Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 186 - The Greco-Italian War Part 2: The Battle of Crete

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Germany gets involved and throws its entire airborne corps into a woodchipper. *correction, England has won a World Cup. In 1966. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow by Donkeys podcast. I am Joe and with me still is Liam. Hello, Liam. Hi, Joe. How you feeling, bud? I still is Liam. Hello, Liam. Hi, Joe. How you feeling, bud? I have stitches in my mouth, Joe. I was thinking that we might be able to postpone this episode, but I looked over our podcast collective bargaining agreement.

You actually don't legally have any days off. When you're not recording, you actually have to go to the coal mine that we purchased and just hack at the wall. We don't need coal. We just need and just hack at the wall. We don't need coal. We just need you to hack at the walls a little bit. Ah, they would say a digging enterprises. Yeah, exactly. It only exists to give you black lung and employ at least three West Virginians.

I got to hit the vape out of another side of my mouth now. God, that can't feel good at Stitches. No. You're going to have to hit the vape through the nose. Natural vape. Or you could boof it. Damn it, Joe. Get a Garfield that vape.

See, this is why we cover black lung, because listen to you. I'm dying. Now. My tummy hurts. All right, right i'm here i'm ready let's do a podcast so when we left you last time i was still alive liam had not yet died of black vape lung and i don't know how much was left in by our long-suffering producer, Nate. My dogs kept interrupting. Shut the fuck up! I found out why. My neighbor got a dog, and they could hear him through the walls,

and I couldn't because I've had phones on. Ah. So that's going to be fun from here on out. But Greece got invaded, and Italy got it. They bit some guys? Yeah, they bit some Italians. All-you-can-eat breadsticks were served in the Greek mountains.

And Nazi Germany had to kind of come to Mussolini. Daddy Hitler. Daddy Hitler had to go help baby Mussolini, a situation which I've created in my head and I really hate. Yeah, I'm not pleased with what we've done here. Story of my life, man. Now, since then, Hitler exasperated at his idiot ally, had to get involved before Greece steamrolled through Albania and maybe Italy itself on a long enough timeline. There's a lot that could happen here.

That would have been tight, I will say. That would have been funny. What is more realistic is that the British would have used Greece as a stepping off point to a future third front before the third front actually opened up. Now, Moose Leany was so far up his own ass here. He wasn't quite sure how bad things were actually going because this might surprise you in a fascist dictatorship. His generals are not very open on the details oh no i mean like when we talked about the chief of staff's journal last time uh it's like you know things are not going well il duce is mad like he's not telling him everything's like no the attack just failed we don't need to tell you that you know we just fed another thousand italians into a wood chipper in the mountains like that, guess what we did?

Right. So he planned, and by he, I mean Mussolini himself, planned an Italian offensive to retake the southern parts of Albania that the Greeks had since advanced into. Notice how I say that Mussolini planned it. Now, there might be some people listening that know that Mussolini was in fact a military veteran of the First World War. He was not, however, any kind of high-ranking officer or had any kind of knowledge

of operations planning. Oh, I can't believe Operation Gonna Go Fine didn't go fine. I mean, much like Hitler, he was a pretty low-ranking... Hitler was a corporal. I think Mussolini was about the same. And this actually gave Hitler more than mussolini was about the same um and this actually gave uh hitler

more than mussolini i think a weird attitude where he didn't trust officers which i can understand yeah fair enough as a lower former lower enlisted man myself uh but what it did is fill him with a like a fake overconfidence in his own abilities that he knew what the true soldier needed to do because he was a soldier. He was a soldier, sure. Why not? They called them like front rats or something like that in German. I don't know. Frontenratten. Ugh. What an unappealing

language. They gave them this mind palace of their own creation where because they were on the front lines, they truly know what tactics are. And admittedly, I fall into this sometimes as well when I look at how stupid higher planning is and I realize this isn't going to work.

But I'm also doing that with a lot of foresight and reading 100 years in the future of when things occurred. However, they did this with actually tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives, so I didn't do that. I got one up on them. I'm at least one step above Hitler. Take that, you dead bitch.

Congratulations, Joe. Yeah. See, when you have your bar low, it's very easy to make yourself feel better. Oh, buddy, I know it make yourself feel better. Oh, buddy. I know it reads for other. Now Mussolini was planning this operation and he planned it for spring,

which was the, probably the best decision he made because it was, you know, better than winter in the mountains. But the reason why he did that was actually very stupid. He believed that spring was quote quote, an Italian season. What does that even mean? Because when you're a fascist, even the seasons have a race,

I guess. I don't fucking know. What does that even mean, man? I don't know. Now, he decided he was going to plan this and leave it. An Italian season, shouldn't you do it in the spring? It's Italian seasoning, which means it comes with parsley and some other green stuff on top. You'd figure figure is it the season for victory or somebody and shit you know for someone

that was uh a bit of a demagogue he's not good at speaking maybe it sounds better than the original italian i don't fucking know he decided that he would lead and command this from the front and not like what we all we all dream this would be where like Mussolini would strap on a harness full of ammo and grab a rifle and run his short fat ass at the front of the Italian lines. Instead he dressed himself in his marshal's

uniform, a rank that he was given and he assumed that the I mean, yeah, of course this is a guy that put his literally a 3D cutout of his face on a building surrounded by the word C. Yes. Right.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The worst version of Daniel Bryan ever made. It's the wrestling joke for the one person who gets it.

But he assumed that he he the champion of the italian people was cutting an impressive figure that would inspire the most mostly freezing italians they've been stuck in the shit in albania for months now when he all right yeah it didn't work um something to be said to the credit of italian soldiers they didn't even like play this game because he figured out pretty soon after getting to the front that his soldiers are pretty much sick of him after being you know thrown into the mountains for the last couple months we're almost a year at this point he walked up to a soldier who was on a stretcher an obvious pain from a chest wound and announced quote i am el duche and i bring you

the greetings of the fatherland and what has to be one of the greatest, like... Just give me enough morphine to kill me at that point, man. The best Italian passive aggressiveness I've ever heard. I don't know if Italians have a passive aggressive sense of humor, but the soldier looked at him. The dictator of Italy that could literally have him executed the drop of a hat and said, quote, Well, now, wasn't that great?

