After the German invasion, the occupation of Athens and the fall of Crete, King George II and his government escaped to Egypt, where they proclaimed a government-in-exile, recognised by the Allies.

This government however, lacked legitimacy and support, being utterly dependent on the German and Italian occupation authorities, and discredited because of its inability to prevent the cession of much of Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace to Bulgaria.

Both the collaborationist government and the occupation forces were further undermined due to their failure to prevent the outbreak of the Great Famine, with the mortality rate reaching a peak in the winter of 1941–42, which seriously harmed the Greek civilian population.

Although there is an unconfirmed incident connected with Evzone Konstantinos Koukidis the day the Germans occupied Athens, the first confirmed resistance act in Greece had taken place on the night of 30 May 1941, even before the end of the Battle of Crete.

[13] An estimated fifteen thousand Greeks were killed by the Bulgarian occupational army during the next few weeks and in the countryside entire villages were machine gunned and looted.

The lack of a legitimate government and the inactivity of the established political class created a power vacuum and meant an absence of a rallying point for the Greek people.

On February 16, 1942, EAM gave permission to a communist veteran, called Athanasios (Thanasis) Klaras (who adopted the nom de guerre Aris Velouchiotis) to examine the possibilities of an armed resistance movement.

Greece is a mountainous country, with a long tradition in andartiko (αντάρτικο, "guerrilla warfare"), dating back to the days of the klephts (anti-Turkish bandits) of the Ottoman period, who often enjoyed folk-hero status.

But by 1942, due to the weakness of the central government in Athens, the countryside was gradually slipping out of its control, while the Resistance groups had acquired a firm and wide-ranging organization, parallel and more effective than that of the official state.

Later, on 28 July 1942, a centrist ex-army officer, Colonel Napoleon Zervas, announced the foundation of the National Groups of Greek Guerrillas (EOEA), as EDES' military arm, to operate, at first, in the region of Aetolia-Acarnania.

National and Social Liberation (EKKA) also formed a military corps, named after the famous 5/42 Evzone Regiment, under Col. Dimitrios Psarros, that was mainly localized in the area of Mount Giona.

Armed groups attacked and disarmed local gendarmerie stations and isolated Italian outposts, or toured the villages and gave patriotic speeches.

The Italians were forced to re-evaluate their assessment, and take measures such as the deportation of army officers to camps in Italy and Germany, which naturally only encouraged the latter to join the underground en masse by escaping "to the mountains".

[16] These developments emerged most dramatically as the Greek Resistance announced its presence to the world with one of the war's most spectacular sabotage acts, the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos railway bridge, linking northern and southern Greece, on 25 November 1942.

Most Italian troops were swiftly disarmed and interned by the Germans, but on Cephalonia the Acqui Division (comprising 11,700 men) resisted for about a week (Greek ELAS partisans joining them) before being forced to surrender.

Another 3,000 perished when the ships Sinfra, Mario Roselli and Ardena, that were carrying them to mainland Greece, were sunk by Allied air raids and sea mines in the Adriatic.

Finally the conflict of interests between them and the USSR settled after British secured Soviet assent to this in the so-called "percentages agreement" between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in October 1944.

Dominated by the old political class, and looking already to the oncoming post-Liberation era, the new Ioannis Rallis government had established the notorious Security Battalions, with the blessing of the German authorities, in order to fight exclusively against ELAS.

Consequently, on Easter Monday, 17 April 1944, ELAS forces attacked and destroyed the EKKA's 5/42 Regiment, capturing and executing many of its men, including its leader Colonel Dimitrios Psarros.

For EAM-ELAS, this act was fatal, as it strengthened suspicion of its intentions for the post-Occupation period, and drove many liberals and moderates, especially in the cities, against it, cementing the emerging rift in Greek society between pro- and anti-EAM segments.

Notable figures of the Cretan Resistance include Patrick Leigh Fermor, Xan Fielding, Dudley Perkins, Thomas Dunbabin, Petrakogiorgis, Kimonas Zografakis, Manolis Paterakis and George Psychoundakis.

Examples include Alikianos, Kali Sykia, Kallikratis, Kondomari, Skourvoula, Malathyros; the razings of Kandanos, Anogeia and Vorizia; the holocausts of Viannos and Kedros and numerous incidents of smaller scale.

The cities, and the working-class suburbs of Athens in particular, witnessed appalling suffering in the winter of 1941–42, when food confiscations and disrupted communications caused widespread famine and perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Initially, the strikers' demands were financial, but it quickly assumed a political aspect, as the strike was encouraged by EAM's labour union organization, EEAM.

There were also accusations that many of ELAS' attacks against German soldiers didn't happen for resistance reasons but aiming the destruction of specific villages and the recruitment of their men.