Chapter 33

The emissaries of Tirana might depict as of no importance the hostilities that were being waged against them by those Moslem tribes, they might tell the League of Nations that the Mirdite revolution was not worth considering. It is a fact that the Mirditi are not very numerous, but in close connection with their 18,000 people are the Shala with 500 houses and the Shoshi with 300. Tradition has it that they are descended from three brothers who set out from the arid village of Shiroka on Lake Scutari to seek their fortune. The most ancient, the most noble and important family of northern Albania is that of Gjomarkaj, whose seat is at Oroshi, the capital of the Mirditi. Despite enormous difficulties they succeeded in maintaining their own position and the prestige of the Mirditi. They refused to recognize the Turkish Government and clung so tenaciously to their own usages and laws, and were so famous for their courage that the Sultans were eager to grant them privileges and concessions. Thereafter they promised to assist the Sultan against external aggression, and always did so with great success. It was due to the Mirditi that the Albanian mountaineers preserved their nationality, their religion and their customs, for they were ever the leaders of the other Albanian tribes. The most prominent of the Mirditi in our time have been Prenk Bib Doda, who, after long years of exile, was assassinated in Albania; Mark Djoni, now the President of the Mirdite Republic; and, above all, the great Abbot Monsignor Primo Doci, a man of vast culture, who returned to his own country after serving the Vatican as a diplomat in various parts of the world. It is not surprising that the educational standard of his native land filled him with the determination to build schools and that, owing to his efforts, the Roman Catholic establishment of thirty native priests and of bishops who were nearly all foreigners has developed into a body of almost three hundred native priests with no foreign bishops. A poet himself, he founded the literary society, _Bashkimi l'unione_, in which all capable patriots were invited to collaborate. He constructed more than twenty strongholds in and around Oroshi, and when he died in February 1917 it was largely owing to the persecution which he suffered at the hands of the Austrians. What has latterly aroused his faithful people is the persecution levelled at them by the Moslem-Italian Government of Tirana.

A certain amount of mystery envelopes the death of Bib Doda; an opinion widely held is that Italians were responsible, but Mr. H. E. Goad rebukes me in the _Fortnightly Review_ for not knowing that the Italians laid aside the crude methods of political murder centuries ago. Perhaps he doesn't regard the massacre of the helpless French soldiers at Rieka in 1919 as political murder, since they were only privates; perhaps he doesn't count that famous expedition of the five lieutenants to assassinate Zanella, because it was unsuccessful; but he may be right concerning Bib Doda. That personage had been to Durazzo to confer with the Italians; he had refused to accept an Italian protectorate in Albania, and on his return he was killed in his carriage before he could reach Scutari. The chief assailant was a Catholic of Klementi, believed to be an adherent of Essad Pasha and also an Italian "agent d'occasion." Yet as several Italian soldiers who accompanied Bib Doda were wounded it would seem that those, myself included, who believed that this affair had been arranged by the Italians were wrong.

As for Bib Doda's fortune, Mr. Goad asserts that by Albanian law he did not have to leave it to his nearest kinsman, Marko Djoni. That is, I beg to say, precisely what he had to do according to the custom of their ancient family. Mr. Goad says that the cash went to the poor; I say that a good deal of it went into the pocket of a lady who was much younger than the dead man and was on excellent terms with an Italian major. If Mr. Goad had visited Albania at that time and had been interested in other things besides what he tells us of--the moonlight of Klisura and the splendid plane trees over the Vouissa and the sunrise reflected on the gleaming mountain-wall of the Nemorica--I would not have to tell him all this about Bib Doda's money. He says that Marko Djoni is a discredited, disgruntled person who became a tool of the Serbs and fled to Serbia. But he forgets that Bib Doda was killed in March 1919, and that until May 1921 Marko Djoni remained in Albania, enjoying the friendship of Italy rather than that of Serbia. In fact it was not easy for him to abandon this friendship, owing to various deals in connection with the Mirdite forests. No doubt he resented the loss of his heritage; but why in the name of goodness should not he and his followers fight for their liberty, and why should the Serbs not help them at a time when the frontiers of Albania had not been fixed nor the Government officially recognized? The Serbs were helping him to make war, says Mr. Goad, against his legitimate rulers. Yet we must be lenient with our Mr. Goad, for he himself admits that "few can write of Balkan politics without revealing symptoms of that partisan disease." He has made up his mind that the Serbs are the villains of the piece, and there, for him, is the end of it.

