Christos
Prologue
(Author's Note: I wrote this Prologue, The Return of the King, the "Alphabet Soup," and the Symmoritis, to put a historical perspective into Christos’ experience[4] in Chatham and the tragic consequences for Greece following the Liberation. It's a summary of the events, as I understand them, from what I have read and remembered from listening to Christos' reflections on the events which lead to “The Incident in Chatham." I am also cognizant of Churchill’s proclamation that,“ Nations do not have friends; they have interests.” Therefore, I would not presume to call this prologue a definitive history; it might better be thought of merely as a layman's brief synopsis of the events leading to what Christos called the "Xastouki"—the slap in the face.)
------------------------------- GVK -----------------------------
“Niko, SIIIRMAAA!!!” That was the "code" word I would yell out while I kept a lookout for my cousin Nikos, Christos' youngest brother, a teenager at the time, so he would not be caught by his parents smoking.
I really don’t remember doing it; I was four or five years old, but it’s in the family mythology and I have the protagonist’s, Nikos’, personal testimony about it! I never quite understood or questioned the etymology of such a strange expression until I started interviewing Christos about ADRIAS and his experience in “Chatham.”
“Sirma” (συρμα, plural: συρματα) means “wire.” It was used as a forewarning of imminent danger—an idiomatic use of the word at the time. It stems from the “Mutiny in the Middle East,” [1] that is, the mutiny of the Greek Armed forces [2] in the Middle East over the political composition of the Greek government after the [WW II] Liberation.
After the Mutiny was harshly crushed, the British threw the mutineers and the innocent bystanders in a primitive scorpion and rat infested internment camp—more like a bivouac—in the middle of the Egyptian desert surrounded by a couple of strands of barbed wire. Thus the expression ”They put them in the wire(s) ” (“Τους βαλανε στο συρμα(τα)" was evolved. Therefore, after the Liberation and the return of the fleet to Greece, a common reference to those who had been imprisoned was: "He was in the wire(s)" (“Ηταν στο(a) συρμα(τα)”).
Now, decades later, listening to Christos telling me about “To Xastouki," [3] not only did I remember having heard the expression but I made the connection between the word “sirma” and Niko’s smoking! I also realized that “The Incident in Chatham” was something more than a spur-of-the-moment revolt of a few non-coms and officers because the British did not invite them for tea and crumpets! The more Christos tried to explain it to me the more confusing the events became, especially for someone like me who did not live through them.
The “Mutiny in the Middle East” was a prelude to the “Incident in Chatham,” although neither the mutiny nor the "Incident" presented a direct military threat to the British. However, both events created a huge problem for Churchill who was determined to have a post-war anti-Communist [44] government in Greece headed by the unpopular (because of his support of the fascist Metaxas regime) King George II. Consequently, anything that could possibly derail Churchill’s plan had to be dealt with expeditiously, even if it meant sinking allied ships, throwing allies into internment camps, or sending the Greek Naval Mission in Chatham—poised to receive two new destroyers—back to Egypt under arrest, on a slow boat around Africa, guarded by Royal Marines.[5]
And speaking of Churchill, in the summer of 1997, I was freelancing as a special consultant for Dr. Mikes Sisois, V.P. of Corporate Planning at ATMEL Corporation. In that capacity, I had to interact with the engineers, several of them being from India. One day, during a celebration by the “Indian group” for the 50th Anniversary of India's Independence, I said to a fellow Indian engineer, “Well, you and I should thank Churchill for keeping our native countries free!”
“Thank that mother [expletive] criminal ???” he thundered! “He should have been hanged for crimes against humanity! ” I was taken aback and left speechless by his response. I knew about India being a former British colony, but I certainly did not expect such animosity, especially from a young man in his early thirties who had not lived under the British Raj. For me Churchill was (and to a certain extent still is) a WW II hero whose armed forces fought side-by-side with the Greeks and who later, splitting the spoils of war with Stalin, thankfully, kept Greece out the Eastern Block, the Soviet Union's sphere of influence.
Way before the Incident at Chatham in the 1930s, Greece was in a political and economic mess of epic proportions. She was ravaged by the international economic repercussions of the 1929 collapse of the Stock Market and by the vicious internal political strife between the Venizelists [6] and the Royalists—Μonarchists and Republicans [7]. Times like these are fertile ground for dictatorships, and it did not take long before another “Εθνοσωτηρας” (Savior of the Nation) appeared in 1936 from the army ranks: General Ioannis Metaxas.
Metaxas, a self-proclaimed genius, like all dictators(!), looked north and tried to copy another “dictator’s” playbook: Hitler’s. But, he lacked Hitler's rabble-rouser rhetoric and Mussolini's proclivity for ridiculous theatrics to captivate the Greek people. Instead he unleashed police terror, censorship, and all the other brutal fascist methods of governance--minus the racism and the persecution of the Jews--while adopting a paternalistic style propagandized with such titles as “National Father,” “First Peasant,” “First Worker,” ... and the Metaxas myth of "wisdom." However, in comparison with the current bunch of dictators, in particular North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un who purportedly could drive a car by the time he was three years old or that he is "too perfect to need to urinate or defecate," Metaxas’ claims of self-aggrandizement sound less ridiculous.
He also imported the Nazi salute, and absurd civilian and military parades that featured ancient Greek attire (Χλαμιδες), push-ups, jogging in place, etc. And banning books like the works of Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon and Goethe. In other words he tried to established a poor-man's "Third Reich," the "Third Hellenic Civilization!"
However, to be fair to the man who introduced the Nazi salute to Greece, he also adopted several of the social, industrial, and economic reforms—demanded by the 1935 tobacco workers' strike which brought him to power to squash it—such as a Foundation for Social Healthcare (IKA), minimum wage, a five-day-forty-hour work week, a two-week vacation, occupational safety, maternity leave and several other benefits. But all these positive reforms have been overshadowed by his sanctioning of rampant police arrests and institutionalized use of torture—his favorite method of extorting confessions: Castor oil and ice.
Apparently the myth of Metaxas’ wisdom was so well propagandized that some fifteen years after his death I, too, got a taste of it. I was a freshman in junior high school when our history teacher, priming us for the “October 28th” National celebration, told the class the following bizarre, if not ridiculous, story. He said that, "The ever praiseworthy Metaxas (Ο Αειμνηστος Μεταξας ) as a young army lieutenant was sent on a training mission to Germany. During his stay there, he impressed the Germans with his intellect, so much so, that they erected a monument to him in the yard of the military academy with the inscription, "There is no problem that cannot be solved by John Metaxas!" ("Οuδεν προβλημα αλυτον παρα τω Ιωαννη Μεταξα." )
Impressed and brimming with national pride for the triumph of the Greek intellect over the German, I ran home to enlighten my mother. My mother, a progressive woman for her time, who as a young woman had lived through the compulsory participation in those Metaxas "Future Mothers of Greece" preposterous parades—dictators love youth parades, don't they?—very diplomatically, told me: “Oh, well, if your teacher said so, it might be true. But I wouldn’t believe it without investigating further.”
Well, not only did I not investigate it any further, I forgot all about it! However, some twenty years later I was reminded of it when in a reunion in San Francisco with Greek friends from our University student days, we began reminiscing about our school years in Greece. Needless to say that my "Metaxas Monument" story drew a deluge of irreverent comments for the late dictator and the heartiest laughs for its absurdity.
