The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 14

A battle which took place near Tuzi, not far from Podgorica, in December 1919, may a.s.sist the study of the difficult Albanian question. At the first attack about 150 Montenegrins, mostly young recruits, were killed or wounded; but in the counter-attack the Albanian losses were much greater, 167 of them being made prisoners. On all of these were found Italian rifles, ammunition, money and army rations. On the other hand, a few Montenegrins, with three officers, were also captured and were stripped and handed over, naked, to the Italians. But these declined to have them, saying that the conflict had been no concern of theirs, and the unfortunate men--with the exception of one who escaped--remained among the Albanians. The fact that Tuzi would be of no value to the Italians neither weakens nor strengthens the supposition that they were privy to the Albanian attack; but it may very well be that the natives had taken their Italian equipment by force of arms. It would, anyhow, seem that the Italians have little understanding of this people: during the War, when General Franchet d'Esperey was straightening his line, he paid some hundreds of Albanians to maintain his western flank, and they were very satisfactory. (It troubled them very little whether they were holding it against the Austrians or against other Albanians.) When Italy took over that part of the line she employed a whole Division, which--to the amus.e.m.e.nt, it is said, of Franchet d'Esperey--provided the local population with a great deal of booty, and in particular with mules.

There was constant trouble in those regions of Albania which were occupied by the Italians,[72] and in June 1920 things had come to such a pa.s.s that the Italian garrisons, after being thrown out of the villages of Bestrovo and Selitza, were actually retiring with all the stores they could rescue to Valona. Their retreat, said Reuter, in a euphemistic message from Rome, was "attended by some loss." As Valona was their last stronghold in Albanian territory, it seemed that very few, if any, of the tribes were in favour of an Italian protectorate. And since it was calculated that during the first six months of 1920 the Italian Government was paying from 400 to 500 million lire a month for corn, and the year's deficit might be enough to lead the State to the very verge of bankruptcy, one was asking whether from an economic, apart from any other, point of view, it would not be advisable for the Italians to cut their losses in central Albania. And this they very wisely determined to do. Would that their subsequent policy in northern Albania had been as well-inspired.

It would also seem as if the affair of Tuzi shows that the Albanians have no wish for a Yugoslav protectorate, and there are a good many Serbs, such as Professor Cvijic, who view with uneasiness any extension of their sway over the Albanians. Many of the tribes are prepared, after very small provocation or none, to take up arms against anybody; and those who, in the north and north-east of the country, are in favour of a Yugoslav protectorate would undoubtedly have opposed to them a number of the natives, less because they are fired with the prospect of "Albania for the Albanians" than on account of their patriarchal views. We must, however, at the same time, acknowledge that those Albanians who are impelled by patriotic ideals, and who would like to see their countrymen within the 1913 frontiers, resolutely turn away from the various attractions which the Slavs undoubtedly exercise over many of them and combine in a brotherly fashion, under the guidance of a disinterested State, to work for an independent Albania--those idealists have every right to be heard. Their solution is, in fact, the one that would, as we have elsewhere said, be best for everyone concerned. The late Professor Burrows, who believed in the possibility of such an arrangement, thought that it would take generations for this people "to pa.s.s from blood feud and tribal jealousy to the good order of a unified State, unless they have tutorage in the art of self-government." There seem to be grave difficulties, both external and internal, in the way of setting up such a tutorage over the whole of the 1913 Albania; and if a majority of the northern and north-eastern tribes prefer to turn to Yugoslavia, rather than to join the frustrated patriots and the wilder brethren in turning away from it, they should not be sweepingly condemned as traitors to the national cause. The frame of mind which looks with deep suspicion on a road that links a tribe to its neighbour is not very promising for those who dream of an Albanian nation; it is a prevalent and fundamental frame of mind. "The Prince of Wied," we are told by his countryman, Dr. Max Muller, "succeeded in conquering the hearts of those Albanians who supported him and of gaining the highest respect of those who were his political opponents." No doubt they were flattered when they noticed that he had so far become an Albanian as to surround his residence at Durazzo with barbed-wire entanglements.

Among the solutions of the Albanian problem was that which Dr. Muller very seriously, not to say ponderously, put forward in 1916.[73] This gentleman, with a first-hand knowledge of the country, which he gained during the War, did not minimize the task which would face the Prince of Wied on his return. Of that wooden potentate one may say that his work in Albania did not collapse for the reason that it was never started; a few miles from Durazzo, his capital, from which, I believe, he made only that one excursion whose end was undignified, a few miles away he excited the derision of his "subjects," and a few miles farther off they had not heard of him. Dr. Muller, after reproving us sternly for smiling at the national decoration, in several cla.s.ses, with which his Highness on landing at the rickety pier was graciously pleased to gladden the meritorious natives, admits that at his second coming he will have to take various other steps. Austrians and Germans should be brought to colonize the country, and not peasants, forsooth, like those who have laboriously made good in the Banat, but merchants, manufacturers, engineers, doctors, officials and large landowners--not by any means without close inquiry, so as to admit only such as are in possession of a blameless repute and a certain amount of cash. Dr. Muller was resolved that, so far as lay with him, none but the very best Teutons should embark upon this splendid mission. He desired that, after landing, they should first of all remain at the harbour, there to undergo a course of tuition in the customs and peculiarities of the tribe among which they proposed to settle. His compatriots would be so tactful--apparently not criticizing any of the customs--that the hearts of the Albanians would incline towards them and by their beautiful example they would make these primitive, wild hearts beat not so much for local interests but very fervently for the Albanian fatherland. One cannot help a feeling of regret that circ.u.mstances have prevented us from seeing Dr. Muller's scheme put into action.

