The Greek arms trade in Spain

Greece’s need to rebuild its foreign currency reserves and the contours of the conflict led the Metaxas government to exploit to the full the money-making potential of the Spanish Civil War. The pivotal figure in this was Prodromos Bodosakis-Athanasiadis, owner of the Greek Powder and Cartridge Company (GPCC). 

Bodosakis, shown here on the right, standing next to dictator Ioannis Metaxas, was the most important arms dealer in the Eastern Mediterranean, a key player in the international arms trade and a figure of crucial importance in Greece’s economic and political life. The mutual interests of Metaxas and Bodosakis are vital to understanding the magnitude of the latter’s operations and the complicity of the Greek state which enabled the GPCC to send large quantities of war matériel to Spain.

The GPCC began to supply the Republican government soon after the outbreak of hostilities. The first order for 5 million cartridges came in mid-September 1936. The Republicans paid for the total value of Bodosakis’s supplies immediately and in hard currency, while Bodosakis’s imported raw materials and machinery from Germany were paid for 50 per cent in hard currency and 50 per cent through the existing Greek-German clearing trade agreement. In 1937, when more orders arrived, the GPCC reached a daily production rate of 1,000,000 cartridges, soon raised to 2,000,000. The company’s workforce increased from 600 workers in 1936 to 10,000 in 1937. Moreover, Bodosakis persuaded the Greek government to sell to the Spaniards obsolete war matériel from Greek army depots and use the earnings to buy modern equipment for the Greek army. 

Cargoes of war matériel produced or bought by him were loaded onto Greek ships in the port of Piraeus which, on paper, were destined for Mexico - a country whose consulates were happy to supply false documents. Once the ships had taken on their cargoes in Piraeus, they dropped anchor at some remote Aegean island where they changed their names and then sailed westward through Italy’s Messina Straits. The Italians, the Germans and Franco knew about those shipments and protested to Athens vehemently, though in vain.

The bulk of the war matériel which Bodosakis sent to Spain was destined for the Republic. However, at times he also aided the Francoists by selling them information about the routes of Greek ships carrying arms for their opponents. It was probably for this reason that in October 1937 the Greek government received the sum £600,000 from Franco. 

Relations between the Greek government and the Francoist government improved only after February 1939 as a result of military developments in Spain. By then it was clear that the Republic had lost the war. Already towards the end of 1938, as the orders from the Republicans were dropping, Bodosakis turned his attention to the war between China and Japan with a view to supplying the Chinese. 

TDS