Congratulations, dickhead yeah well cool I hope you get shrapnel in the chest too you piece of shit but as funny as that is Mussolini wasn't actually at the front to inspire his soldiers who he really seemed to hate at this point because remember he said that like freezing to death

was good for them at one point. Right. That built morale, goddammit. He instead popped a chair open and literally watched his new offensive begin on the sidelines like a sports event. Oh my god. What a dick. Yeah. I mean, this is pretty common back in the day, during the Civil War.

And even the Franco-Prussian War, people just popped chairs. like during the civil war and like even the Franco-Prussian war, people like just popped here. And unfortunately, like the Syrian civil war, people would like, I think Israelis would like go to the border and just watch it. Um, and for like the Turkish border as well,

war tourism, but you're Mussolini. Yeah. From his observation post, Mussolini watches his artillery fired a hundred thousand shells in two hours to open the Italian offensive on the central Albanian front on March 9th, 1941. Then 50,000 Italians began advancing against only 28,000 Greeks along a 20 mile front between Osum and Ous rivers. Something I'm sure I pounced correctly.

My Albanian is actually flawless. Many people don't know this. We are from Albanbania as we know yeah of course well at least i could joke about it now oh it's just canon at this point it's canon across three podcasts i've got it this happened in will there's your problem and trash future uh where milo edwards told me told me to meet him in a bunker or something like that. Oh, okay. It's great stuff all around.

Love it. Now, the Greeks were, as I said, outnumbered and outgunned, and they still forced the Italians back. In many occasions, the Greeks ran out of ammo again, stabbed the Italians with their bayonets, robbed them of their ammo, and then started shooting at them again. Nice. Good for that, man. Now, remember remember mussolini's watching all of this if watching his army get wrecked wasn't bad enough uh some greek bomber aircraft very nearly killed mussolini as they came oh it's so close i know it's one of those situations that like if you were only like a few feet a little higher. Yeah. Yeah.

It forced him to run for cover where he apparently didn't take it too well. He was a bit panicky, which is not something I expected from someone who survived the front of World War One. Like, I expect better of you, Mussolini. You've gone soft. A neat toe. Yeah. You've gone soft, Benito. Yeah.

Now, he stayed at the front ordering attack after attack for 11 full days before finally getting sick of watching constant failure and then went back to Rome. Oh, okay. But that did not mean that he called off the attack. He simply allowed it to continue on when he was gone. Unbelievable. Yeah, five days after he went back to Rome and 12,000 casualties later, the Italians gave up.

That's the Italian way, as we've learned. War is hard, turns out. Through two world wars, the one thing that is true of the Italian army is they will throw themselves at the mountains until there's almost nothing left and then change sides. We love you, Italy. Now, if that was bad for Mussolini, it was even worse for Hitler. This finally made him fucking snap. He sent a letter to Rome a week later and said,

quote, I now would cordially request you, Il Duce, not to undertake any further operations in Albania in the course of the next few days. Now, this is me kindly translating this to not diplomatic things like, stay the fuck out of the way. What are you doing, dude?

The reason why is because on Palm Sunday, April 6th, 1941, just like not that much longer later, Hitler ordered the invasion of Greece from Bulgaria while simultaneously invading Yugoslavia. There's a subtle dig there if you remember from our last episode uh mussolini claimed all of yugoslavia like an older brother holding a basketball over so it said yeah yeah i mean there's obvious tactical usage invading yugoslavia if you're looking at it from the the side of the nazis here but there's also a lot to do with he knew what Mussolini wanted in his little Roman Empire 2.0 project.

And it was a special fuck you to him for having to come and bail a stupid ass out. Because if he was going to invade Yugoslavia... Really Mussolini'd this up, huh? Really Benito'd the shit out of this. Like if he was going to invade Yugoslavia, he could have done it earlier or even later. I mean, he didn't have to do it simultaneously.

Yugoslavia was not going to storm down into Greece and help. You know, they had their own self-defense to worry about here. very temporarily inspired the Greeks because they believe for the invasion of, of Yugoslavia would inspire their Balkan neighbors to be forced to join the fight against the Nazis. Cause remember the Greeks and their, and their neighbors have a bit of a history. Yeah. So they,

they believe that like this opening of another front would divide the Germans up, which would make them maybe possible for the yugoslavians to be able to defeat or at least still make them draw more material and people into it either or there was some serious optimism here like finally the like the balkan league is getting the band back together to kick out the germans but uh unfortunately the germans blitzed right through yugoslavia in a week. Yeah. Greek was left standing alone once again and probably like, how the fuck did that happen?

God damn it. I mean, at this point, Greece is not necessarily underestimating the Germans, but they're like, well, we fucked up the Italians. How hard could the Germans be? Eric. Yeah, I mean, it turns out

you're not fighting the B team of the axis and you're fighting the italians you're i don't know what's below like triple a baseball or that like spring league yeah so it's some fucking f league basketball or whatever g league g league yeah my bad a greek soldier wrote home to his family saying quote with our fingers on the trigger we are following the movements of the enemy, expecting the ultimatum with the resolution to die, with the certainty that we will show the Germans what it's like

to be a free Greek. Badass. Yeah, but they know they're going to their extinction. Yeah. I mean, they pretty much accepted that we're going to fucking lose, but we're going to turn this whole bitch into a graveyard for Germans. Now, the British knew the Germans were not going to be able to simply be brushed aside.

Like the Italians kind of had been and warn the Greeks that maybe falling back and not holding this. So they, the Greeks had built the so-called Metaxas line. Um, it was a 130 mile long series of concrete bunkers and fighting possessions that cut through the Eastern mountains. The British who had been fighting Germany and Europe and kind of had seen how fixed

defensive positions that were well mapped out by reconnaissance fared against the German invasion. Right. And pointed out that this is not going to work. We need to fall back deeper into Greece and fight them from a better position. Right. Or the Greeks ignored them because they worked against the Italians. to work we need to fall back deeper into greece and fight them from a better position right or the greeks ignored them because they're like uh worked against the italians

now the problem was with yugoslavia the war they could now be invaded from another direction which exposed the flank of the metaxas line and because it was concrete bunkers and shit you can't move to meet that threat and uh that's exactly what happened. The line only held for two days, falling to specially trained mountain troops, which would happen a lot. The Italians had the Alpini's, their special mountain troops, but they sucked.

