Some readers may be unfamiliar with Monemvasia. Despite its attractions, it is relatively isolated and not easy to get to, some four hours’ drive from Athens. To get there you have to veer off the highways and make your way on the old national and local roads, through often unfamiliar villages and towns. But all who make the trip will be amply rewarded. What awaits you is very much worth the journey.
Anyone approaching Monemvasia is immediately struck by the immensity of the 300-metre-high rock. Arriving in early morning or at sundown, it appears brooding and dark against the sunlight. Passing through the town of Gefyra – with its shops and houses accommodating its 1,200 residents – you eventually emerge on to the 400-metre causeway that connects the rock to the mainland. The great rock, rising from the sea, always reminds me of Gibraltar as it has often been described.
The lower town clings to the southern side of the rock, its flagstone paths surrounded by the deep yellow sandstone of the old buildings, which seem to be almost touching overhead. The blossoming flowers that are trained across the walkways and arches invite you with their scents to investigate further into the labyrinth. It seems rare to find a flat surface or straight line, signifying a town that has emerged slowly over time, as if growing from the very earth itself. Then suddenly the scene opens up to square, with its beautiful old church and a nearby cannon facing out to sea. A walk up the rocky pathway to the top of the rock brings you to the remains old fortifications and the magnificent Church of Hagia Sophia, all surrounded by the amazing views of the Gulf of Nafplio and the Peloponnesian coastline. Monemvasia is a town to be savoured, to melt into and only then will you appreciate its surprises.
It is such a pleasure to find accommodation in the lower town. The sensitively renovated interiors of the lovely stone buildings have not lost their antique feel. Views of the sea from the stone battlements are never far away. In another direction one is attracted by the offerings in the host of little shops and restaurants that line the main alleyway that snakes its way through the town. When we enter the Malva Gallery we are not surprised to find the gifted artist Manolis Grigoreas at work on new creations. I am drawn to his iconographic portrait of the poet Cavafy. In another shop I find a copy of the excellent photographic volume, Monemvasia – People Place Presence. Entering Monemvasia Deli we see that its rich collection of regional wines includes the famed Malvasia sweet wine – also known as malmsey – and for which Monemvasia was once famed. Seeing it takes me back to Shakespeare’s Richard III and its reference to the Duke of Clarence being drowned in a “butt of malmsey”.
Monemvasia is indeed steeped in history. With reputed Minoan origins, archaeology points to the establishment of the town by Emperor Justinian. It would be ruled by Byzantine rulers, with brief Latin intervals. During this period Monemvasia became an important trading and ecclesiastical centre. The fall of Constantinople brought in the long period of alternating Venetian and Ottoman rule as the fortunes of the town were buffeted by the rivalry between these great Empires. The final period of Venetian rule ended in 1715. The rock was finally liberated from Ottoman rule during the Greek War of Independence. One of its most famous sons is Yiannis Ritsos, the left-wing poet and active member of the resistance to the German occupation, who was imprisoned during the Greek Civil War and the military Junta. An impressive statue and memorial to him looks out to the sea from his former home.
But one of the attractions of Monemvasia for me was its important part in the Greek campaign of 1941. The rock would come to feature as the campaign drew to a close, as it was chosen by the Allies as one of the key evacuation points on the mainland as part of Operation Demon.
As midnight approached on evening of April 28 over 4,300 Allied soldiers were lined up from the beaches to the causeway, anxious that their hopes of evacuation would be fulfilled. For the last day or so the Allied beach masters had been desperately trying to communicate by wireless to Allied command on Crete and beyond to confirm their location and readiness for evacuation. As night approached the most senior Allied naval representative at Monemvasia – the British Royal Navy’s Rear Admiral Baillie-Grohman – paced the causeway, giving encouragement and reassurance to the assembled troops. But even he was not sure that the evacuation ships would come.
The largest grouping of Allied soldiers there were the soldiers of the New Zealand 6th Brigade, one of the few fully armed fighting formations remaining on the mainland, accompanied by the New Zealand commander General Freyberg and his headquarters. Amongst the other troops were a small group of British armoured troops who had fought in some of the major engagements of the campaign, now tankless and hoping for evacuation.
