restoration of parliamentary rule, but King George quashed these hopes when he retained the regime's machinery in place. In the meantime, Adolf Hitler was reluctantly forced to divert German troops to rescue Mussolini from defeat, and entered the Battle of Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria on April 6th 1941. Metaxas' successor Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis, committed suicide on April 18th, 1941, when the Germans approached Athens. On April 27th, 1941, Athens was occupied by the Germans. Despite British assistance, by the end of May, the Germans had overrun most of the country. The 4th of August regime collapsed on May 29th, 1941. The King and the government escaped to Crete, where they stayed until the end of the Battle of Crete. They then transferred to Egypt, where a Greek government in exile was established. An alternative destination of Cyprus was rejected by the British, who feared that it might reinforce Greek claims on the island. Meanwhile, in Greece a fascist puppet government was placed into power by the Axis powers. Legacy As the Axis occupation ended, Greece descended into civil war between the communist-dominated forces of the left, operating in Greece and from bases in the south of Yugoslavia, and the U.S.- and UK-aligned forces of the political right. This was the first major protracted combat of the Cold War, one of the first exercises in U.S. policy of Containment, and a subject of the Truman Doctrine of U.S. President Harry Truman. The alignments were quite different from the Venizelist-Monarchist National Schism, as most Venizelists supported the right-wing alliance during the civil war. See also 4th of August Party 1938 Greek coup d'état attempt Golden Dawn Regime of the Colonels Footnotes References Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece; 1992 Clogg, Richard. Parties and Elections in Greece: the Search for Legitimacy; 1987 Hondros, John L. Occupation and Resistance; 1983 Aristotle A. Kallis, "Fascism and Religion: The Metaxas Regime in Greece and the 'Third Hellenic Civilisation': Some Theoretical Observations on 'Fascism', 'Political Religion' and 'Clerical Fascism'," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 8,2 (2007), pp 229–246. McNeill, William. The Metamorphosis of Greece Since World War Two Woodhouse, C M. Modern Greece: A Short History; 1992 Further reading Robin Higham and Thanos Veremis (eds), The Metaxas Dictatorship. Aspects of Greece 1936-1940 (Athens, Eliamep-Vryonis Center, 1993). Papacosma, S. Victor, "Ioannis Metaxas and the "Fourth of August" Dictatorship in Greece," in Bernd J. Fischer (ed),