Greco-Italian War
Greek artillery on Mount Morava in Albania in November 1940
| date | October 28, 1940 to April 23, 1941 |
|---|---|
| place | Albania and Greece |
| output | Defeat of Greece after German intervention |
| consequences | Occupation of Greece by the Axis powers until 1944/45 |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 492,000 Italians, 11,000 Albanians 463 aircraft 163 tanks |
less than 300,000 men over 300 aircraft, 127 of them modern |
| losses | |
|
|
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The Greco-Italian War began on October 28, 1940 as a war of aggression by the fascist Kingdom of Italy against the Kingdom of Greece, in violation of international law . It lasted until April 23, 1941, and from April 6, 1941 after Germany entered the war it overlapped with the Balkan campaign .
Only through German intervention was the Greco-Italian War decided in favor of the Axis powers . The defeat of Greece was followed by an occupation that lasted until 1944 .
prehistory
Greco-Italian Relations in the Early 20th Century
Since its unification in the Risorgimento, Italy had sought a position of great power based on supremacy in the Mediterranean . Already during the 1910s there were conflicts between Italy and Greece over the status of Albania and ownership of the Dodecanese . Albania had become an Italian protectorate since its independence from the Ottoman Empire as a result of the First Balkan War , and the Dodecanese had been occupied by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911/12. In the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, Italy supported Turkey against Greece. After the Corfu incident in 1923, Italy briefly occupied Corfu . During the reign of Eleftherios Venizelos from 1928 to 1932, relations normalized after the signing of an Italian-Greek friendship treaty on September 23, 1928.
After a Greek-Turkish friendship treaty of 1930 and the establishment of the Balkan Entente in 1934, Greek policy was mainly directed against Bulgaria's efforts to revise Western Thrace . After Ioannis Metaxas came to power in 1936, the Metaxas line named after him was built to protect the country from Bulgaria. The Greek army was re-equipped and modernized under Metaxas; Large stocks were made in case of war.
Italian striving for great power 1939/40
On April 7, 1939 , Italy occupied Albania and incorporated it into the Italian state, creating a common border with Greece. Greece subsequently changed its plans and hastily prepared for an imminent Italian attack, while Great Britain and France guaranteed the territorial integrity of the country. After the outbreak of World War II as a result of the German invasion of Poland , Metaxas, who had established close economic ties with Germany, tried to keep the country out of the war, but which, due to the influence of the Anglophile King George II, increasingly leaned towards the side of the Western Allies. Meanwhile, the Italians recruited support from the Albanian minority in northern Epirus (see Çamen ) and set up irregular Albanian associations.
Italy had been allied with Germany in the Steel Pact since May 1939 , but had maintained a position of non-warfare (“non belligeranza”) during the phase of the seat war that began after the German invasion of Poland . It was not until the German victory in the western campaign became apparent that it entered the war against France and Great Britain on June 10, 1940 and occupied part of south-eastern France. The goal of the dictator Mussolini was to expand the Italian colonial empire at the expense of France and Great Britain and to achieve supremacy in the Mediterranean and East Africa. In the Balkans, after the fall of France, Italy's urge to expand was directed primarily against Yugoslavia and Greece. At meetings between Hitler and the Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano in July and August, however, the German dictator urged the Italians to refrain from a parallel war in the Balkans. The Italians replied that action against Greece was necessary to prevent British forces from landing in that country. There was no coordination of the mutual approach, so the Italians repeatedly rejected offers of German support in North Africa or in the Balkans.
First, however, the Italians turned their attention to the possessions of Great Britain in North and East Africa. At the beginning of August 1940 they invaded the poorly defended British Somaliland from Italian East Africa and conquered the area within two weeks (→ Italian conquest of the British colony of Somaliland ). At the beginning of September, they began an advance from Italian Libya into the Kingdom of Egypt , which was defended by British troops, but this already came to a halt after a week due to supply problems and a lack of transport (→ Italian invasion of Egypt ). Therefore, they initially devoted themselves to the expansion of the Via Balbia to Egypt in order to resume the offensive at a later date. However, this did not happen because of the course of the war in Greece, instead they were thrown back to Libya by the British counter-offensive Operation Compass, which began in early December .
After Germany occupied the Romanian oil fields on October 12, 1940, Mussolini decided to put his plans against Greece into practice. At a meeting in Rome on October 15, 1940, the military commander in Albania, Sebastiano Visconti Prasca , assured him that he would be able to start the campaign against Greece with a reinforcement of the troops to only three divisions, while the Chief of the General Staff Pietro Badoglio an invasion force of at least 20 Divisions challenged. Mussolini was finally convinced by his staff, who predicted a campaign of just two weeks. He gave his foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano the job of providing a casus belli . The invitation to Tsar Boris III. Bulgaria refused to take part in the campaign.
