WW2 Field Notes @WW2FieldNotes

Sources: - US Army, DA Pamphlet 20-260, The German Campaigns in the Balkans (Spring 1941), 1953, Pt. I (Italy's decision; Hitler's Nov. 20 letter; Mussolini's Nov. 29 reply): ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/E… - Same study, Pt. III (the Greek counteroffensive from Nov. 14): history.army.mil/books/wwii/bal… - HistoryNet, "Greek Tragedy: Italy's Disastrous Campaign in Greece" (demobilization, axes of attack, the Julia Division): historynet.com/greek-tragedy-… - On Metaxas's actual words vs. "Ohi": sbs.com.au/language/greek… Map: @WW2FieldNotes, arrows schematic. Base map: Natural Earth (public domain).

Both Sides of the Map | Greece, October 1940 Around 3 a.m. on Oct. 28, 1940, Italy's ambassador woke Greece's prime minister with an ultimatum: let Italian troops occupy strategic points, or face war. Rome expected a quick police action. How did the same map look from Athens? Side one: the view from Rome Part of Mussolini's motive was his own ally. In early October, German troops entered Romania without officially telling Italy. According to the US Army's postwar study of the Balkan campaigns, Mussolini decided to return the favor by taking Greece without giving Germany official notice. He expected something like Germany's bloodless seizure of Czechoslovakia. He made the decision on October 15. The invasion began within hours of the ultimatum, less than two weeks later. The warning signs were there. Army chief Pietro Badoglio reportedly wanted about three months to prepare. Italy had just sent several hundred thousand men home to bring in the harvest. Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano was confident that the Greek people would not fight for their government. The plan: strike from Albania, which Italy had occupied in 1939, on three axes. One went down the coast through Epirus, one through the Pindus mountains toward the Metsovo pass, and one northeast toward Salonika. On paper, it was a major power against a small neighbor. The plan depended on that neighbor agreeing with the assessment. Side two: the same map, from Athens Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas refused. Greeks remember his answer as a single word, "Ohi," meaning "No." Accounts of what he actually said vary. One widely repeated version is the French "Alors, c'est la guerre" ("Then it is war"). Either way, "Ohi" became the rallying cry, and Greece still marks October 28 as a national holiday. From Athens, geography was an ally. Albania and northwestern Greece are steep ridges, narrow valleys and few roads, and the autumn rains had started. The Italian Alpine "Julia" Division pushed deep into the Pindus toward Metsovo, came under fire from the surrounding heights, and fell back. By November 14, the US Army study says, the Greeks had opened a counteroffensive. It drove the invaders back to their starting line and then deep into Albania, threatening Valona, Italy's main supply port there. On November 29, Mussolini wrote to Hitler to explain. He blamed bad weather, the desertion of Albanian troops serving in Italian units, and Bulgaria's neutrality, which let Greece shift eight divisions from Thrace to the Albanian front. At least two of those could have been read off a map and a calendar. Hitler's letter of November 20, in the US Army's translation, had already complained: "I wanted, above all, to ask you to postpone the operation until a more favorable season, in any case until after the presidential election in America." When Hitler is the one urging patience, the plan has problems. The bill The Italian failure didn't end Greece's war. On November 4, a week after the invasion, Hitler had decided to intervene. German forces invaded Greece in April 1941, and the country was occupied until 1944. But for the winter of 1940-41, a small army with old equipment held off a major power and pushed it back into Albania. The lesson from both sides of the map: the attacker planned against the enemy he hoped for. The defender fought with what it actually had: mountains, weather, time, and a population that did not cooperate with Rome's assumptions. A plan that depends on the enemy declining to resist is not a plan. It is a hope with arrows on it.