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Recently a Greek correspondent asked Dwight Griswold, head of the AMAG (American Mission for Aid to Greece), what should be done if an international Communist brigade moved into Greece.
"If they come in," said Griswold, "give them a good trouncing."
"How?" asked the Greek.
"Fight!" snapped Griswold.
Greek and American alike was asking: Whose war is it? Last week all hands were beginning to see the answer more clearly: it was everyone's fight who hoped to check Communism, whether Greek, American, Italian, French, British or Chinese.
Last week there were signs that the Greeks were ready to move in a spring offensive against Markos. In Athens, the staff of burly, battlewise Lieut. General James A. Van Fleet, chief U.S. military adviser to Greece, has been working out plans for an offensive against the Communist-led guerrillas. Hailing the Pieria action as "a splendid victory," Van Fleet was showing a knack for getting action out of reluctant guerrilla hunters.
Occasional Knocks. The contagion of hope was apparent in a vigorous Independence Day* talk from aged (88) Premier Themistocles Sophoulis. Said he:
"The facts show that the tactics of movement in concentrated force recently adopted by the new Greek army leaders have proved wiser and brought the first good results in the Pieria battle. The civilian population bears the brunt of the bandits, and is right in asking the army to guard them and their villages. However, this is not the wisest way of coping with banditry because, if dispersed, the army is weak. It is only possible to defeat banditry by concentration of our forces. The army must strike and its punches must be harder than those of the bandits. Therefore the villagers must be prepared to suffer occasional knocks."
The Greek government now has plenty to strike with U.S. aid has brought its army up to 132,000 men with good equipment, is increasing its National Guard (to release troops now garrisoning towns and villages) to 50,000. The new Sophoulis policy, if carried out, perhaps would answer the metered rhetoric of Lord Byron, who more than a century ago threw his life and lyrics into the cause of Greek independence:
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no!
The Uprooted Ones. The guerrillas who were keeping Greece in turmoil, though supported by the Muscovite, were not waiting for Moscow to send Russian troops to do their work. With far less aid than the Greek government had from the U.S., they had not only held out in their crags but had grown in numbers and vigor. In two years they had multiplied tenfold. They had raided and ravaged, living a hard mountain life unsolaced by Athenian cafés. A motley collection of uprooted folk, they had no status quo to preserve, no hopes to lose. Consequently they fought as desperate men. Their mission was akin to that of Communists everywhere: to uproot their countrymen, to spread despair, to kill hope, to smother enterprise, to prevent the sowing of crops, until even the tyranny of Communism would seem by comparison a haven.