Северна Македонија
2
This is XX century. This story start in XIX century. Let me quote first an important scholar, an philhellene, George_Finlay from his work History of the Greek Revolution (1861) Volume 1:Originally Posted by Robocop
I want to continue to talk about historical facts about this issue, facts about Albania which will indirectly lead toward all problems of today for Albanian ppl, means I will continue from this last post of mine, means from 1913 forward what happened for Albania.
I will skip WW1 period even though it is important, but let's jump on year 1920, when Italians left city of Vlora in Albania, pressured by Albanians themselves ofcourse, when Italian troops left Vlora and Albania in general, that will leave it's mark on Italian politics to come.
Just wanna say that Albania was totally occupied in 1918 by Italy, and rest of the areas where Albanian population lived was occupied with Greek, French and Serbian troops, so in 1918 Albanian proclaimed in patriotic way a Tirana as their capital nevermind of situation (End of WW1).
As I've said Italian troops leaving Vlora and Albania in general, will leave it's mark on Italian politics to come toward Albania. Socialists in Italy saluted this move of Italy to leave Albania, but new politics was rising in Italy, White Nationalist movement Fascisti considered that as Italian political defeat over Adriatic sea, in Albania.
For Benitto Mussolini Vlora will become a cause which he will always have in his mind, to return there. He viewed that as somethin which european power such as Italy couldn't afford to itself and Duce never forgot that.
In year 1921 there was a confrimation of Albanian (in Paris peace conference) borders from 1913 (in London), these were the borders of Albania in 1921 confirmed by International law, same as those from 1913, same as today, but pay attention on red area which respesent Albanian population, in 1921 Kosovo region and entire eastern FYROM was already populated with Albanians, which is in contrary of opinion of majority of Serbs that Tito brought Albanians to Kosovo;
I will continue with this but don't have time right now, just came back from work, so I'm going to prepapre myself a coffe lol.
In Albania a considerable proportion of the population had embraced the Mohammedan religion; but the Albanian Mussulmans were detested by Osmanlees and hated by the Greeks. Their religion was hardly a matter of conscience with the majority. They were less bigoted than the Turks, and less superstitious than the Greeks. Their avarice was, however, insatiable, and for gold an Albanian Mussulman would willingly serve a Christian master, or a Christian Albanian a Mussulman chief, even if the service was to be rendered in deeds of blood.
The Albanian forms a distinct race among the nations of Europe. They have been supposed by some to be the representatives of the Pelasgians. They call themselves Shkipetar. Some suppose them to have occupied the regions they now inhabit before the days of Homer, and that they are the lineal descendants of the race to which the ancient Epirots and Macedonians belonged as cognate tribes. Alexander the Great must, according to these archaeologists, have spoken an ancient Albanian dialect at his riotous banquets with his Macedonian officers.
The researches of modern philology have established beyond question that the Albanian language is an early offset from the Sanscrit, and that its grammar was complete at as old a date as the oldest Greek dialect.
Nearly the same boundary separates the Hellenic from the non-Hellenic population at the present day as in ancient times. Thucydides calls the Amphilochians who dwelt at the head of the Gulf of Arta barbarians. Strabo says that one race inhabited the whole country, from the Acroceraunian Mountains to the borders of Thessaly and to the plain of Pelagonia, under the name of Epirots or Macedonians, for both spoke the same language.
The whole of Albania, from the Gulf of Arta to the Lake of Skodra, is divided into innumerable lateral valleys by rugged mountains, which render the communications so difficult as to confine trade to a few lines of transport.
Russia's role in the formation of the Balkan states is paramount. It has been rightly remarked that without Russis's aid none of the Balkan nations would have probably achieved independence. Albania is the only nation to have stood desperately alone in her struggle for freedom.
When considering the problem of the Albanian borders, it is essential to be aware of the dominant role played quite early by the Russians relative to the Balkan nations. For it is a very common error to think that the unification of the South Slavs is an idea that emerged after World War I and that the Albanian borders would probably not have been quite what they presently are, had they been discussed with respect to Yugoslavia and not in regard to Serbia and Montenegro, as was the case.
In 1878, at the Congress of Berlin, the idea of Great Serbia, which goes as far back as the 18th century, served as a guideline relative to territorial claims, but it could not, of course, be disclosed and openly discussed; it would have been premature. Indeed, even for the sake of the future unification, it was much more appropriate to be first concerned with the revindication of the South Slavs as single states and not as a group.
At the Congress, it was thus merely insisted that Serbia be aggrandized and that a seaport be given to Montenegro, which was very poor.
