So, to be literal about it, the Battle of Crete was a series of great events which took place 50 years ago but the commemoration of them last month was the epic itself. Allies and former adversaries, Greeks, Germans, British, Australians and New Zealanders, gathered on their former battlefield – those in their sixties having been beardless youths – to proclaim peace and the brotherhood of man.
The Battle of Crete – that 11-day episode in the huge annals of World War II – has been called many things: a mistake, a Pyrrhic victory, a brilliant show of Nazi bravado, a botch, an unnecessary diversion, the campaign that utterly upset Hitler’s plan to conquer Russia, the campaign that did nothing of the kind and was useless. Its sensation lay in its being the first and last successful invasion from the air alone, and its marking the beginning of the great resistance of the people, unique, too, which then spread everywhere in occupied Europe.
Certainly, its scope was small compared to the tremendous battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein which followed. In no way could it be called ‘a hinge of fate’ or ‘one of the decisive battles of history’ or the encounter ‘that made the world safe for democracy’ or ‘the 11 days which shook the world.’
But, then, the Trojan War can be thought of as just a piratical raid in a long squabble over girl-stealing. It’s the way things are done and the way they’re remembered, not just the things done, that make epic material. It might be difficult to imagine the New Zealand Maoris combing their hair on the eve of battle like the Spartans at Thermopolyae. But this is recorded:
“I’ll tell you about a dying Maori. He was badly wounded, and I said I’d give him a blanket to bury him in. And, I was frightened, of course. He knew he was going to die, so he took me by the hand. Don’t be frightened, he said, and he was dying. I gave him my blanket to bury him. Wonderful. He was comforting me and he was dying.” (Testimony, Kenneth Statler, England) It is epic material and such records from the Battle of Crete abound and endure. There was that very special thing about it; the thing that if somebody has said then, ’50 years from now the combatants will get together again and remember this’, they would have thought it very likely.
So much for Homer; this is how Archilochus might have put it:
The best that can be said of the televised re-enactment of the Battle of Crete on ERT on the evening of 25 May is that it was inadvertently appropriate. It was incessantly prone to breakdowns as that other fatal night of 20 May 1941 when everything went wrong. Victory belongs to the side that makes the fewest horrible mistakes both in military history and TV ratings. Never were Mega and Antenna channels so popular that prime time Saturday night. The commentator even confused the laser outlines of Australia with New Zealand. Congratulations, however, for identifying Crete correctly.
The whole media coverage was at best incompetent and, at worse, offensive. The semi-official Athens News Agency Bulletin, typically, awarded three endless columns to Premier Mitsotakis ‘winged words’ that would have overtaxed the memory of Homer while devoting two short paragraphs to those of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Duke of Kent and those representing Australia and New Zealand, nary a word.
After the conclusion of the ceremonies the government spokesman had the pertness to declare that the administration was ‘well satisfied’ with the activities, as if the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Crete had been observed for the sole purpose of patting New Democracy on the back. It was too bad that President Karamanlis wasn’t there to give more solemnity to the occasion but then it may have been thought he would steal the limelight for Hania’s favorite native son.
This kind of complaisance coupled with provincial arrogance really shouldn’t be encouraged as it is one of the reasons why the 1996 Olympics are taking place in Atlanta. It’s the kind of thing an effective opposition could sink its teeth into if it didn’t waste so much time interiorizing.
Chancellor Kohl is to be complimented for his sense of occasion for his visit to the German cemetery at Maleme and for his appearance at the commemoration of the monument of Peace and Reconciliation at Galata, even if, as it is rumored, he returned to his newly reunited country with a Greek IOU tucked into his iederhosen for World War II reparations – to help pay off political supernumaries, of right and left, that can’t be handled by government Lotto winnings.
Thank you, Archilochus. Let us conclude with a few words from Thorton Wilder, the original contributor to “Our Town”.
Well, folks, it looks like sundown at Maleme cemetery and Mr Kohl and the other fancy people have all gone home. But still, at dusk, you can see black-dressed, old Cretan women lighting candles at the graves of past adversaries. When you ask them why, they reply, “They too, have a mother, and she is far away or dead. We also lost our sons, killed or executed by the Germans. We know how a mother feels. Now, we are their mothers.” (With thanks, from testimony recorded by Costas N. Hadjipateras and Maria S. Fafalios.)
Those true and living daughters of Euripides know what the Battle of Crete was all about. And those are the people that men could travel halfway around the world and fight with – and for.