Metaxas' big dream was to establish a Third Hellenic Civilization; a mini Third Reich with the open support and aid of King George II—and his name and image became omnipresent and loathsome, like Papadopoulos' and his cohorts' during the 1967 Colonels' Junta. Thanks, though, to the tenacious fighting nature of the Greek soldiers resulting in a resounding victory over fascist Italy in the mountains of Albania in 1940, Metaxas' memory has been mitigated to a national hero of sorts for saying "OXI" ("NO," or more precisely, "Alors, c'est la Guerre") to Benito Mussolini's ambassador who came to him in the middle of the night to deliver his boss' ultimatum (see The New York Times at the end of this page).
Among Metaxas’ first order of business, after closing the parliament, was to create a cult of personality as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader and to purge the armed forces of potential threats to his regime; that is, from the democratic element that was involved in the 1935 Venizelos revolt[8]. Among those forcibly retired was a certain Lieutenant Commander, Ioannis N. Toumbas [9].
Thus, while the clouds of war were gathering in the horizon, Toumbas and many other seasoned Army and Navy officers were inactive, passing their time drinking coffee in the καφενεío (coffee house)[10] and reading about the Albanian Epos (the victory over the Italians) in the newspapers[11]. In short, Metaxas, by the time he died just before the German invasion on April 6, 1941, had managed to polarize the country and deprive the armed forces of experienced senior officers. But to his credit, like Mussolini, he got "The trains running on time!!!” [12]
After Metaxas' death, most of the officers, mostly Venizelitists who had been purged by his regime in the 1930s, were eventually reinstated with their original rank and seniority as if they had never left the service: “Ensigns returning with the rank of Commander” [13]. Among them, Lt. Commander Toumbas reinstated as Commander.
Of course, after the German invasion on April 6, 1941, besides Christos, Mimis, Costas Notaras, King George II and the Government, many other gallant commissioned and non-commissioned officers and ratings kept coming out of Greece to join the military forces in Egypt, and by default, the Government-in-Exile headed by King George II.
Consequently, the issue of rank became a matter of deep concern in the armed forces. The reinstatement of all those officers, besides causing resentment and ill-feelings among officers who suddenly found themselves subordinate to about thirty Captains and Commanders that had been summarily placed over their heads, it also created a glut of officers for a limited number of command positions. Inevitably, officers with the "right stuff," that is the right political leanings and connections were commanding ships, while the others were commanding "Palm trees and Sand Hills" in some remote outpost in the Egyptian Desert, or spending their time on the baccarat tables in Cairo, or being involved in politics.
Under these conditions one-time friends were turned to foes. An internecine warfare erupted dividing officers in two camps, one calling the other “Fascists” and the others as ”Venizelitists,” and it did not take long before navy units began to follow the army's mutinous lead. And thus in April of 1944, there was a mutiny in the navy.
The situation had reached a boiling point. In the Spring of 1943, there was an underground leaflet, "O Andartis tou EAM-ELAS," circulating in Cairo and Alexandria urging everyone to "Fight for freedom only inside Greece and not hunt chimeras and epaulets under the African sun."
(Author's Note: I wrote this Prologue, The Return of the King, the "Alphabet Soup," and the Symmoritis, to put a historical perspective into Christos’ experience[4] in Chatham and the tragic consequences for Greece following the Liberation. It's a summary of the events, as I understand them, from what I have read and remembered from listening to Christos' reflections on the events which lead to “The Incident in Chatham." I am also cognizant of Churchill’s proclamation that,“ Nations do not have friends; they have interests.” Therefore, I would not presume to call this prologue a definitive history; it might better be thought of merely as a layman's brief synopsis of the events leading to what Christos called the "Xastouki"—the slap in the face.)
------------------------------- GVK -----------------------------
“Niko, SIIIRMAAA!!!” That was the "code" word I would yell out while I kept a lookout for my cousin Nikos, Christos' youngest brother, a teenager at the time, so he would not be caught by his parents smoking.
I really don’t remember doing it; I was four or five years old, but it’s in the family mythology and I have the protagonist’s, Nikos’, personal testimony about it! I never quite understood or questioned the etymology of such a strange expression until I started interviewing Christos about ADRIAS and his experience in “Chatham.”
“Sirma” (συρμα, plural: συρματα) means “wire.” It was used as a forewarning of imminent danger—an idiomatic use of the word at the time. It stems from the “Mutiny in the Middle East,” [1] that is, the mutiny of the Greek Armed forces [2] in the Middle East over the political composition of the Greek government after the [WW II] Liberation.
After the Mutiny was harshly crushed, the British threw the mutineers and the innocent bystanders in a primitive scorpion and rat infested internment camp—more like a bivouac—in the middle of the Egyptian desert surrounded by a couple of strands of barbed wire. Thus the expression ”They put them in the wire(s) ” (“Τους βαλανε στο συρμα(τα)" was evolved. Therefore, after the Liberation and the return of the fleet to Greece, a common reference to those who had been imprisoned was: "He was in the wire(s)" (“Ηταν στο(a) συρμα(τα)”).
Now, decades later, listening to Christos telling me about “To Xastouki," [3] not only did I remember having heard the expression but I made the connection between the word “sirma” and Niko’s smoking! I also realized that “The Incident in Chatham” was something more than a spur-of-the-moment revolt of a few non-coms and officers because the British did not invite them for tea and crumpets! The more Christos tried to explain it to me the more confusing the events became, especially for someone like me who did not live through them.
The “Mutiny in the Middle East” was a prelude to the “Incident in Chatham,” although neither the mutiny nor the "Incident" presented a direct military threat to the British. However, both events created a huge problem for Churchill who was determined to have a post-war anti-Communist [44] government in Greece headed by the unpopular (because of his support of the fascist Metaxas regime) King George II. Consequently, anything that could possibly derail Churchill’s plan had to be dealt with expeditiously, even if it meant sinking allied ships, throwing allies into internment camps, or sending the Greek Naval Mission in Chatham—poised to receive two new destroyers—back to Egypt under arrest, on a slow boat around Africa, guarded by Royal Marines.[5]
And speaking of Churchill, in the summer of 1997, I was freelancing as a special consultant for Dr. Mikes Sisois, V.P. of Corporate Planning at ATMEL Corporation. In that capacity, I had to interact with the engineers, several of them being from India. One day, during a celebration by the “Indian group” for the 50th Anniversary of India's Independence, I said to a fellow Indian engineer, “Well, you and I should thank Churchill for keeping our native countries free!”
“Thank that mother [expletive] criminal ???” he thundered! “He should have been hanged for crimes against humanity! ” I was taken aback and left speechless by his response. I knew about India being a former British colony, but I certainly did not expect such animosity, especially from a young man in his early thirties who had not lived under the British Raj. For me Churchill was (and to a certain extent still is) a WW II hero whose armed forces fought side-by-side with the Greeks and who later, splitting the spoils of war with Stalin, thankfully, kept Greece out the Eastern Block, the Soviet Union's sphere of influence.
Way before the Incident at Chatham in the 1930s, Greece was in a political and economic mess of epic proportions. She was ravaged by the international economic repercussions of the 1929 collapse of the Stock Market and by the vicious internal political strife between the Venizelists [6] and the Royalists—Μonarchists and Republicans [7]. Times like these are fertile ground for dictatorships, and it did not take long before another “Εθνοσωτηρας” (Savior of the Nation) appeared in 1936 from the army ranks: General Ioannis Metaxas.