In fact, when the French savant Ami Boue visited Montenegro in 1836, he was struck by its poverty, claiming that it would be doomed to remain for a long time without resources because neither Turkey nor Austria would be willing to conquer rocks; adding, however, that Russia could have used her influence to induce Austria to ceding to Montenegro the seaport Cattaro which was of no great importance to herself.
A. Bouc, La Turquie d’Europe, 1840, IV, p. 130.
Yet, forty years later, at the Congress of Berlin, there was no question of allotting Cattaro (Kotor) to Montenegro. She was awarded, instead, Antebari (Tivar) and, a little later, Dulcigno (Ulqin), a harbor which from 877 to 1560 had been the see of a Catholic bishopric. It had practically never been under Slav rule. Moreover, its population was 95% Albanian.
But the Principality of Montenegro, which was made up of rocks, did not merely need a seaport; it also lacked pasture land. It was thus awarded Podgorica, Shpuza, the rich valleys of Plava and Gusigne, Hoti, Gruda, and Triepshi, which were Albanian strongholds. As pointed out by Justin Godard, after the Treaty of Berlin, Montenegro's territory doubled (L'Albanie en 1921, Paris, 1922, p.9.). Montenegro, on account of her small size, was in an excellent position to extend her territory at Albania's expense and at the same time come closer to Serbia, i.e., toward achieving her goal of unification. As for Serbia, who was much pitied for her lack of access to the sea, she received, in compensation, Kuršumlija, Leskovac, Vranja and Niš, a region whose population was mainly Albanian.
These important acquisitions made by Serbia and Montenegro were to be added later to the greater nation that tese single states were planing to form.
The Albanians became alarmed when the preliminary Peace Treaty of San Stefano had created a huge Bulgaria, which was to include territory nominally under Turkish rule, but inhabited by Albanians. Since 1330, when the Bulgarians lost their independence, there had been no noticeable uprising in the Balkan nation. In all probability, Bulgaria's independence would not have come about without Russia's assistance.
Although the Albanians did not have anybody to back their claims, they reacted very rapidly. In the fall of 1877, they formed a committee - Le Comite central pour la defense des droits de la nation albanaise - whose purpose was to denounce the states that were planning to expand their territory at Albania's expense.
The committee invited the neighboring countries to a peaceful coexistence, but added that it was determined to defend Albania's national rights.
Albania was at that time a domain of the Turkish Empire comprising four vilayets or provinces: Shkodra - which included the Dukagjini Plateau (Metohija), Monastir (presently Bitolja), Janina, and Shkup (Skopje), presently in Macedonia. This latter province was more readily called Kosova by the Turks in memory of the victory of a battle on the Plain of Kossovo, the "Campo dei Merli" of old Venetian maps. The capital of this province had at times been Priština.
(According to A. Boue, the "battles" that took place were not fought on the plain, but on its "plates-formes" at Gasimestan, "one and a half hours north of Pristina;" the name of Kossovo, he explained, was applied later to the Plain of Sitnica and the surrounding territory (A. Boue, op. cit., I, p. 142)
.
Owing to the efforts of the committee headed by A. Frasheri, 80 delegates representing all four provinces convened at the city of Prizren, in the Vilayet of Shkup (Kosova) in June 1878, three days prior to the opening of the Congress of Berlin, whose purpose was to reconsider the decision reached by San Stefano's preliminary Peace Treaty. The assembly of these delegates was henceforth called The League of Prizren. Its task was to defend Albania's rights.
Kosova became thus for the Albanians the center of their resistance and they have ever since regarded this territory as a symbol of their struggle for independence.
Various letters, telegrams, petitions, and memoranda signed by Albanians inhabiting all four provinces were dispatched to heads of state and ambassadors. Their reading reveals the exasperation and bitterness of the Albanians, who, judging by their messages, preferred to be annihilated rather than to be included in a Slav state.
Below are excerpts of a long memorandum; they convey some of the feelings experienced by the Albanians:
...To annex to Montenegro or to any other Slav state, countries inhabited ab antiquo by Albanians who differ essentially in their language, in their origin, in their customs, in their traditions, and in their religion, would be not only a crying injustice, but further an impolitic act, which cannot fail to cause complaints, discontent and sanguinary conflicts...
...notwithstanding their longing to escape the misfortunes which Turkish rule has inflicted on them for five centuries, the Albanians will never submit themselves to any Slav State which Russia may attempt to put forward; race, language, customs (...) national pride, everything, in a word, is opposed to such a state of things; and it is neither just nor prudent to free them from a yoke only to place them under another, which would in no way ameliorate their social position.