A delegation from the Mirditi, consisting of the Rev. Professor Anthony Achikou and Captain Dod Lléche, came to Geneva in October 1921, and requested the League not to issue a confirmation of the Tirana Government. They showed that this Government had no other aim than to turn Albania into a small Turkey. No doubt the Moslems, as the most numerous element, had a right to have a majority in the Cabinet, but there was no justification in their appointment of pure Turks. (The Tirana Government proposed in the autumn of 1921 that any Albanian coming from Turkey, who has held a public office there, shall be refused admittance into the Albanian Administration until two years after his return. This is a proposal but not yet, I believe, an effective law.) The Minister of Justice has been old Hodja Kadri, and the Minister of War one Salah el Din Bey, an officer of Kemal Pasha, and neither of these was acquainted with the Albanian language. When the Mirditi started to show their dislike of this Government, the War Minister commanded his troops to slay without mercy anyone who dared to raise his voice. Thus it came about that the villages of Oroshi, Laci, Gomsice and Naraci were destroyed, while those of the inhabitants who could escape fled across the frontier to Serbia. As for particular cases of iniquity we may instance that of the Moslem officer, Chakir Nizami, who, as a manifestation of his hatred for the Christians, had violated at Scutari a girl of fourteen whose name was Chakya Hil Paloks. He was sentenced by the French military authorities and was liberated by the Minister of Justice as soon as the French had quitted Scutari. On the other hand, Kol Achikou, a brother of the delegate, had killed a Moslem in self-defence and been acquitted by the French court martial; after their departure he was taken to Tirana and sentenced to death. But apart from all such misdeeds the Mirditi complained that the Tirana Government, which could not openly wage war with Serbia, had organized the "Kossovo" Committee, whose object it was to foment trouble in Serbia and to send armed bands of marauders on to Serbian territory. At the very moment when the delegation was at Geneva, one of these bands (in the night between October 12 and 13) raided the village of Moji[vs]te, near Gostivar. Furnished with Italian machine guns and bombs they came over the mountains, set fire to the village and killed many of the people as they fled. They are accustomed on such expeditions to steal the children and hold them to ransom--a lucrative operation which d'Annunzio's arditi[91] may have copied from their Albanian colleagues. It would seem, then, according to the statement of the Mirditi, that in the conflict on the Black Drin, of which Europe had vaguely heard, the Tirana Government and not that of Serbia was the aggressor. Mr. Aubrey Herbert may write pathetic letters to the Press, Miss Durham may write letters of indignation, but how could their protégés of Tirana be said to be valiantly defending themselves against the wicked Serbs when the very villages which, said Mr. Herbert, were destroyed--Aras and Dardha and so forth--were situated in the district to which the Serbs were legally entitled?

The Mirditi delegates had an interview in Geneva with Lord Robert Cecil. An attempt was made by the Tirana delegates to discredit Professor Achikou, by publishing a telegram from Monsignor Sereggi, the Archbishop of Scutari (but which the Professor accused the rival delegate, the bearded, bustling Father Fan Noli, of having composed himself),[92] and in that message it was stated that Achikou was expelled from Albania. This he did not deny; he was, he said, one of 4000 who had been driven out by an arbitrary Government and he hoped that they would soon be able to return. The message called Achikou a traitor; but that is a matter of opinion. It said that he was in the service of a foreign Power; he replied that the Mirditi had never concealed their wish to live in friendship with their neighbours, and the proof that they envisaged nothing more than friendship was that they were petitioning the League to recognize the Mirdite Republic. Among the other charges against Achikou was one which said that he was sailing under false colours. This was an absurd accusation, and one which enabled the reverend Father to mention that his opponent Monsignor, who was then being called Bishop, Fan Noli, was neither a bishop nor an Albanian, but a simple priest, a Greek from Adrianople, whose real name was Theophanus.[93] This clever man, who had decided to form an Orthodox Albanian Church and had apparently become its bishop without the formality of consecration, had enjoyed some success at Geneva owing to his knowledge of languages. He circulated a telegram from Tirana which purported to be a disavowal of the Mirditi delegation by a number of Mirditi notables; but a reply was sent by Mark Djoni, the President of the Mirdite Republic, an elderly man of great sagacity and experience, for in Turkish times he had been chief magistrate of the Mirditi. He pointed out that all the notables and all the tribal chieftains had gone, like himself, into exile, and that the names were those of insignificant persons who had acted under fear of death. Djoni did not in this telegram allude to the position of those Catholic priests and others in northern Albania who support the Tirana Government and its Italian paymasters; some of them may believe that they are acting in the interest of their country--to act otherwise would be perilous, and everyone seems to know the precise number of napoleons a month--ranging from the 150 of an ecclesiastical magnate down to 7½ (the pay of a simple gendarme)--which they are alleged to receive. Do they ever think of the starving Italian peasants?

On October 7 another telegram was sent from Oroshi (the capital of the Mirditi) to the Tirana Delegation which "protested energetically against the activities of a certain Anthony Achikou." Yet, on October 9, an individual called Notz Pistuli, who had travelled specially from Scutari, presented himself at the Mirdite delegates' hotel, and in the name of the Scutari National Council asked whether a reconciliation could not be made between the Mirditi and the Tirana Government.[94] Being told that the Mirditi would have nothing to do with the Turkish Government of Tirana, he held out hopes that another Government more representative of Albania would soon be constituted. It was remarkable that Tirana should have dispatched this envoy after giving out that the Mirditi were traitors and that their delegates represented nobody.

