« The General lighted his pipe, then began to moan about this forsaken battlefield. The same old lesson of geopolitics he had been dwelling for months.
-Albania was then an anomaly in the turmoil of the Balkan Wars, peaceful in 1913 yet ripe for trouble. The Balkanic powers had decided to strip the Ottomans for their last chunk of Europe, fighting each other for its share. The Great Powers, in spite of the fact that they didn’t understood anything to anything south of the Danube, wanted to impose some control on the situation. So they put on the so-called Albanian throne a German prince, Wilhelm von Wied. He arrived in his so-called princedom to see that there were other princes, eager to revolt for their own independance and power. Adding to that the Greeks who wanted to annex Northern Epirus, the Serbians who were after northern Albania, and the Italians who believed they were the new Venetians. It all made up for a good war. »
-After the Earthquake, Ismail Kadare (Nobel Prize of Literature 1993)
Wilhelm von Wied, when he was officially proposed the title of Prince of Albania on February, 21 1914, was accepting an uneasy job. This petty German noble, now to be known as Skanderbeg II (after the country’s national hero), accepted to rule a country that was widely seen in Europe as backward, poor and lawless, that had only become independant on November 1912, in the aftermath of the First Balkan War, and recognized by the Great Powers in May 1913. Divided between Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox, between democrats, clans, and those who refused foreign rule, the country was on the brink of anarchy when the new Prince arrived in Albania in March, 7.
In spite of the help of the International Gendarmerie, led by Dutch officers, a massive islamist revolt broke out in Central Albania against his chief minister, Essat Pasha Toptani, and foreign domination. Essat Pasha, an opportunistic man who had already been able to surrender the fortress of Shkodër, in northern Albania, to the Serbs in order to cultivate their approval, quickly rode on the wave of discontent and attempted a coup, that ultimately failed and resulted in him taking arms with the rebels. Surrounded by rebels, Skanderbeg II left Albania on September 1914.
Albania was in shambles and in total anarchy, without a central government, when Greek troops entered Northern Epirus on October 1914. The region, which had a sizeable Greek minority, had declared its own autonomous republic in February 1914, and the promises from the central authority to acknowledge their autonomy failed, leaving Greece to take their chance. For Serbia and Montenegro, who had their own eyes set on the splitting of Albania, it was the final straw, and they declared war on Greece on November, 2 1914, triggering the Third Balkan War.
-Balkans for Dummies, New York, 2013
The
Third Balkan War, also known as the
Albanian War, was a conflict centered in Albania between Greece on one side, an alliance of Serbia and Montenegro on the other, and later
Italy that lasted from November, 2 1914 to April, 23 1915.
It was triggered by the Greek invasion of Northern Epirus in October 1914, to which Serbia and Montenegro reacted by an invasion of northern Albania. The war quickly turned to a war of attrition between the three belligerants, due to the mountainous and harsh landscapes of Albania, pitting them against Albanian rebels and the unrecognized government of Essat Pasha Toptani (who had declared himself Prince of Albania after Skanderbeg II went into exile), and small skirmishes in Macedonia between Serbia and Greece. Winter forced both sides to a truce in Macedonia.
With spring getting back, Italy, which supported Essat Pasha and held its own colonial views over Albania, threatened to intervene and occupied Valora on March, 4 1915. Failing to make any moves against the Greeks, and with Serbians approaching the Albanian capital of Durazzo, Italy threatened to call to arms its allies Austria-Hungary and Germany, who were on cold terms with Serbia. Unprepared for a war on this scale, Serbia agreed to peace talks that resulted into the Treaty of Corfu on April, 23 1915.
Under the terms of the treaty, Valona remained under Italian occupation ; Essat Pasha Toptani was recognized as Prime Minister and Regent of Albania, even if Skanderbeg II remained in exile ; Northern Epirus was annexed by Greece ; northern Albania was split between Montenegro and Serbia.
-Omnipedia article for “Third Balkan War (1914-1915)
Essat Pasha Toptani was the true winner of the Albanian War, but in his thirst for power, he inherited a powder keg. Most Albanians resented his collaboration with Serbia and Montenegro, and he did nothing to convince them otherwise, as he quickly moved away from Italy to bolster relations with Serbia and Montenegro, even proposing them an alliance (Serbia refused). Having to fight the democrats, the Italians, the Christians, the Muslims with his autocratic rule, his rule never went further than Central Albania.
An islamist revolt in 1916, asking for Serbian-Moncenegrin withdrawal and the return of the Ottomans, occupied all his available troops, while Christian declared their own republic in northern Albania, where they were quickly recognized and helped by the Serbs. But the nail in the coffin was on April, 12 1917 : Essat Pasha Toptani, while manoeuvring against Islamists in Gramsh, was shot and killed by an ambushed sharpshooter. To this day, no one knew if it was an Albanian rebel or an Italian agent. Albania was again in anarchy.
