Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (53 page)

The liberation of Greece and the increasing traffic between Crete and the outside world meant that events on the mainland at last began to have an influence. Yet Cretan politics were by no means an automatic reflection. Their pattern, balance and nature were all different. Perhaps one of the most significant contrasts to emerge was an ethical one. On the mainland, the government in its struggle with the Communists resorted to the hated Security Battalions formed by the Germans, and to the extreme right-wing 'X' forces, which were little better than death squads. In Crete, there had been hardly any collaboration in an organized form, only individual acts.

Five days after the Germans left Athens and an advance party of British troops arrived, the

'Government of National Unity' led by George Papandreou but paid for by the British was rather unconvincingly installed. George Seferis, the poet and diplomat attached to Papandreou's administration, said its ministers 'looked like boarders of an orphanage in their new winter outfits'.

The government survived mainly because the Communists suffered from internal splits and uncertainty. Moderates believed that they could win power peacefully, and so should not alienate support, while hardliners such as Aris Velouchiotis argued that they should use ELAS to seize power before the British imperialists crushed them and handed everything to the 'monarcho-fascists'.

The question of guerrilla bands surrendering their arms to the National Army brought a crisis in late November. Mutual suspicion had led inevitably to a vicious circle of pre-emptive bad faith. But in a curious way, the worst example of bad faith was Stalin's towards the Greek Communist Party. He never told them of his 'percentage' agreement with Churchill, discussed in May and confirmed in October, dividing up the Balkans into spheres of influence. He had even given his blessing to the deployment of General Scobie's force — Operation Manna — more than three weeks before its arrival. Much bloodshed and misery over the next few years might have been avoided on both sides if the Greek Communists had known where they stood from the beginning.

Siantos, one of the ELAS leaders, began moving
andarte
divisions towards Athens on 1 December.

Other Communist leaders, having at first agreed with this offensive, then began to have second thoughts. The Party's uncharacteristic indecisiveness proved fatal. When the Communist-inspired demonstration which triggered the preliminary phase of the Greek civil war took place in Constitution Square on 3 December, Communist and ELAS leaders still hesitated over the best course to follow.

Although 'the Greek gendarmerie on the corner lost their heads and fired into the crowd' and thus technically started the bloodshed, the demonstration had been clearly 'aimed at a political solution': the Party euphemism for a putsch.

Communist disarray gave General Scobie's troops and their Greek allies, both honourable and dishonourable, a chance to recover. On 12 December, an advance party of the British 4th Division arrived crammed into Wellington and Liberator bombers. And by 7 January 1945, after a month of sporadic fighting, ELAS was forced to flee Athens and sue for peace. This was formalized with the Varkiza agreement, but the struggle was far from over.

In Crete, the main unrest in 1945 perversely followed the peace moves on the mainland. ELAS bands took up position round Rethymno on 17 January and cut the main Canea—Heraklion road on both sides. They refused entry to anyone they suspected of supporting EOK. Lieutenant Colonel Pavlos Gyparis, the Nationalist commander and an old Balkan War guerrilla fighter in Macedonia, sent them warnings to disperse. ELAS commanders agreed to discussions, but none took place and Gyparis, suspecting stonewall tactics, sent in some men. There were several outbreaks of firing and a number of casualties. By next day ELAS groups were in flight and the town had returned to normal. EOK

andartes
who captured some Communists wanted to kill them on the spot, but apparently a British liaison officer suggested instead that they make them go round with buckets and brushes and scrub their slogans off the walls. This fortunately appealed to their captors even more. The most serious incident took place in the south of the province, when EOK bands retaliated against the Communist stronghold of Koxare and killed many ELAS men including their leader Limonias.

Just over ten days later, on 29 January, clashes occurred in Heraklion between ELAS and Bandouvas.

This time it is hard not to suspect that personal pride was more at stake than political principle, but the casualties were just as real. They included a British officer and his driver: Captain Clynes of the Special Boat Squadron and Private Cornthwaite who were hit by an ELAS sniper in their jeep on the road to Rethymno.*

* In November 1944, Bob Bury, the SBS officer who had come to cover the Kreipe evacuation, was shot in a caique off Salonika by Royalists in the belief that he and Andy Lassen were Communists.

