‘Behind All This façade’. The Special Operations Executive in Greece in the Light of New Documents

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the activities of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Greece during World War II, re-evaluating the stormy relationship between SOE and the Foreign Office (FO) in the light of previously unused SOE records. Although standard accounts of SOE in Greece blame the Foreign Office for its inability to understand the situation and, indirectly, for the outbreak of the Civil War in December 1944, this article argues that both SOE and the Foreign Office were out of touch with what was happening in occupied Greece. It also argues that between September 1942 and the Spring of 1943, SOE intentionally acted behind the back of the Foreign Office, deeply entangling itself in the Greek resistance movement without any real awareness of the political situation in the country. For intelligence studies, this story provides a unique insight into the British approach to the political complexities of occupied Europe during World War II. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This article is a free-standing piece, which is based but does not overlap with my forthcoming book, ‘The Big Three Allies and the European Resistance. Intelligence, Politics, and the Origins of the Cold War. 1939 –1945’ (Oxford UP, January 2024).2. War Cabinet Home Defense (Security) Executive. Special Operations Executive, 19 July 1941, published in W. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE: Special Operations Executive 1940–1945 (London, 2000), 753–55.3. Ibid., 346. See also N. Wylie, “Ungentlemanly Warriors or Unreliable Diplomats? Special Operations Executive and ‘Irregular Political Activities’ in Europe,” Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 1 (2005).4. Memorandum. Relations between SOE and the Foreign Office, published in Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 759–62.5. D. Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 1940–1945: a Survey of the Special Operations Executive, with Documents (London, 1980), 78.6. C. Goulter‐Zervoudakis, “The Politicization of Intelligence: The British Experience in Greece, 1941–1944,” Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 1 (1998): 165–194, R. Clogg, ‘’Pearls from Swine’: the Foreign Office Papers, SOE and the Greek Resistance’, in R. Clogg (ed.) Anglo-Greek Attitudes: Studies in history (London 2000), 78–107 and Clogg, ‘The Special Operations Executive in Greece’, 6–77.7. E.C.W. Myers, Greek Entanglement (London, 1985), C.M. Woodhouse, Apple of Discord. A Survey of Recent Greek Politics in their International Setting (Reston, VA 1985) and C.M. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949 (Chicago 2003). For a critical review of memoirs of British SOE agents in Greece see O. Smith, ‘The Memoirs and Reports of The British Liaison Officers in Greece, 1942–1944: Problems of Source Value’, Journal of Hellenic Diaspora, 11 (1984): 9–33.8. Clogg, “The Special Operations Executive in Greece,” 61.9. Ibid., 77.10. On this, reference can be made to R. Frazier, Anglo-American Relations with Greece: The Coming of the Cold War, 1942–47 (London, 1991), T. Sfikas, The British Labour Government and the Greek Civil War, 1945–1949: The Imperialism of ‘Non-intervention’ (Keele 1994), D. Close, The Origins of the Greek Civil War (London, 1995) and A. Gerolymatos, An International Civil War: Greece, 1943–1949 (New Haven, CT 2016).11. Recent accounts on specific aspects of SOE activities in Greece which used declassified SOE records include J. Crossland, “The Mutiny That Never Was: The Special Operations Executive and the Failure of Operation ‘Kitchenmaid’,” Intelligence and National Security 28, no. 6 (2013): 808–23 and T. Dyson, ‘British Policies towards Axis Reprisals in Occupied Greece: Whitehall vs SOE’, Contemporary British History 16, no. 1 (2002): 11–28.12. Middle East and Balkans Jan-Mar 1943, p. 445, in NA, HS 7/268 and SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 1–6), p. 97 in NA, HS 7/150.13. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), p. 134 in NA, HS 7/151 and Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 149.14. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), pp. 174–75, in NA, HS 7/151.15. D/HA [Amery] to D/HV [Pearson], 20 September 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.16. Gerolymatos, An International Civil War, 77; Inside Greece. A review (by Brigadier Myers), 19–20, in NA, HS 7/152; SOE activities in Greece, pp. 11–12, in NA, HS 7/158 and K. Nalmpantis, Time on the Mountain: the Office of Strategic Services in Axis-Occupied Greece, 1943–1944 (2010), 68.17. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), pp. 181–84, in NA, HS 7/151.18. