George Grivas and EOKA

Georgios Grivas Digenis (1897 - 1974), Georgios Grivas was born on 5th July 1897 in the Chrysaliniotissa neighbourhood of Nicosia, the fourth child of Theodoros Grivas and Kalomira Hadjimichael, but he grew up in his family home at Tricomo Famagusta. After attending his village school he studied at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia (1909-15) where he stayed with his grandmother. During his high-school years he was devoted to his studies and especially to his physical training.

Georgios Grivas, who grew up with the dream of a "Great Greece", left Cyprus in 1916 and studied at the Athens Military Academy. He graduated in 1919 with the rank of sub-lieutenant and was immediately posted in the Asia Minor front. Within a few months, the 10th Division in which Grivas was serving, advanced from Smyrna to Panormos and Eski Sehir, passed Prussa and the Sagarios river and reached 70 kms from Ankara. With the withdrawal of the Greek army from Asia Minor in 1922 he was placed at Redestos, Thraki. He was decorated for his bravery and promoted to lieutenant.

During the years between the two world wars, Georgios Grivas continued his military career with zeal and determination. He was one of the officers selected to study at the French Military Academy and upon his return to Greece he served in a number of posts including that of a lecturer at the Military School of Greece. He was promoted to captain in 1925 and to major in 1935. Two years later he married in Athens Vasiliki Deka, the daughter of a pharmacist. With the beginning of WWII Grivas was transferred to the operations department of the central headquarters of the Greek army, working on the northern Greece’s strategic defense plans. Three months after the Mussolini attack on Greece, Georgios Grivas, following his persistent requests, was transferred to the Albanian front as chief of staff of the 2nd Division where he arrived in December 1940. Within a short time he became the "soul" and the driving force behind the Division’s heroic battles and advances against the Italian army.

Following the German attack and Greece’s occupation Grivas returned to Athens where in 1943 he founded the secret organization "X" from officers of the 2nd Division, with the aim of striking the German army if such operation was combined with an Allied invasion or attack. However the "X" organization consisting of a few hundred men, was involved in action in December 1944 when, alongside the British army units, resisted the pro-communist ELLAS attacks in their attempt to put Athens under their control. In 1946 he retired from the Greek army on his own request but his subsequent attempts to enter politics were unsuccessful.

Thereafter Grivas focused on the idea of liberating Cyprus from the British colonial rule and its Union with mainland Greece (ENOSIS), an ideal nourished by generations of Greek Cypriots. As a member of the secret Committee for the Cyprus Struggle he took the oath of ENOSIS together with the newly elected Archbishop Makarios III, with whom he collaborated for preparing the armed struggle. He arrived secretly in Cyprus in November 1954 and began immediately the formation of his underground organization EOKA . On 1st April 1955 with a declaration that he signed as DIGENIS and a number of explosions in the four major cities and military installations, he announced the beginning of his campaign for Self Determination – Union with Greece. He directed the first EOKA operations from his hideout in Nicosia but soon after he moved to the Troodos mountains to lead his guerrilla teams. He escaped capture twice after he was surrounded by British forces at Spilia in December 1955 and at Kykkos in May 1956. A month later he left the mountains and found refuge in a hideout at Limassol from where he directed not only the military activities but also the political campaign, since Archbishop Makarios in March 1956 was exiled by the authorities. With leaflets and the EOKA operations that included demonstrations, slogans, strikes, sabotage, bomb and machinegun attacks and ambushes, raised the people’s fighting spirit and drove men, women and even children to acts of self-sacrifice for the ideal of freedom and ENOSIS. The authorities responded with emergency measures that included curfews, arrests, imprisonment and the death penalty by hanging. However these measures failed to bring the situation under control. With the signing of the Zurich-London agreements in early 1959 and the declaration of Cyprus as an independent state Grivas reluctantly ordered cease-fire, since the struggle’s main objective of ENOSIS was not achieved. In March 1959 Digenis comes out of his hideout and departs for Athens where, as the liberator of Cyprus, he was received to a hero’s welcome and was subsequently decorated with the highest honours by the Greek Parliament and the Athens Academy. After the Cyprus settlement of 1959, Grivas was regarded as a Greek national hero and promoted to the rank of General. Not long after his return general Grivas was persuaded to head a coalition party but soon abandoned this route in disappointment.

He returned to Cyprus in 1964 after the Turkish Cypriots revolt and as the Chief Officer of the National Guard he directed the construction of defense forts and complexes aiming at withstanding a Turkish attack or invasion. However, after the November 1967 clashes with Turkish Cypriot gunmen at Kofinou and Turkey’s ultimatum, the Greek military government recalled both the Greek Division and General Grivas to Athens.

From 1968 to 1969 and while under strict surveillance he succeeded in creating a new movement aiming at deposing the ruling military Junta and restoring democracy in Greece. The discovery of his plans by the authorities left him with no other option but to escape again to Cyprus where he embarked upon a plan for the realisation his life’s dream, i.e. Enosis, or Union of Cyprus with Greece. He formed the armed organization EOKA B which he used as leverage in his attempts to persuade or force President Makarios to change his policy and adopt the line "Self Determination – Union" with Greece. However all his attempts to achieve the results he expected failed and on his death on 27th January 1974 his, and our, dream of ENOSIS was never realised.

Tens of thousands of people from every part of the island gathered for his funeral that took place at his Limassol hideout. General Georgios Grivas Digenis is a Hero of the Hellenic world and died "worthy of his country".

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