The Italian Campaign of Albania (in Italian: Campagna Italiana di Albania), took place between 1916 and 1918 in the territory of Albania, as part of the wider events of the Balkans theatre of World War I.
At the outbreak of the war, Albania, which had been independent for less than two years, was in a state of deep internal crisis, with the weak government of Prime Minister Essad Pasha (allied with the Kingdom of Serbia) undermined by armed groups supported by Austria-Hungary and by the territorial claims of neighboring states, particularly Italy and Greece. The defeat of the Serbian army by the Central Powers in October 1915 and its retreat towards the Adriatic coast through northern Albania prompted Austria-Hungary to invade the country and, conversely, Italy to deploy its expeditionary force to protect the Serbian soldiers during the retreat and to maintain possession of the strategic port of Valona (which was occupied in December 1914); the situation stabilized at the end of 1916, with the Austro-Hungarians masters of the northern and central regions and the Italians of the south, where they found support from French forces engaged on the Macedonian front. Meanwhile, to protect the Greek minority, Greek control was established in the southern districts replacing the Northern Epirote units beginning in October 1914, but Italian troops drove the Greeks from southern Albania in 1916.
The Albanian front remained stationary until mid-1918 when, as part of the larger offensives undertaken by the Allies in the Balkans, the Italian forces went on the attack, progressively overrunning the Austro-Hungarians area by October 31, 1918. The signing of the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918 marked the end of hostilities with Austria-Hungary.
Historical context
Constitution of Independent Albania
Long a possession of the Ottoman Empire, Albania gained independence on the eve of World War I: in January 1912 a large revolt in Albanian territories forced the Ottoman authorities to accept an agreement granting broad autonomy to the region, and on 28 November 1912 an assembly of local nationalists gathered in Vlorë proclaimed the independence of the nation as "independent Albania" and the establishment of a provisional Albanian government headed by Ismail Qemali. The neighbouring Balkan nations, however, had different expansionist aims on the territories of Albania itself, aims which came to fruition during the events of the First Balkan War (October 1912-May 1913): the Kingdom of Montenegro aimed at annexing the city of Scutari in the north, the Kingdom of Serbia aspired to the possession of northern and central Albania in order to obtain an outlet to the Adriatic Sea (which concluded in the formation of the Drač County), while the Kingdom of Greece aimed at occupying Northern Epirus, a region inhabited by a large Greek minority.
The expansionist aims of the states of the "Balkan League" found prompt opposition from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which in particular opposed the obtaining of an outlet to the sea for enemy Serbia, and from the Kingdom of Italy, which looked favourably upon an independent Albania on which to exercise a dominant political influence. The ambassadors of the main European powers, meeting in London to redraw the territorial layout of the Balkans, now irremediably changed by the conflict, therefore supported the idea of an independent Albania to which the nations of the League had to submit: the Treaty of London of 30 May 1913, concluding the First Balkan War, therefore recognised the institution of an independent Albanian state extending from Scutari to Northern Epirus. For the government of the new state the great powers chose a German prince, Wilhelm of Wied, who on 7 March 1914 was crowned as sovereign of the Principality of Albania, for which the International Control Commission, appointed by the powers, was given the task of organizing the administration of the new state with the help of an International Gendarmerie composed of local troops supervised by Dutch officers, who were gradually replaced by German and Austrian officers who arrived in Durazzo on July 4.
Collapse of the Central Government
The internal situation of independent Albania was more chaotic than ever, a condition fueled both by the destabilizing maneuvers of neighboring nations and by political divisions among the Albanian nationalists themselves. Essad Pasha, former Ottoman general and leader of the resistance of Scutari to the siege of the Montenegrins, established in October 1913 a "Republic of Central Albania" with its headquarters in Durazzo, presenting itself as an alternative to the provisional government of Ismail Qemali located in Valona; under pressure from the European powers Essad then accepted the post of Minister of the Interior in the nascent government of Prince Wilhelm, but in January 1914, strong in the support of the Serbs, he attempted a coup d'état in Elbasan with the units of the Albanian gendarmerie, clashing with the units of the International Gendarmerie and those of the regular army that remained faithful to Wilhelm. In the south, on 28 February 1914 the regions inhabited by Greeks proclaimed independence as the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus under the leadership of Georgios Christakis-Zografos with the open support of the government of Athens, while in the north the local Catholic clans supported by Austria-Hungary with an anti-Serbian function established their own militias under the leadership of Prênk Bibë Doda and Bajram Curri, who were joined by the armed groups of the nationalist leader Isa Boletini recruited among the Albanian expatriates of Kosovo, who fled after the annexation of the region to Serbia; the rest of the country was then affected by widespread banditry, as well as riots organised by the various clans against each other.
The anti-Muslim alliance between the Catholics of the north, the Kosovars of Boletini and the Gendarmerie of Prince Wilhelm put Essad Pasha's forces in a hard situation, forcing him into exile in Italy in May 1914; a vast peasant revolt of Muslim inspiration, led by Haxhi Qamili from the central regions and in favour of a restoration of Ottoman rule over Albania, however, put the central authorities in such difficulty that their control was reduced in practice to the sole provisional capital of Durazzo after the capture by the rebels of Berat on 12 July 1914 and of Valona on 21 August. On 3 September 1914 Prince Wilhelm, although not formally renouncing his role as monarch, left Albania to take refuge in Venice and was exlied there without trial. Three days later, the International Control Commission ceased to exist, leaving the country at the mercy of chaos.
