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Albania
Albania's Reemergence after World War I
Albania's political confusion continued in the wake of World
War I. The country lacked a single recognized government, and
Albanians feared, with justification, that Greece, Yugoslavia,
and Italy would succeed in extinguishing Albania's independence
and carve up the country. Italian forces controlled Albanian political
activity in the areas they occupied. The Serbs, who largely dictated
Yugoslavia's foreign policy after World War I, strove to take
over northern Albania, and the Greeks sought to control southern
Albania. A delegation sent by a postwar Albanian National Assembly
that met at Durrës in December 1918 defended Albanian interests
at the Paris Peace Conference, but the conference denied Albania
official representation. The National Assembly, anxious to keep
Albania intact, expressed willingness to accept Italian protection
and even an Italian prince as a ruler so long as it would mean
Albania did not lose territory.
In January 1919, the Serbs attacked the Albanian inhabitants
of Gusinje and Plav with regular troops and artillery after the
Albanians had appealed to Britain for protection. The Serb forces
massacred some of the Albanians and forced about 35,000 people
to flee to the Shkodër area. In Kosovo the Serbs subjected the
Albanians to brutalities, stripped them of territory under the
guise of land reform, and rewarded Serb colonists with homesteads.
In response, Albanians continued guerrilla warfare in both Serbia
and Montenegro.
In January 1920, at the Paris Peace Conference negotiators from
France, Britain, and Greece agreed to divide Albania among Yugoslavia,
Italy, and Greece as a diplomatic expedient aimed at finding a
compromise solution to the territorial conflict between Italy
and Yugoslavia. The deal was done behind the Albanians' backs
and in the absence of a United States negotiator.
Members of a second Albanian National Assembly held at Lushnjë
in January 1920 rejected the partition plan and warned that Albanians
would take up arms to defend their country's independence and
territorial integrity. The Lushnjë National Assembly appointed
a four-man regency to rule the country. A bicameral parliament
was also created, appointing members of its own ranks to an upper
chamber, the Senate. An elected lower chamber, the Chamber of
Deputies, had one deputy for every 12,000 people in Albania and
one for the Albanian community in the United States. In February
1920, the government moved to Tiranë, which became Albania's capital.
One month later, in March 1920, President Woodrow Wilson intervened
to block the Paris agreement. The United States underscored its
support for Albania's independence by recognizing an official
Albanian representative to Washington, and in December the League
of Nations recognized Albania's sovereignty by admitting it as
a full member. The country's borders, however, remained unsettled.
Albania's new government campaigned to end Italy's occupation
of the country and encouraged peasants to harass Italian forces.
In September 1920, after a siege of Italian-occupied Vlorë by
Albanian forces, Rome abandoned its claims on Albania under the
1915 Treaty of London and withdrew its forces from all of Albania
except Sazan Island at the mouth of Vlorë Bay. Yugoslavia pursued
a predatory policy toward Albania, and after Albanian tribesmen
clashed with Serb forces occupying the northern part of the country,
Yugoslav troops took to burning villages and killing and expelling
civilians. Belgrade then recruited a disgruntled Geg clan chief,
Gjon Markagjoni, who led his Roman Catholic Mirditë tribesmen
in a rebellion against the regency and parliament. Markagjoni
proclaimed the founding of an independent "Mirditë Republic" based
in Prizren, which had fallen into Serbian hands during the First
Balkan War. Finally, in November 1921, Yugoslav troops invaded
Albanian territory beyond the areas they were already occupying.
Outraged at the Yugoslav attack and Belgrade's lies, the League
of Nations dispatched a commission composed of representatives
of Britain, France, Italy, and Japan that reaffirmed Albania's
1913 borders. Yugoslavia complained bitterly but had no choice
but to withdraw its troops. The so-called Mirditë Republic disappeared.
Data as of April 1992
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