"Rivals? Me and Patton? There's a war on, I don't have time for rivalries." William Slim.
The Spirit of Salamis- A Short Allied Victory in Crete TL
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June 1942- March 1943: From the End of the Siege to the Surrender of Italy in Occupied Greece
Iaonnis Rallis, last and most infamous of all heads of the Hellenic State
June 1942- March 1943: From the End of the Siege to the Surrender of Italy in Occupied Greece
By the summer of 1942 the Axis occupiers of Greece, the Germans first and most powerfull among them, had grown tired of the very puppet they had established in Athens. Not only had Tsokaglou's government failed to fulfill its promises in terms of bringing support from monarchists, as well as the broader conservative nebula of the Greek political scene, and army officers but it had shown a, from a German perspective, rather annoying degree of autonomous tought, as it had repeatedly protested against the annexation of Greek Macedonia to Bulgaria and the creation of the Principalty of Pindus and, worst, once again from a German point of view, had shown a tendency to try to negociate to lower the requisitions of agricultural and industrial product and equipment. Thus, in early June 1942 the Axis forces in Greece came to the conclusion that in the wake of the failed siege of Crete a firmer and more reliable hand needed to be put on the tilt of the Helenic State. As a result, Tsokaglou was forced to resign and was replaced by Ioannis Ralis.
In many regards Rallis' past had made him an unlikely candidate to be remembered in Greek History as the hated head of a brutal collaborationist government. Having occupied a seat in parliament from 1905 to 1936 he also held several important ministerial portfolios, therefore becoming a rather run of the mill proeminent member of the People's Party and of the Monarchist cause as a whole. In the one instance where he did significantly differ from the monarchist line it was in an appearent demonstration of moderation and of democratic scrupules as he proved to be one of the monarchists to denouce Metaxas coup. Few would have therefore expected him to offer his service to the collaborationist government put in place by Germany and fewer still would have imagined that he would become the leader of the hardliners inside it but, whether motivated by anti-communism, hatred for the Venizelists or, as it was more likely, both, he did both. In Athens Rallis gathered around him a small but fanatical clique of Metaxists hardliners who earnestlessly sympathised with Germany and had turned against the monarchy for they deemed that Georges II had betrayed them by surrendering to the Venizelists.
At first the Germans had resolved to give Rallis and his ilk multiple seats at the table but to keep them away from power, for they were convinced that to give them access to it would fatally turn away the Greek population from the occupiers and banish the possibility of a government able to at least gain the tolerant indifferance and docility of the population. With the growth of the Greek resistance and the survival of Fighting Greece the Germans decided that such a thing was now impossibly at any rate. Thus they choose terror and, in July 1942, forced out Tsokaglou and replaced him with Rallis. The first act of the leader of the Hellenic State was to found his infamous Security Battalions, who would often show themselves as brutal against their countrymen in the resistance then their German masters...
Excerpt of The Three Headed Tyranny: The Axis Occupation of Greece
From the few villages having been liberated by June 1942 the Mountain Governments, has they would become known colloquialy, had grown to occupy a sizable portion of Greece's harder of access zones by Italy's surrender. The EKKA always remained, and clearly so, the most powerfull of all movements but the EAM had also proceeded to carve significant zones of influence for itself and even smaller groups such as EDES and Omiros would create maquis that were not to be neglected. Parachuted and infiltrated from the coasts agents of the SOE, of Fighting Greece and even some of the Komintern and OSS served as the glue that kept these maquis toguether and concentrated in the fight against the occupiers instead of, all too often, each other. To be sure, such developments were the occasion of rejoicings in Heraklion and London but they nonetheless caused some worries as well.
