NEW DEFENCE LINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1941, Page 6

NEW DEFENCE LINE

<*, CONSTRUCTED BV HU . LN ALBANiA PREPARATIONS FOR DESPERATE RESISTANCE. RELENTLESS GREEK PRESSURE. ~ Ey Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrightn. -Received This Dav. 11.50 a.m.) J LONDON. January 2 d I: is reported from Athens that the P i Italians for several days have been ' constructing a new line of fortified j. I positions across central Albania inditj J rating that the Italians realise the neqj cessity lor a last desperate resistance. e hculd Valona. Tepelene and Klisura ?. fall. The new line begins northward of v Valcna and runs across the Tomor o Mountains, eastward of Berat. thence hj to eastward of Elbasan mid thence to iA the Yugoslav frontier. The Italians -J have been persistently outmanoeuvred gi by the Greeks, but the weather will d i not allow scope for blitzkrieg movefi menu:. Fierce encounters have oepur- ■ J curred during the last few days alon-, t.l the heights commanding Lake Ochrida di and Pogradee. on the Elbasan road. - One hundred and fifty Italians near ! Lake Ochrida surrendered because ; they were unable to stand the cold. At j the cost of ‘heavy losses the Italians I have so far prevented the Greeks from j penetrating to Prenje. on the Lin-El-I basan road, which would mean isolaj tion for the Italians in the Lin region The Greeks have now captured the j last important Italian positions in the upper Shkumba Valley, where the Italian losses were heavy. In the central sector, the Italians heavily count-er-attacked westward of Moscopolye. but wore repuLsed.