Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1941. ACHIEVEMENT IN ALBANIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1941. ACHIEVEMENT IN ALBANIA.

in miles on the map. the progress made by the Greek Armv in Albania during the past month, or so has been neither rapid nor spectacular. In the coastal zone the Greeks have advanced in that period over a distance of perhaps thirty miles —fhey were reported at the end of last week to be within five niilesof Valona Bay—-but the vital defences of the country are located further inland, in high mountain areas, and here, on the Albanian central and northern fronts, the Greeks have been winning their way almost step by step. In doing this, however, they have gone far towards breaking the back of the defences covering Valona, the oilfield round Kneova. between Berat and Devol, on the Devol River, and indeed the whole of Southern Albania. The main highway of South-West Albania runs by way of Argyrokastron and Tenelene to \ alona. I hough by no means a good road, it is better than that which traverses the coastal zone, but it is commanded by a series oi lornudable mountain heights, all of which until recently were in the hands ol the Italians, but many of which have now passed to the Greeks. These heights have been won in what the Greek communiques have called local operations and the process oi winning them has been described as "nibbling. In implxing a gradual process, the term is apt. enough, but it is in other respects not a good description of warfare which has entailed such things as the hauling of heavy artillery up to high altitudes and the storming of mountain positions at the point of the bayonet. It is in operations like these, in the upper levels of the inhospitable Albanian highlands and in the depths of a bitter winter, often in snowstorms and blizzards, that the Greeks have developed an imminent threat to Valona and other important objectives and have in recent days repelled with slaughter the powerful counter-attacks in which the Italians, under their new leader General Cavellero. have been endeavouring to recover the vital ground they have lost, and the initiative in the campaign. In the positions they have now reached the Greeks are in a fair way to break through the last of the mountain defences covering Valona, the Albanian oilfield, and tin* pipeline. 46 miles long, which runs from Kneova to Valona. In their capture oi Klisura. nearly a month ago. the Greeks broke deeply into the strongest element in the enemy defences. The town ol Klisura is a .junction of strategically important roads and the narrow Klisura gorge runs for ten miles between forested hills almost to Tepelene. The gorge is a bottleneck through which all traffic in that part of the country between the. mountains and the coast must pass. All recent news suggests that the Italian hold on Tepelene has now become very precarious, though persistent reports that the town has been evacuated still lack eonfirmat ion. Carrying tn full success the operations they have thus far developed so indomitably, the Greeks will expel the Italians from the whole of Southern Albania and restrict them to the Durazzo-Elbasan region, in the north. A great prize obviously is al stake. Apart from its importance as a base and port of supply for the enemy forces in Albania, and the only port from which Albanian oil can be shipped, Valona is a vital element in the naval defence of the Adriatic, Located on the eastern side of the Strait of Otranto, the Adriatic bottleneck, it has been described as a sort of Italian Gibraltar, and the fortified island of Saseno, at. the mouth of Valona Harbour, has been called the Balkan pillar to which Mussolini hoped to fasten his naval chain closing the strait. Already the Adriatic has been penetrated deeply by British and Greek naval forces and if Valona falls to the Greeks, Italy’s war fortunes, both on land and sea. evidently will sutler a further and most menacing eclipse.

Much, of course, must depend on the Greeks having at command the resources that will enable them to exploit to the full the promising measure of success they have already won. Not very long ago it would have seemed almost insanely vent tiresome for the Greeks, with their small army and somewhat slender military equipment, to undertake the great adventure in which they are now engageci. They have developed their offensive. however, not only with indomitable courage, in conditions that could not well be more arduous and exacting, but with brilliant skill. Allowance has still to be made for the possibility that the Italians, in spite of damaging air and sea attacks on their Adriatic communications, may yet be able to introduce heavy reinforcements of men ami material, or that the Germans may assist them, directly or by an offensive thrust through the Balkans further east, As matters stand, however, the? Greeks are to be credited with ti truly remarkable achievement in Albania and it seems likely that in the near future tlu-y may expand greatly upon what they have meantime accomplished.