3. SERBS, ALBANIANS AND THE MISCHIEF-MAKERS

In 1913, after the Balkan War, the flags of the Powers were hoisted at Scutari, and a frontier dividing the Albanians from the Yugoslavs (Montenegrins and Serbs) was indicated by Austria and traced at the London Conference. This boundary was still awaiting its final demarcation by commissioners on the spot when the European War broke out. Then in the second year of the War disturbances were organized by the Austrians in Albania--their friend the miscreant ruler of Montenegro caused money to be sent for this purpose to the Austro-Hungarian Consul at Scutari--and in April and May of that year the Serbs were authorized by their Allies to protect themselves by occupying certain portions of the country. Various battles took place between those Albanians who were partisans of Austria and those who were disinclined to attack the Serbs in the rear. The Serbian Government opposed the Austrian propaganda by dispatching to that region the Montenegrin Pounia Racic, of whom we have much to say. He was accompanied by Smajo Ferovic, a Moslem sergeant of komitadjis. They explained to the Albanians that the Serbs had been offered a separate peace with numerous concessions, but that Mr. Paic had refused to treat. When the two Albanian parties discussed the situation by shooting at each other, the Austro-Hungarian officers made tracks for Kotor, and that particular intrigue came to an end.

When the War was over, the Serbs, sweeping up from Macedonia, were requested by General Franchet d'Esperey to undertake a task which the Italians refused, and push the demoralized Austrian troops out of Albania. Some weeks after this had been accomplished, the Italians, mindful of the Treaty of London, demanded that a large part of Albania should be given up to their administration. The Serbs agreed and withdrew; they even took away their representative from Scutari, where the Allies had again installed themselves. The Treaty of London bestowed upon the Serbs a sphere of influence in northern Albania, but--save for a few misguided politicians--they were logical enough to reject the whole of the pernicious Treaty, both the clauses which robbed them in Dalmatia and those which in Albania gave them stolen goods. Over and over again did the Yugoslav delegates declare in Paris that it was their wish to see established an independent Albania with the frontiers of 1913. These, the first frontiers which the Albanians had ever possessed, were laid down by Austria with the express purpose of thwarting the Serbs and facilitating Albanian raids. It is true that several towns with large Albanian majorities were made over to the Serbs--very much, as it turned out, to their subsequent advantage--yet, being separated from their hinterland, this was a doubtful gift. Nevertheless, if a free and united Albania could be const.i.tuted the Serbs were ready to accept this frontier, and even Monsieur Justin G.o.dart, the strenuous French Albanophile of whom we speak elsewhere, cannot deny that this att.i.tude of the Yugoslavs redounds very much to their honour. But before relative tranquillity reigns among the Albanians it is, as General Franchet d'Esperey perceived in 1918, an untenable line. He, therefore, drew a temporary frontier which permitted the Serbs to advance for some miles into Albania, so that on the river Drin or on the mountain summits they might ward off attacks. These, by the way, had their origin far more in the border population's empty stomachs than in their animus against the Slavs. And n.o.body with knowledge of this people could regard the 1918 frontier as unnecessary. The Albanians were themselves so much inclined to acquiesce that one must ask why, in the months which followed, there was a considerable amount of border fighting. What was it that caused the Albanians in the region of Scutari to make their violent onslaughts of December 1919 and January 1920, the renewed offensive of July 1920 at the same places--after which the Albanian Government forwarded to that of Belgrade an a.s.surance of goodwill--and the organized thrust of August 13 against Dibra, which was preceded on August 10 by a manifesto to the chancelleries of Europe falsely accusing the Serbs of having begun these operations, and which was followed by the Tirana Government promising to try to find the guilty persons? The 19th of the same month saw the Albanians delivering a further attack in the neighbourhood of Scutari, and then the Yugoslav Government decided that their army must occupy such defensive positions as would put a stop to these everlasting incidents. But a voice was whispering to the Albanians that they must not allow themselves to be so easily coerced. "You have thrown us out of all the land behind Valona," said the voice, "and out of Valona itself.

You must, therefore, be the greatest warriors in the world, and we will be charmed to provide you with rifles and machine guns and munitions and uniforms and cash. We will gladly publish to the world that your Delegation at Rome has sent us an official Note demanding that the Yugoslav troops should retire to the 1913 line, pure and simple. Of course we, like the other Allies, agreed that they should occupy the more advanced positions which General Franchet d'Esperey a.s.signed to them--and to show you how truly sorry we are for having done so, we propose to send you all the help you need. In dealing with us you will find that you have to do with honourable men, whereas the Yugoslavs--what are they but Yugoslavs?"