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), pp. 139, in NA, HS 7/151.19. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), pp. 197–200, in NA, HS 7/151.20. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), p. 222, in NA, HS 7/151.21. L. Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, III (London 1971), 384–385.22. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), pp. 229–32, in NA, HS 7/151.23. Clogg, ‘The Special Operations Executive in Greece’, 73–74 and SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), 242, in NA, HS 7/151.24. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), p. 161, in NA, HS 7/151.25. Glenconner to Dixon, 21 March 1942, in NA, HS 5/738. The proposal of an unofficial declaration originated in Cairo. Cipher telegram received from Cairo, 1 March 1942, in NA, HS 5/738.26. V. Hionidou, Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944 (Cambridge 2006), 2.27. Ibid., 238. For more recent work on the Greek communist party during the war, see N. Marantzidis, Under Stalin’s Shadow: A Global History of Greek Communism (Ithaca, NY 2023).28. The point was indeed clear for Selborne. See Selborne to Glenconner, September 10, 1942, in NA, HS 5/738.29. Dixon to Glenconner, March 28, 1942, in NA, HS 5/738.30. SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), p. 257, in NA, HS 7/151.31. Local nr. 546. Cipher telegram despatched to Cairo Alph, July 29, 1942, in NA, HS 3/169.32. From Foreign Office to Minister of State Cairo, August 12, 1942, in NA, HS 3/145.33. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 189. See also S. Kelly, “A Succession of Crises: SOE in the Middle East, 1940–45,” Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 1 (2005): 121–46.34. Glenconner’s diary, p. 13, in Imperial War Museum, Private Papers of Lord Glenconner, box n. 76/150/1.35. Aide-Memoire, 5 August 1942, in NA, HS 5/655 and Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 164.36. Selborne to Glenconner, September 10, 1942, in NA, HS 5/738.37. Middle East and Balkans Sep-Dec 1942, pp. 222–23, in NA, HS 7/267.38. CD [Hambro] to SO [Selborne], September 26, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.39. Cipher telegram to Cairo 447, September 25, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.40. CD [Hambro] to SO [Selborne], September 26, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.41. A/D [Taylor] to DCD(A) [Hanbury-Williams], September 21, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213 and D/H109 [Boxshall] to D/HV [Pearson], 19 September 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.42. D/HV [Pearson] to DCD/A [Hanbury-Williams], September 19, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.43. A/D [Taylor] to DCD(A) [Hanbury-Williams], September 21, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.44. In any case, SOE had obtained permission to keep working with its contacts in occupied Greece until when the action committee was fully functional. Middle East and Balkans Sep-Dec 1942, pp. 222–23, in NA, HS 7/267.45. D/H131 [Noel-Baker] to D/H109 [Boxshall], September 25, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.46. D/HV [Pearson] to A/D3 [Glenconner], September 29, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.47. D/H131 [Noel-Baker] to D/H109 [Boxshall], September 25, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.48. D/HV [Pearson] to H/B, September 26, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.49. Person’s 15 October handwritten note on D/H131 [Noel Baker] to D/H109 [Boxshall], 14 October 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.50. Sargent’s minute, April 23, 1943, in NA, FO 371/37201 [R3348].51. Istanbul to Cairo 698, September 21, 1942, in King’s College London, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Woodhouse papers, 1/1.52. D/HV [Pearson] to CD [Hambro] (through A/DU), 25 March 1943, in NA, HS 5/213. Apparently, Woodhouse discussed the mission with Kanellopoulos, although from Woodhouse’s account it is not clear which details did he disclose to the Greek politician. In C. Woodhouse, Personal Reminiscences of the Guerrilla War in Greece, 1942–4 (1965), p. 3, in Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Woodhouse papers, 5/1/2.53. E.g. CD [Hambro] to SO [Selborne], 26 September 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.54. Tsellos and the “Centre of Co-ordination,” February 16, 1943, in NA, HS 5/283 and SOE Activities in Greece 1940–1942 by Major Ian Pirie (chapters 7–18), p. 332 in NA, HS 7/151.55. D/HV [Pearson] to CD [Hambro], October 15, 1942, in NA, HS 5/213.56. DSO(B) [Tamplin] to G [Glenconner], November 6, 1942, in NA, HS 5/655.57. