A Brief History
On March 6, 1943, the Battle of Fardykambos was fought between the Greek Resistance and the invading Italian Army. The Resistance won the battle, with nearly an entire Italian battalion surrendering.
Digging Deeper
In the past we have talked about odd named wars and battles, but despite the funny sounding names, these conflicts are not funny. The Greeks suffered 4 dead with another 13 wounded and the Italians lost 565 captured, 96 dead, and 79 wounded.
Italy was on a path of conquest, and part of their plan was to seize Greece, which they invaded in 1940. Failing to subdue the Greek population, their German and Bulgarian allies joined the occupation of Greece in 1941. The Axis occupation of Greece lasted until the Axis abandoned Greece in 1944.
Greece was looted of food and resources during the occupation, suffered many casualties among partisan fighters, and endured atrocities committed by the occupiers.
Question for students (and subscribers): Have you ever visited Greece? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44. Yale University Press, 2001.
Stassinopoulos, Costas. Modern Greeks: Greece in World War II: The German Occupation and National Resistance and Civil War. American Hellenic Institute Foundation, Inc, 2005.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Sjt. Johnson of EAM-ELAS partisans, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
