Evening star., 1941-03-17
$4,000 Italians Lost
In Drive in Albania,
Greeks Assert
Violent Attacks DwindIe
To Almost LocoI Actions,
Athens Announces
BACRGPOUND-

At"ty ffcHtteI M uoSOtttt, uIS-
gruntled over stand his troops
are making in Ddr With Greece,
,Uas reported last ,Ueek to haze
gone to Albanian front for per-
sondl direction of big push"
against the enemy. Key city in
iDdr is Tepeleni, ,phich ,Das
brought under Greek fire in De-
cember, but remains in Italian
hands. Tepelenfs strategic palue
lies in tact it strdddleS road
junction, one fork of which leads
to Valona and other to Berati.
By the Associated Press.
ATHENS, Greece, March IT.
Premier Mussolini's personally.
directed ''big push" aimed at break.
ing Greek resistance in Albania cos
the Italians $4,000 electives out O.
a force of 10000, jubilant Greel
spokesmen asserted today.
The week-long series of violent
attacks, backed by 300 planes, but
repulsed everywhere by Greek force.
inferior in numbers, now ha.
dwindled almost to local actions
they said.
II Duce's own men called the
wrecking of the offensive a "reaI
massacre" the official Greek spokes-
man declared last night.
CThe Greek radio, in a broad
cast picked up in New York by
c. B. S., said Mussoiini had gone
back to Rome with his prestige
weakened and his authority
shaken
Earlier, Greek dispatches said
Mussolini had ordered his gen.
erals to do something" by last
Saturday, when Athens reports
said he was scheduled to return
home. There has been no
acknowledgment or denial from
Rome Of Mussolini's presence in
Albania, but the Italian radio
Saturday said he received q group
of inventors.)
A hangar was set afire and air.
craft destroyed on the ground in q
British air raid early yesterday or
T1rana, capital of Albania, an R. A
F. communiQue said. The Albanian
port of Valona also was reported
raided.
Some Greeks said there was evi.
dence that Mussolini had toured thu
Albanian front in an armored cal
exhorting his commanders to breal
through the Greek lines at any
cost.
Captured italian officers, thu
Greeks said. declared that Fascist
divisions averaged losses of 40 te
so per cent of their effective
strength in the offensive, which wa.
launched over a 20-mile front from
the Viosa River to the southern
slopes of Mount Tomoros, but which
was centered mainly on a three.
mile sector from Mount Trebeshins
to the village of Boudese, arounc
embattled Tepeleni.
Tepeleni, little old Moslem town
sprawling on the rocky bluffs al
the rocky juncture of the deep and
snaky gorges of the Drinos and
Aoos Rivers, has been the graveyard
OF more than one Italian generals
reputation, the Greeks say.
10000 Casualties Claimed.
The tiny patch of red-roofed
white-walled dwellings stands inside
a ring of towering limestone peaks
which have been the scene, they
assert, of 10000 Fascist casualties
in two recent vain prestige offen-
sives."
Once it was famous as the birth
place of the bloodthirsty Ali Pasha,
an Albanian military idol whose
of rebellious Christians
and executions of former harem
favorites in defiance of an Ottoman
sultan made Balkan history a CEN
tury ago.
1t rarely has been stormed by
a fighting force, but the Greeks did
occupy 1t in 1912. They withdrew
after making peace with the Turks.