Most fugitives suffered a sense of shame about abandoning the local people, who embraced them even in defeat.
By April’s end, the Germans held Greece. Some 43,000 of Wavell’s troops had been evacuated, leaving behind a further 11,000 who became prisoners, together with all their transport and heavy equipment. Prime minister Alexandros Koryzis committed suicide. Greek soldiers trickled down from the hills, many having abandoned their arms. ‘At one moment,’ wrote an eyewitness, ‘I saw a captain mount a hillock and address thousands of men who were gathered around it. He shouted: “Men, alas our country has lost the war!” The audience responded with an eerie, nightmarish, perverse cry of “Zeto!” – “Hurrah!” “Zeto!” meant “We are alive!”’
Such deliverance provided only brief consolation to a nation which thereafter suffered appallingly under Nazi occupation. A Greek general told an air force officer, George Tzannetakis: ‘George, a black night descends on our country.’ In the capital on 27 April, a German officer, Georg von Stumme, addressed Greek Archbishop Ieronymos: ‘He began by saying that he had always wanted to visit Athens, of which he had learnt so much at school and Military Academy. At this point the Archbishop interrupted him and said: “Indeed, before the war Germany had many friends in Greece, among whom I was one.”’ Now, all that was over. A Greek wrote: ‘Von Stumme learnt that in Greece he might meet a few Quislings, but he would not find any friends.’
Three weeks later, on 20 May, the Germans launched a paratroop assault on Crete. British and New Zealand defenders along the island’s north coast fought staunchly on the first day, inflicting savage losses on the airborne invaders. But on the 21st the Germans secured Maleme airfield, opening the way for follow-up forces. British counter-attacks were frustrated, and in the succeeding six days the paratroopers progressively rolled up the defences, relieving their units isolated at Retimo and Heraklion. The British fell back. ‘Everyone was exhausted…and by this time morale was pretty low,’ said Ian Stewart, a battalion medical officer. ‘It cannot be said to have been a particularly restful trip…up the very high mountains, going mostly at night in a very slow tread and just the jingling of waterbottles and occasionally stumbling over people who had fallen out. Perhaps the most evocative thing was the dew on the flowers…the very aromatic scents of Crete are unforgettable.’ Another officer observed, ‘It was a journey that showed human nature at its Christian best but also at its ugly, selfish worst.’ Gen. Bernard Freyberg, the New Zealander commanding the defence, decided that evacuation was the only option. By the night of 30 May, when the Royal Navy was obliged to abandon its costly rescue efforts, 15,000 troops had been taken off; a further 11,370 became prisoners and 1,742 had been killed. A New Zealander heard the order given to those left behind to surrender. ‘Everything was dead quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. Every man was left to his own thoughts, that is if they could think. Now and again you would hear a shot ring out further down the waadi – some poor chap was taking his own life. Then later on I heard my first German’s words: “Alle man raus, schnell, schnell,” and I looked up and saw him standing there, rifle at the ready. We were marched back to Canaea like a mob of sheep.’
Crete cost Admiral Cunningham three cruisers and six destroyers sunk, seventeen other ships damaged – the navy’s heaviest losses of the war in a single operation. The Germans lost 6,000 killed, a price which dissuaded Hitler from ever again attempting a large-scale airborne operation. But the immediate outcome was that the invaders had defeated a larger Allied army, provided through Ultra intercepts with detailed foreknowledge of German intentions, plans and timetable.* Freyberg, as commander, bore substantial responsibility for failure, but he was handicapped by lack of transport to shift men, and a dire shortage of radios. Once the battle began, he had neither a clear idea of what was happening, nor means to pass orders. The Luftwaffe exercised almost unchallenged command of the skies, taking a heavy toll on morale as well as men and ships. German energy, skill, tactics, determination and leadership at all levels surpassed those of most of the defenders, despite some fine local stands, especially by New Zealanders.
Hitler would have secured a much greater strategic gain by using his paratroops to seize Malta, as they could probably have done. The Germans profited little from accepting responsibility to sustain an occupation of Crete amid a bitterly hostile population. If Freyberg had held on, the Royal Navy would have faced immense difficulties in supplying the island in the face of enemy air superiority. Once Greece was lost, the outpost could have done the British little good. They lacked adequate aircraft to support the North African campaign, far less to exploit Crete as an air base for offensive operations, and were better without the place.
However, no such consolation was evident to the world and the British people in June 1941. A soldier at home, Len England, wrote on 29 May: ‘I think…the masses have for the first time considered the possibility of defeat. A general trend is this: “Every time we meet the Germans we get driven back. We’re even losing on the sea, and we’re supposed to have command of that.” The infallibility of the Germans is an idea that is rapidly gaining ground.’ Churchill had boldly declared Britain’s determination to hold Crete, yet its garrison had been defeated by smaller forces. Though the prime minister for years afterwards sustained his enthusiasm for resurrecting a Balkan front against Hitler and bringing Turkey into the war, this remained a fantasy. The Balkans were incorporated wholesale into the Axis empire, much to its own detriment. Italy initially accepted responsibility for occupying the region, committing half a million troops who would eventually suffer heavier losses there than in North Africa. The Germans, in their turn, came to find Greece and Yugoslavia a crushing burden. But all this was far away, in the bleak summer of 1941.
3 SANDSTORMS
The British achieved two modest successes to set against their eviction from the Balkans. Though Iraq had become an independent state in 1932, the British retained treaty and basing privileges there, to protect their important oil interests. Since the outbreak of war, rival factions in Baghdad had contested power and disputed the merits of supporting the Axis. In April 1941 the pro-Nazi nationalist Rashid Ali became prime minister following a military coup. Impressed by Hitler’s successes, and insufficiently mindful that Berlin was far away, he abrogated British military movement rights and sent troops to besiege the RAF base at Habbaniya. Luftwaffe planes began to shuttle aid to the Baghdad government through Syria. The Vichy French authorities in Damascus provided fighter escorts and some materiel to aid the Germans. Wavell, in Cairo, was reluctant to divert troops to Iraq, but Churchill insisted. An Indian Army relief column landed at Basra and drove inland, joined by 1,500 men of the Arab Legion from Transjordan. The Iraqi army offered only ineffectual resistance. Within a month Habbaniya was relieved and an armistice signed. A pro-British government was installed in Baghdad, which was eventually persuaded to declare war on the Axis.
Vichy’s meddling in Iraq, and a growing German presence in Syria, convinced Churchill that Britain could not risk Nazi dominance of the Levant. He ordered Wavell to dispatch another force to occupy Syria, ruled by France since 1920 as a League of Nations ‘mandated territory’ joined with Lebanon. Churchill and his commanders hoped that the defenders, outnumbered and outgunned, would offer only token resistance. Instead, however, in June 1941 Vichy forces fought hard. Their conduct highlighted the division and confusion of French loyalties, which had been apparent since the 1940 surrender, and persisted until 1944. During the ill-fated British and Gaullist attempt on Vichy Dakar in September 1940, the submarine Bévéziers torpedoed the British battleship Resolution, which suffered serious damage. Churchill enraged the French by insisting on the award of a DSO to Commander Bobby Bristowe, who led a volunteer naval party in a launch alongside the brand-new Vichy battleship Richelieu, laying four depth-charges below its hull. In retaliation for Dakar, Vichy aircraft bombed Gibraltar.
A farcical exchange took place when Hitler met Marshal Pétain at Montoire-sur-le-Loir
