Sir John Valentine Carden survives.

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Logically the Venzelist-majority Crete working closely with the British Commonwealth would lead to a Greece where the monarchy is not abolished, but rather stripped of it's remaining power?
 
Logically the Venzelist-majority Crete working closely with the British Commonwealth would lead to a Greece where the monarchy is not abolished, but rather stripped of it's remaining power?
It depends. Thanks to the Metaxas regime the monarchy had lost a significant part of her support among monarchists. The only thing to save it in OTL was the communists starting a civil war from effectively 1943. Remove this as a factor, and just with the 50,000 evacuated to Egypt, you've drastically altered things and monarchy's prospects in the inevitable post liberation referendum are going to be... bleak.
 
that was just the numbers in crete and here you will have the main greek armies for extra numbers aswell compared to otl aswell to consider for even more greeks when they retreat from the mainland . Also even if the numbers arent massive you could still get the leadership and sergeants and corporals with actual combat experience atleast wich are one of the main obstacles in turning conscripts into useful troops in decent time as far i can tell. I doubt that the numbers would be massive but maybe another 50 maybe even 100k troops wouldnt be impossible . A corp for the invasion of italy and maybe a divison or two for occupying the greek islands ? Hell you could even give them a valiant equipped tank divison when you change tanks for example . This is something the americans can help with aswell i think.

That was the main issue why the polish pow-s from the soviets didnt acheive much during the war since the soviets killed the officers and non commisioned officers . I think it was around 80k polish prisoners were released into british custody when the germans invaded them and they were used to bring the polish units up to strenght mainly and the armored divison with the canadians during overlord i think but from the numbers 80k troops you should be able to raise like a corps .
 
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It's important to remember that whatever Greek forces are evacuated to Crete & Egypt will be rebuilt into a new army by the British, and that the rebuilding will happen along British lines & with British approved officers. The next generation of senior greek officers will come from this army and they are unlikely to be inclined to political meddling.
 
It's important to remember that whatever Greek forces are evacuated to Crete & Egypt will be rebuilt into a new army by the British, and that the rebuilding will happen along British lines & with British approved officers. The next generation of senior greek officers will come from this army and they are unlikely to be inclined to political meddling.
I'm not so sure about the political meddling as ex-colonial forces were also British trained which did not prevent them throwing coups.
 
I'm not so sure about the political meddling as ex-colonial forces were also British trained which did not prevent them throwing coups.
The Greek army was highly politicised and incredibly prone to coups throughout the 20th century. The British won't necessarily be looking to rebuild it on explicitly non-political lines, but their priority will be to ensure that it is a professional force which will fight the Nazi's and that should help weed out the political officers who are more interested in intrigue than doing their jobs.
 
I would like to retract my previous assertion that the Germans are 2 days behind their OTL schedule. I am checking both greek sources regarding the date of capture of specific villages and the "Swastika over the Acropolis". It seems to me that the West Macedonia Field Army Section's (WMFS) route of retreat was cut off during the night of April 14th-15th. But now we have the WMFS behind Venetikos River at April 18th. Likewise, the Commonwealth retreated from the Servia and Porta Passes at April 15th, instead of the night of 18th in TTL.

Thus, I am convinved now that the Germans are 3 days behind their OTL schedule. That gives more than enough time for a large part of the WMFS to reach the railhead at Kalabaka and then Thermopylae. I strongly agree with Lascaris' assessment that the Cavalry and XIII divisions (alongside with the XII and XX remnants) can easily be saved. Vrachnos' I "Iron" Division as well.

However, there is another unit that can be evacuated already. In OTL, by April 18th , two regiments of the XI Division were at the Metsovo Pass close to Kalabaka. My source is the "Abridged History of the Greek-Italian and Greek-German War", the official history by the Greek Army General Staff. These two regiments can be lifted to the Lianokladi railway station at the very same day. Then, the rest of the aforementioned units can be lifted during the following days.