In the days that followed, a propaganda campaign against Greece was launched in Italy, accompanied by provocations such as overflights over Greek territory and attacks on Greek ships. Already on August 15, 1940, the day of Our Lady , the Italian submarine Delfino torpedoed the Greek light cruiser "Elli" in the port of Tinos . At this point in time, the Greek government had, despite undoubted evidence of Italian authorship, rated the attack as that of a submarine of "unknown nationality" in order to preserve the facade of neutrality.
Italian ultimatum
On October 15, 1940 ordered Mussolini Foreign Minister Ciano, the chief of staff Marshal Badoglio and his deputy Mario Roatta, the Italian Vice Minister of War Ubaldo Soddu, the governor of the occupied Albania Francesco Jacomoni and Sebastiano Visconti Prasca, the military commander of the local army of occupation in the Palazzo Venezia , to discuss the attack on Greece which was to be launched from Albania.
In the early morning of October 28, 1940, the Italian ambassador in Athens, Emmanuele Grazzi, presented an ultimatum from the Duce to Metaxas, demanding free march through for Italian troops to occupy unspecified “strategic points” in the interior of Greece. Metaxas rejected the ultimatum, according to Grazzi, with the words “ Alors, c'est la guerre. »(German:“ Well, that means war. ”). October 28th went down in Greek history as Ochi-Day ( Day of No ). Within hours, Italian troops attacked Greek territory from Albania. The opening of hostilities was announced on Radio Athens that morning with the following words: “Since 06:30 this morning the enemy has been attacking our outposts on the Greek-Albanian border. Our armed forces defend the fatherland. "
A short time later, Metaxas gave a speech to the Greek people in which he said: “The time has come for Greece to fight for its independence. Greeks, now we must prove ourselves worthy of our forefathers and the freedom they left us. Greeks, now fight for your fatherland, for your wives, for your children and for the sacred traditions. Well, above all, fight! ”The last sentence is a literal quote from the drama The Persians by the ancient author Aeschylus . After the speech, Greeks reportedly flocked to the streets around the country, singing patriotic songs and chanting anti-Italian slogans. Thousands of volunteers reported to the recruiting offices. Even the imprisoned leader of the banned Communist Party , Nikolaos Zachariadis , wrote an open letter calling on the Greeks to resist, thereby violating the Comintern line . (Later he was to condemn the war as "imperialist" and call on the Greeks to overthrow Metaxas.)
Involved armed forces and war plans
The approximately 150 kilometers long front consisted of heavily mountainous terrain with only a few passable roads. The Pindus Mountains divided the front into the two theaters of war, Epirus and Western Macedonia .
The order to attack Greece had been given by Mussolini on October 15 to the Chief of the General Staff Pietro Badoglio and his deputy Mario Roatta and, according to his instructions, should begin within twelve days. Badoglio and Roatta were appalled because, on Mussolini's orders, they had demobilized 600,000 men in support of agriculture only three weeks earlier. Taking into account the fact that they estimated 20 divisions for a successful invasion, only eight of which were ready in Albania, and the inadequacy of the Albanian ports and transport infrastructure, they assumed it would take at least three months to prepare. Nevertheless, the day of the attack was set for October 26th.
The Italian war plan with the code name Emergenza G ("Fall G [riechenland]") envisaged an occupation of the country in three phases. First, Epirus and the Ionian Islands were to be occupied, after the arrival of reinforcements, an advance into Western Macedonia aimed at Thessaloniki in order to bring the northern part of Greece under control, and finally the rest of the country was to be occupied. The plan was based on Bulgaria's participation in the war whose army was to bind the Greeks in Eastern Macedonia.
The Italian Comando Supremo had assigned an army corps to both theaters of war , which were formed from the occupation forces in Albania. The stronger XXV. Ciamuria Corps consisting of two infantry divisions and the Centauro armored division (approx. 30,000 men and 163 tanks), flanked on the right by an approximately 5,000-strong "coastal group" and on the left by the 3rd Alpini Division Julia , were to advance towards Ioannina . The XXVI. Corizza Corps made up of three infantry divisions (approx. 31,000 men) was initially supposed to take up a defensive position on the Macedonian front.
Overall, the Italians were able to field a force of around 55,000 men against the Greeks, which was under the command of Lieutenant General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca . Another division with 12,000 men guarded the Yugoslav border. Attached to the invasion force were several black shirt battalions made up of Albanian and Kosovar volunteers in the months prior to the invasion , but they showed only moderate performance and the majority defected to the Greeks in the course of the war.
