The Greek Civil War, 1946-1949 : how the royalist regime countered the Communist insurgency

• Main Author: Plakoudas, Spyridon A.
• Published: University of Reading 2015
• Subjects: 949.507
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.659010

At the dawn of the 21st century, insurgency irrefutably constitutes the most prevalent type of war throughout the world. The Greek Civil War (1946-1949) stands out as one of the rarest occasions of a clear-cut and permanent victory of a government over an insurgent movement during the Cold War. In fact, the Greek Monarchist regime conclusively defeated the foreign-backed Communist insurgency in less than four years - a truly notable feat compared to the humiliating failures of the Great Powers at the hands of insurgent movements during the Cold War. And yet, this - relatively understudied - episode of the Cold War has not been studied thoroughly from the point of view of the strategy of the counter-insurgent. In reality, the vast majority of the works on the Greek Civil War have studied the interventionist policies of the British and Americans and, above all, the strategy of the Greek Communists. What did cause ultimately the defeat of a Communist insurgency which at some point in 1947 seemed in fact undefeatable? Did the Communist guerrilla movement fall victim to the feud between Stalin and Tito and the vainglory of its leadership as several scholars maintain? Or did the massive British and, above all, American aid rescue the Greek Monarchist regime - notorious for its incompetence - from collapse? Or could the Monarchist regime simply take advantage of the massive support from the Anglo American allies and the catastrophic errors of its enemies to score a hard-won, yet inevitable, victory? Ergo, this thesis will attempt to explain how the Greek Monarchist regime decided to counter the Communist insurgency, how external and internal actors influenced these policies and when, how and why these policies were crowned with success. For the very first time, this thesis will study completely and systematically the strategy of the Monarchist regime.