The Second World War (129 page)

Bastogne might have been relieved and resupplied by air, but once the Germans had acknowledged that they could not even reach the Meuse, it became the focus for their attacks. Hitler, meanwhile, had decided to launch another offensive in Alsace codenamed North Wind. It was not
much more than a diversion and achieved little.

Montgomery’s counter-attack was finally launched on 3 January. The fighting was tough, and was not helped by heavy snow, but the outcome was hardly in doubt. Four days later, the battle of Montgomery’s ego broke out again when he held a press conference. Churchill had given permission, because Montgomery promised him that it would improve Allied unity. It had absolutely the opposite effect. Montgomery, although paying tribute to the fighting qualities of the American soldier and emphasizing his loyalty to Eisenhower, implied that he had run the battle almost single-handedly and that there had been a massive British contribution. Churchill and Brooke were horrified, and immediately ‘
discussed all the evils of Monty’s press interview
’. Churchill made a statement to Parliament emphasizing that it had been an American battle, and that the British contribution had been minimal. But the damage to Allied relations had been done.

The Anglo-American alliance also suffered during this period due to events in south-eastern Europe, and Churchill’s determination to preserve Greece from Communist rule. The collapse of German power in the region, accelerated by the advance of the Red Army into Romania and Hungary in October, brought civil war out into the open. Greece was yet another example of the Second World War merging into a latent third world war.

The terrible suffering of the occupation, with starvation and economic collapse, had led to a dramatic radicalization of a population which had been socially conservative before the war. It was this instinctive shift to the left, often without any clear ideological bent, which contributed to the widespread support for EAM-ELAS. Although Communist led, EAM was full of political contradictions reflecting many different points of view, especially when it came to ideas on socialism and liberty. Land reform and female emancipation were two of the most hotly debated questions. The only general basis of agreement was that the traditional political system, and especially the monarchy, was now irrelevant to the problems which Greece faced. Even the Communist leaders were split and uncertain whether to follow a democratic route to power or to impose it by force of arms.

Several months before Churchill’s ‘naughty’ agreement, Stalin had sent a military mission to the Greece. It was told to warn the Greek Communist Party, the KKE, ‘
to face geopolitical realities
and cooperate with the British’. This fact alone goes a long way to explaining why Stalin must have had to hide his amusement when he studied Churchill’s ‘percentage agreement’ in his office in the Kremlin.

Despite Stalin’s warning, anti-British emotions ran high in EAM-ELAS
because of Churchill’s support for King George II, who was determined to return to Greece as soon as the Germans left. British SOE officers managed early in the year to negotiate an end to the fighting between EAM-ELAS and the non-Communist EDES. Then in April 1944 EAM announced ‘revolutionary elections’ in an attempt to gain a sort of governmental legitimacy. The elections, needless to say, made sure that only EAM candidates could win. George Papandreou rejected approaches from EAM to act as a figurehead, for he did not want to be a figleaf for a movement manipulated from behind by the Communists. Instead he became head of the Greek government-in-exile in Cairo. Other politicians of the centre left, however, were persuaded to take part.

EAM-ELAS intensified its repression against any who disagreed with it, depicting them as traitors or enemies of the people. Many were executed. The collaborationist government in Athens, with the encouragement of the Germans, had recruited Security Battalions to attack EAM-ELAS. Its terror was answered with counter-terror. In Athens, ELAS urban guerrillas on one side and the Security Battalions and Gendarmerie on the other fought a dirty war which exploded in March. Many of the ELAS fighters rounded up were sent back to Germany for forced labour. The Security Battalions tried to rehabilitate themselves as the German departure became imminent. Prisoners were allowed to escape more frequently. Messages were also sent to Cairo to assure the Greek government-in-exile and the British that the Security Battalions would not resist the country’s liberation, but would welcome it.

