Hello again,
Tom from Cornwall wrote: I believe the nature of how the Empire forces conducted themselves in the Greek campaign demonstrates that Wilson and other senior decision-makers were well aware of the weaknesses.
Up to a point I agree (especially once Wilson had had a chance to visit the forward positions and speak to some of the senior Greek/Yugoslav generals) - but then the question becomes why did Wilson suggest that he had been misled by the British Military Mission as to the ability of both the Greeks and Yugoslavs. Earlier in the report, he states that:
While conveniently placed in other respects, the retention of 3 R.T.R. at AMYNTAION was mainly due to the feeling that the open valley, known as the MONASTIR GAP, which led south from YUGOSLAVIA behind the main Anglo-Greek position, might well provide the means for a rapid German thrust, should YUGOSLAV resistance crumble, as indeed it did.
Doesn't that suggest that something he had been told already before moving north had given him pause for thought?
All authors of their own history have a tendency to write that history in way that shows their own decisions and actions up in the best possible light. It's human nature.
Regarding 3RTR and its location, I would suggest the prime reason they remained in the Amyntaion area after detraining there was to conserve their tracks. It's not just that they stayed in that locale, they don't seemed to have moved their tanks at all, not even around the town.
Tom from Cornwall wrote: Given that Woodhouse (and of course many others) are reading the same transcripts which clearly identify Papagos not having any certainty about Yugoslav intentions (but plenty of conviction that he has assumed correctly), it is for me rather surprising that they persist in just assuming the very same thing that he assumed. Especially, when he got it all so wrong!
Sorry, you lost me here. Which, of all the assumptions that were flying around at this point, is the assumption that you are referring to?
My apologies for the confusion.
The term "
vital interests" implies that those
interests are so important that a state will go to war to maintain or secure them. They are
that important.
Woodhouse and most authors use that exact phase when discussing Yugoslavia's
interest in Salonika without any evidence to support that statement. See page 162 and 164 of Woodhouse.
Woodhouse also quotes Papagos from the
Greek record as saying (page 171), "
Thessaloniki is a vital point for Yugoslavia. If Yugoslavia enters the war, ...". Notice how "vital" and "war" are cojoined in this understanding.
So, evidence that Papagos believed, ie assumed, that Salonika was "vital" to Yugoslavia. Based upon that assumption he maintained divisions east of the Vardar.
Nevertheless, despite assuming that to be the case, he was still eager for confirmation of it AND initially proposed a defensive line to the British that did not risk his country on that assumption.
Ie. Evidence that, at the time, whilst he had convinced himself that his assumption held good, and staked his country's independence on it, his military brain was able to process the reality that it was an assumption not a fact. And that, perhaps, is a greater indictment of his decisions and actions; he knew the dangers, but pressed on regardless.
Now, taking this a step further, one has to better understand just what "interest" the Yugoslavs had in Salonika and what, if anything, was "vital" about it. Then, try to understand what they were prepared to do to maintain those "vital interests".
For example, Papagos (and the British diplomatic corps) assumed the "vital" interest was in Salonika being in Greek hands. This is simply not true. The research I and a friend have done, supported by the Bakic paper, suggest that Yugoslavia considered it "vital" that they had free access to a free port in Salonika. It did not have to be in Greek hands.
Firstly, they were considering going to war with Greece, not Italy, to take their own control of it.
Secondly, they entered into discussions with Italy to maintain the same access should it fall into Italian hands.
And, thirdly, they found themselves having it offered to them by the Germans as the spoils of joining the Tripartite Pact.
It goes even deeper than that. But enough is enough.
However, the key take away point here is that whilst Papagos and a series of post-war historians have repeatedly stated that Salonika was a Yugoslav "vital interest" with the presumption that they would go to war, alongside Greece, to maintain Greek control of the port (and Yugoslav access), the true Yugoslav position was wholly different. It was not something they were prepared to go to war over, it was several rungs down on their "vital" list and the "vital" element of it was NOT associated specifically to maintaining Greek control of it.
