On the eve of the liberation, several battles took place between the Battalions and ELAS; the best known being the Battle of Meligalas in September 1944. After the liberation, the groups were only temporarily disbanded, and were recruited into the Gendarmerie to fight alongside the British and government forces against the EAM/ELAS in the battle of Dekemvriana, in Athens. The Security Battalions always surrendered to the British, who usually let them keep the weapons the Germans had supplied with. General Ronald Scobie who commanded the British forces in Greece, in contrast to his attitude towards EAM, whom he dismissed as mere "bandits", treated the Security Battalions as a legitimate military force. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a very favorable view of the Security Battalions, saying "It seems to me that the collaborators in Greece in many cases did the best they could to shelter the Greek population from German oppression". When he criticized by Labour MPs in the House of Commons for employing the Security Battalions to fight on the British side against EAM in the "Dekemvriana", Churchill replied: "The Security Battalions came into existence to protect the Greek villagers from the depredations of some of those who, under the guise of being saviours of their country, were living upon the inhabitants and doing very little fighting against the Germans". In total, very few of their members were tried and convicted of collaborationism. For instance, their creator and quisling Prime Minister of Greece, Rallis, was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason and died in prison in 1946, but he was acquitted for his involvement with the Security Battalions.