Feb. 5. te there has been comparatively little its Ameeaat ok Greece dor the past Weeks, it is known that during that, time General Cavellere, the latest appointed' com= friander-in-chief to endeavour to retrieve fallen allan fortunes in Albania flucting, &yping the Geek advance, "That ting a series of ce Uuring those attacks he succeeded in holding the Greeks up is clear, but at an enormous cost, 80 great that the initiative, which for a "hile he succeeded in wresting from his Opponents, has again passed into the hands cothe Greeks who beat off repeated Ttalian onslaughts, and are now reported to be again Qavaneing. They are said to have reached Dukatl Bay, the southern arm of the Gulf ff Valona, and are now only about ten miles from the port of the same name.
For they have captured the last fortified position barring the way, to Valona, and if they succeed in capturing the town in the course of a few days no great amount of Surprise will be occasioned. There also Appears to have been some slight progress made in the centre of the front, though the Talians there seem to have been able to offer a better resistance, nee wine two "Albanian ports through which to Upon the fall of Valona Italy will be left maintain communications with the Italian forees in the Balkans,—Durazzo and San Glovannt di Medua. The latter is a very small place and not adapted for handling heavy war material. If the Greeks in capturing Durazzo they will have st blow against the Italians in a port which has been ill-omened in Italian history. Epidamnus, as it was originally named was closely involved in the commencement of the (war between the Athenians and the Pelopon= nesians, A century later it passed under the sway of the Romans, who disliking the name, fas suggesting what damnation means English, changed it to Dyrrachium, under which name It became the main point of debarkation of the Roman armies destined for the East. From it ran the great military road to Thessalonica, Here it was that Pompey esta lished his headquarters after Cassar had erossed the Rubicon.
The ill-omened connection between Durazzo and the Ttallans is emphasized by the fact that Mussolini took his fatal decision at Florence to invade Greece on October 24. the anniversary of that unhappy date in 1917, When the Austro-German forces first broke through at Caporetto., Singularly enough he Jaunched his ultimatum to Greece on another date of bad fortune,—October 28 at the very hour almost when' the: Second and Third Talian armies fled in confusion in 1917. Indeed in the story of the Italian invasion of Greece, ancient Greece lives again. If Epidamnus was the Sarajevo of the Peloponne sian war, Coreyra (Corfu) was its Belgium. The Ttalians in their early advance down the west coast of Epirus reached the Acheron—the river of Woe in the dari realm of Hades. Had they gone much further south they would have come, just north of Preveza, to what remains of Nicopolis, the city of victory Founded by Augustus to celebrate his victory over Antony and Cleopatra, and Antony, it @will be remembered was' a Roman who dreamed Egyptian dreams, as Mussolini does from which these Tonian waters roused him to meet the death he dd. 7 fortes of ancient history are arrayed against It Is not suggested for one moment that the the legions of Mussolini, but merely that the whole region in which he embarked upon his adventure holds painful memories for the old Romans and for the new Italians. But fe they are painful to them they are encouraging to the Greeks who are fighting over the battlefields with which their origins fare so closely connected, and upon which so much legendary bravery was shown. They may be safely entrusted with the task of seeing that, in this age Durazzo shall eventually be but another pain in the Ttalian neck, They are going about the work in excellent shape, and, given the luck which their courage should command, should ultimately inflict upon Mussolini that defeat for which he has so rashly asked.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.