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Down from the rocky ridges and snow-choked gullies the guerrillas straggled last week. Some were barefoot, some wore slabs of leather tied about their feet with string. Two Greek government forces, catching the rebels in a pincers northwest of Mt. Olympus, had driven them up the slopes of Mt. Pieria, up beyond the snow line. There the guerrillas' food gave out. Some ate their mules. By week's end, after a month of fighting, over 800 had been captured or had surrendered. They left the corpses of about 800 more behind them on the heights.
The Contagion of Hope. The Greek army's rout of these guerrillas, many of them untrained, ill-armed recruits for Communist Markos Vafiades' army, was one of the few positive achievements that could be claimed for the Truman Doctrine after a full year. The battle of Mt. Pieria was neither great nor glorious. It was, however, important: for the first time in a year the Greek government forces, instead of trying to "contain" the guerrillas, had taken the offensive. Just as the U.S. had finally begun to crowd the Communists with political moves like the Trieste trump in Italy and General Lucius Clay's tough stand in Germany, so the Greek army was no longer Content to sit back and wait for the next Communist threat.
The various anti-Communist moves throughout Europe were not part of a definite plan; but they had a connection. Testifying last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal had said: "The disease of despair is contagious, but there is a greater contagion in hope."
The mass of the people in Europe and Asia wanted to be let alone. They did not want to fight for or against the Reds. The mass of the U.S. people did not want to fight, either. There was a strong tendency in the U.S. to wait for the Greeks, the Italians, the French and the Chinese to do it, and an equally strong tendency abroad to wait for the U.S. If both waited, both would be lost.
The Big Ones. Since Truman had proclaimed the U.S. policy of defending Greece, most Greeks had asked themselves: Why not sit back and let the U.S. and Russia fight it out? One young conscript, an Athenian grocer's son, put it this way: "Why does America help us at all? They have it all worked out, the big ones. We are just holding the position for them until they are ready."
A TIME correspondent asked a Greek lieutenant, who had fought with exceptional bravery against the Italians and Germans, what had happened to the spirit of seven years ago. The lieutenant shrugged: "This war in Greece is a battle between the United States and Russia. It happens that it's being fought here. That is our bad luck. But you can't expect us to fight your battle singlehanded—at least not with the old spirit."
Reluctant Hunters. On the other hand, Americans, seeing more & more U.S. aid going to Greece, wondered why the Greeks didn't buckle down to the job and wipe out the Communist guerrillas. U.S. advisers have urged the Greek-army, scattered among its fortified positions, to get out on the offensive. Greek generals replied that they were not well enough armed.