The Albanian Senate appealed to the exiled Essad Pasha to form a new government; with Italian support, on 17 September 1914 Essad signed a treaty of alliance with Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić which guaranteed him economic and military support for his work of reconquering Albania. Essad returned to Albania in October 1914 and his forces quickly secured control of Durazzo and the central regions, but failed to restore order in the rest of the country: while the northern regions remained out of control, after clashes between Essad's men and Epirote independentists, on 27 October 1914 the Greek army invaded Northern Epirus and established a military administration on the territories formerly part of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus.
The Greek move worried the Italian government, fearful that Athens was acting under the aegis of Austria-Hungary to guarantee Vienna the possession of Valona and therefore the passage through the Strait of Otranto; presenting its move as an attempt to limit the smuggling of arms into the Albanian region, on 31 October 1914 the government of Prime Minister Antonio Salandra ordered the occupation of the Albanian islet of Saseno by a landing force of the Regia Marina, followed on 26 December by the unopposed landing in the port of Valona of units of Italian sailors later joined by a regiment of bersaglieri and a battery of mountain artillery of the Regio Esercito.
Course of the campaign
First operations and serbian front
The events of the internal crisis in Albania were now becoming linked to those of the First World War, which began on 28 July 1914 with the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary against Serbia (July Crisis) when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. The Austro-Hungarians began to supply weapons and funds to the Catholic militias of Bajram Curri and the Kosovar armed groups of Isa Boletini so that they could conduct raids and harassment actions against Serbian positions in Kosovo. The situation of the pro-Serbian government of Essad Pasha worsened in November, with the entry into the war of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central Powers: the authorities in Constantinople (Istanbul) proclaimed a jihad against the nations of the Triple Entente and their allies, and groups of Muslim rebels soon put Essad's Albanian gendarmes in a tight spot, cutting him off and effectively besieging him inside Durazzo.
Essad's critical position prompted his Serbian allies to intervene: on 29 May 1915, a contingent of 20,000 Serbian soldiers under the command of General Dragutin Milutinović invaded northern Albania from three directions, quickly dispersing the pro-Habsburg militias of Curri and Boletini, forcing them to take refuge in their strongholds in the district of Mirdita; within ten days the Serbs extended their occupation to the central regions, taking Elbasan and Tirana and freeing Essad's forces in Durazzo from the siege of the Muslim rebels. Taking advantage of the situation, on 11 June King Nicholas I of Montenegro, an ally of the Serbs, ordered the occupation of Albanian territory north of the Drin River, and on 15 June the Montenegrins entered Scutari; although at least formally Essad's government was in favour of the Triple Entente, the Allied governments began to formulate a territorial division of Albania between Montenegro, Serbia, Greece and Italy, and agreements in this sense were outlined during the stipulation in April 1915 of the London Pact with the Italian government, which was about to declare war against Austria-Hungary.
The entry into the war of the Kingdom of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers on 7 October 1915 sealed the fate of Serbia: attacked from the north by a joint Austro-German army and from the east by the Bulgarians, the Serbian army was defeated and routed towards the region of Kosovo; the landing of Anglo-French forces at Salonika failed to bring any benefit to Serbia, as the Bulgarian troops quickly occupied Vardar Macedonia, preventing the reunion of the allies. On 28 November 1915, the Serbian commander-in-chief, General Radomir Putnik, ordered a general retreat from Kosovo towards northern Albania and the Adriatic coast, from where the Serbs hoped to obtain relief from the Allied naval forces: in the middle of winter, under heavy snowfall and with poor supplies of food, the Serbian forces had to cross the difficult mountainous region of Prokletije, losing tens of thousands of men to hardship, hypothermia and attacks by Albanian irregulars before reaching the areas controlled by Essad Pasha's gendarmes.
Serbian evacuation and Italian intervention
Faced with the collapse of Serbia in October 1915, the Entente governments pressured Italy to send a contingent to Albania and to make its naval forces in the Adriatic available to bring supplies to Putnik's men. After long discussions between the Italians, French and British about the distribution of the burden of the operation, on 22 November 1915 the naval supply missions from Italy to Albania began, while at the beginning of December the landing of Italian troops began: on 1 December a naval convoy brought to Valona the first 5,000 soldiers of the "Italian Special Corps of Albania", brought to a total of 28,000 men under General Emilio Bertotti by mid-December and to 50,000 men in January, with the "Savona" and "Verona" brigades, two regiments of territorial militia, a cavalry squadron, three mountain batteries and four heavy artillery batteries.
The Austro-Hungarian fleet attempted to disturb these operations: on 5 December the light cruiser Novara with four destroyers and three torpedo boats bombarded the port of San Giovanni di Medua sinking two cargo ships, while on 6 December the cruiser Helgoland with six destroyers attacked the roadstead of Durazzo sinking two Italian and three Albanian sailing ships. On 29 December the Helgoland and five destroyers carried out a new action against Durazzo, but the group ended up in a naval minefield losing the destroyer Lika while the same type Triglav, damaged, was then sunk after being intercepted by an Anglo-French-Italian naval group. The failure led to the suspension of Austro-Hungarian surface raids against traffic directed to Albania, which were countered by the actions of thesubmarines only.