The italian occupation

 Italy declared war against Greece at the end of 1940, without any real reason. Mussolini wanted  to extend the Italian Empire from Dalmatia and Albania to Greece. Fascist Italy was free to do this since France was defeated and Great Britain was being attacked by the german Luftwaffe. The greek dictator Metaxas, who came from Cephalonia, said "No" to the italian ultimatum on the 28th october (the day that is now considered as a National Feast for WWII). Greece was attacked by the North. It was not expected, but the italian tanks and lorries couldn't pass through the mountains of Epirus. The greek army used the technic of the guerilla : canons were carried at the tops of the mountains so as to control the paths. Moreover material aid from the English, based in Cyprus, started arriving. This war was not wanted by the Italians : Greece neither threatened the Italian interests nor was it a traditional enemy. On the contrary. Hitler had to precipitate his plan of expansion towards the east and this led to the "blitzkrieg" in Yugoslavia. Greek army was also attacked in Macedonia.

 In April 1941, the greek resistance failed since it was numerically inferior. The English folded up themselves in Crete from where they were quickly dislodged. The island of Cephalonia was occupied, as the rest of the Ionan Islands. This was very important for the belligerents because in this way they could control the access to the gulf of Corinthos and thus to the heart of Greece. It was also an interesting base to supervise the movements of the English ships and to prevent a possible disembarkation in Balkans. The Italian forces (Esercito) were impressive (12 000 men of the 3th division of the infantry " Acqui " controlled by General Antonio Gandin) and badly informed because they axpected to meet a military resistance. However, the island was occupied without fight on April 31st, 1941 because the Greek army  had not been able to defend Cephalonia. After throwing leaflets threatening with bombardments in case of resistance, the airborne troops took control of the capital.

 The occupation lasted two years and a half. The official goal was to join again the Venetian colonies and thus to prepare a future annexation in Italy in the post-war period. The Italians hastened to unbolt the statue of governor Maitland which was on the main square  pointing out the British time and to change the street names. The stores had to put a sign in Italian. Any link with Greece, whatever it was, was removed. A programme of teaching Italian was set up for assimilation. The Italians behaved as all the occupants, i.e. with arrogance. Some violence was reported but nothing happened between them and the resistance which dealt especially with political propaganda (against monarchy). Perhaps because of the tragedy which was to follow, the collective memory of Cephalonians is "comprehensive" towards this occupation. Many Italian soldiers had origins from the south and presented many affinities with the Greeks. Because of that, the sympathy of many Greeks was directed without any doubt towerds the Italian side, as the hatred against the German regular army (Wehrmacht), which practised violence and torture without shame, increased day by day.  

The german invasion

From September 8th, 1943, date of the armistice between General Badoglio and the Anglo-Americans, following the arrest of Mussolini (July 25), each unit of the Esercito face a dilemma: should they follow the commands of the General Headquarter, which led quickly to a confrontation with the Germans or should they surender their weapons to Wehrmacht ? German Headquarter already reacted quickly to this reversal and invaded Italy by north. The Germans had sent a false message to General Gandin, signed by the Italian HeadQuarter, saying that the Acqui Division had to consign its weapons to Wehrmacht. General Gandin wavered in order to save time and pretexted a confused message. Thus the Esercito gained an invaluable number of days. However, many soldiers expected a fast outcome of the conflict and were justified to fight. The news of the armistice was followed by great joy which quickly disappeared bacause of the advertisement of the change of alliance for Italy. The Esercito had some ships, many significant pieces of artillery, ammunition and food and even anti-tank guns. The Italians moreover had mines in the gulf of Argostoli and had built various defence works. In short, they could defend themselves against an external attack ...

 By July, two German battalions had been already stationed in Cephalonia (1600 soldiers in all and nine tanks, controlled by Lieutenant-Colonel Barge). Hitler feared a probable italian defeat after the allies disembarked in Italy. The Germans settled, after agreement with the Italians, around Lixouri (1000), in the north of Argostoli (500) and a hundred kept a battery in Cape Mounda, close to Skala. During this time, the 11th Battalion of hunters of the 98th Regiment of the 1st Division on the mountain, controlled by Major Harald Von Hirschfeld was ready to disembark on the island.  The German ultimatum was refused on 9th September, consequently each Italian soldier was regarded as a " traitor ". The Germans tried in the morning of September 13th disembark by sea in Argostoli; but due to the fire of the Italian batteries one of the ships sank and the two others turned back (one towards the open sealand, the other, damaged, towards Lixouri). Germans were furious to see this and this provoked them to sign the death sentence of the Italian prisoners.  In many cases, demoralized Italians surrendered to the Germans, others also surrendered after having left significant stocks of weapons to various "maquis", in Cephalonia (as in Corfù). It was decided to consult the opinion of the Esercito on the 14 in the evening. Apart from some senior officers, all had decided not to yield to the ultimatum which enjoined them to deposit their weapons. This was the reason why the Acqui Division was declared " Divisione partigiana " in 1946.

