I am reading Richard Evans’ The Third Reich at War and thoroughly enjoying it. He has a knack for explaining the ‘whys’ concisely and in a way that neatly ties many seemingly disparate events together.
One of Evans’ explanations has me somewhat confused, though. Specifically, with respect to the events of early 1941, he makes the assertion that “In order to secure (the Romanian oil) supplies . . . Hitler decided it was necessary to extricate the Italians from their problems in neighbouring Greece”. (p. 152)
I don’t follow his reasoning. First, Romania is separated from Greece by about three hundred miles and in the form of countries such as Yugoslavia, the other Balkan states, and Bulgaria. Second, and more to the point, any threat that was posed to the Romanian oil fields by the events in Greece, would have existed before the Italians invaded the latter. Well, there had been one change as a result of that invasion - the presence of the British Expeditionary Force in Greece - but surely Evans is not implying that the BEF in Greece was somehow going to travel up to Romania (over hundreds of miles and through a host of belligerent nations, with no lines of support) in order to take over its oil.
As I see it, then, the only remaining possibility, and again having to do with the BEF, is that IF transport of Romanian oil to the Germans was via Greek ports then the BEF’s presence in Greece would render those ports vulnerable. Still, similar to what I said above, though, it’s hard to imagine that a small, isolated expeditionary force could somehow represent, let alone carry out, such a threat.
So, what is Evans getting at? In what way did the Italian invasion of Greece threaten Germany’s access to Romanian oil?
I believe the Greeks were attempting to remain neutral, so there wouldn’t have been a threat. But once Italy invaded, that of course pushed Greece into the Allied camp. So when Italy was unsuccessful, Germany had to come to their aid. Otherwise, there would have been another front that the Allies might have poured more resources into. If nothing else, it might have allowed airfields to be established in Greece for attack on the oilfields.
That would be my guess. With Greece as an unoccupied allied power, the British could stage airbases there and launch bombing missions against the Romanian oil fields.
Don’t forget that the German invasion of Greece was an opportunistic follow-up to their invasion of Yugoslavia.
My understanding is that it went like this: Mussolini invades Greece from Albania, after some initial successes gets pushed back into Albania (the Greeks, perhaps foolishly, don’t stop at the Albanian border). Encouraged by this success the anti-Fascists in Yugoslavia stage a coup and throw out the pro-Fascist government. Hitler sees a chance to kill several birds with one stone - to re-install the Fascists in Yugoslavia, to save his fellow Axis leader Mussolini’s arse from his own stupidity, and to impress Romania and Bulgaria with Axis power (remember they ended up on opposite sides in WW1) by taking out their old enemy Greece. Those two countries do end up committing significant forces in Russia and occupying Yugoslavia, don’t forget.
All of which succeeded brilliantly at the time, and sent exactly the necessary message to various neutrals. Lacking a **Goeben **moment it helped keep Turkey out of the way and if anything inclining to the Axis side. The British went into Greece to reassure potential allies in the area that they would not leave them hanging out to dry; a laudable political aim but at the cost of substantial military losses in Greece and Crete, AND most importantly of taking the pressure off the Axis in North Africa at a critical moment (most of the forces sent to Greece were at the cost of the 8th Army) - absent the Greek campaign the Allies probably destroy the Axis in Egypt and Libya in 1941.
The down side for the Axis is that the whole thing was a distraction from the main game of the upcoming attack on Russia. Did it delay that significantly or not? Was the loss of men and materiel - especially the paratroops in Crete - worth the gain? Did it just over-commit the Germans to yet another front they could ill afford? Arguably if the Axis get pushed out of North Africa in 1941 it actually benefits them, as there’s little the Allies can do in the Med theatre until the US and amphibious assets arrive there in mid-to-late 1942 - the same time they did historically.
However, to actually address the OP, I don’t see that the Greek campaign per se has anything to do with Ploesti. Whether Hitler *thought *that, who knows, he was deranged in so many of these strategic judgements (cf leaving quarter of a million men in Norway until the end of the way, because *that *was going to be the decisive theatre!). The Greeks themselves were no threat there; most of their army was still in Albania, and their support of the British/Commonwealth forces in Greece itself was, shall we say, half-hearted (verging on treachery IMO). So I think this author is mistaken in this case.
Hmmm, I hadn’t thought about the Allies using Greece as a take off point for bombing of the Romanian oil fields. But, if that’s what Evans was getting at, I retract my comment that he does a fine job of explaining the ‘whys’!
Your geography is a bit off. Bulgaria is the only country you need to go through to get from Greece to Romania, and, at the closest point, they are separated by well under 150 miles. (I just measured it on Google Earth.)
I also used Google, but measured from where I thought the BEF landed in Greece to get the 300 mile figure (with the key word being “thought”). And, depending on the route, Yugoslavia and other Balkan states would be in the way (the key word being “depending”).