REARGUARD ACTIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 5 December 1940, Page 5

REARGUARD ACTIONS

ITALIANS RETIRING TO NEW DEFENCE LINE

After Making Stand North of Pogradec

HARD PLODDING CONFRONTS GREEKS

[United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] (Received sth December, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, 4th December. Greek troops are only a mile from Sarande. The position of the Italians at Argyrokastron has been made desperate by the capture by Greek forces of new high points on the mountains fronting the town. After making a stand northward of Pogradec, the Italians are again retreating. It is now revealed that two Greek cavalry companies drove an entire battalion from heights of the utmost strategic importance, in consequence of which the main body of Italians was forced to evacuate positions affording excellent possibilities for defence. The Athens’ correspondent of “The Times” says the main Italian forces on the northern front will henceforth be able to do little more than fight rearguard actions until installed in the next defence line, 50 miles beyond their present positions. Considerable hard plodding confronts the Greeks if they attempt to gain this line, but the intervening struggle, according to the present outlook, is unlikely to consist of more than methodical thrusts and mopping up, though the Greeks, if successful, will undoubtedly be able to give an imposing list of captured villages. The latest dispatches received from Athens emphasise that bad weather is preventing major operations on the northern front, though there have been heavy artillery duels. The Greeks are advancing slowly northward of Pogradec along the lakeside road and have reached a point just beyond Mumuniste. The Greek advance posts in some places are within 1 00 yards of the Italians. The most marked Italian retreat yesterday was in the southern sector, where the enemy withdrew to the Delvine heights. Italian and Greek infantry are to-day fighting a pitched battle in marshes. The Greeks surprised the Italians at dawn by attacking across bogs which the Italians considered impossible. The Greeks are now twice as far into Albania as the Italians ever penetrated into Greece.

Greek fighters in the Epirus sector to-day destroyed three Italian planes in a fierce dogfight lasting only ten minutes. Near the Vojiuza river yesterday the Greeks, fighting with unbounded courage, captured a height in the Politsani mountains where the Italians possessed strongly defended positions. Greek pressure is also accentuated in the Premeti region. A vigorous Italian counter-attack between the villages of Theri and Pes_ tuna, south-west of Pogradec, was smashed by the Greeks. An Athens message states that Italian soldiers continue to enter Yugoslavia, where they are interned. PURSUIT THROUGH SNOW LONDON, 3rd December. The Greeks are still pursuing the Italians along the Pogradec-Elbasan road, though they have to go through deep snow to keep on the trail of the fleeing enemy. Some Greek mountain troops are striking across the high ranges west of Moskopolis. In the coastal region the Italian supply line between Sarande, on the sea coast, and Argyrokastron, in the interior, is under Greek shell fire. Last night Greek advance troops were reported to be not more than 13 miles from Argyrokastron. A Reuter report describing the advance says that the Greeks come across abandoned Italian camps with halffinished meals on the table. The Italian dead are reaching considerable figures and require a special Greek squad to buy them. Monastir reports that the Italians in north Albania are retreating from the source of the Shkumbi River to Elbasan, and that the Greeks are advancing across Mount Lenia in a fanlike movement pivoting from a village west of Moskopolis. Their line has also been extended along the western slopes of the range to the Mokra mountains, and reaches beyond Mumuniste and from there is heavily shelling Pogradec. which has been virtually evacuated. ARTILLERY DUELS Large Greek forces have taken up position on the heights at Mokra. There were heavy artillery duels yesteday, but snow has greatly hampered operations and has also prevented British and Greek bombers attacking Italian columns. The Greeks’ latest booty includes stocks of skis, 50 staff maps, light guns and medical stores. Weather conditions in the Balkans are rapidly worsening, and it is reported to-day that an Italian steamer ran ashore in the Adriatic during a snowstorm. Pictures are published in the British Press to-day of British tanks rumbling through streets in Greece. The arrival of this mechanised support of the BnUsh Army is having a heartening effect, and Greek morale is amazingly high in spite of Italian terror bomb mg.

MANY EXCUSES

OFFERED BY ITALY GREEK OFFENSIVE “ALMOST SPENT” [U.P.A.—By Electric Telegraph-Copyright] LONDON, 3rd December. The Rome radio excuses the humiliation of the Italian arms by the tiny Greek nation with an official statement that Italy was not prepared for a large-scale invasion of Greece, in addition to which Italy was greatly outnumbered, while the rains came a fortnight earlier than was expected.

n was wisely decided by the Italian High Command, it was declared, that the forces on the Greek frontier should retire in the face of the Greek numerical superiority till such time as th» Ital.an army could be heavily reinlorced. The . ° ffensive into Albania, it was stated, had now almost spent itself, and very soon Italian superiority of numbers and equipment would have to be faced by the Greeks. Italy so far had only mobilised a million men call the t6n m ' Ulon on whom she could Official circles in Rome now agree that Germany will not come to Itaiv's aid because Italy does not need Germany s help, and has never needed it. FRENCH GIBE AT ITALY [U.P.A.—By Electric Telegraph-Copyright, LONDON, 3rd December Americans who have just returned from France report that French troop* in a Riviera town on the Italian border display a placard bearing the wordsNotice to the Greek Army: this is the French frontier.