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First published January 1, 1948
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September 26, 2024Ένα από τα πιο ενδιαφέροντα βιβλία για την τραγική για την Ελλάδα δεκαετία '40-'49, μια πλήρης πολιτική ανάλυση που απαντά πολλά ερωτήματα για τις απαρχές αλλά και την εξέλιξη των θεμάτων που οδήγησαν στον Εμφύλιο, για μένα είναι μια βάση απαραίτητη για την κατανόηση της εποχής και των δυνάμεων που πρωταγωνίστησαν.
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February 25, 2020
Even though, in C.M. Woodhouse’s own words, this book “does not approach the dignity of history”, it nevertheless constitutes a very thorough and systematic examination of Greek history from 1941 until 1947, that is during the German occupation and the civil war that followed. During that time, CMW served in Greece as Military Liaison Officer and eventually as Commander of the Allied Military Mission and therefore had first-hand knowledge for the events he recounts.
After a conveniently detailed introduction in which he explains the situation that prevailed in Greece at the outbreak of WWII and introduces the dramatis personae, CMW sets out to expose the sequence of events during the period under examination.
CMW describes himself as a “philhellene” but it is obvious that his love and understanding of things Greek do not blind him to their shortcomings (“The chief impediment to Greek political stability is the Greek politician”). He is equally not ignorant of the shortcomings of the main foreign power during that period in Greece, namely Great Britain (“The tragedy was not that the policy was not implemented but that there was no policy”). Although he is resolutely against the main resistance organization, the communist-controlled EAM/ELAS, one feels that his is not the rabid anti-communism of, say, the Americans but rather his distaste for the expansionist vision of the URSS and their refusal to play fairly. One can sense his sense of even-handedness from his less than flattering description of the EDES center-right resistance organization and of the “thugs” and “bandits” of the extreme right Security Brigades and Grivas’s “X” organization. On the other hand, after explaining that, before the war, “there have been Greek statesmen, but there had been no Greek state”, he recognizes that “EAM/ELAS […] gave […] the country things that it had never known before. […] [It] set the pace in the creation of something that Governments of Greece had neglected; an organized state in the Greek mountains.”
Prophetic reading of any book is a notoriously dangerous exercise. One, however, cannot but be impressed by the clear-sightedness concerning a future federal organization of the Balkans (for slightly different reasons, it happened in Western Europe but CMW’s argument holds), the future relation between Britain and the United States which “would resemble that between Austria and Germany’s Third Reich”, the impeding “religious wars” between capitalism and communism in which the Kremlin, like the Vatican before it, could “carry the parallel to the point of war on its own fellow-worshippers”.
I grew up in Greece at a time when the official narrative was the brutal and fanatical anticommunism described in this book whereas the unofficial, clandestine picture was the sanctification of EAM/ELAS. How refreshing, after all these years, to come across a book that presents in a clear-sighted way that troubled period of my youth.
A couple of (really) minor complaints: Although they are explained in the Introduction, an alphabetical index of the acronyms and abbreviations liberally used throughout the book would have been useful. Also, a map of Greece would help readers with a limited knowledge of Greek geography.
After a conveniently detailed introduction in which he explains the situation that prevailed in Greece at the outbreak of WWII and introduces the dramatis personae, CMW sets out to expose the sequence of events during the period under examination.
CMW describes himself as a “philhellene” but it is obvious that his love and understanding of things Greek do not blind him to their shortcomings (“The chief impediment to Greek political stability is the Greek politician”). He is equally not ignorant of the shortcomings of the main foreign power during that period in Greece, namely Great Britain (“The tragedy was not that the policy was not implemented but that there was no policy”). Although he is resolutely against the main resistance organization, the communist-controlled EAM/ELAS, one feels that his is not the rabid anti-communism of, say, the Americans but rather his distaste for the expansionist vision of the URSS and their refusal to play fairly. One can sense his sense of even-handedness from his less than flattering description of the EDES center-right resistance organization and of the “thugs” and “bandits” of the extreme right Security Brigades and Grivas’s “X” organization. On the other hand, after explaining that, before the war, “there have been Greek statesmen, but there had been no Greek state”, he recognizes that “EAM/ELAS […] gave […] the country things that it had never known before. […] [It] set the pace in the creation of something that Governments of Greece had neglected; an organized state in the Greek mountains.”
Prophetic reading of any book is a notoriously dangerous exercise. One, however, cannot but be impressed by the clear-sightedness concerning a future federal organization of the Balkans (for slightly different reasons, it happened in Western Europe but CMW’s argument holds), the future relation between Britain and the United States which “would resemble that between Austria and Germany’s Third Reich”, the impeding “religious wars” between capitalism and communism in which the Kremlin, like the Vatican before it, could “carry the parallel to the point of war on its own fellow-worshippers”.
I grew up in Greece at a time when the official narrative was the brutal and fanatical anticommunism described in this book whereas the unofficial, clandestine picture was the sanctification of EAM/ELAS. How refreshing, after all these years, to come across a book that presents in a clear-sighted way that troubled period of my youth.
A couple of (really) minor complaints: Although they are explained in the Introduction, an alphabetical index of the acronyms and abbreviations liberally used throughout the book would have been useful. Also, a map of Greece would help readers with a limited knowledge of Greek geography.
October 10, 2024
Boy, was this intriguing.
Woodhouse isn't a bad guy. He clearly tried very hard to understand Greece, was extremely knowledgeable on the historical and political progress of the 1940s, and was, undoubtedly, a philhellene. But he was also a classicist, who excused the behaviour of the British in Greece as entirely "well-meaning" and "beneficent", when, flatly, one cannot call it that. Of course, perhaps this can be partially put down to the fact of the secrecy of Churchill's actions surrounding Greece, most notorious of which is the Percentages Agreement with Stalin, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure I can court someone in my own discipline who, like so many, seems to fail to see the Greeks as anything other than a Type.
Woodhouse isn't a bad guy. He clearly tried very hard to understand Greece, was extremely knowledgeable on the historical and political progress of the 1940s, and was, undoubtedly, a philhellene. But he was also a classicist, who excused the behaviour of the British in Greece as entirely "well-meaning" and "beneficent", when, flatly, one cannot call it that. Of course, perhaps this can be partially put down to the fact of the secrecy of Churchill's actions surrounding Greece, most notorious of which is the Percentages Agreement with Stalin, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure I can court someone in my own discipline who, like so many, seems to fail to see the Greeks as anything other than a Type.
November 7, 2022
Ο Γκουντχάους αγάπησε πολύ την Ελλάδα και προσέφερε πολλά κατά τη διάρκεια της Κατοχής με αποκορύφωμα την ανατίναξη της γέφυρας του Γοργοποτάμου. Οι γνώσεις του για τους πολιτικούς, τους απλούς ανθρώπους, τους αντιστασιακούς, τους εξόριστους, τους συνεργάτες κλπ είναι εντυπωσιακές και μαρτυρούν έναν άνθρωπο που αφιέρωσε σημαντικό κομμάτι της ζωής του στην Ελλάδα - για αυτό λέγεται πως πριν πεθάνει το 2001 ζήτησε από την κόρη του να του διαβάσει ένα ποίημα του Λόρδου Βύρωνα (''Τα νησιά της Ελλάδας''). Θα ήθελα πάντως να επισημάνω πως ο τρόπος γραφής είναι κουραστικός και η ροή του βιβλίου δεν ομαλή, τουλάχιστον κατά την προσωπική μου γνώμη.
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