The defense of Konitsa seemed to stir a new spirit in the national Greek army. Now an American-equipped and -advised force some 200,000 men (with eight infantry divisions and three independent brigades, supported by artillery, armor and aircraft), it should have been to easily handle 23,000 insurgents. But so far it had been slow to take the offensive, and its’search-and-clear’ operations had often showed little in the way of results. Konitsa, however, was the turning of a corner.

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In 1947, a coalition government was formed in Athens that included Papandreou, who had been prime minister of the Free Greek government during the war, and Colonel Zervas of EDES. Zervas became the new minister for public order and promptly arrested some 3,000 Communists and condemned a number to death.

Soon, in the villages and city streets of Greece, counter-terror followed terror. The government cracked down so hard of leftist sympathizers, including the use of public executions and permanent detentions, that the United States and Britain protested the harsh measures. For their part, the Communists used up any good will they could have harbored by a cycle of vicious behavior that is almost unbelievable.

In March 1947, in a move that brought widespread international protest, they carried off more than 28,000 Greek children to Communist countries, to be brought up under Communist regimes and where many live to this day. (The Communists, incidentally, had made a similar move during the Spanish Civil War, some 20 years earlier.)

The taking of the children was the final straw that turned the people of the villages against the Communists. What ever popular base of support the Reds had enjoyed in northern Greece was now irrevocably finished. By 1948, the masses of American equipment, including Helldiver attack dive bombers and napalm, were also having their effect. The U.N. General Assembly condemned Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria for aiding the rebels. For the Communists, even worse was to follow. Yugoslavia broke with Russia and was expelled from the Cominform. In 1949, it would close its frontier with Greece, cutting off the rebels from sanctuary.

On April 15, 1948, the Greek army began Operation DAWN to clear the mountains of central Greece of insurgents. Army mountain commandos traveled over the countryside at night to launch surprise assaults at dawn, catching the guerrillas off guard. Aided by a late snowstorm, government troops in three successive waves captured 1,300 rebels and killed another 650. The surviving guerrillas retreated toward the main Communist base in the mountains to the north.

Perhaps realizing that there was no longer any way he could win militarily, Marko broadcast a call for a cease-fire over the rebel radio in Belgrade in May. But Nikos Zakhariadis, the secretary general of the Greek Communist Party and the real power behind the insurgent struggle, refused to give in. Instead, he ordered Markos to abandon his guerrilla strategy and operate in conventional, small brigades of three of four battalions–another mistake.

In June 1948 came Operation CORONIS. Forty thousand army troops attacked 8,000 andartes in the Grammos Mountains, a series of steep ridges stretching south from the Albanian border. Peaks ranged up to 8,000 feet, and there was not even a dirt track the Greek army could use as a road. Throughout the long summer of 1948, the two opposing forces battled for the heights of the Grammos Mountains. To take a mountain called ‘Kleftis’ (the thief), government troops poured 20,000 artillery shells onto the peak. It was finally taken in hand-to-hand fighting. But Markos had called in another 4,000 guerrillas, and sometime in late August he broke out of the government’s trap. The government claimed 3,000 guerrilla dead against a loss of only 800 Greek Communist Party troops killed.

Not letting up the pressure, the Greek army again went on the offensive. This time it was in the Vitsi Mountains area, where the army had partially encircled the elusive Markos and 13,000 guerrillas. The Communists counterattacked and pushed the national troops back, but at a heavy price in casualties.

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