The Italo-Greek War (1940–1941) broke out, when Fascist Italy attacked Greece from the territory of occupied Albania. The murder in Konispol, on June 15, 1940, of the Albanian Daut Hoxha, from the village of Dhrohomi of Chameria, which was carried out by a squad coming from Greece, served as a pretext for the outbreak of war. After some first successes, the Italian army was broken and forced to withdraw from the occupied Greek lands. During the months of December 1940 – April 1941, the war took place on Albanian soil. On April 4, 1941, Hitler’s Germany attacked Greece from Bulgarian territory and the Greek army capitulated. Greece was occupied by the Italian and German armies. The Albanian people, although occupied by fascist Italy, sabotaged the fascist aggression against Greece and tried to help the Greek people in their liberation struggle. The Albanian soldiers who were forcibly sent to the Greek front refused to fight and deserted en masse. Sabotages against the fascist military machine were also carried out behind the scenes. But the Greek government, under the pretext that Fascist Italy attacked Greece from Albanian lands, unjustly calling occupied Albania a participant in this war, declared Albania an enemy state in November 1940 and decreed a “state of war” against it. This absurd decree remained in force even after the end of World War II. (Pictured: Italian attack 1940.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1554-1555.
Graphic processing: AHCF