Anyone who travelled about this time along the road from Scutari down to the port of San Giovanni di Medua would inevitably meet with processions of ancient cabs, ox-wagons and what not, laden with all kinds of military equipment. Some of these supplies had come direct from Italy, while others had been seized from the Italians near Valona. The detachment of Italian soldiers at San Giovanni, and the much larger detachment at Scutari, may have looked with mixed feelings at some of these commodities, but on the other hand they may have thought, with General Bencivenga,[74] that it was good business--"_un buon affare_"--in exchange for Valona to obtain a solid and secure friendship with the Albanians. Roads, as he pointed out, lead from Albania to the heart of Serbia, and for that reason a true brotherhood of arms between Italians and Albanians was, in case of hostilities, enormously to be desired. And so the Italians stationed at Scutari, under Captain Pericone of the Navy, may have felt that it was well that all those cannon captured from their countrymen were in such a good condition.

They would now be turned by the Albanians against the hateful Yugoslavs.

["Italy is the one Power in Europe," says her advocate, Mr. H. E. Goad, in the _Fortnightly Review_ (May 1922), "that is most obviously and most consistently working for peace and conciliation in every field."] ... A further supply of military material is said to have reached the Albanians from Gabriele d'Annunzio in the S.S. _Knin_. To the Irish, the Egyptians and the Turks the poet-filibuster had merely sent greetings.

Some one may have told him that even the most lyrical greeting would not be valued by the Albanians half as much as a shipload of munitions.

For a considerable time the more intelligent Italians had noticed that these two Balkan peoples were disposed to live in amicable terms with one another. Traditions that are so powerful with an illiterate people--under five per thousand of the Albanians who have stayed in their own country can read and write--numerous traditions speak of friendship with the Serbs: Lek, the great legislator, was related to Serbian princes; Skanderbeg was an ally of the Serbs; "Most of the celebrated leaders of northern Albania and Montenegro," says Miss Durham, "seem to have been of mixed Serbian-Albanian blood"; Mustapha Vezir Bushatli strove together with Prince Milo against the Turks, and the same cause united the Serbian authorities to the famous Vezir Mahmud Begovic of Pec. A primitive people like the Albanians admire the warlike attributes beyond all others, and the exploits of the Serbian army in the European War inclined the hearts of the Albanians towards their neighbours. Some of them remembered at this juncture that their great-grandfathers or grandfathers had only become Albanian after having accepted the Muhammedan religion; now the old ikons were taken from their hiding-places. And there was, in fact, between the two Balkan people a spirit of cordiality which gave terrible umbrage to the Italians. So they took the necessary steps: many of the Catholic priests had been in Austria's pay, and these now became the pensioners of Italy.

Monsignor Sereggi, the Metropolitan, used to be anti-Turk but, as was evident when in 1911 he negotiated with Montenegro, he is not personally anti-Slav. Yet he must have money for his clergy, for his seminary, and so forth. His friendship would be easily, one fancies, transferred from Rome to Belgrade if the Serbs are willing to provide the cash--and n.o.body can blame him. Leo Freund, who had been Vienna's secret agent and a great friend of Monsignor b.u.mci, the Albanian bishop, was succeeded by an Italian. But, of course, the new almoner did not confine his gifts to those of his own faith. Many of the leading Moslems were in receipt of a monthly salary, and this was not so serious a burden for the Italians as one might suppose, since Albania is a poor country, and with no Austrian compet.i.tion you found quite prominent personages deigning to accept a rather miserable wage. "And do you think," I asked of Musa Yuka, the courteous mayor of Scutari, "that those mountain tribes are being paid?" "Well," he said, "I think that it is not improbable." ...

At the time of the Bosnian annexation crisis the Serbs had as their Minister of Finance the sagacious Patchou. The War Minister, a General, was strongly in favour of an instant declaration of war, and the Premier suggested that the matter should be discussed. He turned to the Minister of Finance and asked him whether he had sufficient money for such an undertaking. Patchou shook his head. "But our men are patriots! They will go without bread, they will go without everything!" exclaimed the General. "The horses and mules are not patriots," said Patchou, "and if you want them to march you'll have to feed them." The Albanians were so little inclined to go to war with Yugoslavia that the Italians had, in various ways, to feed them nearly all. And what did the Albanians think of these intrigues? At any rate, what did they say? "Italy," quoth Professor Chimig,[75] a prominent Albanian who teaches at Bologna, "Italy is always respected and esteemed as a great nation.... The Albanian Government," said he, "has charged me to declare in public that Albania does not regard herself as victorious against Italy, but is convinced that the Italians, in withdrawing their troops from Valona, were obeying a sentiment of goodness and generosity." Such words would be likely to bring more plentiful supplies from Rome. And fortunately the Italians did not seem to suffer, like the Serbs, from any scruples as to the propriety of taking active steps against another "Allied and a.s.sociated Power." When Zena Beg Riza Beg of Djakovica came in the year 1919 to his brother-in-law Ahmed Beg Mati, one of the Albanian leaders, he told him that the Belgrade Government, in pursuance of their policy "The Balkans for the Balkan peoples," would be glad if the Italians could be ousted from Albania. Zena Beg returned with a request for money, guns and so forth; but they were not sent.

