Metaxas and the British Bases — Athens, November 1940
General , Prime Minister and authoritarian strongman of Greece since 1936, has just rejected the Italian ultimatum: his country has been at war with Italy since 28 October 1940. To general surprise, the Greek army holds and soon throws Mussolini's divisions back into Albania.
This resistance makes Greece a suddenly precious ally for London. Britain sees in it above all a strategic opportunity: stationing RAF squadrons on Greek soil, near Salonika, would bring the Romanian oilfields of Ploiești — vital to the Reich — within bombing range. British squadrons under Air Commodore d'Albiac arrive as early as November 1940.
But Metaxas calculates to the finest margin. He is convinced his army can overcome the Italians; he is far less sure of holding against the Wehrmacht. A forward British air presence to the north would weigh on the fragile balance that Berlin is still observing. The decisive question bears on the employment of these squadrons: will Metaxas accept bases in the north, towards Salonika and the Bulgarian frontier, or limit their deployment?
As London demands bases towards Salonika, what does Metaxas decide?
Metaxas chose B. He accepted limited air assistance but refused the forward bases towards Salonika and the Bulgarian frontier, fearing to give the Germans the motive for an invasion: British bases too weak to repel a German offensive would, in his view, be enough to furnish Berlin with the pretext to invade Greece and protect its oil. He even preferred to face the Italians without a British land expeditionary corps, convinced that aid too visible and too weak "would provoke a German attack without being strong enough to repel it". His caution delayed the Wehrmacht's intervention, but did not avert it: Metaxas died on 29 January 1941, and his successor Korizis still refused the Salonika bases. When the British finally landed troops in the spring of 1941, it was exactly the pretext Hitler had been waiting for: Operation Marita crushed Greece in April 1941.
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