The Balkans and Barbarossa

As the Germans had feared, the British began landing soldiers and aircraft in southern Greece as early as November 1940. Had Mussolini delivered on his claim that he would stroll into Athens within a month, then the Balkans (with the exception of Greece) would probably have remained an island of peace for most of the war. But with the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler could not afford to have his rear threatened by British forces. Mussolini’s failure to subjugate Greece provoked the Nazi military sweep through the Balkans.

Mussolini was able to pay Hitler back ‘in his own coin’ at their summit meeting in Florence on 28 October, the day of the attack on Greece. Far from admonishing Mussolini, as il Duce had expected, Hitler congratulated him briefly and advised him to concentrate on grabbing Crete. Mussolini ignored the advice. Although he did not know it, his casual announcement of the invasion had not taken Hitler by surprise. The Führer’s information-gathering network was too good for that. On receiving the same intelligence, Ernst von Weizsäcker, Undersecretary of State at the Außenamt, ‘set about making a very clear demarche. I drew up an unambiguous instruction to Rome that we should not allow our ally, who was weak enough in any case, to bring new countries into the war without our advice and consent as allies. Ribbentrop approved this, but Hitler said he did not want to cross Mussolini. 

Hitler’s silence meant indirectly giving Italy the sign to go ahead with her . . . step in the Balkans.’

Hitler even offered Mussolini paratroop support for an operation against Crete. ‘People are too prone to think of the Mediterranean as an east–west channel for shipping’, observed ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, the head of America’s intelligence service, the OSS, in a memo to Roosevelt sent from the Balkans a month after the Italian offensive had begun. ‘It should be thought of primarily as a no-man’s land between Europe and Africa, with two great forces facing each other from the north and the south. Germany controls, either directly or indirectly, most of the northern battle-line on the continent of Europe. It is imperative for the British – or the British and the Americans – to control the southern front along the Mediterranean shore of Africa.’ Donovan had not quite read Hitler’s mind, but it was a passable summary of what the Führer was thinking.

Hitler could have blocked the Italian invasion of Greece but did not. First, he wanted to prevent Britain from establishing an airbase in Thessaloniki from which British bombers could reach the oil fields in Ploeşti. But he had a still grander reason. Operation ‘Seelöwe’, the invasion of Britain, had failed, and Hitler had dropped the idea of a second attempt. He had switched instead to the so-called ‘peripheral strategy’ which involved cutting communications between Great Britain and its imperial outposts. At the time of the Italian invasion, Hitler was planning an assault on Gibraltar and a push, with the Italians, towards Suez. If Germany and Italy could seize Crete, then they would control the main naval and aerial staging post in the Mediterranean. They could monitor and regulate traffic along an east–west and a north–south axis. Hitler accepted and even supported Italy’s Greek operation within the context of the ‘peripheral strategy’ against England. But his modest enthusiasm for the offensive soon soured when he realized it had been planned and executed by a clown. The British occupied Crete on 6 November while the Italians were still bogged down in the mud of Epirus just 24 kilometres from their base camp. ‘A matchless dilettantism’, fulminated Goebbels in December when the extent of Italy’s failure became clear.

The Italians have ruined the military prestige of the Axis. This is why the Balkans have become such a stubborn problem . . . So we must now intervene. Not to help them but to run the English out of Crete where they have installed themselves. They must get out of there. The Führer would prefer to see a peace deal between Rome and Athens but it is a difficult policy to sell. Mussolini has really messed this one up . . . If only he had occupied Crete straight away as the Führer had advised. But Rome is incorrigible.

By this time, Germany’s need to intervene in the Balkans had become still more pressing. Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, arrived in Berlin on the afternoon of 12 November 1940 for two days of talks. Hitler wished to invite the Soviet Union to join Germany, Italy and Japan in the Tripartite Pact. Were Stalin to accept the offer to join the Axis, this would create the mightiest political alliance in history, stretching from the Atlantic and Mediterranean to the Pacific. Hitler had hit upon the idea of incorporating the Soviet Union into his scheme partly to pre-empt a future alliance of the Soviet Union, Britain and, possibly, the United States, and partly because he had become anxious about the gradual westward expansion of the Soviet Union through Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. In the Molotov–Ribbentrop accord of August 1939, Hitler had effectively recognized the Balkans as a Russian sphere of interest. Meanwhile, however, Germany’s interest in the region had become more urgent. By persuading the Soviet Union to sign up to the Tripartite Pact, Hitler hoped, among other things, to extinguish Soviet influence in the Balkans. 

Berlin offered to compensate Moscow by supporting Soviet expansion in what Hitler termed the ‘Großasiatischer Raum’ (greater Asian space). When Molotov asked what ‘Großasiatischer Raum’ actually meant, the Germans were unable to give him a concrete answer; it has been assumed that it meant India, Central Asia and Iran.

As Hitler unveiled his vision of the new order, covering half the globe, Molotov sat impassively and, having heard the Führer out, stated he agreed ‘in principle’ to the idea. He then proceeded to raise difficulties about all the individual issues that Hitler had hoped to resolve in Germany’s favour. The Foreign Minister mentioned Finland, Poland and Romania but he also raised for the first time the question of Bulgaria. Molotov claimed that Britain was threatening the security of the Black Sea Straits, which had prompted the Soviet Union to consider an offer ‘of a Russian guarantee to Bulgaria’.

Molotov’s intervention threatened Wehrmacht plans to invade Greece, which included sending its divisions through Bulgaria. Stalin’s response to the Tripartite proposal arrived by letter two weeks after Molotov’s visit. The Soviet leader was adamant on the issue of Bulgaria: ‘2. Provided that within the next few months the security of the Soviet Union in the Straits is assured by the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria . . . and by the establishment of a base for land and naval forces of the USSR within range of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by means of a long-term lease.’

