GREECE'S NORTHERN NEIGHBOURS
By DEREK PATMORE
GREECE, throughout her long history, has always been menaced by invasion from the north. Ancient Greece finally fell before the troops of Philip of Macedon in A.D. 338, and today Greece again feels in danger from her northern neighbours. Britain has just received the dossier from the Greek Government alleging foreign intervention and disturbances in areas of northern Greece, and it is expected that the question will be brought before the United Nations Security Council. According to reliable information in Athens, this Greek dossier contains evidence that the guerrilla bands now fighting the regular Greek Army forces and gendarmerie in Greek Macedonia are receiving supplies from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania.
The fact that Greece, a victorious Power in the recent world war, should again be threatened by her northern neighbours has caused great bitterness and disillusionment amongst the Greeks. They fought the heroic Albanian campaign against the Italians in 1940, and defied the Germans in 1941 in the hope that this would be the last time that Greece would have to defend her northern frontiers. Even at the recent Paris Conference, the Greeks believed that their claim to the Northern Epirus or the southern tip of Albania and the rectification of the Bulgarian frontier would receive sympathetic attention from the four Big Powers. Today, the situation along Greece's whole northern frontier has become so dangerous that General Spiliotopoulos, Chief of the Greek General Staff, accom- panied by Major-General S. B. Rawlins, head of the British Military Mission in Greece, is now in London, and he is asking Britain to increase his country's armed strength so that Greece can face the present emergencies. How has this present explosive atmosphere along Greece's northern frontier come about? What do Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania want from Greece? The answers lie in a study of the changed conditions in all three of Greece's northern neigh- bours—changes that have occurred only during the last few years.
Yugoslavia before the outbreak of war in 1939 was extremely friendly to Greece. Both countries were members of the Balkan Entente and pledged to mutual assistance in case of attack. During the war, when ex-King Peter of Yugoslavia married a Greek princess, it was hoped by the Greeks that the traditional friendship between the two nations would continue after the war. Then came the emergence of Marshal Tito and his sudden rise to supreme power. Tito's Yugo- slavia no longer cared about the good-neighbour policy and ideals of the now dead Balkan Entente. Even in 1944 Marshal Tito was preaching the gospel of a Slav bloc in the Balkans and his dream of a Federated Yugoslav State, to include an autonomous Macedonia.
I happened to be in Sofia during October, 1944. A repentant Bulgaria had been liberated by the Red Army, and the New Father- land Front Government was full of protestations of goodwill towards all the great Allies. During my stay in the Bulgarian capital a young British officer who had been attached to Marshal Tito asked me whether I would like to meet one of the leaders of the free, auto- nomous Macedonia movement who was visiting Sofia. This Mace- donian leader was a deputy in the Yugoslav Assembly at Belgrade, and therefore spoke with some authority, but he electrified both of us when, discussing the future of Macedonia, he said : " Of course, a free and autonomous Macedonia cannot exist without Salonika! "
Even during this autumn of 1944, Marshal Tito was working hard to bring about a rapprochement between the two Slav brothers, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, despite the fact that Bulgaria had treacher- ously attacked Yugoslavia and was an enemy country, and a pact of friendship was signed during this period. However, Bulgarian statesmen still professed great sympathy and friendship for Greece. Bulgarians were also loud in their praise of the great Western democracies. This attitude was typical of Bulgarian hypocrisy, for the majority of the young Bulgarian intellectuals—even those who had received an Anglo-Saxon education at the American College near Sofia and were thought to be pro-Anglo-Saxon—were quite open in their views that only Soviet Russia could save them at the coming peace conference. In those early days of liberation only one Bulgarian politician saw the dangers lying ahead for Bulgaria and the coming Communist dictatorship. This man was Gemeto Dimitrov, leader of the Agrarian Party and not to be confused with M. Dimitrov, now first Communist Prime Minister of the country. I had a long interview with Gemeto Dimitrov in October, 1944, and he was quite open in his fears that the Bulgarian Communist Party would soon seize power under the cloak of the coalition government formed under the slogan of the Fatherland Front.
The Minister of the Interior in the Fatherland Front Government was a fanatical young Communist, Mugov, and already a quiet liquidation of suspected intellectuals and sincere democrats had begun. Gemeto Dimitrov, as leader of the then powerful Agrarian Party which it was estimated would win at least sixty per cent. of the seats in a really free general election, was also marked down for destruction. He was dangerous. A popular hero, he had only just returned to Bulgaria from Cairo, where he had worked for the British and the Americans, and he was known to be a sincere democrat and to favour a pro-Greek policy. But—he dared to defy the Bulgarian Communists. By December of 1944, a great Press campaign had been launched against Gemeto Dimitrov. He was " an enemy of the State," a would-be "Fiihrer of Bulgaria." He was forced to resign from the leadership of the Agrarian Party, and early in 1945 he was under house arrest. Only active Anglo-American interven- tion saved him from facing a Government firing-squad.