Ahmed Beg and Zena Beg are patriotic young Albanian n.o.blemen of ancient family and great possessions. But Zena Beg has the advantage of living in Yugoslavia, outside the atmosphere of corruption which is darkening his native land. Ahmed Beg, who in 1920 was Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Governor of Scutari and Director (in mufti) of the military operations against the Yugoslavs, did not accept Italian bribes, but he was surrounded by those who did, and thus the gentle and industrious young man was being led to work against his own country's interests. With him at Scutari was another of the six Ministers of the Tirana Government, in the person of the venerable Moslem priest Kadri, Minister of Justice, and one of the four Regents, Monsignor b.u.mci. There was about it all an Oriental odour of the less desirable kind, which caused some observers to say that when Albania obtains her independence she will be a bad imitation of the old Turkey--a little Turkey without the external graces. When the thoughtful greybeard Kadri went limping down the main street, a protecting gendarme dawdled behind him, smoking a cigarette; but this endearing nonchalance was absent from the methods of government: any Albanian whose opinions did not coincide with those of the authorities could only express them at his peril. [Blood-vengeance is, to some extent, being deposed by party-vengeance--this having originated in the time of Wied, when the politicians were divided into Nationalists and Ess.a.d.i.s.ts, after which they became Italophils and Austrophils, who now have been succeeded by Italophils (who ask for an Italian mandate) and Serbophils and Grecophils (who desire that these countries should have no mandate, but should act in a friendly spirit towards an independent Albania). Meanwhile the Italophils, nearly all of them on Italy's pay-roll, were, till a few months ago, in the ascendant, and their att.i.tude towards the other party was relentless.] One Alush Ljocha, for example, said that he thought it would be well if Yugoslavia and Albania lived on friendly terms with one another. Because of this--the Government having adopted other ideas--his house at Scutari was burned,[76] and when we were discussing the matter at the palace of the Metropolitan, Monsignor Sereggi, I found that His Grace was emphatically in accord with a fiery Franciscan poet, Father Fichta, with the more placid Monsignor b.u.mci, and with two other ecclesiastics who were present. "We did well to burn his house, very well, I say!" exclaimed Father Fichta, "because Alush is only a private person and he has no business to concern himself with foreign countries." Of course, when Father Fichta made his comments on foreign countries it was not as a private person but as a responsible editor. Thus in the _Posta e Shqypnis_ during the War he denounced Clemenceau and Lloyd George as such foes of humanity that their proper destination was a cage of wild beasts, and, after having visited France during 1919 as secretary to the sincere and credulous b.u.mci, he contributed anti-French and, I believe, anti-English poems to the _Epopea Shqyptare_.

"I have been told," I said, "by an intelligent Albanian who was educated at Robert College at Constantinople that the greatest hope for the country lies, in his opinion, in the increase of American schools, such as that one at Elbasan and the admirable inst.i.tution at Samakoff in Bulgaria, where the Americans--in order not to be accused of proselytism--teach everything except religion."

"If I had my own way," cried Fichta, "I would shut up these irreligious American schools. Religion is the base of the social life of this country."

"And you and the Muhammedans," I asked, "do you think that your co-operation has a good prospect of enduring? With a country of no more than one and a half million inhabitants it is essential that you should be united."

"G.o.d in Heaven! Who can tolerate such things?" exclaimed the Metropolitan. That very corpulent old gentleman was bouncing with rage on his sofa. "Is it not horrible," he cried in Italian, "that this man should dare to come to my house and make propaganda against us?"

"Really, sir, I am astonished," said Monsignor b.u.mci, reproachfully, in French, "that you should ask such a question." [It was answered a few weeks later, when Halim Beg Derala and Zena Beg--who, being outside Albania, were free to utter non-Governmental opinions--said that they had not the slightest doubt but that the friendship between the fanatic Moslem and the fanatic Catholic would come to an end and each of them would again in the first place think of his religion, so that, as heretofore, they would regard themselves as Turkish and Latin people rather than as Albanian. This foible does not apply to the Orthodox Albanians of the South, who are more patriotic.] "I am astonished," said the Monsignor, "that you should question our friendship with the Moslem.

They have been the domineering party, but all that is finished, and we are the best of friends. See, they have chosen me to be one of the Regents![77] Our Government of all the three religions is very good, and," said he, as he thumped the arm of his chair, "it insists on the Albanians obtaining justice in spite of our enemies."

It chanced that I had met Father Achikou, Doctor of Theology and Philosophy, in the Franciscan church. Because his brother had had occasion to kill an editor in self-defence, this, perhaps the most enlightened, member of the Albanian Catholic clergy, had been compelled to remain for eight months in the church and its precincts, seeing that the Government was powerless to guarantee that he would not be overtaken by that national curse, the blood-vengeance.

"Well, one cannot praise the custom of blood-vengeance," said the Monsignor.

"You spoke," I said, "of your Government insisting on justice for the Albanians."

