(April 9, 2021) This week, 80 years ago, five Axis armies, from three countries, attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
On Oct. 28, 1940, the German dictator arrived in Florence, Italy on his personal train, the Amerika. As he alighted from the Amerika, the Italian Duce bounded forward and gleefully exclaimed, in German, âFührer, we are on the march! Victorious Italian troops crossed the Greco-Albania frontier at dawn today!â
Twice the Italians had been specifically warned by their German allies not to undertake such an adventure. Hitler knew that this adventure would probably end badly.
He could not allow his Italian ally to go down to defeat to the Greeks, because, 1) it made for poor publicity and 2) it put the Romanian oil fields of PloieÅti within range of British bombers based in Greece. Now, that bill was coming due. But the Germans needed a land route to Greece.