After the Italian occupation of Albania, the Greeks had developed the "IB" (Italy-Bulgaria) plan, which was based on a joint attack by Italy and Bulgaria. This plan provided for a defensive posture in Epirus and a gradual retreat on the line Arachthos - Metsovo - Aliakmonas - Vermio Mountains, while in Western Macedonia the possibility of a limited offensive was to be maintained. There were two variants of the plan for the defense of Epirus: Plan “IBa” provided for forward defense directly at the border and Plan “IBb” a defense from rear positions. It should be left to the local commander, Major General Charalambos Katsimitros , to choose the cheaper option.
Greece had been mobilizing for weeks, although general mobilization was not ordered until the day of the attack. The Greek forces that faced the Italian troops at the outbreak of the war were the fully mobilized 8th Infantry Division under Katsimitros on the Epirus front and the "Army Division Western Macedonia" (Greek Τμήμα Στρατιάς Δυτικής Μακεδονίας, short size TSDM) in corps Lieutenant General Ioannis Pitsikas . The front in Western Macedonia was secured by the 9th Infantry Division and the 4th Infantry Brigade. The "Pindus Division", composed of three battalions of infantry and a battery of mountain artillery, defended the section between the two fronts. According to the Greek General Staff, this totaled around 35,000 men who were supposed to hold the area until general mobilization, i.e. about three weeks.
The Greeks had no tanks at their disposal and they had to expect complete Italian air superiority. In addition, their equipment consisted either of stocks from the First World War or it came from countries such as Belgium, Austria, Poland and France, which were already occupied by the axis and thus could not deliver spare parts or suitable ammunition. However, despite limited resources, the Greeks had actively prepared for a defense in the late 1930s and had an experienced officer corps that had fought in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Greco-Turkish War. The Italians, on the other hand, lacked 25% of the scheduled means of transport, they did not have enough guns for the space to be conquered. Their guns were also inferior to the French 10.5 cm cannons of the Greeks.
Great Britain supported Greece at the beginning of the war by sending several squadrons of the Royal Air Force , which later also intervened in the ground fighting. As a precaution against an Italian landing, a British brigade landed on the island of Crete in November and around 4,200 flak soldiers, air force ground personnel and support units were stationed in the Athens area. Winston Churchill's offer in January 1941 to send a smaller number of tank and artillery units to the front was rejected by Metaxas, who did not want to provoke Hitler. After Metaxas' death at the end of January 1941, his successor Alexandros Koryzis signaled that in the event of a German invasion of Bulgaria they would fall back on the British offer of aid, whereupon Great Britain put together an expeditionary corps, the Force W , consisting mainly of Australian and New Zealand troops .
Course of the Italian campaign
The first phase of the campaign, the Italian offensive, lasted from October 28 to November 13, 1940. The second phase from November 13 to December 28 was marked by the Greek counterattack. In the third phase from December 29 to March 26, 1941, local attacks by both parties failed, and the last Italian offensive of this phase was unsuccessful. The German attack on April 6, 1941 then created a completely new military situation.
Italian Initial Offensive (October 28 - November 13, 1940)
The Italian attack began on the morning of October 28th and forced the shielding Greek units to evade. The Ciamuria Corps, with the Ferrara and Centauro Divisions as their spearheads, attacked in the direction of Kalpaki , while on its right flank the “coastal group” advanced along the coast and secured a bridgehead over the Kalamas River . The difficult terrain and muddy paths prepared especially their L3 / 35 - Tanketten and medium-sized M13 / 40 -Panzern big trouble.
On October 31, the Italian High Command announced that Italian troops had entered Epirus and had reached the Kalamas in several places; unfavorable weather conditions and retreats by the retreating enemy would not slow the advance of the troops. In reality, the offensive was carried out without conviction and without the benefit of surprise, bad weather prevented effective air support, and the leadership of the troops suffered from personal rivalries. In addition, poor conditions at sea prevented the planned invasion of Corfu. By November 1, the Italians had captured Konitsa and reached the Greek main line of defense, on the same day the Comando Supremo gave the Greek theater of war priority over the African. In the ensuing battle of Elaia-Kalamas , despite repeated attacks, the Italians failed to break through the Greek lines and on November 9 the attacks were stopped.
