The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-12-21

in that widest ana most re
 But little has been written about the Albanian pea ants and moun- taineerS who hay. provided the Greeks with the most amazing in- telligence service of this war, so accurate that the Greeks have known down to the last detail just how many Italians were located behind each hill, where their guns were placed, and the exact nature of their Notifications.
 An army without eyes is help less. And the Albanians, who have never forgotten. the manner in which Mussolini drove their Queen and her day-old son out of the country two years ago. have contributed materially to the sur prising succession of Greek vic- tories.
 Unquestionably the Albanian is the most gallant and fearless race in Europe. For years the crack personal regiments of the Sultan of Turkey were recruited from Albania. And on occasion AL banian armies have penetrated as far as Egypt, and have even placed their soldiers on the Egyptian throne.
 UNIQUE ALBANIANS'
 No one quite knows where the Albanians came from. Their lan- guage has no root or similarity with the Greek, Latin, or Slav languages which surround them, or with the Turkish which for long time was the official language of Albania.
 As far as historians can make out, Albanians are an ancient and absolutely separate race which got shunted off behind the Albanian Alps, where for centuries they have lived distinct from their neighb0rs. Some his- t0rians go so far as to claim that there is a language sini- larity between Albanian and the American Indian, while others think the Albanians may be the lost tribe of Israel.
 It remains fact that the AL banian, faced with the problem of gleaning a living from the wild- est mountains of Europe, has lived more by his rifle than his plow, and in ancient times comprised the backbone of the Sultan's janis SarieS.
 However, modern warfare, the machine gun and the airplane have kept the Albanian strictly to his mountains. In the reShuf- ling of boundaries which fol- lowed the last war, the aggres- sive young government of Yugo- slavia, a favOrite of Woodrow Wilson. was able to carve out a sizeable chunk of Albania for itself.
 It was in this borderland area of Serbia Albania that one of the Merry-Go-Ro Founders first learned to respect the Albanian fighting proweSs. The Yugo-slav government had taken over this region in name, but actually had no more control over it than Ja- pan had over inland China. Ser bian officials living in these bor- der towns sat at night with their shades down, fearing Albanian attack.
 ALBANIAN BORDER RAIDS
 Once a month it became the problem of the YugoSlav govern nent to pay its officials along the border, and once 8 month also it was the delight of the Albanians to lie in wait for the horse-drawn kola which carried the cash. And once when Serbian employees re- mained unpaid for weeks, the government finally appealed to us of the Quaker Relief mission to carry nine million paper dinars from the railhead to the Albanian mountains = a trip which in this case was entirely uneventful except that the box of dinars lay on the top of our truck in a pour ing rain for three days and was almost ruined.
 In Albania, every mans home is his castle. Around the house is a stone wall with gun slits at the entrance and usually wire cntangIement. The house is of stone, and the first floor has no windows. Gunsh0t might be poured through them too cas- iIy. The second floor has gum slits for windows, and only on the third floor are the windows at all adequate. Even these are heavily shuttered.
 fT..s. v.~a f.t4ar.rnvY@ A hfg.or4so V,.oxr fHa