(Yet "Public Record Office," London, FO., 78/2784; The British Museum, "Accounts and Papers" (38) 1878, LXXXIII 83, 298-30 1; reproduced by S. Rizaj in The Albanian League of Prizren in English Documents, Prishtina, 1978, pp. 189-192. Other English documents are published by Rizaj in "Three English Diplomats on the Albanian Question (1879-1880)," GjurmimeAlbanologjike IX, 1979, Prishtina 1980, pp. 337-353. English documents relating to the League of Prizren are quite numerous. They are available in the Foreign Office Archives (Public Record Office), London and in the British Museum (Accounts and Papers), London. Most documents used in this essay are reproduced either by S. Rizaj in op. or art. cit., or by L. Skendo in Albanais et Slaves, Lausanne, 1919.)
Yet despite all the requests sent to heads of state by so many Albanians, Albania was not granted autonomy. Similar to Metternich who once claimed that Italy was merely a geographic expression, but that there was no Italian nation, Bismarck declared that "Albania is merely a geographic expression; there is no Albanian nation.
(Later, Bismarck is said to have admitted his error).
Whereas Moslem Bosnia was assigned to Austria, Serbia (proclaimed an independent kingdom by the Congress) and Montenegro were allotted regions whose population was purely Albanian.
As soon as the Serbs occupied the ceded territories, the Albanians were asked to evacuate them. With respect to the Albanians inhabiting those areas, Mr. Gould, Consul of Great Britain in Belgrade, wrote to the Marquis of Salisbury, Secretary of the Foreign Office of Great Britain, on Nov. 26, 1878:
I hear that the Servian Government has behaved with great and unnecessary harshness, not to say cruelty, toward the Albanians in the recently ceded districts. If my information is correct, and I have every reason to believe it to be so, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of over 100 Albanian villages in the Toplitza and Vranja Valley were ruthlessly driven forth from their homesteads by the Servians in the early part of this year. These wretched people have ever since been wandering about in a starving condition in the wild country beyond the Servian frontier. They have not been allowed to gather in their crops on their own lands, which were reaped by the Servian soldiery... I ... casually stated to his Excellency (Ristic) that these facts had come to my knowledge, and that should they be confirmed I felt certain Her Majesty's Government and the majority of the Great Powers would call the Servian Government to account, and insist upon strict justice being done to these unfortunate people, whose only crime was their belonging to an alien race and another creed...
(EM., Accounts and Papers (38); 1878-9; LXXIX 79, 574-575. Letter reproduced by Rizaj in op. cit. pp. 24 1-242.)
Yet the Serbs did not stop their harsh measures against the Albanians. Hundred of thousands were brutally forced to evacuate these areas inhabited by them from time immemorial without receiving any compensation for their losses.
The Servian government confiscated all property owned by the Albanians despite the articles 35 and 39 of the "Berlin Negotiations" stipulating that the Albanians living in the regions ceded to Serbia would have the same civil rights as the Serbs.
As to the number of the Albanians inhabiting those territories, various statistics and extant documents give contradictory figures. According to a note of the administrative divisions dating from 1873, the district of the Sandjak of Niš had about 100 000 Albanians. As regards the number of refugees, the figures given by Prof. J. Cvijic for those who settled in Kosova is 30 000, that furnished by English documents, 100 000. According to Turkish sources, the number of the Albanians who were forced to leave the region amounted to 300 000.
On June 3, 1978, Rilindja (p.7), published a letter addressed by these miserable people (who were deprived of all means and many of whom were sick) to the European Powers requesting that at least a commission be set up to look into their serious problem..
(For the data concerning the Albanians of these territories, see E. PlIana, "Les raisons et Ia maniere de Ia migration des refugies albanais du territoire du Sandjak de Nish a Kosova (1877-1878)," Gjurmime Albanologjike IX 1979, Prishtine, 1980, pp. 129-156. Cf. also R. Marmullaku Albania and the Albanians , London, 1975, p. 24 (does not contain details).
Leaving these helpless refugees to their sad fate, the Serbs colonized the region with astounding rapidity. Referring to the colonization of the area by the Serbs, V. Cubrilovic stated in his "Memorandum" (about which more will be told later) that "Toplica and Kosanica, once Albanian regions of ill-repute, gave Serbia the finest regiment in the wars of 1912-1918".