And some time after this Professor Achikou and another prominent young priest were deported to Italy and, I believe, interned in that country.... With their fate we may compare that of Dom Ndoc Nikai, a priest whose anti-Slav paper, the _Bessa Shqyptare_, is alleged to exist on its Italian subsidy, and Father Paul Doday, whom Italy insisted on installing as Provincial of all the Franciscans (after vetoing at Rome the appointment of Father Vincent Prennushi, whom nearly all the Franciscans in Albania had voted for). Father Doday, it is interesting to note, is of Slav nationality, for he comes from Janjevo in Kossovo, but he studied in Italy, and has abandoned the ways of his ancestors.

This town of some 500 houses, inhabited by Slavs from Dalmatia and a few Saxons who are now entirely Slavicized, still retains a costume that resembles the Dalmatian, as also a rather defective Dalmatian dialect.

The Austrians for thirty years endeavoured to Albanize them, but the people resisted this and boycotted the church and school. The priest Lazar, who defended their Slav national conscience, was persecuted and forced to flee to Serbia--he is now Mayor of Janjevo. It usually happened, by the way, that the priests of this Catholic town came from Dalmatia; but the Slav idea could bridge over the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, so that if no Catholic priest was available his place would be taken by an Orthodox priest from a neighbouring village. Only a few of the natives are anti-nationalists, having been brought up, like Father Doday, in some Italian or Austrian seminary.

There are in Albania to-day about ten such priests who come from Janjevo.... How well this Father Doday has served his masters may be seen in the case of the Franciscan priest in Shala, who, with the whole population of armed Catholics, resisted the Italian advance of 1920.

Together with Lieut. Lek Marashi he organized komitadjis in Shala and elsewhere, his purpose being to liberate his country from the Italians.

Since these latter could do nothing else against him they compelled the Bishop of Pulati to punish him; however, all that the Bishop did was to tell the patriot priest to go away. But Father Doday was more willing to work for the Italians; he excommunicated his fellow-countryman, on the ground that he would not come to Scutari, where his life would have been in danger.

4. THE STATE OF ALBANIAN CULTURE

But, you may say, one cannot in fairness expect the new Albanian Government to achieve in so short a time what the Serbian Government has effected among the Albanians of Kossovo, who are being persuaded to relinquish their devastating custom of blood-vengeance. Prior to March 1921, over 400 of its devotees and of brigands had given themselves up in Kossovo--turning away from the old days when, as one of them expressed it, "a shot from my rifle was heard at a distance of three hours' travel"; one of the most eminent among them disdained to surrender to a local authority and made his way to Belgrade, where he presented himself one afternoon to the astonished officials at the Ministry of the Interior. "After all," as Miss Durham has written, "the most important fact in northern Albania is blood-vengeance." What we must set out to probe is whether the Albanians, if they are left to themselves, will be able after a time to administer their country in a reasonably satisfactory manner.... Their culture is admittedly a very low one. In the realm of art a few love-songs and several proverbs were all that Consul Hahn could collect for his monumental work,[78] though his researches, which lasted for years, took him all over the country.

One of these love-songs, a piece of six lines, will give some idea of their aesthetic value; a lover, standing outside the house of his lady, invites her to come out to him immediately; he threatens that if she disobeys him he will have his hair cut in the Western style, nay more, he will have it washed and then he will return, howling like a dog.

Consul Hahn's summing up of the Albanians, by the way, stated that the social life of Caesar's _Bellum Gallic.u.m_ was applicable to the tribes which now inhabit southern Albania, those of the north not being equal to so high a standard. Yastrebow, the well-known Russian Consul-General, tells us of the villages of Retsch and Tschidna, where in winter men and women clothe themselves with rags, in summer with no rags--so that in the warmer months a visitor, presumably, in order not to shock the natives, would take the precaution of depositing his clothes in some convenient cavern. On the other hand, when the ladies in waiting on the Princess of Wied drove out in low-cut dresses, it being warm weather, the people of Durazzo were scandalized at what they called the terrible behaviour of their Prince's harem. These mountain people live on maize and milk and cheese--salt is unknown to them. Baron Nopsca is regarded by the few educated Albanians as the most competent foreign observer. He knew the language well and travelled everywhere. One custom he relates of the Merturi is the sprinkling of ashes on a spot where they suspect that treasure is buried; on the next morning they look to see what animal has left on the ashes the print of its feet, and this tells them what sacrifice the guardian of the treasure demands--sheep or hen or human being. Miss Durham says that human excrement and water is the sole emetic known to the Albanians; it is used in all cases of poisoning. But the Albanian's death is most frequently brought about by gun-shot. "In Toplana," as they say, "people are killed like pigs"--42 per cent. of the adults, according to Nopsca, dying a violent death. "It was her good government and her orderliness that obtained for her her admission to the League of Nations," said the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in the _Morning Post_ of November 29, 1921. And the enthusiastic President of the Anglo-Albanian Society is modest enough to refrain from telling us how much she was indebted to his own championship. The evil eye is feared in Albania more than syphilis or typhus. Siebertz[79] mentions a favourite remedy, which is to spit at the patient. A ceremonial spitting is also used by anyone who sees two people engaged in close conversation; very likely they are plotting against the third party, and by his timely expectoration their wicked plans will be upset.

