Enrico Tellini (25 August 1871 – 27 August 1923) was an Italian General whose assassination provoked the Corfu incident of 1923.
Enrico Tellini was born in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in the province of LuccainTuscany. After a childhood in Florence and enlistment in the Italian army he enrolled in classes at a local military college in Florence. In 1901 he was promoted to the rank of major. He participated in the Italo-Turkish War and during the First World War held various posts until he was badly wounded and captured in the battle of Caporetto.[1] After the end of the hostilities, he commanded Italian troops in Albania.
In 1923, Tellini was part of an Italian delegation sent by the League of Nations to survey the disputed border between Greece and Albania. He was shot and killed, along with four companions, when the car he was driving in was stopped by a fallen tree across the road that ran along the disputed border near the town of Ioannina on the way to the Albanian border. The responsible persons were never found. The incident occurred close to the disputed border and could have been carried out by either side. However, the Italians under Benito Mussolini, blamed the Greek side. The Greek side refused any responsibility.[2][3][4][5] The Italians claimed Greece as responsible and there were anti-Greek retaliations in the country.[6][7][8] The Greek government denied responsibility and blamed Albanian bandits in the area.[9] Benito Mussolini demanded 50 million lira in reparations from Greece and the execution of the assassins. On 31 August 1923 Italian troops occupied Corfu in the Corfu incident.[10][11]
Reginald Leeper, the British ambassador at Athens in 1945, in a letter to the British Foreign Secretary in April 1945 mentioned that the Greeks that lived in Albania blame Cham Albanians for the murder of Tellini.[12]
Although the incident occurred close to the disputed border and could therefore have been carried out by either side, the Italians blamed the Greeks.
Unfortunately he was murdered, most likely by bandits. Although the culprits were never caught, reports were flashed to Mussolini blaming the Greek side
The Greek delegate eventually accused Tellini of favouring Albanian claims. Then, on 27 August 1923, unknown assailants murdered Tellini and three of his assistants. Some sources attributed the attack to Greek nationalists, but the Greek government stated that Albanian bandits had killed the men, even though they had not been robbed.
although the assassins were never found, the act was believed to have been motivated by political considerations.
Greece consistently showed little willingness to co-operate with the commission, and when Tellini and three of his Italian assistants were killed by unknown assailants in August 1923, Mussolini was convinced that Greece was responsible.
In Rome, the assumptions were that the assassins were under direct orders of the Greek government...
On 27 -August 1923 the Italian General Enrico Tellini, president of the international commission for the demarcation of the Graeco- Albanian frontier, was murdered with three other Italian soldiers by some Greeks who accused him of being ...
He was accused by the Greek authorities of the assassination of 27 August 1923 of an Italian general, Enrico Tellini
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