During the whole of 1945, the Fatherland Front Government, led by Kimon Georgiev, but really directed by the Bulgarian Com- munists, started a systematic extermination of all dangerous opposi- tion. Official American sources estimate that at least 20,000 sincere democrats and intellectuals were executed during 1945, many of them leading members of the Agrarian Party. Encouraged by Moscow, Bulgarian nationalism again became rampant, and meetings were held in Sofia, where crowds shouting for the return of Bulgaria's outlet to the Aegean and an autonomous Macedonia with Salonika as its capital was blessed by members of the Bulgarian Government.
The Greeks have always dreaded the possible union of once- friendly Yugoslavia with Greece's traditional enemy, Bulgaria. At the beginning of this year such a union was an established fact. The Bulgarian Premier, Kimon Georgieff, leader of the notorious Sveno Party, who in 1944 had told me: " We u ant to be friends with Greece. If there is any truth in the accusations levelled against Bulgaria, responsible officers will be punished," was now making speeches demanding the return of the Aegean outlet, and the Bul- garian Government were openly supporting Marshal Tito's idea of a free and independent Macedonia with Salonika as its capital. People may wonder why the Slav neighbours of Greece are so anxious to obtain the possession of Salonika. The answer is quite simple, for the port of Salonika is the main Balkan outlet to the Aegean Sea, and it is also the stepping-stone to the Dardanelles. Trieste, Salonika and the Dardanelles are all links in a chain devised to aid Slav expansionism and Soviet Russian security in Eastern Europe.
Successive Greek Governments since the liberation witnessed the growing power of their northern Slav neighbours with alarm, especially as they knew that they had a Trojan Horse within their midst—E.A.M. At first, the E.A.M. leaders indignantly denied that they supported Marshal Tito's scheme for a free and independent Macedonia, but the Greek Government's dossier, now in British Government's hands, will prove that many E.A.M. leaders and sup- porters are helping and supplying the guerrilla bands operating in northern Greece. This year a third unfriendly country has been added to the group—Albania, now virtually a satellite of Yugoslavia. The appearance of Albania at the Paris Peace Conference shocked Greek public opinion. Greek soldiers who had fought in the 1940 Albanian campaign remembered how many Albanians collaborated and even fought with the Italians, and Enver Hodja's claims about Albanian resistance were received with ironic laughter in Athens. But this laughter soon turned to consternation when reports began reaching the Greek capital about continual Albanian raids on Greece's Epirus frontier and the fact that the Albanians, too, were helping the guerrilla bands.
The small state of Albania with its mixed population has long been a trouble-spot in the Balkans, and many students of Balkan affairs have often wondered whether it was wise of the Great Powers to create it in 1913. General Enver Hodja, like Marshal Tito, emerged as the leader of his country during the troubled years of the recent world war. A former colonel in the Albanian Army and well-educated—he speaks excellent French—he was one of the few Albanian resistance leaders against the Italians. Ambitious for power, Hodja soon realised that Albania's only hope of survival was a close alliance with Tito's Yugoslavia. Himself a Moslem, he has little interest in the idea of the Slav bloc, but he knew that Marshal Tito would defend Albania against Greece's well-known claim for the return of Northern Epirus. Moreover, Tito was ready to supply him with arms and equipment which Enver Hodja needed to maintain his dictatorial government over the unruly Albanians. Enver Hodja has also cultivated friendly relations with Moscow, and recently informed circles in Athens have been alarmed by the reports that Soviet Russian experts have been supervising the fortifi- cations of the important Albanian port of Valona and the neighbour- ing island of Saseno, which together could block the entrance into the Adriatic in time of war.
During a long period, Enver Hodja's Government in Tirana has been carrying out a systematic persecution of the Greek minority left in southern Albania, in the attempt to prove that Northern Epirus is purely Albanian and thousands of Greeks have been driven across the Albanian-Greek frontier, homeless and penniless. At the same time, Enver Hodja, in return for Marshal Tito's active support, upholds the Yugoslav demand for a free and independent Macedonia, and has given help and refuge to the followers of E.A.M. Greece, only little more than a year and a-half after the victory of the United Nations, now has three unfriendly Powers along her six-hundred-mile northern frontier. Guerrilla warfare actively aided by her neighbours is paralysing her national economy. It is clearly a case for the Security Council.
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