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A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on October 28, 2005, October 28, 2006, October 28, 2007, and October 28, 2008.

Withdrawal and Surrender of the Greek First Army AND German Intervention sections are much too biased, POV and partisan

This section has been issued with a Neutrality Disputed warning tag. I urge readers to be aware that certain editors are heavily pro-Greek and what they have written should be taken with a great deal of skepticism as it represents only one side of the story and is a poor reflection of the principles of Misplaced Pages. Wiki administrators have been notified and the appropriate action will be taken to prevent further biased editorializing. AnnalesSchool (talk) 14:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to note that this section should be trimmed at least 70%: It concerns another war that followed the Greco-Italian one.Alexikoua (talk) 17:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Italy and Greece didn't made peace when the Germans invaded, the war continued until the eventual Greek surrender. Uspzor (talk) 19:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Off course they didn't made peace but the specific section still concerns the Greek-German conflict.Alexikoua (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Just inserted a "failed verification" inline tag as I have access to the said pages online but can't find what has been cited.

But the deeper question I have for the editor who quoted extensively from Mark Mazower's trashy and poorly researched book, Inside Hitler's Greece is why? (Personal attack removed) But what is perhaps more difficult to understand, is this need to portray the Germans as worthy (and honorable) victors while it was they who principally looted the country and starved its inhabitants. AnnalesSchool (talk) 09:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Trashy and poorly researched book Inside Hitler's Greece? Suppose you are not serious, Mazower and his works are on of the best we have in WWII-Greece subject. In general you need to be more precise about your arguments, needless to say you need to explain every editorializing tag you placed.Alexikoua (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the tendentious tagging based on the nonsense arguments above. Also there was no "failed verification", the material is clearly there on page 16. But I added a direct quote to prevent any other false claims of failed verification. I also warn AnnalesSchool any more of this type of edits and the personal attacks and next step will be Arbitration enforcement. Δρ.Κ.  02:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Dr K, as far as I know, you cannot write a whole paragraph and then put a citation at the end of it. As a general rule, every two or three sentences must be cited to an author, the year and the page number. In the section, German Intervention, there is only one reference or footnote to Felice (64); and then in the next section - Withdrawal and surrender of the Greek First Army - there are whole paragraphs with only one footnote at the end!!!

From an academic point of view, this would be unacceptable. No undergraduate student would even dare to present a paper to his tutor where whole paragraphs just have one author or footnote attribution. For example, how as a reader do we know, whether the whole paragraph is actually what the author wrote and his ideas, or simply just poorly and very loosely paraphrased by a mischievous wiki editor who has editorialised the section in order to put his own "spin" for the purpose of putting the Italians in a bad light.

I am sorry, but unless this section of this article is improved drastically, then I will have no choice but to delete or alter as much as 70% of it.AnnalesSchool (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

You will do no such thing to this exceptionally well-cited section. As far as your patronising claptrap about university students, etc. this is not a class assignment and it is standard practice to add citations at the end of paragraphs. Regardless, I have added citations every other sentence to prevent any justification for future disruption on your part. While you are at it, please don't spam discussions I have already replied to on your talkpage. Δρ.Κ.  06:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Dr K, I have partially replied to your accusations on my talk page. I still maintain that it is important that there is a citation/reference/footnote every two to three lines. A simple footnote at the end of a paragraph simply won't do because it means that the reader has no way of knowing if the footnote refers to the entire paragraph, or the last sentence or two. Secondly, including a footnote every two or three lines will prevent the wiki editor from veering off course and actually put into the mouth of the author, more than he intended. Or simply skew and subvert either the author's words or meaning by a very loose paraphrase, or else a quote taken out of context, either intentionally or unintentionally. Indeed, there was an example recently of this, where in the section we are dealing with - Withdrawal and surrender of the Greek army in Epirus - the 3rd paragraph goes into a long (and loving?) preamble into how Sepp Dietrich wanted to sign a surrender with the Greeks alone, List agreed with Tsolakoglou that the Italians should not be allowed to enter Greece; how "List agreed with Tsolakoglou that the Italians should not be allowed to enter Greece"; how undeserving the Italians were because the Germans were so impressed with the fighting spirit and bravery of the Greeks; and you even have the Germans guarding a bridge to prevent the Italians from crossing into Greece, and all this blarney quoted from Mazower. However, if you read Mazower further, even he admits that whatever the local German commanders like List and Dietrich or a Tsolakoglou or Pagagos thought about leaving the Italians out in the cold, Hitler wasn't having a bar of it. To him, the Italian-German Alliance was paramount.He was not about to alienate his most important ally Mussolini for Greece or even 10 Greeces!!! Greece was simply not that important in his grand scheme. Indeed for most of the war, Greece was a bit of a backwater, quite unimportant to the big battles and events then raging on the eastern front and the Normandy and Sicily landings. AnnalesSchool (talk) 07:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This wikipedia page (Personal attack removed)

