Alexandros Papagos

On 10 October 1935, along with the service chiefs of the Navy (Rear Admiral Dimitrios Oikonomou) and the Air Force (Air Vice Marshal Georgios Reppas), he toppled the government of Panagis Tsaldaris and became Minister for Military Affairs in the new cabinet of Georgios Kondylis, which immediately declared the restoration of the Greek monarchy.[3] Papagos remained Minister of Military Affairs until Kondylis' resignation on 30 November,[5] and was re-appointed to the post in the succeeding Konstantinos Demertzis cabinet on 13 December 1935 until 5 March 1936.[6] On 5 March 1936 he was named Inspector-General of the Army, holding the post until 31 July. On the next day he was promoted to Chief of the Army General Staff.[3] From his position, he employed the Army to support Metaxas' declaration of dictatorship on 4 August 1936.

Papagos (left) with General Archibald Wavell, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Middle East Command of the British Army, in Athens in January 1941

During the next years, as Chief of the General Staff, he actively tried to reorganize and reequip the Army for the oncoming Second World War.

At the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War on 28 October 1940, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Army, a post he retained until the capitulation of the Greek armed forces following the German invasion of Greece in April 1941.[3] Papagos directed Greek operations against Italy along the Greek-Albanian border. The Greek army, under his command, managed to halt the Italian advance by 8 November and forced them to withdraw deep into Albania between 18 November and 23 December. The successes of the Greek Army brought him fame and applause. A second Italian offensive between 9 and 16 March 1941 was repulsed. Despite this success, Papagos chose to maintain the bulk of the Greek Army in Albania, and was unwilling to order a gradual withdrawal to reinforce the north-eastern border (and a defense along the so-called Haliacmon line, considered to be more defensible) as German intervention came closer. After the German invasion on 6 April 1941, outnumbered Greek forces in Macedonia fiercely resisted the German offensive at the Metaxas Line, but were outflanked by the enemy and so Papagos endorsed their surrender. Soon after the Army of Epirus capitulated and by 23 April the Greek government was forced to flee to Crete.

Papagos (center) with other officers as POW in Dachau

Papagos remained in occupied Greece. During 1943 he established with other ex Army officers, a resistance organization, the Military Hierarchy. In July of the same year, he was arrested by the German occupation authorities and transported to Germany's concentration camps as a prisoner.[3] In late April 1945 he was transferred to Tyrol together with about 140 other prominent inmates of the Dachau concentration camp, where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on 5 May 1945.[7]

In 1945 he returned to Greece, rejoined the Army and reached the rank of full General in 1947.[3] In August 1945, he was appointed an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire by the British.[8][9][10][11]

In January 1949, he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief in the ongoing Greek Civil War.[3] Papagos led the final victory of the government forces over the Communist Democratic Army of Greece, employing extensive American material aid (including napalm equipped aircraft ), and the extensive deployment of Hellenic Mountain Raider Companies of Special Forces (LOK), during the Grammos-Vitsi campaign between February and October of that year.

The British officer Christopher Woodhouse, who had been active in the Greek Resistance and knew the country well, considered that his predecessor, Lt. General Dimitrios Giatzis, had "virtually won the war" before his dismissal, but that Papagos' appointment was beneficial because Papagos, through his seniority and prestige, "could impose his own plans and wishes on both the Greek high command and the allied military missions, which had been for some months at loggerheads with each other."[12] He further qualifies Papagos as a "superlative staff officer, impeccable in logistic planning and exact calculation, a master of the politics and diplomacy of war", but "with little experience of high command in battle", and a tendency to command from Athens, seldom even visiting the front lines. Papagos' aloof leadership style led to clashes with one of the most important subordinate commanders, the impetuous Lt. General Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos.[12]

As a reward for his services, he was awarded the title of Field Marshal on 28 October 1949, the only Greek career officer to ever hold this rank.[3] He continued to serve in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief until 1951,[3] while Greece was in a state of political instability, with splinter parties and weak politicians unable to provide a firm government.