Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [279]
Greene acknowledged that all the local factions were guilty of atrocities, “but I think the bulk of Greek youth wants socialism1016 … I shall stay until I’m so heartily sick of assisting in the installation of a fascist regime in Greece that I summon up enough courage to resign.” He was right in believing that the wartime experience had radicalised Greek youth, as it appears to have radicalised him. Yet if Churchill’s support for restoring the monarchy was mistaken, he was surely justified in his revulsion against allowing power to fall by default into Communist hands, as would have been most likely to happen in the absence of British military intervention.
On December 17, Alexander signalled that another infantry division might be needed to hold Athens, a shocking prospect since the formation would have to be withdrawn from the Italian front. Two days later, 563 RAF personnel at the British air headquarters at Kifissia, outside Athens, surrendered to ELAS after a battle in which 57 airmen had been killed or wounded. During the month’s fighting in Athens, the British Army lost 169 killed, 699 wounded and 640 missing—mostly prisoners—an appalling scale of casualties for what began as a postliberation security operation, equivalent to the loss of two infantry battalions to the Allied order of battle. Macmillan wrote in his diary on December 21: “Poor Winston!1017 What with Greece, Poland and the German breakthrough on the Western Front, this is going to be a grim Christmas.” By the twenty-second, with strife intensifying, Churchill was at last becoming persuadable about the possibility of a regency, and keeping the king out of Greece pending a referendum on his future. But he said crossly to Cadogan: “I won’t instal a Dictator.”1018 In truth, the prime minister was dithering. An almost daily barrage of hostile questions in the Commons sustained pressure on the government. He cabled to Smuts: “I have had endless trouble about Greece where we have indeed been wounded in the house of our friends. Communist and Left-wing forces all over the world have stirred in sympathy with this new chance and the American Press reporting back has to some extent undermined our prestige and authority in Greece. There would be no chance of our basing a British policy upon the return of the King. We must at all costs avoid appearing to be forcing him on them by our bayonets.”
“Setting Europe ablaze.” Instructing French maquisards on the use of the sten submachine gun, supplied in large quantities to the French Resistance by SOE in 1944
An SOE mission looking suitably flamboyant in occupied Yugoslavia
Images of D-Day: Operation Overlord, June 6, 1944, climactic moment of World War II in the west
With his unworthy favourite Alexander in Italy, August 26, 1944
In Paris on Armistice Day, November 11, 1944, an unusually affable moment with De Gaulle
In Athens on December 26, 1944, meeting the warring Greek factions in conference with Eden (far left), Archbishop Damaskinos, Alexander and Macmillan, while gunfire raged in the streets outside
At Yalta in February 1945: The USN’s Admiral King engages in sober conversation with Brooke, Ismay and Marshall.
One of the Valentine tanks supplied by Britain to the Red Army enjoys a moment of triumph as it carries victorious Russian soldiers through the streets of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.
Last set piece of the