What, then, is Europe to do with these wild children of hers?... The
tribes, Catholic and Moslem, who dwell between the Big Drin and the
frontier allotted to Serbia in 1913, asked the aforesaid Pouni[vs]a in
1919 to intervene in their quarrels; and the result was that a small
number of Serbian soldiers were scattered about that country. They were
placed at the disposal of the chief, whom they assisted in maintaining
order. (Needless to say, they collected no taxes or recruits, and all
their supplies came to them from Serbia.) The people were impressed not
only by the uniform but by the men's conduct. Before going to these
posts--where they were relieved every two or three months--the men were
instructed with regard to Albanian customs, and no case occurred of any
transgression. So rigidly did they enforce the precept that anyone who
tried to violate or carry off a woman was, if he persisted, to be shot,
that last year, at Tropolje in Gashi, when the girl in question was
said to be not unwilling, they pursued the abductors, and in the
subsequent battle there were fatalities on both sides. The Serbian
soldiers, for whose safety the village was responsible, made themselves
so popular that when the Tirana Government appointed one Niman Feriz to
go to those parts as sub-prefect he was chased away by the people headed
by the mayor of the Krasnichi, who is a nephew of Bairam Beg Zur, the
illiterate ex-brigand and ex-Minister of War of the Tirana Government.
Let this system of small Serbian posts be extended over the whole of
northern Albania, that is to say, in those districts where the natives
are willing to receive them. After all, the Serbs understand these
neighbours of theirs. Telephones and roads will be built and eventually
the railway along the Drin. The northern Albanians will then, for the
first time, be on the high-road towards peace and prosperity; and if the
rest of Albania has by then attained to anything like this condition
everybody would be glad to see a free and independent Albania.
Now what prospect is there of the rest of Albania taking any analogous
steps? If the regions which at present submit to Tirana decline to
modify their methods, it would seem that warfare between them and their
kinsmen to the north and north-east must continue, and that the
foundations of a united, free Albania will not yet be laid. One might
presume, from their bellicose attitude, that the Tirana Government
(extending to and including the town of Scutari) is all against a
pacific solution; and if one argues that their attitude would be quite
different without the support they receive from Italy, then the Italians
would doubtless reply that they have as much right to assist the Tirana
Albanians as Yugoslavia has to assist those of the north.
But this is not the case. Between Italy and the Albanians there are no
such ancient political and economic ties as between the Albanians and
the Serbs. The mediaeval connection with Venice has left with many
Albanians a dolorous memory, for apart from the fact that Venice, as in
Dalmatia, was pursuing a merely selfish policy, it was directly due to
her that the Turkish Sultan, in the fifteenth century, was able to
establish himself in Albania. Thrice his troops had been repelled by
those of Skanderbeg when the arrangement was made for them to enter the
fortress of Rosafat in Venetian uniforms, and then four hundred years
elapsed before the Sultan's standard was pulled down. In recent times
the Government of Italy has been furnishing the Shqyptart with schools,
and these were not its only acts of benevolence towards that wretched
people. They have given schools and rifles and munitions and gold. The
Albanians were willing to accept this largesse; but that it forged a
link between patron and client, that it conferred on the Italians any
rights to occupy the country, they denied, and enforced this denial in
1920 at the point of the bayonet. Mr. H. Goad said in the _Fortnightly
Review_ that this remark of mine is quite unhistorical, since Italy,
says he, "was in course of withdrawal when certain Albanians, stirred up
as usual by Jugo-Slavs, attacked her retreating troops." If the
Albanians had only known that Italy, despite her having been, says Mr.
Goad, "supremely useful to Albania," had resolved to quit, they would
perhaps have let them go with dignity. But if Mr. Goad will read some of
the contemporary Italian newspapers he will see that my allusion to the
bayonet was much too mild. Utterly regardless of the fact that the
Italian evacuation was "according to plan," the Shqyptart treated them
abominably--it brought up memories of Abyssinia--or does Mr. Goad deny
that even a general officer was outraged and blew out his brains? This
Albanian onslaught was so far from being stirred up by the Yugoslavs
that, as we have seen,[97] the Belgrade Government refused to furnish
them with munitions. This is not to say that they did not approve of the
Albanian push, for they maintain, in spite of Mr. Goad, the principle of
"The Balkans for the Balkan Peoples." If Italy, as our strange publicist
asserts, has a mandate--presumably a moral one--to defend Albania
against aggression he will find, I think, that the Yugoslavs heartily
agree with this thesis and that they are also quite determined to defend
Albania from aggression.... When he asserts that various ties existed
between Italy and the Albanians--the Albanian language, the feudal
architecture, much that is characteristic in Albanian art and so
forth--I would refer him to M. Justin Godart, with whom I am glad for
once to be in agreement. "There is no traditional or actual link," says
he, "between the two countries; if, on account of this geographical
position, they propose to have commercial relations, then everything has
yet to be established. If there is to be a friendship, we believe that
Italy must do her best to wipe out many memories.... She has not
profited from the large number of Albanians in her southern provinces in
order to have an Albanian policy."
