Balkans · Germany and Italy vs Greece and British Commonwealth
German Invasion of Greece
6 April 1941 – 30 April 1941
Operation Marita attacked Greece through Bulgaria and southern Yugoslavia, outflanking the Metaxas Line and the Greek army committed against Italy in Albania. A British Commonwealth expeditionary force fought delaying actions before evacuating from the Peloponnese.
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Day by day
— Marita
List's Twelfth Army attacks out of Bulgaria at 05:15, straight at the Metaxas Line forts along the Rupel gorge and the Nestos. The forts hold for three days. The real damage is done to the west, where the drive through southern Yugoslavia turns the whole position, and the Greek army's best fourteen divisions are still facing the Italians in Albania.
— Thessaloniki
The 2nd Panzer Division comes down the Axios valley behind the Metaxas Line and enters Thessaloniki on the morning of the 9th; the Greek Second Army in eastern Macedonia surrenders that day, its forts still unbroken. W Force gives up the Aliakmon position and falls back on the Olympus and Servia passes. At Vevi the Leibstandarte comes through the Monastir gap into the gap between the two Allied armies.
— Epirus
The Leibstandarte turns west over the Metsovo pass and gets behind the Greek army in Albania, which has fought the Italians to a standstill for six months and cannot turn round. General Tsolakoglou surrenders the Army of Epirus on the 20th, to the Germans alone; Mussolini insists the act be repeated with an Italian signature on the 23rd. W Force is falling back on Thermopylae.
— Athens
The Thermopylae line is held on the 24th to cover the embarkation and then given up. Paratroops drop on the Corinth canal on the 26th and take the bridge, which blows up under them, cutting off some of the rearguard. Motorcyclists of the 2nd Panzer Division reach Athens on the morning of the 27th and raise the swastika over the Acropolis.
— The beaches
The Royal Navy lifts about 50,000 of the 62,000 men of W Force off open beaches in the Peloponnese over five nights, most of them to Crete, and loses two destroyers and four transports doing it. Some 8,000 are taken at Kalamata after the last ships have gone. Mainland Greece is occupied and divided between Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.