But how many days until the escape route closes? IF the Germans continue their advance at the very same rate as in OTL, greek units ITTL can evacuate via the railroad for 4 consecutive days until the night of April 21st.
 
However, there is another unit that can be evacuated already. In OTL, by April 18th , two regiments of the XI Division were at the Metsovo Pass close to Kalabaka. My source is the "Abridged History of the Greek-Italian and Greek-German War", the official history by the Greek Army General Staff. These two regiments can be lifted to the Lianokladi railway station at the very same day. Then, the rest of the aforementioned units can be lifted during the following days.

But how many days until the escape route closes? IF the Germans continue their advance at the very same rate as in OTL, greek units ITTL can evacuate via the railroad for 4 consecutive days until the night of April 21st.
If they are already there could those 2 regiments be used to hold the pass if Cretan 5th Division will not be willing to do it. Also when in OTL did the Greek army give the order to start evacuating units from the mainland? How much extra can they carry if they already moving the new recuits.

Shame the PoW will be left behind,
 
If they are already there could those 2 regiments be used to hold the pass if Cretan 5th Division will not be willing to do it.
There will be more Epirus Army divisions one or two days behind those two regiments. They are not needed since the WMFAS is on its way in the north-west. They can be send immediately to Lianokladi while the WMFAS units that won't be able to get in a train can be left behind in Kalabaka.

Also when in OTL did the Greek army give the order to start evacuating units from the mainland?
In OTL there was no opportunity to evacuate units since all field armies were cut off. The request to evacuate the trainees took place sometime around April 14th.

How much extra can they carry if they already moving the new recuits.
One thing Greece wasn't short of was merchantmen. At any time there were two main convoys crossing the Aegean towards Piraeus: one from the Dardanelles and one from Egypt. Other than these, there were dozens of smaller coastal steamers around. And this estimation doesn't take into account the ships under RN command. Finding the ships will be the easiest part of the whole retreat.

What I am looking forward to, is to see whether the better handled retreat would affect the Battle of Thermopylae. If it is decided to hold the position a couple more days and in addition to the 3 days already gained, then there is enough time to evacuate other valuable manpower: air force and naval base personnel, army rear echelon units etc
 
Hm, if enough Greek troops get evacuated in enough other, could they be used to replace the Indian and other Imperial troops in the Mediterranean? That would free those other units up for deployment elsewhere.
 
One possible problem for the Allies might be if half the Greek army gets evacuated to Crete (and the Greek leaders want the Greek army used only for or in Greek territory) how easy is it to keep all those soldiers supplied with food, ammunition (for fighting and training), and other kit and necessities on Crete? Is there enough shipping in the Mediterranean for supply runs and protection?
 
However, there is another unit that can be evacuated already. In OTL, by April 18th , two regiments of the XI Division were at the Metsovo Pass close to Kalabaka. My source is the "Abridged History of the Greek-Italian and Greek-German War", the official history by the Greek Army General Staff. These two regiments can be lifted to the Lianokladi railway station at the very same day. Then, the rest of the aforementioned units can be lifted during the following days.
This has a certain buttefly of a different nature. The XI was recruiting from the Thessaloniki region, of its three regiments the 13th and 50th were mobilized from Thessaloniki itself while the 65th was based in Kilkis in peacetime. Or in other words the majority of the Greek-Jews mobilized were serving mostly on the 50th with a fair number on the 13th, the 50th was nicknamed the "Cohen regiment" from the large number of Greek Jews serving with it. If the two regiments escape south and then off the mainland you've just saved several thousand Salonican Jews from the holocaust...

If they are already there could those 2 regiments be used to hold the pass if Cretan 5th Division will not be willing to do it. Also when in OTL did the Greek army give the order to start evacuating units from the mainland? How much extra can they carry if they already moving the new recuits.
Lets put it in some perspective. Operation Demon evacuated about 50,000 empire troops and roughly ~8,000 Greek troop in sic days, with Piraeous being largely unavailable which is not the case here. So call it on average a bit below 10,000 men a day. Actually well over 10,000/day were being evacuated on the 25th you had 10,200 ANZACs plus the RAF evacuated, call it 13,000 men or so. Eleven days from 19th April to April 29th means it should be able to evacuate on average ~110,000 men. Add the three days delay so far and you are getting up to 140,000... thus between 60 and 90,000 Greeks.


