16 AUGUST 1940, Page 2

Italy, Albania and Greece

While the negotiations between Rumania and Bulgaria still lag and no progress has been made in those between Rumania and Hungary, and violent cross-currents of nationalist feeling are embittering the situation, trouble of a new kind threatens further south in the Balkans. The Italian Press has been open- ing a minatory campaign against Greece, making much of the "murder " of Daut Hoggia, whom the Italians style an "Albanian patriot," an advocate of the return to Albania of the province of Ciamura, but whom the Greeks call a " notorious brigand," killed by Albanians on Albanian soil. The redoubtable mouth- pieces of the Italian Government, Signor Gayda and Signor Ansaldo, accuse Greece of subversive activity along the Albanian frontier and of becoming accomplices of the British Govern- ment. Threats of this kind, in the approved German manner, have a sinister significance. But at the very moment when they are working up to a crescendo other voices are making them- selves heard—those of Albanian chiefs who have put themselves at the head of Albanian clans infuriated by Italian attempts to requisition cattle and conscript men for the Army. It is re- ported that thousands of Albanians have taken up arms and are engaging Italian troops in the mountain valleys. Versed in all the arts of guerilla warfare, these spirited clansmen have never been easily conquered, nor if conquered, easily held in subjection.