Spurious Earthquake?

Italian news organs told excitedly last week of an earthquake in Albania (just across the Adriatic) said to have destroyed half the city of Durazzo and killed 1,000 persons.

Instantly Premier Mussolini despatched a Red Cross detachment of two officers and ten soldiers to aid the rescue work at Durazzo.

"This," declared II Duce, "is an expression of the new fraternal relations resulting from the [Italo-Albanian] Treaty of Tirana (TIME, Dec. 13)."

All seemed serene. Premier Ahmed Zogu of Albania transmitted official thanks for the Italian Red Cross aid. Then suddenly the press of Vienna and Belgrade blazed with ugly charges: 1) that the Albanian "earthquake" had not been recorded on the seismographs at Vienna and Belgrade; 2) that the only mention of the quake had been in Italian not Albanian papers; 3) that the "Red Cross" detachment was actually a group of Italian military strategists smuggled in to prepare a coup which would make Ahmed Zogu King of Albania and pave the way for an Italian attack on Jugoslavia through Albania.