To confront them, the German occupation authorities formed the Security Battalions, which took part not only in anti-guerrilla operations but also in mass reprisals against the local civilian population.

After news of the massacre spread, the leadership of ELAS and of its political parent group, the National Liberation Front (EAM) took steps to ensure a peaceful transition of power in most of the country, limiting reprisal occurrences.

During the post-war period and following the Greek Civil War, the ruling right-wing establishment immortalized the Meligalas massacre as evidence of communist brutality, and memorialized the victims as patriotic heroes.

[5][6] The first left-wing groups formed across the Peloponnese; their engagements were limited to skirmishes with the Greek Gendarmerie and the Italian Army, and by late 1942 they were almost all either destroyed or forced to evacuate to Central Greece.

[7] In April 1943, when the Peloponnese was considered "partisan-free" by the occupation authorities, the Wing Commander Dimitris Michas, who had previously been imprisoned by the Italians, formed a new partisan group on orders from EAM.

[10] In August 1943, according to a German intelligence report, partisan activity spiked in the mountainous areas of Messenia in southwestern Peloponnese, where 800 men under Kostas Kanellopoulos operated.

Initially it declared itself a politically independent and neutral force, but after forging ties with royalist networks chiefly in the Peloponnese and in Athens, it shifted to an anti-EAM stance by July.

[19] In the mountainous districts of the Peloponnese, representatives of EAM/ELAS translated their monopoly of armed resistance into the exercise of authority, but faced difficulties with the mostly conservative and royalist local population.

[20][21][22] Peasant disaffection was further fuelled by the requirement to feed the partisans amidst conditions of malnourishment and a general disruption of the agricultural production caused by the mounting hyperinflation and by the large-scale German anti-partisan sweeps (Säuberungen).

[39] Officers and supporters of the Security Battalion of Meligalas-Kalamata publicly vindicated its actions in anticommunist declarations against EAM, similar in content with the era's Nazi discourse, with antisemitic and anti-Slavic references and defending conservative values.

[51] Following the assassination of Georganas by the OPLA of Kalamata, a para-military organization of the EAM movement with police duties aiming to punish collaborators, in June, Smyrlis executed 27 communists in retribution.

In November 1943, the Moscow Conference issued a joint "Statement on Atrocities" by the Allied leaders Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, concerning the prosecution and trial of those Germans responsible for war crimes against occupied nations.

[60][61] The British desired the maintenance of the status quo until the arrival of their forces and the Papandreou government, and above all wanted to avoid German arms and equipment from falling into the hands of the partisans.

[63] On 3 September, the military head of ELAS, Stefanos Sarafis, issued a proclamation calling upon the members of the Security Battalions to surrender with their weapons, in order to safeguard their lives.

At the same time, the declaration called on the Resistance forces to stop any acts of reprisal, insisting that dispensing justice was a right reserved by the state and not of "organizations and individuals", while promising that "the national nemesis will be implacable".

[72] Using representatives of the Allied Middle East Headquarters as intermediaries, ELAS approached the prefect of Messenia, Dimitrios Perrotis, proposing the disarmament of the local Security Battalions and their confinement as prisoners until the arrival of the exiled national government.

[74] About 100–120 Battalionists, under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Nikos Theofanous and Perrotis, managed to escape the city via the unguarded railway line and sought refuge at Meligalas, where a strong force of about 800 Security Battalion men was already ensconced.

[79] The ELAS plan aimed at the rapid advance of 2/9 Battalion, under Captain Tasos Anastasopoulos ("Kolopilalas") from the edge of the settlement to the main square, so that the Agios Ilias fort could be attacked on two sides.

[86] At noon of 14 September, a group of 30 partisans attacked by throwing German Teller mines on the barbed wire protecting Agios Ilias, but was repulsed amidst a hail of fire by the Battalionists.

A squad under Basakidis managed to breach the barricades of the defenders, but left without support, they were thrown back in a counterattack led by the sergeant major Panagiotis Benos.

[89] The council was terminated following a new ELAS attack on Agios Ilias, during which Basakidis' men, using hand grenades and submachine guns, managed to push the Battalionists back.

[93] Among the captive Battalionists held in the bedesten, Velouchiotis—who arrived at Meligalas shortly after the end of the battle with his personal escort[46]—recognized a gendarme whom he had previously arrested and then released, and ordered his execution.

This court summarily condemned not only the roughly 60 officers and other leaders of the Battalions—lists with their names had been provided by local EAM cells—but also many others, including for reasons having more to do with personal differences rather than any crime committed.

[105] As a result, due to the mediation of British liaisons, the Red Cross, representatives of the Papandreou government, and even the local EAM authorities, in many towns of Central Greece and the Peloponnese the Security Battalions surrendered without resistance or bloodshed.

[108] In general, however, in the power vacuum in the wake of the German withdrawal, the EAM/ELAS officials who assumed control tried to impose order, preventing rioting and looting, and resisting calls for revenge by the populace.

Furthermore, EAM/ELAS was not a monolithic or tightly controlled organization, and its representatives displayed a variety of behaviour; as British observers noted, in some areas ELAS maintained order "fairly and impartially", while abusing their power in others.

[109] When British forces landed in the Peloponnese, they found the National Civil Guard, created by EAM in late summer to assume policing duties from the partisans and replace the discredited collaborationist Gendarmerie, maintained control and order.

The agreement placed ELAS and EDES under Scobie's overall command, and designated the Security Battalions as "instruments of the enemy", ordering that they were to be treated as hostile forces if they did not surrender.

In newspaper announcements for the annual service and the speeches held there, every mention of the victims' membership in the Security Battalions was omitted; instead, they were referred to as "murdered ethnikofrones [national-minded persons]" or "patriots".

After the PASOK government officially recognized EAM's contribution in the Greek Resistance in 1982, "Rigas Feraios" members coined the slogan "EAM-ELAS-Meligalas" ("ΕΑΜ-ΕΛΑΣ-Μελιγαλάς") as a counter to the positive portrayal of the Battalionists by the right-wing groups.