The advance of the Julia division through the Pindus Mountains in the direction of Metsovo , which threatened to cut off the troops in Epirus from those in Western Macedonia , represented a greater danger for the Greeks . After initial successes against the "Pindus Department" under Colonel Davakis, the Greek General Staff ordered a reinforcement of the troops in this area. A Greek counterattack on October 31, however, could not prevent the Julia division from capturing Vovousa on November 2 . However, it became apparent that the Italians did not have enough manpower and supplies to continue attacking the strengthening Greeks at this point.
Greek counter-attacks led to the recapture of several villages and vovousas by November 4th, practically including the Julia division. Prasca tried to strengthen the division by sending the Bari division originally intended for the invasion of Corfu , which however arrived too late to influence the outcome of the Battle of Pindus . During the next few days, the Alpini division fought against continued attacks by a Greek cavalry division under Major General Georgios Stanotas under the harshest weather conditions . On November 8, their commander, General Mario Girotti, ordered the retreat across the Smolikas towards Konitsa. This retreat, accompanied by fighting, lasted until November 13th and by the end of it the division was practically wiped out and the border area liberated from Italian troops.
Since the Italians in West Macedonia remained inactive and Bulgaria did not intervene in the war, the Greek General Staff ordered the relocation of III. Army Corps (10th and 11th Infantry Divisions plus a cavalry brigade) under General Georgios Tsolakoglou to this front in order to start an offensive across the Albanian border together with the TSDM. For logistical reasons, the start of this offensive was delayed until November 14th.
The fierce Greek resistance came as a surprise to the Comando Supremo . Several divisions were hastily marched into Albania and plans for the occupation of the Greek islands were dropped. Outraged by the lack of progress, Mussolini exchanged Prasca for the former Vice Minister of War General Ubaldo Soddu on November 9th . Immediately after his arrival, Soddu ordered the transition to the defensive. The Italian offensive had thus failed.
Greek counter-offensive (November 14 - December 28, 1940)
From the beginning of November, Greek reinforcements reached the front and the failure of Bulgaria to intervene allowed the Greeks to transfer troops from the Bulgarian border to the Albanian front. This gave the Greek commander-in-chief Alexandros Papagos the numerical superiority in mid-November and allowed him to initiate the counter-offensive. Walker speaks of a superiority of 250,000 Greek to 150,000 Italian soldiers, Bauer mentions a Greek majority of 100 battalions versus 50 Italians.
The TSDM and the III. Army corps reinforced from northern Greece began an offensive on November 14th in the direction of the Albanian Korça . After heavy fighting on the fortified border, the Greeks broke through on November 17th and invaded Korça on the 22nd. A lack of resolve in the Greek high command, however, allowed the Italians to distance themselves from the enemy and rearrange themselves, thus avoiding complete collapse.
The attack from Western Macedonia was linked to the start of the offensive along the entire front. The 1st and 2nd Army Corps advanced into Epirus and after hard fighting took Saranda , Pogradec and Gjirokastra in Albania at the beginning of December , Himara was taken on Christmas Eve. With this the Greeks had conquered the whole of southern Albania, which they called Northern Epirus .
Local attacks and the Italian spring offensive (December 29, 1940 to March 26, 1941)
After the military setbacks, Badoglio resigned as chief of staff and General Ugo Cavallero took over command of the Italian armed forces at the beginning of December. Since December 29th, he has also led the Italian troops in Albania in personal union. At the end of December 1940 the Greek advance had to be halted. Because the supply lines were overstretched and because of the bad weather conditions, the course of the front hardly changed afterwards. The Greeks achieved a final success on January 10th with the capture of the heavily fortified Këlcyra pass by the II Corps. However, the breakthrough to Berat was denied and an attack on Vlora also failed. Although several Italian divisions suffered heavy losses in the battle for Vlora, the Italians gained the upper hand as reinforcements arrived.
The standstill of the front, apart from limited action, lasted until March 1941, as neither side was strong enough for a major offensive. The fighting activity was also interrupted by the unusually harsh winter, which, with temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees, resulted in numerous failures due to frostbite and snowfalls until March. Despite their territorial gains, the Greeks found themselves in a precarious situation, as they left the border with Bulgaria practically unguarded and were helpless in a possible German attack from Bulgaria.
On March 1, 1941, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact and allowed the German Reich to station troops on its territory. This made a German intervention in the war more and more likely. On March 4, the British dispatched their first convoy of troops under the command of Lieutenant General Henry Maitland Wilson and supplies to Greece. By April 1941, a total of around four divisions, including a tank brigade, with a total of around 57,000 soldiers were to have reached Greece. From the outset, these were not intended to be used to fight the Italians, but to defend against the expected German attack in conjunction with Greek troops.