They were not actually very well trained in mountain warfare at all. So it doesn't do what it says on the tip, huh? Nah, that's not something the Nazis had to worry about. Their mountain troops were pretty well trained at this point in the war. They hadn't been like hemorrhaged to death by Barbarossa. So they're still very much there and very well trained and experienced.

Now, if that wasn't bad enough, a German suicide freighter, which was like a ghost-rided boat loaded with 250 tons of TNT crashed into the Greek port of Pyrannus, which was the main hub for British supplies, which were the only real supply for the Greek military at that point, and detonated. The blast completely ruined the port. It could be heard for 150 miles away. It just completely

turned into a moonscape afterwards so that's one supply line done and then a few days later on April 9th the second panzer division ruled unopposed into capture Greek's largest city of Salonica which is more than the Italians have been able to do

in a year so things are not going good two days in. Now, this advance and the fall of the Metaxas line left a full 70,000 Greek soldiers pinned against the eastern coast. They had nowhere to go. Barely enough ammo to fight. They had no way of resupply. The British cannot resupply them via air. Right.

supply them via air right uh and at this point it was pretty obvious that the officers were going to order the soldiers to surrender to spare them what is sure to be a massacre pinned against the coast and when the generals ordered them to surrender the soldiers actually refused for quite a while lost them and uh eventually they they agreed to surrender but that wasn't actually the case a lot of soldiers said fuck this and just ran off into the mountains where they would end up joining the resistance. One artillery major decided that he was not going to go out and surrender. He also

happened to be of Jewish heritage. He had a good feeling what was going to happen to him should he fall into captivity. So he ordered his unit into formation, saluted them, bid them all goodbye goodbye and then shot himself in the head oh i'm sorry man and then his men broke out in the rendition of the greek national anthem him to freedom and then they bit 90 nazis fucks their wives a lot of these guys end up

running off and join the resistance uh after they fucked the Nazis wives hopefully we're going to we're going to drive all the way to Berlin but not for the reasons that you think here to liberate that puss now after blowing through the taxes line the only thing standing in the way of the German advance was the

sixth Australian division and the New Zealand division there's also the firstst British Armored Brigade and three understrength Greek divisions. Very understrength at this point. Remember, Maitland, or Old Jumbo, dug these units in around Mount Olympus, of all places, but, of course, found out again

that digging in against a fast-moving enemy doesn't really work. Yeah, they immediately got outflanked and had to withdraw, which was a better case. I mean, if he didn't withdraw, he was going to be surrounded and destroyed. Right. Now, obviously, the Greeks went from triumphant victors to running for their lives with their Commonwealth allies

for a very good reason. Obviously, the German military was just all around better than the Italians. Can't say that enough. But they also had another thing they had to worry about when they were fighting the Italian air force, the Regia aeronautica Italia was pretty much useless. Uh, the Greek air force,

which was one step above biplanes was able to fight them off without much of a problem. There was also a very limited British air support that they were able to give. The Italian Air Force was a non-factor. This is for a lot of reasons. It was hampered by local production and maintenance problems, like pretty much all of their other weapon systems. So the Greeks didn't have to worry about it. Their pilots were notoriously under-trained. For instance, during their part in the Battle of Britain, they lost 36 planes

26 of them were shot down on by themselves or just just dropped on this guy on accident just heard friendly fire off yeah that's what i do one simple hack uh you want to know how many british planes they shot down

how are they zero not a single one bad day today know how many British planes they shot down? How are they? Zero. Not a single one. Bad day today. 0-36. Truly the lions of air forces. See, now the German air force had entered the chat and things were not going good. They had complete control of the skies

ever since they invaded. A Times reporter said, quote, for two days I have been bombed, machine gunned, and shot at by all and sundry. German Stukas have blown up cars from under me and strafed a third. All day and all night, there's been waves of Germans in the skies. Luftwaffe Commander in Chief Hermann Goering must have had a third of his Air Force operating here and every and bombing every nook and cranny Hamlet and village down its path. Oh, not shit left for the greeks to do it their anti-aircraft infrastructure is not enough to hold off uh the the luthwafa at this point one british unit refused

to allow this routine to be you know disrupted uh the the routine of like going about soldierly stuff jack and you're taking a port-a-potty yes yeah jack you're taking a port-a-potty uh the british version of that which is stopping what they're doing and playing a game of soccer on the roadside. Someone noticed this and said, quote, the game was reaching its end of the first half when a dozen Stukas appeared overhead and started strafing a convoy moving across

the road. Only a few yards away from the field, nobody moved and the game continued on as the planes bombed and strafed everybody. Players dribbled past and kicked the ball with unrelenting zest. Some seriously British energy there. Well, you know, keep calm

and, I don't know, ignore getting bombed. Keep calm and never win the World Cup at a game that you invented. Correct. At this point of the war, it's been going on for about six months, and the government was falling apart. The king had effectively taken complete and utter control of the government.

And while that does sound bad, we are not, in fact, in favor of absolute monarchies here. No. He had to do so because the prime minister, Coesus, was pretty useless, as we talked about in the last episode. He was a former bank manager with no political experience. Hard time for on-the-job training. And he was mentally, literally unable to handle the job. He spent his time having mental breakdowns and panic attacks as the war began to turn against Greece and get worse and worse.

I would too. And eventually, while sitting in his office one day, he shot himself in the face. Yeah, that's fair. The Greek press reported that he had died from a heart attack in order not to freak out the public about their... Things are now so hopeless the prime ministers are off to themselves.

