Albania

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ALBANIA

Albania was the last nation-state to emerge from the Ottoman Empire in the years before World War I. As with the other states, however, its emergence would not have been possible without the interference of the Great Powers.

The Albanians were late in the nationalist process for two reasons. The first was that the nation was divided. There were two main linguistic groups, the Ghegs in the north and the Tosks in the south; and there were three main religious communities, with 70 percent of the population being Muslim, 20 percent Orthodox Christian, and 10 percent, mostly in the north, Roman Catholic. In addition to these divisions there were intense clan or tribal loyalties, especially in the north, which impeded the emergence of any unified national movement. The second reason was that the Ottoman administration allowed the Albanians a number of privileges, particularly the right to carry arms and to be exempt from conscription and from many taxes. In return, the small Albanian intelligentsia remained loyal to the sultan for most of the nineteenth century.

When nationalist quickening came it was caused not by the Ottoman government but by its enemies. In the great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1881, the Slav states of Serbia and Montenegro both received additional territory. Both states had aspirations on areas inhabited by Albanians, and worried Albanian intellectuals met in Prizrend in 1878 to state Albanian claims to nationhood. This first statement of Albanian national pretensions had little immediate impact. Although it encouraged education in Albanian, there was, for example, no agreement on a standard Albanian literary language.

The next and decisive assertion of Albanian national feelings came after the Young Turk revolution and the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. The consequences of the first angered the Albanians, and the second transformed the European diplomatic situation and eventually brought the Albanian question to the center of the international political arena. The Young Turks wished to centralize and modernize their extensive domains. This meant an end to Albanian privileges, and the imposition of greater central authority involved conscription, taxation, and restrictions on the right to carry arms. The Albanians objected. In the summer of 1909 in the mountainous areas of the north, there were outbreaks of violence directed against agents of the central government; twenty thousand Ottoman troops were brought in to contain the discontent. Their ruthlessness ensured that the outbursts were repeated with more force in 1910. The situation was even more tense in 1911 because this time the Albanian intelligentsia joined the northern clansmen and gave the rising a political agenda. This demanded recognition of the Albanians as a separate nation, and virtual self-government for Albania, which, for the first time, was given a territorial definition; it covered the Ottoman vilayets (provinces) of Scutari (Shkoder), Yanina, Monastir (Bitola), and Kosovo.

By 1911 changes in the international situation brought about by the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia had an impact on Albania. From 1897 to 1908 Russia and Austria-Hungary had agreed to cooperate to contain crises in the Balkans. In 1908 the Russians believed they had not been consulted about the annexation and were frightened that the Habsburgs intended to expand into the Balkans and toward Salonika. There was no such intention, but Russia, given its enfeebled state after the Russo-Japanese war and the Revolution of 1905, was in no position to assert itself. It therefore welcomed signs that Bulgaria and Serbia appeared willing to bury their many hatchets and conclude an alliance. In the first half of 1912, this alliance was expanded into the Balkan League of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia. The Russians convinced themselves that the League was an anti-Austrian defensive alliance. In fact, it was an aggressive combination that intended to partition the Ottoman Empire in Europe.

This was the Albanians' worst nightmare. They had revolted against Ottoman centralism, but partition

of the Albanian lands between Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece would end any hope of saving Albanian autonomy or securing independence. Austria too was concerned by the new diplomatic alignment in the Balkans.

Matters came to a head in the summer of 1912. Yet again the Albanians revolted and this time they drove the Ottoman administration out of the center of the Balkans. Vienna intervened with a diplomatic initiative aimed at forcing the Ottomans to reform their empire. Reform of the empire with the backing of the Great Powers was the last thing the Balkan states wanted; it would end their chances of partitioning the Ottoman lands. In October, before Austria's initiative could come to fruition, the Balkan League went to war with the empire. The war was spectacularly successful and by the end of the year the Ottomans had been driven out of almost all their European territories.

The Great Powers now intervened. A conference of belligerents was convened in London. The Balkan states and the Ottomans were told that they could regulate the peace subject to a number of conditions. One of them was that an independent Albania must emerge from the settlement.

Albanian political leaders had declared independence on 28 November 1912. The boundaries of the state, together with its basic political structure, were to be defined by the ambassadors of the Great Powers in London. Austria-Hungary was the main defender of the new state, aiming to make it as extensive as possible so as to limit Serbian expansion. Russia backed the Serbs. The discussions were conducted against a background of renewed fighting in the Balkans, part of which involved Montenegrin forces besieging Scutari, which fell when its Ottoman commander, an ethnic Albanian, sold it to the Montenegrins in April 1913. Further problems arose through Serbian intrigues in the new state and through Greek attempts to secure a slice of southern Albania. International commissions finally delimited the frontiers. The ambassadors decided that Albania should become a hereditary principality and elected Prince Wilhelm zu Wied (r. 1914) as its first head of state. However, he failed to establish any central authority and fled soon after the outbreak of World War I.