A History of the Greek Resistance in the Second World War: The People’s Armies

284 Pages·2016·2.768 MB·English

by  Spyros Tsoutsoumpis

CULTURAL HISTORY OF MODERN WAR CULTURAL HISTORY OF MODERN WAR
A
Spyros Tsoutsoumpis

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A history of the Greek resistance in the Second World War discusses one of the
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most troubled and fascinating aspects of modern Greek and European history: S
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the anti-Axis resistance. It is a pioneering history of the men and women who NT
waged the struggle against the Axis and provides a comparative study of the O

guerrilla armies of ELAS and EDES. T
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Previous studies have either neglected the study of the guerrilla armies Y
altogether or focused on their political and operational activities. As a result we TE O
know very little about the lives, experiences and beliefs of the men and women HS
within these groups, their provisioning, leisure and relations with the civilian EEF

population. A history of the Greek resistance in the Second World War delves PCT
into this unexplored area and provides new insights on the formation of the EOH
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resistance movements and the experiences of the guerrilla fighters. The book PNE
follows the guerrillas from enlistment to the battlefield, examining the rise L
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and origins of the resistance armies and how they governed their territories. ’S R
It explores how their experiences of hardship, combat and personal loss shaped W
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their self-image and social attitudes, the complex reasons that led partisans to R
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enlist and fight, and relations between the guerrillas and the civilian population. M
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Existing studies have presented the guerrillas as political soldiers and underscored EL
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the importance of ideology in motivation and morale. A history of the Greek D
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resistance in the Second World War offers a more complex image and looks at
a series of factors that have been neglected by scholars including kinship and WS
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group ties, violence, religious beliefs and leadership. The book will appeal to both AS
academics and general readers interested in the Greek resistance, military history T
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and the history of resistance movements during the Second World War. A

