Alexander Papagos
Alexander Papagos (in
Greek:Αλέξανδρος Παπάγος,
Alexandros Papagos). Born
December 9,
1883 (
Athens,
Greece); died in
October 4,
1955 (
Athens,
Greece), was a Greek
Field Marshal who led the Greek Army in the
Greco-Italian War and the later stages of the
Greek Civil War and became the country's
Prime Minister.
He studied in the
Brussels Military Academy and the Cavalry School at
Ypres, joining the Greek Army in
1906 as a Cavalry 2nd Lieutenant.
In the
First Balkan War he served as a junior officer in the General Staff of
King Constantine. As a captain, he held successive staff positions as well as taking part in the
Siege of Yannina (
Ioannina) and fighting in Macedonia from November 1912 until March 1913. He was a confirmed
royalist, so in 1917, along with many other officers, he was dismissed from the Army. He was recalled after the return of
King Constantine in
1920, when he successfully served as operations officer to the Cavalry Brigade in the
Asia Minor Campaign.
In
1923 he was again decomissioned by the
Revolution of 1922, but was recalled in 1927 with the grade of Major General. He was promoted to Lieutenant General and later Corps Commander in 1934, Papagos was eventually appointed to higher Army commands. In October
1935, as a Lieutenant General and Chief of the Army, along with the chiefs of the Navy and the Air Force, he helped topple the government of
Panagis Tsaldaris and declared the restoration of the monarchy. He was appointed Minister of War in the
Georgios Kondylis,
Konstantinos Demertzis and
Ioannis Metaxas governments. From his position, he employed the Army to support
Metaxas' declaration of dictatorship in
August 4,
1936.
|
As Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army, General Alexander Papagos was featured on the cover of Time Magazine on December 16th, 1940. |
During the next years, as Chief of the General Staff, he actively tried to reorganize and reequip the Army for the oncoming war. With the outbreak of the
Greco-Italian War in September
1940, he was named Commander-in-Chief and directed Greek operations against
Italy along the
Albanian border. After the Italian attack on
October 28, his forces managed to halt their advance by
November 8 and forced them to withdraw to Albania between
November 18 and
December 23. The successes of the Greek Army brought him fame and applause, but his conduct of the campaign has recently been criticized. A second Italian offensive during March 9-16
1941 was repulsed. Despite this success, Papagos was forced to maintain the bulk of the Greek Army in
Albania, and was unwilling to order a gradual withdrawal to reinforce the north-eastern border as German intervention came closer.
After the German invasion on
April 6,
1941, Greek forces in Macedonia fiercely resisted the German offensive, but were outflanked and Papagos endorsed their surrender. Soon after the Army of Epirus capitulated and by April 23 the Greek government was forced to flee to Crete. Papagos remained behind and in July
1943, together with other generals, he was arrested and sent to concentration camps in Germany. In
1945 he was repatriated, rejoined the Army and reached the rank of full General in
1947. On
January 29,
1949, he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief, to defeat the Communists in the
Greek Civil War. This he achieved, with extensive American aid, including napalm equipped aircraft[
1], and the extensive deployment of Special Forces (LOK), during the Grammos-Vitsi campaign between February to October of that year. As a reward, he, alone of all Greek career officers, was promoted to
Field Marshal on October 28, 1949.
He continued to serve in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief until
1951, while Greece was in a state of political instability, with splinter parties and weak politicians unable to provide a firm government.
In May 1951 he resigned from the Army in order to become involved in politics. He founded the Greek Rally (Ελληνικός Συναγερμός), modelled after
De Gaulle's
Rassemblement du Peuple Français and won the September elections with 36,53% of the vote, largely due to his popularity, his image as a strong and determined leader, and the communist defeat in the civil war, which was attributed in great part to his leadership. Despite this victory, Papagos was unable to form a government on this majority, and had to wait until the
November 16th, 1952 elections, where his party tallied an impressive 49% of the popular vote, gaining 239 out of 300 seats in Parliament. The Field Marshal, with his popular backing and support from the Americans was an authoritative figure, leading to friction with the Royal Palace. Papagos' government successfully strived to modernize Greece (where the young and energetic Minister of Public Works,
Constantine Karamanlis, first distinguished himself) and restore the economy of a country ruined by 10 years of war, but was criticized by the opposition for doing little to restore social harmony in a country still scarred from the civil war.
One of the major issues faced by Papagos was the
Cyprus problem, where the Greek majority had begun clamouring for
Enosis (Union) with Greece. In response to demonstrations in the streets of Athens, Papagos reluctantly, as this would put Greece in confrontation with
Great Britain, ordered Greece's UN representative in August
1954 to raise the issue of Cyprus before the
UN General Assembly. When the
EOKA armed struggle began in
1955, Papagos was in declining health and unwilling to act. The clashes in Cyprus, however, led to a deterioration of Greco-Turkish relations, culminating in the
Istanbul Pogrom in September. By that time, Papagos was ill, and on
October 4,
1955, he died.
The
Athens suburb of
Papagou, where the
Ministry of Defence is located, is named after him.
