But as Europe has not arrived at some such solution, and since the
Albanian Government has been prematurely recognized by the Powers, then
while the Albanians are engaged in the stormy process of working out
their own salvation, it is only fair that Yugoslavia should be given a
good defensive frontier. The 1913 frontier is only possible if the
Albanians are pacific, but as it has now been thought wise to set up an
unaided and independent Albanian State there is nothing more certain
than the turmoil of which its borders will be the scene, and this will
be so whether the Italians do or do not come to the Albanians'
assistance. What hope is there of even a relative tranquillity on the
Albanian border when so many of the natives, preferring Yugoslav rule to
that of their own countrymen, will be waging a civil war? That this
preference is fairly widespread one could see in 1920 by the number of
refugees on the Yugoslav side of the frontier. [Of course, a large
number of Albanians also fled to Scutari and elsewhere from the
districts lately occupied by the Yugoslav army. In both cases the
refugees were moved sometimes by hopes for a brighter future, sometimes
by fears which were caused by their clouded past. To speak first of
those who fled on account of a guilty conscience, it is evident that
these were more numerous among the refugees in Albania than among those
in Yugoslavia, for it was the Yugoslav authorities and not the Albanian
who extended their sway. Mr. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., wrote[85] "that in
the North the Yugoslavs had destroyed more than 120 Albanian villages."
It would have been interesting if he had given us their names, because
the Yugoslavs appear to have set about it so thoroughly that one cannot
find anything like that number on the Austrian maps, which are the best
pre-war maps for those regions. The Anglo-Albanian Society tells the
British public, in November, 1920, of the 30,000 destitute refugees in
Albania, and in such a way that the cause of their exodus is ascribed,
without more ado, to the terrible Yugoslav. But as the names are known
of a good many Albanians who did not wait for the Yugoslav army, on
account of past troubles between themselves and Yugoslavs, as also
between themselves and other Albanians, it would have been as well if
the Anglo-Albanian Society had reminded the public that all who fly in
those parts are not angels. It would, on the other hand, be just as rash
to sing the undiluted praise of those Albanians who, at odds with the
Tirana Government, thought it opportune to leave their native land; but
one can safely say, I think, that among these wanderers there was a
larger proportion of laudable men....] Yugoslavia attracts the Albanians
for more than one reason--not so much because the ancestors of many of
these Muhammedan Albanians were, and not so long ago, Christians, as
because inclusion in Yugoslavia would be to their economic
advantage--Scutari can scarcely exist without the Yugoslav hinterland,
while the people of the mountains are longing for that railway which the
Yugoslavs will only build over land which is moderately immune from
depredation. Other causes which have made so many of the borderland
Albanians--to speak only of them--turn their eyes to Yugoslavia are the
admiration which any primitive people feels for military prowess and the
knowledge of what has taken place in the Prizren-Pe['c]-Djakovica
region since it came into possession of the Serbs in 1913. Let us in the
first place see what sentiments are now entertained by the Albanian
natives of that region towards their rulers. It goes without saying that
these sentiments are perfectly well known to those Albanians who live
outside the Yugoslav frontier.
Well, at Suva Rieka, near Prizren, for example, I found that all the
Muhammedan inhabitants of Serbian origin are aware that they used to
celebrate the Serbian national custom of "Slava," still keep up the
Serbian Christmas Eve customs and often practise the old Christian nine
days' wailing for the dead. Some of us may think that this new
pro-Serbian tendency is rather on account of utilitarian reasons; the
great thing is that it should exist. With rare exceptions, the people of
Suva Rieka used to live by plunder; now they are sending their children
to the Serbian school, at any rate the boys, and for the study of
religion the authorities have made arrangements with a local Moslem. It
is to be regretted that Miss Edith Durham, whose writings were so
pleasant in the days before she became a more uncompromising
pro-Albanian than most of the Albanian leaders, says that if these
children go to Serbian schools it merely shows to what lengths of
coercion the Serbs will resort. In 1912-1913 Serbian and Montenegrin
officers seem to have told her that severe measures would be employed
against any recalcitrant Albanian parent who might decline to send his
son to school. Assuming that these officers were not young subalterns,
that they were quite sober and that they were not rudely "pulling Miss
Durham's leg," it may be urged that even if the children be driven to
school at the point of the bayonet, such conduct would compare
favourably with that of the Albanians towards the Serbs in Turkish
times. Talking of coercion, I suppose that the progress in agricultural
methods which one sees around Prizren is only further evidence of
Serbian tyranny. The _gendarmerie_ on the country roads is composed
largely of Muhammedan Albanians--doubtless the Serbs have coerced them
by some horrible threats. And if Miss Durham were to hear that Ramadan
(_ne_ Stojan) Stefanovi['c] of the village of Musotisti had decided to
return to the Orthodox faith to which his brothers George and Ilja had
been more faithful than himself--such variegated families are not
uncommon--I believe, though I may be doing her an injustice, that her
first impulse would be to write to the papers in drastic denunciation of
the Serbian authorities. They have, like most of us, sufficient to
regret--for example, the person whom they sent to Pe['c], when they
wanted the land to be distributed, was King Peter's Master of the Horse.