Yeah, like, things have to be going pretty bad here. This has been about six months of war and they've gone through two prime ministers. No job. That requires ice. Now, after hearing this, General Papagos reportedly turned to his british counterpart and said quote we are finished but the war is not lost therefore save what you can of your army and help and win elsewhere please leave greece

what a bummer you did what you could kid we'll take it from here but that did not mean the greeks were tapping out they just simply accepted they were fighting a lost cause. But God damn it, they would fight that lost cause for as long as they could. The Greek army in Albania was cut off by a German advance, pinning them against the Italians and the Germans on either side. Now out of ammo once again, because their supply system never improved. And they've been fighting off like wave after wave of Italians for six months now. And they also like they weren't going to get ammo. improved and they've been fighting off like wave after wave of italians for six months now and they

also like they weren't going to get ammo they were scavenging everything from the italians who also didn't have much not a recipe for success and for those of you wondering that's not it's not it's the if your army doesn't have bullets they can't do army stuff you can only sink your teeth into so many guys yeah i mean i don't know how to explain logistics easier than like if you don't give them food water and bullets like you don't have an army. The general in charge of the Albanian front decided that he knew he had to surrender, but he wouldn't give the Italians the satisfaction. So he turned his army around, marched over the Germans and surrendered instead. That's fantastic.

I mean, that sucks because they probably got massacred. But generally speaking, the Germans treated POWs at this point of the war okay. Your experience may certainly vary, however. They treated the Greek military all right. That would spiral wildly out of control as the war went on, of course, especially if you have to be a civilian and say, Crete, but we'll get there. But this pissed off Mussolini so bad he bitched and complained to hitler until hitler or the german general to tell the greek general to go and surrender

to the italian leader for a photo op before returning over to german custody that's embarrassing that's tough thank you imagine come on yeah yeah yeah like uh just go over there and make this guy's day he's a big fan he's always wanted to meet you you know this uh this actually wouldn't be the last time the uh the germans would would do something like this to make the italians feel better now at this point of the war the king knew that shit was fucked he and his cabinet fled mainland greece aboard a uh an raf plane to Crete, the island off the coast. Yes. And the British...

Don't create this show. I'm just saying some people might not. All right? That's fair. Sorry. Not everybody who listens to the show might have a great grasp on geography of some kind. I'm not sure.

Now, the British headquarters in Athens also gave the order to evacuate, but an operation would have to be prepared in order to buy time for this evacuation to occur. So, Wilson, old jumbo, planned a final stand in a place pretty famous for final stands, Thermopylae.

Thermopylae? Nice! Now, unfortunately, modern warfare kind of makes ancient defense plans obsolete. You guys heard of this graphic novel, 300? Guys, guys. Based on true facts, including all the mutants in it.

They all have to go home and win and fuck their wives. The British come back with this cup of tea or upon it. Go home and fuck the prom queen, baby. Now, instead of a romantic three-day-long last stand that the Spartans and their allied Greeks pulled off against the Persians... How long we got? The Commonwealth soldiers

around this time could only hold for two days. Which was honestly what they needed. I was kind of expecting six hours. Yeah. Once again, the problem was very well-trained German mountain soldiers were like, let's just scale the cliffs and flank them, which is exactly what happened. This ended up being something of an embarrassment for the Greeks because there was a last stand at Thermopylae and there actually were no Greek soldiers present. It's considered something of a sore spot for Greek military history or at least the hellenic republic greek history now it wasn't

from a lack of trying the german tanks got their teeth kicked in uh by australian gunners uh they were doing a lot of good work with their anti-tank guns but like i said you just climb the fucking mountains and you're fucking so much right yeah yeah it turns out they did not need a small weird mutant to tell them how to climb the mountains like they did in the movie. At this point, every remaining unit began to break for the coast, setting fire to trucks and guns behind them in order to block the roads and slow down the advancing Germans. They moved only at night and to dodge the constant German airstrikes. And one British soldier said, quote, the brave Greek people were aligning the streets and wishing us good luck as we went it was terrible it was like leaving a sinking ship with most of the passengers still on board oh yeah that can't feel good they were only able to board ships and

set sail for crete on moonless nights now there's a very good reason for that the raf doesn't exactly have a huge presence here to fight off the luftwaffe like it's one of those situations like look guys you're kind of on your own sure one dutch group of ships decided that they didn't really need to wait for moonless nights and uh a ship and its two escorts decide to linger just a bit too long uh and as dawn light filled the harbor they are attacked by bombers sinking three ships and killing 650 people fuck yeah don't don't don't fuck around when there's air power around man now one escape route was the bridge at the corinth canal linking the peloponnesus to the mainland the germans knew this and launched an airborne glider assault in order to capture it

yeah which like would have worked. Their timetable was just fucked up. Good. Something that will become common as more German paratroopers enter the fray. Well, they all get stuck in trees and dead. And then the Greeks go home and fuck their wives. Something like that.

Now, this glider attack would have worked, but it ran a bit late due to weather and Wilson and his soldiers made it across. And an Australian rear guard stayed behind to blow the bridge up. And funny enough, when their detonators actually failed, they were forced to take pot shots at the explosives until they went off. Oh, wow. Like holodeutic. Yeah, it's exactly like a video game.

off oh wow like call of duty yeah it's exactly like a video game and the one aussie with good aim managed to hit it just as a german team was working to defuse the bomb blowing them up with the process counter-terrorist win yeah like did you fucking see that one shot five germans 360 no scope that's right next thing you know's going to sneak up behind him and knife him and then teabag the corpse. Now, with the Germans and technically, I guess, the Italians as well in control of mainland Greece, the Commonwealth and Greek forces numbering around 50,600-ish displaced to Crete, the largest island under Greek control. displaced to crete the the largest island under greek control the british had begun to garrison the island and building airships months before and uh you know it also supplied the british with a solid harbor for the royal navy there's absolutely no way these forces are gonna be able to retake the mainland however and at this point the german high command is pretty goddamn busy planning a little thing knows operation barbarossa that was supposed to kick off and not that much

longer they didn't actually worry about Crete. They knew that like, well, they're fucking trapped there. They can't really do anything like they're not going to invade Greece. But something that will become pretty common among this and future series. Hitler disagreed. He was worried that the British aircraft based on Crete could bomb the Romanian oil fields, which were pretty obviously important for future operations, especially the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler was under the impression that the Soviet Union was going to possibly invade them any day, putting them on some kind of time constraint. This is something that's pretty common for Hitler throughout World War II.

