Word: averoff
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Tommies in tanks had recaptured the ruins of the Averoff prison which ELAS had used as a fort. After it fell, resistance collapsed. With all but a third of the capital recaptured, reinforced British troops prepared to drive out the remnant of ELAS forces. In driblets ELAS riflemen retreated by winding paths over the hills and melted away into the countryside. Into the streets, behind them, marched British troops and Greek Government Militia, pelted by flowers from shattered windows. Said a perplexed Tommy: "Blimey, I'll never get the hang of these people. First flowers, then bombs, then flowers...
...ELAS had their successes too. In the fashionable Kifissia suburb they dynamited their way into R.A.F. headquarters. In central Athens they stormed into forbidding Averoff prison. Scores of political prisoners passed from British to ELAS custody. Averoffs condemned quisling, potbellied, bemonocled Ioannis Rallis, bolted while the prison was changing hands. Two days later, with both British and ELAS hot on his trail, he surrendered to the Greek police. He still wore his eyeglass...