Since these territories forcibly annexed to Serbia belonged nominally to Turkey, the Albanians could not oppose a marked resistance on account of the fact that they did not have a state of their own and, consequently, were not provided with an organized army. However, realizing that after the disintegration of the Turkish Empire, which was imminent, land that had been theirs would remain under Slav domination, they felt very bitter. They were thus quickly organized and armed by the League and despite every difficulty defended heroically the districts that had been adjudged to Montenegro. As a result, the latter failed to take them by force. These territories were to be ceded by the Great Powers to Montenegro in 1913.
As for Ulqin (Dulcigno), it was quickly occupied by Albanian troops (which the League had managed to organize in the meantime) as soon as the Turks evacuated it. The resistance of these troops in that city was so fierce, that the Great Powers had to send seventeen war vessels in order to compel the Albanians to yield, giving them a delay of three days. Paying no heed to this naval threat, the Albanians resisted for more than two months. The Turks dispatched, then, their own troops numbering eight battalions. As a result, the Albanians found themselves encircled on all sides. After a desperate battle, they surrendered to the Turks, who, after taking possession of Ulqin, handed it over to the Montenegrins in June 1880.
In regard to Ulqin, M.E. Durham wrote: "The naval demonstration was instigated by Gladstone. Dulcigno remains a monument of diplomatic blunder...it is a constant reminder to the Albanians that they may expect no justice from Europe, and it has enhanced their hatred for the Slav". (High Albania, London, 1909, p.9).
Owing to the passionate and tenacious resistance of the Albanians, the battle of Ulqin received much attention in Europe and elsewhere. Some of the numerous reports published in French newspapers as well as in the New York Times in 1880 are interesting to read. Below are merely two passages picked at random:
...There are said to be 8 400 Mohammedans and 4 000 Catholic Albanians in the district with a sprinkling of Slavs and Gypsies. These people are not on the friendliest terms with their Montenegrin neighbors, but they hate the Turks quite as much...The Albanian League declares ... that the territory of Albania is sacred... (NYT, Sept. 13,4:3).
Dulcigno humorously described...
... That sweetly named town, as is well known, belongs to Albania, which in turn belongs to Turkey. The Great Powers of Europe, after a pleasant consultation in Berlin, in Prince Bismarck's back parlor, decided that it should be a good thing if Montenegro, an independent principality which from lack of seaport has hitherto been compelled to restrict itself to brigandage instead of piracy, were to have a convenient seaport like Dulcigno... (NYT, Sept, 4:5).
The Catholics resented their annexation to Montenegro just as much as did the Moslems, if not more. The loss of Ulqin inspired the Franciscan Father Ndue Shllaku to address the population of that town in terms the reading of which still moves Albanians to tears.
The other fights with Montenegro were sung by Father Gjergj Fishta, a Franciscan, in his Epic The Lute of the Highlanders, one of the great masterpieces of Albanian literature. In this strong and moving work, Fishta shows the Albanian Catholics side by side with their Moslem brothers in their fight against the Montenegrins.
Relating to the Catholics, the French envoy in Shkodra, L.H. (Louis Hecquart?) wrote to his government on 24 July, 1880: "M. Corti a cru de boone foi que les catholiques Albanais accepteraient Ia domination montenegrine plus facilement que les musulmas, et c’est le contraire qui est vrai" — Mr. Corti sincerely believed that it would be easier for the Catholic Albanians than for the Moslems to accept the Montenegrin domination; but it has been the opposite
(Letter contained in "Inventaire sommaire des archives de Ia guerre," serie N. 1872-1919, Archives de Ia defense, Chateau de Vincennes. Unpublished document, hand written).
Yet the admirable contribution of the Catholics to the national cause was completely ignored by the West, as had been the numerous petitions sent to the Powers by Catholic tribes, who begged not to be annexed to Montenegro.
The Albanians, who had reacted in a most courageous and dignified way were to find out that their heroic fights for the national cause were described as a resistance of Moslem fanatics to Christianity and to Christian civilization and that the League of Prizren was presented as being supported by the Turks. For propaganda purposes, Slav Orthodoxy, chauvinistically national in character, was equated with Christianity and its universal values. Of course, the interest was material.
Whether the Albanians had any premonition that the decisions of the Berlin Congress would constitute for them only the beginning of a series of other iniquities and humiliations, is hard to say. The admirable activity they displayed in the years that followed, suggest that they kept believing in human justice.