Lord Robert Cecil did not at first seem to think that their desire for a republic independent of Tirana could be gratified, but on being initiated into the facts of the case and told that definitely to reject them would look as if he were a foe to Christianity, Lord Robert said that such was far from being the case. He would do whatever he could to help them. And on the next day it was decided that, in accordance with the Mirdite request, a Commission should proceed to Albania.

The Italian delegate, Marquis Imperiali, submitted that there was no need to hurry this Commission and Monsieur Djoni explained in a telegram[95] that if the Commission went forthwith it would discover in Albania cannons, rifles and other war material from Italy, that it would find numerous Turkish officers of the Kemalist army who had been brought from Asia Minor in Italian ships, and that it would perceive that the cannons, the Turkish Government of Tirana, the rifles, the Turkish officers, certain Catholic ecclesiastics--in a word, the whole of Albania such as it is to-day is nothing else, said he, but a masked Italian instrument of war against Serbia--while all the bloody consequences of this perpetual struggle have to be endured by the border population.... One afternoon, at the beginning of November, 650 Tirana soldiers, pursued by the Mirditi, gave themselves up to the Serbian authorities on the Black Drin. They had with them a dozen officers of whom two were Italians, and these accounted for themselves by saying that they had come out to organize and to lead the Albanian army.

* * * * *

Now, would this be the best solution of the Albanian problem, that the Mirdite Republic and that of Tirana should both be recognized, since it is quite clear that it would be immoral--and very useless--for Europe to try to persuade the Mirditi to place themselves under the Tirana régime? But there appears to be no doubt that the Moslems of northern Albania--however much they may now sympathize with the Mirditi in their attitude towards Tirana--would just as strenuously resist their own incorporation in a Christian Republic.... Down at the bottom of their hearts all the Albanian delegates who came to Geneva must know that if an Albanian State is larger than one tribe it will go to pieces. Whatever good qualities may be latent in the Albanian, he is as yet--with rare exceptions--in that stage of culture which has no idea of duty on the part of the State or of duty towards the State. As an example of his views on the exercise of authority we may instance the case of the 82 Albanians, led by Islam Aga Batusha (of the village of Voksha), who stopped Pouni[vs]a Ra[vc]i['c] and his companions in the summer of 1921 while they were riding one day from Djakovica to Pe['c]. Pouni[vs]a enjoys the fullest confidence of the border tribes because he has never been known to break his word; they are very conscious that even their vaunted "besa" is not nowadays observed as it was, say fifty years ago, for the Austrian and Italian propaganda schools have had an unfortunate effect. Well, as the 82 sat round Pouni[vs]a and his friends in the courtyard of a mosque, where they spent the whole day confabulating, they said they hoped that he, a just and wise man, would help them; and their principal grievance was that the Serbian police no longer allowed them to kill each other. Why should the police interfere in their private affairs? Recently the police had arrested a man whom one of these protesters wanted to kill, and therefore he thought he would have to kill one of the police. Even those who have spent their lives in Serbia are too often at this stage of development--a few years ago, in the village of Prokuplje, an Albanian assassinated his neighbour and was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. The judge asked the dead man's brother if he was satisfied. "No, I am not," he answered, "because now I shall have to wait twenty years to kill him." Their ancient custom of blood-vengeance continues to flourish, though in Serbia the police and public opinion are against it; thus, at Luka, in the department of Pe['c], one Alil Mahmoud was murdered by a Berisha to avenge his uncle, so that now the sons of this Mahmoud propose to kill a Berisha--not the murderer, but one equal in rank to their late father, and in consequence Ahmed Beg, son of Murtezza Pasha, of Djakovica, is afraid to leave his house, which the Serbian police, at his request, is guarding.

How much the Albanian conceives that he owes a duty to the State may be instanced by the application of a smuggler that he be granted a permit to go to Zagreb in order to dispose of 6000 oka[96] of tobacco which he had brought over the frontier. He was talking to a Serb who has the confidence of the Albanians because he does not treat them as if they were Serbs; and when this father confessor advised him to get rid of the tobacco locally (which he succeeded in doing) the Albanian objected that the excise officers gave him constant anxiety, they were thieves who insisted on payment being made to them if they came across his merchandise. And if it be said that this is too humble a case, we may mention that of Ali Riza, one of the chief officers of the Tirana army which was last year operating against the Serbs. So indifferent is he as to the uniform he bears that the year before last, in Vienna, he begged an influential Serb to recommend him for a lieutenancy in the Serbian army. (His request was not granted because it was ascertained that, besides being unable to read and write, his work as an Austrian gendarme had been more zealous than creditable.)

12. SERBIA'S GOOD INFLUENCE

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 mediæval 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."