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Greece - Officer Corps

The officer corps has pictured itself as embodying the national ideals of Greece, and it has consequently equated the goals of the armed forces with those of the nation. During periods when military influence on government was strongest, an image was created and prominently displayed that identified the armed forces and the officer corps in particular with the nation's sense of purpose and history. It was commonplace for officers to boast that they more clearly represented the main-stream of Greek values and the views of the majority of Greeks than did the elected politicians and bureaucrats. In the past officers have spoken — often in quasi-religious terms — of the military's "sacred mission," and military cadets continue to be called evelpis, meaning "the best hope of the nation." The military's perception of itself as an indispensable instrument of progress and modernization stemmed in part from the variety of social programs and economic development projects in which the armed forces had been employed since 1945.

The families of many officers suffered from communist atrocities during the civil war, and the postwar political outlook of the military was stridently anticommunist. Officers tend also to be populists and to view the more cosmopolitan higher socioeconomic strata of Greek society critically and with a degree of suspicion. As a group the officer corps displays a stronger religious orientation than is common among other professional groups.

Members of the officer corps have often questioned the right of civil authorities to intervene in strictly national security matters, which the military interpreted as being part of its professional responsibility. The military has particularly resented those occasions when the civil government seemed to exercise leniency toward groups the officers considered a threat to security.

When the landed gentry and mountain chieftains — the traditional military class that had fought the Turks for Greek independence — refused to cooperate in the formation of a regular national army, officers were recruited instead among the sons of impoverished villagers, eager to better their station in life, to be trained by the Bavarian advisers who had come with Otto I to Greece. In the mid-1970s recruits for the officer corps — especially in the army and air force — continued to be drawn extensively from relatively humble socio-economic backgrounds. Officers in those services were usually the sons of minor functionaries, shopkeepers, priests, schoolteachers, and farmers from small towns or rural areas in the Peloponnesus and Central Greece. They were attracted by the free education offered to cadets in the service academies and the opportunity for a career that assured them social mobility and status.

A 1971 survey of candidates for admission to the service academies' classes of 1975. It also underlines the striking disparity between the socioeconomic and regional backgrounds of naval officers and those of the army and air force. Although more than half of the country's population lives in urban areas, candidates for army and air force commissions were over-whelmingly from the countryside and small towns. The Peloponessus and Central Greece, excluding Athens, supplied 40 percent of the candi- dates, although those regions had only 20 percent of the general population.

In recent Greek history the military services, particularly as represented by the officer corps, have been intimately involved in the country's political life. Five times since 1922 — in the 1922-24, 1925-26, 1935-41,1951-55, and 1967-74 periods — the heads of government have been active or retired military officers. At almost all times men with a military background held senior government positions. In the context of factionalized parties and unstable governments before World War II, the military was alternately a threat to the government in power or essential to its preservation. During periods when Greece had a king, the military was regarded as the preserve of the monarch. Struggle for control of the armed forces was at the heart of the dispute in the mid-1960s between King Constantine and Prime Minister George Papandreou. At all times it was considered important for senior civil officials to attempt to influence key military assignments to ensure proper policy alignments. In the view of the military, its role continues to be one of maintaining its effectiveness as protector of the nation's security and fostering political stability.

Crisis and chaos have been familiar parts of the Greek national experience. As a result of weak political institutions, political intervention by the military to "save the nation" has been the rule rather than the exception. The officer corps has not been a praetorian guard, however, and it was more common for politicans to manipulate the military than it has been for the armed forces to seize control of the country's political apparatus, as occurred in 1967.

The political function of the military appeared early in the history of independent Greece and was encouraged by civilian politicans. Military coups spurred the evolution of Greek politics toward parliamentary rule in the nineteenth century. For example, the first coup staged by Greek officers was in 1843 and was carried out to compel King Otto to accept a constitution and end absolute government. A subsequent coup in 1862 forced his abdication. In both instances the military acted in coordination with civilian political figures, and in neither was there any question that the military would assume control of the government.

