Allied policy towards occupied Greece: the 1941-44 famine

Beginning in winter 1942, occupied Greece was ravaged by a full scale famine, claiming a total of some 260,000 victims. The famine was combatted with a large-scale relief scheme, sanctioned by the British and operated mainly through U.S. funds and other assistance. By itself this fact could appear to cast doubts to widely accepted axioms: it has often been generally assumed that U.S. interest in Greece began with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947. In reality, as this study of U.S. policy towards the famine illustrates, this interest, became apparent at an earlier stage. The aim of this thesis is to study the Greek famine with two main objectives in sight. The first, more modest one, is to provide an account for the Allied policy towards the famine, as well as the processes that created policy. The second, more ambitious objective is explain the motivation behind the policy Allies and attempt to account for the shift of pre-eminence in Western policy towards Greece, from its traditional seat in London across the Atlantic to Washington. The subject is approached at two distinct levels, the Greek famine being the common link between both. At the first level, the famine is a case study to test the different administrative responses to the need for foreign policy action. At the second level, the Greek famine is an illustrative case of the shift of power resources between the two major Western Powers and their attitudes towards this shift. In order to achieve these objectives, use is to be made of the literature on bureaucratic politics and the flow of information within organizations, for both Britain and the U.S.; also the relation of their respective decision-making processes - on the basis of intelligence available at the - to their response to the famine in Greece. As will be shown, while other aspects of 20th century Greek History have been studied in some depth, the particular episode of the famine has hitherto been overlooked. It is hoped that this thesis will, at least partially, fill this gap and underline its wider importance for the development of western policy towards Greece.

URI

https://bradscholars.brad.ac.uk/handle/10454/20956

Type

Thesis

Qualification name

PhD