 The engagements lasted a whole week. Strong fights machine-guns took place around Argostoli. At the same moment the Germans had brought an air support (stukas) which prohibited the Italians from manoeuvring correctly during the attack. The troops of hunters who disembark around Myrtos could thus control the roads leading to Sami and Fiskardo and cut the Italians off the mountain where they could find a refuge. The combat became unequal, in spite of the numerical superiority of the Italians and numerous soldiers surrendered. The prisoners of the first days were all summarily carried out with the machine-gun. Germans humiliated and stripped the prisoners of any valuable article. The authors of these crimes were also Austrians (the 1st Mountain Division), they generally understood few italian and took revenge of the traditional enemy who had annexed South Tyrol 25 years ago.  On the whole, 9646 soldiers and 390 Italian officers lost their lives:

• during the first days of combat (1250 soldiers and 65 officers),

• at the time of shooting the prisoners (from 4 750 to 5000 soldiers and 325 officers whose was general Gandin, in different places)

• during their " transfer " to Germany 3000 soldiers (out of 4000 prisoners) also disappeared (after the boats being bombarded by English aeroplanes or sunk by mines - there are two versions - ).
  The others, hid in the mountain helped by Greeks, and join the guerilla with the partisans (on the continent); some even succeeded in reaching Italy.

During the last months of the occupation, the German oppression against the population was more intense. On June 5, 1944 (the day before  the operation " Overlord " in Normandy) following the assassination of a collaborator, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht hung five rebels on the central square of Lixouri, before the eyes of the father of the one two and the passers-by who where forced to attend this sordid spectacle under the threat of machine-guns.  For these war crimes, the Court of Nuremberg sentenced the General Hubert Lanz, who had controlled the troops of hunters of the mountain to 12 years of reclusion; he was released in 1951. Major Von Hirschfeld become General and died in the combat of Warsaw in 1945. In the end of the war, the search for the bodies of the Italians began. 3000 bodies were repatriated to the military cemetery of Bari. The others, which could not be identified, always rest in Cephalonia where there is  a memorial (in the forest above Argostoli and Lassi).  

1,5 million copies of his book have been sold only in Great Britain. Since 1992, it has been translated in many languages, such as French, Italian and Greek. The topic of the book: passion between a  young Greek woman, Pelagia, girl of a notable patriot, forsaken by his lover, Mandras, who left her to join the resistance, and Antonio, an Italian artillery captain, a charmer and musician of the troops of occupation. In the background there are the tragic events of 1943, when in September the Italian troops must face the German invasion. Thereafter Corelli decides to return to Italy to continue the fight. The two principal protagonists will meet again many years later, resulting in a painful " happy end ". The ingredients of the book, a traditional novel of adventure, were hatred, love, treachery and death wich make the readers hold their breath until the end.

            There is just one problem : it is about a " very fictionalized " novel, even manichean in its description of that period and in particular of the resistant of the Greeks (ELAS mainly communist). The communist resistance which largely contributed to the freedom of the country is presented like a bunch of sadists or war profiteers who spends their time assassinating the resistants supported by the Anglo-Saxons. De Bernieres reiterated later his opinions in a note in the last edition. Its translation in Greek started a violent objection.   This polemic was amplified by the testimony of the Italian officer, depicted in the novel, and who indeed existed: Amos Pampaloni, the only survivor of the massacre of his company. Previously wounded and looked after by the partisans Pampaloni denounced, the rewriting of the story and  his nausea to see this episode of his life " fictionalized " *. He notes that, except in Napoli, the players of mandolin were already been very rare at the time. Then a captain who makes his soldiers sing, god ! But especially these 14 months spent in Greek resistance (7th brigade of the ELAS) were the most beautiful years of his life.  De Bernieres (inspired by English military sources) speaks about cruelty while Pampaloni evokes fraternity and solidarity among the partisans. De Bernieres, moreover, makes a quiet portrait of Metaxas, who tortured, imprisoned or carried out hundreds of opponents, and presented an exceedingly friendly Italian army (see the atrocities in Ethiopia).