He was just about to get invaded by the Soviet Union? He always felt like he had to act like he was always in a rush. Time was always against them, which of course eventually that really was true. But at the time, it absolutely wasn't. But he believed in his own mind palace that the Soviet Union was going to invade Nazi Germany,

which they absolutely were not. Any day now. In his mind, the British being in Crete was a serious threat to this whole Nazi world domination plan he had going on. Now, this wasn't something that could be allowed to stay for any length of time. It was an emergency and had to be taken out immediately, just like in his head the Soviet Union was. And we saw how that ends. This began what would become known as Operation Mercury, a plan hated by everybody in Germany other than one guy, Kurt Stuhn.

A plan hated by everybody in Germany other than one guy, Kurt Stuhn. Now, Stuhn was a commander of the German paratroopers, the Folshamjägers, who Hitler was fucking in love with. Yes, this I know. At least for now. Now, this is because anybody who's dabbled in World War II history stuff or listened to this podcast for any of time, knows that Hitler is a huge fan of flashy shit. And flashy, but ultimately pointless shit, especially. Wunderwaffe. Yeah.

So far in the war, the paratroopers have shown themselves to be useful in German military operations. They carried out airborne assaults. Netherlands, I think they did one in Denmark as well. But they were all very small scale. They were in support of other ground operations. We're not talking Operation Overlord level paratrooper operations here. Right, right, right.

And they looked cool. They were Hitler's shock troops. They would go in, take airfields, things like that. Securing an entire island was not something that they had a plan for. Stuhn, on the other hand, was pretty confident. He sold Hitler on the idea to drop his paratroopers onto Crete and solve the whole goddamn problem

within a day. So, of course, Hitler thought this was a great idea and greenlighted the attack, doing what he normally does of giving him only 20 days to plan the entire thing. That's fine. They only need one to win the whole day. You said that.

Exactly. His words. So, of course, this leads to all the problems. For starters, Germany had been kind of fighting a war all over Europe for the last couple years, which put a ton of strain on their military infrastructure. A total of 500 transport planes would be required to transport the airborne

troops into battle. These happen to be the same planes that had just been being run ragged throughout the wars in the mainland, like Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, all of those places. And to make sure they didn't just fall out of the sky, they needed serious engine maintenance. So on May 1st, the entire fleet flew to a couple

dozen aircraft maintenance facilities scattered all throughout germany austria those places to get maintenance and by may 15th only 493 of them would return ready to go so that's yeah that's seven planes down already now remember an airborne operation that's going to require multiple go around which is never what you want to do you want to drop them all at once this is something we will we will revisit when we eventually talk about market garden because you know there's a certain arithmetic that comes in airborne operations you put planes and throw people out of those planes of course certain amount of those planes are going to be shot down you no longer have those planes anymore so that means every single train ride you know above the the fucking battlefield

where you're going to throw people out of these things you have less planes every go around which means you can bring less people less supplies every go around you see you see one of the problems that's going to pop up congratulations you're now smarter than kurt student, the next part of the plan would require the Germans to find a place suitable for hundreds of planes and thousands of men, since all of the nearby Greek airfields, you know, with paved runways, had been given over to bomber wings,

which were, like, you know, more important at the time. So the paratroopers would have to use fields and dirt roads. Oh. Now, these fields were ruddy messes and badly unlevel, so someone decided to plow the entire thing in an attempt to make them more level. Now, if anybody's ever been in the middle of a dry field in a windstorm, knows it's a really bad idea

because it just turned everything to a choking mess of dirt whenever a plane actually used it. By some estimations, a dust cloud rose to 3,000 feet and made it impossible for formations to follow each other at intervals of any less than 17 minutes because it would have been too dangerous. So that means you now have fewer planes

taking off with soldiers in them to drop on a target that are further far apart, meaning every single stick, a stick being a plane with soldiers that jumps out of it, is isolated immediately. Oh, good. Good time for some flack. For people who are unaware, a lot can fucking happen in 17 minutes of combat.

Now, that was actually better than some airfields. Five of the German airfields were actually just sand. That sounds like it's just doomed for failure from the start. five of the German airfields were actually just sand. That sounds like it's just doomed from failure from the start. They had to lower the loads inside the planes to make sure they didn't sink in the sand. Gotcha. Which some did anyway.

Like their landing gears would sink in and they'd just crash. Or they'd crash upon takeoff or crash upon landing. But now you have five airfields now operating with even fewer soldiers inside. Obviously, we need fuel for these 493 planes to make an estimated three total trips, which of course would go up as they lost planes.

That would be needed in order to make it rain Nazis. This is the worst weather. Yeah. It's literally raining men and I hate it. About a half a million gallons of fuel would be needed. As of May 17th, none had shown up yet. Now, this forced the invasion to be pushed back several days as a fuel ship docked and 650,000 gallons of fuel are transported to the airships.

One 45-gallon drum of fuel at a time. Unfortunately, there's, remember, hundreds of planes. They don't have ground crews for all of these planes. So by the time the fuel actually arrived, the paratroopers would have to be the ones to unload it and pump it into the planes via hand-powered cranks one barrel at a time again.

This took forever. It took all fucking night. So by May 20th, when the invasion finally began, the paratroopers had all been awake for two fucking days doing ground crew jobs. Okay, you sound like an eager and ready fighting force. I'd say

no problem. You know who could fix that? Meth. Is it meth? Yeah. It's meth. Now I do have to point out, because someone will probably say it, that well, of course they're doing Air Force stuff, working on the planes. Unlike a lot of militaries, the Fallschirmjägers are actually part of the German Air Force. They were not part of the Army.

Like, you know, in the US, paratroopers are part of the Army. Well, back then, so was the Air Force, for that matter. But, like, the Fallschirmjägers fall under full Air Force command. But like the full Schemegers fall under full Air Force command. So but still having them do ground crew shit is very stupid because you can't have good military operations. Everybody's ripped out of their mind on uppers. As if that wasn't bad enough, let's take a look at how they're actually going to jump out of these planes, because most people probably picture paratroopers like Band of Brothers or whatever other modern paratrooper thing that you've seen, where you simply step out of the side of a plane when you're hooked up to a static line, which then pulls your chute as you're falling.