In early September peace feelers were extended to EAM-ELAS, which rejected them even though most people were longing for an end to the violence. Street battles resumed. German forces still in Greece dreaded being cut off by the Red Army advances to their north, and non-German troops forced into the Wehrmacht began to desert in large numbers. The withdrawal began at the beginning of October and many of the worst collaborators fled north as well to avoid being massacred by
andartes
, the Greek guerrillas. EAM-ELAS tried to impose order where it could, if only to justify its role as a government in waiting, but conditions varied enormously from place to place. On 12 October the last Germans withdrew from Athens, having removed the swastika flag which flew from the Acropolis. Exuberant crowds filled the streets as a large EAM-ELAS demonstration took place chanting ‘Laokratia’
–
‘People’s Rule’.

British troops from Lieutenant General Ronald Scobie’s III Corps were greeted effusively when they arrived soon afterwards. But British policy towards Greece was conditioned partly by Churchill’s monarchical sympathies, by ignorance of the occupation and the resulting political realities, and most of all by the prime minister’s intention to keep Greece out of
the Soviet sphere of interest. George Papandreou, who headed a government of national unity that at first included some EAM members, also appointed to his administration noted right-wingers with connections to the Security Battalions. Churchill was in no mood to compromise, especially after his agreement with Stalin. He gave Scobie, not the most politically sensitive of officers, strict directions to react strongly in the event of any attacks on British troops. On 2 December, the EAM members of the government resigned in protest at orders to disarm the
andartes
. The government was planning to form a National Guard, many of whose members would be recruited from the hated Security Battalions. At a mass demonstration called by EAM the next day in Syntagma Square, police opened fire, either out of nervousness or in response to shots fired. The left claimed that it had been a deliberate provocation to force a fight. Police stations in the city were attacked. British troops were unharmed, but Scobie sent in his troops to secure the city. ELAS gunmen opened fire. Fighting escalated and, as the situation got out of hand, RAF Beaufighters and Spitfires were sent in to strafe ELAS positions, a catastrophic misjudgement. ELAS began mass killings of ‘reactionary’ families in the city, and seized hostages in both Athens and Salonika.

Harold Macmillan, who was still minister resident in the Mediterranean, and Sir Rex Leeper, the British ambassador, persuaded Churchill that the King should not be allowed to return until a plebiscite had been held. With reluctance, the prime minister agreed to their suggestion of a regency by Archbishop Damaskinos. King George of the Hellenes was furious, opposing both a regency and the choice of Damaskinos. The American press began to condemn British policy in strong terms. With an often naive belief that resistance fighters against the Germans must be freedom-loving, it turned a blind eye to Tito’s murderous repression in Yugoslavia and also to Stalin’s violence against the Polish Home Army. American journalists proceeded to attack Churchill as an imperialist who ignored the Atlantic Charter on self-determination. Instead of the 5,000 British troops originally thought necessary to restore order in Greece, some 80,000 were allocated to disarm the
andarte
forces. Admiral King tried to veto the use of landing ships to transport more men from Italy to Greece.

Churchill also faced strong criticism in the House of Commons, but his passionate belief that only he could save Greece from Communism prompted him to fly to Athens on Christmas Eve. The city was a war zone, so he based himself aboard the cruiser HMS
Ajax
anchored off Phaleron. Archbishop Damaskinos, a tall and stately prelate in full Greek Orthodox canonicals, came aboard. Churchill, who had been very dubious about Damaskinos, was enchanted as soon as he met him. The next day Churchill, Anthony Eden, Macmillan and their party were ferried in armoured
vehicles with a strong escort through the fighting to the British embassy. The building, as one historian noted, ‘
resembled a besieged outpost
during the Indian Mutiny’, where the ambassador’s wife ‘directed domestic operations with a courage and energy likewise worthy of a Victorian imperial drama’.

The conference to arrange a ceasefire began that afternoon in the Greek foreign office. With Damaskinos chairing the meeting, delegates from Greek factions joined them as well as American, French and Soviet representatives. Churchill buttonholed the Russian Colonel Gregori Popov and made it abundantly clear that he had enjoyed very fruitful talks with Generalissimo Stalin only a few weeks before. Popov had no option but to be duly impressed.