 For others, like Nafsika Papanikolatou, on the contrary, the novel  is against fascism and communism, like Orwell in his denunciation of totalitarianism. In Greece, the vision of the civil war is still very passionate and largely romanticized by the Left. For Papanikolatou, the book is a novel and not a historical account; De Bernieres is excusable in the sense that he conveys a typically English design of the Mediterranean world in which certain stereotypes are not unbased. However, as he points out De Bernieres accepted the request of his Greek editor to rectify some passages which are too vehement, and throw a certain discredit on the author. According to the governor of Cephalonia, himself, Dionysis Georgatos (Pasok: Socialist party), the work is "reactionary and false" (see the web site "Age" below). They gave the authority to make the film after having created a committee of historians and mayors, which decided that Cephalonians suffered from the war and that the subject remains sensitive. It noted that De Bernieres used the British sources of the time, which as everyone knows were strongly directed by the intervention of London even in the civil war of 1945 to 1948. In same time, the mayor of Sami, (where the film was shot) Gerasimos Artelanis (also member of Pasok) threatened the Madden team that he would call the International Court of Justice if they followed De Bernieres in his positions while Lefteris Eleftheratos, a former cephalonian journalist (72 years) carries out the combat against the novel: "the war is declared, but it is a defensive war". The point more discussed is the insistence of De Bernieres to deny the fact that the ELAS helped the Italians in September 1943. He even insinuates that certain Italians were killed by the partisans. However testimonies of the survivors (Greek and Italian) are concordant on the logistic support of the ELAS and the partisans who lost their lives there. The Pampaloni's testimony, for example, is eloquent. As of the advertisement of the armistice (September 8) the heads of ELAS revealed their true identity to him and requested from the Italians a material aid. The physiologist Agisilaos Miliaresis (member of an old aristocratic family of Cephalonia) who is stated to have been the commander of the ELAS in Cephalonia, was provided tens of rifles, some machine-guns and a lot of ammunition by captain Pampaloni. Moreover, he armed a hundred of Slovenians (auxiliaries in the italian army), ready to fight against Germans, whom he entrusted to the ELAS for future actions on the continent *. From that moment, the partisans engaged in the concrete actions against the Germans. Hundreds of Italians joined the partisans to regain Epirus or the Peloponnesus.

John Madden's film

The Anglo-French-American production (Miramax - Canal+ - Universal *) ensured during the two years of prospection in Cephalonia that they wouldn't repeat the errors of the book about the civil war to spare local susceptibilities. It should be recognized that apart from some actors American or English (John Hurt and Christian Bale in the roles of Dr. Yannis and Mandras, respectively father and fiancé of Pelagia, David Morrissey as the German captain, Gunther) a certain effort was made in the distribution of second roles to Greeks (Irene Papas as Pelagia's mother) or even to Italians (see below). Moreover the script was entrusted to a person who nobody could suspect of " primary anticommunism ": Shawn Slovo, Ruth First's daughter, a militant of the anti-appartheid movement assassinated and of Joe Slovo, a communist and leader of the A.N.C.

 The film would originally be directed by the director of " Notting Hill ", Roger Michel, but this one left his place to John Madden (author of the polyoscarized " Shakespeare in love ") for reasons of health (heart attack). It should be known that American logic is completely different from that which prevails in Europe: the production makes scriptwriters work scenario on a project (often a novel, sometimes a " remake ", whose the rights has bought wich means that practically aeverything can change in the script) and then it contacts a director and searches for the financining (in this case 70 million dollars).

" Captain Corelli' s Mandolin " was filmed in the area of Sami, primarily for reasons of logistics: the port of Sami is one of the main ones on the island and it is easier to bring heavy hardware there. The old town of Argostoli was reconstructed in the downtown area as it was before the earthquake. In fact factitious frontages covered the real houses. All the decorations have been dismounted since then. The scenes of the German attack were mainly shot at the area of Antisamos, not far from Sami, as well  at Myrtos. Hundreds of people (local or Greek soldiers) carried the German or Italian uniform. The Greek government provided men with explosives, experts and barges of disembarkation for the occasion.

SUN, 24 SEP  2000 , http://www.aimpress.org/fix/feedback/feedback.htm

Captain Corelli, the Contradictions of Greek Resistance, Hollywood and Cephallonia

by Nafsika Papanikolatos

When I discovered for the first time Louis de Bernieres "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (Minerva Editions, 1995) I could have never imagined what would follow. I do not mean its translation and publication in Greek, which raised serious questions about the author's real intentions, but rather its transformation into a 45 million pounds Hollywood-backed blockbuster that may sweep in two years the Oscars, transforming a quite unknown Greek island into a Hollywood stars resort and not only...