In the years after the disastrous defeat by the Turks in 1897, the military took on the role of an extraparliamentary pressure group. When the parliamentary leaders proved unresponsive to their demands, the Military League, a group of officers inspired by the example of the Young Turks, brought Eleutherios Venizelos to power, giving force to a program of political and social reform. It was the conflict between the interventionist Venizelos and the neutralist King Constantine I that divided the officer corps and polarized factions within the military. The establishment of a provisional government in Salonika by Venizelos in 1917 confronted officers with the choice between support for Venizelos and loyalty to the king. A succession of purges of officers on either side — pro-Venizelos and republican and pro-royalist — created discord and bitterness in the nation and in the armed forces during the interwar period. Coups were used repeatedly during the 1920s and 1930s to put pressure on politicans — as well as to protect or win back careers made or broken by the purges—culminating in the return of the monarchy in 1935 and the subsequent dictatorship of General John Metaxas.

With a few exceptions, members of the officer corps — whether royalist or republican in background — supported the national government against the communist guerrillas during the civil war. The anti-communist and, more generally, antileftist political outlook of most senior and middle-rank officers still serving in the armed forces was formed during the civil war.

Clientage has been a factor in military as well as in political and commercial life. Professional advancement has often been linked to the success of the political faction to which an officer had ties — promotions, transfers, and assignments often being influenced by political considerations within the Ministry of National Defense. No matter the complexion of the regime, political leaders have cultivated their clientage within the military and, although officers may have resented the implications of the system, they have not hesitated to use the exchange of favors (rousfetti) as a means of career advancement. Although seeking to influence defense policy and, in some instances, acting with relative independence of civilian control in national security matters, the military has been reluctant to assume responsibility for the operation of the government. The classic pattern of the Greek coup was to replace one civilian government with another, sometimes dictating to it for a time; occasionally a general officer has stepped out of his military role to become the head of government.

On April 21, 1967, a junta of twenty officers on active duty, mostly colonels and lieutenant colonels, executed a bloodless and virtually unopposed coup, which ousted the constitutional parliamentary government. The coup was carried out along the lines of Operation Prometheus, the NATO plan for military reaction against international subversion in Greece. Relations between the military and civilian authorities had been strained since the Center Union had won a parliamentary majority in 1964. Many officers were convinced that Papandreou, the Center Union leader, and particularly his son, Andreas, posed a threat to the integrity of the armed forces and endangered national security. Some perceived an imminent threat of communist subversion. A coup of the traditional kind from some source in the armed forces was not unexpected at the time, but the coup had been planned in complete secrecy by midlevel rather than senior officers, and its execution came as a complete surprise.

In the classic pattern, the junta appointed Constantine Kollias, a civilian who had been president of the Supreme Court, as head of government. Kollias sided with Constantine in an attempted counter-coup in December 1967, however, and Colonel George Papadopoulos, leader of the junta, then assumed the prime minister's office. The military junta retained control of government and restricted political activity in the country. The coup was an army operation. The air force quickly aligned with the junta, but the royalist-oriented navy conceded to it with reluctance. Senior officers and traditionalist elements in the armed forces were uncomfortable with the colonels but failed to rally against them. Most lower ranking officers backed the junta but for professional rather than ideological considerations. The junta promised and provided the officer corps increased pay, prerogatives, and prestige.

Since the restoration of democracy and the trial and incarceration of the leaders of the 1967 coup, however, officers have consistently refrained from intervening in political life. The converse of that statement has not always been true, however, particularly given that general and flag officers serve at the pleasure of the prime minister. In addition, shortly after PASOK's 1993 election victory, a new law legalized the recall of retired officers to active duty. When four retired officers with political connections with PASOK were recalled and appointed chiefs of staff, thirty-five senior army, navy, and air force officers resigned in protest. Although changes in top staff positions had occurred after previous changes of government, this was the first time in the post-junta era that officers had resigned in protest of a government action.