The Greek Civil War — A Two-Part Study

Introduction

The Greek Civil War cannot be understood solely through the fighting of 1946–49. Its origins reached back into the Axis occupation, when resistance, political rivalry and competing ideas about the future of Greece developed alongside the struggle against the occupiers. After liberation, those internal divisions became increasingly entangled with the emerging international confrontation between the Western powers and the communist world.

This two-part study examines those two dimensions separately.

Part One, The Greek Civil War in 1943 and the Cretan Exception, begins inside occupied Greece. It examines the armed conflict between Greek resistance organisations on the mainland from 1943 and asks whether the same process occurred on Crete. Particular attention is given to contemporary evidence surrounding the agreement of 7 November 1943, commonly associated with Theriso, and to the attempts by EAM and EOK to contain political and armed rivalry on the island.

Part Two, The Greek Civil War and the Origins of Cold War Proxy Warfare, widens the enquiry beyond Greece. It examines how an essentially Greek conflict became progressively internationalised through British intervention, American involvement under the Truman Doctrine, assistance to the communist insurgency from Greece’s northern neighbours, and the more complicated roles of Stalin and Tito. It then considers whether the Greek Civil War can properly be described as one of the first proxy conflicts of the emerging Cold War.

Taken together, the two papers move from the origins of the conflict within Greece to its place in the developing Cold War. The purpose is not to impose a single retrospective label upon events, but to distinguish what the contemporary evidence establishes from what later interpretations have sometimes assumed.

Part One

The Greek Civil War in 1943 and the Cretan Exception – Resistance rivalry, political violence and the Theriso agreement

The Greek Civil War is normally dated from 1946 to 1949. That remains the clearest chronology for the sustained post-war struggle between the Greek state and the communist-led Democratic Army of Greece. It is not, however, the only defensible chronology. By 1943, while Greece was still under Axis occupation, armed Greek organisations were already fighting one another on the mainland. Some historians therefore describe the conflict in three rounds and place its first, limited phase in 1943–44. Others reserve the term Civil War for the post-Liberation struggle and treat the violence of the occupation years as its origins or antecedents.

The disagreement is not simply about dates. It concerns the classification of violence that occurred while national resistance, political competition, collaboration, local authority and preparations for the post-war settlement were developing at the same time.

Crete must be considered separately. The island possessed its own resistance organisations, political relationships and local structures. It also had longstanding family, village and personal antagonisms capable of becoming entangled with wartime loyalties. A politically affiliated man killed by another Greek was not necessarily a casualty of civil war. The immediate cause might have been collaboration, a local grievance, retaliation, personal rivalry or vendetta. Conversely, an incident that appeared local might have been the visible expression of an organised struggle between EAM and its opponents. Classification therefore has to rest upon evidence of motive, affiliation, direction and context, not upon the nationality of those involved.

The available evidence examined here supports a qualified conclusion. A limited phase of civil war had begun in parts of mainland Greece by the autumn of 1943 because rival Greek armed formations were engaged in organised combat. On Crete, the political and organisational divisions associated with that wider conflict were also present. Yet the strongest contemporary documents presently available do not establish organised warfare between EAM and EOK on the island in 1943. They show their leaders recognising the danger and constructing machinery intended to prevent rivalry from becoming an armed conflict.

The Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora

This enquiry began with a source listed as the Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, an academic periodical published in New York by Pella Publishing Company. It began in 1974, carried ISSN 0364-2976 and published sustained work on modern Greek history, politics and society.

Volume XI, No. 3, published in autumn 1984, is particularly relevant. Its principal scholarly sequence included Ole L. Smith, “The Memoirs and Reports of the British Liaison Officers in Greece, 1942–1944: Problems of Source Value”, pages 9–32; Angeliki E. Laiou, “The Resistance in Evros”, pages 33–39; Hans-Joachim Hoppe, “Germany, Bulgaria, Greece: Their Relations and Bulgarian Policy in Occupied Greece”, pages 41–54; Angelos Avgoustidis, “EEAM: The Workers’ Resistance”, pages 55–68; and André Gerolymatos, “The Role of the Greek Officer Corps in the Resistance”, pages 69–79.

The value of the issue lies in its range. Smith examines the evidential reliability of British Liaison Officer reports and memoirs, a fundamental question whenever SOE and British Military Mission material is used. Laiou addresses the unusual circumstances of resistance in Evros. Hoppe places Greek resistance within the complications created by Bulgarian occupation policy. Avgoustidis turns from the familiar mountain guerrilla narrative to organised labour and urban resistance. Gerolymatos examines the professional officer corps and its relationship with competing resistance movements. Together, the articles show why the history of occupied Greece cannot be reduced to a simple contest between occupier and occupied.

