Britain gave Greece one small batch of reinforcements, and then left them alone, leaving the Greek army unfortunately outnumbered. Thus, the Bulgarian defensive line in North-East Greece was quickly overrun. The Germans then outflanked Greek forces on the North-Western Greek-Albanian border. The Greek forces were quickly forced to surrender.
However, some British-Empire forces remained, and these held the German advance at bay, allowing ships to prepare for the Allied evacuation. Starting on April 24, Allied troops began evacuating. The evacuation continued until the 27th, when German troops took Athens. On the 30th, the Germans reached the Southern shore of Greece and captured approximately 7,000 Allied troops.
Meanwhile, German, Italian, and Hungarian soldiers advanced rapidly into Yugoslavia, meeting little resistance. The invasion was completed with the unconditional surrender of Yugoslavian troops on April 17. Yugoslavia was then occupied and divided between Axis powers.
The island of Crete fell by June 1, but with heavy German casualties.
No comments:
Post a Comment