The Italians, who wished for success on the Albanian front before the expected German intervention, gathered their forces in early March 1941 for a new offensive with the code name Primavera ("spring"). They assembled 17 divisions against the 13 of the Greeks and, under Mussolini's personal leadership, began a determined attack on the Këlcyra Pass. The offensive, which lasted from March 9 to March 20, failed to achieve the goal of throwing the Greeks out of their positions, and achieved only local successes such as the recapture of Himara , the area of Mali Harza and the Trebescini mountain near Berat. From then until the German intervention on April 6, the stalemate continued and only minor operations were undertaken by both sides.
Consequences: German intervention
Attack of the German 12th Army on Greece on April 6, 1941
In anticipation of the German attack, the British and some Greeks called for the Epirus army to withdraw from Albania in order to provide urgently needed troops and material to defend against it. However, the national mood, disregarding military expediency, forbade the abandonment of positions won under such difficult conditions, and a retreat from the defeated Italians was viewed as shameful. Because of this, the vast majority of the Greek army, 15 out of 21 divisions, stayed deep in Albania while the German attack advanced. General Wilson severely criticized this adherence to rigid doctrines. One day after the German attack on Greece and Yugoslavia , known as "Operation Marita" , on April 7, the Greek commander-in-chief Papagos ordered an attack against the Italians. Although Yugoslav units attacked the Italians at the same time, the troops made no progress. The Greeks now tried to hold the Albania front. On April 9, German troops broke through the Metaxas Line held by the East Macedonian Army . On April 11th, they captured the important Klidi pass near Florina and thus appeared in the rear of the Greek West Macedonia Army. The Greeks and British had gathered troops south of Florina and stopped the German advance south from Bitola until April 12th. Then the Greek High Command ordered the withdrawal of the West Macedonian and Epirus armies from Albania. During the retreat, parts of the demoralized Greek divisions dissolved. The commander of the Epirus Army, General Ioannis Pitsikas , called for swift armistice negotiations with the Germans because he feared the entire armed forces would fall apart. Papagos, however, refused to surrender as long as the British Expeditionary Force continued to fight in Greece.
The Italian 9th Army took Korça on April 14 and Erseka three days later . On April 19, the Italians reached the Greek bank of Lake Prespa and on April 22, the 4th Bersaglieri Regiment took the bridge in the border village of Perati to cross the border the next day.
Greek surrender
After parts of the German Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler took the Metsovo pass on April 18, the Greek Epirus army was also cut off from retreating. The next day, Ioannina fell to the Germans, completely isolating the Epirus army. Convinced of the hopelessness of the situation that had arisen and in agreement with some other generals, but without authorization from Commander-in-Chief Papagos, Lieutenant General Georgios Tsolakoglou relieved General Pitsika's army commander from command and offered Josef Dietrich to surrender on April 20 . The main purpose of this was to avoid a surrender to the Italians that was considered dishonorable.
The terms of surrender - the army would not be taken prisoner of war and officers would be allowed to keep their side arms - were considered honorable. The next day 16 of the Greek divisions surrendered to the 12th Army. General Field Marshal List called on the Italian Commander in Chief in Albania, General Cavallero, to stop the advance so as not to jeopardize the negotiations. But this not only excluded the Italians from the talks, List made them downright rules of conduct.
Mussolini was angry about the unilateral action by the Germans and, after protests against Hitler, managed to get General Jodl to accept the final surrender of the Greeks on April 23 in Saloniki in the presence of Italian representatives. In fact, after Mussolini's intervention, Hitler had stipulated that the armistice negotiations would only take place as soon as the Greeks also offered the Italians to surrender. In doing so, however, he accepted to expose Wilhelm List, whose original promise to the Greeks suddenly no longer applied. The Wehrmacht leadership took note of this with annoyance; In the General Staff of the Army, Franz Halder even described the subsequent involvement of the Italians as a “systematic falsification of history”. The course of the negotiations ultimately left bitterness on all sides.
The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force began on April 24th. Units of the Bulgarian 2nd Army occupied the coastal strip between Strymon and Alexandroupoli . On April 30th, German troops occupied the southern tip of the Peloponnese and by May 3rd, the day of the German-Italian victory parade in Athens , the battle on the mainland was over and all the major islands except Crete were occupied.
