ΟΙ ΔΥΟ ΟΧΘΕΣ 1939-1945. Μια προσπάθεια για εθνική συμφιλίωση (review)

164 Reviews eated in accounting for the resolution of the Greek-Ottoman dispute. Finally, Wrigley could have enhanced the importance and appeal of his book by making more of his many revelations, which are so casually and perhaps cautiously embedded in a narrative rendering of specific facts that they are likely to elude all but the specialist, who is already possessed of some larger context which alone makes them easily intelligible . For instance, what he shows but never fully states is that, British philhellenes and their home supporters notwithstanding, a British policy designed to limit the satisfaction of Greek national aspirations and preserve Ottoman territorial integrity to the extent possible was as characteristic of the 1820s as it was of later decades; that even then it was prompted more by future threats imagined than by actual threats entertained; and that nationalist upheaval within the Ottoman Empire was feared far back for its possible impact on the colonized populations of the British Empire, not merely for its direct threat to the strategic balance among the imperial states of Europe. John A. Petropulos Amherst College Alexandros L. Zaoussis, OI ΔΥΟ ΟΧΘΕΣ 1939-1945. Μια πϕοσπάθεια για εθνική συμφιλίωση. In 3 volumes. Athens: Papazisis . 1987. This is a three volume work on Greece during the Second World War. It covers the period from the outbreak of the war in 1939 to the Varkiza Agreement in February 1945 signed between the communistled EAM (National Liberation Front) on the one hand, and the British and the Greek Governments on the other, following a bitter confrontation in Athens during the previous December. The author, then a young student involved in the Resistance, is now a successful orthopedic surgeon and author of Memoirs of an anti-hero (Estia: Athens, 1980), which focuses on the same period. The first volume is a detailed and balanced account of what became commonly known as the Battle of Greece. This involved the Greek-Italian War, the valiant and desperate efforts on the Metaxas Line to repulse the German invasion from Bulgaria, and the Battle of Crete. In addition, this volume includes a critical examination both Reviews 165 of the ongoing vacillations of the political and military leadership in Athens in view of the forthcoming German invasion, and of the relevant negotiations with the British. The second volume analyzes the situation in occupied Greece up to the Liberation in October 1944 and the influence it had upon the activities of the Greek Governmentin -exile. The third volume considers events that led up to the civil confrontation in December of that year and follows their sequence to the Varkiza Agreement. Zaoussis' stated aim is to examine this period with impartiality while offering at the same time his own point of view on the events. The work is based on secondary sources and numerous interviews, mainly with members of the smaller nationalist resistance organizations . This is in accordance with another main intention of the author, namely, to draw attention to the contribution of individuals—members of these organizations—who performed acts of unrivaled personal courage and sacrifice. Despite the fact that the clandestine activities of these individuals ranged from intelligence work to daring and successful acts of sabotage, their contributions have remained largely unknown and unrecorded. Attention to their work, Zaoussis believes, is long overdue and he does not mince words about it; the discussion of the Resistance is valuable and moving, and his argument that the role of small nationalist organizations has not so far been properly evaluated in the ever-growing historiography of the period is forcefully put. His approach to the broader questions raised by the events of the period, however, reveals his selectivity. Whereas he elaborates on the armed confrontations between the major resistance organizations in trying accurately to apportion blame, he ignores the main issue around which all other questions revolve: the struggle for political power in postwar Greece. This struggle was clearly anticipated and had already been set in motion by the time the fortunes of war started to favor the Allies. By not taking this issue into account, that is, in his apparent effort to avoid too close an entanglement in the political controversies that dominate the period, the author in fact rejects the...