Down from the rocky ridges and snow-choked gullies the guerrillas
straggled last week. Some were barefoot, some wore slabs of leather
tied about their feet with string. Two Greek government forces,
catching the rebels in a pincers northwest of Mt. Olympus,
had driven them up the slopes of Mt. Pieria, up beyond the snow line.
There the guerrillas' food gave out. Some ate their mules. By week's
end, after a month of fighting, over 800 had been captured or had
surrendered. They left the corpses of about 800 more behind them on the
heights. The Contagion of Hope. The Greek army's rout of these guerrillas, many
of them untrained, ill-armed recruits for Communist Markos Vafiades'
army, was one of the few positive achievements that could be claimed
for the Truman Doctrine after a full year. The battle of Mt. Pieria was
neither great nor glorious. It was, however, important: for the first
time in a year the Greek government forces, instead of trying to
“contain” the guerrillas, had taken the offensive. Just as the U.S. had
finally begun to crowd the Communists with political moves like the
Trieste trump in Italy and General Lucius Clay's tough stand in Germany,
so the Greek army was no longer Content to sit back and
wait for the next Communist threat. The various anti-Communist moves throughout Europe were not part of a
definite plan; but they had a connection. Testifying last week before
the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of
Defense James Forrestal had said: “The disease of despair is contagious,
but there is a greater contagion in hope.” The mass of the people in Europe and Asia wanted to be let alone. They
did not want to fight for or against the Reds. The mass of the U.S.
people did not want to fight, either. There was a strong tendency in
the U.S. to wait for the Greeks, the Italians, the French and the
Chinese to do it, and an equally strong tendency abroad to wait for the
U.S. If both waited, both would be lost. The Big Ones. Since Truman had proclaimed the U.S. policy of defending
Greece, most Greeks had asked themselves: Why not sit back and let the
U.S. and Russia fight it out? One young conscript, an Athenian grocer's
son, put it this way: “Why does America help us at all? They have it
all worked out, the big ones. We are just holding the position for them
until they are ready.” A TIME correspondent asked a Greek lieutenant, who had fought with
exceptional bravery against the Italians and Germans, what had happened
to the spirit of seven years ago. The lieutenant shrugged: “This war in
Greece is a battle between the United States and Russia. It happens
that it's being fought here. That is our bad luck. But you can't expect
us to fight your battle singlehanded—at least not with the old
spirit.” Reluctant Hunters. On the other hand, Americans, seeing more & more U.S.
aid going to Greece, wondered why the Greeks didn't buckle down to the
job and wipe out the Communist guerrillas. U.S. advisers have urged the
Greek-army, scattered among its fortified positions, to get out on the
offensive. Greek generals replied that they were not well enough armed.
