Albania, the Bulgarian Frontier & Greek Defensive Schemes 71 Albania, The

albania, the bulgarian frontier & greek defensive schemes 71 Chapter three albania, the bulgarian frontier & greek defensive sChemes in the first week of march 1941 the greek general staff was facing a number of serious problems. first, the war with the italians in albania was inten- sifying, while greek reserves of men and war material were running thin. the italian threat was existential and pressing, it still occupied the attention of the bulk of the greek army, and quite understandably still held centre-stage in the minds of greek strategic and operational planners. at the same time, by early march german intentions were becoming increas- ingly apparent. the danger of a german thrust into macedonia and thrace from bulgaria was serious, would be difficult to counter, and could not be ignored. all the while the potential involvement of Yugoslavia, a strategi- cally crucial player with its position not yet decided, continued to compli- cate greek planning. none of these three crucial factors could be ignored or even neglected lest they lead to disaster. before examining how greek planners sought to deal with their manifold problems, however, attention must be paid to the geography of the country. the widely varied and often spectacular topography of greece was central to the coming campaign and largely determined its course. the challenges it posed, and the opportuni- ties it presented, shaped the planning process on both sides as well as influencing the conduct of military operations which followed. mainland greece is a mountainous country with less than a third of its territory consisting of plains. its high ranges, and the passes which ran through them, perhaps more than any other physical characteristic, defined the nature of the greek campaign. in 1941 greece’s frontiers to the north were bordered by a spine of peaks passable to vehicles only at limited points. the southern section of the border between Yugoslavia and bulgaria was delineated by rugged ranges and the bulgarian-greek frontier was divided by the rhodope mountains, with only a few passes and river valleys which permitted the movement of large military formations—the two most significant of which were the struma and nestos rivers.1 1 g.e. blau, Invasion Balkans! The German Campaign in the Balkans, Spring 1941, burd street press, shippensburg, 1997, p. 73. 72 chapter three below these northeastern ranges, starting from the port of salonika looking west along the valley of the axios river, lay a flat and featureless plain which was seen by commanders on both sides as being ideal country for rapid armoured movement. enclosing this plain from the west, and running in a rough arc, is another line of mountains. mt olympus and its foothills stood in the southeast of this arc, with a narrow coastal strip to its east, along which ran the athens-salonika railway. moving northwest, the pieria mountains (near servia) were separated from mt olympus by the olympus (katerini) pass. further north, the servia pass (through which flowed the aliakmon), divided the pieria range from vermion ranges. the vermion mountains (running to the immediate west of veria) then continued as far north as the edessa pass. north of edessa, looking west, ran the rough frontier country on the greek-Yugoslav border. this last range was, however, not continuous. as it ran westwards it was pierced by the ‘monastir gap’, a wide valley running from prilep in the north (in Yugoslavia) to servia (near the aliakmon river) in the south. apart from this wide and invit- ing valley, the ring of features described formed a formidable natural barrier. assuming an attack would be launched only from bulgarian territory, there were only four substantial routes through it: the coastal pass east of olympus thence through pinios gorge (the historic vale of tempe), the olympus, the veria and the edessa passes.2 in addition to these formidable northeastern barriers, further west and south a number of other alpine and sub-alpine ranges defined the greek landscape. in the west the rugged pindus mountains stretched from albania deep into the greek interior and terminated at the thermopylae range. further south the almost inaccessible peloponnese mountains, separated from the mainland by the gulf of Corinth, hampered military operations and movement in the southern provinces. some of the mountain ranges noted proved impassable in some places, even to pack animals. most, however, possessed difficult but accessible mountain trails which proved hard, but often not impossible, for small numbers of men and even machines to traverse. in all these mountainous areas dwellings were few and scattered, while stones, rocks and low bushes made observation and cross-country movement difficult.3 2 s.f. rowell, ‘the campaign in greece, april 1941’, 6 June 1941, aWm 3drl 6763(a), [1-4]. 3 blau, Invasion Balkans!, p. 74; Cruickshank, Greece 1940–41, p. 142; golla, Der Fall Griechenlands 1941, pp. 73-5..

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