The assembly had to wait for the ELAS representatives, delayed at the entrance because of their reluctance to be relieved of their weapons. In the end the only person armed at the meeting was the prime minister, who had brought a small pistol in his pocket. Churchill shook hands with the ‘
three shabby desperados
’, as he described them afterwards. He opened the meeting with the statement that whether Greece was to be a monarchy or a republic was for Greeks alone to decide. After that, he and all the other non-Greeks rose and left the room to allow Damaskinos to proceed.

Churchill heard next day that the talks had been angry and even rowdy at times. The former dictator General Nikolaos Plastiras had at one point shouted at one of the Communist delegates: ‘Sit down, butcher!’ Damaskinos announced the resignation of Papandreou as prime minister and his replacement by General Plastiras, who then had to resign too when it emerged that he had offered to lead a collaborationist government during the occupation.

The fighting in Athens continued into the new year, when the
andartes
pulled out of the city, unable to prevail against the large British force. It was far from a glorious victory to install a far from liberal government. The Greek Civil War, with all its cruelties on both sides, would continue in one form or another until 1949. But Churchill’s obstinate intervention at least saved the country from the fate of its northern neighbours which suffered more than four decades of Communist tyranny.

Behind the Allied lines, Belgium too underwent severe unrest. The joy of liberation in September 1944 soured through the autumn into a mood of bitterness and resentment. The government-in-exile headed by Hubert Pierlot returned to Belgium and found itself incapable of dealing with the country’s problems. Half a million Belgians had been taken to Germany as forced labourers, so there was a severe shortage of manpower. Coal production was down to a tenth of the pre-war output, which meant constant cuts in the electricity supply. The rail network did not function, due partly
to Allied bombing but also to sabotage undertaken by the Germans during their sudden withdrawal.

The most contentious question was the arrest and punishment of collaborators and traitors. The 90,000 members of the Belgian resistance were outraged by the inability of ministers, who had spent the war in exile, to understand the harsh realities of the occupation and their anger against those had profited from it. Allied military authorities estimated that some 400,000 people had collaborated, yet only 60,000 were arrested. Many of them were released by the end of the year, while those who did face trial received remarkably light sentences.

Eisenhower attempted to restore calm. On 2 October he issued an order which, while paying tribute to their bravery, instructed members of the resistance to surrender their weapons. The Communist part of the resistance, the Front de l’Indépendence, was determined to challenge the government. Pierlot warned SHAEF that he had word of plans for a Communist rising, and the British rapidly armed the Belgian police. In November, British troops were deployed in Brussels to protect key buildings when the Communists organized a major demonstration, with protesters and strikers brought in from outside.

The misery of
Belgian civilians
was still far from over. V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket attacks on Liège and above all Antwerp killed and injured many. In the main areas of fighting that autumn families had fled their homes, but in December during the Ardennes offensive very few had time to escape the rapidity of the German attack.

Peiper’s
Kampfgruppe
from the
Leibstandarte
did not just murder American prisoners. It wreaked revenge on the Belgians, who had been so pleased to see the SS go three months earlier. On the morning after the massacre near Malmedy, Peiper’s troops entered Stavelot and shot nine civilians. But they then found that they were blocked by an American force to the north, while part of the US 30th Division blew the bridge to their rear.

Peiper’s Waffen-SS troopers, having expected to charge to the Meuse, proceeded to vent their fury on families around. Over the following days, some 130 men, women and even children were shot down, in family groups and in larger massacres. Altogether around 3,000 civilians were killed in the Ardennes fighting, many of course by Allied bombardment and bombing. As well as the thirty-seven American soldiers killed in Malmedy because the Ninth Air Force had hit the wrong target, 202 civilians were killed. Those trapped in St Vith, Houffalize, Sainlez, La Roche and other towns and villages which were fought over tried to shelter in cellars, but their houses collapsed on top of them or they were burned to death by phosphorus bombs and shells. No more than twenty died in Bastogne from German shelling. Their town at least was not a target for Allied air power.