War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-1941

144 Pages·2014·1.59 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Plowman

Panzers in the Peneios. Frustrated by demolitions set off by New Zealand troops in the Peneios gorge, German
armour took to the water. (Alexander Turnbull Library)

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
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Barnsley,
South Yorkshire
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Copyright © Jeffrey Plowman, 2013
ISBN 978 178159 248 9
eISBN 9781473832084
The right of Jeffrey Plowman to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
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Contents
Photograph Sources
Introduction
Chapter One
The Greco-Italian Conflict, 1940-1
Chapter Two
Opposing Plans in the Balkans
Chapter Three
Germany Enters Bulgaria and Jugoslavia
Chapter Four
Opening Moves in Greece
Chapter Five
From the Aliákmon Line to Thermopylae
Chapter Six
The Flight of 1 Armoured Brigade
Chapter Seven
The Evacuation of W Force
Chapter Eight
Operation Merkur
Chapter Nine
The Battle for the Airfields
Chapter Ten
The Retreat to Sfakia
Epilogue
Photograph Sources
Iwish to thank the following for photographs and information: Lee Archer, Jeff Bell,
Peter Brown, Ian Collins, Phil Deed, Claude Gillono, Robert Gregory, Michael
Grieve, Hervé Jojot, Shane Lovell, Mark MacKenzie, Wes Olsen, Patrick Ott,
Dinko Predoević, Perry Rowe, Heinz Richter, Steffen Rossler, Peter Scott, Katy Sinton,
Mike Smythe, Larry Te Keoti, Malcolm Thomas, Irena Tojcic, Douglas White and
Shaun Winkler.
I am grateful to the following veterans and families of veterans for making their
photographs available over the years: Hans Bender, Jack Dalton, Charlie Grainger,
Frank Horton, Stratton Morrin, Robert Simpson, Mervyn Sim and Wilhelm Weier.
I am also grateful to the following archives and organizations for making
photographs available to me: the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Army Museum of
Western Australia, the Bundesarchiv, the Imperial War Museum, the Médiathèque de la
Défense, d’Ivry (ECPAD) and the Regimental Historical Centre (Burnham).
Introduction
People seem fascinated by heroic defeats, Custer’s Last Stand, the Battle of
Balaclava or the Germans at Stalingrad to name but a few. The battle for Crete in
1941 is another one of these. It seems that hardly a year goes by in New Zealand
and Australia without some new book being published on the subject. It is not hard to
see why. The struggle of the ill-equipped ANZAC troops against the elite troops of
Germany falls into this category of a heroic defeat. At the same time there is a similar
fascination in the opposite hemisphere of the world, a fascination largely centred around
the elite fallschirmjäger and how they overcame all odds to take this island. But in
terms of the war in the Mediterranean there is more to this than just Crete. What has
largely been neglected is what went before, the campaign through the lower Balkan
countries of Jugoslavia and Greece.
The reality is that the epic struggle on this small island in the Aegean was merely
the terminal phase of a dispute between Greece and Italy that can be traced back to
before the First World War and their clashes over Albania and the Dodecanese Islands.
Though Albania came into existence in 1913 at the end of the Balkan Wars, within this
new state was a region that many Greeks regarded as having strong connections to the
former Greek region of Epirus. In 1913 ethnic Greeks living there started to use the
term Northern Epirus, proclaiming it an autonomous region in the spring of the
following year and one recognized by the Albanian government. This territory proved
to be short-lived, collapsing along with Albania at the start of the First World War.
Greece took over control of this region and held it until 1917 when they were driven out
by the Italians. Likewise, the Dodecanese were largely inhabited by Greeks but Italy
occupied the islands during the Turco-Italian War of 1911–12. Italy initially agreed to
return them to the Ottoman Empire after signing the Treaty of Lausanne but the general
vagueness of the treaty allowed Italy provisional administration of these islands and
Turkey eventually renounced all claims to them.
Italy and Greece came into conflict again after the First World War. At the Paris
Peace Conference in 1919 the Italian government discovered that Greece had been
