CHAPTER VIII

THE PROCLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE

I. THE BALKAN ALLIANCE

THE forcible grant of autonomy to Albania dealt a mortal blow to the policy of the Young Turks. The "Union and Progress" Committee was humiliated for the first time. The chauvinist ministry which brought about the clash with the Albanians was ousted in disgrace, and the sinister Mahmud Shefket Pasha, the Turkish dictator, was forced to retire into the background. A more moderate Cabinet was formed under the presidency of Gazi Mukhtar Pasha.1

But the triumph of the Albanian cause was destined to have some far more important consequences than the ministerial changes at Constantinople.

The brilliant successes won by the Albanians over the Turkish army and its German instructors made the most profound impression throughout the Balkan Peninsula and beyond it as well. This was a highly profitable lesson set for the Balkan States. The second important lesson the latter learned from the successful issues of the Albanian insurrection was that Turkey could not be made to yield to any sane reasoning but only to the force of arms, and it was only through the use of the latter means that the policy of Ottomanization could be stayed.

1 "American Year Book," 1912, p. 90.

But the momentous event which deeply stirred the Balkan States was the recognition of the autonomous status of Albania, involving, as it did, the advent of a new political factor in the Balkan Peninsula.

The main consequences of the rise of Albania as a separate nationality were two:

In the first place, the balance of power in the Balkans was irrevocably disturbed. The day when Albania would become an independent State was not remote.

In the second place, the establishment of the autonomous Albanian régime in the four western vilayets of Turkey was meant to operate as a bar to the expansionist aspirations of the several Balkan States.1 Montenegro coveted a part of the vilayet of Scutari, and its capital as well. Serbia's dream was to get possession of the vilayet of Kossova which she claimed as a part of "Old Serbia"; 2 she also wanted an access to the Adriatic Sea through the Albanian territories. Bulgaria claimed the vilayet of Monastir, and Greece that of Janina. But now all these territories were recognized as part and parcel of Albania. What would have become of their imperialistic claims in case they allowed the Albanians to consolidate their power over these provinces? It mattered very little, if at all, to the Balkan States that these territories belonged, by every divine and human right and title, to the Albanians who have had them in their actual possession from time immemorial.

The net result of these reflections and apprehen

1 Gueshoff, Iv. Eustratiev, "L'Alliance Balkanique" (Paris, 1915), pp. 73-87. 2 Brailsford, H. N., "Macedonia," p. 273.

sions of the Balkan nations was the conclusion of the Balkan alliance which took place, very significantly, immediately after the recognition of the autonomy of Albania. By the provisions of the treaties which confirmed this alliance, the whole of Albania was partitioned among its several partners, in accordance with their wishes, and with no more regard for the rights of the Albanian nationality than for international morality. This dastardly plot of the so-called Christian States of the Balkans is all the more sordid because it was resolved upon when the echo of the frenzied acclamations of their respective peoples on the occasion of the Albanian victories over the Young Turks was still resounding in the Balkan Peninsula.

II. THE INVASION OF ALBANIA

When the right time for common action arrived, the Balkan Allies addressed to the Sublime Porte a joint demand whereby they claimed that an autonomous administration, similar to that granted to Albania, be accorded to the populations of Macedonia. It is said that imitation is the best eulogy, but in this instance it was not eulogy but jealousy. The Turkish government rejected their demands, as it was expected that it would, and war was declared. But as there were many serious misgivings as to the sincerity and good faith among the allies, the tiny Montenegro was made use of as an agent provocateur: before the Porte had responded to the allied ultimatum, the Montenegrin army attacked the Turkish troops without any formal declaration of war. Hostilities began officially on October 8, 1912, although Greece did not enter the war till ten days later.

The war took the Albanians by surprise, as it did the rest of the world. From the very beginning, the war operations went wholly in favor of the Balkan allies, and the Turks were beating their retreat everywhere. The Albanians were driven to the wall; the day of the final test of their traditional policy had come. Instinctively, if not deliberately, they had always abstained from adding to the worries and difficulties of Turkey whenever she was in the throes with their immediate neighbors whose designs in regard to the Albanian territories they well knew. This is why they did not attack the Turks during the great Balkan upheaval of the year 1878. The same fateful question was now before them. What were they going to do? Would it have been more advisable to abide by their previous policy or to join the Balkan States? It was on the answer

of this question that their fate depended.

As circumstances were becoming more pressing and the successes of the Balkan armies were growing, the answer to that vital question was more difficult. Eventually, they decided to refrain from aiding either party to the war by following a policy of neutrality. Apart from the defense of the two fortresses of Janina and Scutari, the safety of which was considered as a vital point to the life of Albania, the Albanians left the Turks alone in their struggle. In the great battle of Kumanovo (October 22), in which the Serbians gained their first decisive victory, the Albanians refused to take part in the fight, and the Turks were consequently routed. To that extent, then, the Albanians facilitated the cause of the Balkan allies.

But, regardless of the attitude of the Albanians,

the Balkan allies proceeded along the lines established in the treaties of alliance, and, within a few weeks from the beginning of the war, the whole of Albania, apart from the fortresses of Janina and Scutari, and the district of Valona was in the hands of the Balkan armies. During the month of November the greater part of Northern and Central Albania was invaded by the Serbians and Montenegrins, and the southern portion of Southern Albania was in the possession of the Greeks.

III. NOVEMBER 28

On entering the Albanian territories, the Balkan commanders did not at all conceal their purposes as expressed in the stipulations of the secret treaties which had been previously concluded among their governments. The Albanian land was treated as a conquered one. The idea of its being Albanian was considered as preposterous, nay ridiculous, by the Balkan governments themselves, and the occupation was openly deemed to be a permanent one. When the Serbians entered Durazzo, the cavalry corps of King Peter rushed into the shallow waters of the seaport shouting: "Long live the Serbian sea!"

Albania seemed lost. Century-long struggles for the rights of the Albanian nationality seemed at once to have been wasted. The dream of an independent Albania was swiftly fading in the smoke and dust of the foreign invasion. A miracle could only save the situation now.

There presently appeared on the scene the man who undertook to work that miracle; he was Ismail Kemal Bey of Valona, an old Albanian leader of wide fame and reputation, the implacable enemy