And that's still how paratroopers jump out today. It's a very simple process that only really got some safety vibes added in a little bit later on. Rad weight, Joe. That was true. That's how most paratroopers would jump most of the time. However, remember the date that we're talking about here. This is way before Overlord.

This is before... Overlord would revolutionize airborne operations as much as they're kind of anachronism these days. Back back then it proved the concept that airborne troops really could work in a large-scale battle they had been used prior to that as well obviously in italy but uh that was truly a proof of concept operation hadn't happened yet so we're still very much in the it's not necessarily the crawl version of the crawl walk

run phase of paratrooper operations. Certainly walk though, because slow walk, maybe a little teeter right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, like a baby with their heads a bit too big and kind of tottering over a bit because the Germans had adopted the Soviet method of paratrooper

operation, which Herman Goring, the head of the air force, had seen during a practice run during his visits to the USSR when they were still friends. The Soviet method was very crude, but it would work. This required paratroopers to

climb out of the inside of the plane onto the roof of the plane, walk down its wings, and then jump off. Oh. Yeah. Okay. That's not jump off. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's not OSHA. Obviously, the plane would have to slow down a hell of a lot to do this

so you don't still get ripped off the top from speed. But they did have some planes converted to step out the side, but not enough. It was a mix of the two, but they would have to slow down quite a bit to do this, making them a very easy target for anti-aircraft fire. There's another small problem with paratrooper operations. The parachutes themselves were hilariously unsafe, even for the 1940s. Uh-oh. So for people who don't understand how parachutes work, have risers right you can slip those risers and control

it now an american parachute in the same time frame you could control it decently okay like you could steer it to make sure you don't say run into trees sometimes bodies of water yeah i mean obviously shit happens right you get taken by the wind you're fucked also the origin of the song blood of the risers what a hell of a way to die yeah now the german parachute included a single riser meaning it was a dumb parachute you could not control it whatsoever once you stepped out of the plane yeah you were a slow moving lawn dart so you hoped that the the plane was over the right target area, and when you jumped, you would land in an open field. A lot of times it fucking happens.

Another problem. I know the list is getting quite long here, but this one's probably the most glaring. Because of the way they were deployed, they could not jump while carrying weapons. What? What? But you need those yeah you need those to do war right uh now unless you're an nco or an officer who would jump holding a side arm most fulsham yeagers jumped completely and totally unarmed outside of maybe a couple hand

grenades and a knife all the weapons were loaded into air-droppable canisters, which were thrown out of planes after the paratroopers, like catch-type situations. Oh, no. Now, as we just talked about misdrops of people, now we talk about misdrops of equipment, which happened a lot, especially because the wind happens to be very strong on islands. So weapons would be thrown out of planes and immediately get pulled elsewhere,

leaving groups of paratroopers completely unarmed. Not ideal, certainly. Now, good news, though, if you happen to be a Nazi paratrooper, and hopefully none of you are. Yeah, we can hope. None of this is going to be a problem, because according to the head of the German intelligence, the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris,

this battle would be such a walk in the park that you didn't even need weapons. See his intel. So there's only 5000 British soldier station on the island. They did not have any support of any Greeks and furthermore, the local Cretan population hated

the Greek monarchy so much they would welcome the Germans with open arms. Now here's the funny part. I said, intelligence was so bad. Oh, good. That it started a rumor that continues until this day that Wilhelm

Canaris was actually purposely trying to make Hitler fail. It was one of the reasons why he was implicated in the july 20th plot to kill hitler have you ever been so bad at your job they consider you a fucking traitor only twice job now there is some evidence that canaris may have been in on the plot but like this legitimately this intelligence was so fucking bad that they considered that like he had to have done them purpose no i promise just like gun to your throat i promise i'm just a moron yeah i'm just stupid i swear uh but one part was true the cretian population did really not like the monarchy however like in our in our favorite

uh podcast theory of fuck that guy they hated nazis a whole lot more now there's a good possibility that the cretians wouldn't have given a shit if the nazis simply never invaded their island i think that has a lot to do with is like they have a very uh strong streak of independence right um they they consider themselves greeks but they're also cretian and this is their fucking island fuck off that that that kind of thing uh so the second you start floating in from the sky they're they don't care who you are yeah like if the british were there on their own without greeks those greek soldiers they probably would have got shot at too now Now, so with all those bums and fuck-ups, the airborne operation began on dawn of May 20th

and waves of transport planes began dropping paratroopers while gliders came sailing in to deposit more on the ground. And then shit immediately went wrong. The slow-flying planes were massacred in the sky and the soldiers that actually managed to land were outnumbered because only 3,000 would land. Good. And remember, they're all high on meth, making even the most elite troopers pretty useless.

That's what you think. Yeah, right. And they were mostly unarmed because a lot of their canisters misdropped right into nearby villages where the Cretans then grabbed the rifles and armed themselves. Good, good. Good job, Cretans. Now, rather than the 5,000 or so Brits, like Canaris said, that the 3,000 paratroopers would have to fight. Remember, they're fighting almost 56,000 soldiers in a very hostile population that immediately joined in to fight the oncoming Germans. And the wind picked up, leading to a ton of misdrops of paratroopers, which is

always common when you throw people out of planes on parachutes. Especially not very good parachutes. Yeah, especially when they cannot control said parachutes. So on a lot of occasions, these Germans would find themselves singled out or maybe in small groups, totally unarmed, dropping into Cretan villages where they'd immediately get bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Good.

Very happy to hear that. And also sometimes the villagers would have guns that they would then shoot them and good stuff, you know. Thanks, Crete. All power to the Cretan villagers. And remember, they only had 493 planes to start this whole thing, and that number rapidly went down

with every sortie over Crete as the Nazis rushed to get more reinforcements into the battle when they realized that this might not be going so good. Within the first few hours, the plan looked like it was going to fail completely and be one of the most disastrous airborne operations in history and to be fair it still kind of is even though they still they end up winning eventually it still is one of the

most fucked up airborne battles ever for his puric victory but anything do i mean it's hard to argue if market garden was a bigger fuck up than this. But like numbers wise, this one is. Because Market Garden didn't destroy any future use of paratroopers. This did. So the full Schemjagers just keep throwing themselves into the fire. But they would eventually run out of ammo. Because they just didn't have enough planes to drop both men and ammo because the planes were getting shot down.