What I am looking forward to, is to see whether the better handled retreat would affect the Battle of Thermopylae. If it is decided to hold the position a couple more days and in addition to the 3 days already gained, then there is enough time to evacuate other valuable manpower: air force and naval base personnel, army rear echelon units etc
Navy had about 18,000 personnel. Air force included ~300 trained pilots. Getting a considerable fraction of either out would be certainly quite useful... in both cases you are likely looking of the HAF in exile being more than the OTL 3 squadrons and the navy having the manpower to grow even bigger (and with fewer political reliability issues) and by 1944 even in OTL it was at over 8,500 men with Averof, 13 destroyers, 4 corvettes, 4 submarines and several landing ships and minesweepers.
 
Lets put it in some perspective. Operation Demon evacuated about 50,000 empire troops and roughly ~8,000 Greek troop in sic days, with Piraeous being largely unavailable which is not the case here. So call it on average a bit below 10,000 men a day. Actually well over 10,000/day were being evacuated on the 25th you had 10,200 ANZACs plus the RAF evacuated, call it 13,000 men or so. Eleven days from 19th April to April 29th means it should be able to evacuate on average ~110,000 men. Add the three days delay so far and you are getting up to 140,000... thus between 60 and 90,000 Greeks.

But what ships were used in Operation Demon?

Checking the "Swastika over the Acropolis" produces the following, other than RN warships:
- Transports Pennland,Thurland Castle, Glengyle, Salween, Slamat, Khedive Ismail, Dilwarra, City of London, and Costa Rica

There are no greek ships included. An order for an evacuation would see the greek marchant fleet involved. In 1940, the Greek Navy had commandeered 47 small liners to be used as transports, 3 of them turned into hospital ships. Other than these, 12 other tramp steamers were commandeered to be used in convoys. That count does not take into account all the other ships in Piraeus. Just by butterflying the Clan Fraser explosion there are also 21,266 additional tons of shipping, all of which are additional to the aforementioned commandeered ships.

So, the carrying capacity in Greece is significantly more than 10,000 men per day.
 
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Another interesting POD from Diary of Disaster:British Aid to Greece 1940-1941 Page 232
According to Wilson's final report on the campaign, the 10,000 left behind might not have been abandoned if bad luck had not intervened. Some 1,500 had been left stranded at Nauplion, and 700 were lost there when a transport was sunk and the men rescued by destroyers, only to have them sunk in their turn by enemy aircraft. But the biggest loss was some 8,000 men left behind because of a muddle at Kalamata: the enemy broke into town and captured the landing officer, who had the code to signal the warships to come alongside the adequate piers, and there was a rumor of mines. As a result a cruiser and accompanying destroyers did not take off the men on the last night, although the Germans had been driven out of the town again
 
I have to wonder how much better the Allies are going to do here, given:
  • The Germans are already delayed over OTL
  • The Allies are much less panicked, and thus, are going to perform much more of a 'scorched earth' (at least as far as military assets are concerned)
  • Piraeus is intact, as are the ships that are/were docked there
 
Not enough to save part of mainland Greece, unless the casualties and delays inflicted on the Germans lead to them digging in instead of pushing so that nothing delays Barbarossa.

Which is, let's be honest, incredibly unlikely.

In the long run beyond Greece and Crete, the changes fall into the category of "not enough information" to make any accurate guesses.

Extra troops extra weapons, extra everything could make a massive difference pretty much anywhere but because of that we can't really make any serious guesses.
 
Well I was mostly thinking of retaining Crete, and getting tens of thousands more troops out. Yes, they'll need t be re-equipped before they're really useful for anything much, but at least they can take over garrison duties around the Med, freeing up the British soldiers who would otherwise be doing those duties for redeployment elsewhere.
 
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