page_title: Battle of Greece
section_title: Defence and attack forces
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Greece / Prelude / Defence and attack forces
context_page_description: The Battle of Greece is the common name for the invasion of Allied Greece by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in April 1941 during World War II. The Italian invasion in October 1940, which is usually known as the Greco-Italian War, was followed by the German invasion in April 1941. German landings on the island of Crete came after Allied forces had been defeated in mainland Greece. These battles were part of the greater Balkan Campaign of Germany.
  Following the Italian invasion on 28 October 1940, Greece repelled the initial Italian attack and a counter-attack in March 1941. When the German invasion, known as Operation Marita, began on 6 April, the bulk of the Greek Army was on the Greek border with Albania, then a vassal of Italy, from which the Italian troops had attacked. German troops invaded from Bulgaria, creating a second front. Greece received a small reinforcement from British, Australian and New Zealand forces in anticipation of the German attack. The Greek army found itself outnumbered in its effort to defend against both Italian and German troops.
context_section_description: The Fifth Yugoslav Army took responsibility for the south-eastern border between Kriva Palanka and the Greek border. The Yugoslav troops were not fully mobilised and lacked adequate equipment and weapons. Following the entry of German forces into Bulgaria, the majority of Greek troops were evacuated from Western Thrace. By this time, Greek forces defending the Bulgarian border totalled roughly 70,000 men (sometimes labelled the "Greek Second Army" in English and German sources, although no such formation existed). The remainder of the Greek forces—14 divisions (often erroneously referred to as the "Greek First Army" by foreign sources)—was committed in Albania.
  On 28 March, the Greek Central Macedonia Army Section—comprising the 12th and 20th Infantry Divisions—were put under the command of General Wilson, who established his headquarters to the north-west of Larissa. The New Zealand division took position north of Mount Olympus, while the Australian division blocked the Haliacmon valley up to the Vermion range. The RAF continued to operate from airfields in Central and Southern Greece, but few planes could be diverted to the theatre. The British forces were near to fully motorised, but their equipment was more suited to desert warfare than to Greece's steep mountain roads. They were short of tanks and anti-aircraft guns and the lines of communication across the Mediterranean were vulnerable, because each convoy had to pass close to Axis-held islands in the Aegean; despite the British Royal Navy's domination of the Aegean Sea. These logistical problems were aggravated by the limited availability of shipping and Greek port capacity.
  The German Twelfth Army—under the command of Field Marshal Wilhelm List—was charged with the execution of Operation Marita. His army was composed of six units:
  First Panzer Group, under the command of General Ewald von Kleist.
  XL Panzer Corps, under Lieutenant General Georg Stumme.
  XVIII Mountain Corps, under Lieutenant General Franz Böhme.
  XXX Infantry Corps, under Lieutenant General Otto Hartmann.
  L Infantry Corps, under Lieutenant General Georg Lindemann.
  16th Panzer Division, deployed behind the Turkish-Bulgarian border to support the Bulgarian forces in case of a Turkish attack.
caption: Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey, commander of Australian I Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, commanding general of the Empire expeditionary force ('W' Force) and Major General Bernard Freyberg, commander of the New Zealand 2nd Division, in 1941 in Greece
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