However, the magnanimous Italians came back, declaring that on this
occasion they would not occupy the country (except the little island of
Saseno); but that they really could not restrain themselves from
bestowing the schools, the rifles, munitions and gold. Once more the
Albanians agreed to accept them; they also accepted the Turkish officers
and officials whom the Italian ships brought to them from Asia Minor,
and when their Government became more and more Turkish and more
intractable they found that they had excited the hostility of large
numbers of their own compatriots. This developed during 1921 into
violent conflicts; and the bountiful Italians provided the Tirana
Government's army with expert tuition. Nevertheless, in the Albanians'
opinion, there are no bonds between the two races, and if the Italians
would retire from Albania, permitting the Balkans to be for the Balkan
peoples, and if the fanatical Turks went back to Asia Minor, it would
soon be seen that the present rage between northern and central Albania
would peter out into the isolated murders which the Albanians have
hitherto been unable to dispense with. Left to themselves the Albanians
of Tirana would eventually ask for some such assistance from Serbia as
the northern tribes have received; three months after the departure of
the Italians from Scutari a plebiscite would show that this town, which
has lately gone so far as to refuse--yes, even her Moslems have
refused--to fill the depleted ranks of the Tirana forces, was anxious to
come to a friendly settlement with her Albanian neighbours and the
Yugoslavs. This would be a victory of Scutari's common sense over all
those fanatics and intriguers whose activities involve her death; for
she cannot possibly thrive if she persists in cutting herself off from
the hinterland and from the benefits that will accrue from the
canalization of the Bojana.
However, the Italians--officially or unofficially--will not yet awhile
leave Albania. And how will this retard or modify the reasonableness of
those parts which acknowledge Tirana? As for the town of Scutari, it is
probable that if she found herself permanently cut off by the Mirditi
from direct communication with Tirana she would allow her incipient
independence to come more to the surface. With Tirana less capable of
enforcing her behests the Scutarenes would gradually venture to act in
their own interests; they would aim at local autonomy within the sphere
of Yugoslav influence and in the same sphere as their markets. It is to
be hoped that Yugoslavia will be prepared for this, since she does not
possess too many educated citizens who understand the Albanian
mentality. A course of conduct which pays no attention to this would
alienate even the Turks from Podgorica and Dulcigno, whose acquaintance
with the very language of Albania is so limited. There seems, however,
to be no reason why the mixed population of Albanian Moslems and
Catholics, of Orthodox Serbs and of Moslems who declined to come under
the all-too-patriarchal rule of Nicholas of Montenegro should not have
the same happy experience as the inhabitants of Djakovica and Prizren.
Later on the Scutarenes will be called upon to decide whether they
prefer, like those other predominantly Albanian towns, to remain in
Yugoslavia or whether they wish to throw in their lot with a free
Albania, and in that case their town would become the capital of the
country. Failing Scutari, the capital would most probably be Oroshi,
which is now the capital of the Mirditi.
And why, we may be asked, why should not Tirana be the capital? In the
central parts of Albania, in the country round Tirana, where the natives
are derisively called "llape" by the warriors of the north and by the
cultured Albanians of the south, we believe that the assistance of Italy
will be unable to prevent a collapse. (It must also be remembered that
the people of the district of Tirana are, for the most part, in
opposition to the present Tirana Government. This became clear when the
partisans of Essad Pasha's policy[98] overthrew and imprisoned the
Tirana Ministers.) Economically and morally Tirana will decline, until
she is compelled to seek a union with the people of northern Albania,
those of the south having meanwhile gravitated towards Greece. Then the
moment will arrive when the north and the south, in their task of
building up a free and united Albania, will admit the centre under
various conditions. These will have to be of a rather stern character,
or so at any rate they will seem to the folk of Tirana: taxes will have
to be paid, military service or service in the _gendarmerie_ will have
to be rendered, and schools will have to be established for both sexes.
This, then, is the future country of Albania, which--if one is rash
enough to prophesy--may exist in fifty years. But there is no risk
whatever in asserting that a free, united Albania is in the immediate
future quite impossible.