Naval warfare
At the beginning of the fighting, the Greek Navy had two old unit ships of the line, the old armored cruiser Averoff , ten destroyers (four modernized of the Aetos class, four relatively modern ones of the Kountouriotis class and two new ones of the Vasilefs Georgios class), some torpedo boats and six old ones Submarines. Faced with the mighty Marina Regia , their main task was to conduct patrols and escort convoys. The latter task was important both for the mobilization of the army and for the supply of the country, as the convoy routes were threatened by Italian aircraft and submarines operating from the Dodecanese. The Greek ships also carried out limited offensive operations against Italian shipping traffic in the Strait of Otranto . The destroyers carried out three bold but unsuccessful night raids (November 14-15, December 15-16, January 4-5). The main successes were due to the submarines, which were able to sink some Italian transport ships.
On the Italian side, the Regia Marina suffered heavy losses of capital ships from the British attack on Taranto (November 11th / 12th). Italian cruisers and destroyers nonetheless continued their escort duties between Italy and Albania. On November 28, an Italian squadron bombarded Corfu and on December 18 and March 4, Italian naval combat groups bombed Greek coastal positions in Albania.
From January 1941, the main task of the Royal Greek Navy shifted to escorting convoys to and from Alexandria , which was carried out in cooperation with the Royal Navy . When the British Expeditionary Force began to move in early March, the Italian Navy decided to attack the convoys. Thanks to their briefing through ultra- information, the British fleet was able to intercept the Italians and defeat them decisively in the Battle of Cape Matapan on March 28th.
With the start of the German attack on April 6, the situation changed suddenly and the German air superiority demanded heavy losses among the Greek and British fleets. The occupation of mainland Greece and a little later of Crete ended the operations of the Allied surface forces in Greek waters up to the Dodecanese operation at the end of 1943.
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Consequences for Greece
With the fall of Crete in May 1941, all of Greece was under the control of the Axis powers. It was important for Hitler to drive the British from mainland Greece, to help the stalled attack by the Italian alliance partner to succeed and not to lose control of the country as the basis for air domination in the eastern Mediterranean. These goals had been achieved and the German troops were now being withdrawn. Because of this, most of Greece, including Athens and most of the islands, came under Italian administration. The Ionian Islands and the parts of the country bordering Albania were annexed by Italy. Some politically and strategically important areas came under German occupation administration: Saloniki with hinterland, a buffer zone on the Turkish border ( Demotika ), bases in southern Greece and from the end of May some islands and the western part of Crete. Bulgaria received Eastern Macedonia, Western Thrace ( Western Thrace ), the islands of Thasos and Samothrace, and a small area west of the Strymon. The Greek King George II went into exile with his government cabinet first to Crete and then to Egypt. Germany and Italy agreed to form a new government under Lieutenant General Georgios Tsolakoglou .
Due to the war, there was a severe famine in the winter of 1941/42, to which many Greeks fell victim. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 450,000 people died as a result; countless people suffered long-term health damage.
An effective resistance movement soon formed in the occupied country, which by 1944 succeeded in liberating large parts of the mountainous mainland. At the same time, Greek troops and ships continued to fight alongside the British in North Africa and eventually in Italy itself. After the German withdrawal from the Balkans in October and November 1944, Greece was liberated with the exception of some islands that were still occupied by Germans. Soon, however, the country was torn into yet another conflict, the Greek Civil War .
Greece's struggle on the side of the Allies helped regain the Italian-occupied but Greek-inhabited Dodecanese after the end of World War II in 1947.
Effects on the course of the Second World War
Despite the ultimate triumph of the Axis powers in the Greek campaign, the Greek resistance to the Italian invasion had a lasting impact on the course of World War II, according to several historians. In particular, it was argued that the necessary German intervention in the Balkans delayed the start of the Barbarossa operation and caused significant failures, especially for aircraft and parachute troops. In a conversation with Leni Riefenstahl towards the end of the war, Hitler said that without the Italian attack on Greece and the resulting need for German support, the war would have taken a different course. The onset of winter in Russia would have been prevented by weeks and Leningrad and Moscow could have been captured. There would have been no Stalingrad . Historians such as Antony Beevor, on the other hand, emphasize that it was not the Greek resistance who delayed the attack by the Axis powers on the Soviet Union, but the construction of airfields in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the necessity of the occupation of Greece, the fight against partisans and the defense against Allied actions in the course of the war bound several German and Italian divisions.
At the same time, the Greek resistance made Allied intervention necessary. The decision to send British troops to Greece was primarily influenced by political considerations and, in retrospect, in the words of General Alan Brooke , was seen as a "clear strategic failure" as it came at a critical point in time from the Middle East and North Africa withdrew. Ultimately, these proved inadequate to stop the German advance, but could have played a decisive role in the African campaign and brought it to a victorious conclusion at an early stage.
