A forgotten history
John Terraine
The Struggle for Greece 1941-1949 C. M. Woodhouse (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, E15.00) In April 1944 there were widespread mutinies in the Greek forces in exile stationed in Egypt. The British Ambassador to the King of the Hellenes told the Foreign Office that the outbreaks were "nothing less than a revolution," and was encouragingly ' informed by Churchill: "This is an occasion for you to show those qualities of imperturbability and command which are associated with the British Diplomatic Service." The next day Churchill added: "You speak of living on the lid of a volcano. Wherever else do you expect to live in times like these?" In The Struggle for Greece C. M. Woodhouse shows how the volcano began to simmer in 1941, and the stages by which it was gradually, painfully, but successfully brought under control.
Let me say at once that this is not a beginner's book. Mr Woodhouse has deep knowledge of modern Greece, and was a personal participant in many of the events which he describes. The men about whom he writes, EAM leaders, politicians and soldiers in exile, guerillas and Army commanders in the civil war, are not just names, but people whom he knew and had dealings with. If this immensely authoritative work has a fault (other than its dreadful price) it is that Mr Woodhouse knows so much, and makes few concessions to those who are less fortunate.
At times he is decidedly cryptic; discussing differences between British and Americans in December 1944, he writes: "Stettinius, the Secretary of State, made two unhelpful statements on 3 and 5 December" (what were they?); "Admiral King ordered that American ships should not be used to supply British forces in Athens" (and . . .? did the American Government support him? how did Churchill react?); ". . . Only Hopkins and Forrestal, of the President's close associates, intervened to help Churchill." (How?) "Finally, a bitter debate in the Houses of Commons on 8 December severely shook the British Government." (Could we not have at least the highlights of that debate?) I don't want to carp; The Struggle for Greece is a very important book. It is just that a tale which was never over-familiar, and has noW become distinctly remote, needs to be filled in rather more firmly to support Mr Woodhouse's valuable interpre With that said, one can only admire the compendious knowledge and firm grip whiCh the author displays in unfolding the complex transition of what was initially a Resistance to German, Italian and Bulgarian Occupation into a revolutionary movement dominated by the Greek Communist Party, which, despite its weaknesses and schisms and Stalin's indifference, threatened to take over the country. It is a story with a happy ending — the complete defeat of the Communists in 1949 — but it frequently makes painful reading.
Not the least painful element, for British readers, is the reminder of how the mighty are fallen. At this distance in time, after so manY drastic diminutions of British power, it comes as a shock to be reminded of Britain's once decisive role in Greek affairs. The first round of the struggle for Greece was the Resistance period; when it began, Greece's only ally was Britain, and even when the USSR and the United States came into the war, it was Britain that exercised control — in a characteristically contradictory fashion.
On the one hand, Britain gave sanctuary to the King of the Hellenes, George II, and .his right-wing ministers. Britain provided the haven and equipment for those parts of the Greek Army and Navy which escaped the ddbacle of April 1941. Britain pumped a total of some two million gold sovereigns int° Occupied Greece to lubricate the machinery of Resistance, and sent in a British MilitarY Mission. But on the other hand, Britain addressed the Resistance with a distressinglY divided voice. There were, says Mr Woodhouse, three decision-making agencies for Greece, below the Cabinet itself: the Foreign Office, whose field agent was the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the Ministry of Economic Warfare, whose agent was the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and the Chiefs of Staff, whose agent was the C-in-C, Middle East.
By 1943 the inevitable confusion resulting from this dispensation had reached such a pitch that, according to Mr Woodhouse, "SOE ,Was itself under suspicion of pursuing policies of its own in Greece, without too close a regard to the policy of the British Government" (let alone, one might add, the policy of the Greek Government, Britain's ally.) It became apparent, he continues, "that the short-term military requirements and the long-term political requirements were in conflict, but there was deep reluctance to admit it." The Communists dominated from the first the so-called National Liberation Front (EAM) and its armed forces (ELAS); for them to eliminate their rivals and to arrive at ultimate domination of the country itself, they needed British recognition and support. The divided opinions of the British agencies gave them their opportunity. Mr Woodhouse continues: In SOE there were already those who foresaw civil war after the liberation of Greece, and put forward recommendations for forestalling it as early as September 1942. But Foreign Office officials commented that the assumptions were improbable and the recommendations impracticable'. They prefered to trust to British arms and prestige when the time came to avert such an upheaval. At the same time they recognised that by encouraging resistance, and in particular by supporting republican leaders, SOE was laying up trouble for the future; and they would have preferred what theY called 'an inactive sabotage policy'. Those responsible for military planning, however, took an opposite view. In the event, it was GHQ, Middle East, which recognised ELAS s an .allied force, a decision from which endless confusion flowed when military necessities no longer predominated.
The second phase of the struggle was the attempt at a coup d'etat by the Communists in December 1944. It fell to Britain, under resolute leadership by Churchill, to play the leading part in frustrating this, though the decisive factor was probably supplied by the Communists themselves since they had incurred deep unpopularity as a result of their ruthless behaviour during the Resistance.
From this moment, however, British influence was in decline, though the fact was not at once obvious, least of all in Greece. "Up t° 1947," Mr Woodhouse tells us, "the British Government appointed and dismissed Greek Prime Ministers with the barest attention to cOristitutional formalities. British experts dictated economic and financial policy, defence and foreign policy, security and legal policy, trade union and employment policy." This influence persisted despite the fact that when the Communists made their third and last bid for power in 1946, it was far beyond Britain's ,c,apacities to do anything significant about it. By the end of 1946 the Greek Government, and Indeed the Greek state itself, had almost reached the point of collapse. Within a few `Ateeks the US Government had reached the historic decision to take over the desperate responsibility from Britain." So the Truman Doctrine, which shaped the pattern of world Politics for the next twenty-five years, was born, and in that moment Greece was indeed
central to the foreign policy of every major Power," as so many Greeks, quite mistakenly, believed she had always been.
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