GALLANT FIGHT BY GREEKS

Southland Times, Issue 24420, 28 April 1941, Page 5

GALLANT FIGHT BY GREEKS

Denial Of Charges Of

Cowardice

LONDON, April 27.

A Greek general who was with the Army of the Epirus during the last hours before its capitulation has categorically denied charges of cowardice levelled at the gallant and outnumbered Greek forces.

“I am in a position to assure the Greek people that the officers and men carried out their duties with utter disregard for self and wrote fresh pages in the glorious military history of our country.

“The unhappy issue of events was in no way at all due to cowardice or any other cause save that the Greek Army, after fighting hard and victoriously for six months on the Albanian front, suddenly found itself, when the Yugoslav front collapsed, forced to meet another army with more modern equipment, more highly mechanized and with a stronger Air Force. In these circumstances it had to withdraw some 150 kilometres, continuously pounded by the enemy’s Air Force, from which it had no protection.

“This operation, made for strategic reasons, was carried out without a single soldier falling into the hands of the enemy and it will excite the admiration of the whole world when the precise conditions in which it was performed can be disclosed. Finally, finding communications severed and supplies cut off because of ceaseless bombing and machine-gunning, seeing Greek towns destroyed one after another and under intense pressure from the north and east, it was forced to lay down its arms when the continuation of the struggle was utterly impossible.”

REACTION TO EVENTS IN GREECE (8.0.W.) RUGBY, April 26. Where comment is still free and men do not write and speak under Nazi intimidation it is interesting to see how the meaning of recent events in Greece is read. In the United States, for example, The Detroit Free Press states: “The more territory Hitler conquers the more certain is his doom because Hitler’s way is to bring doom to free peoples.” General Hugh Johnson also expressed the opinion that a military catastrophe in Greece and the Balkans was not, of itself, a British defeat. He went on to argue that it would not necessarily be a British defeat if the whole of the Mediterranean were blocked out by plugging at both ends. The lifeline of the Empire had long been looped round the southern tip of Africa. “MAIN FRONT IS ENGLAND” The same thought was expressed in Switzerland by the National Zeitung when it wrote: “It was clear from the outset that the campaign in Greece might influence the struggle, but never bring a final decision. The Suez and Gibraltar offer two nerve centres for partial solution, but the main front is England, and it is there the war will be decided.”

In Soviet Russia the May issue of the Communist Party Journal insists that the real battle of the war is still to come and it notes the gradual readjustment of the balance of actual to potential power. It says: “The great disproportion of military strength following the defeat of France has decreased and continues to decrease. This process is accelerated by the mighty support given by the United States to Britain and by the gradual mobilization of the resources of the British Empire.” NEW ZEALAND PARLIAMENT MAY MEET (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 26. In view of Mr Winston Churchill’s statement in the House of Commons on the question of discussions on the position in Greece, the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) was asked today if it was likely that the situation might also be discussed by the New Zealand Parliament. “If, after consultation with Britain and Australia, sessions are considered necessary to discuss the Middle East situation,” said Mr Fraser, “then similar arrangements will immediately be made here.”