that moment, the Prince dismissed the Commission with the recommendation that it should not remain any longer at Durazzo, but at Valona, away from the court of the Prince. The result of this act was the estrangement of the Commission of Control, and the violation of the stipulations of the Conference of the Ambassadors which had deputed the Commission to coöperate with the Albanian government.

The Prince might have had the best intentions, but he was utterly ignorant either as regards the condition of Albania, internal and external, or the science of politics and government.

Following the summary dismissal of the Commission of Control, the Prince proceeded to form his own Cabinet, which was composed of not less than eight Ministers, under the presidency of Turkhan Pasha, erstwhile Turkish ambassador at the court of the Czar of Russia, with Essad Pasha as Minister of both War and the Interior. The appointment of Essad Pasha was another distinct mortification to the Albanian patriots and nationalists, for the conduct of the Pasha had been more than questionable. To entrust him with such important offices was to breed trouble.

Besides, the Prince surrounded himself with an "inner council," composed of an Austrian and an Italian agent, with a young Briton, Armstrong, as his private Secretary.

With the arrival of the diplomatic envoys and Ministers accredited to the Prince on the part of the several European governments, prominent among whom were the Ministers of the Great Powers and the envoys of the friendly nations, such as Roumania and Bulgaria, the Palace of the Prince assumed the

appearance of a busy court, in which the silver and gold laced uniforms of the officers of the Dutch Mission gave a rather military aspect, without, however, the corresponding military force which was so badly needed by the new State.

II. WAR AND NEGOTIATIONS

A month had hardly passed since his accession to the throne, when the clatter of firearms in the city of Korcha awoke the Prince to the realization of the fact that Southern Albania was still in the hands of the enemy, and that he had committed an irreparable injury to his people by not having asked from the Powers any guarantees for its evacuation.

To understand the nature of the outbreak of Korcha a few preliminary explanations must be given.

As has been said above (p. 133), the city was evacuated and handed over to the Albanians on the first of March. It has also been stated that a large number of Greek soldiers were left in the hospitals of the city. It should also be borne in mind that Korcha is the cradle of the Albanian regeneration. It was the only Albanian city that was privileged to have a school for girls. The toleration of this school on the part of the Turkish authorities must be attributed to a kind of shadowy protection of the United States, inasmuch as an American missionary, Rev. Phileas Kennedy, was a member of the teaching staff. Yet the school was immediately shut down on the occupation of the city by the Greeks, and Mr. Kennedy was compelled to leave the city.

Besides, Korcha is the very center of Albanian nationalism. Only a few months before it fell into

the hands of the Greeks, a series of national uprisings against the Turks had taken place. No more ardent Albanian patriots could be found in any part of Albania than in Korcha. But, on the other hand, the city had also within its walls the noisiest faction of Greek sympathizers, owing to the existence of the Greek Gymnasium (p. 115) which naturally graduated now and then a number of hotheaded admirers of the glories of ancient Greece. This faction was under the leadership of the Orthodox Bishop, the only Greek by nationality in the city, who acted, naturally enough, in the interests of Hellenism.

Following the occupation of the city by the Albanians, this faction played the part of an agent provocateur by continuous insults addressed to the Albanian authorities, intended to force the Albanians to resort to some kind of summary retribution, and thus to open the door for a Greek intervention on the ground that the Albanians were molesting, or still worse, massacring the unexisting Greeks of Korcha. It is not too much to say, however, that the conduct of the Albanian authorities, whose strength rested not upon the fifty gendarmes of occupation but on the great majority of the population of the city, was admirable, and that they succeeded in restraining the natural indignation of the majority from inflicting a well-deserved punishment upon their brethren, the Greek sympathizers, for their treasonable acts.

In the meantime, the Greek Bishop had formed a conspiracy with the Greek soldiers of the hospitals and the Greek sympathizers, and, towards the middle of the night of April 11, the Greek soldiers and their associates broke loose in the streets. Simultane