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 452–53.58. Quoted in Middle East and Balkans Sep-Dec 1942 (page 151–387), p. 335, in NA, HS 7/267.59. From Keble to DMO, GHQ, MEF, 5 December 1942, in NA HS, 5/655.60. Notes on Working of Anglo-Greek Committee and Centre of Co-ordination in Greece, [December 1943], in NA, HS 5/283.61. Allied military mission in Greece Sep 1942-Dec 1944, p. 34, by Colonel C M Woodhouse DSO OBE, in NA, HS 7/154.62. SOE Activities in Greece, December 10, 1942, in NA, HS 5/739.63. Hammond, The Allied Military Mission and the Resistance in West Macedonia (Thessaloniki 1993), 20.64. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 453.65. Local Nr. 497. Cipher telegram received from Cairo N. COS/3407, January 25, 1943, in NA, HS 5/305.66. Sheppard’s report is quoted in Political aspects of the Greek Resistance Movement [March 1943], in NA, FO 371/37201 [R2050]67. Allied Military Mission in Greece September 1942 - December 1944 (by Colonel C M Woodhouse DSO OBE), 40, in NA, HS 7/154.68. E.A.M. Most secret [March 1943], in NA, HS 5/739.69. Notes by D/HA [Pirie] on D/H394’s [Myers] telegram, in NA, HS 5/305.70. Middle East and Balkans Jan-Mar 1943, p. 471, in NA, HS 7/268.71. B6/2/34, Eddie from Keble, January 29, 1944, in Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Woodhouse papers 1/4.72. From Foreign Office to Minister of State, February 3, 1943, in NA, FO 371/37201 [R654].73. Inside Greece. A review (by Brigadier Myers), 24, in NA, HS 7/152 and Conference held by Col. Myers with several Greek guerrilla leaders during the first week in February, 1943, in NA, HS 5/305.74. Myers, Greek Entanglement, 115.75. Chiper telegrams from Cairo 273–275, February 16, 1943, in NA, HS 5/739.76. CD [Hambro] to AD/S, February 26, 1942, in NA, HS 5/739.77. Copy of telegram Received from Lord Glenconnor [sic], in NA, FO 371/37201 [R1818] and From Minister of State Cairo to Foreign office, February 24, 1942, in NA, FO 371/37201 [R1614]78. Dixon note to Greece: SOE activities, January 24, 1942, in NA FO 371/37201 [R1614].79. Allied Military Mission in Greece September 1942 - December 1944 (by Colonel C M Woodhouse DSO OBE), p. 41, in NA, HS 7/154.80. Inside Greece. A review (by Brigadier Myers), 26, in NA, HS 7/152.81. Political aspects of the Greek Resistance Movement [March 1943], and Minute by Dixon, March 7, 1943, in NA, FO 371/37201 [R2050]. Also in Clogg, ‘’Pearls from Swine’’, 84 and Goulter‐Zervoudakis, ‘The Politicization of Intelligence’, 175.82. Sargent to DC [Hambro], March 14, 1943, in NA, HS 5/739.83. Howard to Pearson, March 23, 1943, in NA, HS 5/739 and Clogg, ‘’Pearls from Swine’’, 85–86.84. As quoted in Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, III, 391.85. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949, 38.86. Frazier, Anglo-American Relations with Greece, 13.87. D. Eudes, The Kapetanios: Partisans and the Civil War in Greece 1943–49 (New York 1972), 62, C. Chiclet, Les Communistes Grecs dans la Guerre: Historie du Parti Communiste de Grèce de 1941 à 1949 (Paris 1987), 45–46 and for the terms of the proposal Brigadier Myers’ comments on the E.A.M. Counterproposals to the National Band Agreement, in NA, HS 5/739.88. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949, 43.89. Clogg, ‘’Pearls from Swine’’, 86.90. Inside Greece. A review (by Brigadier Myers), 41, in NA, HS 7/152.91. Allied Military Mission in Greece September 1942 - December 1944 (by Colonel C M Woodhouse DSO OBE), 72, in NA, HS 7/154.92. J. Loulis, The Greek Communist Party, 1940–1944 (London 1982), 89. For an account of the Cairo talks see also P. Papastratis, British Policy towards Greece during the Second World War 1941–1944 (Cambridge 1984), 104–12.93. Selborne to Sargent, August 19, 1943, in NA, HS 5/743.94. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE, 473.95. Ibid., 510–11.96. Quoted in O. Wieviorka, The Resistance in Western Europe, 1940–1945 (New York, NY 2019), 32.97. Quoted in Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 17.98. S. Tsoutsoumpis, A History of the Greek Resistance in the Second World War: The People’s Armies (Manchester, 2016), 58–60.Additional informationNotes on contributorsTommaso PifferTommaso Piffer is an Associate Professor of Contemporary history at the University of Udine (Italy). Previously, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, a post-doctoral fellow at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and the Bodossakis Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Among his publications are an account of the relationship between the Allies and the Italian Resistance during World War II (Gli Alleati e la Resistenza Italiana, Il Mulino, 2010) and the collection of essays Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition (with Vladislav Zubok, CEU Press, 2017).