• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 996 0

dismay among the leaders of the white dominions. In theory, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand formations could be deployed only with the express sanction of their home governments. But, especially in 1940–41 before dominion ministers dug in their heels against abuses of their constitutional rights, such approval was often sought only retrospectively. The Australian prime minister, Robert Menzies, attended the 24 February 1941 British War Cabinet meeting at which the decision was made to dispatch an army to Greece; but he and his fellow ministers were wilfully misled about the opinions and fears of commanders in the theatre, including their own most senior officers. Only after the first New Zealand soldiers had been in Greece for some weeks in December 1940 did their government in Auckland learn of the fact. Anzac rather than British forces were called upon to bear the chief burden of the most hazardous Allied military gamble of the Mediterranean campaign, serving under a British commander-in-chief. Australian politicians, in particular, were deeply dismayed.

Anzac soldiers, however, cherished more innocent sensations. The New Zealanders were voyaging towards their first battlefield; like most young men in such circumstances, they revelled in excited anticipation and exotic sensations, oblivious of peril. Lance-Bombardier Morry Cullen wrote home euphorically about the thrill of sailing the Mediterranean: ‘I have never seen such beautiful shades of blue, from a light sky shade to the deepest blue black and there was hardly a ripple on the water.’ Private Victor Ball wrote in his diary about Athens: ‘Best place we have been in and people very friendly. Had a look at the Acropolis, the old ruins of Athens … The brothel area is a lot cleaner than Cairo. We got very drunk but got home alright.’ Lt. Dan Davin reflected later: ‘We were all absolutely the picture of youth and health … There’s a sort of natural courage in people who’ve been fed all their lives on good meat.’ These dominion troops approached their first experience of war with a confidence and enthusiasm that persisted, in remarkable degree, through the ordeal which now began to unfold. Some of their officers, however, were more cynical: Gen. Sir Thomas Blamey, the seedy old reprobate commanding the Australian corps – ‘a coward and not a commander’, in the words of one of his staff officers – spent 26 March reconnoitring possible evacuation beaches in southern Greece.

The Germans invaded on 6 April 1941, simultaneously with their assault on Yugoslavia. They cited the British presence to justify their action: ‘The government of the Reich has consequently ordered its armed forces to expel British troops from the soil of Greece. All resistance will be ruthlessly crushed … It is emphasised that the German army does not come as an enemy of the Greek people, and it is not the desire of the German people to fight Greeks … The blow which Germany is obliged to strike on Greek soil is directed against England.’ British forces were spread far too thin to check the invaders. Where Germans met resistance – and there were some stubborn little stands – they merely pulled back and probed until they found a gap elsewhere.

New Zealander Victor Ball described the first stage of what became a long, painful withdrawal: ‘We were followed by shellfire the whole way, wherever we went they shelled us. One chap killed outright just alongside me – hit in the throat – and quite a few hit with bits of shale and stone. Planes coming over one at a time bombing and machine-gunning. Things sure get on your nerves when you can’t fight back.’ Russell Brickell, another New Zealander, reflected on the experience of being dive-bombed: ‘It’s a peculiar feeling, lying on one’s tummy in a trench or ditch listening to the scream of an approaching bomb, a second’s silence as it hits the ground, then the earth comes up and hits one in the face and there is a tremendous woomph! and bits whistle through the air.’

German forces were soon pouring through the Monastir Gap on the Yugoslavian border, threatening