Albert Speer confirms that in the summer of 1944 the Germans and British came to an unsigned "Gentlemen's Agreement" in Lisbon.

In turn, the Germans were to hand over a number of Greek cities and positions to the British.

British General Scobie negotiated the handing over of Greek cities to him to prevent their occupation by ELAS forces.

Churchill himself wrote to Eden on 13 September: "there is a widespread belief in headquarters that we shall soon be fighting a bear and that we are in a better position to do so today than we were two months earlier".

Even before Churchill's trip to Moscow and before the organisation of Operation Manna, a group of British Special Boat Service landed at the coastal airstrip of Araxos, near Patras.