Christopher Woodhouse; Diplomat, Greece Expert

Christopher Montague Woodhouse, a British war hero, diplomat and legislator honored in his own country but even more revered in Greece, whose tangled political history he gracefully chronicled, has died. He was 83.

Woodhouse died Feb. 13 in Oxford, England.

Perhaps his most outstanding work, reflecting his strong belief in Greek freedom, was the critically acclaimed 1976 book “The Struggle for Greece, 1941-49,” detailing the civil war that ended communism there.

Woodhouse also wrote an autobiography, “Something Ventured,” in 1982, which one reviewer described as “terse, witty, stylish and--despite some reticences--on the whole truly revealing.”

Woodhouse had a life full of adventures to reveal. Born to gentry in London, he attended Winchester College and earned a master’s degree at New College of Oxford University, which became his home base. He later represented Oxford as a Conservative in the British Parliament’s House of Commons from 1959 to 1966 and from 1970 to 1974.

He enlisted in the Royal Army Artillery in 1939 and, a colonel by age 26, commanded the Allied Military Mission in German-occupied Greece in 1943 and 1944. He traveled the country, organizing the fractured Greek resistance. Often living in caves, he helped plan and carry out the 1942 destruction of the Gorgopotamous viaduct connecting the rail line from Thessaloniki to Athens. It became one of Greece’s most celebrated acts of resistance.

Entering the British diplomatic service at war’s end, Woodhouse again served in Greece.

“I can think of no one half as well qualified as Mr. Woodhouse to write a history of the tangled events described in this book,” reviewer Fitzroy Maclean said of the 1976 book on the Greek civil war. “He is fitted for the task both by his wartime and postwar experience . . . and, last but not least, by his skill as a writer.”

Among Woodhouse’s other books were “A Short History of Modern Greece” in 1968, “Capodistria: The Founder of Greek Independence” in 1973, “Karamanlis: The Restorer of Greek Democracy” in 1982 and “George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes” in 1986.

Woodhouse was also cited as a source in highly publicized 1988 accusations that then-Austrian President Kurt Waldheim had participated in war crimes. Waldheim denied any connection to what British politicians claimed was his “cold-blooded murder” of a British army officer in Greece during World War II.

In addition to Woodhouse’s extensive government service, he held positions as editor of Penguin Books and as a visiting professor of modern Greek at King’s College in London.

He received the Order of the British Empire and Greece’s Commander of the Order of the Phoenix. The United States also granted him its Legion of Merit Award.

Since his brother’s death in 1998, Woodhouse held the family title of Lord Terrington.

A widower, he is survived by a daughter, Emma Johnson-Gilbert, and two sons, Christopher and Nicholas.