The honored Jewish-Greek army officer Mordechai Frizis was the first high-rank officer who fell in the Albanian front during the Greek-Italian War that started on October 28, 1940. From 1916 until his death in battle, Frizis fought in all wars that Greeks participated. The Greek State honored him and his statue in the city of Chalcis is the memorial of his bravery and dedication to the homeland.
He was born in Chalkis, a city on the Greek island of Evia, on January 1, 1893, as one of 13 children—12 boys and one girl—born to his Romaniote parents, Jacob and Iopi. His family was directly descended from the Romaniote Jews of Greece that predate all other Jewish settlements in the Balkans.
The Jews in Chalkis belonged to the Romaniote community that is believed to have been a part of the oldest Jewish population in Europe, established about 2,500 years ago. The expression Romaniote that is used to identify the Greek Jews was formulated somewhere between the 4th and 10th centuries AD.
Greek Christians living in the Eastern Roman Empire called themselves Romioi, and the Jews started calling themselves Romaniote to distinguish themselves from the local Christians but also to identify themselves as citizens of the Roman Byzantine Empire.
Pursuit of a military career
While all Mordechai Frizis’ brothers became business traders, his dream was to become an Officer in the Greek Army, quite an antithesis of the visions his parents had for him. He took the official entrance exams for the prestigious Royal Hellenic Military Academy, but failed to score high enough to gain entrance which would had allowed him to accomplish his dreams. Instead he got accepted into the University of Athens Law School department.
Young Frizis used his Law studies as a stepping point in order to pursue his military calling. At the time, Greece was relatively a new nation among the established Kingdoms of Europe, and since the start of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) had been expanding its borders at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.
The Hellenic Kingdom was aspiring to accomplish the Great Idea, meaning to reestablish its Byzantine borders. An idealistic vision that under the charismatic leader Eleutherios Venizelos could become a reality. By 1916 Frizis found himself engulfed in this patriotic spirit and volunteered in the Greek Army. His university education sent him directly to the military academy where he graduated as a sergeant in the Greek infantry.
However according with the Hellenic Army regulations, due to his university education, he became a Reserve Second Lieutenant. Moreover, the start of the First World War eventually found Greece in the Allied camp, the Triple Entente as it was called, and Lieutenant Frizis fighting in Macedonia against the Germans and their allies, the Bulgarians. 4 His bravery on the Battlefield was noticed by his superiors and by 1919 he became a fully commissioned Second Lieutenant. His dreams had finally become a reality: “A Jewish Greek Officer in the services of the Hellenic Kingdom of Greece.”
From Crimea to Turkey
The Greek government under Premier Venizelos wanted to be seen from Entente’s point of view as a faithful ally in order to get better stipulations and boundaries from any eventual dismemberment of the Osmanli Realm. Athens efforts where indeed rewarded later on with the Sevres Treaty of 1920 whereby Greece was ceded lands from the former Ottoman Realm. As part of Greece’s new obligations to cooperate with Allied strategies in the Balkans and Eastern Europe the newly appointed Second Lieutenant Frizis soon find himself serving with the Greek military expeditionary force in the Crimea. This time he would be combating the stemming tide of the Red Bolsheviks of the Ukrainian Front as a part of an international force against communism.
In January, 1919, two Greek divisions were dispatched to the Crimea where they joined French, Polish, Romanian forces as well as anti-communist “White” Russians. The Greeks fought heroically in the battles of Bol-Buyalik, Cherson, Nikolaiev and finally in Odessa where they distinguished themselves by holding the entire front in order for the rest of the Allies to evacuate to safety.
By the summer of 1919 the Greek Expeditionary Force was evacuated to Romania and subsequently dispatched to Smyrna to join the occupation forces of Asia Minor. Having served briefly in Eastern Europe, Second Lieutenant Mordechai received new orders that sent him to the Asia Minor Front in Western Turkey. Greece, after acquiring a mandate from the Victorious Allies under the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, started to wage its own war, to reclaim its Byzantine lands, against the opposing Turkish forces of Mustapha Kemal. This war is known to the Turks as the War of Independence against the Greeks and the Allied Forces. To the Greeks, two years later, this war turned out to be “the 1922 Asia Minor Disaster”.
