During the Greek Civil War, the Greek Democratic National Army (GNA), attacked by Andante guerrillas, launched mortars at the village of Kastania. The mortar exploded outside an open window of a house. The inhabitant was blown to the left side of the head and died instantly. The dead body of the bombed Andante guerrilla was lying on the ground. His family and the wives of the neighbors surrounded the body. On the body's chest was a bouquet of flowers and a 10,000 drachma bill worth $2, the price of passage to the afterlife. They surrounded the corpse of the guerrilla and chanted a Christian chant while wailing. The village of Kastania, a stronghold of the Greek guerrillas, was occupied by the Nazi Germans during World War II, and about 260 of its 280 houses were destroyed. After that, about 600 Greek residents went into hiding. The Greek guerrillas were called Andantes, and when the Andantes resumed their guerrilla activities around September 1946, the military police of the Greek government forces left without being able to capture the guerrillas hiding in the area of the Pindus mountain range.
The military police countered the guerrilla activities with a strict economic blockade. The military police countered the guerrillas with a severe economic blockade, blocking the local residents of the Pindus mountain range from bringing in food, clothing, and all other daily necessities. The biggest victims of the economic blockade were the local residents, who risked being mistreated and massacred if they went to the nearby village of Caravada to buy groceries because they were suspected of being Andante guerrillas.
During the occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany, Andante guerrillas who joined the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) took part in the resistance movement. When the occupation of Greece was liberated, the leftist resistance movement branded them as communists. Locally, they were excluded because of their background and fell into unemployment. On the contrary, the Greek Democratic National Army (GNA), which included collaborators against Germany, was supplied with weapons by the Greek government to capture ELAS. Driven into a corner, the Andante guerrillas had no choice but to hide in the Pindus mountain range. The Andante guerrilla forces split up and became separate and independent groups.
The Greek government forces suffered about 48,000 casualties between 1946 and 1949. The armed rebels probably suffered about half of those casualties. But death squads on both sides killed thousands of civilians, and many more died of atrocities, disease, and starvation. It was estimated that some 158,000 Greeks died as a result of the civil war. Greece was almost plunged into economic devastation.
Italian troops withdrew from Greece in the summer of 1943 and German troops in September 1944. In December 1944, the Greek National Army (GNA), with the support of British troops, defeated the EAM and ELAS. The GNA gained the upper hand by receiving a large supply of military supplies from the US.
Greece was liberated from the Axis forces and the government-in-exile returned; the December Incident broke out on December 3, 1944, and the conflict between the Communist Left (EMA/ELS) and the Royalist Right (EDES) became more acute, leading to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War in 1946. The communist forces, supported by the Soviet Union and neighboring Yugoslavia, organized a guerrilla force called the Greek Democratic Army (DAG). The United States of America replaced Britain, which was suffering from financial difficulties after the war, and began to fully support the royalist right-wing government with the Marshall Plan. Furthermore, after 1948, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union came into conflict, and the communist forces in Greece supported the Soviet Union, so the aid from Yugoslavia was lost, and the civil war ended with the defeat of the communist forces in 1949.
