The photos from the military parade in Thessaloniki! (VIDEOS-PHOTOS)

The spectacular photos from the military parade in honour of the “Ochi” (trnslt. “No”) Day National Anniversary.

The anniversary is marking the heroic answer of governor Ioannis Metaxas to the Italian ultimatum at the early morning hours of the 28th October 1940. The Italians wanted to enter Greece and occupy strategic positions, practically conquer the country.

The answer of Ioannis Metaxas was in French, “Alors, c’est la guerre”, (trnslt. “So, we have war”). The phrase was encapsulated in the consciousness in the word “NO”.

Unlike every other country, Greece does not celebrate the end of WWII, but the day the country entered the war, in the most heroic way possible, fighting against a major power of the time and pushing them back well inside the Albanian territories -from which the Italians attacked- and liberating the indigenous Greek population of Northern Epirus at the southern part of Albania.