The Greek army in Smyrna
Upon arrival to Smyrna, the Jewish-Greek army officer was promoted to First lieutenant and was ordered to participate in the forthcoming large scale Greek military offensives of August 1922. However, approaching Ankara, the Greek forces were entrapped by the Turks and lost the battle. First Lieutenant Frizis was captured as a POW along with his soldiers by the victorious Turkish Army. When the Turks realized that he was not Christian, he was immediately offered freedom and safe passage to Greece, something he defiantly refused. Having rejected this freedom offer from the Turks he shared eleven months of cruel captivity along with his men. This was never forgotten by his superiors or his soldiers. His care and paternal devotion for his fellow soldiers would follow him until the end of his life.
Thousands of Greek prisoners survived and returned to Greece. Many of them died soon after from diseases acquired while in captivity and the mistreatment. What followed after his release and return to Greece was chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of Greek refugees poured into Greece from Turkey as a result of the Asia Minor military defeat and population exchanges. The country was in economic ruin, the King had abdicated and a brief republic was declared. Military commanders and politicians deemed responsible for the Asia Minor disaster were court-martialed and eventually shot.
Nevertheless, military service for Frizis had to continue, since Greece still had a standing Army and many enemies at the gates. Now a battle hardened officer Frizis Mordechai was promoted to captain and also was seen by his Army superiors as a gifted officer that was destined for leadership in the Hellenic Armed Forces. It was not long after his return to that he was offered a chance to go and study in France’s War College l’Ecole Militaire Supérieure in order to acquire new tactics and skills that could be applied successfully in any future war effort by the Greek armed forces.
A period of political turmoil and the coming war
Between 1924 and 1935, Greece saw 23 changes of government, a dictatorship and 13 coups. By 1935 the Monarchy was brought back with a plebiscite and in 1936 Greece was under the Constitutional dictatorship of a former Greek Officer and dedicated Royalist, Ioannis Metaxas. By the late 1930’s Frizis’ expertise in defensive infantry tactics did not go unnoticed by his superiors. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and later was assigned to the Operations Office of the Ioannina VIII Division in Epirus in the spring of 1940. It was obvious by then that the dark clouds of war were looming over Greece, and his skills for the defense of the nation would be in great demand by his superiors.
It would be in the mountains of Epirus next to Albania that the gifted Jewish-Greek army officer would demonstrate his real skills as a leader and a tactician and become a hero. His destiny would be manifested on the face of a new enemy, that of Fascist Italy. On April 1939, Italian troops had occupied Albania, thereby gaining an immediate land border with Greece. The following spring, Hitler had captured France and all Western Europe. Mussolini the Italian dictator was envious and jealous and wanted to show his partner that he too was of equal status as a great warrior and leader. As a result he chose Greece to show his war skills to Führer and to the world.
Italy had always coveted Greek territory bordering the Adriatic. The Italian army was much larger than Greece’s; the Italian air force had hundreds of planes and the Italian navy was one of the largest in the world. Mussolini figured Greece would fall quickly. As the propaganda war was raging on against Greece, Rome notched up the scale of provocations. Italian planes attacked Greek ships and submarines in Naupaktos bay Greece. These provocations culminated with the sinking of the Greek light Cruiser Elli in the Island of Tinos harbor during the National celebrations of the Annunciation of Virgin Mary annunciation on August 15, 1940 by an Italian submarine. Even with this attack, Greece still tried to avoid war with the Axis second strongest power.
The Jewish-Greek army officer against the Italians
Inevitably, the war broke out on October 28, 1940. The main thrust of the Italian invasion occurred in the Epirus sector, with a further flanking move through the Pindus Mountains. In Epirus, the Hellenic Forces defended the Elaia–Kalamas river line, but in reality the Greek units were heavily outnumbered and their General Staff was pessimistic as to the outcome of the fight. Nevertheless, the local Greek forces, under the legendary Major General Charalambos Katsimitros, commander of the VIII Division managed to successfully stop the Italian advance.