But the climax was reached two weeks later, on May, 2, when Muslim crowds in Valona, agitated by nationalist preachers and led by resentment against the Italian occupation, attacked the Regia Marina’s headquarters and foreign residents in the city. The Valona Vespers, as they came to be known, lasted for one week, and left 1,200 Italian sailors and civilians dead, their families massacred, with children and women sold into slavery by Albanian clans. In the context of the First Great European War, the matter was explosive ; but for a small country like Albania, it was an Italian affair.
-The Tragedy of Albania, C. Coaster, London 1955
The Valona Vespers, as they came to be known, and the state of anarchy that resulted from the death of Essat Pasha Toptani, decided Italy to do something : taking advantage of the outbreak of the First Great European War, Italian troops landed in Valona on June 1917 and quickly occupied the Albanian shore, under direct supervision of the Navy. The Serbs, who had tried to propose their protection to the revolting Christians in Mirdita, were forced to back down to avoid being dragged into the war. Italian troops repressed Arif Hiqmenti’s peasent revolt.
Gaining a momentum after the peace treaty with Greece, that confirmed their control on Northern Epirus, Italy furthered their hold, imposing the Treaty of Messina, ratified on October, 31 1919, according to which Skanderbeg II was restablished as Prince of Albania, under the premiership of Sami Bey Vrioni, pawn of Rome in Durazzo. Albania became a de facto Italian protectorate, having its neighbour as its only economic partner, granting unlimited access to Italian troops and citizens and giving full control of peacekeeping and foreign affairs. Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, all trying to avoid the turmoil of the war, had to keep in check.
The assassination of Prince Skanderbeg II on April, 12 1920, by revolutionary Beqir Valtieri, in the streets of Durazzo, convinced Italy to further their grasp, occupying the capital and launching pacification campaigns in the Albanian countryside. Princess Consort Sophie, regent to the child-Prince Skanderbeg III (a month short of his 7th birthday when he acceded), was the agent of Italian influence in government. The assassination of Vrioni in 1923 led to the premiership of Ahmet Zogu, who died two years later, in 1925, in a car accident ; rumours had it that Zogu was planning a massive uprising against Italy.
The uprising arrived two years later, on June 1927. Led by Christian leader Fan Noli and democrat activist Avni Rustemi, the June Revolt took place in Tirana, Gjirokaster and Durazzo, and tried to expel the Italians, like the Valona Vespers ten years ago. This led to a massive Italian response, as they wouldn’t dare to lose influence in Balkans now re-ignited by war. The reprisals killed 20,000 Albanian citizens : the leaders left for exile in Kosovo or Greece and Italy imposed a Governor-General, Grand Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, Duke of the Sea, that was an evidence of total control over Albania.
The Princedom of Albania ceased to exist when, shortly after the outbreak of the Croatian-Serbian War, on November, 23 1934, Italian troops invaded Prince Skanderbeg III’s palace, forced him at gunpoint to abdicate and abandon his title of Prince of Albania, acknowledge the surrender of his whole country to the King of Italy, and left Durazzo by plane for a golden exile in Rome. Albania had ceased to exist, with a stroke of a pen.
-Balkans for Dummies, New York, 2013
The extension of Italy into Albania, from the Valona Vespers to the Annexation, 1917-1934
***
FORMER PRINCE OF ALBANIA DIES
Skanderbeg III of Albania, also known as Karl Viktor von Wied-Neuwied and Carlo Vittorio di Albania, died yesterday, December, 8 1973, in Palazzetto Scanberg, in Rome, Italy, aged 60. He is survived by his wife, Maria Adelaide.
One of the lesser known royals of Europe, Skanderbeg III was less than one-year-old when his father, Wilhelm von Wied, accepted the Princedom of Albania in 1914, then a newly independent country that no monarch wanted to rule. He succeeded his father at only 6, when the latter was assassinated in 1920 and his country was on the verge of annexation by Italy. A figurehead prince, under the regency of his mother, Princess Consort Sophie von Waldenburg, he came of age when his country was already a protectorate of Italy, and had to relinquish his crown in 1934, when Albania was formally added to the Kingdom of Italy. He was only 21.
Skanderbeg III’s life was quite uneventful, living in a dilapidated palace allocated by the Italian Government, located on a Piazza that bore his regnal name. His wedding in 1937 to Infanta Maria Adelaide, then sister to the royal claimant of Portugal, remained childless, he wasn’t given a seat at the Italian Senate and lived in obscurity. He wasn’t even allowed to go back to Albania.
-The New York Times, December, 9 1973
TL; DR : Albania becomes the theatre of a third Balkan War between Serbia and Greece, resulting in annexations on both sides, before Italy decides to move on and completely annexes the country by 1934.
