BALKAN THEATRE: Episode in Epirus

War seemed good to the Athenians that first day. It was like a holiday. Because of air-raid alarms the shops were closed.

Bands of enthusiasts walked the streets shouting lusty jests, sticking their thumbs up, singing songs, crying the ancient boast: “We will throw them into the sea.” They laughed about the macaroni-men from macaroni-land, trying to be warriors.

The people cheered when they heard what the Generalissimo, Alexander Papagos, had said: “We will write new, glorious pages in our history, and do not doubt that we will win our cause.” The people were gay when they read on walls the slogans of Premier John Metaxas: “Only pessimistic peoples disappear! Greeks, be optimists!” They trooped to the British Legation, waving the Union Jack beside the blue & white flag of Greece. They cheered until Britain’s tall, immaculate Minister Sir Charles Michael Palairet came out on the balcony. Some among them retold the old saw about the time when Sir Charles skied over a Rumanian precipice and was found hours later with his leg broken, his monocle still in place. Just like the plucky British, they said.

They rushed on to the Turkish Embassy, and waved the crescent & star beside those other two fine flags. It was the Turkish Republic’s 17th birthday, and they had heard that in Ankara the paper Ulus had said: “We prefer the hell of war to a dishonorable peace.” Just like the stubborn Turks, they said.

When they saw King George II driving out in his uniform of Supreme Commander, they cheered and wept. When they looked out across the city to the heights where the ancient temple columns stood in rows like sturdy fighting men, they were proud to be Greeks.

Even on the second day, war was almost fun. It was thrilling to see every taxi, truck, cart, bus and private auto in the town bumping off over the rough road that leads to Thebes and the fighting fronts north and west—vehicles carrying all able-bodied men from 20 to 43 years old. It was a lark to hear that 20 British aviators who had been interned when their planes landed in Greece were now released; and to carry them through the streets like heroes. It was stirring to crowd into Constitution Square before the Hôtel de la Grande-Bretagne to cheer King George emerging from the palace opposite. It was moving to learn that Venizelist officers disgraced in the revolt of 1935 had now pleaded to be sent to the front; and to learn that foreigners, especially Greek-Americans, were signing up: men like 36-year-old John Theotocki, a hash king from Kansas City, who said: “We cleaned up the gangsters in the United States and now we’ve got a tougher job here.” But when the Athenians heard that the Italians had sent their bombers over other Greek cities, that Greek women and children had perished, war was not such fun.

When they considered the odds, when they learned that the Yugoslavs could not help the Greeks unless the Turks did and the Turks would not move until the Russians told them to, when they realized how little practical support the British could give, they were grave. They gathered in coffee houses and drank thick Turkish coffee and sipped their ouzo, as colorless and full of kick as corn likker.

And they talked. Every man gave his opinion, every man was an amateur oracle.

Double Talk. In ancient times two black doves took off from Thebes in Egypt.

One flew to Libya, the other to a grove at Dodona in Greece. In the grove the latter proclaimed in human words the need for an oracle of Zeus on that spot.

From then on priests listened to the rustling of the trees, interpreted, and gave ambiguous oracular opinions. For instance, a general would be told that if he attacked across the mountains of Epirus, a kingdom would fall. Encouraged, he would attack —and lose his own kingdom.

Last week, as the Italians attacked across the mountains of Epirus (aiming in one place for loannina hard by Dodona), there was very similar double talk in the air. It came from “neutral sources.” Just as the world heard (via Stockholm) that Finland was victorious to the day of its defeat, heard (via Berne) that France was doing not too badly against the Nazis, heard (from Stockholm again) that the British were throwing the Nazis out of Norway, these “neutral sources” (Belgrade was now the worst offender) gave out good cheer for Greeks. The “news” they told must have come from the rustling of trees—and very possibly those trees were on the Wilhelmstrasse, where so much phony, later demoralizing “good news” has been cooked up.

Had Belgrade’s dispatches been true, the Greeks would have been victorious in no time. On the first day of the war, Turkey was said to have declared war against Italy, Turkish troops were said to be entering Thrace. On the second day, Britons were said to have landed in force at Salonika (three days’ sailing time from Alexandria, the nearest British base). By the third day a revolt in Albania was said to have reached serious proportions: 3,000-4,000 well-armed rebels were said to be cutting Italian communications from the rear. All this time Greek resistance was said to out-Thermopylae Thermopylae, and on the fifth day Belgrade reported the Greeks “smashing into Albania.” This week the Greeks were reported to have invaded the invaders’ territory almost as far as the base at Corizza, to have taken 1,200 prisoners, including two generals, and to be on the point of wiping out 15,000 men.

This untempered optimism about the jack rabbit’s chances of licking the bulldog was too persistent a phenomenon of World War II to be entirely accidental.

Hills of Hell. That this “neutral” news was fabricated and exaggerated did not take away one jot from the performance of Greece. The mere fact that Greece chose to oppose the Axis juggernaut defied belittling; it was magnificent.