Also, they were running out of paratroopers in the first place. We only brought a couple thousand of them. Where did all our guys go? Spent all these months training Fallschirmjägers and they all died in four hours. Now, the answer to this is stealing a bunch of Greek fishing boats, jamming them with soldiers and supplies and sending them towards Crete.

This also happened to be when Germany actually turned towards Italy and asked for help, begging them to send their Navy because it was nearby. Oh, yeah. Now who needs help? Yeah. Now who comes begging? now who comes begging the plan was to draw the British Royal Navy away so this convoy of fishing boats could be

used as a for reinforcements but Italy refused which is funny because this is still technically a place they claim power over and this is their war they started this war like now we're done we have Rome or we have fucking

Athens fuck you we don't need Crete see you nerds so the Germans this is their war. They started this war. Like now we're done. We have Rome or we have fucking Athens. Fuck you. We don't need Crete. See you nerds. So the Germans decided to just try without naval cover, uh, sending the boats out at night. But these old fishing boats weren't exactly made for carrying thousands of men and ton of supplies.

So he could barely put along getting blown off course by waves in the wind until the Royal Navy finally found them and chased them back to the mainland. Uh, The Germans tried again a few hours later, assuming, so it'll work this time. Kind of. They're like, ah, the Brits probably wouldn't expect we'd do the same

stupid fucking plan so close together. This turned into something that the author of my source that I'm using called a, quote, waterborne massacre that lasted two hours. Now, quote, waterborne massacre that lasted two hours. Now, the only survivors of this

convoy were Germans who decided to throw themselves overboard and swim back to the coast for safety, leaving 800 dead people behind them. This did not stop the Germans from going for a hat trick, however, which was also turned back with hundreds of casualties. Now, at this point, the British got a little overconfident.

So far, the German bombers had been so busy supporting the stranded paratrooper buddies on Crete, they had largely ignored the Royal Navy, which had been given kind of free reign, as we kind of just saw. So the British sent 14 ships around the north coast of the island. They were quickly found by hundreds of German bomber and fighter aircraft. And, you know, a chase ensued. They lost the ship Juno, while several others were damaged. This eventually included the battleship Warspit.

Warspit? Warspit! What a name. Which was badly damaged and barely staying afloat. Seeing the constant aerial attacks, the British ships ran for the southwest, away from Crete, but the Air Force chased them anyway, sinking the

Greyhound. When several ships turned around to try to find survivors, the Gloucester was also sank. At this point, the surviving ships ran towards Alexandria, Egypt for safety, being attacked the entire way, also losing the ship, the Fiji. Oh, Fiji. It didn't matter what the British did.

They were just like getting hammered because they kind of had let the Germans have total air superiority. And they were finding out that air superiority really sucked being on the other side of. We can imagine. That sounds like it sucks. And I mean, they do have anti-aircraft weapons on board, of course. But when you're constantly fighting off clouds of hundreds of aircraft, you burn through your ammo pretty quickly. And that was happening.

Their anti-aircraft guns, when the British Navy sent out a picket to do anti-aircraft fire, the admirals straight up didn't know they were out of ammo. So they're just like, I guess by anti-aircraft, you mean team meat shield. out of ammo. So they're just like, I guess by anti-aircraft you mean team meat shield. Now, every

ship they sent to Crete to support the defense was attacked, damaged, or sank. By 7am on May 23rd what was left of the British Mediterranean fleet limped back to Alexandria. The fleet commander quit against explicit orders from London to defend the Cretan seas at all costs. But

at this point, the fleet had lost a thousand men and the remaining ships were out of ammo or damaged to the point of being combat capable. The Germans as it turned out, had learned their lesson and not launched another fishing boat based reinforcement convoy towards Crete. Damn it.

I hate when Nazis learn their lessons. Fourth time's the charm sometimes. And you know, if it takes you four times to learn your lesson, you're still a fucking dumbass. That's true. Words of wisdom from lines learned by dogs. So they instead were forced to rely on the Luftwaffe again. They packed every plane they could with soldiers and flew them in,

dropped them off at an airfield because they, again, had run out of paratroopers to throw out of them, and nobody could jump anymore. But by now, the British and the Greeks on the island were left without air or sea power as the German Air Force began to just fully rain bombs on them at will. Despite this, the Greek soldiers in a particular command continued to fight with near suicidal tenacity.

in a particular command continued to fight with near suicidal tenacity. A Kiwi officer named Howard Klippenberger noted that the Greek soldiers were, quote, nothing more than malaria-ridden little chaps with only four weeks of service, which was kind of true, but that didn't seem to stop them. The Greeks had long since run out of ammo, so they'd just attack the Germans with whatever weapons they found. Most of the time, bayonets, knives, and axes.

They would overrun them, steal their ammo, and fight a little bit longer until they ran out again and have to do it all over again. Now, I need to point out that this Greek staunch refusal to retreat has made everything that we're about to talk about next possible. Slowly, the island's Commonwealth defenders were pushed towards the eastern end of the coast. At this point, Churchill was telling his leaders how important it was to hold Crete, while his military leaders were telling him that was no longer possible.

So once again, the British began to plan an evacuation and once again they only really escaped uh without it being a complete bloodbath or just massive amount of pow taking like say singapore due to hitler being an idiot i mean there's one person you can depend on to constantly fuck up when the cards are down it's Hitler which is good yeah thank God for that when the pace of the battle settled into the fact that the Germans knew they were going to win like there's no doubt it was only a matter of time Hitler began to immediately pull

assets away because remember Germany is planning Barbarossa it's not supposed to kick off in like two days now it happens very very soon and he like that was already going to tax literally every everything that germany could scrape the bottom of the barrel for so before the battle in crete is over he's already pulling things away meaning that the germans no longer

have the air power needed to just like bomb the british evacuation force and that's the only reason why the evacuation is able to succeed is because the Germans simply did not have enough planes left because they can't fly around the clock. They need maintenance they need fuel, they need bombs. If they kept the full weight of the Luftwaffe there it would have turned the evacuation into a fucking shooting gallery.

