Balkans Campaign
|
|
The Balkans Campaign was the Italian and German invasion of the Yugoslavia and Greece during the Second World War.
| Contents |
Background
Albania's territorial integrity was confirmed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson dismissed a plan by the European powers to divide Albania amongst its neighbors.
With the complete collapse of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I, the Albanians looked to Italy for protection against predators. After 1925, however, Benito Mussolini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928 Albania became a kingdom under Zog I, the conservative Muslim clan chief and former prime minister.
Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in Albanian internal affairs. In April 1939 Mussolini's troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, and annexed the country.
Greco-Italian War
Main Article Greco-Italian_War
Operation Marita
Operation Merkur
- Main article: Battle of Crete
Aftermath
See also
External links
- Summaries [1] (http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/macedonia/helmodww2v.html)
- Timeline of the Balkans Campaign (http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war-in-europe/southern-europe/southern-europe-index-1940.htm)
- World War Two Online Newspaper Archives - The Invasion of the Balkans: Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete, 1940-1941 (http://warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/operations/greece_e.html)
- U.S. Army - The German campaigns in the Balkans (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/balkan/intro.htm)
- World War II in the Balkans (http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/macedonia/macmodww2.html)
| Campaigns and theatres of World War II |
| European Theatre |
| Poland | Phony War | Denmark & Norway | France & Benelux countries | Britain |
| Eastern Front 1941-45 | Western Front 1944-45 |
| Asian and Pacific Theatres |
| China | Pacific Ocean | South-East Asia | South West Pacific | Manchuria 1945 |
| The Mediterranean, Africa and Middle East |
| Mediterranean Sea | East Africa | North Africa | West Africa | Balkans Middle East | Madagascar | Italy |
| Other |
| Atlantic Ocean | Strategic bombing | Raiding operations |
| Contemporaneous wars |
| Chinese Civil War | Winter War | Continuation War |