Such criticism as can be made of our own policy
relates not to the action which had inevitably to be taken at the time of the December disturbances, but to our failure to realise beforehand that these disturbances were bound to occur. There are few people with any knowledge of the facts who would today deny that forcible intervention on our.part was the only means of preventing atrocities even more serious than those which had already occurred ; and the Greek people as a whole are grateful to us for the firm and dangerous action which w took. Yet if the present Regency had been estab- lished a few weeks earlier, and if its whole influence had been directed towards maintaining the coalition which had at first been formed, much bloodshed might have been avoided. If at the same time our forces of occupation had been sufficiently powerful from the start to discourage all fomenters of disorder, it might have been easier for the molt moderate members of E.A.M. to restrain their excited adherents. When the full story is known, it may be possible to decide whether this failure rightly to assess the respective elements of order and disorder is to be ascribed to our political or our military Intelligence. Arik those of us who dislike being wise after the event will in any case recognise that the mixture of firmness and conciliation manifested, when the crisis came, by Mr. Churchill and Field Marshal Alexander, by Mr. Harold Macmillan and Sir Reginald Lceper prevented a most regrettable incident from develop- ing into a prolonged civil war.
* * * *
Previous page