In the province of Canea the presence of the common enemy did not diminish tensions between ELAS and the British. Even the disarming of Axis prisoners and deserters had political implications: ELAS would demand the weapons for themselves, and the British would refuse. This happened after one of the most successful mass desertions of the occupation: that of an Italian battalion forced to soldier on by the Germans. Stephen Verney, after various indirect contacts with the Italian commanding officer, slipped into their camp hospital for a meeting. Verney lay disguised on an operating table while the colonel sat beside him hunched forward, almost as if hearing his confession.

They discussed plans in a murmur while another officer played the part of surgeon.

Verney sought Xan Fielding's advice first, and the night was chosen. One company was taken off the beach near Maleme by caiques while the rest were led up into the hills. The Germans had no inkling until the last moment when the Italian colonel panicked and drove his staff car out with the headlights full on. A great deal of wild firing ensued in the dark and one of the Cretan
andartes
helping in the operation was killed.

After the Italians had been relieved of their weapons, they were marched down to Paleokhora and embarked in a Royal Navy warship for Egypt. Their armament meanwhile was stored in a garage in Kastelli Kissamou. ELAS wasted no time in demanding this large haul for themselves, but the British refused and once again suspicions were confirmed.

Kastelli Kissamou had been liberated by Major Digridis, a fearsome EOK leader who insisted that Jack Smith-Hughes accompany him into the town on horseback at the head of his
andartes.

Smith-Hughes who had never enjoyed an affinity with horses was obliged to overcome his alarm and hold on to the saddle with both hands when his mount caracoled nervously at the cheers of the crowd.

Dennis Ciclitira of SOE and John Stanley of ISLD set up their bases at Kastelli Kissamou, but the Communists were strong in that area and minor incidents could trigger a general mobilization on both sides. Ciclitira had a dozen men billeted in a school, mainly members of the Selino band including Antoni Paterakis. ELAS meanwhile requisitioned another school for a group of their men. The bulk of their volunteers, several hundred reserve
andartes,
could be summoned at short notice from the town and surrounding area.

On one occasion Antoni Paterakis encountered an ELAS guerrilla openly bearing arms in the street, which he considered a personal affront. In a flash he brought his own weapon to bear and disarmed the
andarte
in full public gaze. To a Cretan, this was a mortal insult. The ELAS
andarte
raced back to his base and within an hour, less than twenty miles from the German lines, both sides were ready for battle.

John Stanley sought out Father Spyrou, a prominent ELAS sympathizer, to find a formula to prevent a futile bloodbath. The two of them had to go to the ELAS strongpoint, 'a hair-raising walk', to discuss terms. Stanley, who was unfairly nicknamed the Red Captain for his efforts to keep the peace with ELAS, later advanced the view that in a curious way the Cretan tradition of family vendetta was an important influence in preventing civil war. The blood feuds engendered would have been so appalling that the very idea acted as a primitive equivalent of nuclear deterrence.*

* Family vendettas inevitably became enmeshed with politics. The Viglis clan of Samaria joined ELAS principally because their enemies, the Sartzetakis family, supported EOK.

An island with as long a history of occupation and revolt as Crete was bound to have developed an instinctive belief in merciless treatment for traitors. Collaborators knew they could expect no mercy if caught. One German agent captured by
andartes
begged to be allowed to commit suicide. They broke his legs with heavy stones some way from the edge of a cliff so he had to crawl the rest of the way to push himself over.

In Heraklion after the liberation, five collaborators were tried for having betrayed the assassins of a journalist who was a prominent German stooge. When only two received death sentences — the other three, younger and apparently influenced by their elders, were given long terms of imprisonment —

armed
andartes
took over the court, hauled the prisoners into the prosecutor's office and began to hack off their heads, with only limited success. The bodies were then thrown through the window to the crowd outside.