Metaxas, a self-proclaimed genius, like all dictators(!), looked north and tried to copy another “dictator’s” playbook: Hitler’s. But, he lacked Hitler's rabble-rouser rhetoric and Mussolini's proclivity for ridiculous theatrics to captivate the Greek people. Instead he unleashed police terror, censorship, and all the other brutal fascist methods of governance--minus the racism and the persecution of the Jews--while adopting a paternalistic style propagandized with such titles as “National Father,” “First Peasant,” “First Worker,” ... and the Metaxas myth of "wisdom." However, in comparison with the current bunch of dictators, in particular North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un who purportedly could drive a car by the time he was three years old or that he is "too perfect to need to urinate or defecate," Metaxas’ claims of self-aggrandizement sound less ridiculous.
He also imported the Nazi salute, and absurd civilian and military parades that featured ancient Greek attire (Χλαμιδες), push-ups, jogging in place, etc. And banning books like the works of Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon and Goethe. In other words he tried to established a poor-man's "Third Reich," the "Third Hellenic Civilization!"
However, to be fair to the man who introduced the Nazi salute to Greece, he also adopted several of the social, industrial, and economic reforms—demanded by the 1935 tobacco workers' strike which brought him to power to squash it—such as a Foundation for Social Healthcare (IKA), minimum wage, a five-day-forty-hour work week, a two-week vacation, occupational safety, maternity leave and several other benefits. But all these positive reforms have been overshadowed by his sanctioning of rampant police arrests and institutionalized use of torture—his favorite method of extorting confessions: Castor oil and ice.
Apparently the myth of Metaxas’ wisdom was so well propagandized that some fifteen years after his death I, too, got a taste of it. I was a freshman in junior high school when our history teacher, priming us for the “October 28th” National celebration, told the class the following bizarre, if not ridiculous, story. He said that, "The ever praiseworthy Metaxas (Ο Αειμνηστος Μεταξας ) as a young army lieutenant was sent on a training mission to Germany. During his stay there, he impressed the Germans with his intellect, so much so, that they erected a monument to him in the yard of the military academy with the inscription, "There is no problem that cannot be solved by John Metaxas!" ("Οuδεν προβλημα αλυτον παρα τω Ιωαννη Μεταξα." )
Impressed and brimming with national pride for the triumph of the Greek intellect over the German, I ran home to enlighten my mother. My mother, a progressive woman for her time, who as a young woman had lived through the compulsory participation in those Metaxas "Future Mothers of Greece" preposterous parades—dictators love youth parades, don't they?—very diplomatically, told me: “Oh, well, if your teacher said so, it might be true. But I wouldn’t believe it without investigating further.”
Well, not only did I not investigate it any further, I forgot all about it! However, some twenty years later I was reminded of it when in a reunion in San Francisco with Greek friends from our University student days, we began reminiscing about our school years in Greece. Needless to say that my "Metaxas Monument" story drew a deluge of irreverent comments for the late dictator and the heartiest laughs for its absurdity.
Metaxas' big dream was to establish a Third Hellenic Civilization; a mini Third Reich with the open support and aid of King George II—and his name and image became omnipresent and loathsome, like Papadopoulos' and his cohorts' during the 1967 Colonels' Junta. Thanks, though, to the tenacious fighting nature of the Greek soldiers resulting in a resounding victory over fascist Italy in the mountains of Albania in 1940, Metaxas' memory has been mitigated to a national hero of sorts for saying "OXI" ("NO," or more precisely, "Alors, c'est la Guerre") to Benito Mussolini's ambassador who came to him in the middle of the night to deliver his boss' ultimatum (see The New York Times at the end of this page).
Among Metaxas’ first order of business, after closing the parliament, was to create a cult of personality as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader and to purge the armed forces of potential threats to his regime; that is, from the democratic element that was involved in the 1935 Venizelos revolt[8]. Among those forcibly retired was a certain Lieutenant Commander, Ioannis N. Toumbas [9].
Thus, while the clouds of war were gathering in the horizon, Toumbas and many other seasoned Army and Navy officers were inactive, passing their time drinking coffee in the καφενεío (coffee house)[10] and reading about the Albanian Epos (the victory over the Italians) in the newspapers[11]. In short, Metaxas, by the time he died just before the German invasion on April 6, 1941, had managed to polarize the country and deprive the armed forces of experienced senior officers. But to his credit, like Mussolini, he got "The trains running on time!!!” [12]
After Metaxas' death, most of the officers, mostly Venizelitists who had been purged by his regime in the 1930s, were eventually reinstated with their original rank and seniority as if they had never left the service: “Ensigns returning with the rank of Commander” [13]. Among them, Lt. Commander Toumbas reinstated as Commander.
Of course, after the German invasion on April 6, 1941, besides Christos, Mimis, Costas Notaras, King George II and the Government, many other gallant commissioned and non-commissioned officers and ratings kept coming out of Greece to join the military forces in Egypt, and by default, the Government-in-Exile headed by King George II.
Consequently, the issue of rank became a matter of deep concern in the armed forces. The reinstatement of all those officers, besides causing resentment and ill-feelings among officers who suddenly found themselves subordinate to about thirty Captains and Commanders that had been summarily placed over their heads, it also created a glut of officers for a limited number of command positions. Inevitably, officers with the "right stuff," that is the right political leanings and connections were commanding ships, while the others were commanding "Palm trees and Sand Hills" in some remote outpost in the Egyptian Desert, or spending their time on the baccarat tables in Cairo, or being involved in politics.
Under these conditions one-time friends were turned to foes. An internecine warfare erupted dividing officers in two camps, one calling the other “Fascists” and the others as ”Venizelitists,” and it did not take long before navy units began to follow the army's mutinous lead. And thus in April of 1944, there was a mutiny in the navy.
The situation had reached a boiling point. In the Spring of 1943, there was an underground leaflet, "O Andartis tou EAM-ELAS," circulating in Cairo and Alexandria urging everyone to "Fight for freedom only inside Greece and not hunt chimeras and epaulets under the African sun."
Some historians believe that The Greek Government-in-Exile, in reality, was a British creation, mainly to keep King George II in Cairo—until he was needed—far away from London from becoming a political nuisance just before Operation Overlord. However, the King and his government enjoyed all the trappings of a functioning government but had minimal, if any, authority over the Greek armed forces outside Greece—and no influence whatsoever on what was happening inside Greece.
King George II, in my opinion, was a tragic historical figure. His reign was punctuated by exiles, wars and dictatorships. And his stern and humorless demeanor, in contrast to King Paul, his brother and successor, did not make him popular.
Meanwhile, back in Greece, the only substantive resistance to the brutal Axis occupation was presented by a number of rival guerrilla bands (Andartes)[14] with various political ideologies and who most of the time were engaged in savage guerrilla warfare with each other rather than fighting the Germans—the casual brutality, of either group, was horrific and still remains indelible. And all were funded by the British with gold sovereigns—thus it became dubbed the "Golden Resistance."[15]
The preeminent of these guerrilla groups were EAM-ELAS and EDES-EOEA.
