Greek Civil War

The Greek Civil War: a Portrait of the Cold War

The diorama depicted is the Greek Civil War as fought between Communist guerillas, and the legitimate democratically elected government of the monarch of Greece. The conflict raged from 1946 to 1949, which eventually culminated in a victory for the democratic forces, due in no small part to aid provided by the United States, whose international policy as specified by the Truman Doctrine opposed the spread of Marxism across the globe.

The origins of the war did not lie in the struggle between the two superpowers of America and Russia, but in the struggle against National Socialism during the Second World War. The first outbreak of violence occurred as the war was beginning to have reached its conclusion, in the waning months of 1944, when two coalitions of

Still aspiring to bring the class revolution to their homeland, Marxist groups refused to disband, and the dogs of war were set loose once again. Britain exhausted from the war herself and feeling that they had shed enough blood for the war plagued nation, bowed out of the race and allowed the rising star of the United States to pick up the slack, who under President Harry Truman fervently battled the disciples of Marx and Engels wherever they were found (See Truman Doctrine), needless to say America to the conflict to task. The fighting continued for three bitter years until in 1949, American and Legitimist forces purged the mountain strongholds of their foes, until the few remaining Communist fighters routed to Albania. The casualties of the war for combatants totaled some 50,000, and over 500,000 civilians were left homeless and destitute, but the scars from the war extend even to the present day where there is still much resentment amongst the Greek