Friday, July 09, 2021

Problems caused by Greek approach

 General Wilson visited Brigadier Savige and informed him about taking units for the new rear-guard and also told Savige that some 3,000 Greek troops would be dumped into his area. The men were unarmed and unequipped. It became evident that there was nothing that had been done to re-arm the Greeks.

Savige wrote of the Greeks: they "cluttered my forward area and added weight to the stream of refugees." The traffic on the road from Grevena to Trikkala. 

Brigadier Savige met with Lt-Col Barter, who was a liaison team leader with a Greek general with a bad reputation. The General was well-connected and that kept him out of trouble. Lt-Col Barter spoke fluent Greek, which was useful and unusual. He set up  a meeting between Savige and the Greek general.

Brigadier Savige later wrote about his experience. Savige talked about his concerns with the large number of unarmed Greek soldiers in the forward area. It is not surprising, sadly, that the Greek general suggested to Savige that he "machine gun them". Savige instead asked for some Greek officers to be sent to organize the men, 

The Greek general was assembling his army of Macedonia in the Pindus moutains. 

Savige felt that the Greek general was "double-crossing". His real opinion of the Greek general was pretty low. Savige applied pressure to get the general to remove his troops from Savige's "forwared area". This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long.


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