Part 66: Prelude

Historical Situation: Prelude



The history of the invasion of Greece is, like many other histories of the war, one of misplaced diplomacy, hubris, bad planning and unexpected events that created an unavoidable turmoil within the region. The story must, by all accounts, start with the invasion of Greece by the Italians under Mussolini, probably one of the worst planned and run campaigns in the entire war. The invasion was started with no direct approval from Hitler (although, vice versa, there was no objection either, even when the Italians notified the Germans of their intentions), and was essentially a scale down of the proposed invasion of Yugoslavia, which Germany strongly objected to since they were in diplomatic overtures with King Paul over them joining the tripartite pact.

The invasion started in October 1940. The Greek forces had ample forewarning of the attack and were prepared in fortified positions, even though they lacked any sort of tank or air power, or even an extensive use of transports, relying mostly on mules for their supply routes and forcing their troops to traipse around on foot. Purely on paper, the Greek should have been easily beaten, but they managed to beat back the Italians and advance within Italian-Occupied Albania. The Germans, once results on the ground were clear, decried the invasion, while the Allies played a careful game of helping the Greeks while attempting not to provoke the Germans into helping the invasion. Thus, originally, the only presence by the Allies were fighter squadrons, with a lack of strategic bombers in order not to threaten the oil fields around Ploesti and spark a German response.

The Greeks, on their part, were happy with beating back the Italians at first, and asked the Allies initially to not bring just a token force into Greece: if they did, it might provoke the Germans, while not actually providing enough help to beat the Germans if they did invade. Eventually the Allies agreed to help keep a garrison in Crete, that would free up the Cretan Infantry Division present in the island to be shipped to Salonika and to the Albanian front.

The battle stalled during the bitter winter, one of the coldest on record, where both Italian and Greek troops suffered more casualties from the cold than enemy bullets, but was renewed by the Italians in March during a new offensive, which yet again stalled early and had little effect on the front. The Greeks counter-attacked, and there was a concerted effort with the help of the RAF to knock Italy out of the battle by taking the port of Valona, especially since Bulgaria had joined the Axis in early March and thus was likely to renege on an earlier pact that had Turkey as the guarantor, since it was extremely unlikely that they would begin open conflict with Germany willingly. Although the offensive was successful, Valona was not captured.

In April, events precipitated in an unexpected way: King Paul of Yugoslavia joined the Axis, but unrest and a Coup D'etat negated this diplomatic victory. Germany thus invaded Yugoslavia and Greece from the direction of Bulgaria, with the former quickly succumbing to pressure and posing little resistance to the trained and experienced German troops. The Greek Army was caught out of position on the Albanian front, and had little in terms of transport anyway to react to a quickly developing situation, and the British on their part had sent an Australian and New Zealand Divisions to help, troops taken from North Africa after the defeat of the Italians there, but they had no hope of actually having any impact on the battle, and soon were forced to withdraw. Thanks to ULTRA intercepts, they were relatively successful in their evacuation, but the campaign was yet another blunder for the Allies, helping German propaganda that stated that the British got other people to do their fighting for them. Many of the Greek forces that had fought so valiantly were also left to fend for themselves, denied access to the transports that would have gotten them to safety. The fate of the Cretan Division was also one that would have repercussions for British/Cretan relations later, especially once the war was over and the strife and anger within Greece boiled into a full-fledged Civil War.

Some of the British and Dominion troops were shipped to Crete, many directly to Egypt. General Freyberg arrived in Crete thinking that he and his New Zealand Division would be shipped back and reunited in Egypt, but this was not the case, and his divided Division was partly made responsible, along with other CREFORCE units on the island, for its defence. Meanwhile, preparations for the invasion began, and the 7th Fallschirmjager division, which had elements already used in some minor actions near the Corinth isthmus, was transported down in its totality. The 5th Mountain Division, who had fought in the battle for Rupal Pass during the attack in Greece and mauled there by stiff Greek resistance, was pencilled in (although not initially, which lead to some British confusion, see post before) as the air-landing element. The stage was set for the invasion to begin (I have been contractually obligated to use this cliche at the end of this summary).