Why should we be interested in a battle that took place 80 years ago, in December 1944, in Athens? Dekemvriana (‘December events’), the clash of British troops and Greek government forces with Greek communist resistance fighters has become known, was a highly significant incident in World War II, which however remains little known outside of Greece. It was indeed the sole instance where Allied forces clashed in an armed conflict during the war, and the first military intervention by an Allied army in a liberated country. An intervention, which may chronologically fall within the context of World War II, which had not yet ended, but politically it shifts our gaze towards the Cold War, which had not yet begun. Furthermore, Dekemvriana was an instance of popular uprising with a distinct class-based character. Citizens, mainly from the poor districts of Athens and Piraeus, took up arms and fought against a well-organized and well-equipped Allied army operating with a colonial logic, and the Greek conservative forces that supported it. The insurgents may have been severely lacking in weapons and inadequately organized, but they were also driven by a deep belief that justice was on their side and that they fought for a democratic post-war Greece.
Dekemvriana is a typical example of how a deep crisis, and indeed in its worst possible form, that of war and a foreign military occupation, can in a very limited time sweep away political constellations, and provoke their rearrangement or even their complete overthrow on a national and international level.[1] The clash of December also shows us that in times of crisis, the relations of dependence between great powers and peripheral states, are revealed in their full extent. As we will see below, in their attempt to regain power, the Greek government-in-exile and the country’s King allowed, if not sought, the crude involvement of British political and military force in settling domestic Greek affairs. Dekemvriana was an dramatic concession of national independence. Finally, the Battle of Athens shows us that the post-war world had begun in earnest, well before field marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945.
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The sunny morning of Saturday, December 3 did not foreshadow what would follow. When the first large bloc of protesters appeared in the square, the police opened fire killing at least 13 protesters and injured more than 60. We know that the order for the police to shoot at the unarmed crowd was given by the Police Chief, Angelos Evert. However, we do not know who gave the order to Evert. Many pointed to the monarchists, who were the only ones who would likely benefit from a disrupted political process. The EAM decided not to make an armed response.
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Dekemvriana turned Athens into a battle field. Military operations began on December 4, 1944 and ended on January 11, 1945. They can be divided them into two phases: until December 17, when the ELAS had the initiative, with the small number of of British forces backed into a defensive posture; and after December 17, when the arrival of reinforcements gave the initiative to the British.