In addition, at a time when only the British Empire was still resisting the Axis powers, the moral example of a small nation that successfully fought off fascist Italy was of great importance. This was evident in the exuberant recognition the Greek Resistance received at the time.
The French general Charles de Gaulle was among those who praised the steadfastness of the Greek resistance. In an official note published on Greek Independence Day, March 25, 1941, he expressed his admiration for what he believed to be the heroic Greek resistance:
“On behalf of the captured but still living French people, the French nation wishes to send their greetings to the Greek people who are fighting for their freedom. March 25, 1941 sees Greece at the height of its heroic struggle and glory. Since the Battle of Salamis , Greece has not achieved as much greatness and fame as it does today. "
Commemoration of the war
The 1940 war, popularly known as the Épos toú Saránda (Έπος του Σαράντα, "Epic of '40"), and the resistance of the Greeks to the Axis powers is celebrated every year in Greece. October 28, the day Metaxas rejects the Italian ultimatum, is celebrated as a national holiday ( Ochi Day ). An annual military parade takes place in Thessaloniki , which also commemorates the liberation of the city in the First Balkan War on the name day of the patron saint Demetrios (October 26), along with student parades in Athens and other cities. Public and private buildings are decorated with the Greek national flag for several days . In the days leading up to the anniversary, television and radio broadcast historical films and documentaries, as well as patriotic songs, including Sofia Vembo's , which were very popular during the war. In addition, the day serves as a day of remembrance for the "dark years" of the occupation of Greece from 1941 to 1944.
Military rating
In his memoirs, General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca attributes the campaign's failure mainly to poor organization, personal vanity, corruption and lack of cooperation among the upper echelons of the Italian armed forces. He compared the steadfast resistance of the Greeks in Epirus with that of the Turks on the Dardanelles during the First World War. However, Prasca is considered to be one of those chiefly responsible for underestimating the strength of the Greek army and who, with insufficient plans, led the Italian army to its defeat in the mountains of Epirus. The Italians, who struggled with tactical problems and were poorly equipped with infantry, were unable to convert their superiority in terms of artillery and air support into success. Poor motivation, unlike the Greeks, and the difficult terrain in Epirus, which favored the defenders, contributed to the failure of this campaign.
The Italians made the worst mistakes at the strategic level. H. those of Mussolini and the high command. Less than a month before the start of the campaign against Greece, on October 1, Mussolini ordered the demobilization of half of the Italian army - a measure that was accepted by the General Staff, despite General Mario Roatta warning that the army would be beyond its operational capability Lose for months. In addition, the widespread underestimation of the Greek preparation condemned the campaign to failure from the start. As the Italian historian Renzo De Felice wrote:
“The military superiority (numerical and technical) was always on the side of the Greeks in the first months of the war. The Italians had only eight divisions in Albania in October 1940 (two of which were directed against the Yugoslav army), while the Greeks initially had 14 divisions, which were also well trained for fighting in mountainous terrain. The Greek army devoted all resources to its successful defense and counterattack, as a result of which in April 1941 the German attack by the company Marita met with little resistance from the exhausted Greeks. "
Another major failure of the Italian attack was to fail to occupy the Ionian Islands and Crete, which offered clear and relatively easily defended targets and could have provided Italy with strong forward bases for navy and air forces.
literature
- Renzo De Felice : Mussolini l'Alleato: Italia in guerra 1940-1943. Rizzoli, Torino 1990.
- CN Hadjipateras: Greece 1940-1941 Eyewitnessed. Efstathiadis, 1996, ISBN 960-226-533-7 .
- La Campagna di Grecia. Official Italian illustration, 1980.
- Alexandros Papagos : The Battle of Greece 1940-1941. Athens 1949.
- Gerhard Schreiber : Germany, Italy and Southeast Europe. From political and economic hegemony to military aggression . In: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 3: Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann, Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeast Europe - From Italy's "non belligeranza" to the United States ' entry into the war , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , pp. 278-416.
- Gerhard Schreiber: The political and military development in the Mediterranean area 1939/40 . In: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 3: Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann, Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeast Europe - From Italy's "non belligeranza" to the United States ' entry into the war , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , pp. 4-161.
- Detlef Vogel: Germany's intervention in the Balkans . In: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 3: Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann, Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeast Europe - From Italy's "non belligeranza" to the United States ' entry into the war , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , pp. 417-515.
- Sebastiano Visconti Prasca: Io Ho Aggredito La Grecia. Rizzoli, 1946.
- The Greek Army in World War II. (6 volumes) Official Greek illustration.
