During the Second World War, recruits to Elas, Greece’s communist-led guerrilla army, included several hundred officers of the country’s pre-war regular army. Today, the declassified files of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, which include the reports of British military personnel sent to Greece to work with Elas, challenge established images of the motivations, status and influence of those Greek officers. Indicating a more complex and fractured relationship between professional Greek military personnel and the Elas political leadership, these sources also suggest grounds on which to counter postwar claims that anticommunist bias is a sufficient explanation for criticisms of Elas found in British accounts.