To be sure, there were, among foreigners, individuals who considered the plight of the Albanians in an objective way and who tried to assist them. Thus Lord Goschen, British Ambassador to Constantinople, wrote to Earl Granville, Secretary of the Foreign Office of Great Britain, on July 26, 1880:
... I venture to submit to your Lordship, as I have done before, that the Albanian excitement cannot be passed over as a mere maneuver conducted by the Turks in order to mislead Europe, and evade its will. Nor can it be denied that the Albanian movement is perfectly natural. As ancient and distinct a race, as any by whom they are surrounded, they have seen the nationality of these neighboring races taken under the protection of various European Powers, and gratified in their aspirations for a more independent existence. They have seen the Bulgarians completely emancipated... They have seen the ardent desire of Europe to liberate territory inhabited by Greeks from Turkish rule. They have seen the Slavs in Montenegro protected by the great Slav Empire of the North with enthusiastic pertinence. They see the Eastern question being solved on the principle of nationality and the Balkan Peninsula being gradually divided, as it were, among various races on that principle. Meanwhile, they see that they themselves do not receive similar treatment. Their nationality is ignored, and territory inhabited by Albanians is handed over in the north to the Montenegrins, to satisfy Montenegro, the protege of Russia, and in the south to Greece, the protege of England and France. Exchanges of territory are proposed, other difficulties arise, but it is still at the expense of the Albanians, and the Albanians are handed over to Slavs and Greeks without reference to the principle of nationality.
(Public Record Office, London, F.O. 424/100 pp.31-34).
This is but a brief passage of a long letter which shows Lord Goschen's admirable insight relating to the Albanian question and hence to the Balkan problem. In this letter Lord Goschen points out that the Turks were using, in regard to Albanians, "cajolery" and "every other means but the promise of independence" because, as he remarks, "if the Turks lose Albania, they lose their cause in Europe". Lord Goschen adds that on account of this fact and since the Albanians are very eager to detach themselves from Turkey, it would be a blunder on the part of the Western Powers to overlook the Albanian nationality. In his opinion, a large Albania would "facilitate the future settlement of the Eastern question in Europe". Lord Goschen feels sorry that Kirby Green, Consul of Great Britain in Shkoder, failed to understand the Albanian problem. Above all, he is indignant as to a ruthless plan worked out by Captain Sale who proposed to tell the Albanians that if they rebelled against the decisions of the Great Powers, "their villages would be uprooted and they would incur a further penalty in the contraction of their boundary". Lord Goschen is convinced that the Albanians do not deserve such treatment "because, after all, in their attitude of resistance, and in their deep-rooted objection to a portion of their countrymen being handed over to an alien rule, they are simply acting on the same principle of nationality as have formed the basis of the recent treatment of the Eastern question".
Referring to Captain Sale's memorandum relative to the plan already mentioned, Lord Goschen remarks in the same letter:
...as the memorandum contained the suggestion that a British agent should be employed to influence the Albanians by fear as to the private and not only the political consequences of resistance, and as this memorandum will remain on record amongst the Archives of the Embassy, I have thought it my duty to record my strong protest against the plan it contains.
Similar to Lord Goschen, others were equally disturbed by the iniquities to which the Albanians were subjected, but their efforts to assist them were thwarted. With respect to Kosova's population, Lord Fitzmaurice (British representative on the Eastern Rumelian Commission created by the Treaty of Berlin to work out an agreement with the Porte) wrote to Earl Grey:
The extension of the Albanian population in the north-easterly direction toward Prishtina and Vranja is especially marked, and is fully acknowledged even upon maps such as that of Kiepert, generally regarded as unduly favorable to the Slav element, and that published by Messrs. Stanford in the interest of the claims of the Greek Christian population... the recent Albanian movement has a more vigorous hold on this eastern district than perhaps upon any other ... The vilayet of Kosova with the exception of a Serb district extending eastward from Mitrovitza, may be said to be Albanian. (May 26, 1880).17
The iniquities committed in regard to the Albanians are occasionally acknowledged even by Slavs. Thus N. Todorov writes:
The Albanian people who had also risen in armed struggle, were denied the right to self-determination and were abandoned to their fate against the vast human and material resources of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the encroachments of their neighboring Balkan states".
(Todorov, The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 and the Liberation of Bulgaria", East-European Quarterly, 1980, Vol. 14, No. 1, p.15).
The Great Powers eventually left the Balkans in the hands of Austria and Russia. The influence of the latter, however, grew stronger as time went by.
In regard to Kosova, Russia sent priests to Serbian monasteries situated in the region exalting, together with the Orthodox faith, heroes and deeds pertaining to Serbian legends. They opened schools which were hotbeds of Slav propaganda. Clearly, her purpose was to colonize the province where the Serbs were but an insignificant minority.
"It seemed sheer folly to make a large and costly Serb theological school in a Moslem Albanian town and to import masters and students, when funds are so urgently needed to develop free Serb land" (ME. Durham,High Albania, London, 1909, p. 275).