Always warry of troubles following the end of Greece's occupation, the eventual victory of the United Nations revealing itself to be increasingly inevitable during this period, Kannelopoulos' government could not fail but to ask themselves what effects on the country's future might these growing and defacto self governing enclaves might have. While such ponders were usually mostly directed at the zones controlled by the EAM even more trusted group such as the EKKA and Omiris were deemed to be in dire need of Heraklion's guidance... The Commitee of the Mountains (1) was founded as a result. Under the, quite real, objective of ensuring coordination and unity among all the Greek forces working for the liberation of the country the Commitee was also seeking to eventually make resistance on the continent a wing of Fighting Greece's military and political aparatus, under Heraklion's orders and supervision. The EKKA and Omiris proved, naturally enough, willing to integrate the Commitee, as did EDAS after a few moments of hesitations. As one could have expected the EAM proved more sceptical but, pushed by the unwilingness of their own moderates to seem like the only ones unwilling to embrace unity against the occupier and by Moscow's silence, some of the EAM's maquis and commanders began to accept the Commitee's authority, beginning a process that would seriously undermine the communists' capacities to make a truly threatening bid for power at the liberation...
The Coat of Arm of the Commitee of the Mountain. Ironically, the Pheonix was used as a symbol by the colaborationist government as well
Excerpt of The Three Headed Tyranny: The Axis Occupation of Greece
By the strenght of circumstances acts of resistance in the cities proved far less spectacular then their rural counterparts. After all, cities are, by their very nature, easy to access for conventional forces and often serve as their center of garrisons. As such, Resistance fighters in cities therefore did not benefit from the main advantage enjoyed by those of countryside: a refuge hard of access in which they may retreat and hide after having carried out an operation. Nonetheless, in Greece like in elsewhere in occupied Europe, urban resistance grew bolder and more efficient through the years, as Occupation took an ever bloodier turn, the Allies won ever more impressive victories and ever more equipment and funds were smuggled in, urban resistance grew bolder.
Assassinations, sabotages, exfiltration to either the islands or the maquis and even some bombings were the lot of Athens, Salonica and other major greeks cities in the period between the turning point of the war and the liberation of the country. A great prize was paid by the urban resistance for its accomplishments, for far too many of its members found dead on the streets or, unlikiest of all, as prisonners of the Germans. And yet, thanks to the action of the urban resistance the Wermacht had to spend more of its already thin ressources guarding Greece's cities while the maquis and Fighting Greece received precious reinforcements and the industrial output Germany managed to stole from Greece was diminished. The urban resistance of Greece had played its role in the Alliance's victory...
Excerpt of City Fighters: Resistance in Urban Environment During the Second World War
With both Venizelists and Monarchists leaders having either left the Continent for Crete and Fighting Greece or made it to the maquis and the Hellenic State holding no true allegiances save from a handfull of extremists supporters the Orthodox Church found itself in a role it had never truly played before in modern Greece: the only institution that was both able to act on the daily life of most Greeks and seen by most of them as holding moral authority. From the first moments of the Occupation it appeared that while this institution would not defy the occupiers openly, at least as an institution for individual acts of defiance were applenty, but that it would defy it all the same.
The tone was set rather quickly for the highest prelate of Greece, the Archbishop of Athens Chrystanthus, bluntly refused to administer the oath of office to Tsokaglou or any other official of the Hellenic State. Chrysanthus' successor, Damaskinos (whose early election had been forcibly cancelled by Metaxas) did not refuse to administer the oath but nonetheless made his feelings, and as a result those of the Church, clear by repeatedly protesting against the faith of both those hostages taken and massacred in retalion for the action of the Greek Resistance and of Greece's jewish community (2). Under his orders lawyers at the Church's employ would argue in front of German's martial courts for those imprisoned by them, using the occupiers' reluctance to clash with the influential Orthodox Church to avoid sharing the fate of their clients. Damaskinos himself, and as a result several of his prelates, often visited the condemned personally. As a result of such actions many priests in less proeminent, and therefore exposed, positions would found their way to the mountain and joined the maquis, several bishops among them...
Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens
Excerpt of Saints and Disgrace : Christianity in Occupied Europe
In March 1943, in houses and fields all accross Greece the many Greeks of all classes, ages and occupations who had taken the habit of listening to Radio Heraklion heard a voice stating that ''the inhabitants of Brazil need to go back home, for their will be thundershower over Sao Paolo''. Only a few knew what such words mean: Italy's surrender was soon to be announced. The very fact that the Greek Resistance was warned is a testimony of the esteem in which she was held by the leaders of the Allied Cause...
Excerpt of Rome's Renewed Honour: The Tale of Italy's Defection from the Axis toward the Alliance.