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‘This is an excellent analysis of the social conditions that gave birth and
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contributed to the development of the Greek guerrilla during the German
occupation. Through a detailed and in-depth analysis of the elements that E
prevailed in the countryside, Tsoutsoumpis presents an impressive study
of the armed resistance and the following civil war between the communist
guerrillas and the anti-communist forces in Greece throughout the period of T
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the Second World War.’ o
Nikos Marantzidis, Associate Professor of Balkan, Slavic and u
Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki (Greece) t
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and Visiting Professor of History at Charles University in Prague o A HISTORY OF THE
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Spyros Tsoutsoumpis is an Independent Scholar
p GREEK RESISTANCE IN
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Cover image:
Guerrillas of the ELAS, c.1943. JANE BROOKS
Diplomatic and Historical Archive Department, ISBN 978-1-7849-9251-4 THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs. CC-BY-SA
CHRISTINE HALLETT
THE PEOPLE’S ARMIES
9 781784 992514
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
A history of the Greek resistance in the
Second World War
Cultural History of Modern War
Series editors Ana Carden-Coyne, Peter Gatrell, Max Jones,
Penny Summerfield and Bertrand Taithe
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Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy (eds) The silent morning: culture and memory after
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Spyros Tsoutsoumpis A history of the Greek resistance in the Second World War:
the People’s Armies
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http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/subjectareas/history/research/cchw/
A history of the Greek
resistance in the Second
World War
The People’s Armies
•
SPYROS TSOUTSOUMPIS
Manchester University Press
Copyright © Spyros Tsoutsoumpis 2016
The right of Spyros Tsoutsoumpis to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 1 7849 9251 4 hardback
First published 2016
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Minion by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Contents
Acknowledgements page vi
Abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
1 The rise and origins of the People’s Armies 13
2 Patriots and scoundrels: motivation and recruitment in the
People’s Armies 71
3 Not by bread alone: combat, everyday life and the formation
of guerrilla identities 115
4 Cause, comrades and faith: morale in the guerrilla armies 155
5 A society at war: guerrilla governance and everyday life in
Free Greece 201
Conclusion 257
Select bibliography 265
Index 272
v v v
Acknowledgements
The writing of a book is seldom an individual venture, and this one is
no exception. The book is based on my PhD dissertation undertaken at
the University of Manchester, where I was fortunate to have Professor
Penny Summerfield and Dr Max Jones as supervisors. Their generosity,
insight and unfaltering patience played a crucial role in sustaining me
through graduate school and the writing of this book. I also owe thanks
to Professor Peter Gatrell and Dr Ana Carden-Coyne who provided
valuable help and advice. Special thanks must go to Emma Brennan and
everyone at Manchester University Press for their support and patience.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their
valuable suggestions and diligence.
Many thanks must also go to the archivists and librarians at ELIA,
ASKI, GAK, DIS and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
at King’s College as well as the staff at the inter-library loan section at
Manchester University Library for locating a host of arcane books and
responding to endless queries. I would also like to recognise the kindness
of the Liddell Hart Centre Trustees who gave me permission to quote
from the Centre’s collections.
I owe a particular debt to all the people who opened their homes
and shared their memories with me in Igoumenitsa, Souli, Senitsa, Arta
and Ioannina. Their warmth, hospitality and patience was immense as
was their empathy for the people against whom they fought during this
turbulent period. These discussions have provided me with profound
insights and a deeper understanding of this period and the ordeal of the
people who were caught in the midst of these events.
Last but certainly not least I want to thank my family for their patience,
love, emotional and material support. I owe my interest in this tumultu-
ous period to my paternal grandfather, Pilios, whose stories of the war
and recollections of an Epirus that has now vanished first prompted me
v vi v
Acknowledgements
to study history. Special thanks must also go to my mother Dimitra, my
sister Natasha and my father Giannis, a voracious reader whose knowl-
edge and personal experiences of the occupation and civil war have been
immensely helpful. This book could not have been written without them.
I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my grandparents,
Pilios, Anastasia and Kostas and my aunt Rina whose narratives, experi-
ences and memories have shaped this book in more ways than one.
v vii v
Abbreviations
AMM Allied Military Mission
ASKI Arxeia Sighronis Koinonikis Istorias/Archives of
Contemporary Social History
BMM British Military Mission
DIS Diefthnisi Istorias Stratou/Directorate for Army History
EAM Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo/National Liberation Front
EDES Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Sindesmos/Greek National
Republican League
EDIA Etairia Diasosis Istorikon Arheion/Society for the Preservation
of Historical Archives
ELAS Ellinikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos/Greek National
Popular Liberation Army
ELIA Elliniko Logotehniko kai Istoriko Arxeio/Greek Archive of
Literature and History
EPON Eniaia Panelladiki Organosi Neon/United Panhellenic Youth
Association
GAK Genika Arheia Kratous/General State Archives
GES Geniko Epiteleio Stratou/General Army Staff
IAM Istoriko Arheio Makedonias/Macedonian Historical Archive
IWM Imperial War Museum
KKE Kommunistiko Komma Ellados/Communist Party of Greece
LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
OSS Office of Strategic Services
SOE Special Operations Executive
TNA The National Archives
v viii v
Introduction
Between 1941 and 1944, Greece was the site of a bloody conflict in which
Axis troops, collaborationist militias, guerrillas and British operatives
fought each other in a small-scale war of attrition. The end of the war
was followed by an even bloodier civil war that lasted for three years
(1946–49). However, the conclusion of the civil war did not signal an end
to the hostilities between the participants and their descendants. In the
subsequent decades, memoirists, journalists, politicians and historians
waged a long rearguard battle in newspaper columns, lecture halls and
publishing houses.
The civil war yielded several by-products, the foremost of which was
the outlawing of the left and the persecution of resistance veterans and
their families. The period of the resistance was regarded by the state as
a rehearsal for the civil war, a view reflected in the numerous historical
works and memoirs published by right-wing resisters and British liaison
officers who presented EAM/ELAS1 as a Soviet puppet that aimed to
pave the way for a left-wing dictatorship.2 These views remained the
orthodoxy until the 1970s, when a new generation of revisionist histori-
ans challenged this paradigm and ‘suggested that at the least the nature
of Communist control of EAM/ELAS needed further investigation and
at worst the Anglo-American imperialism had strangled a genuinely
popular radical movement’.3 Despite their radical difference in opinion,
these scholars did not divert from the focus or the methodology of their
predecessors; most revisionist studies adopted a top-down approach and
focused on two issues: why EAM/ELAS failed to seize power and who
bore the responsibility for the outbreak of the civil war.4
The end of the Cold War facilitated a much more detached discussion
v 1 v