Even E. Noel-Buxton, of the Balkan Committee, whose attitude was pro-Slav, had to admit that "The spirit of chauvinism is but thinly veiled under the garb of churchmanship. Religion is degraded to the level of pretext for exciting national zeal" (Noel-Buxton, op. cit. p. 50).
The West knew little at that time about the Balkan states. In fact, the ignorance was such that some missionaries who went to Macedonia to support the Bulgarian cause confessed that formerly they had been ignorant of the fact that there were Bulgarians in the Peninsula; they had thought that only Greeks lived there. Practically nothing was known, of course, relative to the Albanians; those unfamiliar with the question could be told anything. Thus, when two Russian consuls in Kosova and Monastir were killed by Albanians (who acted in self-defense), these acts were described as being committed by 'Moslem fanatics'. The two propaganda agents were presented as martyrs; their funerals were grandiose. Since Christianity was equated with civilization and Islam with backwardness, the Christians were regarded as the allies of the Great Powers. Thus the Catholic Albanians who are animated by patriotic feelings were ignored by design. The Albanians were depicted merely as backward Moslems and as allies of the Turks.
Many books and articles were published by the South Slavs for the purpose of showing the ferocity of the Albanians, their backwardness, their despicable behavior, their lack of discipline, etc. Vladan Djordjevic, former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia, went even so far as to claim that until "as late as the 19th century", there had been Albanians with tail in their rear! Djordjevic even referred the reader to J.G. Von Hahn's scholarly work, Albanesische Studien, where, he asserted, he had found the information.
According to Felix Adler, "The vice of vices is when we are held cheap by others sod then in our innermost soul start to think cheaply of ourselves." Protic, Gopcevic, Zupanic, Tomic, Djordjevic are some of the Slav authors who criticized the Albanians in a particularly uncivil way. Many others may be cited. Let`s remember here the famous words of Dobrica Cosic:
“We lie to deceive ourselves, to console others; we lie for mercy, we lie to fight fear, to encourage ourselves, to hide our and somebody else’s misery. We lie for love and honesty. We lie because of freedom. Lying ie is the trait of our patriotism and the proof of our innate smartness. We lie creatively, imaginatively, inventively.”
The purpose of all these writings was, of course, to draw a picture that gives to the non-specialist a very poor idea of the Albanians so that these, by dint of being despised by others may, in their innermost soul, start to despise themselves.20
To be sure, there are established scholars - be they geographers, historians, anthropologists, or serious travelers and explorers - who have expressed opinions of a very different kind: H.N. Brailsford went even so far as to maintain that "from Byron's day downward it would be hard to find a Western European who has learned to know the Albanians without admiring them" (The New Republic, March 1, 1919). In fact those who had nice words on behalf of the Albanians were so numerous that the Serb S. Protic (Balkanicus) considered the tendency to praise the Albanians as highly ethical individuals and to describe them as "unusually gifted", to have become a fashion.
(Protic,Das Albanesische Problem und die Beziehungen zwischen Oestereich- Ungarn, Leipzig, 1913, p. 19.)
The fact remains, however, that the latter writings were not accessible to many. The influential French daily Le Temps, published merely articles favoring the Slavs and Greeks, for France was then Russia's ally.22
"Le journal parisien Le Temps avait mis ses colonnes a Ia disposition de ces detracteurs comme il les avait ouvertes pour les Grecs.. .," — "The Parisian daily Le Temps was at the disposal of these calumniators [i.e., of the Slays] as it was also at the disposal of the Greeks (Lumo Skendo, Albanais et Slaves, Lausanne, 1919, p. 3).
Unknown or misunderstood by the outside world, the Albanians had to fight, under the most difficult conditions, both their neighbors and the Turks without being supported by any great power.
In order to achieve national unity with a delimited territory, the League had requested the Porte, in July 1878, to turn Albania into one vilayet. The request had not been granted. As a consequence, the Albanians, under their gallant leader Isa Boletini, a native of Kosova, openly took a stand against the Turks. All their activities were centered in the Kosova region, which became the cradle of their national struggle and thus acquired a special meaning for them.
In 1912, when the Albanians seized Shkup (Skopje) and were about to enter Monastir (Bitolja), the Turks called a truce and granted them autonomy uniting the vilayets of Shkodra, Janina, Kosova, and part of Monastir. As a result of this Albanian victory, the government of the chauvinistic Young Turks Party was overthrown. The weakness of Turkey became thus evident.