Hitler needed the Balkans for economic reasons. He could not tolerate Soviet interference in the region, and certainly not a Soviet military presence there. Persuaded that Stalin was becoming too conceited and dangerous as an ally, Hitler decided to destroy the Soviet Union once and for all. The great gamble was begun.

This momentous decision . . . had immediate and far-reaching consequences. Firstly, the war against Britain now turned into a secondary matter, and the ‘peripheral strategy’ was therefore eliminated at a stroke. Secondly, the mess created by Italy’s failure in Greece turned from a secondary nuisance within the framework of the ‘peripheral strategy’ (and not wholly unqualified, as it had presented the Germans with the opportunity to install themselves in the eastern Mediterranean while circumventing Italian objections) into a first-class blunder from the point of view of the future war against Russia.

After Greece’s seizure of Korçe, an optimistic editorial in the New York Times suggested that ‘it probably needs only a comparatively small number of British divisions with accompanying artillery, tanks and airplanes to bring it [victory over the Italians and control of the northern Mediterranean] to fulfillment. But where are the divisions and whence are they coming? Is British land armament and trained man power yet sufficient to spare enough for this providential chance? If the answer is affirmative, this may prove to be a turning point of the war.’ The answer was negative; it was a turning point nonetheless.

GREEK AIR FORCE 1941

The Bloch MB.151 was the most modern fighter of the Greek Airforce in 1940; clearly superior to the Italian G.50s and at least equal to the MC.200s.

In 1940, Greece’s Air Ministry administered the Royal Greek Air Force (Vassiliki Aeroporia). The navy controlled the naval cooperation squadrons, and the army controlled fighters, bombers, and ground-support squadrons. The Greek air force’s modern aircraft were grouped into four fighter squadrons and three bomber squadrons. At the start of the war with Italy in October 1940, Greece deployed 216 first- and second-line aircraft of all types, including liaison. Greece also had about 60 obsolete aircraft dating back to World War I. At the beginning of its invasion of Greece, Italy operated 187 modern aircraft from Albania, and it could also draw on hundreds of aircraft operating from Italy. The Greek air force was composed of a mélange of Czech, Polish, German, French, and later British machines. Greece had no reserves and was totally dependent on the British for resupply. Securing replacement parts was a nightmare, and the lack of parts meant that many aircraft became inoperable.

During 1940 and 1941, the Greek air force aggressively operated with some success in support of army operations on the Albanian Front. However, as the army advanced into mountainous Albania, flying distances became longer and more problematic, whereas Italian aircraft were able to operate closer to their own bases. By the time Germany invaded Greece in April 1941, the Greek air force was down to 41 operational aircraft. Following the Axis victory at the end of April, the Greek government in exile maintained an air force of two fighter squadrons and one bomber squadron in the Mediterranean under British control.

References

Arena, Nino. La Regia Aeronautica, 1939–1943. Vols. 1–4. Rome: Uffico Storico, 1982–1986.

Shores, Christopher, et al. Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete, 1940–41. Carrollton, TX: Squadron Signal Publications, 1987.

GREEK ARMY 1941

 

In October 1940, at the time of the Italian invasion, the Greek army, commanded by General Alexandros Papagos, numbered some 430,000 men in 18 divisions. By April 1941, when the Germans invaded Greece, army strength was some 540,000 men. Each division numbered at full strength approximately 18,500 men, formed in three regiments of three battalions each. Most of these were of World War I type and were lightly armed mountain divisions. The army had almost no tanks, although in the course of the fighting the Greeks captured some Italian L3 “tankettes” and formed a weak motorized division. The Greeks also had little in the way of antiaircraft artillery, and much of the army’s equipment was also antiquated. Although the Greeks had few mortars, they possessed more machine guns and more effective heavy artillery than did the Italians. Greek supply services were poor, leading to much hardship among the troops in the mountains and during the winter.

In October 1940, when the Italian army invaded from Albania, the Greek army had four first-line divisions on the Albanian frontier. The Greek army fought well against the Italians; in its counterattack, it expelled the Italian army from Greece and penetrated into Albania. The Greeks were overwhelmed when the German army entered the fighting in April 1941, however. During the 1940–1941 campaign, the Greek army sustained 13,408 killed and 42,485 wounded. Some 9,000 soldiers were evacuated to Crete, and others escaped through Turkey to Egypt. Ultimately, the Greeks formed the 18,500-man Royal Hellenic Army, which fought under British command in the Middle East. It consisted of three infantry brigades, an armored-car regiment, an artillery regiment, and the Greek Sacred Regiment composed entirely of officers.

One brigade of the Royal Hellenic Army fought in the Battle of El Alamein, but most of the force saw little action, the consequence of political infighting. A mutiny in 1944 led to the internment of much of the army, although part of it was used in nonoperational duties. A newly formed unit, the 2,500-man Third Mountain Brigade, did fight with distinction in the Italian Campaign, where it was known as the Rimini Brigade.

References

Bitzes, John G. Greece in World War II to April 1941. Manhattan, KS: Sunflower Press, 1989.

Dear, I. C. B., and M. R. D. Foot. The Oxford Companion to World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Higham, Robin, and T. Veremis, eds. The Metaxas Dictatorship: Aspects of Greece, 1936–1940. Athens: Hellenic Foundation for Defense and Foreign Policy, 1993.

Montanari, Mario. L’Esercito Italiano nella campagna di Grecia. 2d ed. Rome: Ufficio Storico, 1991.

Spyopoulos, Evangelos. The Greek Military (1909–1947) and the Greek Mutiny in the Middle East (1941–1944). New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.