In December 1944, the war approaching its end, Lancaster was posted to Greece as press attaché to the British embassy in Athens. After the occupying Germans had withdrawn, opposing factions brought the country to the brink of civil war. Fearing a communist takeover, the British government supported Georgios Papandreou, prime minister of the former government-in-exile, now precariously in power in Athens, backed by British troops. When Papandreou's police fired on a civilian demonstration in full view of the world's press, British support for him came under international pressure. The British embassy, at which Lancaster arrived on 12 December, was the target for gunfire from various anti-government groups, and he joined the ambassador (Reginald Leeper), the British Minister Resident in the Mediterranean (Harold Macmillan) and a staff virtually under siege.