Though they did still manage to sink a destroyer called the Hereward and damage several others killing 800 more people. So like just imagine what they could have done with you with the original amount of luff waffa they had would have been a fucking massacre now after the commonwealth forces that had evacuated the city of heraklion sorry greece it's the capital of crete uh fell now this meant any further large-scale fighting was was pointless and the organized Greek military finally surrendered. Though, again, many of them scampered off into the mountains to slowly form into resistance that would continue pretty much, well, for way after the war.

Unfortunately, there's a civil war next. Right, right. So, Mussolini's temper tantrum had started this entire war, cost Italy around 13,755 killed and 25,000 missing. You can assume a lot of those are dead. And about double the amount of killed were wounded. Around 3,000 Germans died. And the paratrooper corps was so badly mangled by the clusterfuck that Hitler refused to greenlight any other airborne actions for the rest of the war which means i think this is the last airborne operation that any german military has ever done

now in the opinion of his commander-in-chief field marshal walter von brausch with those good when it rhymes with al schwitz that's never a good sign uh he's the commander of the general staff and the commander of the general staff and the commander of the general staff, general Oberst Franz Halder, a month spent conquering Greece and Yugoslavia fatally delayed the invasion of Russia. Quote,

had Hitler not run a swastika up on the Acropolis, he may have succeeded in draping one upon the Kremlin. I personally don't believe that, but he certainly wouldn't have gotten his ass kicked so hard by the Russian winter. This is again playing into the if Hitler didn't do this, the war would have ended differently thing. That is never true. Germany was always going to lose. I don't know how many times I can point this out, but it just made the loss a lot harder.

Now, speaking of the Acropolis in Athens, when soldiers finally came to run the swastika up the Acropolis, a Greek soldier ran down the Greek colors, put them in his pocket, and then leaped to his death rather than hand them over. Admittedly pretty badass. Yeah, it's some metal shit right there. I mean, you can just go down to where the body is and just pickpocket him if you really want. I don't know. I'd say that. I hope they didn't happen. we have to respect this final which is uh now moose lee finally got his tram victory parade through athens now funny story about this he didn't win the the nazis did so the nazis also took part in this victory parade, right? Greek citizens actually showed up.

And somebody commented that they only clapped for the Nazis. So the Italians could see them clap for the Nazis. And then when they didn't clap for the Italians and greet them, they literally ghosted them. They watched the German soldiers march by clapped at them like half hardly and then immediately turned around and went home as the italians came by as like one final fuck you which is incredible now unfortunately the occupation of greece was terrible i can't go into it enough it's it's literally a topic uh for a different episode especially the greek resistance uh the germans pl Germans plundered Greece of food and medicine.

Paratroopers, regular soldiers, and death squads all carried out mass executions across the country. The paratroopers themselves often lumped in with the clean Wehrmacht shit, wiped out entire Cretan villages. It's ugly shit. The Holocaust destroyed 80%

of Greece's Jewish population as well. It's fucking awful. The Germans picked Greece so clean of material like food and medical supplies that 100,000 Greeks died of starvation and disease. And Athens alone. Yeah. the puppet government, the infighting amongst resistance groups over what Greece looked like next led directly to a civil war, which would kill 100,000 more people over the next couple of years. So that's the episode. Sorry. But I mean, like, we can take small joys and the shit didn't go down easy.

Yeah. Well, this is that. It's not often that a small nation that everybody believes is going to be a speed bump on the road to like a global empire savages you so hard. You cancel an entire military concept for all eternity, but that is the Greco Italian German war. It's mostly known as the Greco Italian war for some reason,

even though it shouldn't be. Yeah. If there was the, if this was truly the Greco-Italian War for some reason, even though it shouldn't be. Yeah, if this was truly the Greco-Italian War, it would have ended with Rome being occupied by Greece. I have no fucking doubt. See how you like it. Yeah, that's our episode.

Now, Liam, we do a little thing on the show, good questions from the Legion. If you'd like to ask us a question from the Legion, donate to the show, any amount. You slide into my DMs, send me an email, ask me a question legion uh donate to the show uh any amounts you slide into my gms send me an email ask me a question on patreon or the discord wrap up your question in a small tight square put it in your pocket and jump off the acropolis and i will read it on air if you're in greece don't do that don't jump off the acropolis this one's kind of topical. I have two of them just to be safe. Are you a Warhammer 40K fan?

I used to be into 40K, but that was about a decade ago. Perfect. And you know enough to answer this question. If you were forced to be in a Warhammer 40K military unit, any military unit, what would it be? I assume this means like any aliens, space Marines i guess is an easy cop-out answer um i'll tell you joe i would want to be a space marine because i would i would i would i would want to be doom guy no it's a hundred percent like legit because everybody else's existence in warhammer 40k is hell that'd be a space right sorry everybody i've never actually played warhammer 40k i never played any of the uh the figurine or tabletop

table someone's gonna be really mad i call it figurines i guess um but i've never played tabletop warhammer 40k i simply could never afford it and now that i can i don't have time for it unfortunately um but uh i love Warhammer 40K fiction. The lore is ridiculously... It's over-the-top entertaining, and I love the books. So I would 100% have to say I would be in the Imperial Guard,

Tanith first and only. And if you like 40K or you like military sci-fi, fuck, if you liked my books, this is the series that's heavily inspired me go read Dan Abnett's series it's so fucking good it's called

Gaunt's Ghosts I cannot recommend it enough there's like 15 books now plenty of entertainment but Liam thank you for joining me in another duology you're welcome I promise the next series we cover will be significantly more hopeless and longer,

uh, because you picked it and this is your fault. First. And until next time, everybody, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. You seriously do.

You make everything we do possible. Um, check out our T spring store. I put new designs on there. I always forget to point that out. Hey, you remembered. Yeah. Once every 10 episodes, it's like once a a month i remember that we have a whole ass store um

check out liam's other podcasts while there's your problem and 10 000 losses uh and buy my books did i miss anything my good did i do it did i do my job as a guy who pays my bills with this okay and again we will talk to you next time