E.L.A.S. forces were getting stronger every day and very soon they began attacking fellow Greeks in non-communist Andarte units. The successful attack on the railway bridge over the Gorgopotamos river on the 26th of November was the first and last time that ELAS and EDES co-operated against the common enemy under the coercion and technical guidance of the British.

1943: Friction between EDES and ELAS continued to increase. When Eddie Myers told them that he had been instructed to destroy the bridge over the Asopos river, ELAS said it was too dangerous a target and refused to help, so this became an all-British operation. A 24-year-old demolition expert of the Royal Engineers Captain Ken Scott, was sent from Cairo. He was dropped by parachute, and planned the successful attack on the bridge. It took the Germans four months to rebuild it.

On the 11th of September 14,000 Italian troops in the north-west surrendered to the Andartes with all their arms. A month later ELAS seized the weapons and attacked EDES. The civil war had begun.

1944: The friction between the various groups of the Resistance movement erupted into full-scale war, described as the 'civil war' or the 'guerrilla war' depending on whose side you were on. ELAS were determined that they alone would be in control when the Allies arrived. As a result of intense negotiations on the part of the British officers, all the Andarte leaders signed an Armistice document on the 29th February 1944 agreeing to stop fighting each other and to concentrate all their efforts against the common enemy—the Germans. Unfortunately, barely a month later ELAS attacked and completely annihilated the smallest andarte group E.K.K.A. Now only EDES and the 200-strong S.O.E. force stood between the 40,000 ELAS Communists and total control of the Greek countryside.

In the Middle East, the Lebanon Conference, attended by delegates from all parties, including representatives of the Andartes, elected George Papandreou (father of Andreas Papandreou, recently Prime Minister of Greece), to act as Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity in exile. In September the government moved temporarily to Italy. In October, following the withdrawal of the Germans from Athens, British troops began landing in Greece from Greek and British warships. By far the largest contingent landed near the port of Piraeus and tens of thousands of Greeks turned out to cheer and welcome the British forces as they marched through the streets.

On October 18 the members of the Greek government returned to Athens under the leadership of the Premier George Papandreou, who was accompanied by Lt. General Ronald Scobie, the Allied military commander.

Sadly though, in December ELAS marched on Athens. The British troops, so recently feted and garlanded now found themselves fighting on the same streets of their earlier welcome. S.O.E. had been warning Cairo for two years that this might happen. After three or four weeks of intense fighting in the streets of Athens and in the suburbs, ELAS withdrew.

Winston Churchill came to Athens on Christmas Day to mediate. A couple of ELAS snipers hiding in a school a few hundred yards away from the British Embassy took a few pot shots at him as he got out of an armoured vehicle which had brought him from the airport. Next day, when he attended a meeting of all parties, the ELAS representative walked in wearing a military-style uniform with crossed bandoleers across his chest, and carrying two pistols. Churchill turned to his interpreter and said quietly: "Tell him to leave his toys outside, or I fly back to London immediately, to spend Christmas properly with my family."

1945: On the 1st of January Archbishop Damaskinos was appointed Regent. (It had been agreed that the King should not return to Greece until his position had been clarified by a plebiscite). Plastiras replaced Papandreou as Prime Minister. After the Varkiza agreement the guerrilla war (or civil war) was officially brought to an end.

Years later in a broadcast, Chris Woodhouse summarised what the
S.O.E. mission to Greece had achieved.