Show greek island played import important ant role in many wars the greek island of corfu ker kyra to the greeks took the leading place in m news headlines when italy as a part of her albanian adventure seemed bent on seizing it and when great britain demanded hands off the island 40 miles long and 20 miles across at its widest point resembles a huge cornucopia slightly squeezed out of shape by a giant hand corfu lies at the head of the ionian sea like a watch tower over the strait of otranto door to the adriatic the northern or wide end is but two miles from the albanian shore while the south end is about 10 miles off the coast of greece corfu should be callous to wars and rumors of wars for 28 26 centuries it has played a part in many of the major political upheavals in europe and the mediterranean romans venetians genoese persians the normans of sicily british french turks and even mediterranean pirates at one time or another have had long or short control of the island once american naval base during th the e world war it was an important naval base with british french and italian ships thwarting any attempt of german or austrian austrian submarines to venture out of the adriatic sea the m most ost recent military occupation of corfu was by italian forces in 1923 several italian officers were killed near the then vague greco albanian border italy demanded an apology and an indemnity of the g government overn ment of greece submitted counter proposals which were refused for five days italian troops poured onto corfu italy and G greece reece came to terms before the occupation was a month old and the fascist troops evacuated in range of altitude as well as in plan corfu resembles a cornucopia the northern part of the island is a region of high mountains the midsection undulating hills and the southern ex extremity low plains bathed in mediterranean su sunshine in shine corfu has long been between wars a pleasure gr ground aund one of the islands pro prominent m anent was kaiser wilhelm of germany who pur purchased cha S ed in 1907 th the e Achil leion a pal palace ac ev e v villa ill bul built lt for the unhappy empress elizabeth of f au austria S tria idyllic lotus land homer described corfu as an idyllic lotus land of beautiful people and scenery where figs grapes and other fruits grow in abundance one of those other fruits tc today day is olives which cover large areas of the island s when the venetians held sway 1401 a bounty from for years paid lid for each olive tree planted was pa this aroused in corfu agric abric and their descendants an interest n jurists in olives that persists tod today Y of corfu is about m midway d town the th the island the eastern side of e reminders ders of few there are a while of the island by its pation occupation the lower part landlords the is the traveler the does take town of the A labyrinth ages middle hark back to the and some too steep 0 or streets wind wheeled vehicles narion for and french ms section through this predominates architecture italian that recalls there is a bazaar but the east wh en turkey the flavor of corfu and its neigh had her heel on boring islan islands ds and mainland |