Smith’s subject is especially important. A contemporary operational report, an intelligence assessment and a post-war memoir are different kinds of evidence. They were written for different audiences, under different pressures and with different degrees of hindsight. British officers also operated within a changing policy environment in which the immediate military value of resistance organisations and British assumptions about Greece’s political future could not always be separated. Their testimony is indispensable, but it must be read critically and compared with Greek evidence, organisational records and the chronology of events.

The mainland in 1943

On the mainland, the argument for a first phase of civil war rests upon more than political hostility or isolated killings.

By the autumn of 1943, ELAS and EDES were rival armed organisations with territorial ambitions, military commands and incompatible expectations for the political order that would follow liberation. The Italian armistice in September released weapons and altered the balance of power. Rumours of an early German withdrawal increased the importance of controlling territory before the occupation ended.

Fighting between ELAS and EDES intensified from mid-October and continued into early 1944. This was organised violence between Greek formations, conducted while both still existed within the wider setting of resistance to Axis occupation.

That is why the language of a first round is defensible. It recognises continuity between wartime factional conflict, the Dekemvriana of December 1944 and the large-scale war of 1946–49. It does not require every act of intra-Greek violence during the occupation to be absorbed into one uninterrupted civil war. Nor does it erase the national resistance. The same organisation could fight the occupiers, compete for arms and territory, and prepare for the post-war struggle. Those activities overlapped, but they were not identical.

The historical record also reflects this distinction. The confrontation between ELAS and EDES from the autumn of 1943 developed into sustained intra-Greek fighting. Attempts at de-escalation eventually produced negotiations at Myrofyllo and Plaka in February 1944. The resulting arrangements sought to end hostilities and regulate relations between the principal resistance formations.

The failure to unite the guerrilla forces did not mean that every contact produced combat, but by this stage the mainland evidence had passed the threshold from rivalry into organised armed confrontation.

This mainland chronology cannot simply be transferred to Crete. The presence of EAM, EOK and separate armed groups establishes the capacity for conflict, not the fact of it. Evidence is required that the organisations, or forces acting under their authority, fought one another as part of a political and military contest.

The evidential test for Crete

An incident-by-incident test is necessary. For each alleged example, the investigation should establish who killed or attacked whom; the organisations or local networks to which the participants belonged; the date and place; the immediate circumstances; what contemporary British or SOE reporting said about the motive; what contemporary Greek evidence said; and how later testimony changed or enlarged the account. The decisive question is whether the evidence shows orders, policy, coordinated action, organisational retaliation or a recognised chain of political violence.

This test matters particularly in a society where vendetta and local antagonism formed part of the historical landscape. Political affiliation might provide weapons, opportunity or a later explanation without being the original cause of violence. A killing arising from an old family dispute did not become civil-war violence merely because the men concerned were associated with rival organisations. Equally, the language of vendetta could conceal or domesticate what was actually a politically directed killing. Neither explanation should be assumed. Both must be tested against contemporary evidence.

The research question can therefore be stated narrowly: was there organised armed conflict between competing Greek political or resistance organisations on Crete during 1943–44 which contemporaries understood as political conflict, rather than violence arising primarily from occupation, collaboration, personal grievance or vendetta?

This formulation avoids beginning with the conclusion. It also prevents mainland developments from being imposed upon an island whose resistance leadership followed a different course.

The agreement of 7 November 1943

The most important evidence is a two-page British intelligence document preserved by the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive. Headed “The E.A.M. and the Nationalists in Crete” and dated 8 January 1944, it contains an English rendering of the agreement reached on 7 November 1943, followed by the response of the EOK committees of Heraklion and Rethymno dated 6 December. The document was intended for British official use and bears the character of a translated intelligence memorandum rather than a later commemorative account.

The agreement declared that EAM and EOK shared the national purpose of liberation, protection of the population from occupation measures and preservation of the people’s freedom to decide political and social questions after liberation. It proposed a seven-member Senior Directing Committee: three members from each organisation and General Emmanouil Mandakas as the military member. Military questions previously managed by the separate organisations were to pass under this joint committee. The parties were also to cease criticism of one another.

This was more than a general appeal for unity. It was an attempt to create a common political and military structure while preserving the two organisations. The existence of separate commands was acknowledged, but military matters were to be coordinated at senior level. The prohibition on mutual criticism shows that the problem was political as well as operational. The agreement sought to restrain the conduct that could turn organisational competition into open conflict.

The geographical limitation is important. On the EAM side the agreement applied throughout Crete. On the EOK side it initially bound the Chania prefecture, while the remaining prefectural committees were free to accept it. That limitation explains why Heraklion and Rethymno subsequently considered the terms separately.

There is a minor chronological problem that should remain visible. The British memorandum says the agreement was reached on 7 November 1943. A related archival catalogue entry describes correspondence concerning an agreement of 17 November. This may reflect the date on which the agreement was circulated, considered or recorded outside Chania rather than a different meeting. Without the original Greek documents and their complete archival context, the discrepancy should not be silently resolved.