Initially, EAM attracted people from all colors of the political spectrum to its ranks—all eager to fight the enemy. But with time, unfettered by Metaxas' oppression, it was infiltrated and eventually controlled by the KKE, the Communist Party of Greece, and for some time KKE counted in its ranks more than 1.5 million members out of a national population of 7.5 million at the time[20]. With this many men and women[21] in arms and with several decisive victories against the Germans, and over the other rival groups, it did not take long for EAM to form the Political Committee of National Liberation (ΠΕΕΑ)[22], better known as: The Mountain Government [23].
Thus, by mid-March 1944, while the countryside was ravaged, there were three “Governments” jousting for the control of Greece after the Liberation: The Mountain Government, in the liberated territories within Greece; the Collaborationist Government in Athens and the Government-in-Exile in Cairo.
Naturally, EAM was against the return of the King. Meanwhile, a large number of officers and enlisted men who had escaped from Greece were supporting EAM’s position. With that sentiment permeating the armed forces, coupled with the ill fillings fueled by the reinstatement of the “Venizelist,” the stage for a revolt was set.
Incidentally, cousin Nikos, despite his parents' wishes, joined the “X” organization (Greek: Chi Organismos), a right-wing organization in close cooperation with the British. Their flag was like the official Greek flag but in the center had the Crown supported by a huge letter “X”[16]. Its leader was Colonel George Grivas, a native of Cypress, the same Colonel Grivas who in the 1950s, as the leader of EOKA [17], the Cypriot underground organization fighting for the island's independence, became a nemesis for the British.
Unfortunately for Greece, these waves of violence between the various "resistance" groups were just the beginning only to be exceeded by the bitter suicidal civil war of 1946-1949, which followed after the Liberation and the return of the King and his Government-in-exile to Greece, that spawned crimes of extreme brutality and utmost savagery perpetrated by both sides.
In early April, 1944, the Greek naval units in Egypt mutinied demanding the inclusion in the King’s government, members from EAM’s "Government of the Mountain"—an anathema to Churchill’s policy for an anti-Communist government in Athens. Churchill was intransigent to anything that could prevent the return of the King and his government-in-exile as “the government” of Greece after the Liberation. That caused a series of mutinies to erupt not only in the units of the Greek army and navy stationed in Egypt, but in the warships at sea and in ports in Italy[24], Malta, England, and Lebanon. The mutineers, mainly from the rank-and-file and a few commissioned officers, at first were content sending petitions to foreign governments and refusing to “assist in moving the ships.” But with time, their demands escalated to violence. Proletariat-type Committees[25] sprung up spewing out leftist slogans and forcibly taking control of ships.
On the warship PINDOS, while anchored in Alexandria, the mutineers threw the officers overboard, into the dirty waters of the harbor, one-by-one, grabbing them by the hands and feet and with a, "uh-one, uh-two, uh-three," tossing them over the gunwale like sacks of potatoes some 30 feet above the water line [26]. And if that was not enough of a humiliation, adding insult to the injury, a local with his felucca was plucking them out of the water, for a price, as he was shouting, "any more? any more?"
However, the mutineers did make an exception for the executive officer Lt. Kogevinas, an officer dear to the crew, because he had saved the life of a sailor who had been swept overboard in rough seas by diving into the churning sea: They allowed him to jump instead of throwing him overboard like the others—while the sailor whose life he had saved stood by among the mutineers without protesting!
Toumbas, in his book, Ehthros en Opsi, page 455, expresses his disgust for the events in language which, considering today's prevailing "political correctness," would have been rather inappropriate. He described these shocking actions of violence as "axions of the jungle inhabitants, but not of the Greeks."
Nevertheless, PINDOS was allowed to sail the next day with a new captain, and for a short period of time order seemed to have been restored. But it did not take long before the British breach of faith with the Greek navy erupted in open confrontation.
Churchill was furious, the Royal Hellenic Navy High command was horrified, and ABC, Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham [27], the C-in-C of the Allied Mediterranean Naval forces, who had there-to-fore advocated nonviolent means for putting down the rebellion, changed his mind. He gave a short deadline to Admiral Voulgaris[28], the Greek CNO, to subdue the rebellion[29] lest the British repeat a “Mers-el-Kebir”[30] massacre to restore the order.[31]
Toumbas[32], the hero of ADRIAS and an officer of high value and coolest bravery, and now Voulgaris’ Chief-of-Staff, was angered and disgusted. He immediately volunteered to lead the “ΡΕΣΑΛΤΟ,” the "Boarding Party,"[33] that would lay waste to both crew and officers, to recapture the ships that had mutinied in Alexandria. He asked for volunteers[34] only to be inundated with requests from officers from all occupational specialties of the service: officers of the line, engineers, musicians, doctors, lawyers, cadets, non-coms, and sailors. Christos being in England at the time was very disapointed that he could not be of service to his former commander, in yet another daring mission.
Incidentally, Toumbas reluctantly turned down his former Academy classmate's request to join the Boarding Party although that officer was a valiant and well regarded naval officer: Crown Prince Paul,[35] the future (popular) King of Greece.[36] The Prince was adamant about joining, but Toumbas ultimately prevailed. His indisputable and rather altruistic counter-argument went: If I were to be killed, it would be a tragedy for one family. But if his Royal Highness was to be killed, it would be a tragedy for all of Greece.”[37]
The mutiny was crushed with both sides paying a high price, wallowing on fallen comrades and their viscera, fighting on the gangways and in confined spaces through narrow passageways in the bowels of the ships. In his book, “Enemy in Sight,” Toumbas describes in detail that violent circus of murder and patriotism. That is, the strategy for the “Ρεσαλτο,”[38] the heroism of his men, the viciousness of the battle and the carnage on either side of the conflict. [39]. A truly dark day that plunged the Navy into mourning with so many young men, on either side lost and all for naught. Among the dead, the heroic Commander N. Roussen killed while leading his detachment to recover the corvette Apostolis. And although the immediate problem was solved, the long term problems facing Greece after the war were just beginning—a Pyrrhic victory, in a sense.
Reading Toumbas' description of the mutiny reminded me of what Thucydides wrote 2,500 years ago about the agony of armed conflict: " And war is not the only reason for men's deeds becoming brutal, it twists their words; reckless audacity comes to be regarded as courageous loyalty to party, prudent hesitation as specious cowardice, moderation as a cloak for unmanly weakness, and to be clever in everything is to do naught in anything."
Mass imprisonments of the guilty and not guilty in primitive cruel British internment camps in the harsh African heat and dust of the desert followed, while military tribunals began grinding out of Cairo death and long term prison sentences with little regard for those who were innocent. At the end, under pressure in the British House of Commons and to quell the still percolating “Royalist-Republican” discord in the armed forces, most of the accused were pardoned and years later, some of them were reinstated at the appropriate rank level. And, although they did a treasonous act, in retrospect they were excessively punished in comparison with the army mutineers who were sent to Merj Uyoun in Syria. And afterwards, in 1947, were recruited in the nascent Mountain Brigade—the much celebrated LOK (ΛΟΚ; Λόχοs Ορεινών Καταδρομών = Mountain Raider Company)—which became the major National fighting units during the 1946-1949 civil war.
Meanwhile the confidence of the British High Command that the Greeks could be a loyal ally was unjustly shaken. Admiral Cunningham made it clear to Admiral Voulgaris that future operations would be thoroughly evaluated before being assigned to the Greek Navy. Thus, the “Incident at Chatham,” as detracting from the Greek contributions toward Victory as it may have been, should not have been a surprise. Churchill had decided on the future of Greece. And with operation OVERLORD [40] pending, he did not want AVON VALE and ASTIX, two new state-of-the-art destroyers, to be in the hands of a “potentially unreliable”[41] ally. So, he reneged on giving them to the Greek Navy.