The Albanians had administered a heavy blow to the Turks and rightly hoped for approval and sympathy, for, as Lord Goschen had rightly pointed out back in 1880, if the Turks lost Albania, they would lose their cause in Europe. Instead, the Albanian victory triggered the Balkan wars, the purpose of which was the annexation of Albanian-inhabited territories that were under Turkish rule.
At that time, Montenegro had been free from Ottoman rule for over forty years; Serbia and Greece for over eighty. These states, being independent, had their regular armies. When attacked on all sides (by the Greeks, the Montenegrins, and, of course, by the Serbs, who entered Kosova), the Albanians, aware of the great danger, hastened to raise their flag and declared their neutrality.
The atrocities perpetrated by the Serbo-Montenegrins during the Balkan wars on the Albanian population were acknowledged by the Serbian socialist Dimitrije Tucovic (1881-1914) in his book Srbija i Albanija (published in 1946):
The bourgeois clamored for a merciless extermination and the army executed the orders. The Albanian villages, from which the people had made a timely flight, were burned down. There were at the same time barbaric crematoria in which hundreds of women and children were burned alive...
Brutalities committed by the Serbo-Montenegrins are also described in the Carnegie report. They may be best summed up in two short paragraphs taken from Mary Edith Durham's Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle (1920):
No Turks ever treated Armenians worse than did the two Serb peoples treat the Albanians in the name of the Holy Orthodox Church (p.235).
Cf. also Aubrey Herbert, M.P.: "Very little was known about Albania. The general opinion was that the Albanians were another branch of the Armenian family, and indeed, as far as massacres were concerned, this was most understandable . . ." (A. Herbert, Ben Kenilim, London, 1924, P. 24). According to ME. Durham, the slaughters of the Armenians were nothing compared to those of the Albanians: "The massacres of Adana and the resultant misery pale before the scarlet horrors committed wholesale in cold blood by the so-called followers of Christ" (Durham, Struggle for Scutari, London, 1914, p. 303).
About these slaughters see: http://www.albanianhistory.net/1913_...tha/index.html
http://www.albanianhistory.net/1914_...ent/index.html
As for the Balkan Slav and his vaunted Christianity, it seems to me all civilization should rise and restrain him from further brutality (p.238).
What surprised ME. Durham quite specially was the religious fanaticism of the Serbs:
"It was not astonishing that the Serbs hated Islam, but that they should fiercely hate every other Christian church, I had not expected. The Catholic was hated the most." According to Durham, the Moslem was to the Serbs "a lesser evil than the Catholic," (Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle, London, 1920, p. 52). "The hatred of the Serb Orthodox for the Catholics was shown in 1913 in the Balkan war, when the Montenegrin troops, whose object was said to be to liberate Christians, fell upon the little church of Mazreku, trampled the Host underfoot, dressed up in the priestly vestments, danced about, and amused themselves by cutting noses from images of the saints and firing bullets into the crufix" (Some Tribal Origins ... p. 28).
In 1913, a number of soldiers led by a bandit clad as an Orthodox priest stripped and bayonetted to death Luigj Palici, an Albanian Franciscan from Gjakova, because he refused to cross himself in the Orthodox manner. "Austria intervened sharply. Had she not done so, in the words of a Catholic refugee, there would not have been a Catholic left" (E.C. Helmreich, The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, Harvard U.P., 1938, p. 317).
In 1919, a treaty concerning minorities was signed at Saint-Germain-en- Laye whereby the Yugoslav Government pledged to protect all citizens without discrimination as to race, nationality, and creed. Yet the persecutions against the Catholic Kosovars continued. Mother Teresa’s father, a native of Shkup (Skopje), and a noted Albanian patriot, was poisoned by the Serbs, as reported by his son Lazer Bojaxhiu in an interview published in Gente (Dec. 1979 and Jan. 1980). Mother Teresa’s family was obliged to move to Tirana, where her mother and sister died (the former in 1974; the latter in 1976).
In 1929, was executed Father Shtjefen Gjecovi, a Franciscan, greatly respected by all the Albanians for his erudition and his righteousness. As a result, on May 5, 1930, three Catholic priests, obliged to leave the region, addressed the "League of Nations" a memorandum concerning the tragic plight of the Albanians in Yugoslavia (see H. Kokalari, Kosova, Rome, 1962, p. 165).
It should be reiterated that the unbelievable massacres were in no way committed as a result of a struggle between Christians and Moslems, as it was at that time believed by Gladstone and stressed in his speeches. They were solely motivated by the desire to decimate the Albanian race. Not only Kosova was coveted, but all of North Albania.
During World War I, Albania's neutrality was not respected and mass massacres continued.