Absurd as it may sound, there are not a few Albanian apologists who lay the entire blame upon the Turks. They a.s.sert--and it is true--that Constantinople left this distant province so completely almost to its own devices that the suzerain might just as well not have existed. A few Turkish officials lived in the towns, in the country they showed themselves when they were furtively travelling through it; and the chief officials, such as the Vali of Scutari, were wont to be Albanians. And, being left by the Turks to evolve their own salvation, they turned Albania into a region of utter darkness--at any rate, they did practically nothing to shake off the barbarism which they had inherited.

They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediaeval ideas on the sanct.i.ty of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their honour,[80] their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are very abstemious, their morals are pure, they have certain mental qualities, as yet undeveloped, and they are thrifty. But "they are so devoid of both originality and unity," says Sir Charles Eliot,[81] that acutest of observers, "that it is vain to seek for anything in politics, art, religion, literature or customs to which the name Albanian can be properly applied as denoting something common to the Albanian race."

The apologists, such as Miss Durham, argue that the other Balkan peoples suffered from a good deal of internal tumult after they had set themselves up as independent countries. And it is submitted that the Albanians would gradually develop the same national spirit as their neighbours. But there are as yet, Miss Durham must acknowledge, very few signs that this will ever come to pa.s.s.

"We are Albanians," said Monsignor b.u.mci, "we ask for Albania! We demand it! Surely you can see that we are all marching together, men from all parts of Albania, marching against the Yugoslavs. I say we are united."

And some miles from Scutari a part of the Albanian army was returning from a foray into Yugoslavia. When they came into the territory of a certain tribe they were compelled, by way of toll, to surrender their booty. Such incidents occurred in several places, so that obviously the conditions still prevail that were described in 1905 by Karl Steinmetz,[82] an Austrian engineer who learned the language and travelled through the country in the disguise of a Franciscan monk. "The tribes cannot conceive the idea of a higher unity," says he in one of his valuable books. [So that in attempting to build up the new State these tribal inst.i.tutions should be used as much as possible. Except in the towns, which play a relatively small part in the country's life, the voting should be by tribes.] "How could a Nikaj and a Shala meet," says he, "except for mutual destruction? Will a Mirdite for a nice word give up his bandit expeditions to the plain? The local antagonisms are as yet far too great." More often than not you would find that the Albanians regard each other as at the time of the Balkan War, when, for example, a Serbian cavalry officer took the village of Puka and asked the mayor to lead him to the neighbouring village of Duci. His worship consented, but after walking on ahead for half an hour he stopped. "We are now midway between the two villages," he said, "and I can go no farther." "Unless you continue," said the captain, "I shall be obliged to have you shot."

"_Nukahaile_ [I don't care]," said the Albanian. "It is all the same to me whether I am killed by you or by the men of Duci, and I certainly shall be killed if I show myself there."

"We are all united, Catholic and Moslem. It is splendid!" said Monsignor b.u.mci. "And we are not by any means fanatical--with us it is the country first and our religion afterwards."

Certainly the Shqyptar is not so good a churchman as we have sometimes been led to believe. Prenk Bib Doda is said to have cherished the precepts of the Catholic Church with such devotion that he could not bring himself to inst.i.tute divorce proceedings against his childless wife. We are told that his mother was animated with similar scruples, and that, to solve this awkward question the old lady one day seized a rifle and shot her daughter-in-law dead. There is not more truth in this tale than in that of the brigands who, on a certain Friday, overpowered and slew a caravan of merchants between Dibra and Prizren. On examining their spoil they are said to have discovered a large amount of meat, but, as it was Friday, to have refrained from consuming it. Prenk Bib Doda was, as a matter of fact, impotent; and his widow, Lucia Bib Doda, survives him.... One agrees with Monsignor b.u.mci that the Albanian is not altogether so blindly a supporter of his Church as we have been told, and his murderous intentions against a neighbouring tribe will be not at all diminished if they happen to profess the same religion as himself.

"Anyone can see," quoth the Monsignor, "that the Government is dear to us. Men are coming from all over the country, anxious to execute its wishes and to be enrolled against the Yugoslav."

Yes, we saw numbers of men tramping up to Scutari, from boys to septuagenarians. They were going to fight--it pleased them enormously.

But if the Tirana Government had ordered them to go back and work on their fields, if it had asked them to take some precautions against the ravages of syphilis, if it had expressed the hope that they would no longer sell their women for an old Martini, or that the village prefects would pay some regard to sanitary matters--in the whole of Albania, says Siebertz, there is only one W.C.--then they would have laughed at this Government which tried to lay a hand on their ancestral liberties.

"The end of it all is," said the Monsignor, "we are Albanians. We demand the independence of our country."