Young bloods from mountain villages also made desperate attempts to prove themselves before the war ended. In Halepa, a few yards from General Benthag's residence, a shepherd boy shot down an officer. He spared two soldiers who rapidly raised their arms in surrender. The boy seized the officer's ceremonial dagger and ran. Later that day he swopped the dagger for ten sheep. No doubt the new owner developed a good story about how he had killed the officer himself in single combat.

Another incident in the final week of the war (fourteen Germans died in the last ten days) involved two boys from the village of Asi Gonia. They too longed to seize the weapon of a German officer. In Ayios Ioannis on the edge of Canea, they grabbed a captain in the street to seize his Luger. During the struggle they shot him with his own gun. A German vehicle appeared, so they leaped over a wall and escaped. The locals when they heard of the incident were angry and grief-stricken: the officer killed by the boys was a German doctor much loved in the neighbourhood for having treated Cretan patients whenever possible.

A rash of spurious groups without political purpose suddenly emerged towards the end. These self-proclaimed
andartes
tried to pass themselves off as members of the resistance, partly for prestige, but also because there was the hope of a pension once peace came. Yet the ignoble opportunism of a few and several incidents of ferocious excess must be seen against a background of the Cretan resistance as a whole. Few other populations in occupied Europe had demonstrated such unity in the face of oppression. The courage of the real
andartes,
the saintliness of characters such as Father Ioannis Alevizakis and Alexandras Kokonas, and the brave generosity of villagers sheltering and feeding strangers - British, Dominion and Greek troops after the battle, fellow Cretans fleeing from other provinces, and members of the Allied Military Mission — rightly form a far more enduring memory.

The stalemate on Crete, having looked as if it could last indefinitely, suddenly came to an end because of events elsewhere. On 8 May, Dennis Ciclitira in Kastelli Kissamou received a signal telling him to contact the German commander to make arrangements for a formal surrender. Ciclitira did not speak German, but fortunately Costa Mitsotakis, a good linguist, was with him. Dressed in suits, not uniform, they approached the nearest German outpost and sent forward a messenger to the Kriegsmarine sentries.

After a long wait in the sun, a car arrived from headquarters. Ciclitira and Mitsotakis were driven to the Venizelos house in Halepa where Mitsotakis had been lectured by General Bräuer after his first release from prison. They were escorted to General Benthag's office where he awaited them flanked by Colonel Barge, his chief of staff, and Captain Wildhage, the officer in charge of counter-espionage.

All three were in their best uniforms and very stiff in manner. General Benthag, a tall, heavily built officer, announced that he had just received orders from Admiral Dönitz at Flensburg to surrender to Allied Forces Headquarters. Ciclitira confirmed that they were official representatives and began to discuss arrangements. Benthag then asked how they were going to contact the authorities in Heraklion. Ciclitira replied that this presented no problem. For some time their wireless had been operating secretly from an apartment next to his headquarters where the volume of signal traffic had concealed their own messages from German direction-finders.

The next day, a light aircraft flew from Heraklion to Maleme to collect the General. This was done with great secrecy to avoid a rush of last-minute attacks by Cretan irregulars. Benthag landed at Heraklion airport hatless and in a coat without insignia. From there he was driven to the Villa Ariadne where the proceedings — they were too brusque to merit the term ceremony — took place in Sir Arthur Evans's long dining-room. Major General Sir Colin Callander, the GOC of the 4th Division sent to Greece during the Athens fighting the previous December, had flown over to Crete so that Benthag could surrender to an officer of similar rank.

Benthag was shaken to find there were no terms, only unconditional surrender. He asked whether that meant commanders could be shot. Yes, if found guilty of war crimes, came the reply. Benthag returned to the airport at Maleme looking 'very dejected'.

The Villa Ariadne and the airfields at Maleme and Heraklion formed a fitting triangle for this last act.

David Hunt, Freyberg's intelligence officer in 1941 who had just returned to the region, described it as

'an agreeable example of the wheel turning full circle'. Certainly General Callander, a former officer of the Leicesters whose 2nd Battalion had fought at Heraklion, considered his journey worthwhile.