Greco-Italian War, October 1940-April 1941

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Hello to all ; something about the background .........................................

The attack on Greece.

"Italy lost the [second] war [world] in the short period of time since October 28, the beginning of the unfortunate attack on Greece, until November 12, 1940, the morning when it was possible to see the damage caused by the British aerial attacks with torpedoes to the fleet anchored placidly in the Bay of Taranto. "The invasion of Greece and, above all, the consequences that it produced, had a decisive effect on the conduct of the conflict on the Italian side. When the ambassador in Athens, Emanuele Grazzi, came before General Ioannis Metaxás, who had been in power in Greece since 1936, to give him the pretentious ultimatum that Ciano and Mussolini had sent him from Rome, he had to feel ashamed. The Greek dictator was, in fact, ideologically very close to fascism.

Relations between Italy and Greece.

Before the outbreak of the conflict, were there real reasons for the friction between Italy and Greece? In fact, the day after the conclusion of the conflicts in the Balkans, some questions remained open on the table of relations between the two countries. In 1912, the Italian navy had occupied Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands, which until then belonged to the Turkish Empire and were also claimed by the Hellenes, as Greece had also fought against the vanished Ottoman Empire. Therefore, a dispute between the two countries was opened. The issue was entrusted to an international conference that recognized the motives of Athens. The Greeks, however, could not occupy the Dodecanese because the outbreak of World War I froze the situation. At the end of the conflict, the issue was again topical. A new international conference organized this time in Lausanne annulled the decisions of the first and in 1923 Italy was given the possession of Rhodes and the Dodecanese.

The issue of the borders between Greece and Albania still needed to be defined. The Conference of Ambassadors of Paris entrusted this task to an Italian delegation formed by 4 men and led by General Enrico Tellini. Unfortunately, the mission was ambushed in the city of Zepi, in Greek territory, between kilometer 53 and 54 of the road that linked Giannina with Kakavia. General Tellini, his driver and two other officers lost their lives. The Tellini mission had an international status and, consequently, the Italian government should not have been involved in any way. Mussolini, however, did not see it that way and identified in the Greeks the authors of the massacre, sending to Athens a peremptory ultimatum with which he also requested official apologies, the solemn funeral of the victims in the presence of the entire Hellenic government, military honors of the Greek fleet and 50 million of liras as compensation. The Greeks did not adhere to the demands of Rome and went to the League of Nations. The Duce then responded by sending a naval squadron to bomb Corfù, killing at least fifteen people. The island was occupied by the Italians.

Once again the Conference of Ambassadors of Paris intervened to unravel the skein. Greece apologized not to Italy but to the international community that had organized the mission led by Tellini. The compensation would then go to Italy. Not the 50 million requested, but an appropriate amount that will be evaluated separately. The island of Corfu was later evacuated by Italian troops. The true culprits of the Zepi massacre were never identified. The treaty of friendship, conciliation and judicial regulation that was signed between the two countries in Rome in 1928 and whose validity should have covered a period of ten years turned out to be a mere formal agreement.

Source: Campagna di Grecia. Alpini e Fanti. La tragica avventura ellenica. Le conseguenze dell'8 settembre 1943. Creta - Cefalonia - Corfù - Lero

Cheers. Raúl M .

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Relations between Italy and Greece.

In spite of all this, the diplomatic situation between Rome and Athens always remained within absolutely correct lines. General Metaxas, right-wing dictator, had rather cordial relations with the fascism. So, what precipitated the situation? On April 7, 1939, a week after the end of the Spanish war, Italy invaded Albania. The small Balkan country had already been occupied by the Italians in June 1917 (until the summer of 1920), although afterwards the Giolitti government had renounced the protectorate, recognizing its full independence.

The head of state Ahmed Zog and his government fled to Greece. The General Staff of Athens was immediately alarmed. Two divisions of the Greek army were alerted in Epirus and Macedonia with the order to prepare to contain a possible attack. Metaxas, however, comforted by the news from London, reacted in a measured manner. The same Mussolini from Rome made it known, through his Chargé d'Affaires, that between the two countries there is no question about the "cordial relations of friendship".

One month after the invasion of Albania, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Galeazzo Ciano, visited the small Balkan country demonstrating other intentions. On May 23, a skilfully orchestrated crowd welcomed him with the cry of Kosovo and Ciamuria *, invoking the annexation of those lands to Albania and then to Italy. That same afternoon, Ciano had met General Carlo Geloso, Commander of the Italian forces. During the conversation he had with the high officer he had expressed the clear intention of occupying Greece "because - said Ciano - the Greek territory was about to become a Franco-British naval base." Geloso expressed tense that such a hypothesis was contrary to all directives received until then.

