Foundation and Ideology
The National Republican Greek League was founded on 9 September 1941 by a former army officer, Colonel Napoleon Zervas, a centrist ex-army officer who had been expelled from the army after the failed pro-Venizelist coup d'état of 1935, and two of his friends, Leonidas Spais and Ilias Stamatopoulos.
Like many other resistance movements founded during that time, the political orientation of the National Republican Greek League was Republican, with a strong dislike towards the exiled King, George II, and featured some vague leftist/socialist tendencies. In the aftermath of the four-year right-wing Metaxas Dictatorship, which was strongly supported by the King, the monarchy was almost universally rejected, while social ideals for "social fairness" became the vogue among the various resistance groups.
The founding charter of EDES explicitly demanded the "establishment in Greece of a Republican regime, of Socialist form", the "revelation of the treason of former King George II and the gang of the 4th of August Dictatorship", calling for a thorough cleansing of the state and Greek social and public life from anyone "who has not proven a National Republican socialist conscience through actions". The charter acknowledged the prominent exiled Venizelist general Nikolaos Plastiras as its nominal political head, but due to his exile in France they failed to take his consent beforehand. For the time being, no reference to armed opposition against the occupying forces was made in the text.
On the same day, Komninos Pyromaglou, a friend and assistant of Plastiras, left Nice, where Plastiras resided, for Greece. He was authorize by the general to form, on his behalf, a republican organization with socialist content", and prepare to turn both "against the Occupier" and against a return of the monarchy. After his arrival in Athens on 23 September, Pyromaglou came into contact with Republican circles, and after contacting Zervas took EDES' command. In October, a five-member Executive Committee was founded, with Pyromaglou as Plastiras' representative as General Secretary and Zervas as a simple member.
As the organization grew, it succeeded in establishing links with the British Headquarters in Cairo, with a view to receiving funds, weapons and guidance. Under British pressure which at the time strongly supported the Greek monarchy, Zervas forced to sent a statement of loyalty to King George II in March 1942. This marked a silent breach with the vitriolic anti-monarchist attacks of the past months, and marked EDES' slow slide towards a more pro-monarchist stance.
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