Cephallonia, the largest island of the Ionian Sea, remains even today a rather unexploited market for tourist enterprises. The possibilities are immense, but the Cephallonian stubborn and aristocratic temperament appeared so far quite incompatible with the rigid rules of competition and exploitation of its natural resources. However, the locals' attitude towards tourist services appears to be undergoing a radical transformation since it was announced three years ago that a Hollywood-backed British company showed interest to make De Bernieres' bestseller a high scale production and wanted to shoot the film at the original sites where the story unfolds.

Louis de Bernieres' "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is a book able to be read in several and not necessarily compatible ways. One can read it as a remarkable "old fashioned narrative," as the author suggests in one of his interviews, "with well shaped characters and important themes: faith, love, cowardice, death." Undoubtedly the author has proven here that he is a master in the art of transporting his readers in time and space and making them feel part of events that they cannot abandon until they turn the last page. The same book can be read as an anti-war epic that recounts in the beginning the successful and heroic Greek resistance to Mussolini's divisions, which led to the first Allied Forces victory against fascism. The story develops afterwards during the Italian occupation of Cephallonia by the fascist forces and from that point of view, as the author admits, it is a "historical novel" that is bound to be read by some for what it does not tell and not for what it tells. There is a third reading between the lines, that the author cultivates but fails to control by falling victim too often to simplifications, as he tries to unravel the totalitarian personality. Louis de Bernieres intends his book not to be simply an antifascist narrative, but a narrative against totalitarianism as such. Therefore, the author wants to be equally critical against fascists and communists, against all ideologies which try to impose the one and only truth about human coexistence. It is thus that the role of Greek communists who led the wartime resistance against the Italians and the Germans in Cephallonia (and elsewhere in Greece), and who later fought against the British and American backed forces in the civil war, entangles with an antiwar epic and an unconsummated love triangle between a local young woman, the self-taught daughter of the local doctor, a member of the Greek Liberation Front (ELAS), and an Italian opera-loving army captain.

Any dispassionate observer of the Greek civil war, after 1989, cannot afford to pretend that Greek communists would have not founded another totalitarian regime had they succeeded to establish a socialist 'republic' in Greece. From that point of view one can be profoundly critical of the totalitarian elements ingrained in their ideology, irrespective of whether all those partisans were swept by the passions that cultivate illiberal regimes, poverty, and oppression. Greece fortunately escaped from this destiny, though the price it paid was much higher than it has yet been told. For Greece is a unique country in modern Europe that continues to cultivate its myths not only about its ancient history but also about its more recent history, about the role of the communists and about the civil war itself. Research in this domain, while quite extensive in recent years, remains entangled by the oppositions between left and right, rather that freeing it from ideologies and the mythologies they cultivate. This defensive attitude has left little room for serious research and debates.

When the book first appeared in its Greek translation it was generally welcomed positively, even by the official communist party's newspaper, "Rizospastis." Soon however, historians mostly affiliated to the communist party, journalists and veteran resistance fighters started attacking the book as a distortion and counterfeiting of the history of the Greek National Liberation Front (EAM), full of crude anticommunism. The debates continued for a long time, nevertheless the novel was read widely and became for some time even a best seller in Greece too. When the British filmmakers decided to produce a film out of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," a committee was set up by local historians, mayors, and the prefect of the island to assure that all those moments in the book that offended the acceptable history of the Greek civil war would not be included in the film. As the mayor of Sami, Gerassimos Artelanis, sums up in a revealing statement about modern Greek political culture: "You know, not even Greeks have decided who was right and wrong during the civil war. It's still a bitter thing." However, he does not hesitate to add, "If they turn it into a political film, we will take measures. You can be sure we will take the issue to the international court of justice at The Hague. We will fight it all the way."("The Sunday Times," 4-6-00) The British film-makers, before shooting, had to provide assurances that they would not raise the issue of the civil war or defame the heroic Cephalenian resistance movement.

