Talk:Napoleon Zervas

Recent edits
Ok, I'm referring to some recent edits. There is an Albanian side who sees Zervas as pretty much the ethnic cleansner of the Cham Albanians, and there is a Greek side that sees him as a WWII hero. I'm going to say right now that both sides should be viewed with care. --Sulmues (talk) 18:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually you need to explain why you remove the fact that Germans and Chams collaborated.Alexikoua (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't need to and it would be an impossible task. 25,000 Chams were expulsed and I would have to explain why each one of them (including the children) collaborated with the Nazis. That was a Genocide. --Sulmues (talk) 18:59, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record: the majority of Chams collaborated with the Germans.Alexikoua (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you for the links, which show that you are a supporter of the Genocide of the Cham Albanians. Now, the Germans lost the war and were not expelled from Germany. The Chams were expelled from lands that they inhabited from centuries by the Greek government. --Sulmues (talk) 19:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If it were a genocide, then these 25,000 would not have survived to tell the tale. It certainly was an act of ethnic cleansing, but not "genocide", which is a heavily loaded term and should be used very very carefully. I also caution against labelling anyone a "supporter of genocide". The expulsion of the Chams was certainly traumatic, immoral and illegal, but setting cries for vengeance and restitution aside (which is what labelling an event as "genocide" amounts to nowadays), expelling 25,000 people is nowhere near to the organized murder of Jews and Armenians. As for the second statement you made, Sulmues, you are quite wrong: several million Germans were expelled from the German lands that became part of Poland and the Soviet Union, not to mention the fate of the Sudeten Germans... Theyn too had lived in their lands for centuries. You should also remember that the collaboration of a number of Chams is well-established, as are Italy's attempts to use their presence against Greece's territorial integrity both before and during the war. Whether that justifies the wholesale expulsion of an entire population is another matter altogether, but in the climate of the times, such an act was certainly neither unique nor entirely without justification in the minds of the perpetrators. Regarding the article, the two views must both be presented, but Zervas (for whom BTW I have no personal sympathy) should not be represented as some sort of Greek Himmler, because he was not... Constantine  ✍  21:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hope this is enough to resetore the initial collaboration-expulsion sequence version. The current version -cherry picking Mazower- has lead to the worst pov.Alexikoua (talk) 05:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed the stuff that was not directly pertinent to Zervas himself. The stuff about the ethnic cleansing being organized by the British, etc...Hope this goes some way towards cooling things down.  Athenean (talk) 05:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess I have to add the English WP here. Sorry but I had to revert. Zervas was deeply involved. @Constantine: I like your measured approach. I am not aware of any genocides that have ever succeded. And for that matter the Armenian one didn't either, neither did the Holocaust. I am probably hurrying too much calling it genocide, but as you admitted, it was ethnic cleansing: not as much by killing but by expelling. Now hadn't the Holocaust started in the same way in the 1930s? However Zervas was deeply involved and it has to be noted. --Sulmues (talk) 13:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Genocide constitutes a deliberate, planned, and meticulous campaign of extermination of a people by a state or other organization, regardless of whether it succeeds. This does not under any circumstances apply to the expulsion of the Chams. Certainly Zervas was involved in the affair as EDES' military leader, so I agree that this must be mentioned. Constantine  ✍  13:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * PS, I rewrote the section to cover the events in a more concise manner, and removed the WP England tag. British officers may have been tangentially involved, but that does not mean that Zervas falls under the project's scope... Constantine  ✍  13:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Collaboration needs to be re-added, since he dealt with the combined Axis-Cham forces (liberation of Paramythia etc.).Alexikoua (talk) 14:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I remember that he participated in the Pangalos coup, unfortunately can't find this on gbooks.15:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Full-protected
I have full-protected the article for 31 hours for edit warring. Please discuss content issues on this talk page and refrain from edit warring once the protection expires. Regards, –MuZemike 19:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

US-UK suspicions
Although the source doesn't mention it because these are simple well-known facts obviously the suspicions of wartime collaboration involved Nazi Germany and obviously the mass arrests during the Greek Civil War involved Communists, so some users shouldn't start once more attributing motives of source falsification. Here you can read more about the measures Zervas took against Communists -- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 22:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Once again taking things out of context and cherry picking to push a well-known agenda. Athenean (talk) 22:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What is out of context, especially the second link is even harsher when criticizing him and the authors are distinguished Greek professors regarding the first source, but that doesn't mean that he didn't do also things that generally can be considered good, which obviously should be added. Btw the majority of distinguished Greek historians when examining his role in the Civil War are much harsher, while other experts of this era also make similar comments about him like Mark Mazower, Zervas regarding Macedonia during the Civil War and other allegations of collaboration -- — ZjarriRrethues —  talk 22:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see Mazower alleging he was a Nazi collaborator. Not that I'm a fan of this guy, but it would really seem rather odd, considering he led a resistance group, don't you think? Athenean (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)The next source and previous ones are about Nazi collaboration. Nazi collaboration doesn't mean exlusively that he fought alongside the Nazis against the Allies, it also means what is called a grey collaboration treaty, that is a treaty that includes a truce between two factions and their collaboration against a third party hostile to both i.e EAM. All these sources that accuse him of collaboration etc. and the US-UK suspicions were mainly about this kind of collaboration. I once read a conversation of Zervas and Velouhiotis and it was hilarious(positively hilarious) so you should understand that I'm not trying to make him look as good or bad because motives and ambitions are part of the human nature.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 22:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually he was accused by EAM that he ceased fire with Nazis for some months, before the liberation of Paramythia after allied orders to secure the coast. Any claim about collaboration is simply science fiction.Alexikoua (talk) 05:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)All these sources do mention him as a collaborator (mostly as a grey operations one), so obviously it isn't a fringe theory.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 08:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:OUCH No source says he was a collaborator, they just say that he was accused for this. Detailed WWII descriptions confirm this, see for example Meyer. Alexikoua (talk) 08:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It may be noted that the largest of these movements Napoleon Zervas's EDES has been shown from German archives  and from one of Nuremberg trials to have had distinctly cosy relations with the German forces based on mutual hostility to ELAS