Undoubtedly, the German occupation had reopened old wounds between supporters of the King and its prewar fascist Metaxas government, and its Left-wing opponents to the point of a rebellion to erupt in Athens, on December of 1944, just two months after the departure of the Germans, known as THE DECEMVRIANA.
The situation was critical for Churchill's vision of the new world order. But Churchill not being one to give up in despair or in the face of danger, he flew to Athens on Christmas Day, 1944, to find a common ground solution to a very complex problem: The Left-wing guerillas had fought with the British against the Germans and their Greek collaborators. However, after the Germans retreated, the British switched sides[47] to ensure the King's return. They helped to crush the Left-wing guerilla rebellion against the formation of a new Greek government which excluded them but included former German collaborators.
Unfortunately, the brilliant, stirring, and inspiring speech Churchill gave that Christmas Day to bring the two sides together was overshadowed by the recent lethal DECEMVRIANA events. And coupled with his reneging on the transfer to the Greek Navy of those two new ships, regardless of the sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate price on either side of the Mutiny, did not prevent an even greater calamity befalling the Greek people: The horrendous 1946-1949 Greek Civil War [42], a conflict full of atrocity and excess on both sides whose aftermath of divisive social and political repercussions lasted until the mid 1980's.
===========================
Author's Note: "How do you like living in a free country?"
When I first came to America one of the questions I would often be asked by fellow students, acquaintances and even my professors was, "How do you like living in a free country?"
I was rather perplexed by this question because it had never before occurred to me that living in Greece was not living in a "free" country! After all, Greece was the birthplace of Democracy and the cradle of the Western civilization!
With more introspection over the years, I can explain my puzzlement as follows: Because I had lived a protected life of sorts!
PS: See the CHATHAM/Symmorites tab for two anecdotal stories relating to the Civil War, also footnotes 42 and 43, below.
=========================================================================
Footnotes:
[1] Nikos tells me that “sirma” was the common warning signal used by the lookouts of “Saltadori.” Saltadori were members of petty-thieving gangs (daredevils?) during the German Occupation roaming the streets and jumping on moving German trucks stealing the spare tire and anything else they could grab, like foodstuffs, guns, and grenades.
[2] Army units rebelled, as well.
[3] Literally: The slap in the face.
[4] Christos was in Chatham, England, during the Mutiny in the Middle East as part of the crew to receive two destroyers from the British—Avon Vale and Astix.
[5] Due to opposition in the House of Commons, the Greek detachment at Chatham was sent to Egypt, but not under arrest or a slow boat around Africa.
[6] Eleftherios Venizelos, former Prime Minister of Greece.
[7] John O. Iatrides, Greece in the 1940's: A Nation in Crisis (Hanover, N.H., 1981
[8] Greek: Κίνημα του 1935. It was a Venizelist revolt against the People’s Party government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which was suspected of pro-royalist tendencies.
[9] The future hero of the ADRIAS Epos and future CNO. “Enemy in Sight,” by I. Toumbas, page 4.
[10] Coffeehouse.
[11] Toumbas, Enemy in Sight, page 4.
[12] A widely circulating snide remark about his Dictatorship.
[13] Eugene Panagopoulos, ret. Commander: WW II The Navy Warriors Remember, 4th Tome, page 40.
[14] See “The Alphabet Soup” tab.
[15] Thus the Resistance was tabbed “The Golden Resistance.”
[16] Adaptation of King George’s II royal monogram of two crossed gammas (Γ) which resembled the Greek letter X. In Greek the name George is Γεωργιος, thus the two gammas (Γ) .
[17] EOKA was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the independence of the island from the British.
[18] EAMites – ELASites were the followers of EAM-ELAS, respectively. In the period 1941-1945 the Resistance fighters were known as Antartes. During the Civil War, 1946-1947, they were referred to as Symmorites. The word Antartes means revolutionaries or partisans and they were romanticized as the symbol of the struggle against the occupier. On the other hand, "Symmorites" was, and still is, synonymous with cutthroats, criminals, rapists, and traitors.
[19] «ΕΛΑΣ με ενα Λαμδα» was the communist slogan. The Greek word for Greece is: ΕΛΛΑΣ.
[20] Anthony Eden, not a friend of Greece, credited EAM with the support of 75% of the Greek people; the London Times credited it with 90%. In addition, its organized military force, ELAS (ΕΛΑΣ), was strong enough to put 25,000 armed men into action in Athens against the British "without stripping other regions under its control."
[21] At the time, women were not drafted in the armed services. However, during the war, many women joined the resistance groups either voluntarily or by force.
[22] Greek: Πολιτική Επιτροπή Εθνικής Απελευθέρωσης
[23] Greek: Κυβέρνηση του βουνού.This Government was recognized by a few Communist States aligned with the USSR.
[24] By that time Italy had surrendered to the Allies.
[25] The sailors formed ship committees (Greek: Epitropata) and took charge of the vessels.
[26] A local with his feluka collected them, one-by-one, for a price.
[27] Mark C. Jones. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 20, 2002. Page 367: In April 1944 the two principal RN officers with immediate oversight of the RHN were Admiral John H.D. Cunningham (naval Commander in Chief, Mediterranean) and Vice Admiral Bernard H. Rawlings (Flag Officer Levant and Eastern Mediterranean or FOLEM). Misunderstood and Forgotten: The Greek Naval Mutiny of April 1944..
[28] Voulgaris was reporting to FOLEM.
[29] To this end, the British brought to Alexandria the light cruiser HMS Ajax, of the Rio de la Plate battle against the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, and the light cruiser HMS Phoebe.
[30] The British navy sunk the French Navy while at anchor at its base at Mers-el-Kébir on the coast of what was then French Algeria, on 3 July 1940, to prevent it from potentially falling on German hands. The casualties were horrific; more than 1,000 dead and countless wounded.
[31] Mark C. Jones, Misunderstood and Forgotten: The Greek Naval Mutiny of April 1944, page 383.:
Approximately 2,600 men were killed.
[32] The legendary Captain of Adrias.
[33] Greek: Αγημα Εμβολης. Actually Toumbas led the Bording party for the ship Apostolis.
[34] Christos added: “Had I been in Alexandria, I would have been the first to volunteer.”
[35] Prince Paul succeeded to the throne upon the sudden death of his elder brother, King George II, on April 1, 1947 as King Paul I.
[36] He was the steadying hand during political intrigues and a turbulent parade of governments from 1947-1963. He promoted reconciliation after the Civil War; and Greece enjoyed an unprecedented economic growth, with America's generous financial/military aid.
[37] Toumbas, Enemy in Sight, page 469. King George was childless and Crown Prince Paul’s son, Constantine, was only three years old.
[38] The violent boarding of the mutinied ships. It’s a word of Italian or Spanish roots reminiscent of pirates attacking a ship on the high seas.
[39] Compared to Mers-el-Kebir, thankfully, the casualties were less than 50 (If Christos’ memory is correct, 27 dead and the rest wounded).
[40] The Battle of Normandy, June 6, 1944.
[41] An utterly untrue and insulting statement. The Greek Navy proved to be a very reliable ally.
