Word: albania
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...Greek army launched its big offensive-"Operation Coronet."* The Greeks threw six divisions and other units (70,000 men) against 8,000 rebels in Communist General Markos' Mount Grammos stronghold, near the Albanian border. One aim: to bang shut Markos' backstairs supply (and escape) route to Albania. Another: to mop up Mount Grammos...
Markos' stronghold is the range of the Pindus Mountains, extending like a probing finger from Albania and Yugoslavia into the heart of Greece. In those crags Markos Vafiades can claim to rule. And his influence extends to any rocky slope throughout Greece where armed men may hide beyond the easy reach of troops not anxious to stage a manhunt...
...spring offensive. The great fear was that "General" Markos Vafiades, the rebel cornmander, would attack first, knocking the government campaign off balance. In Washington, the State Department heard that a ragtag "international brigade" of 30,000 Greeks, French, Italians, Czechoslovaks, Poles, Germans and Spaniards was poised to strike from Albania and Yugoslavia. In Rome, Italian Communists announced formation of a "Greek Liberation Committee" which would send "food, clothing and medicine" to Vafiades...
...committee waited for the report of its investigators, the Markos radio went on the air again. From 69 villages of "free Greece," a broadcast reported, 4,884 children had already been transported across the frontier into Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria "for maintenance and education...
Both, with the silent assent of Rumania's hard-driving Communist Matriarch Ana Pauker, had been talking up a federation composed of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Poland (TIME, Jan. 26). Quilted into a single state, it would comprise 447,000 square miles with 81 million people. It had growing armies, resources of coal, oil, and some highly developed industry. In the absence of a strong Germany, it would be Europe's most formidable power outside Russia. And it was perched on Russia's doorstep...