He was thoroughly unsuitable, and caused a great deal of
dissatisfaction.
There was a time at the rather gloomy town of Djakovica, when, owing to
the blood-vengeance, the Merturi were unable for eight years to enter
the place; now they come in, merely to gaze at the Serbian major who is
in command. Halim Beg Derala, the aristocratic and wealthy ex-mayor, who
as a pastime used to plan an occasional robbery in Turkish days, told
me--he speaks a little French, in addition to Albanian, Turkish, Serbian
and Greek--that citizens were often unable to leave their houses for two
months at a time,[86] and although every house was provisioned for a
siege, yet one frequently had to manage without bread. Now the
candid-eyed, fair-bearded priest rides out with Ljuba Kujundji['c], the
erstwhile leader of komitadji, in order to negotiate with the Albanian
Zeph Voglia, at that personage's own request, for his surrender to the
Serb authorities. Zeph has written from a forest that he feels uneasy,
because he owes sixteen blood-vengeances. He asks that his affairs may
be settled by the law, and those sixteen pursuing countrymen of his have
signified that this will meet their views, since in the first place the
Serbs are disinterested in the matters between them, and, secondly, the
Serbian penalties are not so mild as theirs, not permitting that a
murder shall be expiated by the payment of a moderate sum or that a
guilty party may absent himself for three years and suffer no further
loss than the devastation of his house. Another sphere in which the
Serbs have gained Albanian sympathies is with regard to the disputed
ownership of land. Even as the Moors have been in the habit of handing
down, from father to son, the key of some Sevillan house that vanished
centuries ago, the Montenegrins, more fortunate, have been appearing
with the ancient title-deeds of lands that now are in Albanian
possession. According to Serbian law it is the oldest document which
prevails. And the Albanians are generously compensated.... Those who,
with the highest motives, advocate "Albania for the Albanians," may
argue that the mediaeval activities of Riza Beg and Bairam Beg Zur--whose
adherents started shooting at each other every evening after six o'clock
in the refuse-laden streets of Djakovica--would have been concluded and
would not have been continued by their sons even if the Serbs had not
appeared. Let them, before proclaiming the modern reasonableness of the
Albanians, recollect that in 1919 the Moslem Bosniak ex-prisoners
required on the average three months in order to traverse central
Albania, the country of their co-religionists. From village to village
the Bosniaks made their way, earning a little and then being plundered
at the next place. Eighty per cent. of this population believe, in their
fanaticism, that the Sultan will again unfurl over them his flag and
that the world will ultimately be converted to Muhammed. And if,
entertaining such ideas, they are so rigorous towards their
fellow-Moslems, what prospect is there that this 80 per cent. will
assist the Orthodox and Catholic Albanians in building up a State? Their
ferocity, in fact, is so profound that it thrives on a diet which is
chiefly of milk.... Perhaps a day will come when the Albanian will
submit to be ruled by a member of another tribe, when local politics
will engage his attention less than the silver, iron, copper, arsenic
and water-power of his country. Perhaps the day will come. Midway
between Djakovica and the monastery of De[vc]ani there stand two large
houses side by side. In 1909 a man belonging to one of them slew four
men of the other house, and on account of this he fled beyond the Drin,
together with thirteen other men of his family. There is no knowing how
long these refugees would have stayed away if that part of the country
had not come under Serbian rule, but in 1919 negotiations were set on
foot which--to the satisfaction of the members of the other house--would
enable the thirteen innocent refugees to return, while the criminal
would be arrested.
As evidence of the cordiality now prevailing between Albanian and Serb
in Yugoslavia, one may mention those cases where the Albanians in 1919
entered into a bond that for six months they would exact no
blood-vengeance from their fellow-countrymen; the number of these debts
which hitherto had been regarded as debts of honour was very
considerable, for they were not only incurred by assassination but could
also be in payment of a mere scowl or of your wife, from within the
house, having heard the voice of another man raised in song. The Serbian
authorities are hoping confidently that the Albanians who have thus for
a season placed themselves under the law will be ready in the future to
pledge themselves. They are beginning to see that in a place the size of
Djakovica it should be possible to make a wheel, that one should be able
to find a shop whose contents are worth more than 100 francs, that the
breed of their cattle, of their sheep and goats and horses could be
vastly improved, that if their land were sanely treated it could be
rendered much more fertile, and that their system of fruit cultivation
is absurdly primitive.... And with Djakovica and the whole region of
Kossovo being treated as we have shown by the Yugoslavs I think it will
be almost as great a surprise to the reader as it was to the local
population when he learns that in a memorandum of April 26, 1921, the
Tirana Government complained to the League of Nations that the Yugoslav
civil and military officials were behaving in a very pitiless fashion
towards the Albanians. Certainly they have not as yet established
Albanian schools, but they propose to do so when there is accommodation
and when teachers are available; and then, maybe, to the disgust of Miss
Durham, Mr. Herbert, etc., the Albanians of the district will, with an
eye to the future, prefer to visit the Yugoslav schools.