Louis de Bernieres borrowed for his novel -and it must be read as a novel and not as a historical book- images from everyday life to enrich his story. He did not select images at random but he opted for those that fit his conceptual understanding of reality and naturally he left others out. Reading the book as a historical treatise evidently leads to infinite debates and one can question several statements made in it about the anti-fascist front and about the Greek partisans ("antartes"). De Bernieres also presents in his book an imaginary which belongs to a particular historical context and culture, the British one, which had discovered the Mediterranean temperament, well before CNN, Internet and the passengers of charter flights. Undoubtedly one can be at least offended by some characterizations about the Greeks and the Italians, which are at least insolent if not racist. Nevertheless, all these must be read as a presentation of the encounter of one culture with a distinctively different one. As such, the book is a novel, which does not describe only Cephallonia in the 1940's, it also reflects the British interpretation of that culture and as such it is another important story that must be remembered. However, when one uses historical reality for raw material it ought to be treated with care and respect, even if it is history that one rightly questions and criticizes. De Bernieres' arguments often drown in passionate and subjective interpretations that he fails to control, making him vulnerable to criticisms that disembogue his arguments from their substance. He thus encourages his critics to disremember the gray side of history where events are not interpreted in terms of the good and the bad guys and where justice and totalitarianism meet.

What is awkward if not ambiguous is why the author conceded to change the Greek edition of the book, after the criticism it received by Greek historians, journalists, and living communist resistance fighters, for its portrayal of the Greek partisans. Louis de Bernieres explained to "The Guardian:" "I haven't changed my mind about what I think is the truth, but I had to bear in mind the possibility that I might be wrong. (...) The story of the communist resistance is extremely complex (...) In Greece these issues are still very much alive, and there is still much vehement hatred bubbling away just beneath the surface. Whereas my opinion about this doesn't matter too much outside Greece, it matters very much within it, and it was never part of the purpose of Corelli to stir up bad blood. Corelli is about other themes, and I wouldn't want the book to be distorted for Greek readers, which is why I agreed with my publishers and translator that some of my language and opinions should be moderated. The Greeks don't need some foreigner sticking his oar in when they can, and do, perfectly well argue among themselves."(4/6/2000) This argument is not very convincing since any author has the right to opinions and interpretations, and they constitute his material which he uses to narrate a story; books are not written to please the public but to share a moment of a time's imaginary, whether we like it or we want to forget about it.

Once the producers assured Cephallonians that the film would not touch upon the thorny issue of the civil war, everyone calmed down and tried to profit from the flourishing business that was created around the film. At the port of Sami, where the island's capital of Argostoli was reconstructed to look as it used to be in the 1940's, local labor became necessary along the specialized crew. Hundreds of Cephallonians participated as extras. Along the port where most of the shooting took place eighteen stores, hotels, restaurants, and other buildings had to shut down in the midst of the summer, in exchange for lucrative compensations that their owners could not resist to. Yet, some store owners insisted at demanding extortionate sums, which led the production company to threaten with the possibility of withdrawing and shooting the film in Turkey... Everyone in Sami and in the near villages who owned hotels, apartments or villas had full occupancy before even the summer season started, accommodating to the needs of the stars, the crew and the media. Even the Greek government conceded to provide minesweepers, landing crafts and hundreds of soldiers while some of the most beautiful beaches of the island like Mirtos or Antisami were closed to the public for several weeks.

Besides hotel and storeowners, another category that profited significantly during the shooting was that of donkey owners, compensated with 20.000 drachmas a day (approximately 50 dollars). Considering that in the 1940's donkeys were an important means of transportation, the director required a significant number, some of which even had to be brought from other regions of Greece. Cephallonian owners of small boats also became significantly richer as they took those audacious and often inhuman "paparatsi" to take a shot of Nicholas Cage -or otherwise Captain Corelli- or of Penelope Cruz -or otherwise Pelagia- and sell it to some desperate gossip paper. Greek audiences throughout this summer had to endure on several days in the evening news, of all the television stations, small and big gossip about the shooting, the actors or the upright rise of popularity of Cephallonia amongst Hollywood stars. Madonna, Steven Spielberg, Robert de Niro, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and many others discovered the beauties of Cephallonia while the Italian tempered Sofia Loren, declared upon her return to Italy that Cephallonia will be the new Cinecita as it has nothing to envy from Hollywood. Even the Greek Minister of Culture, Theodoros Pangalos (in a less passionate post) became convinced and during his visit to the island this year tried to encourage filmmaking businesses to make investments.

A whole new market emerged, new relations of exchange appeared on the island and everyone now hopes that this is only the beginning. The whole island throughout the summer and probably for many summers to come, no matter what the destiny of the film will eventually be, has been transformed into Corelli's island. There are Corelli's bars, Corelli's cafes, Corelli's guides as Corelli-related investments multiply. Probably some discomfort will appear since the film is bound to displease a few people. However, no one doubts that all will be soon forgotten and Cephallonians will get back into the business of profiting from Captain Corelli's investments in Cephalonia's tourist industry.