The odds were appalling: 250,000 Italians against perhaps 150,000 Greeks; the fourth biggest navy in the world against one obsolescent cruiser, ten destroyers, 13 torpedo boats, six submarines and a few miscellaneous craft; 500 modern planes and as many more in reserve against perhaps 200 old crates (Junkers, Gloucester Gladiators, Blackburns, even French planes); the tacit support of Germany, with some 70 divisions of 1,125,000 men poised in the Balkans (according to British sources), against overt help from Britain, militarily pinned down at home and in Egypt. Despite this apparently overwhelming disparity, the Greeks chose to fight. Ancient valor was reborn.

There were five main spearheads to the Italian attack (see map, p. 26). The most important Italian effort was aimed at Ioannina, in Epirus. Homer located Hell in Epirus, and the Italians saw why last week. It is only about 35 miles as the airplane flies from the Albanian border to Ioannina; but on the ground the miles stand on end. The terrain is violently mountainous. There are no railroads, and most of the roads are little better than shepherd trails. The area is crisscrossed with low valleys, and last week torrential rains made horrible mud ponds of the roads. It was no country for swift, mechanized, aircraft-supported lightning war.

It was country through which infantry, engineers and pack-mule armament had to make their way inch by soggy inch.

The Hellenes were Hellish too. They had carefully mined the roads and primed the bridges with TNT—and, unlike the Dutch and French, apparently did not forget to touch off the charges. Greece’s Metaxas Line—pillboxes, barbed wire, trenches—was ironically strongest opposite neutral Bulgaria; nevertheless it offered barriers. The first line ran from Fiorina to the sea. The Greeks furthermore diverted streams on to roads, used every hillock and rock for sniping. Italian Alpinists are among the best mountain troops in Europe; but the Greek evzones—picturesque, wiry men in white jackets and kilts, slippers with turned-up toes and pompons, and any old sort of rifle—are tough and brave.

But the Italians managed to creep along. Early this week they were at the gates of Ioannina. The spearhead was eventually supposed to go to Larissa, whence a railway and a good highway lead to the Attic peninsula and Athens.

Farther north another spearhead drove toward Fiorina, whence another railway leads to vital Salonika on the eastern coast. Greek counter-raids against this northern drive did get to Albanian soil, and did cause the Italians some embarrassment at their rear.

“Where Are the British?” asked the citizens of Greece on the war’s fifth day, when there were still no signs of pledges fulfilled. Athens was treated late that day to the sight of a huge R. A. F. Sunderland flying boat which had previously been interned, and crowds cheered at the sight.

At week’s end in London, First Lord of the Admiralty Albert Victor Alexander announced that Britons had landed on Greek soil (presumably on some Greek islands) and he promised vaguely: “What we can do we will do.” What the British could do was not much. In London there was some suspicion that the Greek war was a mere feint, intended to draw British strength from Egypt, paving the way for an Axis drive on vital Suez. The Italian attack was in fact no feint, but the British could take no chances. The Salonika campaign in 1915-18 required 157,000 men, and Britain now could spare nowhere near that many. Large-scale land action was out. So far as naval action went the prospects were brighter. If the British could consolidate themselves on the Greek islands they had a much better chance of staying in the eastern Mediterranean. If they were cagey, they might even draw the Italian Fleet into the long desired open battle. Britain could also afford some air assistance. British planes were said to be taking part in raids on Porto Edda, Tirana and Durazzo in Albania, and last week this British craft—probably carrier-based Blackburns—bombed Naples to give the Italian foot its first stings of war. The glowing crater of Vesuvius lighted the way to blacked-out Naples.

But if Britain could give no more help and if Turkey continued indefinitely to play wallflower, the Greek cause looked dim, no matter what bravery or what initial successes the Greeks might show.

For Italy the campaign was vital. Italian bases in Greece could neutralize the Dardanelles and negate Turkey’s British sympathies. An Italian Crete would make the eastern Mediterranean very hot water against the plates of British vessels. An Italian victory would eventually mean a Greater Albania which would sew up Italian domination of the western Balkans.

But the most important point of victory in Greece was to give the mouth-watering dictators another little slice off the enemy’s cake. Gradually the Axis was consolidating the Mediterranean as it had already consolidated Europe. With Britain out of the Mediterranean, the Axis would be much harder to beat.

The Italian Army is regarded by military men the world over with emotion ranging from contempt to hilarity—almost nowhere with admiration. But this was the first real test. Ethiopia, a war against men whose only armor was the loin cloth, was no test. Neither was the Italian picnic in southern France. No one knows how enthusiastically the campaign in Egypt has been pursued. But this was war, and all the world was watching. Considering the terrain, the weather, and the vigor of the brave Hellenes, the Italians were doing all right.

In any case, Britons who took great heart from reports of initial Greek successes, who argued themselves into the belief that Italy had bitten off more cake than it could masticate, were wishful thinkers. The London Times argued — as it had many times before — that the Axis gamble was really a British success. “Surely,” wrote the sober New Statesman and Nation, “we remember the Times saying something very like this before. When the Germans went into Norway they dangerously lengthened their flank. If they are not careful they will become all flank as far as Gibraltar. … If the Nazis were to reach London Bridge it would be a British triumph. The Times would explain that by so dangerously lengthening their flank they had stuck themselves in one of the least salubrious parts of London, that they would find it difficult to get a respectable meal in the district and that they would use up a lot of their scanty oil resources in getting the Tower Bridge up and down.”