[Wulfmann]

Believe it or not some of Italy’s best troops led the invasion and they were not incompetent at all. The key to the Greek victory came when on November 2, 1940 an old Brequet 19 spotted advance units if the elite Alpinist “Julia” division on the Samarina-Distraton Road while on a recon flight over the Pindus Gorge. The Greeks prevented a complete encirclement by moving the 8th cavalry (That was a Greek armored division from the 1800’s:rotfl: ) to occupy the Metsovan Pass blocking the advance. This was the most important moment of the Hellenic-Italian war (As the Greeks call it). Without this move Greece would have fallen right then.
History tells us being vastly outnumbered means little to the Greek spirit when the homeland is attacked.
One tactic used by the Greeks was to deny their enemy sleep. They did this with night raids slitting the enemie’s throats but only enough to kill a few and get out fast. Waking up to a dead comrade had considerable effect and sleep deprivation was a Greek ally (The Greeks were later employed in Korea for UN forces doing the same thing with the same result. The commis feared the Greek cut throats more than any one force)
When the Germans attacked there was little in large units to oppose them and the Greeks were quickly cut off.
They surrendered to the Germans which infuriated the Italians who demanded the Greeks surrender to them.
The Italians flew in with all dressed up uniforms and the Greeks and Germans did a Monty Python ceremony that humiliated the Italians who then stormed off in their planes livid as the Germans and Greeks toasted each other for the big joke.
Ironically, the Germans gave the most generous surrender terms they ever offered in WWII and dismissed the Greek army with their weapons, a move they would later regret.
The Yugoslav (Serbian really, the Muslims allied themsleves to the Nazis forming elete SS Muslim divisions under Arafat, Yaser's uncle) and Greek resistance were the most fierce against the Germans except for Crete which was by far the one place the Germans were most happy to leave. The Cretans were not satisfied to just kill Germans they had to mutilate the bodies for revenge.
In truth the Germans did not have the intention of making things hard on the Greeks whom they admired and many officers had taken Greek in the Uni so spoke the language and wanted to be there.
The Greeks simply did not like invaders even if the occupation was not so bad it was their land.
This led to the nice Germans being removed and some really nasty Nazi types being sent to teach the Greeks how to submit to their German masters.
This, of course, only made things much worse and that prompted the whole of the population to support the resistance which then became very bloody for everyone.
I should add that the necessity for the German invasion of Greece to protect the right flank in the Russian invasion delayed the start of Operation Barbarossa. This delay may well have cost Germany the war to which the Greeks believe gives cause to them being the catalyst for the downfall of the Third Reich.
There is certainly some truth to that but there were many such pivotal events that were as significant throughout the war.

Wulfmann