[42] Vae victis ("woe to the vanquished", "Αλιμονο στους Νικιμενους"). Although the Civil War ended in 1949, its corrosive legacy—Makronisos, Trikeri, Ai Stratis, etc.— lasted until the 1980s. Some historians claim that America's intervention during and after the Civil War was America's first intervention into the internal affairs of another nation after the WW II. Makronisos was the most brutal of the many prison camps where communists, suspected communists, and unsophisticated countryfolk dreaming of a utopian communist paradise of milk and honey were thrown in to be "deprogrammed" with brutal methods similar to those reported about GTMO (Guantanamo) and Abu Ghraib.
Churchill and Truman had ordained that Greece should be in the Western Alliance—God bless them. Therefore, anything that would prevent Greece from turning communist was justifiable.
[43] Markos Vafiadis was a leading member of the Communist party and the Field Marshal of ELAS, the Communist (Symmorites) army. A capable and dynamic leader, advocating regular warfare instead of guerrilla tactics. He fell out of favor with N. Zahariadis, the General Secretary of the Communist Part. He was relieved of his command, and exiled in the Soviet Union. After 33-years of trials and tribulations, in 1983 he returned from exile and in 1989 was honorarily elected into the Greek parliament by PASOK. Gramos and Bitsi are mountain peaks of the Pindos mountain range where the fiercest battles of the Symmoritopolemos took place.
[44] Makronisos: Greece's Devil's Island.
[45] Xorofylakas was a member of the dreaded provincial Gendarmerie. Unlike the city policemen, Xorofylakes had a bad reputation for their brutality and strong-arm tactics. They had absolute authority and discretion over the countryside, having the final and total power of acting on their own, often biased, judgements.
[46] White Terror: The hunt for and the persecution of former members of the leftist World War II era resistance organization EAM-ELAS in 1945–46, and its continuation during and after the war. Some historians believe that the White Terror forced many to go back to the mountains, thus precipitating the Civil War.
[47] The French historian, Andre Fontaine, gives the most objective description of the post-war Greek drama in his book HISTORY OF THE COLD WAR, page 215 in its Random House English edition: "Churchill was the first to admit that Stalin did fulfill his pledges with respect to Greece, at least for a certain time. In other words without lifting a finger he allowed the British to massacre the ELAS partisans, who led by the Greek communists had taken over control of most of the country after the Germans retreated. The only protest came from President Roosevelt, who merely reflected the indignation of a large part of British and American public opinion at the fact that Allied arms were being used not against Nazis but against patriots who had bravely battled them.”
See in the "CHATHAM/Symmorites" tab for two anecdotal stories relating to footnotes 42, 43 and 44.
King George II, in my opinion, was a tragic historical figure. His reign was punctuated by exiles, wars and dictatorships. And his stern and humorless demeanor, in contrast to King Paul, his brother and successor, did not make him popular.
Meanwhile, back in Greece, the only substantive resistance to the brutal Axis occupation was presented by a number of rival guerrilla bands (Andartes)[14] with various political ideologies and who most of the time were engaged in savage guerrilla warfare with each other rather than fighting the Germans—the casual brutality, of either group, was horrific and still remains indelible. And all were funded by the British with gold sovereigns—thus it became dubbed the "Golden Resistance."[15]
The preeminent of these guerrilla groups were EAM-ELAS and EDES-EOEA.
- EAM: National Liberation Front (Εθνικο Απελεφθερωτικο Μετωπο), whose military arm was ELAS, Greek People’s Liberation Army (Ελληνικος Λαικος Απελεuθερωτικος Στρατος.) The EAM-ELAS[18] slogan was “ELAS with one Lamda” [19]—a play on the Greek word for “Greece” that is correctly spelled with two lamdas, i.e., ELLAS.
- EDES: National Republican Greek League (Εθνικός Δημοκρατικός Ελληνικός Σύνδεσμος). The largest of the non-communist resistance groups, whose military arm was EOEA, National Groups of Greek Guerrillas (Εθνικές Ομάδες Ελλήνων Ανταρτών).
Initially, EAM attracted people from all colors of the political spectrum to its ranks—all eager to fight the enemy. But with time, unfettered by Metaxas' oppression, it was infiltrated and eventually controlled by the KKE, the Communist Party of Greece, and for some time KKE counted in its ranks more than 1.5 million members out of a national population of 7.5 million at the time[20]. With this many men and women[21] in arms and with several decisive victories against the Germans, and over the other rival groups, it did not take long for EAM to form the Political Committee of National Liberation (ΠΕΕΑ)[22], better known as: The Mountain Government [23].
Thus, by mid-March 1944, while the countryside was ravaged, there were three “Governments” jousting for the control of Greece after the Liberation: The Mountain Government, in the liberated territories within Greece; the Collaborationist Government in Athens and the Government-in-Exile in Cairo.
Naturally, EAM was against the return of the King. Meanwhile, a large number of officers and enlisted men who had escaped from Greece were supporting EAM’s position. With that sentiment permeating the armed forces, coupled with the ill fillings fueled by the reinstatement of the “Venizelist,” the stage for a revolt was set.
Incidentally, cousin Nikos, despite his parents' wishes, joined the “X” organization (Greek: Chi Organismos), a right-wing organization in close cooperation with the British. Their flag was like the official Greek flag but in the center had the Crown supported by a huge letter “X”[16]. Its leader was Colonel George Grivas, a native of Cypress, the same Colonel Grivas who in the 1950s, as the leader of EOKA [17], the Cypriot underground organization fighting for the island's independence, became a nemesis for the British.
Unfortunately for Greece, these waves of violence between the various "resistance" groups were just the beginning only to be exceeded by the bitter suicidal civil war of 1946-1949, which followed after the Liberation and the return of the King and his Government-in-exile to Greece, that spawned crimes of extreme brutality and utmost savagery perpetrated by both sides.
In early April, 1944, the Greek naval units in Egypt mutinied demanding the inclusion in the King’s government, members from EAM’s "Government of the Mountain"—an anathema to Churchill’s policy for an anti-Communist government in Athens. Churchill was intransigent to anything that could prevent the return of the King and his government-in-exile as “the government” of Greece after the Liberation. That caused a series of mutinies to erupt not only in the units of the Greek army and navy stationed in Egypt, but in the warships at sea and in ports in Italy[24], Malta, England, and Lebanon. The mutineers, mainly from the rank-and-file and a few commissioned officers, at first were content sending petitions to foreign governments and refusing to “assist in moving the ships.” But with time, their demands escalated to violence. Proletariat-type Committees[25] sprung up spewing out leftist slogans and forcibly taking control of ships.
On the warship PINDOS, while anchored in Alexandria, the mutineers threw the officers overboard, into the dirty waters of the harbor, one-by-one, grabbing them by the hands and feet and with a, "uh-one, uh-two, uh-three," tossing them over the gunwale like sacks of potatoes some 30 feet above the water line [26]. And if that was not enough of a humiliation, adding insult to the injury, a local with his felucca was plucking them out of the water, for a price, as he was shouting, "any more? any more?"
However, the mutineers did make an exception for the executive officer Lt. Kogevinas, an officer dear to the crew, because he had saved the life of a sailor who had been swept overboard in rough seas by diving into the churning sea: They allowed him to jump instead of throwing him overboard like the others—while the sailor whose life he had saved stood by among the mutineers without protesting!
