On the 11th of September 14,000 Italian troops in the north-west
surrendered to the Andartes with all their arms. A month later ELAS
seized the weapons and attacked EDES. The civil war had begun.

1944: The friction between the various groups of the Resistance
movement erupted into full-scale war, described as the 'civil war' or
the 'guerrilla war' depending on whose side you were on. ELAS were
determined that they alone would be in control when the Allies
arrived. As a result of intense negotiations on the part of the
British officers, all the Andarte leaders signed an Armistice document
on the 29th February 1944 agreeing to stop fighting each other and to
concentrate all their efforts against the common enemy--the Germans.
Unfortunately, barely a month later ELAS attacked and completely
annihilated the smallest andarte group E.K.K.A. Now only EDES and the
200-strong S.O.E. force stood between the 40,000 ELAS Communists and
total control of the Greek countryside.

In the Middle East, the Lebanon Conference, attended by delegates
from all parties, including representatives of the Andartes, elected
George Papandreou (father of Andreas Papandreou, recently Prime
Minister of Greece), to act as Prime Minister of the Government of
National Unity in exile. In September the government moved
temporarily to Italy. In October, following the withdrawal of the
Germans from Athens, British troops began landing in Greece from Greek
and British warships. By far the largest contingent landed near the
port of Piraeus and tens of thousands of Greeks turned out to cheer
and welcome the British forces as they marched through the streets.

On October 18 the members of the Greek government returned to
Athens under the leadership of the Premier George Papandreou, who was
accompanied by Lt. General Ronald Scobie, the Allied military
commander.

Sadly though, in December ELAS marched on Athens. The British
troops, so recently feted and garlanded now found themselves fighting
on the same streets of their earlier welcome. S.O.E. had been warning
Cairo for two years that this might happen. After three or four weeks
of intense fighting in the streets of Athens and in the suburbs, ELAS
withdrew.

Winston Churchill came to Athens on Christmas Day to mediate. A
couple of ELAS snipers hiding in a school a few hundred yards away
from the British Embassy took a few pot shots at him as he got out of
an armoured vehicle