promised large tracts of Asia Minor for its support during the war. Upset by the Greek
occupation of Western Anatolia, the Italian delegation walked out of the conference and
did not return for several months. In the meantime they occupied part of south-west
Anatolia, threatening the city of Smyrna. The Greeks took exception to this and landed
a force of 20,000 there, securing the city and then advancing deeper into Anatolia. The
Turks retaliated, routing the Greek force in Anatolia and, with Italian aid, eventually re-
took Smyrna in September 1922.
The final phase of this conflict erupted in 1923 over the so-called ‘Corfu Incident’.
In August that year an Italian general and three of his assistants were murdered within
Greek territory. Italy’s new prime minister, Benito Mussolini, sent an ultimatum to
Greece demanding millions in reparation money and the execution of the killers. When
the Greeks could not identify them the Italians retaliated by bombarding and then
occupying Corfu in the Ionian Islands, a move no doubt motivated by the strategic
position it occupied at the entrance to the Adriatic Sea. Thereafter, largely under the
premiership of Eleftherios Venizelos, a period of normalization of relations occurred
between the two countries culminating in the signing of a friendship treaty in 1928. In
fact, Italy was still regarded as a friendly state as late as 1935 despite invading Ethiopia
from Somalia and Eritrea, a move that saw the imposition of economic sanctions by the
League of Nations. Though these were lifted after the Italian annexation of that country
in 1936, Italy seemed less inclined to maintain friendly relations with the British in the
Middle East, sending troops to support General Franco when civil war broke out in
Spain in 1936, and expanding their influence in the western Mediterranean by
occupying the Balearic Islands. A further cause for concern was the formation of the
Rome-Berlin axis that year, though this was somewhat relieved by the signing of the
Anglo-Italian Joint Declaration in January 1937. Not that this signalled an improvement
in relations between Italy and Greece, and in fact the situation continued to deteriorate
culminating at the end of the year in the announcement that Italy had joined Germany
and Japan in their Anti-Comintern Pact against the Communist International.
Chapter One
The Greco-Italian Conflict, 1940-1
There is no doubt that Mussolini was jealous of Germany’s annexation of Austria,
so it came as no surprise when he asserted Italian control over Albania by
sending in troops on 7 April 1939. This action prompted the Prime Minister of
Britain, Winston Churchill, to offer to support the sovereignty of both Greece and
Rumania should they be threatened and a month later a similar offer was made to
Turkey. Not that that this was of any benefit to Rumania as in June, with Hitler’s
encouragement, Bulgaria, Hungary and Russia stripped it off its frontier provinces. As a
sign of things to come the governor of Albania began agitating the Greeks on behalf of
the Cham Albanian minority in Greek Epirus. After the headless body of an Albanian
bandit was discovered near the village of Vrina he blamed the Greeks and began arming
some of the Albanian irregular bands. It was therefore just a matter of time before
Mussolini made his next move against Greece.
One incident that the Greeks blamed on Italy was the torpedoing and sinking, with
heavy loss of life, of their cruiser Helle by a submarine on 15 August 1940 when she
was anchored off Tinos. Though taking no action against Italy, the President of the
Greek Council, General Ioannis Metaxas, did ask what help Greece could expect from
Britain; not that Churchill could offer much, other than naval support. The situation
deteriorated further the following month when Italy sent three more divisions to
Albania. This led Britain to discuss the possibility of a coordinated defence of Crete but
the Greeks would not allow any landings on their soil without a declaration of war. Nor
did the Italians have much luck either in their discussions with Germany. When they
sought German support for an attack on Jugoslavia, Adolf Hitler was adamant that he
did not want to see the war spread to the Balkans. As a result Mussolini switched his
attention to Libya and on 13 September launched his forces on a drive into Egypt. Not
that he turned his back on Greece entirely but, assured by the governor of Albania that
there would be no difficulty in securing Epirus and Corfu if he decided to attack