 * The EDES leader Napoleon Zervas reached a gentlemens' agreement with the Germans so he would be unencumbered in his showdown with his Greek opponentns


 * Colonel Napoleon Zervas who formerly headed EDES and had collaborated with the Nazis.

None of these say he was accused of doing so but that he did collaborate with them.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 09:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As I've expected cease fire is completely irrelevant with collaboration. Cherry picking as part of an endless nationalistic campaign is the worst kind of contribution here.Alexikoua (talk) 09:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)That's your OR deduction and if I did cherry pick I would have to go beyond the first pages on google books

because the majority of those books are either about his anti-communist stance, Nazi collaboration sources or accusations made against him by other EDES leaders or negative remarks about his personality.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 09:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Anti-communism is something completely diferrent with Nazi-collaboration. These terms may be equal in Albanian wwii history but this is irrelevant here. To be precise, Zervas was a Venizelist [][].
 * "accusations made against him by other EDES leaders?" please avoid oring.Alexikoua (talk) 09:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I'm not ORing so I'll bring the full quote Alexikoua:
 * One of his chief lieutenants who worked closely with him during the occupation has described clearly his incapacity as a resistance leader: General Zervas's lack of a more general education in the broad meaning of the word and of ideological orientation always was a basic obstacle to the development...of ties between guerillas and EDES members...we wavered between superficial democratism and superficial nationalism without ever evolving a stable national policy. We always met the stubborn opposition of General Zervas and of those about him. The centralization of power which General Zervas insisted on because of the circumstances of the struggle proved to be unwaranted and injurious. Nothing was heard but the slogan: Faith in the Leader. All for the Leader. All from the Leader.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 11:03, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * and what this to do with collaboration? It's completely irrelevant with the main topic and your intention to name him 'collaborator'.Alexikoua (talk) 11:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)This had to do with you attributing me the motive of OR when I said that his own lieutenants accused him of various issues. The sources are too many about his collaboration but most should be added in EDES.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 12:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me correct you: the sources are too many that REJECT the collaboration that he was accused by third parties.Alexikoua (talk) 17:59, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of these sources mention the collaboration as a fact and not an accusation of third parties and so far you haven't brought a source rejecting it.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Please avoid wp:orish descriptions. You brought some sources yourself that just say something about suspicions.Alexikoua (talk) 18:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Only the one I added in the article is related to US-UK suspicions, while all the other sources view that as a fact not as suspicion or theory, so you should avoid OR deductions. Btw I'll add the German documents source in EDES.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What you do is simply extreme wp:or. By the way you (accidentally?) ignore Meyer, who made one of the most detailed research about why Zervas cease-fired with the combined Nazi-Cham forces for some months. To sum up we had a 'cease fire'.Alexikoua (talk) 18:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)No this wasn't a simple cease-fire this was an agreement of cease-fire and common attacks against EAM so please stick to the sources and don't make or deductions.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 19:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a huge difference between active collaboration, as in fighting on the side of the Axis (e.g. like the Chams), and passive collaboration in the form a ceasefire or gentlemen's agreement. In the minds of most people, "collaboration" is usually associated with the first.  It is debatable whether a cease-fire can be considered collaboration.  Athenean (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way Meyer never uses the term collaboration, and 'cease-fire' or 'gentlemens agreement' is something diferrent.Alexikoua (talk) 20:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Btw Meyer is a source, while there are many other sources that label it as collaboration and in the article after explaining the content of the agreement it should be stated that some scholars describe it as nazi collaboration-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 20:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You are still oring. I would appreciate if you avoid this kind of extreme speculations.Alexikoua (talk) 20:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Alexikoua I have brought at least 3 sources that label it as such so I'm not oring and I'll add them.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 20:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ...with very generalized statements like 'gentlemetns agreement' and 'cossy relations'... and rejecting top graded sources on the subject like Meyer.Alexikoua (talk) 20:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent disruption
I fail to see how this part [] can be considered sourced. In fact contains multiple issues: c-e, structural even factual issues since Zervas did not order the advance against Paramythia.Alexikoua (talk) 08:46, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

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