However, the Foreign Minister insisted and asked the general, in his opinion, what would be the most strategically convenient operational direction. Put in a tightening, Geloso replied that an eventual action, to have the possibility of success, should aim to isolate Greece from Turkey by targeting Thessaloniki. The general calculated that for the achievement of this objective, which would have allowed occupying part of the Greek territory, at least ten divisions would be necessary. Considering that the plan was the occupation of the entire Greek territory, established that same year by Generals Guzzoni and Pariani in the General Staff, twenty additional divisions would be necessary.

* Ciamuria is a strip of Greek land on the border with Albania. That name "entered the collective imagination of the Italians [...] and then was destined to remain in oblivion in which it had always been placed." For what reason the inhabitants of Ciamuria would have had to request the annexation to Albania and , therefore, to Italy ?, is not clear and never will be, but this was the political card. My note: It is a term used mainly by Albanians to indicate the coastal region of Epirus in southern Albania and the north of Greece, in Albanian Çamëria of the Çam ethnic group.

Source: Campagna di Grecia. Alpini e Fanti. La tragica avventura ellenica. Le conseguenze dell'8 settembre 1943. Creta - Cefalonia - Corfù - Lero

Cheers. Raúl M .

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Hello to all ; something more .........................................

Relations between Italy and Greece.

As it was seen the course of action foresaw 20 divisions to occupy the Greek territory, but for Ciano and Mussolini, however, even the use of only ten divisions against an opponent of the "modest" caliber as the Hellenic was too much. How to get out of this impasse? The problem was brilliantly resolved by the servile contribution of General Ubaldo Soddu, who, in his capacity as undersecretary of war, responded directly to the Minister, that is, Mussolini, who also held that position. The too cautious Geloso was relieved in Albania, the starting point for the attack on Greece. General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca was appointed in his place, decidedly more conciliatory than his predecessor. And certainly much more ambitious than that.

The malleable Visconti Prasca told his superiors the things they wanted to hear. Putting in command "the right man" it was now necessary to prepare the ground politically for aggression by resorting to the usual display of pretexts. Galeazzo Ciano made his debut by demanding on August 02, that the Greek government call his ambassador in Trieste, guilty of having offended the Italian army in some way. General Metaxas called him to Athens without objection. The most serious provocation, however, was made by the Italians two weeks later, on August 15, 1940, the day of the feast of the Assumption.

The anniversary was particularly felt by the inhabitants of the island of Tinos (*), who celebrated it with a procession that crossed the streets of the city. Anchored in the port of the island to participate in the ceremony, was the old cruiser of the Greek Navy Helli, all bunting for the party. Shortly before the procession a submerged Italian submarine positioned itself in front of the port and launched three torpedoes against the old war ship. One of the three torpedoes hit her, sinking it and causing the death of two members of the crew, in addition to numerous injuries. Just for one chance, the other two torpedoes did not cause a massacre in the civilians who crowded the dock of the port.

In Italy, the fascist authorities rushed to deny any participation in the incident, accusing the British of the fact. The Greeks, naturally, did not believe a word of what the Italians claimed. London had immediately denied the absurd claims of Rome and, after all, no one could indicate a valid reason why the English, traditional friends of the Greeks, had to sink their ship to betray it.

Ciano, noted in his diary: "For me it was an untimely attitude of De Vecchi." Cesare Maria De Vecchi of Val Cismon, a quadrivaviro of fascism, which Ciano himself had already defined in other pages of his diary as "an intrepid fool", at that time was the governor of the Aegean. The submarine responsible for sinking the Helli, the Delfino, sailed from Leros under the orders of the tenente di vascello Aicardi, and depended formally on De Vecchi. In his memoirs, De Vecchi first tried to put the responsibility of what happened to the commander of the Delfino, who, according to him, acted on his own initiative. However, this explanation did not withstand the proof of the facts, while Aicardi did not suffer any disciplinary consequences for his act because he had acted on the basis of superior orders, probably coming from De Vecchi himself.

The diplomatic case that exploded after the sinking of Helli risked, paradoxically, to frustrate at the root the fascist ambitions of aggression against Greece. All oppositions against the Metaxas regime abruptly ceased: the Helli tragedy had fixed the country. The situation, however, undergoes a new and sudden change when Mussolini learns from the newspapers that Hitler had occupied the oil basin of Romania. Furious at not having been warned by the "friend" of what was about to happen, he joins with Ciano telling him that this time it will be the Nazi dictator's turn to find out, reading it in the press, that Italy has invaded Greece. Encased in his renewed intentions of aggression, the Duce calls a new meeting at the Palazzo Venezia on October 15, to which all the actors interested in the next Hellenic adventure are invited.

(*) The statue of the Virgin, on the island, was attributed thaumaturgical qualities. On the day of the solemn feast, with a great procession, the statue reaches the sea while a warship fires artillery salvoes.

