War, Occupation and Civil War in Laconia

For the Occupation (1941–44), including the executions at Monodendri on 26 November 1943, see Town Life. This page covers the conflict that followed. Its history is still debated, and remembered painfully by families on all sides. We follow academic and archival sources and say whose account each claim comes from.

Liberation and the battle of Mystras (September–October 1944)

German troops left Laconia in early September 1944. In Laconia the conflict between the left-wing resistance (EAM-ELAS) and the government-sponsored Security Battalions was already intense. A Panteion University thesis on EAM-ELAS in Laconia describes the violence there as exceptional within the Greek resistance. According to the local history site Spartan Roots, the Security Battalion of Sparta (about 800 men) and civilians who feared reprisals withdrew to the castle of Mystras. ELAS attacked on 10–11 October 1944, and the battalion surrendered on agreed terms.

From the “White Terror” to the Democratic Army (1945–47)

According to the ASEliS academic archive project, after 1945 members and supporters of the Left in the Peloponnese faced pressure from right-wing paramilitary groups, especially the organisation “X”. Many moved to Athens; others hid in the mountains. From summer 1946 small guerrilla bands formed, mainly in the southern Peloponnese, and clashes with “X” and the Gendarmerie spread from September 1946. These bands became the Democratic Army of the Peloponnese, part of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE).

The first major operation, ASEliS notes, was an attack on Sparta on 13 February 1947 that freed 220 prisoners. Some sources sympathetic to the DSE give 240. In March 1947, according to the KKE newspaper Rizospastis, the largest groups were on Parnon (about 200 fighters) and Taygetos (about 150).

Parnon and Taygetos (1947–48)

The war in the Peloponnese grew from 1947. By autumn 1948, according to ASEliS, the Democratic Army of the Peloponnese held much of the region’s mountains with more than 3,000 fighters. In September 1948 it became the DSE’s III Division. According to accounts sympathetic to the DSE, in February 1948 a unit from Parnon raided Gytheio and freed prisoners there.

FAMILY MEMORY · ORAL HISTORY, NOT A SOURCED FACTDuring the Civil War the andartes made the founder's family house in Taintzina their headquarters. They built a fire on the living-room floor and opened the roof to let the smoke out; the charring on the floor was still there in his childhood, before the house was restored. (Family account of Pericles Gregoriou.)

Operation “Peristera” and the end (1948–49)

In late December 1948 the National Army launched Operation Peristera (“Dove”) under I Army Corps, with about 50,000 troops (ASEliS). Mass arrests of suspected supporters across the Peloponnese cut the guerrillas off from supplies. By March 1949 the Democratic Army of the Peloponnese had been broken up (ASEliS); small groups held out on Parnon and Taygetos for some time. Nationally, the Civil War ended in 1949 after the government offensives on Grammos and Vitsi in August.

Sources: ASEliS / Greek History Repository, “Δημοκρατικός Στρατός Πελοποννήσου”; Panteion University thesis on EAM-ELAS in Laconia, 1942–44; Spartan Roots, Mystras 1944; Rizospastis (KKE newspaper, partisan source, attributed); Wikipedia, Operation Peristera.