The Civil War in Greece (1947–1954)

Abstract

During the Second World War Greece was occupied by Germany and the unpopular right-wing government went into exile. At first the British-supported underground movement was led by communists, but subsequently a non-communist resistance group emerged, and in 1943 Britain switched her support to it. She then endeavoured to reconcile the two sides but without much success. In consequence, after her troops landed in Greece in October 1944 they found themselves fighting not only the Germans but also, before long, the forces of the communist movement. The latter came off worst and therefore retired to the north of the country to engage in guerrilla warfare against the restored government and its foreign supporters. Here they soon received a substantial fillip in the shape of assistance from the communist regimes which had been indigenously established in two neighbouring states, Albania and Yugoslavia, and from that which had been installed in a third, Bulgaria, by the Soviet Union (see Map 14).