Web links
- Item to operational doctrine of the Italian Army (English)
- Battle of the Italian Army, October 1940 (English)
Remarks
- ↑ Greek Ελληνοϊταλικός Πόλεμος Ellinoitalikos Polemos or Πόλεμος του Σαράντα Polemos tou Saranda "War of 1940"; Italian Guerra di Grecia "Greek War"
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Gerhard Schreiber: Germany, Italy and Southeast Europe. From political and economic hegemony to military aggression: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 3: Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann, Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe - From Italy's “non belligeranza” to the United States' entry into the war . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , p. 413.
- ↑ a b c Hellenic Air Force History ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 19, 2010.
- ↑ a b Mario Cervi: The Hollow Legions. Chatto and Windus, London 1972. p. 293. ISBN 0-7011-1351-0 .
- ↑ Davide Rodogno: Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006. p. 446. ISBN 978-0-521-84515-1 .
- ↑ Bernd Jürgen Fischer: Albania at War, 1939–1945. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999. pp. 75 f. ISBN 978-1-85065-531-2 .
- ^ Robert Cecil: Hitler's Reach for Russia. Verlag styria, Graz 1977, pp. 89, 94 ff.
- ^ A b Hal Buell: World War II, Album & Chronicle. Tess Press, New York 2002. p. 52. ISBN 1-57912-271-X .
- ^ Hugh Gibson (ed.), Sumner Welles (preface): The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943: The Complete, Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1936–1943 , Garden City Publishing, New York 1947. ( P.301: October 15, 1940 )
- ^ CN Hadjipateras: Greece 1940–1941 Eyewitnessed. Efstathiadis, 1996. S. ??? ISBN 960-226-533-7 .
- ↑ Goulis and Maïdis: Ο Δεύτερος Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος. ( The Second World War. ) Filologiki G. Bibi, 1967. S. ???
- ^ A b Eddy Bauer, Peter Young (Ed.): The History of World War II (Revised edition). Orbis Publishing, London 2000. p. 99. ISBN 1-85605-552-3 .
- ↑ Skënder Anamali and Kristaq Prifti: Historia e popullit shqiptar në katër vëllime. Botimet Toena, 2002, ISBN 99927-1-622-3 .
- ^ Richard Clogg : History of Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cologne 1997, p. 151.
- ^ MacGregor Knox: Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940-43. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000. p. 80. ISBN 0-521-79047-6 .
- ^ A b Eddy Bauer, Peter Young (Ed.): The History of World War II (Revised edition). Orbis Publishing, London 2000. p. 105. ISBN 1-85605-552-3 .
- ↑ Ian W. Walker: Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts; Mussolini's Elite Armored Divisions in North Africa. The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2003. p. 28. ISBN 1-86126-646-4 .
- ↑ Zeto Hellas . In: Time magazine , December 2, 1940; Retrieved April 19, 2010.
- ↑ Chapter I: Britain and Greece (PDF; 2.2 MB), in: Gavin Long: Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 - Army - Volume II: Greece, Crete and Syria , 1st edition, 1953.
- ↑ Hal Buell: World War II, Album & Chronicle. Tess Press, New York 2002. p. 76. ISBN 1-57912-271-X .
- ^ Renzo De Felice: Mussolini l'Alleato: Italia in guerra 1940-1943. Rizzoli, Torino 1990. p. 125.
- ^ John Keegan : The Second World War. Penguin, 2005. p. 157. ISBN 0-14-303573-8 .
- ↑ Malte König: Cooperation as a power struggle. The fascist axis alliance Berlin-Rome in the war 1940/41 , Cologne 2007, p. 69.
- ↑ König: Cooperation as a Power Struggle , p. 70 f. (Quote: p. 70).
- ↑ Leni Riefenstahl: Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir. Picador, New York 1987. p. 295. ISBN 0-312-11926-7 .
- ^ Antony Beevor: Crete: The Battle and the Resistance. Penguin Books, 1992. p. 230. ISBN 0-14-016787-0 .
- ^ CN Hadjipateras: Greece 1940–1941 Eyewitnessed. Efstathiadis, 1996, ISBN 960-226-533-7 , p. 157.
- ^ Richard Lamb: Mussolini as Diplomat. John Murray Publishers, London 1998. pp. 291 f. ISBN 0-88064-244-0 .
- ^ Renzo De Felice: Mussolini l'Alleato: Italia in guerra 1940-1943. Rizzoli, Torino 1990. p. 107.
- ^ MacGregor Knox: Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940-43. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-79047-6 , p. 79.
- ^ Renzo De Felice: Mussolini l'Alleato: Italia in guerra 1940-1943. Rizzoli, Torino 1990. pp. 87 f.
