Today is a special day for Greece. On October 28 1940 Benito Mussolini the Italian dictator presented Greece with an ultimatum: let the axis powers pass and the country will be spared. The prime minister at the time Ioannis Metaxas responded with a one word answer: No. Thus the Italian forces started invading Greece. However they planned their invasion very.....poorly. As they were marching through the northern part of Greece they started getting ambushed by Greek resistance fighters. And not just from the fighters, but also from their Greek mothers (!). The moms marched up to the mountains and were fighting, making clothes, clearing the way and cooking (at their spare time) for the Greek soldiers. Mussolini was embarrassed and exposed so he decided to ask help from Hitler himself. The leader of Nazi Germany could not fathom how a country of 8 million people would stand in front of his war machine. So he sent German soldiers to help. And more. And then more. Hitler was so upset that he was not making progress that he decided to start wiping small villages of the map. The toll was catastrophic. To this day an exact number cannot be calculated, and we only have the ruins from the villages to help us count. Finally the Nazi regime broke through and marched all the way to Athens (with full resistance all the way). Greece became the thorn on Hitlers side and not even until 1944 did he occupy the island of Crete. The battle of Crete was historic with the Cretans yelling that only Zeus can set foot in their island and not the fascist scum. Even as Greece was getting more and more occupied, the resistance was more like a Hydra. For every German soldier killed, the Nazis would retaliate by killing 100 greeks. Then the Greeks would retaliate and destroy bridges and barracks. Winston Churchill stated that Greeks dont fight like heroes. Heroes fight like Greeks. Finally the resistance was able to stall the axis forces long enough for the big Russian winter to start and Hitler to lose the war. The toll for the small country was unfathomable. A monument was built in Athens for the Unknown Soldier and all of those who perished in the great war. Today is one of the two Greek independence days. Thank you.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 16:10:53 +0000
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