Why did Britain Attack the Greeks in 1944? | Animated History



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Sources:
Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War, 1945-1949 (Denmark: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

Auty, Phyllis, Clogg, Richard. British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2014).

Frazier, Robert. “Did Britain Start the Cold War? Bevin and the Truman Doctrine.” The Historical Journal 27, no. 3 (1984): 715–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2639276.

Gluckstein, Donny. “Greece – Allies at War with the Resistance.” In A People’s History of the Second World War: Resistance Versus Empire, (United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 2012), 38–54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p5p8.8.

Iatrides, John O., and Rizopoulos, Nicholas X. “The International Dimension of the Greek Civil War.” World Policy Journal 17, no. 1 (2000): 87–103. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40209681.

Koliopoulos, John S. , Veremis, Thanos M., Koliopoulos, Giannēs. Modern Greece: A History Since 1821 (Germany: Wiley, 2010).

Palmer, Robert. A Concise History of III Corps (British Land Forces Greece (History & Personnel) (United Kingdom: www.BritishMilitaryHistory.co.uk, 2019).

Paul, Christopher, Colin P. Clarke, Beth Grill, and Molly Dunigan. “Greece, 1945–1949: Case Outcome: COIN Win.” In Paths to Victory: Detailed Insurgency Case Studies. (United States: RAND Corporation, 2013), 14–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/j.ctt5hhsjk.10.

Pelz, William A. “A New Europe?: 1945–48.” In A People’s History of Modern Europe. (United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 2016), 157–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1c2crfj.16.

Plakoudas, Spyridon. The Greek Civil War: Strategy, Counterinsurgency and the Monarchy (United Kingdom: I.B.Tauris, 2017).

Vlavianos, Haris. Greece, 1941–49: From Resistance to Civil War: The Strategy of the Greek Communist Party (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1992).

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44 thoughts on “Why did Britain Attack the Greeks in 1944? | Animated History”

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  2. For those who believe it was the ''Greek Civil War'': It was NOT a war between Greeks, but rather Greeks fighting anti-Greeks. They were known as "κομμουνιστοσυμμορίτες''( communist bandits), "κατσαπλιάδες"( again bandits), Εαμοβούλγαροι( EAM-Bulgarians, because they were allies) etc. They wanted the succession of Macedonia and Thrace from Greece to Tito's Yugoslavia and Bulgaria respectively. They were ''ανθέλληνες''( anti-Greeks).

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  3. Keep in mind that the video started in 1944, when the greek resistance had pretty much kicked the crap out of both the Italians and the Germans, essentially freeing most of the mountainous land and limiting the occupying forces into the cities. Then the infighting erupted to determine who was going to come up on top. The Greek resistance by itself was extremely successful at accomplishing goals. Velouchiotis' (EAM-ELAS) was probably the most effective resistance group in the entire WW2 (albeit not the largest). We are talking about a tripartite occupation (Italy-Germany-Bulgaria) to a country that lost about 10% of its population, faced the last great famine in Europe and still, those sons of bitches had the audacity to go out on the streets, striking and demand the Germans recall their order of giving the rest of Macedonia to the Bulgarians and it actually worked.

    Churchill on the other hand could not believe his ears. The world is ablaze he said (not by word, I cannot recall perfectly), the entirety of Europe has fallen and the Greeks find greater enemies among each other than the occupier who they have degraded to a secondary problem. Goes to prove about the ancient quote "A fight between Greeks is a fight between Gods". Funny, but true as hell. When two Greeks start fighting suddenly the entire world becomes insignificant.

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  4. This might be aa bit of a nitpick but i feel that the thumbnail gives a very wrong impression of the whole situation, depicting it a north south divide like vietnam and korea when that wasnt really the case as i know you people know

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  5. After the Victory of the USSR over Euro-Fascism and Hitler —- from 1945 to 2022, it was the USA and England that firmly took the place of the new Hitler No. 2 and International Terrorist No. 1. Spending tens of billions of dollars again on the revival of a new Euro -fascism and Nazism in Europe and arming the entire world terrorism from Ukraine to Syria ( ISIS ) to start a new World War No. 3.

    The USA has been the main sponsor of terrorism and Nazism since 1932-2022 From the Entpant ( 1920) -Hitler (1932-1945 ) -NATO ( 1945-2022 )-WW 3

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  6. if you want to understand Churchil's motives just read about Mackinder's and Spykman's geopolitical theories,the only real question is why Stalin accepted encirclement by the Agglosaxons,my quess is because the Soviet Union was in ruins because of the German invasion and he also knew,through his spie networks in America,that the US was about to have nuclear weapons.
    As for the Greek Civil war,yes,it was terrible and still a taboo in Greece

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  7. Britain did not attack the Greeks. Great Britain supported the legitimate government recognized by the United nations against a coup by the communist resistance group ELAS. ELAS refused to be disarmed, as the rest of the resistance groups did, and join the new Greek Army that would be formed by conscription and would be sent to central/western Europe to fight against the germans.
    At that point the only armed forces the Greek government had had, was the Police, the 3rd Light Brigade and the Secret Band (a regiment size formation).
    With these forces they could hardly control the Athens area.
    Unless they were the British, Greece would have fallen behind the iron curtain since 1944.

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  8. So I heard that the UK had to root out the Nazis out of Greece in 1944 and succeeded. In 1945-1946 the Communists tried to take over in Greece as a part of Moscow's big push to get all of the Balkans under Moscow's thumb. After seeing Greece all but implode recently over their sovereign debt crisis, I kinda wish they HAD been put under the Soviet boot! The Greeks are incapable of governing themselves.

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  9. The communists were the main and only effective partisans in Greece. Non communist resistance groups did exist, but most were either bandits or nazi collaborators under the guise of resistance groups

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  10. I think the title of the video is misleading…
    It is not "why did Britain attack the Greeks", but rather "why did Britain get involved in Greek politics after the axis forces left". Or "why did Britain get involved in the Greek civil war".
    The British were not going there to attack the Greeks but to support the Greek people and its' elected Greek government that was already in Cairo in the midst of a civil war.
    A British soldier of that time was not thinking "I am going to attack the Greeks" but rather, "I am fighting to help the Greeks from the partizan parties gone rogue".

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  11. Why the British attacked Greece in 44?
    The very short answer the king in Cairo didn't trust his own troops
    That much Popular he was
    But being a relative of the British king and Churchill being Churchill.
    Also you forgot to mention that Churchill said to the British commander of the forces in Greece
    To treat Athens as an occupation zone and to put Papadreou in a cage if he try to reason with with EAM
    Also you forgot to mention that the British used SECURITY BATTALION men , yes the freaking local ss police
    Two of them in 1967 after Papadreou death will launch a coup
    Leading to the near fascist" colonels regime" and the invasion of Cyprus

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