Toumbas, in his book, Ehthros en Opsi, page 455, expresses his disgust for the events in language which, considering today's prevailing "political correctness," would have been rather inappropriate. He described these shocking actions of violence as "axions of the jungle inhabitants, but not of the Greeks."
Nevertheless, PINDOS was allowed to sail the next day with a new captain, and for a short period of time order seemed to have been restored. But it did not take long before the British breach of faith with the Greek navy erupted in open confrontation.
Churchill was furious, the Royal Hellenic Navy High command was horrified, and ABC, Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham [27], the C-in-C of the Allied Mediterranean Naval forces, who had there-to-fore advocated nonviolent means for putting down the rebellion, changed his mind. He gave a short deadline to Admiral Voulgaris[28], the Greek CNO, to subdue the rebellion[29] lest the British repeat a “Mers-el-Kebir”[30] massacre to restore the order.[31]
Toumbas[32], the hero of ADRIAS and an officer of high value and coolest bravery, and now Voulgaris’ Chief-of-Staff, was angered and disgusted. He immediately volunteered to lead the “ΡΕΣΑΛΤΟ,” the "Boarding Party,"[33] that would lay waste to both crew and officers, to recapture the ships that had mutinied in Alexandria. He asked for volunteers[34] only to be inundated with requests from officers from all occupational specialties of the service: officers of the line, engineers, musicians, doctors, lawyers, cadets, non-coms, and sailors. Christos being in England at the time was very disapointed that he could not be of service to his former commander, in yet another daring mission.
Incidentally, Toumbas reluctantly turned down his former Academy classmate's request to join the Boarding Party although that officer was a valiant and well regarded naval officer: Crown Prince Paul,[35] the future (popular) King of Greece.[36] The Prince was adamant about joining, but Toumbas ultimately prevailed. His indisputable and rather altruistic counter-argument went: If I were to be killed, it would be a tragedy for one family. But if his Royal Highness was to be killed, it would be a tragedy for all of Greece.”[37]
The mutiny was crushed with both sides paying a high price, wallowing on fallen comrades and their viscera, fighting on the gangways and in confined spaces through narrow passageways in the bowels of the ships. In his book, “Enemy in Sight,” Toumbas describes in detail that violent circus of murder and patriotism. That is, the strategy for the “Ρεσαλτο,”[38] the heroism of his men, the viciousness of the battle and the carnage on either side of the conflict. [39]. A truly dark day that plunged the Navy into mourning with so many young men, on either side lost and all for naught. Among the dead, the heroic Commander N. Roussen killed while leading his detachment to recover the corvette Apostolis. And although the immediate problem was solved, the long term problems facing Greece after the war were just beginning—a Pyrrhic victory, in a sense.
Reading Toumbas' description of the mutiny reminded me of what Thucydides wrote 2,500 years ago about the agony of armed conflict: " And war is not the only reason for men's deeds becoming brutal, it twists their words; reckless audacity comes to be regarded as courageous loyalty to party, prudent hesitation as specious cowardice, moderation as a cloak for unmanly weakness, and to be clever in everything is to do naught in anything."
Mass imprisonments of the guilty and not guilty in primitive cruel British internment camps in the harsh African heat and dust of the desert followed, while military tribunals began grinding out of Cairo death and long term prison sentences with little regard for those who were innocent. At the end, under pressure in the British House of Commons and to quell the still percolating “Royalist-Republican” discord in the armed forces, most of the accused were pardoned and years later, some of them were reinstated at the appropriate rank level. And, although they did a treasonous act, in retrospect they were excessively punished in comparison with the army mutineers who were sent to Merj Uyoun in Syria. And afterwards, in 1947, were recruited in the nascent Mountain Brigade—the much celebrated LOK (ΛΟΚ; Λόχοs Ορεινών Καταδρομών = Mountain Raider Company)—which became the major National fighting units during the 1946-1949 civil war.
Meanwhile the confidence of the British High Command that the Greeks could be a loyal ally was unjustly shaken. Admiral Cunningham made it clear to Admiral Voulgaris that future operations would be thoroughly evaluated before being assigned to the Greek Navy. Thus, the “Incident at Chatham,” as detracting from the Greek contributions toward Victory as it may have been, should not have been a surprise. Churchill had decided on the future of Greece. And with operation OVERLORD [40] pending, he did not want AVON VALE and ASTIX, two new state-of-the-art destroyers, to be in the hands of a “potentially unreliable”[41] ally. So, he reneged on giving them to the Greek Navy.
Undoubtedly, the German occupation had reopened old wounds between supporters of the King and its prewar fascist Metaxas government, and its Left-wing opponents to the point of a rebellion to erupt in Athens, on December of 1944, just two months after the departure of the Germans, known as THE DECEMVRIANA.
The situation was critical for Churchill's vision of the new world order. But Churchill not being one to give up in despair or in the face of danger, he flew to Athens on Christmas Day, 1944, to find a common ground solution to a very complex problem: The Left-wing guerillas had fought with the British against the Germans and their Greek collaborators. However, after the Germans retreated, the British switched sides[47] to ensure the King's return. They helped to crush the Left-wing guerilla rebellion against the formation of a new Greek government which excluded them but included former German collaborators.
Unfortunately, the brilliant, stirring, and inspiring speech Churchill gave that Christmas Day to bring the two sides together was overshadowed by the recent lethal DECEMVRIANA events. And coupled with his reneging on the transfer to the Greek Navy of those two new ships, regardless of the sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate price on either side of the Mutiny, did not prevent an even greater calamity befalling the Greek people: The horrendous 1946-1949 Greek Civil War [42], a conflict full of atrocity and excess on both sides whose aftermath of divisive social and political repercussions lasted until the mid 1980's.
===========================
Author's Note: "How do you like living in a free country?"
When I first came to America one of the questions I would often be asked by fellow students, acquaintances and even my professors was, "How do you like living in a free country?"
I was rather perplexed by this question because it had never before occurred to me that living in Greece was not living in a "free" country! After all, Greece was the birthplace of Democracy and the cradle of the Western civilization!
With more introspection over the years, I can explain my puzzlement as follows: Because I had lived a protected life of sorts!
- First, I was a toddler during the civil war living in Athens, thus immune from what was going on in the rest of the country. "Markos,"[43], "Grammos," "Bitsi" didn't mean a thing to me!
- Second, as a teenager, because of my family's right wing political leanings, I was impervious of things like "Makronisos" [44], "Xorofylakas" [45], and the raging "White Terror."[46]
- Third, as a young adult from a middle-class family without high political connections, I did not have time to experience the realities of everyday life in a post civil-war Greece, because upon graduation from high school America opened her university doors to me. Thank you America!
PS: See the CHATHAM/Symmorites tab for two anecdotal stories relating to the Civil War, also footnotes 42 and 43, below.
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Footnotes:
[1] Nikos tells me that “sirma” was the common warning signal used by the lookouts of “Saltadori.” Saltadori were members of petty-thieving gangs (daredevils?) during the German Occupation roaming the streets and jumping on moving German trucks stealing the spare tire and anything else they could grab, like foodstuffs, guns, and grenades.
[2] Army units rebelled, as well.
[3] Literally: The slap in the face.
[4] Christos was in Chatham, England, during the Mutiny in the Middle East as part of the crew to receive two destroyers from the British—Avon Vale and Astix.