(1) In OTL the ''Mountain Government'' was an organ created by the maquis themselves and, dominated by the EAM, a competitor of the government in exile until the British succeeded in forcing both of them in a government of national unity.
(2) Damaskinos' actions, as well as those of the resistance as a whole, to protect the Greek Jewish community will be covered in a chapter about the Shoah in Greece in ITTL which I plan to write more or less when we will get to the liberation of the country.
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Quite possibly, altough post-war events that will be unveilled in the last updates I plan for this TL will also affect how widespread the awareness of these attrocities will be.
March-April 1943: Indigo and Magenta
Posters of the Gun from Navaronne, a movie detailing the adventures of an Allied commando send to destroy a powerfull German battery threatening the incoming Allied landing on Leros. The winners of several Academy Awards, it proved to be the introduction of many among the later generations to the Aegean Campaign
March-April 1943: Indigo and Magenta
Operations Indigo and Magenta have often been severely criticised by armchair strategists, and even some professional, as improvised messes that one would have expected from amateurs rather then the professional worthy of holding commands in a modern war, their eventual success being owned far less to their conceptual merits then to the weaknesses of the other side. Such a judgement is, as it happen, utterly unfair for it was uttered by men and women having all the time and tranquility in the mind to elaborate what they believe should have been the Allied strategy at Naxos and in the Dodecanese, luxuries that the officers at the time did not have.
Indeed, Indigo and Magenta owed their very existence to the window that was created by the successfull completion of Operation Sunshine and Mussolini's fall, allowing the Allies to hope to recuperate Naxos and the Dodecanese rather then invade them. Without the confusion coming from these events these landings could not be attempted with the ressources at the disposal of the Allies in the Aegean, or not without undue risks at any rate. The preparation of the two attacks should therefore be understood less as the usual process in such maters and more as a race against the clock to not let the occasion pass. In such circumstances Indigo and Magenta appear, if not a work of genius then at least the product of competent minds and the well-oiled machine that the Allied headquarter in Heraklion had become. It was good that it was so for the scale of what was prepared and the challenges at hand would severely tax the armed forces of Fighting Greece and its Allies...
Excerpt of The Strategic Issues Underpining the Aegean Campaign of the Journal of Second World War studies.
From its first moments the attack on Naxos faced significant challenges. The beach of Paralia, only site truly favourable to a landing of a significant proportion on the island, was not large enough to land more at once then the seven thousand Greek soldiers who had been throwed on Milos' beaches despite the fact that the Axis forces on the island were far more consequential then at Milos: the equivalent of two brigades of Fascists Blackshirts, still loyal to Mussolini, and now also to his German masters, and unlikely to give to the Allies the defections many had hoped for when the identity of the Italian units in the island was still unknown. Moreover, Naxos' geography favoured the defenders, for its mountainous reliefs ensured that the Blackshirts could dispose of solid positions from whom they needed to be dislodged for the Allies to make their way further inland. To make sure that such a landing could be accomplished without incidents and that the first wave could be quickly reinforced powerfull naval and air forces would have needed to be at hand and, while significant, what was indeed present in those regards at Naxos was not sufficient. Thus, for close to an hour the faith of Operation Indigo seemed to hang in the balance before salvation came, from what had at first been considered a mere diversion.
Two hours before the main landing on Paralia the Sacred Regiment had been landed further south, on Pyrgaki beach, to prepare the ground. The elite unit had been instructed to make their way as far inland with as little fuss as possible and then wreak havoc on the rear of the Blackshirts while also linking with any Italian soldiers loyal to Badoglio and the king or Greek resistance's fighters they might found. In an episode that would become part of the Sacred Regiment's legend it managed to accomplish its mission and then some, making their way through what defense existed on Pyrgaki without being detected, before the sun was up. Having managed such a feat the Sacred Regiment managed to not only learn of the dificulties of the forces on Paralia but also to localise and absorb, for the duration of the battle, the equivalent of another batalion of Italian stragglers and Greek resistants. With these reinforcements they made their way east, to Paralia, striking at the Blackshirts from the rear and turning what had seemed an inauspicious start in a breakthrough.
