The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-04-12
German Forces After Tax. ing Salonika Advanced
 West at Rapid Speed
MAIN GREEK DEFENSE
 LINE NOT CONTACTED
Preliminary Skirmishes Have Taken Place; Main
 Battle Not Vet Opened
BY BEN AMES United Press staff Correspondent)

United Press staff Correspondent
 Athens, Greece, April 12. -(UP)-Lines of men, guns and machines were forming across lower Macedonia to- day for the battle of Greece, expected to break into full fury at any hour. A com munique early today said: German motorized clements coming from the Bitolj region (of Jugoslavia) contacted our forces in the Phlorina region"
 A Greek spokesman said that at the eastern end of the line, Ger man troops, after capturing Sa- lonika, continued to advance west ward but have not yet reached tho main Greek defense line"
 Konzane, in the approximate cei!- ter of the battle line, stretching from the Aegean coast near Mount Olympus to the Greek Albanian Jugoslav border at Lake Prespa, was bombed by German planes four times yesterday, thespokesn1an said. There were casualties and damage, he said.
 There were still no reports of any major encounter along the line, in- dicating that the Germans were being delayed by resistance iii Jugoslavia.
 (At London the Athens radio was heard broadcasting that Serbian troops were engaged in hard fight- ing northwest of 5koplje, in the Vardar river valley 70 miles north of Bitolj, preventing c junction of German and Italian troops in that sector).
 Main Battle Coming
 A dispatch from headquarters of the British expeditionary force in Greece, mainstay Of the defense line, said preliminary skirmishes had occurred between British and German troops but that the main engagement. likely to become tho greatest battle of the Balkans of all time, had not yet started.
 Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff correspondent at British headquarters, said the Germans evidently had suffered heavy losses in breaking through the Jugoslav and advance Greek lines and that they were still to meet the real test when they encountered the great British array straddling their path at the main defense line.
 McMillan said that for weeks be- fore the German attack Britain's army of the Balkans had been roll- ing up the Greek peninsula, digging into positions in the lower Mace- donian mountains.
 "Along country roads in swirling dust l saw columns scores of miles long-tanks, trucks, big guns. inuni- ton supply lorries and marching men-flling up the fastnesses to es- tablish death traps for the German invaders" McMillan wrote.
 British Massing Fast
 As the land battle developed, he said, British fighting and bombing planes reached the front in ever in- creaSing numbers.
 The countryside chosen for the battle is mostly mountainous. the peaks interspersed with deep ravines but there are long stretches of high plateau land on which armored di- visions can maneuver. The British and main Greek armies lay in wait there for the Germans charging down through Macedonia-the land from which the armies of Alexan- der the Great came in the fourth century B. O.. to conquer most of the then known world with new form of warfare known as the Mac edonian Phalanx, and designed sy Alexander's father, Philip. It grouped
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