[5] Due to opposition in the House of Commons, the Greek detachment at Chatham was sent to Egypt, but not under arrest or a slow boat around Africa.
[6] Eleftherios Venizelos, former Prime Minister of Greece.
[7] John O. Iatrides, Greece in the 1940's: A Nation in Crisis (Hanover, N.H., 1981
[8] Greek: Κίνημα του 1935. It was a Venizelist revolt against the People’s Party government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which was suspected of pro-royalist tendencies.
[9] The future hero of the ADRIAS Epos and future CNO. “Enemy in Sight,” by I. Toumbas, page 4.
[10] Coffeehouse.
[11] Toumbas, Enemy in Sight, page 4.
[12] A widely circulating snide remark about his Dictatorship.
[13] Eugene Panagopoulos, ret. Commander: WW II The Navy Warriors Remember, 4th Tome, page 40.
[14] See “The Alphabet Soup” tab.
[15] Thus the Resistance was tabbed “The Golden Resistance.”
[16] Adaptation of King George’s II royal monogram of two crossed gammas (Γ) which resembled the Greek letter X. In Greek the name George is Γεωργιος, thus the two gammas (Γ) .
[17] EOKA was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the independence of the island from the British.
[18] EAMites – ELASites were the followers of EAM-ELAS, respectively. In the period 1941-1945 the Resistance fighters were known as Antartes. During the Civil War, 1946-1947, they were referred to as Symmorites. The word Antartes means revolutionaries or partisans and they were romanticized as the symbol of the struggle against the occupier. On the other hand, "Symmorites" was, and still is, synonymous with cutthroats, criminals, rapists, and traitors.
[19] «ΕΛΑΣ με ενα Λαμδα» was the communist slogan. The Greek word for Greece is: ΕΛΛΑΣ.
[20] Anthony Eden, not a friend of Greece, credited EAM with the support of 75% of the Greek people; the London Times credited it with 90%. In addition, its organized military force, ELAS (ΕΛΑΣ), was strong enough to put 25,000 armed men into action in Athens against the British "without stripping other regions under its control."
[21] At the time, women were not drafted in the armed services. However, during the war, many women joined the resistance groups either voluntarily or by force.
[22] Greek: Πολιτική Επιτροπή Εθνικής Απελευθέρωσης
[23] Greek: Κυβέρνηση του βουνού.This Government was recognized by a few Communist States aligned with the USSR.
[24] By that time Italy had surrendered to the Allies.
[25] The sailors formed ship committees (Greek: Epitropata) and took charge of the vessels.
[26] A local with his feluka collected them, one-by-one, for a price.
[27] Mark C. Jones. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 20, 2002. Page 367: In April 1944 the two principal RN officers with immediate oversight of the RHN were Admiral John H.D. Cunningham (naval Commander in Chief, Mediterranean) and Vice Admiral Bernard H. Rawlings (Flag Officer Levant and Eastern Mediterranean or FOLEM). Misunderstood and Forgotten: The Greek Naval Mutiny of April 1944..
[28] Voulgaris was reporting to FOLEM.
[29] To this end, the British brought to Alexandria the light cruiser HMS Ajax, of the Rio de la Plate battle against the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, and the light cruiser HMS Phoebe.
[30] The British navy sunk the French Navy while at anchor at its base at Mers-el-Kébir on the coast of what was then French Algeria, on 3 July 1940, to prevent it from potentially falling on German hands. The casualties were horrific; more than 1,000 dead and countless wounded.
[31] Mark C. Jones, Misunderstood and Forgotten: The Greek Naval Mutiny of April 1944, page 383.:
Approximately 2,600 men were killed.
[32] The legendary Captain of Adrias.
[33] Greek: Αγημα Εμβολης. Actually Toumbas led the Bording party for the ship Apostolis.
[34] Christos added: “Had I been in Alexandria, I would have been the first to volunteer.”
[35] Prince Paul succeeded to the throne upon the sudden death of his elder brother, King George II, on April 1, 1947 as King Paul I.
[36] He was the steadying hand during political intrigues and a turbulent parade of governments from 1947-1963. He promoted reconciliation after the Civil War; and Greece enjoyed an unprecedented economic growth, with America's generous financial/military aid.
[37] Toumbas, Enemy in Sight, page 469. King George was childless and Crown Prince Paul’s son, Constantine, was only three years old.
[38] The violent boarding of the mutinied ships. It’s a word of Italian or Spanish roots reminiscent of pirates attacking a ship on the high seas.
[39] Compared to Mers-el-Kebir, thankfully, the casualties were less than 50 (If Christos’ memory is correct, 27 dead and the rest wounded).
[40] The Battle of Normandy, June 6, 1944.
[41] An utterly untrue and insulting statement. The Greek Navy proved to be a very reliable ally.
[42] Vae victis ("woe to the vanquished", "Αλιμονο στους Νικιμενους"). Although the Civil War ended in 1949, its corrosive legacy—Makronisos, Trikeri, Ai Stratis, etc.— lasted until the 1980s. Some historians claim that America's intervention during and after the Civil War was America's first intervention into the internal affairs of another nation after the WW II. Makronisos was the most brutal of the many prison camps where communists, suspected communists, and unsophisticated countryfolk dreaming of a utopian communist paradise of milk and honey were thrown in to be "deprogrammed" with brutal methods similar to those reported about GTMO (Guantanamo) and Abu Ghraib.
Churchill and Truman had ordained that Greece should be in the Western Alliance—God bless them. Therefore, anything that would prevent Greece from turning communist was justifiable.
[43] Markos Vafiadis was a leading member of the Communist party and the Field Marshal of ELAS, the Communist (Symmorites) army. A capable and dynamic leader, advocating regular warfare instead of guerrilla tactics. He fell out of favor with N. Zahariadis, the General Secretary of the Communist Part. He was relieved of his command, and exiled in the Soviet Union. After 33-years of trials and tribulations, in 1983 he returned from exile and in 1989 was honorarily elected into the Greek parliament by PASOK. Gramos and Bitsi are mountain peaks of the Pindos mountain range where the fiercest battles of the Symmoritopolemos took place.
[44] Makronisos: Greece's Devil's Island.
[45] Xorofylakas was a member of the dreaded provincial Gendarmerie. Unlike the city policemen, Xorofylakes had a bad reputation for their brutality and strong-arm tactics. They had absolute authority and discretion over the countryside, having the final and total power of acting on their own, often biased, judgements.
[46] White Terror: The hunt for and the persecution of former members of the leftist World War II era resistance organization EAM-ELAS in 1945–46, and its continuation during and after the war. Some historians believe that the White Terror forced many to go back to the mountains, thus precipitating the Civil War.
[47] The French historian, Andre Fontaine, gives the most objective description of the post-war Greek drama in his book HISTORY OF THE COLD WAR, page 215 in its Random House English edition: "Churchill was the first to admit that Stalin did fulfill his pledges with respect to Greece, at least for a certain time. In other words without lifting a finger he allowed the British to massacre the ELAS partisans, who led by the Greek communists had taken over control of most of the country after the Germans retreated. The only protest came from President Roosevelt, who merely reflected the indignation of a large part of British and American public opinion at the fact that Allied arms were being used not against Nazis but against patriots who had bravely battled them.”
See in the "CHATHAM/Symmorites" tab for two anecdotal stories relating to footnotes 42, 43 and 44.
