High life
Hellenic heroics
Taki
ast week marked the 50th anniversary of modern Greece's finest hour, better known to us Hellenes as OXI day, or no, you shall not pass, as answered by the Prime Minister Metaxas to the Italian ultimatum. Although I was only three years old at the time, I remember the day vividly. In fact it is my first recollection. The sirens rang first, then the church bells, then came the patriotic music over the radio. The atmosphere was such that even those cowards who ran to Canada during the Vietnam war would have volunteered. My father left that afternoon in order to join his unit, so did my mother's five brothers. It may be a cheap shot but, just about that time, Onassis sailed for Argenti- na, while some other prominent names in Greece today left for Switzerland.
My oldest uncle, a great hurdler in his youth and still alive today at 86, recalls the first month of the war. Every man was given five olives and one baked potato in the morning. The next meal was the next day, and it was identical. The big Italian offensive was met in Mount Pindos and Kalpaki, and the Greeks held. Each soldier had about 20 bullets issued, and relied on fixed bayonnet charges to dislodge the spaghetti-eaters. There was no transport, only mules, and very few aeroplanes. Costa Mitsotakis, the present premier, was fighting in the snow and below freezing temperatures in a summer uniform. He was too tall to fit into a winter one. My old man ribbed him unmercifully. Again, it may be cheap to mention it, but Andreas Papandreou was in Harvard of all places at the time.
Mount Pindos turned the tide. Although without supplies and very low in ammuni- tion, the Greeks counter-attacked and entered Albanian territory. In the most vicious of battles, they took Tepeleni on 6 December, and I remember the church bells ringing all night. Our greatest thrill was to be taken by our German nanny to see the first batch of Italian prisoners march into Athens. Koritsa had fallen on 29 November, followed by Argyrocastro. These names are carved in my psyche, almost as indelibly as the picture of Jane Fonda wearing a pith helmet in North Vietnam.
In March, Mussolini came to Albania and, like Xerxes, established his headquar- ters across Mt 731. He unleashed a desper-
ate offensive with hundreds of aeroplanes and heavy guns. Once again, the Greeks held and the modern Xerxes left to return to Italy on 13 March. The soldiers who fought those glorious battles under such ghastly conditions were poor farm boys. Their officers were from a similar back- ground. The state had given them nothing, but was asking for the ultimate sacrifice in return. Very few complained.
The irony is that even the arts flourished because of the heroics of the time. Seferis, Ritsos, Elitys, Kazantzakis, Sikellianos all reached maturity during those days. The state gave them the kind of subsidies I'd give that phoney Mapplethorpe, or that other perv, the one that dips Jesus in urine.
In April, Hitler came to the rescue of the Duce. The Yugoslays cracked first and our army was surrounded. In one of his rare moments of gallantry, Hitler ordered that no Greek soldier be taken prisoner, while officers were allowed to keep their swords. Ditto for regimental standards. The battle of Crete, of course, changed everything.
Needless to say, all fighting men deserve to be honoured, but I'm perplexed at today's thinking that nothing is worth dying for. That the only heroes are anti- heroes, and only fools serve their country. I am my country's worst critic, but also, because of the Albanian campaign, its greatest and proudest admirer. And having lived through such heroic times, I guess it's no vice to frequent 'seedy people', as Jeffrey Bernard accused me of in print last Sunday. I can afford to see who I like, old Jeff, because my father paid the price.
Previous page
