1941: The Greek King’s Bodyguard
April 23, 2024
By AHNZ
Today in history, 23 April, 1941, New Zealand troops formed the bodyguard to King George II of Greece. Our men safely evacuated George from Greece to Crete and on the Egypt.
“KING OF GREECE ENTERTAINS NEW ZEALANDERS WHO FORMED HIS BODYGUARD IN RETREAT ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS OF CRETE”
The thing about George (who was related to our recently deceased Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and looks like him too) is he was a bit of a fascist. He was a totalitarian like Hitler and Mussolini.
Instead of being friends with the Axis though, he was our fascist totalitarian dictator. So, Prime Minister Peter Fraser and General Bernard Freyberg rescued him. Good move? Or, another in a long line of Kiwi WW2 stuff ups?
It seems that our General Freyberg as well as the King himself wanted to get out far sooner and on their own terms rather than make it look like a timid running away from the German invasion. The War Office refused this, keeping on the King as a sort of puppet atop his castle for their own strategic and propagandist reasons. Sounds like the King’s sovereignty had left him at gunpoint and those guns were those of New Zealanders.
“New Zealanders formed a bodyguard and ‘rescued’ King George II on the evacuation trail through Greece and Crete more or less like luggage against his own will. Not exactly the moral cause worthy of lions. We were, at that point, being told what to do by twits. And, obeying like good little slaves. That made us weak. Before the Great Rediscovery and Awakening the Ango-Zelandian was not in charge of his own fate.” – 1941: The Greek Campaign, AHNZ
“The king supported Ioannis Metaxas’ 1936 self-coup, which established the authoritarian, nationalist and anti-communist 4th of August Regime…signing decrees that dissolved the parliament, banned political parties, abolished the constitution and purported to create a “Third Hellenic Civilization”. George, ruling jointly with Metaxas, oversaw a right-wing regime in which political opponents were arrested and strict censorship was imposed. Many books, such as the works of Plato, Thucydides and Xenophon, were banned. Though not branded as a fascist regime, Metaxas’s dictatorship heavily imitated that of Benito Mussolini in Italy, whom Adolf Hitler had also been inspired by in Germany.” – Wiki
During the evacuation of His Majesty one of the Kiwi soldiers, also named George, decided some of the royal baggage was too much bother. After all, it was just an annoying and heavy suitcase. So, he left it in the hills. Later he learned that it was full of cash belonging to the people of Greece. Ref. Spectrum, RNZ (1992,) NZ Sound and Vision
In the State History of New Zealand the facts tend to be elided and we’re just supposed to have a somber wreath-laying ceremony and look at “Greece” on various ANZAC inscriptions around New Zealand. In Anarchist History of New Zealand the facts matter and maybe our involvements are not so clear-cut and our triumphs not so triumphant after all.
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Image ref. Auckland Weekly News (1941), Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections; AHNZ colour (2024)
2 thoughts on "1941: The Greek King’s Bodyguard"
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We always new our Army was thrown into this campaign by the Brits, who also suffered. History repeating itself.
Since you point that out it reminds me of an idea I haven’t thought of for a long time. Wasn’t there some old general between ‘the wars’ who insisted that the war wasn’t over? That it had just gone quiet for a bit and would resume? And then WW2 happened. I should look into that.