Greece had been under Axis occupation since 1941. Its government-in-exile, unelected and loyal to King George II, was based in Cairo. By the Summer of 1944, communist guerrillas, then known as the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), who had been armed by the Western powers, exploiting the gradual collapse of the Axis, claimed to have liberated nearly all of Greece outside of Athens from Axis occupation, while also attacking and defeating rival non-Communist partisan groups, forming a rival unelected government, the Political Committee of National Liberation. On 12 August 1944, German forces retreated from the Athens area two days ahead of British landings there, ending the occupation.Bamberry, Chris, The Second World War: A Marxist History, 2014, Pluto Press (p. 182)