In the following days, supported by naval and air bombardments, the Greeks would manage to liberate the whole island, the last of the Blackshirts holding on Mount Zeus before the lack of munition would force their surrender. In spite of its less glorious moments Operation Indigo was a success and, mere hours after the last of the Fascists had been disarmed, some of its troops found themselves embarking once more, sailing eastward to take part in Operation Magenta.
Badge of the Sacred Regiment
Excerpt of Epaminondas' Heirs: The History of the Sacred Regiment
In contrast with Indigo, Operation Magenta began rather well for the Allies for, in comparaison with those had landed on Naxos, they enjoyed one crucial advantage: the support of most Italian troops in the area. Indeed, unlike on Naxos most of the close to 50 000 italian infantrymen in the Dodecanese had welcomed Italy's changing of side or surrender, depending on how charitable one might feel, and deemed it as a necessary step for for national salvation. Any doubts or lingering loyalty to Mussolini and the German alliance that might have remained would have been obliterated by the news of the swift, and often violent, disarmement of Italian forces all over Southern Europe and the occupation of much of Italy. Lead by admiral Campioni at sea and general Marschepa on land the garrison of the Dodecanese adamantly refused the call of the Wermacht to join it and let it know that they would be opposed should they seek to land in the Dodecanese. Kasos and Karpathos fell in Allied hands with little fuss as a result of Marshepa's and Campioni's attitude and while Rhodes itself caused more trouble, for some of the men of the Regio Erscito on the island had elected to stand with the fallen Duce as they could not accept to see the Dodecanese become Greek, but it followed quickly enough.
Unfortunately, the last stages of Operation Magenta proved far more bloody. Taking advantage of their air cover provided by their occupation of the islands of the Northern Aegean the Germans had managed to land 5,000 men on the northern parts of the Dodecanese archipelago, and disarmed its italian garrisons, before the Allies could reach them. When these facts made their way to Heraklion they provoked a vigorous debate, for the prospect of an almost bloodless conquest had disapeared. Some were in favour of continuing, to attack fast and hard to prevent the Germans from fortifying themselves, to land as soon as the first Allied plane had established themselves in Rhodes, while others believed that more time was needed to prepare and a last group was in favour of stoping Operation Magenta altoguether. This third group was powerfully helped by the landing on Astypalae, as what had been planned as a minor framing operation had turned into a ferocious fourty eight hour battle who costed to the Greek army almost three hundred men she could ill afford to loose. Nonetheless, it was the optimistic who prevailed and plans to land on Kos and Leros, the two centers of the Axis presence in the area, where hastily updated.
It is beyond our purpose to speak in details of the operation on Kos and Leros. Suffice it to say that the fighting in Kos lasted for five days, as ferocious counterattack of the 1,500 strong german garrison first launched a series of ferocious counterattacks against the 5,000 strong Allied forces having landed before forcing it to conquer Kos one village or hill at the time with the casualties coming it. In Leros, in large part due to its mountainous relief, matters proved even worst, for even a weeks of combat had not allowed the 7,000 greeks landed on the island to truly make headway against the mountainous strongholds of the 2,000 men of the German garrison. Only the intervention of an Allied naval squadron, operating at night due to the presence of the Luftwaffe on Samos, and its canons would allow the situation to be resolved. Fighting Greece lost close to fifteen hundred men in its quest to complete the liberation of the Dodecanese, a price most military historians agree these islands were not worth the and that Heraklion could ill afford to pay it. In fact, were it not for the superior german looses, which the Wermacht could even less easily absorb then the Allied forces in the Aegean, one could have easily called the tail end of Operation Magenta a Phyric victory.
The Dodecanese Archipelago
Excerpt of The Strategic Underpining of the Aegean Campaign in the Journal of Second World War Studies.
By all accounts the events of March and April 1943 would profoundly transform the status of Fighting Greece in the eyes and, to a lesser degree, of the population of continental Greece. Before the Fall of Mussolini Fighting Greece was the Kingdom of Crete, a symbol of tenacity, the true government of Greece but also an entity whose writ did not run far beyond the island, for all of the first successes of the Aegean campaign and of the Greek resistance. As May 1943 was dawning, however, the Kingdom of Crete was dead, to be replaced by the Kingdom of the Islands and of the Mountains, the authority of which ran over much of the southern Aegean and over the growing numbers of maquis of the Greek Resistance....
