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The military history of Greece during World War II began on 28 October 1940, when the Italian Army invaded from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War. The Greek Army was able to halt the invasion temporarily and was able to push the Italians back into Albania. The Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene.
July 1917
It was not until July 1917 that Greece openly declared its hand and came out on the side of the Entente (Britain, France and Russia). In September 1918 it played a crucial part in the successful Macedonian campaign, which led to the collapse of Bulgaria, a fact that accelerated German surrender two months later.
In 1914 both the Triple Entente and the Central Powers, tried to form alliances in the Balkans. Both alliances promised privileges to any country that took their side. Venizelos immediately continued with his efforts to get Greece to join the Triple Entente. Venizelos wanted to send military help to Serbia.
In ancient times, Greece wasn’t a single country like it is today. It was made up of lots of smaller states. These states were always squabbling and often went to war. Sparta and Athens fought a long war, called the Peloponnesian War, from 431 to 404BC.
Its main allies are the United States, France, Italy, Bulgaria, the other NATO countries, Cyprus and the rest of the European Union.
As was the Triple Alliance, the Triple Entente was primarily a pact of mutual self-defense: Each country pledged to come to the military aid of another if that country were attacked. Thus it was that Russia, attacked by Austria-Hungary in 1914, called on Great Britain and France to enter the war.
Meanwhile, civil war threatened in Greece, as Constantine desperately sought promises of naval, military and financial assistance from Germany, which he did not receive. With a pro-Allied prime minister firmly in place, Greece moved to the brink of entering World War I.
Greek military formation in the World War I Victory Parade in Arc de Triomphe, Paris. July 1919. The Macedonian front stayed mostly stable throughout the war. Bulgaria had occupied Thrace in northern Greece from Allied forces before Greece’s entry into the war.
The Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene. The Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, and overran both countries within a month, despite British aid to Greece in the form of an expeditionary corps.
Eventually, Serbia allied with the Triple Entente while Bulgaria and Turkey preferred the Central Powers. In Greece, the situation was rather complicated. The prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, argued that Greece should enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente.
On 19 June 1914, the Army Staff Service, under Lt. Colonel Ioannis Metaxas, presented a study it had prepared on possible military options against Turkey. This found that the only truly decisive manoeuvre, a landing of the entire Hellenic Army in Asia Minor, was impossible due to the hostility of Bulgaria.