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Peter had fled by air to Athens. There he composed his declaration—his was the only true authority, etc., etc.—and tried to broadcast it to the world. The week's most pathetic irony was that Peter's words failed to get by the Greek censor—for reasons still unknown. Then Peter boarded another plane and set out for Palestine. On the way the plane was attacked by an Axis fighter, and one of Peter's Ministers was killed. But the hurt plane reached Jerusalem, a new cradle for Free Yugoslavia.
George's flight was by steamer, from the crowded, bomb-tangled port of Peirae-us. As he left, he released his heroic, echoing formula: ". . . hard destinies of war . . . lawful Government . . . continue the fight . . . resistance to the end. . . ." Then, by night, the steamer picked its way to Suda Bay, Crete, and King George, his brother and his Ministers proceeded to Candia, where the monarch called the first Cabinet meeting of Free Greece.
Retreat from Glory. On the Western Front the defeat was hard for the Greeks to take. There for five months they had held in check the huge but inept Italian machine. But last week the Germans cut across and looped in behind the Greek force—through the Pindus Mountains, to Yanina. The Greeks, in a pocket, had no choice but to surrender.
Here came one of the strangest curiosities of World War II. On Monday, April 21, Greek General Tsolakoglou capitulated to the Germans. But either the Germans did not tell the Italians, or Mussolini, anxious to win his own capitulation, did not tell his people. So Mussolini, who had vowed "to crush the kidneys" of the Greeks, went right on hurling his soldiers against the stubborn Greek wall, until he had lost 6,000 men. On Wednesday, April 23, when the Greek situation was clearly hopeless, General Tsolakoglou finally surrendered to the Italians.
Again Thermopylae. Last week the British acknowledged the spectacular fighting which had been done by Australians and New Zealanders in Greece by appointing as second in command in the entire Middle East the Australian commander, Lieut. General Sir Thomas Blarney. On the day of this honor, Sir Thomas' men were in a tight spot. They had carried out a magnificent withdrawal across the plains of Thessaly.
During the retreat, the R.A.F. had done its level and dive-bombing best. One pilot, who had flown a total of 120 hours, said: "There are too many of them. We do not have the aircraft and they are destroying our airfields. The troops at the front are running out of ammunition and we can't stop the Hun by dive-bombing roads. . . . Three of our aircraft set off loaded with bombs from which the detonators had been removed in order to drop them for our sappers so they would have demolition explosives. But the planes were shot down before they could do their work." Outnumbered numerically by at least 8-to-1, the R.A.F. planes in the end were further hampered by the necessity of falling back on Crete's airfields, so far away that most fighters had only 40 minutes' fuel over the battlefields.