Source: Campagna di Grecia. Alpini e Fanti. La tragica avventura ellenica. Le conseguenze dell'8 settembre 1943. Creta - Cefalonia - Corfù - Lero

Cheers. Raúl M .

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The ineffable Visconti Prasca.

It is also probable that the military hierarchy was contrary to the Greek adventure, but the fact is that nobody, Badoglio at the head, dared to contradict Mussolini. At the head of the operations was the ineffable General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca, appointed directly by the Duce for that position at the suggestion of Ciano and Soddu. The "first half" of the campaign foresaw the occupation of Epirus. Referring to this part of the operation, Visconti Prasca said that, as requested by Mussolini, it would be ready to begin on October 26. Everything was presented "under very favorable auspices" and everything should have ended within "ten or fifteen days". This confidence arose from the fact that, according to him, the action had been "prepared to the smallest detail and [therefore] was perfect as far as humanly possible."

What gave him such proud confidence? Mainly the fact that "the Greek forces [were calculated] in about 30 thousand men and we [therefore] had a superiority of two to one". Moreover, according to him, "the spirit of our troops [would have been] very high" and "the enthusiasm [...] to the highest degree." Their opinion of the Greeks was then known: "they are not of the people who are happy to fight. "Pietro Badoglio, the highest military authority in the country, in front of these grandiose declarations of Visconti Prasca fell silent, supporting each of his words.

The one of our Chief of General Staff was in fact a silence more than eloquent because it confirmed what the Duce wanted to listen. Unfortunately for the Italian soldiers who ended up finding themselves trapped in the Hellenic battlefields, almost nothing that Visconti Prasca had boldly claimed corresponded to the truth.

Mussolini and his circle then cheerfully underestimated factors that were anything but imponderable. In the first place, they did not take into account the reaction capacity of the Hellenic army, exalted by the fact that the Greek soldiers would fight to defend their country. It is difficult to understand also on the basis of what logic a military campaign would begin at the end of October, without considering the negative effects represented by meteorological factors.

Scandalous was, as always, the inefficiency of logistics. For example, the Alpini were sent to fight in the middle of winter with summer canvas pants. The last illusion in which the fascist hierarchies calmed down was that represented by the elusive Bulgarian intervention in the Italian military action against Greece. Ciano had assured Mussolini that Bulgaria would intervene on our side because historically she competed with the Hellenes for a part of Macedonia that would allow them access to the sea.

The surrealist meeting of the Palazzo Venezia on October 15, 1940, ended even worse than it had begun. In addition to the eight divisions already on the ground, Mussolini asked how many others would be necessary for the "second half" of the attack plan, that is, the full occupation of the Greek territory, once the discounted success in Epirus had been obtained. The Official Report wrote that the answer to this question was simple: another twelve will be needed as originally planned by the General Staff.

At that time it should have had to take advantage of the jump of the ball and put the whole project under discussion. But everyone was silent and Visconti Prasca answered that "at the beginning [would be needed] three divisions organized for the mountain landed in a single night in Preveza". At that point, with the victory already in his pocket, Mussolini ended the "discussion" and concluded: "In short: offensive in Epirus; Observation and pressure on Thessaloniki and, at a later stage, march on Athens. "The judgment of the official report on what happened in that unfortunate meeting is caustic:" In the interview they were eliminated one by one, without contrasts, almost as if the interlocutors were hypnotized, all the conditioning elements of the operational problem ".

When the next day they reported the details of the operation to the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Domenico Cavagnari, the superior officer was quick to point out that the contemporary night landing of three divisions in Preveza was simply impossible. Cavagnari's reluctance seemed to have an effect on Deputy Chief of Staff Roatta who, at that time, expressed "his grave perplexity about the entire operation under these conditions." Badoglio also began to have some doubts. He sought the Duce, but the dictator left Rome and then decided to contact Ciano, who, as soon as Mussolini returned to the capital, informed him of the doubts that suddenly arose in Badoglio's mind. The leader of fascism reacted on his own. The Duce wrote Ciano: "had a violent outburst of anger and said he would go in person to Greece to witness the incredible shame of the Italians who fear the Greeks."

The impending tragedy took even the features of comedy when the Italian Chiefs of Staff in Rome learned that Greece had been given an ultimatum when listening to the British radio station. From that same source they also learned another wild news: the Greeks had asked for the help of Great Britain. In this whole matter there was also another character who was surprised by the events as Mussolini had expected. Adolf Hitler, who did not want to engage in the tangle of the Balkans, really knew what would happen in the press.

Source: Campagna di Grecia. Alpini e Fanti. La tragica avventura ellenica. Le conseguenze dell'8 settembre 1943. Creta - Cefalonia - Corfù - Lero

Cheers. Raúl M .