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Importance of Greece during WWII

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Nicophorus said:
The thing with Albania is, it was not Albania's "will" to keep Greece from the Greek inhabited areas of southern Albania after ww1, but ITALYS will. But after ww2, with Italy on the wrong side and the allies no longer needing to satisfy them by keeping Greece out of the western gateway to the Adriatic (Epirus), it is perplexing that the Allies did not turn over this land, especially since it was land that not only Greeks lived in, but Greeks bleed in and won battles vs. the Axis in.
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What exactly is perplexing? It was already noted that the pre-war borders were the guiding principle. All of the exceptions were done either to accommodate major Cold War powers or to weaken the major Axis powers. Neither Greece was a Cold War era power player nor was Albania a viable threat to anybody, thus the guiding principle was applied. Considering how the Polish borders and post-war affiliation was handled, I don't think it is reasonable to complain.
 
Amallric said:
The general guideline regarding borders after WWII was return to the status quo, September 1st 1939. With regard to the Soviet Union, this was changed to status quo, June 22 1941. As a result Poland obtained a compensation. But it was an exception. The problem of alien minorities in East Europe was not dealt with by changing the borders, as this approach was tried after WW1 and failed, but by relocating the minorities themselves.
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Stalin seriously considered Polish border along the Easter Neisse as late as mid 1945, so the new Polish western border was never seen as compensation. Polish border was moved westwards because Stalin was unsure the future status of Germany and acknowledged the possibility of withdrawal from there in the future. For such scenario he needed to have Poland as much to the west as possible, since Poland was already falling under his sway in late 1944. Had Stalin knew that he will keep Eastern Germany, modern Poland would probably have modern eastern border and pre-WW2 Western border with some minor corrections (likely Polish annexation of Danzig and Polish-speaking communities in Upper Silesia or Masuria).

Besides, modern Poland is just 80% of her pre-war size.
 
Enravota said:
What exactly is perplexing? It was already noted that the pre-war borders were the guiding principle. All of the exceptions were done either to accommodate major Cold War powers or to weaken the major Axis powers. Neither Greece was a Cold War era power player nor was Albania a viable threat to anybody, thus the guiding principle was applied. Considering how the Polish borders and post-war affiliation was handled, I don't think it is reasonable to complain.
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And yet Ethiopia was given Italian Eritrea.

Still perplexed.
 
Colonies are a different matter alltogether, all colonies that belonged to Axis countries were taken from them. The only exception I can think of is Okinawa, which had very special circumstances and was only really decided in the 70's in an entirely different context. In fact I think the retrocession of Dodecanese to Greece can be explained in exactly this way: it was seen as a "colony" of Italy.
 
Amallric said:
Colonies are a different matter alltogether, all colonies that belonged to Axis countries were taken from them. The only exception I can think of is Okinawa, which had very special circumstances and was only really decided in the 70's in an entirely different context. In fact I think the retrocession of Dodecanese to Greece can be explained in exactly this way: it was seen as a "colony" of Italy.
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Albania was as much a colony of Italy as anything else, lets get real.

Was not coastal Lybia "legal part of Italy" and not a "colony" either?
 
It has been an independent country in Europe before. I don't think this is about legal definitions, but rather about general conceptions people had about things.
 
Kyriakos said:
^Post contains 100% troll ;)
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I don't see the trollishness in it. It seems like a reasonable assessment of the importance of Greece in WWII. That doesn't mean that the people and soldiers of Greece didn't fight hard. Just that they were doomed. However compared to (for example) The Netherlands or Denmark they certainly put up more resistance before the inevitable fall.
 
Nicophorus said:
And yet Ethiopia was given Italian Eritrea.

Still perplexed.
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It was Ethiopian before the Italian took it over. After the Mahdist rebellion in Sudan and Egypt, the British gave Eritrea to Ethiopia. Since the Italians were losing all their colonies, Eritrea reverted back to its previous owner.

In addition, there was never self-rule there, and the region had been disputed since the Portuguese arrived between the Ethiopians and the Turks.
 
Jolt said:
It was Ethiopian before the Italian took it over. After the Mahdist rebellion in Sudan and Egypt, the British gave Eritrea to Ethiopia. Since the Italians were losing all their colonies, Eritrea reverted back to its previous owner.

In addition, there was never self-rule there, and the region had been disputed since the Portuguese arrived between the Ethiopians and the Turks.
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Sounds exactly like North Epirus then, except there was self rule there in the very recent past, and a long history of indigenous Greek rule too.

And if I recall, the Emperor in Ethiopia had to wheel and deal for Eritrea after ww2. It was not just shoved on him for justice. The Greek claim on North Epirus was far stronger in all levels, including self determination (which was non existent in the Eritrean case, and wound up in a very bloody decades long civil war).

Sweeping all this under a rug and waving ones hands over "but Albania was independent" rings hollow. Albania was a new construct of Austria and Italy (pseudo colony) that only eventually could be called a nation. Italy forcing the Greeks of North Epirus into "Albania" was just a easier way for them to gain control of the approaches to the Adriatic then just calling it Eastern Neo-Apulia and sending in a military governor.

This wrong, by a failed Axis power, should of been corrected in the same way Rhodes was corrected after ww2.
 
In fact, relatively few threads deal with "righting the wrongs". I generally avoid them, which I didn't do in this case because I had the impression you wanted to understand what happened and why. Since your concern is what should have happened according to your own vision of "justice", I now walk away. No offence meant, but this is indeed not something this forum is about in my opinion.
 
Ok I see your point and accept the answer that it was just not important enough, to anyone, to be a issue in those years. The only country that I would of expected to raise a stink about it would be Greece. But perhaps they were far too busy with their brewing civil war for it to matter.

Or does someone know if Greece did in fact "try" to make this an issue?

Yes I did veer off into "righting the wrongs", I was thinking about current EU disunity and bitterness towards ones neighbor over there. Many little things and grudges built up.
 
Nicophorus said:
Sounds exactly like North Epirus then, except there was self rule there in the very recent past, and a long history of indigenous Greek rule too.
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It doesn't. North Epirus was part of Albania since Albania was formed. Hence, with the defeat of Italy, the territory reverted back to its previous owner, Albania.
 
But did Greece actually formally claim that area of Albania at any stage? Just because there were Greek insurgents there doesn't mean it was a national priority for the country to annex the region.

About Eritrea, I don't think it's correct to say that Ethiopia ever "owned" it before the Italians. There was no country called Eritrea, the Ottomans had nominally controlled the coastal zone (and later the Egyptians) and there were some states in the region which occasionally paid tribute to the Ethiopian Emperor, but which were mostly independent, like Medri Bahri and the Awsa Sultanate.
 
That infamous "percentage agreement" is bogus anyway. It was never supposed to be taken seriously. Some second-rate scholar must have found it and made all that fuss about it. Of course Albania was going to be in the Sovier "sphere of influence" because Communist partisans ruled the country almost unopposed since 1943.
 
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