Δρ.Κ. has falsely accused me of "war editing". Like with the New York Times article reporting a German colonel praising the Italian role during Operation Brevity, I have used British or American newspapers to relay in English what the Italian high command at the time had to say about the defeat of four Greek divisions and two elite Evzones regiments near Vjosa River towards the end of the Greco-Italian War. Note that Greek and British military communiques do not refute the Italian allegations. If we can have the German version of events regarding the role of the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment at Halfaya Pass, why can't we have the Italian high command's version of events regarding the role of the Italian 9th Army near Vjosa River? I was hoping to improve this Misplaced Pages page to do with the Greco-Italian War without some hawk censuring everything I do. He has even removed a diary entry from the Italian foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano at the time, claiming that the source (De Felice (1990), p. 125) I used to back up the claim that the Italian troops "had tied down Greek forces" was written by a fascist when that same source already appears (before my edits) at the end of the following paragraph:

In anticipation of the German attack, the British and some Greeks urged a withdrawal of the army of Epirus to spare badly needed troops and equipment to repel the Germans. However, national sentiment forbade the abandonment of such hard-won positions. The mentality that retreat in the face of the Italians would be disgraceful and overriding military logic caused them to ignore the British warning. Therefore, 15 divisions, the bulk of the Greek army, were left deep in Albania as German forces approached. General Wilson derided this reluctance as "the fetishistic doctrine that not a yard of ground should be yielded to the Italians"; only six of the 21 Greek divisions were left to oppose the German attack.https://en.wikipedia.org/Greco-Italian_War#cite_note-64

And I press my case with the following extract from the Misplaced Pages page to do with Operation Brevity:

On 5 August, Colonel von Herff praised the Bersaglieri, who had defended Halfaya Pass "...with lionlike courage until the last man against stronger enemy forces. The greatest part of them died faithful to the flag.https://en.wikipedia.org/Operation_Brevity

If Δρ.Κ. holds the moral ground, then I dare him to go ahead and remove the comments of Colonel Maximilian von Herff, after all the New York Times article that relayed his view of the Bersaglieri to the world came from the from a committed Nazi officer, with the okay from the German high command.--100menonmars (talk) 14:03, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Per wp:HISTRS the recently added part has been removed. Please follow the correspodent instructions per mentioned policy.Alexikoua (talk) 14:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Alexikoua I have now included primary sources to back up the Italian claims. Please show good faith and do not remove recent content.--100menonmars (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

In case this will be the product of concensus, I have no problem on that.Alexikoua (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The primary sources are that: primary. They cannot be used without corroborating evidence, especially when dealing with a war, where truth and accuracy are wanting. In this case, they cannot be (mis)used to imply that the Italian 9th Army "captured" Greek troops when the entire Greek Epirus army had surrendered two days before, and was already in effect demobilizing and decomposing, with men leaving their units and going to their homes... Far from portraying the Italians favourably, inserting such a claim only helps to make them appear ridiculous, I am afraid. Constantine ✍ 15:38, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I have reinserted paragraphs that were removed without a valid explanation. I have now formally made a complaint, demanding that the sockpuppetry stop.--100menonmars (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I am impartial on this issue, and i hoping to provide an unofficial 3rd point. From what i have read thus far the issue seems to be mostly over the use of Renzo De Felio as a source and the quote "tied down Greek forces". For the moment i am not engaging the primary source used in the latest edit.

