed six days later.There was little to prevent ELAS from taking full control of the country. With the German withdrawal, ELAS units had taken control of the countryside and most cities.
The issue of disarming the resistance organizations was a cause of friction between the Papandreou government and its EAM members. Advised by British ambassador Reginald Leeper, Papandreou demanded the disarmament of all armed forces apart from the Sacred Band and the III Mountain Brigade and the constitution of a National Guard under government control. The Communists, believing that it would leave the ELAS defenseless against its opponents, submitted an alternative plan of total and simultaneous disarmament, but Papandreou rejected it, causing EAM ministers to resign from the government on December 2. On December 1, Scobie issued a proclamation calling for the dissolution of ELAS. Command of ELAS was KKE's greatest source of strength, and KKE leader Siantos decided that the demand for ELAS's dissolution must be resisted.