The postwar reality

The conflict between the government and the Greek left after October 1944 was used to justify the increasing British influence in Greece, both on the political and the military level. The escalating confrontation took place at a time when similar developments were equally alarming (i.e. cracks in the cooperation between the wartime allies against Germany, beginning of the Cold War). This situation led to a further strengthening of British interference in Greek politics.

In this new framework of ideological-political bipolarity (West versus the Soviet Union), postwar Greek foreign policy had no other choice than to be tied to the choices of stronger powers initially to Britain and, gradually after 1946, to the U.S.A. This time there was not even the choice of peripheral solutions, such as the Balkan Treaty in the pre-1939 period. The Greek government, already supported by and oriented towards the west in its opposition to the left, had to look to the west for help and guidance. Once more, Greek foreign policy sacrificed the privilege of autonomy in seeking desperate guarantees for domestic stability and international protection.