"As a Latin," writes Professor Katarani,[83] "I was fire and flame for Albania.... But after a few months I was forced not only to change my views about them, but to regret all that I had written in the _Mattino_ and the _Tribuna_.... They are not a people, but tribes ... they are against every principle of public officials, they live the most primitive lives. I who know Albania from end to end, who have sacrificed myself for that country, am absolutely convinced that there could be no greater misfortune than if, in its present state, it were given autonomy or independence. Otherwise I confess that an Albania free from any foreign Power would be to the interest of Italy." And he concludes by saying that the Albanians have done nothing to deserve an independent State. It is well known that in the Albanian Societies that after May 1913 were engaged at Constantinople and Sofia, at Rome and Vienna, in striving for the independence of the country it was not the Albanians themselves who had the chief word. Those who were initiated into secret Balkan policies were aware that Albania was the domain with which Article 7 of the old Triple Alliance was concerned.... The fiery Albanian patriot, Basri Bey, Prince of Dukagjin, also agrees that in the beginning an independent Albania would be productive of anarchy. "I greatly regret to acknowledge it," says he,[84] "but Albania is, so to speak, the cla.s.sic type of a country which has never had a real government." Nevertheless, he is strongly in favour of independence, his reasons being because Albania is "at the same time the old mother and the youngest daughter of the Balkans." This flamboyant prince and doctor and deputy who denounces both Essad Pasha and his nephew Ahmed Beg Mati, has got his own panacea for the country, which is a Turkish army of occupation commanded by a French general. Basri Bey seems to confirm the remarks of his more enlightened co-religionists, Halim Beg Derala and Zena Beg, for whereas the Moslems can claim no more than a rather larger third of the inhabitants, he calmly a.s.sumes that the whole country is Moslem. Albania, he says, is now more than ever attached to Turkey, for the attachment is purely moral. ... The influence of this gentleman seems to be confined to Dibra, but he has a good opinion of his own importance. In 1915, in the days of the greatness of Essad Pasha, he set up a Government at Dibra with himself as Prime Minister and Essad Pasha as his Minister of the Interior! There does not seem to be much justification for Basri Bey to call himself a prince. He is a Pomak, for his ancestors were Bulgars who accepted Islam. His father was an official of the Turkish Government at Philippopolis.

Father Fichta told me that his countrymen would do very well indeed if they could import from other parts of Europe financial help, technicians and judges. Some years ago the Turks settled to send two judges to Scutari; then the Albanians would no longer be able to charge them with not administering the law, so that each man was obliged to take it into his own hands. "It is entirely your fault," said the Albanians, "that we are driven to adopt the method of blood-vengeance." So thoroughly did they adopt it that the a.s.sa.s.sinations in the region of Prizren, Djakovica and Pec amounted, according to Gluck, to a total of about six hundred a year. The Turks therefore sent a couple of judges to Scutari, and on the day after their arrival they were murdered.

What memory have the Albanians of their own great men? One sultry afternoon, as we were driving in a mule cart from the quaint town of Alessio, the driver lashed his mule with a long stick; but after half a mile of this, the animal applied a hind-leg sharply to the driver's mouth. He roared and fell back in our arms and bled profusely and was doctored by the fierce gendarme, who put a handful of tobacco on the wound, so that the driver had to keep his mouth shut. For the remainder of the afternoon our mule went at a walking pace, and presently, to while away the time, we begged the gendarme and a merchant of Alessio, who was travelling with us, to repeat the song of some old hero, such as Skanderbeg. They stared--their mouths were also shut. And finally the gendarme said he knew a hero-song. It dealt with Zeph, a man with sheep, and Mark who stole them. "Give me back my sheep," said Zeph. "No, no!" said Mark. "Beware!" said Zeph. And one day, as he hid behind a wall, he fired at Mark and slew him. "That is the song," said the gendarme, "about the hero Zeph."

To whatever state of culture the Albanians may climb, I think it will be generally agreed that some regime other than unaided independence must, in the meantime, be established there. One hears of those who argue that Albania should forthwith be for the Albanians, because they are a gifted and a very ancient people. They are not more gifted than the Basques, and their antiquity is not more wonderful. Nor do they stand on a higher level of culture with respect to their neighbours than do the Basques as compared with theirs. Not many tears are shed by the Basques or by anyone else because those interesting men are all the subjects of France or Spain.

5. A METHOD THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN TRIED IN ALBANIA

If only the Albanian question would be taken in hand by humanitarians.... Here you have one and a half million of wild children.... Build them schools and roads, police their country--they themselves agree that the savage atmosphere in the northern mountains was radically altered by the Austrians when they occupied that country during the War. One has heard of numerous philanthropic societies in Great Britain whose object has been more remote and less deserving; if some such society would turn to Albania, their educational and economic labours might, after a time, be made self-supporting by the permission to exploit--of course, with due regard to Albania's future--the forests and mines. "To be master in Albania," says M. Gabriel Hanotaux, "one would have to dislodge the inhabitants from their eyries"--(another French statesman has used a less exalted simile: "Albania," M. Briand once said, "is an international lavatory")--and it goes without saying that any corporation which undertakes to civilize the Shqyptart would need to bring in a military force, on similar lines to the Swedish _gendarmerie_ in Persia. The Swedes, in fact, who are a military nation, might be glad to accept this mandate; the expenses could be met by an international fund. A certain number of Albanians would be admitted to the _gendarmerie_; and the more unruly natives would be dealt with as they were, for everybody's good, by Austria.... The Yugoslavs would then be delighted to accept the 1913 frontier, which is also what the Albanians ask for; and Yugoslavs, Italians and Greeks would all retire from Albania. There is really no need for the Italians to demand Valona or Saseno, the island which lies in front of it. The Italian naval experts know very well that the possession of Pola, Lussin and Lagosta would not be made more valuable by the addition of an Albanian base.

