Qualla: Battle of Kilkis (1944)

Battle of Kilkis (1944): Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By late October 1944, the German army was gone from Greek Macedonia, and the war that had been hidden under the occupation came into the open. About ten thousand people — soldiers of the collaborationist Security Battalions, fighters from the right-wing EDES and EES, and the families that had cast their lot with them — had crowded into the small Macedonian town of Kilkis, north of Thessaloniki, hoping that walls and numbers would keep them safe. The communist-led ELAS partisans were already in the surrounding hills. On 4 November they came down.

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Battle of Kilkis (1944): Two enemies, one war

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Greece's resistance had never been a single thing. ELAS, the Greek People's Liberation Army, was led by the Greek Communist Party and had grown into the largest armed force in the country during the occupation. EDES, the National Republican Greek League, was smaller, royalist-lea...

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Battle of Kilkis (1944): The town as a refuge

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When the Germans began withdrawing in October 1944, the calculation collapsed. The Caserta Agreement, signed in September between ELAS and the Greek government-in-exile, had declared all units associated with the Security Battalions enemy combatants and ordered them to surrender ...

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Battle of Kilkis (1944): Nine hours

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The attack came on the morning of 4 November. ELAS pushed first for the tactically important hill of Agios Georgios above the town and took it. Then they fought house-to-house through Kilkis itself for nine hours. By evening the town had fallen. The defenders lost about 1,500 kil...

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Battle of Kilkis (1944): The shadow it cast

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kilkis was the bloodiest single clash between Greek communist and nationalist forces before the open civil war began. Two months later the British and ELAS would be shooting at each other in central Athens during the Dekemvriana, and within two years a full civil war would burn a...

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Battle of Kilkis (1944): Three memorials

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In November 1967, six months after the colonels' coup, the junta's interior minister Stylianos Pattakos and minister for northern Greece Dimitrios Patilis held the first official memorial service for the Kilkis defenders. A year later the regime put up a monument to victims of wh...

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