Excerpt of From Athens and Back: An History of Fighting Greece
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IT LIVES!
Anyway from a political view post war Greece is going to be a fascinating place. I'm guessing firmly anti-communist, firmly democratic and firmly pro-west. It also makes the Balkans a far more interesting front of the Cold War.
Anyway from a political view post war Greece is going to be a fascinating place. I'm guessing firmly anti-communist, firmly democratic and firmly pro-west. It also makes the Balkans a far more interesting front of the Cold War.
Thank you for the enthusiasm but I have only been away for a few weeks
More seriously, real live has come in the way in the last few weeks and all that
My appologies.And yep, it isn't gonna be completely smooth sailing from the get go or anything like that but it is safe to say that it will have far less trouble then OTL, allowing it to serve as a western bloc stronghold in the area and stiffening the back of anti-communists forces in the rest of the Balkans to at least some extent.
Mind you, this isn't the only place the butterflies will change stuff in the Cold War. For example, I did mention that the Burma Road wasn't closed ITTL...
Ohh. One thing that might be intresting is exploring non-communist leftist movements because I can see them getting stronger ITTL with a stronger KMT.Mind you, this isn't the only place the butterflies will change stuff in the Cold War. For example, I did mention that the Burma Road wasn't closed ITTL...
So, we have a successful liberation of Naxos, the center of the Cyclades archipelago and of the Dodecanese. More territory and more pupulation for the Free Greece but more importantly, much more prestige in the eyes of the continental Greeks. I guess the Greek Civil War will be much shorter ITTL, or it will not even escalate to a civil war.
Only a minor nitpick,
Only a minor nitpick,
Shouldn't it be Naxos instead of Andros in these sentences?
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My bad, I shifted from a more ambitious Andros to Naxos while writting.
As for the rest, yes you are correct: such events are great for Fighting Greece's prestige at home, and abroad too for that matter, which does help give more weight to the Greece's territorial demands, which in turn might also very not hurt the prestige of the legal government when all is said and done
This being said, one must not see the situation of Fighting Greece too optimistically. After all, the communists still have a fairly descent amount of firepower and, by the time of the liberation, they are bound to control descently sized swathes of territory, but yes; it is starting to dawn on some of them that if it come to a direct clash between them and the politicians in Heraklion, whether by ballots of by strenght of arm, they won't win.
Thank you, you are too kind
Not ITTL, as by the time that the Allies launched Indigo they had been on Milos for sometimes and therefore could contest the skies from there.
Of course, Rhodes and Karpathos have airfields as well but the Allies would have needed more time to truly have the whole organisation there that would be needed to exploit their potential to the fullest.
The critical question just like OTL is what the Venizelist officers and masses will be doing. If the majority has viable alternatives to ELAS and on top of that ELAS cannot afford attacking everyone else forming armed units ELAS ends up drastically reduced both in numbers and capabilities by 1944. TTL AAA for example is probably a viable proposition instead of just EKKA surviving out of it...
March 1943: Operation Callico and Balkanic Aftershock
General Geloso, commander of the Italian 11th Army in Greece
March 1943: Operation Callico and Balkanic Aftershock
Perhaps even more then the landings on Naxos and in the Dodecanese Archipelago Operation Callico aimed at taking advantag of the window of opportunity created by Italy's surrender. While opinions in Heraklion regarding the ods of the Italian garrisons of Greece to manage to make it back to their homeland to defend it (or liberate it), with those more sceptical of the Badoglio Government's plans to be eventually vindicated by events, all recognised that some would unavoidably remain trapped behind and that soon most of the Italian occupation zone would fall under German (and Bulgarian) control.
Thus, Operation Calico was conceived as bid to salvage as much of possible of the Italian occupation zone for the Commitee of the Mountain, and ensure that as large a portion of the weapons of the Italian garrisons, and of the garrisons themselves, would be able their way to the Greek resistance. Guides were to be provided, lines of communication oppened, and assistance in making their way to safety provided. As the forces of generals Slim and Clark (1) landed on the Italian Pensinsula and the Armistice of Gela was announced the mad scramble began, at first in Greece but soon to spread accross the Balkans...
