abstract
| - The Greek-Yugoslav War (1950–1953) was a military conflict between Greece, supported by WETO, against the People's Republic of Yugoslavia and Germany. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. The war was a result of the political division of eastern and southeastern Europe into "pro-British" and "pro-German" government blocs after the Global War. Also, a border dispute between Greece and Yugoslavia could have been resolved by the Allies at the close of the Global War, but was not. The failure to hold free elections throughout the Balkans in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides. Germany established a monarchy under Peter II, a direct descendant of Serbia's last King, Peter 1. Tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the Greek-Yugoslav Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when Yugoslav forces invaded Greece on 25 June 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Phoney War. WETO, particularly the British Empire, came to the aid of the Greeks in repelling the invasion. After early defeats by the Yugoslav military, when a rapid WETO counter-offensive repelled the Yugoslavs back across the border and out of Greece. As WETO neared the Bulgarian border (Bulgaria was a satellite of Germany at the time), the Germans feared military action against them, and Germany entered the war when WETO reached the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border. A German counter-offensive repelled the United Nations forces past the 38th Parallel. The threat of a nuclear war eventually ceased with an armistice that restored the pre-war border between Greece and Yugoslav and created the Balkans Demilitarized Zone (BMZ), a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between Greece and Yugoslavia. During the war, both Greece and Yugoslavia were sponsored by external powers, thus facilitating the war's metamorphosis from a civil war to a proxy war between powers involved in the larger Phoney War. Officially, the war is still continuing, for the armistice is not considered an official treaty ending the war.
|