6. THE ATTRACTION OF YUGOSLAVIA

But as Europe has not arrived at some such solution, and since the Albanian Government has been prematurely recognized by the Powers, then while the Albanians are engaged in the stormy process of working out their own salvation, it is only fair that Yugoslavia should be given a good defensive frontier. The 1913 frontier is only possible if the Albanians are pacific, but as it has now been thought wise to set up an unaided and independent Albanian State there is nothing more certain than the turmoil of which its borders will be the scene, and this will be so whether the Italians do or do not come to the Albanians'

a.s.sistance. What hope is there of even a relative tranquillity on the Albanian border when so many of the natives, preferring Yugoslav rule to that of their own countrymen, will be waging a civil war? That this preference is fairly widespread one could see in 1920 by the number of refugees on the Yugoslav side of the frontier. [Of course, a large number of Albanians also fled to Scutari and elsewhere from the districts lately occupied by the Yugoslav army. In both cases the refugees were moved sometimes by hopes for a brighter future, sometimes by fears which were caused by their clouded past. To speak first of those who fled on account of a guilty conscience, it is evident that these were more numerous among the refugees in Albania than among those in Yugoslavia, for it was the Yugoslav authorities and not the Albanian who extended their sway. Mr. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., wrote[85] "that in the North the Yugoslavs had destroyed more than 120 Albanian villages."

It would have been interesting if he had given us their names, because the Yugoslavs appear to have set about it so thoroughly that one cannot find anything like that number on the Austrian maps, which are the best pre-war maps for those regions. The Anglo-Albanian Society tells the British public, in November, 1920, of the 30,000 dest.i.tute refugees in Albania, and in such a way that the cause of their exodus is ascribed, without more ado, to the terrible Yugoslav. But as the names are known of a good many Albanians who did not wait for the Yugoslav army, on account of past troubles between themselves and Yugoslavs, as also between themselves and other Albanians, it would have been as well if the Anglo-Albanian Society had reminded the public that all who fly in those parts are not angels. It would, on the other hand, be just as rash to sing the undiluted praise of those Albanians who, at odds with the Tirana Government, thought it opportune to leave their native land; but one can safely say, I think, that among these wanderers there was a larger proportion of laudable men....] Yugoslavia attracts the Albanians for more than one reason--not so much because the ancestors of many of these Muhammedan Albanians were, and not so long ago, Christians, as because inclusion in Yugoslavia would be to their economic advantage--Scutari can scarcely exist without the Yugoslav hinterland, while the people of the mountains are longing for that railway which the Yugoslavs will only build over land which is moderately immune from depredation. Other causes which have made so many of the borderland Albanians--to speak only of them--turn their eyes to Yugoslavia are the admiration which any primitive people feels for military prowess and the knowledge of what has taken place in the Prizren-Pec-Djakovica region since it came into possession of the Serbs in 1913. Let us in the first place see what sentiments are now entertained by the Albanian natives of that region towards their rulers. It goes without saying that these sentiments are perfectly well known to those Albanians who live outside the Yugoslav frontier.

Well, at Suva Rieka, near Prizren, for example, I found that all the Muhammedan inhabitants of Serbian origin are aware that they used to celebrate the Serbian national custom of "Slava," still keep up the Serbian Christmas Eve customs and often practise the old Christian nine days' wailing for the dead. Some of us may think that this new pro-Serbian tendency is rather on account of utilitarian reasons; the great thing is that it should exist. With rare exceptions, the people of Suva Rieka used to live by plunder; now they are sending their children to the Serbian school, at any rate the boys, and for the study of religion the authorities have made arrangements with a local Moslem. It is to be regretted that Miss Edith Durham, whose writings were so pleasant in the days before she became a more uncompromising pro-Albanian than most of the Albanian leaders, says that if these children go to Serbian schools it merely shows to what lengths of coercion the Serbs will resort. In 1912-1913 Serbian and Montenegrin officers seem to have told her that severe measures would be employed against any recalcitrant Albanian parent who might decline to send his son to school. a.s.suming that these officers were not young subalterns, that they were quite sober and that they were not rudely "pulling Miss Durham's leg," it may be urged that even if the children be driven to school at the point of the bayonet, such conduct would compare favourably with that of the Albanians towards the Serbs in Turkish times. Talking of coercion, I suppose that the progress in agricultural methods which one sees around Prizren is only further evidence of Serbian tyranny. The _gendarmerie_ on the country roads is composed largely of Muhammedan Albanians--doubtless the Serbs have coerced them by some horrible threats. And if Miss Durham were to hear that Ramadan (_ne_ Stojan) Stefanovic of the village of Musotisti had decided to return to the Orthodox faith to which his brothers George and Ilja had been more faithful than himself--such variegated families are not uncommon--I believe, though I may be doing her an injustice, that her first impulse would be to write to the papers in drastic denunciation of the Serbian authorities. They have, like most of us, sufficient to regret--for example, the person whom they sent to Pec, when they wanted the land to be distributed, was King Peter's Master of the Horse.