What to write about the War of 1940? This War is much more than a succession of war events, battles and operations. Anyone who attempts to treat such an amazing event, a real religious ritual, with such disrespect is far from reality. The War of 1940 escapes the realm of reason, of rational examination, through the science of history.
It is something else, it is indeed an Epic, equivalent to the Homeric one, but unfortunately no other Homer was found to sing it as it should. One in Troy Achilles, Odysseus, Hector, Diomedes. Thousands in Pindos, thousands in Kalpaki, thousands in Morova, and in Ivan, thousands in Pogradec, Kleisoura, Trebesina. This is also the greatness of the 40s. In this War, some heroes did not stand out. They all became heroes. Automatically, from the moment Metaxas pronounced NO, a people of heroes projected, 8,000,000 heroes, against Mussolini's 8,000,000 spears.
And they were heroes because they did not fight for victory. Victory was not the goal, because everyone knew that in the end "the barbarians will live", alone or with the help of other barbarians. They were fighting for the honor, for the eternal glory called Greece. So that they can go against death itself, like that old Greek who beat him face to face "on the marble threshing floor". What other choice did they have? To become slaves? The centuries weighed upon them. Metaxas himself raised the issue in its true dimension. "There are times when a nation must, if it wishes to remain great, be able to fight, even without any hope of victory." This phrase of the father of the '40 victory says it all.
With these thoughts, the Greeks of the 1940s went to war, "with a smile on their lips", with a Vembo singing to them, with a small icon of the avenger of Tinos Panagia in their pocket, with the image of the woman, the children and of the parents with the mind deep. "O children of the Greeks, here, liberate the country, liberate the child, the woman, the gods and the fathers, the treasure and the ancestors. Now in favor of all battles" of the Salaminomachians was heard again then, not by chance.
An unknown force sprang forth, unique, of an entire people who voluntarily preferred death to dishonor, to slavery. Soared into the sky. Reach, prayer, the humbled Platytera and Her Son. And the miracle happened. Those determined to die defeated, not only the enemy, but death itself. They passed into immortality. They themselves became symbols, holy and sacred. They bequeathed their blood. And reaped their blood. Even today it is reaping. Even if it doesn't seem like it. The seed is there. It just waits.