There were also hundreds Australian troops. Some had arrived that morning from the other evacuation port of Tolo across the bay. They had been ferried to Monemvasia during the night on one of the Royal Navy’s landing craft. The troops boarding at Tolo had stampeded on to the craft to the consternation of its commander, who appears to have been subjected to a bit of robust Aussie language. They had been safely landed and joined the thousands of other Allied troops hiding in Gefyra town, with its churchyard full of cypresses or in the surrounding maize fields and olive groves beyond the beach. They would look on during the day as their landing craft was destroyed in an attack by enemy dive-bombers.
Other Australians were from the 2/6th Battalion who like their New Zealand comrades remained as an armed fighting formation. They totalled over 200 men and had fought bravely on the mainland, most recently defending the aerodrome near Argos. Now they would form an essential part of the rearguard defending the approach to Monemvasia. Most of these soldiers came from Victoria, many from Geelong and surrounds, including their most senior commander D Company’s 28-year-old former bank officer Lieutenant Keith Carroll from Colac and the same Company’s 27-year-old former stock agent Lieutenant Bill Dexter from Geelong.
These Australians arrived at Monemvasia on the morning of the April 27 after a harrowing 10-hour drive from Argos over bomb damaged roads, encountering and dealing with German infiltrators along the way. Here they would defend the approach to Monemvasia for the next two days. It was while here they experienced the generosity of the local people. Jo Gullett remembered local villagers bringing them bread, wine, olives, raisins and a few cooked chickens. Jo remembered after the war of feeling ashamed at their generosity, the Australians having nothing to offer in return and that they would be leaving the villagers to occupation by the Germans.
On the evening of the April 28 they were now ordered to withdraw into Monemvasia, arriving there at 9pm. As they approached the causeway in the moonlight they would have seen the thousands of Allied troops gathered there, the whole scene illuminated by the fires and explosions from the abandoned Allied vehicles littering the approach to the town. Earlier in the day some of them had been ordered to guard the New Zealand headquarters. They stood by watching these officers enjoy a sumptuous meal, on clean linen with china and silver cutlery. Then to their astonishment the Australians were ordered to load the silver service, linen and remaining food back into the mess truck and push it over a nearby cliff.
It was nearing midnight when news spread that the Allied convoy had arrived in the waters off Monemvasia. Jo Gullett remembers that he heard the throb of their engines coming across the sea. The first warships to arrive were HMS Isis, Hotspur, Havock and Griffin, followed later by HMS Ajax. Slowly the men moved forward along the causeway to board the landing craft and two other vessels that took them out to the warships. Just after 3am all of the assembled Allied troops had boarded the warships. The last to leave were the small party of Allied commanders who enjoyed a brief celebration with a bottle of champagne that had survived the trip from Athens. This evacuation of 4,320 Allied personnel was one of the most orderly and efficient of the campaign. One naval officer described it as an “evacuation par excellence”, Australian Bill Dexter simply wrote in his diary that it was “brilliant.”
Monemvasia is a place full of reminders of its past. Sitting under the shade of olive trees enjoying breakfast, gazing out over the bright turquoise sea, my mind went back to the Allied evacuation and the generosity of the locals. As Jo Gullett feared, the people of the region would face the brunt of occupation and some would pay with their lives. As we approached Monemvasia we had stopped to read a sombre stone memorial to those locals killed by the German in 1943. Yet there is no plaque or display to remind visitors of the important role Monemvasia and its people played at the end of the Greek campaign. But maybe there should be.
Jim Claven is a trained historian, freelance writer and published author. The latter includes his book Grecian Adventure, re-telling some of the stories of the Australians in the 1941 Greek campaign. He was also the Associate Producer of the new documentary Anzac The Greek Chapter which premiered at last year’s Greek Film Festival. For more information on Monemvasia, Jim recommends the photographic volume Monemvasia: People Place Presence, published by Unicorn in 2019. He can be contacted via email – jimclaven@yahoo.com.au