The king's return to Greece reinforced British influence in the country. Its political network (EAM) had reached about 500,000 citizens around the country. Later, it became known that there was a plan by EAM to blow up the building, aiming to kill the participants, and the conference was finally cancelled. For several decades to come, the US ambassador advised the king on important issues, such as the appointment of the prime minister. "Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret," The Guardian, 30 November 2014, The Civil War in Peloponnese, A. Kamarinos. Tito was outwardly loyal to Stalin but had come to power through his own means and believed that the communist Greeks should do the same. Μαντώ Νταλιάνη - Καραμπατζάκη, Παιδιά στη δίνη του ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου 1946–1949, σημερινοί ενήλικες, Μουσείο Μπενάκη, 2009. [citation needed] By early 1944 ELAS could call on nearly 25,000 men under arms, with another 80,000 working as reserves or logistical support, EDES had roughly 10,000 men, and EKKA had under 10,000 men. There were dissenters such as former ELAS leader Aris Velouchiotis. The DSE army was now no longer able to sustain resistance in pitched battles. [20] As the communist position strengthened, so did the numbers of the "Security Battalions", with both sides engaged in skirmishes. The KKE remained legal and its leader, Nikolaos Zachariadis, who returned from Germany in April 1945, said that the KKE's objective was now for a "people's democracy" to be achieved by peaceful means. [48], The communist leadership claimed that children were being gathered to be evacuated from Greece at the request of "popular organizations and parents". There were to be six changes of prime ministers within just two years, an indication of the instability that would then characterise the country's political life. Despite EAM's accusations of collaboration made against all other Greek resistance forces and charges against EAM-ELAS members of murders, banditry and thievery, the conference ended with an agreement (the National Contract) for a government of national unity consisting of 24 ministers (6 of whom were EAM members). Many returned to Greece between 1975 and 1990, with varied views and attitudes toward the communist faction. That began a long and troubled relationship between Greece and the United States. The agreement was made possible by Soviet directives to KKE to avoid harming Allied unity but did not resolve the problem of disarmament of resistance groups. From 1941 to 1944, during World War II, Axis occupation of Greece and the fierce fighting with Greek Resistance groups had unprecedented devastating effects on the infrastructure and economy. Communist Party of Greece, The Greek Civil War (Greek: ο Eμφύλιος [Πόλεμος], o Emfýlios [Pólemos], "the Civil War") was fought between the Greek government army (supported by the United Kingdom and the United States) and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) — the military branch of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) (supported by Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and covertly by the Soviet Union via their Eastern European proxies) from 1946 to 1949. Armed bands of ELAS' veterans were then infiltrating Greece through mountainous regions near the Yugoslav and Albanian borders; they were now organized as the Democratic Army of Greece (Dimokratikos Stratos Elladas, DSE) under the command of ELAS veteran Markos Vafiadis (known as "General Markos"), operating from a base in Yugoslavia and sent by the KKE to organize already existing troops. It failed because the EAM/ELAS demands were considered excessive and so rejected. The power vacuum that the occupation created was filled by several resistance movements that ranged from royalist to communist ideologies. The National Army's strategic plan, codenamed "Peristera" (the Greek word for "dove (bird)"), was successful. In August 1949, Papagos launched a major counteroffensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, codenamed "Operation Torch". ", Van Boeschoten, Riki. 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