Excerpt of The Bloody Days: The Surrender of Italy and its Immediate Aftermath
In Greece most of the Italian forces were under the perview of the 11th Army, eight divisions strong and under the command of General Carlo Geloso. This last point proved critical for Geloso had spend much of the last few months feuding with his direct superior, Axis Army Group E commander Alexander Lohr, who deemed him too weak in the face of the Greek resistance. Thanks to the relationship between the two men Geloso (2) had elected to transfer his headquarter to the relative security of Thebes and was naturally weary of Lohr, to the point where the attempt of the later to convince the Italians to lay down their weapons only caused the commander of the 11th Army to issue a general order to all his subordinates, according to which any attacks on Italian forces or attempts to relieve them from their positions without authorisation from his headquarter were to be considered acts of war.
Sadly, the isolation of the Italian forces as well as the superior efficiency of the German forces would ensure the outcome of the, now inevitable, fight but the Italians would not go gently. All over continental Greece the Regio Erscito would be pushed out of the cities and the plains but the equivalent of four German divisions were essentially rendered incampable of offensive operations for long months. The 11th Brennero Division in Central Greece was destroyed its entirety but, in Epirus, and in the Peloponese the XXVI and VIII Corps would see many of their men manages to escape toward the maquis, helped by the members of the Greek Resistance send to guide them as part of Operation Calico and, in Thessaly, whole regiments would sometimes make their way to safety with rather impressive quantity of military equipments. In many regard Operation Calico and the Armistice of Gela would be remembered as a turning point in the history of the Occupation of Greece, the moment when even the most superficial of control over the country seemingly began to slowly slip from the grasp of the Axis forces.
Nonetheless, it is to Cephalonia that we must now turn to see the most famous events of these days...
Excerpt of The Three Headed Tyranny: The Axis Occupation of Greece
Most of the Axis garrison of Cephalonia was mainly composed of the 11,500 men of the Acqui Division, with only 2,000 Germans soldiers on the island. Upon hearing of the directives from Beotia the Aqcui's commander, General Antonio Gandin, adopted at first a rather timid attitude, holding his positions but taking no offensive action. Pressure from the rank and files and lower officers, as well as news, relayed by the local resistance, according to which 2,000 more Germans were on their way, would force his hand. By all accounts the fighting was fierce, costing the Acqui division several hundred men, but Italian numerical superiority and assistance from the inhabitants carried the day. Eventually relayed by Greek forces the Acqui would return to Italy to assist in its liberation and came to hold a special place in Italian memories of the war, for having managed to hold against the German onslaught and, by their actions, essentially liberated Cephalonia and Corfu (where similar events took place with smaller units of the Acqui and of the German Army).
Excerpt of Tale of an Italian Division: The Acqui and the Second World War
Memorial to the Acqui Division in Celaphonia
While news of fighting further south would cause more Italian forces to resist their former allies then otherwise would have been the case most circumstances would unfortunately act against them. Mostly stationned around the Dalmatian coast, the 2nd Italian Army would spend its last days desperately looking toward the sea, waiting for an evacuation that would never come to pass, as the Allies refused to execute what would have been a risky operation far from their bases to save Italian troops. As it was outnumbered and had to fight both German and Ustachi forces the Italian forces in the northwestern corner of the Balkans did not manage to resist for more then two weeks.
Further south the Italian forces fared better, however. The 18th Messina Italian Infantry Division would disintegrate a mere few days after the Armistice of Gela but good portions of the 23rd Ferrara and 32nd Marche would manage to make their ways to the partisans of Tito and Mihailovic and join their ranks just as the 155th Emilia would defend the port of Kotor for eleven days, playing a key role in allowing the 19th Venezia and the 1st Alpine Taurinense to rejoin Tito in their entirety as the Garibaldi Partisan Division while the 51st Sienna (3) would do the same but rejoin the Tchenicks partisans of Mihailovic instead. Just like in Greece, the Armistice of Gela would play a key role in the rise in strenght of the Yugoslavians partisans.
