My vote in favor of the first Axis defeat would be the Italian attack on the south of France. Some second-line troops, greatly outnumbered and demoralized, managed to stop Mussolini’s legions in their tracks. In the vast scheme of things, it didn’t matter, but it showed what could be done.
The Battle of Britain was an ongoing battle even after the Greeks defeated the Italians. It wasn’t a land battle either, I should have mentioned the first land battle.
France’s successful defense against the Italians is very admirable and I have read about it. But there was no incursion and occupation of the Italian possessions by the French. I would also like to add that the French had also ceded territory to the Italians after that battle. So in my book, that in no way shape or form a defeat inflicted on the axis. A “victor” does not cede territory to a “defeated” force immediately after a battle.
The Greeks not only expelled the Italians from Greece proper, but also began an invasion of southern Albania (at that time, Italian territory) and managed to expel the Italian army from a third of the portion of Albania, occupying it themselves and it had inflicted tens of thousands of casualties / deaths in addition to hosting thousands of prisoners. In essence, it is the first offensive victory over the Axis powers.
Italy attacked Greece on October 28, 1940 and suffered the first Axis defeat. Although Hitler had no plans for Greece at the time, he was forced to send troops to occupy Greece (as Greece’s neutrality was broken) in April 1941. This resulted in the delay of Operation Barbarossa and the loss of valuable troops. . I understand, human nature being what it is, that we all want to put our ancestors and heritage in the best possible light, but I think the best title you can accurately put in this thread is “AN Axis Power Early Defeat” .
He was not trying to denigrate you or the Greek army. I don’t have “significant heartburn,” although it could be coming. All I said was that the title of your original thread was not accurate. You responded by changing the basic rules. My second post (with a “sigh”) explained exactly why it was inaccurate. Then he changed the thread title to include “(on land)”. That’s fine, one less complaint (though I tend to agree with Belisarius), but it doesn’t address my other complaint, which was that the Greeks defeated Italy, not “the Axis powers.”
Well, since you put it that way and you want to be a technician, I can be a technician too. If you really want to do things by your side, this war, which was the Axis’s first defeat on the ground, probably cost them (yes, both of them) the entire war (the Russians and Germans admitted it anyway) since the Germans and Italians had to delay their plans for the invasion of Russia for a couple of months with this detour (time to invade Greece and time to prepare for the invasion of Russia). This caused the Axis to invade in the Russian winter. The Battle of Stalingrad (a pivotal battle, right?) Probably wouldn’t happen either.
I know it is not a widely held belief due to some strange reason or another, that the Greeks could have been “conceivably” directly or indirectly responsible for this, but the statements of the German generals alone are proof enough for me. If you have any questions, I can post links to them, they are statements that were made at the Nuremberg trials. However, German officials paid considerable tribute to the measure of resistance.
Hitler’s Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, declared: “The incredibly strong resistance of the Greeks delayed the German attack on Russia for two or more vital months; if we had not had this long delay, the outcome of the war would have been. been different on the eastern front and in war in general. “
A speech Hitler made in the Reichstag in 1941 said of the campaign: “It must be said, for the sake of historical truth, that among all our opponents, only the Greeks fought with infinite courage and a defiance of death.” Joseph Goebbels diary of April 9, 1941: “I forbid the press to underestimate the Greeks, defame them … The Führer admires the bravery of the Greeks.”