At the turn of the century, the reports of the Ohio journalist J.A.Mac Cahan concerning the Bulgarian uprising, had shocked the West; as known, Russia used these accounts as a pretext to march against the Turks. By contrast, the Albanian cause did not benefit from the Carnegie report, nor by the frequent and moving declarations of philanthropists and journalists who, like M.E. Durham, were eyewitnesses to mass massacres of women and children, simply because it was not in the interest of the Great Powers to take Albania's defense.
The well-known Swiss geographer H. Hauser, rightly pointed out that the principle of nationality, like all other principles, cannot be applied in a strict and equitable manner given the fact that most places constitute, with respect to the population inhabiting them, a mosaic.
This mosaic of nationalities was particularly striking in the Balkans. Here, more than anywhere else, there was need for what H. Hauser suggested, namely: good will, compromise, and a fair system of guaranties. It is an undeniable fact that relative to Albania no appeal was ever made to compromises and good will; and no system of guarantees was ever applied to her. The expediency of her neighbors prevailed. No matter what the problem at stake Albania was always the loser.
In 1878, Lord Goschen and Lord Fitzmaurice had been in favor of a large Albania comprising the Albanian-inhabited territories of the four vilayets. But, at the Congress of Berlin it was decided -as already pointed out - that territories indisputably Albanian be handed over to Montenegro and to Serbia. Places connected with Albanian history and national pride, like Janina, Arta, Preveza, were allotted to the Greeks, who within a relatively short period of time were to exterminate the overwhelming Albanian population inhabiting them. No system of guarantees was applied. Albanians, numbering hundreds of thousands were to be forcibly sent to Turkey.
The manner in which Albanian territories were ceded to neighboring states clearly indicates how arbitrary decisions that make history may be. And one cannot but agree with Mircea Eliade (The Myth of the Eternal Return), who, with respect to the theory that valorizes historical events, to which the 19th century attached so much importance, pertinently remarked that such a theory could have been established only by thinkers who know nothing about injustices and miseries caused by history.
Also, in 1913, those in charge of assigning to Albania her borders gave no consideration to the very problem of her survival. The fertile pasture lands, the regions rich in minerals and other resources, where nearly two-thirds of the Albanian population lived, remained outside the borders assigned to her. As Lord Fitzsimmons rightly remarked, "Albania was to start her career as a state mutilated from her birth". Indeed, as a nation humiliated in her pride, she had no place among her sister nations. She was doomed to poverty, bitterness, and complete isolation.
The tragic fate of many of these Albanians, who remained outside the borders assigned to the state of Albania, was to populate Asia Minor. As indicated, the guarantees stipulated by the Treaty of Berlin were not honored by Serbia. Likewise, over 300,000 Albanians inhabiting the regions ceded to Greece were expelled by the Greek Government and obliged to settle in Turkey as a result of an exchange treaty of the Turkish and the Greek Governments (see, among others, A.A. Pallis, "The exchange of populations in the Balkans," Nineteenth Century, March, 1925, pp. 376-387). Pallis begins his article by saying that ‘the exchanges of populations, as a method of settling the problems of minorities, has been condemned in many quarters as a barbarous and dangerous innovation in internal politics." The Greek delegate at the Lausanne Conference had, in fact, declared that ‘Greece agrees that the compulsory exchanges shall not be applicable to her Moslem subjects of Albanian origin." However, the Greeks declared the Moslems of Tchameria as being "merely Albanophones," but in reality Greeks, and on this basis forced them to emigrate (Pallis art. cit.). Pallis argued that they emigrated of their own accord and that they were pleased in Turkey. This, however, is not the opinion of Ruth Pennington who returned to England in 1927 after ten months of work with the immigrants, ‘In Turkey the are 300,000 Albanian-speaking immigrants. Of these at least 10% would willingly shift their quarters and move again seeking for better land, to rejoin cousins and friends, who have already moved. Turkey does not wish for any further depopulation, but in spite of official prohibition, for the next 10 to 20 years there will be a constant leakage . . ." (Near East and India, Sept. 15, 1927, p. 333).
Although in 1913, the population of the south Albanian region ceded to Greece was over 90% Albanian, no Albanian schools or newspapers were ever allowed. This population has been almost extirpated on account of the harsh treatment to which it was subjected.
In regard to Kosova, a territory where Albanians displayed their most important activities for the independence of their nation and a region which, as some scholars contend, is the cradle of the Albanian people, the principles of ethnicity and self determination were not observed. Nor had they been taken into account when districts indisputably Albanian had been allotted to Montenegro and Serbia by the Treaty of Berlin. At that time, the principle of history had been ignored as well.
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