Excerpt of Once there was a Country: An History of Yugoslavia
Albania was, in many regards, the greatest failure of Operation Geiseric. An attempt to surround and force the surrender of Army Group E headquarter degenerated into a firefight (4), with several Italian escaping and managing to warn the headquarter of the 9th Italian Army, who commanded the Italian occupation force in Albania, allowing Italian to be as ready as they could be in the circumstances. Out of the six divisions of the 9th Army four would either manage to make their way back to Italy or to the base of the Albanian Resistance in their entirety, alongside a good portion of the other two. The men who could not escape would notheless resist fiercely in Kruje and Tirana, only surrendering after inflicting over a thousand casualties to their german opponents. Enraged by their looses and their inhability to obtain the easy surrenders they sought some of the German occupiers of Albania would commit the greatest atrocity to take place as part of Operation Geiseric; in the hills surrounding Tirana more then 3,000 italian prisonners would be executed in cold blood, a glimpse of the many horrors that were to await North Italy as the inhabitants of these regions were seeing their former allies occupy them.
The failure of Geiseric in Albany would also have momentous consequences on the balance of power inside the Albanian Resistance. To be sure, the Communist partisans of Enver Hoxa would be significantly reinforced but most Italians would instead elect to reinforce the ranks of the Legaliteli, on paper supporters of a return of Zog I of Albania but in practice a coalition of the liberal resistance, allowing it to emerge from the shadows of the communists and the ultra nationalists of the Balli Kombetar (5). Needless to say, these events would carry much weight when the end of the war would herald the (official as many historians have noted numerous clashes between all three side before the liberation) beginning of the Albanian Civil War...
Excerpt of Hell is the Mountains: Albania 1939-1949
(1) I don't see why the Slap will not happen ITTL so Clark get the nod.
(2) In OTL Geloso was sacked and replaced by a commander friendlier to Lohr, who at first believed the German general when he was pretending that the Wermacht intended to transport the forces of the 11th Italian Army back to their home peninsula. Here the earlier surrender and the slightly worst relationships between Germany and Italy following Crete and events elsewhere in the Medditerannean Sea tip the balance and allow Geloso to stay put until the Italian surrender, with important consequences for the Italian forces in Greece. Mind you, Geloso should not be seen as anti-fascist, or even a moderate, in any shape or form as in OTL he once offered his services to the Salo Republic to get out of a German POWs camp but ITTL the circumstances have lead him to the right decision, even if it was for the wrong reasons.
(3) In OTL the Sienna garrisonned Crete.
(4) In OTL the quick capture of the headquarter worked out but ITTL the officers there are more vigilent due to having heard of Geloso's attitude in Greece, and have ensured that a bigger security force was there to guard the perimeter.
(5) The Balli Kombetar was an ultra nationalist guerilla force and political group who opposed the Italians but would later, and sometimes at the same time, support the Germans. By what little knowledge I posess on the subject the political situation in Albania during the last years of WWII seem to have been extraordinarely volatile.
You had three conflicting Albanian factions and for good measure you also had Greek guerillas of the North Epirote Liberation front affiliated to EDES operating in North Epirus... and to add some spice also Greek guerillas linked to ELAS although these from some point (1944? can't quite remember) were operating as part of the NLF. And if this is not enough both the Greeks and Yugoslavs not without some reason from their point of view were effectively considering Albania as one of the axis minors, guerillas or no guerillas...
Yep, and ITTL you get the extra of the the Legallitis being actual contenders for control of the country rather then also ran!
Mind you, them actually pulling it off would be great for Albania as they were pretty much the only non-horrible faction among those wanting to take over but it remains to be seen whether it will happen.
The plot remains mostly the same at the beginning but obviously things take a very different turn when Italy surrender and its the relationship between the two protagonists who provide the critical link allowing the critical information to pass from the Greek Resistance to the Italian general.
Instead of a tragic love story with an eventual happy ending for the couple (in the movie, it was more of a bittersweet one in the book), and a sad one for many others around them, it is a ''power of love'' type of story. The relationship between Corelli and Pelagia's play a key role in helping the men of the Acqui redeem themselves for having served Mussolini and his program of wars of agressions, the Greeks to understand that are now their allies in spite of having been their occupiers days before and both groups to unite to face a greater and more terrible foe.
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