I cannot access De Felio's work, so issue one is: is the quote accurate? Does De Felio state that this is the reason why high ranking Italian officials arrived to visit the troops?

Issue two, is the source reliable? The wiki page on De Felio, while not a reliable source, does not call him a fascist or a fascist-leaning historian. To the contary, it calls him a socialist. However, reliable source wise and in a quick effort to understand who this man is, i have accessed the first few English (since i cannot read Italian) articles on JSTOR that are purly about the man and his work.

Michael Ledeen compares De Felio's Intervista sul fascismo with A.J.P. Taylor's Origins of the Second World War (Ledeen, p. 269). Ledeen argues that the debate that raged around the work was part of the leftover heritage of the fascist era and politically motivated. He also argues that "it is impossible for anyone to gain acceptance in Italian intellectual circles without proclaiming a staunch antifascism" (Ledeen, pp. 281-282). Borden Painter Jr makes quite a similar argument, stating that De Felio's work were being released and engaged in political terms rather than purely historical ones, and notes one example of a debate in 1988 becoming "absorbed into a larger debate over Stalinism" (Painter, p. 391). Despite the political fighting surrounding his works, Painter concludes "De Felice has succeeded as a historian not because everyone agrees with what he has written but because, as with Jacob Burckhardt on the Renaissance or Geoffrey Elton on Tudor England, everyone who writes on the subject has to take his views into account" (Painter, p. 405). Emilio Gentile, in a tribute to De Felice following his death, notes his popularity from the President down and notes that the Italian media "declared one of the greatest Italian historians of the twentieth century" not to mention foreign newspapers also lauded him. Gentile notes that the media outpouring "praised for or his independent spirit, his intellectual courage, the thoroughness of his research and his innovative interpretations which opened up new avenues in the historiography of fascism." However, Gentile notes that De Felio had a lot of critics who stated he should not be called a historian due to his methods, called his works as an attempt to rehabilitating Mussolini and fascism, and some students attempted to stop lectures (Gentile, p. 139). Gentile heaps a lot of praise on the man and argues that his output was important to the study of the fascist era, concluding that while his work will need to be reexamined "we should take his work further than he did, without destroying his contribution and thus falling back to an earlier stage".(Gentile, p. 151)

The conclusion i draw from what i have read, the accusations "Rv POV terminology (tied down) by unreliable Italian source" and "There are no good-faith issues involved when removing POV language by historians with fascist POV issues." are rather unwarranted and a much better reason needs to be given over why some of these edits are being reverted due to the use of De Felio.

Gentil, Emilio (1997) Renzo De Felice: A Tribute, Journal of Contemporary History, http://www.jstor.org/stable/261237

Ledeen, Michael (1976) Renzo De Felice and the Controversy over Italian Fascism, Journal of Contemporary History, http://www.jstor.org/stable/260199

Painter, Borden W (1990) Renzo De Felice and the Historiography of Italian Fascism, The American Historical Review, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2163756

As for the issue on the PS: i would argue that despite policy wording, careful use of PS can be used and have been used in articles that have been promoted to GA and FA status. However, it has to be with extreme care. Since i do not know much on this war, if - as Cplakidas has argued - historians have noted that these divisions surrendered to the Germans before the Italian arrival, then the PS should not be used as an 'overwrite'.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Renzo De Felice has been described as a fascist apologist. He is therefore a controversial historian who cannot be used in this article for controversial claims. I agree with you that primary sources should not be used to support controversial claims which contradict reports from reliable secondary sources. Also the newspaper reports used in the latest edit-war by the OP contain recycled reports from Italian wartime newspapers which were under the control of the fascists. Such reports cannot be used to support controversial claims because they obviously lack neutrality. Δρ.Κ.  17:55, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

