The year was 1940, the 28th of October. The Italian ambassador in Athens, Emanuele Grazzi, arrived deep in the night, shortly after 03:00 am, at the house of then prime minister Ioannis Metaxas in Kifissia bearing with him an ultimatum issued by the Italian government.
The request, simple. Free passage of the Italian troops, then stationed in Albania, through Greece and the occupation of various places of strategic importance ( airports, ports, bases etc.)
In other words, ''Surrender''.
After reading through the ultimatum Metaxas calmly gave the famous answer ''Alors, c'est la guerre''... (Then we have war)... This answer remained in history as simply ''Oxi'' (No).
Grazzi tried in vain to make Metaxas reconsider. As he states in his memoirs which were published in 1945:
I have an order sir to make you an annoucement and then I handed him the document. I watched the emotion in his eyes and in his hands. With a steady voice and looking me straight in the eye Metaxas told me ''Alors, c'est la guerre''. I answered him that this could be avoided. He answered me NO. I added that if general Papagos..., Metaxas intrrupted me and told me NO! I left after I bowed with the deepest respect, towards this old man, who chose sacrifice instead of subjugation''
A couple of hours after that moment, at 5:30 in the morning, Italian troops started crossing the Albanian border and Greece, in defence, entered the Second World War...
''When the entire world had lost all hope, the Greek people dared to question the invincibility of the German monster raising against it the proud spirit of freedom ''
Franking D. Roosevelt
