Greece, the Decade of War by David Brewer

Author:David Brewer [Brewer, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World War II, European history, 20th Century history, Military history, Political structures: totalitarianism and dictatorship, Fascism and Nazism, Revolution, Espionage, Greece, Southeast Europe, Balkans, Italy, Germany, UK
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

17

Upheaval in the

Greek Government

On 26 March 1944 EAM and ELAS had announced the establishment of their own form of the government of Greece, the Political Committee of National Liberation or PEEA. It had many of the characteristics of a government: it had departments for different functions, it issued decrees, it held elections of a sort. It could claim to be the de facto government of the large area which it controlled and, though Communist dominated, to be more broadly based than the government in exile in Cairo. But to gain legitimacy it needed to be accepted by, and then become part of, the official and constitutional Cairo government.

From the beginning the Greek government in exile had been shaken by discontent among the Greek forces in Egypt, and division between monarchists and republicans. In early March 1943 these conflicts had led to a short-lived mutiny which was suppressed by British troops, but a year later there was more serious trouble.

On 31 March 1944 an army committee presented Prime Minister Tsoudherós with a petition asking him to form a government in coalition with PEEA. ‘It has been established’, writes one historian firmly, though he does not say how, ‘that they did not receive any instructions from EAM in Greece on this question, and that their final decision was completely their own,’1 though instructions from EAM were naturally suspected. As a counter to this demand from the army, invitations were issued by the government in exile to all the guerrilla bands, both Communist and non-Communist, to discuss their inclusion in the government. This was very different from an exclusive arrangement with PEEA.

The government in exile had undergone marked changes since leaving Greece at the time of the German invasion. Then it was a recognisable heir of the pre-war military-dominated Metaxás government. A general and an admiral were deputy prime ministers, three generals served as ministers of the armed services and other posts were held by three of Metaxás’ civilian ministers, including Maniadhákis the scourge of the Communists. Every member of this government was a committed monarchist. However, from the earliest days there was agitation for the government to be more broadly based and to include republicans. The first step in this process was the removal of the three Metaxás ministers, two in June 1941 and the third in the following January. There followed a steady accretion to the government of republican politicians who had escaped from occupied Greece.

Woodhouse gave an illuminating explanation of why these escapers were welcomed, and why they tended to be republican and not monarchist. There was, he wrote, ‘admiration towards every Greek who endured the torment of the occupation, coupled with a faint, ill-defined, but nevertheless real contempt for those who did not’.2 These escapers were mostly of the left rather than the right because they were generally men who were suspect to the Germans for what they had done or might do, and were ready to leave when they could and to face the hazards of escape by caique across the Aegean to Turkey and then overland to Egypt.

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