Substitute for Power: Wartime British Propaganda to the Balkans, 1939-44

331 Pages·2012·1.507 MB·English

by  Ioannis Stefanidis

Substitute for Power
Wartime British Propaganda to the Balkans,
1939–44
Ioannis Stefanidis
SubStitute for Power
To Dimitris and his beautiful mother
Substitute for Power
wartime british Propaganda to the balkans,
1939–44
ioanniS StefanidiS
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
© ioannis Stefanidis 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
ioannis Stefanidis has asserted his right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Stefanidis, ioannis. Substitute for power : wartime british propaganda to the balkans,
1939–44.
1. world war, 1939–1945—Propaganda. 2. Propaganda, british—History—20th century.
3. world war, 1939–1945—balkan Peninsula. 4. Great britain—foreign relations—
balkan Peninsula. 5. balkan Peninsula—foreign relations—Great britain.
i. title
940.5’4886’41–dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stefanidis, ioannis.
Substitute for power : wartime british propaganda to the balkans, 1939–44 / by ioannis
Stefanidis.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978-1-4094-5502-8 (hbk. : alk. paper) — iSbn 978-1-4094-5503-5 (ebook)
1. world war, 1939–1945—Propaganda. 2. world war, 1939–1945—balkan Peninsula.
3. Propaganda, british—balkan Peninsula—History—20th century. 4. balkan Peninsula—
Strategic aspects. 5. Great britain—Military policy. 6. Great britain—relations—balkan
Peninsula. 7. balkan Peninsula—relations—Great britain. 8. balkan Peninsula—History,
Military—20th century. i. title.
d810.P7G7735 2013
940.54’8864109496—dc23
2012022045
iSbn 9781409455028 (hbk)
iSbn 9781409455035 (ebk – Pdf)
iSbn 9781409472247 (ebk – ePub)
IV
Printed and bound in Great britain by the
MPG books Group, uK.
Contents
Introductory Note vii
Abbreviations xi
1 british Propaganda in world war ii 1
2 wartime british Policy to the balkans: an overview 35
3 regional themes 57
4 albania 83
5 bulgaria 95
6 romania 127
7 Greece 161
8 Yugoslavia 233
Concluding Remarks 303
Sources 307
Index 313
This page has been left blank intentionally
introductory note
during the last period of military rule in Greece (1967–74), many a household,
including my own, used to tune in to the bbC world Service in order to get
information, especially news about Greek domestic affairs, free from the censor’s
clippers. for many, including my parents’ generation, this was a repetition of a
riskier habit during world war ii, when listening to ‘radio London’ was arguably
a form of passive resistance. Several years later, i became a temporary employee
of that very service, during the concluding stage of my post-graduate studies
in London. if any more incentive for the study of british efforts to win the war
was needed, this was provided by my family history. theodosios Stefanidis, my
father’s brother and a Greek Cavalry officer, was recruited by the British Secret
intelligence Service in 1942 and served with distinction – and considerable risk
to his life – on various missions in occupied Greece until the time of liberation.
Personal motives apart, my bibliographical research seemed to confirm the
existence of a relative gap in the study of british propaganda to the balkans during
world war ii. elisabeth barker, who had the rare privilege to be both a practitioner
and a student of the subject, Michael Stenton, a british scholar, and Spyridon
Ploumidis, a Greek scholar, have contributed chapters or articles on parts of this
story. i have in turn intended to provide an all-round treatment, address a number
of questions and suggest answers, while fully engaging my ‘precursors’ in the
treatment of the subject.
the outbreak of world war ii provides a rather obvious starting point. the
withdrawal of German troops from most of South-east europe, in october–
november 1944, fundamentally changed the aims and content of propaganda
in the region. as for the place, the ‘balkans’ – or, as it less frequently appears,
‘South-East Europe’ – are used as reflected in the mental maps of the period. They
comprise five pre-war states (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia)
which came to be completely dominated by the axis powers and which the british
treated as a geographical and functional whole for propaganda purposes. true,
after September 1941, Hungary was lumped together with the rest for reasons
which will be explained in the text but did not necessarily warrant its inclusion in