The response from Heraklion and Rethymno

Representatives of the Heraklion and Rethymno EOK committees met on Mount Ida on 6 December 1943.

They accepted cooperation with EAM in principle. The surviving British translation records their view that forces pursuing the same objective should not fight one another but should cooperate. They proposed a five-member committee under the competent British headquarters, composed of four EOK representatives, one from each prefecture, and one EAM representative for the whole island. This differed from the seven-member structure agreed in November and reflected a clear concern with the balance of representation.

Their third condition is the most revealing.

They proposed that political activity should be prohibited in order “to check the rivalry of various armed sections.”

This is direct contemporary evidence that rivalry between armed formations existed and was considered dangerous to the common struggle. It also shows that the Heraklion and Rethymno leadership did not regard goodwill alone as sufficient. Political activity, command relationships and the jurisdiction of existing guerrilla bands all required formal regulation.

The memorandum therefore demonstrates the existence of conditions from which civil conflict could develop: competing political organisations, separate armed formations, disagreement about representation, rivalry between bands and anxiety about the post-war settlement.

It does not record that EAM and EOK were already conducting organised warfare against one another.

Its purpose was preventive and coordinative. The committees were trying to keep political and military competition inside a common national framework while occupation continued.

Containment rather than civil war

The distinction is decisive.

A non-aggression agreement can sometimes prove that fighting has already occurred. This document does not say that. Its language concerns unity, collaboration, common command, cessation of criticism and control of rivalry. It recognises the possibility of Greek armed groups turning upon one another, particularly when that process was already visible on the mainland, but the document is evidence of an attempt to prevent such a development on Crete.

The sequence reinforces that reading.

On 7 November, EAM and the Chania EOK leadership agreed a joint senior committee. During November, the agreement was communicated within the wider EOK structure. On 6 December, Heraklion and Rethymno accepted collaboration in principle while proposing different machinery and specifically addressing armed rivalry. By January 1944, the organisations continued to act within a shared political space.

This was not perfect unity, and it did not abolish ideological division.

It was a managed accommodation.

Later claims that the Theriso agreement prevented the Civil War in Crete must nevertheless be treated carefully. They are retrospective interpretations, often connected with later political reputations and disputes. The contemporary memorandum allows a narrower conclusion: the leadership understood that organisational rivalry might become armed conflict and took concrete steps to contain it.

Whether those steps alone prevented a civil war, or whether geography, local authority, British influence, the strength of particular leaders and the military course of the occupation were equally important, requires further evidence.

The location also remains uncertain. Later accounts associate the agreement with Theriso, and secondary accounts commonly refer to a Theriso agreement dated 7 November 1943. The surviving British memorandum itself, however, states only that the agreement was made in Crete on 7 November. It does not establish the precise meeting place.

Later Greek accounts place the meeting in a small building between Meskla and Theriso rather than simply in Theriso itself. That detail is plausible in geographical terms, but it has not yet been confirmed from the original signed agreement or a contemporary location record.

Until that evidence is found, the safest description is the agreement of 7 November 1943, commonly associated with Theriso, with the precise meeting place still to be established.

What can and cannot be concluded

It is reasonable to say that the Greek Civil War began in a limited form on the mainland in 1943. The threshold is crossed not by individual killings but by organised armed conflict between rival Greek formations. The term first round is therefore useful, provided it is made clear that the full post-war Civil War of 1946–49 remained a distinct and larger phase.

For Crete, the present evidence supports a different conclusion.

By late 1943, EAM and EOK possessed separate political and armed structures. Their documents reveal mutual suspicion, rivalry between armed sections and disagreement over command and representation. These were elements of the wider division that would shape post-war Greece.

Yet the contemporary record examined here shows negotiation and restraint rather than established EAM–EOK warfare.

The conclusion should therefore be stated with precision: by late 1943, the political and organisational divisions associated with the developing Greek Civil War were clearly present in Crete. Contemporary documents reveal concern about rivalry between separate armed formations. The evidence presently available, however, does not establish organised armed conflict between EAM and EOK on the island during that year.

The agreement of 7 November and the subsequent Mount Ida memorandum show deliberate efforts to prevent political competition from becoming intra-Greek war while the German occupation continued.

This does not close the question.

It defines what further research must find.

The original Greek text of the November agreement, the minutes or correspondence of the prefectural EOK committees, contemporary EAM records, SOE situation reports and any reports identifying specific clashes would allow the test to be applied more firmly.

Until then, Crete should not be fitted retrospectively into the mainland chronology.

The evidence indicates that the island approached the boundary of civil conflict in 1943, recognised the danger and, at least at leadership level, stepped back from it.

Bibliography

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Gerolymatos, André. “The Role of the Greek Officer Corps in the Resistance.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 11, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 69–79.

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