Word: konitsa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1948-1948
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Having failed last autumn to win Konitsa for a capital of his "free Greek" shadow state, Vafiades was now expected to try for loannina, capital of Epirus. He was also expected to attack Salonika; 30 miles from that strategic port, a village was seized last week by 350. guerrillas. Two important tobacco towns in Thrace, Xanthe and Komotine, were shelled for the first time by guerrilla guns. In Thrace, and other parts of the fighting zone, Communist-laid road mines were making serious trouble. General Alexander Assimak-opoulos, able commander of the government's Seventh Division, was killed when...
Brown-eyed Dimitri Kutseos, 16-year-old rebel guerrilla, was one of 40 captured in the battle at Konitsa. Dressed in a grey-green Rumanian military tunic, as were many of his comrades, he looked a sad little figure. Colonel Valadas, commanding the Loyalists in Konitsa, remarked: "When you catch them they say they were forcibly recruited; but when they fight, they fight like hell...
...rebel squad was armed in Albania specially for the Konitsa attack with the Panzerfaust (a German-type bazooka) and Rumanian mines. Three of Dimitri's friends from Lamia tried to run away from the guerrilla band. "They were caught," said Dimitri, "and tied with ropes and the oldtimers came and kicked them to death before us in the light of the moon...
...Konitsa would be an easy job, the captain assured his squad. "He told us our government would be set up and we would push on to Ioannina. There we would find the Anglo-American commission. We were to take them prisoner, tie them up, and take their clothes away," Dimitri explained. The "Anglo-American commission" seemed to mean the field team from the U.N. Balkan committee...
...Konitsa's Loyalist Colonel Valadas seemed to think that United Nations support was more of a hindrance than a help. "We are fighting this war with our hands tied," he complained. "Our soldiers are not allowed to get closer than two kilometers to the Albanian border, but we have to take losses from shellfire from guns across the frontier. We have to wait for the U.N. people to come and look through their field glasses and scribble down a note. That's a hell of a way to fight...