this study. few would regard that country as part of the balkans, then or today.1
turkey, with its geographical presence and ottoman legacy was a more obvious
candidate. it has been exempted, however, since it managed to stay out of the
war – and, for this reason, was treated separately by the british propagandists
themselves.
1 on the conceptual evolution of the ‘balkans’ as a region, see Maria todorova,
Imagining the Balkans, new York-oxford: oxford university Press, 1997.
viii Substitute for Power
an obvious task of any study of british propaganda is to assess its contribution
to the outcome of the war. in the case of the balkans, in addition to being an
adjunct to the main war effort, propaganda to the – neutral, allied, axis satellite
and axis-occupied – countries of the region is quite revealing about other aspects
of british policy. it also shows how the british tailored their efforts in response to
supposed national peculiarities of these countries. thus, i have sought to address
not only the organisational tangle, the techniques and evolving aims of propaganda,
but also its relation to british military strategy and diplomacy, its practitioners’
set of beliefs about the region and its peoples (prejudices, stereotypes as well as
academic approaches), moral issues (e.g. incitement to violence and the treatment
of reprisals, as part of the overall dilemmas of resistance and collaboration) and
planning for the post-war period (e.g. schemes of balkan [con]federation).
it is equally important to search for the effect of british propaganda on its
recipients, i.e. local publics plus axis personnel in the wartime balkans. this
would require an extensive investigation of records, the contemporary press
and other printed sources in the countries concerned as well as transcripts of
broadcasts in various languages. what is more, the impact of propagandist activity
is not always perceptible and often passes unrecorded by its targets only to emerge
much later, filtered by individual or ‘collective’ memory. Partly as a result of the
limits of a self-financed project, this study focuses on the ‘sending end’. On the
basis of material originating with the agencies involved in the formulation and
dissemination of propaganda, it has been possible to glimpse reactions at the
other end. to this extent, i have attempted to test a number of fairly common
perceptions regarding the role of the british and their propaganda in the fate of
balkan societies during the war and early post-war years, including the growth
of resistance movements, the outbreak of civil wars and the region’s division into
spheres of influence.
The structure of the text reflects both a thematic and a geographical approach.
an introductory chapter deals with british wartime propaganda-making in general
and its balkan version, in particular. there follow two thematically broad chapters,
one on british wartime policy to this region, the other on evidence of a regional
approach – and common themes – in propaganda during the entire period. the
remaining chapters are in essence case studies on each of the five pre-1939 states
(except turkey). the british effort to undermine the power of the axis and hasten
its defeat was the main common denominator. However, different categories
emerge, as bulgaria and romania joined the axis after a brief period of neutrality,
Greece and Yugoslavia resisted and were occupied, while albania was a peculiar,
‘hybrid’ case, having entered the war as an italian dependency. Greece remained
a british ‘responsibility’ throughout, but the Soviet factor weighed increasingly
heavily in all other cases.
This study was completed during a particularly difficult time for Greece which
could not leave her academics unaffected. the dearth of funds was to some extent
made up by moral support and hospitality. i am indebted to the late Philip taylor
for his encouragement and inspiration at the outset of my research. i also wish
Introductory Note ix
to thank Professor dennis deletant for his overall interest and expert advice on
wartime romania, the helpful personnel at the national archives of the united
Kingdom, Jeff walden of the bbC written archives Centre, eugenios Michail
who provided copies of his thesis, my friend Christos Psaltis, my friend and host
Polyvios Polyviou, and thomas Grey of ashgate Publishing Ltd, who arranged
for a peer-reviewer to scrutinise my manuscript. the latter, i believe, has greatly
helped me to improve the original.
february 2012
ioannis d. Stefanidis
aristotle university of thessaloniki