Balkans

You are currently browsing the archive for the Balkans category.

9.4.41 [George Orwell]

April 9, 2011 in Balkans, Greece, Home Guard, Political, Serbs, War-time, budget, shotguns, tommy guns by orwelldiaries

The budget has almost knocked the Balkan campaign out of the news. It is the former and not the latter that I overhear people everywhere discussing. [1]

Read the rest of this entry »

7.4.41 [George Orwell]

April 7, 2011 in Abyssinia, Balkans, Battle of Cape Matapan, Belgrade, Benghazi, Germany, Greece, Hitler, Jugo-Slavia, Libya, Liddell Hart, Pioneers, Political, U.S.S.R., War-time, conscription by orwelldiaries

Belgrade bombed yesterday, and the first official announcement this morning that there is a British army in Greece – 150,000 men, so they say. So the mystery of where the British army in Libya had gone to it at last cleared up, though this had been obvious enough when the British retreated from Benghazi. Impossible to say yet whether the treaty of friendship between Jugo-Slavia and the U.S.S.R. means anything or nothing, but it is difficult to believe that it doesn’t point to a worsening of Russo-German relations. One will get another indication of the Russian attitude when and if the Emperor of Abyssinia is restored – i.e., whether the Russian government recognises him and sends an ambassador to his court.

Read the rest of this entry »

14.3.41 [George Orwell]

March 14, 2011 in Abyssinia, Balkans, Black Sea, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Haffner, Italy, Libya, Metaxas, Norway, Political, Salonika, Sicily, Tripoli, Turkey, U.S.A., War-time, Wavell, berlin, bombs, planes, propaganda, public opinion by orwelldiaries

For the last few days there have been rumours everywhere, also hints in the papers, that “something is going to happen” in the Balkans, i.e. that we are going to send an expeditionary force to Greece.  If so, it must presumably be the army now in Libya, or the bulk of it.[1]  I had heard a month back that Metaxas [2] before he died asked us for 10 divisions and we offered him 4.  It seems a terribly dangerous thing to risk an army anywhere west of the Straits.  To have any worthwhile ideas about the strategy of such a campaign, one would have to know how many men Wavell disposes of and how many are needed to hold Libya, how the shipping position stands, what the communications from Bulgaria into Greece are like, how much of their mechanised stuff the Germans have managed to bring across Europe, and who effectively controls the sea between Sicily and Tripoli.  It would be an appalling disaster if while our own main force was bogged in Salonika the Germans managed to cross the sea from Sicily and win back all the Italians have lost.  Everyone who thinks of the matter is torn both ways.  To place an army in Greece is a tremendous risk and doesn’t offer much positive gain, except that once Turkey is involved our warships can enter the Black Sea: on the other hand if we let Greece down we have demonstrated once and for all that we can’t and won’t help any European nation to keep its independence.  The thing I fear most is half-hearted intervention and a ghastly failure, as in Norway.  I am in favour of putting all our eggs in one basket and risking a big defeat, because I don’t think any defeat or victory in the narrow military sense matters so much as demonstrating that we are the side of the weak against the strong.

Read the rest of this entry »