Corfu Incident

In August 1923, Italy bombarded and occupied the Greek island of Corfu in a crisis known as the Corfu Incident. On 27 August 1923, the Italian general Enrico Tellini and members of his team were murdered on Greek territory near the Greek-Albanian border, where they were working for an international commission to map the boundary. The killers were never found. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who had come to power the previous year, blamed Greece and issued an ultimatum with harsh demands, including a large payment of compensation and the execution of the killers. When Greece did not accept all the terms, Italian warships bombarded the old fortress of Corfu on 31 August, killing around 16 civilians, many of them refugees from Asia Minor, and Italian troops occupied the island. Greece appealed to the League of Nations, but the dispute was eventually handled by the Conference of Ambassadors of the great powers, which ordered Greece to pay compensation. Italy left Corfu in September. The incident revealed the weakness of the League of Nations when faced by a great power.