@EnigmaMcmxc:@100menonmars: I don't really have an opinion regarding De Felice. If his work can be considered well-researched, and as long as no ideological statements are made, then I'm content to have it, until something better comes along. I do have a problem with using wartime primary sources without examination. E.g. Ciano's diary declarations are useful as a background to Italian policy decisions, being original documents, but they are worthless as an assessment of the conflict following its end, since Ciano was not exactly a disinterested party in trying to present it as a triumph. Ditto for the statement that the Italians captured four Greek divisions: it may well be that the Italians did take prisoners from these divisions (briefly, for the Greek army was demobilized and never interned in POW camps), but under no circumstances should this be phrased as to imply that the divisions were "captured" in battle, as is the obvious reading of the statement in question, when the Greek army had ceased to exist as a fighting force two days previously. I have sympathy with the Italians taking umbrage at the over-simplified stereotyped image of a clownish Italian army, but resorting to verbatim, uncritical reproduction of wartime propaganda (or, as AnnalesSchool has done in earlier discussions, seeking to exculpate Italy from anything because the Germans were far worse) is certainly not the way to correct this. Constantine ✍ 19:00, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Dr K, from what i have read and quoted above i feel you are writing off the guy despite the fact that quite a number of his peers believe his work to be of value and his critics to be more politically motivated than anything else (that may be an over generalization, but it would seem that labeling him fascist apologist is also). I would argue (echoing Cplakidas), solely based off my research this morning, that his work should be used in a manner one would use AJP Taylor (outside of university level study on the subject that is): allowing uncontroversial comments to be used. If he is stating simple facts (x happened, y happened etc) than it is fine. When it comes to analysis (which it is not being used for here), it should be bolstered with his critics concern (in such a way as any debate on Fritz Fischer should be countered by the comments of likes of Gerhard Ritter). That brings us back to the first question: does the source say the Italians tied down the Greeks in question? Something i dont think has been addressed (as it seems the "capture" of the four Greek divisions is a separate issue), is this factual? Do other sources support this? More importantly, is it actually important to understand the subject?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 20:33, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Just a clarification: I did not label him a fascist apologist; his article quotes his critics describing him that way. Also I did not write him off. I said he is a controversial historian, which he is, and any controversial statements by him should not be accepted at face value, without external corroboration of his claims. Non-controversial statements by him are ok to be included in the article, so I agree with you when you say that "allowing uncontroversial comments to be used" is ok. Δρ.Κ.  21:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

EnigmaMcmxc criticism of the Greek military or political decision to allow the Italians to tie the bulk of the Greek forces in Albania not only comes from Lieutenant-General Henry Maitland Wilson in the book written by Renzo De Felice, but also is supported by Allied official sources at the time and historian Samuel W. Mitcham who wrote:

In anticipation of the German attack, the British and some Greeks urged a withdrawal of the army of Epirus to spare badly needed troops and equipment to repel the Germans. However, national sentiment forbade the abandonment of such hard-won positions. The mentality that retreat in the face of the Italians would be disgraceful and overriding military logic caused them to ignore the British warning. Therefore, 15 divisions, the bulk of the Greek army, were left deep in Albania as German forces approached.derided this reluctance as "the fetishistic doctrine that not a yard of ground should be yielded to the Italians"; only six of the 21 Greek divisions were left to oppose the German attack. As a result of their poor deployment, the Greeks opposed the Italians with 14 divisions. They only had seven week divisions left to oppose the German Army, which was the best in the world at that time. In additions, the Greek Air Force had been in combat for months and had suffered such heavy losses on the Albanian Front that it was virtually nonoperational by April 1941. (The Rise of the Wehrmacht: Vol. 1, Samuel W. Mitcham, p.394, ABC-CLIO, 2008)

I will now include Mitcham as a source to support the claim the Greeks allowed their forces to be tied down in Albania fighting the Italians instead of properly reinforcing the Metaxas Line from where the German invasion was expected.

I've also had to change back the heading of this discussion from This wikipedia page to This wikipedia page has been hijacked by Δρ.Κ, to underline the significance of getting more balance and improving the wikipedia page to do with the Greco-Italian War.

--100menonmars (talk) 21:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

You will not restore this clueless personal attack against me per WP:NPA. Read well the policy of no personal attacks as well as WP:CIVIL and behave accordingly. Δρ.Κ.  22:27, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

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