Georgios Grivas

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Georgios Grivas (George Grivas) (Greek:Γεώργιος Γρίβας), also known as Digenis by Greeks, which he adopted while in EOKA, (1898 - 1974) was a Cyprus-born general in the Greek Army.

Georgios Grivas Digenis (1897 - 1974), Georgios Grivas was born on 5 July 1897 in Chrysaliniotissa, Nicosia, the fourth child of Theodoros Grivas and Kalomira Hadjimichael. He grew up in his family home at Tricomo, in the District of Famagusta. After attending his village school he studied at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia (1909-15) where he stayed with his grandmother. Georgios Grivas, left Cyprus in 1916 to study 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. He was later 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 World War II 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.

During the German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation of Greece in World War II he founded and led Organisation X, a minor resistance organisation made up of officers of the Greek army whose influence was limited in certain neighbourhoods of Athens. During the events of December 1944, Organisation X fought along with the British forces and the Greek loyalist forces, to resist the attempts of the EAM/ELAS fighters to bring Athens under their control (see Greek Civil War).

After the end of the Greek Civil War, Grivas founded a political party and attempted to start a political career, but failed. He came back to Cyprus in the 1950s as the leader of the underground organisation EOKA aiming to force Britain out of Cyprus and unite Cyprus to Greece through a proces of self-determination. 'Digenis' was the codename Grivas chose to use as leader of EOKA. It referred to Digenis Akritas, the legendary hero of folk songs who was a member of the elite Akrites, the border guards of the Byzantine Empire. The cause of enosis (union of Cyprus and Greece) was very popular in Cyprus and Greece. Action by EOKA began with the issue of a proclamation and a series of bomb attacks on April 1, 1955.

In recent years the leadership of AKEL, the Cyprus communist party, has been accusing EOKA of having attacked or executed civilians who were the party's supporters. They attributed these activities on Griva's anticommunism, and an organised effort on behalf of Grivas and EOKA to limit the party's influence. The organisations of veteran EOKA fighters have strongly denied these claims. They contend that EOKA only attacked traitors and collaborators whose activities directly compromised EOKA fighters or undermined the armed struggle. In fact only a small fractions of Greek Cypriot civilians targeted by EOKA as traitors or collaborators actually belonged to the Cyprus left. Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot reaction to EOKA and enosis was expressed by the foundation of the underground organisation TMT and the rallying cry of taksim (division of the island into two separate Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot parts).

Negotiations initially between Greece, UK and Turkey, and later including representatives of the Greek and Turkish-Cypriots, lead to the creation of an independent state in 1960, the Republic of Cyprus. In March 1959 Digenis came out of his hideout and departed for Athens where 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.

In December 1963 fighting broke out in Cyprus between Greek and Turkish-Cypriots. Grivas used the popularity he gained in the EOKA era to coerce Cyprus president Archbishop Makarios III and the Greek government into allowing him to return to Cyprus, and eventually into allowing him to become Supreme Military Commander of Cyprus. His attack in August 1964 against TMT forces in the Kokkina enclave resulted in the collapse of negotiations between the Americans, Greeks and Turks to solve the Cyprus issue on the basis of the Acheson plan, in attacks by the Turkish Air Force in the Tylliria area and in the resignation of the first commander of the Cypriot National Guard, Georgios Karayiannis. Grivas left Cyprus in 1967 after a crisis which was seriously escalated when the Cypriot National Guard under Grivas attacked TMT forces in the Turkish Cypriot village of Kofinou.

He once more returned to Cyprus from Greece secretly in August 1971 to form and lead underground organisation EOKA B, again with the rallying cry of Enosis. He secretly met with Makarios but they did not reach an agreement to co-operate. Grivas started plotting to overthrow Makarios with the support of the US-backed Junta of the Colonels which was ruling Greece at the time. He died on January 27, 1974 while in hiding in a house in the city of Limassol. Though he was supposed to be in hiding, his whereabouts were known to the government of Makarios and the phone in the house he was living in was tapped. The announced cause of his death was heart failure, but some of his supporters still claim that he was murdered. Grivas' supporters insisted that the pro-Grivas Gennadios, Bishop of Paphos, who had been disrobed after his participation in the ecclesiastical coup against Makarios, officiate at Grivas' funeral. Makarios would not have the disrobed Bishop of Paphos officiate at Limassol Cathedral, therefore Grivas' supporters held the funeral and burial,in the garden of the house that had been Grivas' last hideout during the EOKA strugle (1955-1959). His tomb is still there. A memorial monument has been erected on the site.

The Junta of the Colonels eventually overthrew Makarios just six months after Grivas' death. The military coup of July 15, 1974 which overthrew Makarios was executed by forces of the Cypriot National Guard under direct instructions from Greece. It has been claimed that the initial intention was to include EOKA B in the planning. However there is no concrete evidence that would substantiate such a claim. In any case, by a series of coincidences, on June 18, 1974 police discovered the hideout of Cypriot EOKA B leader Lefteris Papadopoulos and arrested him along with most of the organisation's section leaders. This was the final blow to the organisation which had already been severely weakened by a number of success of the police against it as well as the fact that the historical leadership of EOKA B had abandoned the organisation. However, many active EOKA B members participate in the military coup after it began taking part in makeshift units and fighting along side the coupist forces. The coup was swiftly followed by the Turkish military invasion of Cyprus.