A similar fate was awaiting the Italians at the Battle of Pindus that took place simultaneously. There the Greek Army under Colonel Konstantinos Davakis smashed the Fascist onslaught. These initial Greek successes signified the complete failure of the Italian invasion, leading to the dismissal of the Italian commander in Albania and the first victories over the Axis powers in Europe. It is here that Lt Colonel Frizis took over under General Katsimitros the important role to defend the sectors of Negradon which included the sub sectors of Soudenon, Kalpaki, and Vrodismeni’s. Frizis’ detachment was composed of two infantry battalions, two reserve platoons and one artillery Battalion composed of 75mm Skoda cannons.
On November 2, the Greek forces were positioned according to the defensive plan in the line: Kalamas-Elaia-Grabala-Kleftis hill. On this day, after repeated air and artillery strikes, the Italian infantry of the Ferrara Division, attacked unsuccessfully in order to advance the bulk of their forces closer to Elaia sector. Despite initial successes to capture the Grabalas hill the Greeks managed to recapture it. The Italian Army did not give up its offensive in the Kalpaki section and renewed its attacks all over the front, this time by attempting to cross the Kalamas River. Despite repeated shelling the Italians failed to dislodge Frizis’ men defending the bridge of the Kalama’s river. Here Mordechai and his men fought for several hours until the enemy retreated, leaving hundreds of dead and 700 prisoners of war. The Italian offensive stopped on November 8, 1940.
The Greek counteroffensive
The Greek Army passed on the counteroffensive and started capturing Italian fortified positions inside Albania. The Jewish-Greek colonel led his detachment of troops into Albania. His soldiers adored him and he also called them my “boys”, thus his detachment was referred to as the” Frizean Soldiers”. His Division captured a series of important hills leading to the city of Premeti and by defeating the elite and better equipped troops of the Modena division. Once more Frizis and his men pushed back the attacking Italians and on December 4th he was master of all the routes leading to the Albanian City of Premeti.
However, his glorious military career would soon come to an end. On December 5th after his initial success of the previous day he was ordered to move on to hill 1220 Northeastern of Premeti and capture it. During the attack his troops came under intense air attack from the Italian air force. The Italians were aware that Greeks in the area lacked antiaircraft capabilities thus airpower was the only means they could use to halt the Greek attack. During the air strike mayhem Lt Colonel Frizis ordered his men to take cover while he continued to ride his horse to inspire them. What happened then became a legend in the Greek military chronicles: Frizis kept riding his horse screaming “Aera!”, the famous Greek battle cry. Despite his officers’ shouts to take cover, he continued riding his horse.
As a squadron of Italian planes strafed and bombed the Greek positions, Lt Colonel Mordechai Frizis continued to ride his horse until an enemy bomb fell next to him wounding him in the stomach. After the Italian air raid stopped, his men found him dead, hit by machine gun fire. A Greek Orthodox priest was brought over and administered last rites. Despite the fact the Lt Colonel was a Jew there was no hesitation on his behalf.
Honored after death
Mordechai Frizis, was the first high ranking officer in the Greek Army to be killed in World War II. He left behind his wife and three children. Upon learning of his death, the Greek Royal Court of Greece and premier Metaxas sent condolences to his wife and declared Colonel Mordechai an official Hero of the State of Greece. In addition the Greek government promoted Lt Colonel Mordechai Frizis posthumously to the rank of Colonel, had he lived he might have become a General.
Colonel Frizis was buried where he fell. His remains were reburied at the Thessaloniki Jewish Cemetery in 2004 with full military honors in the presence of then Greek President Kostis Stephanopoulos after being transferred to Greece from Albania, following an intervention by the Greek Chief of Staff.
On October 28, 1940 when war was declared, 12,898 Greek-Jewish men would volunteer to defend their country on the Albanian Front, according to the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS). Approximately, 3,500 of them would return severely injured, others returned amputees due to injuries and frostbite, and 513 were killed.
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