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The Battle of Vlora (1920)
Date posted: Tuesday, August 4, 1992
Author: Van Christo

Something rather magnificent happened to me about five years ago, and that was the rediscovery of my Albanian heritage. And while I can honestly state that I hadn't really forgotten it, my Albanianism -- Shqipetarizme -- lay dormant somewhere in my being because like all enterprising Albanian-Americans I believed I had more important things to do -- you know, places to go, things to see, horizons to conquer -- vitally important things like that. But as a result of my visit to Rome in 1968 to participate in the commemoration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of Albania's national hero, Skanderbeg, a new wave of national consciousness swept over me and my life hasn't been the same since. And by that I mean that my life, because of this new renaissance, is richer and more meaningful. So, tonight, I would like to talk to you about those most glorious of all the European peoples, the Albanians.

A few summers ago, I attended a picnic sponsored, coincidentally, by this church, St. Mary's Assumption. It was more or less the typical sort of Albanian picnic, that is, up on one side of a little hill, a group of old timers were singing folk songs in Albanian: "Vemi do vemi, ne mes te pyllit do vemi" --- a favorite love song from southern Albania. But one other song in particular caught my attention, and although I had heard the song before many times in my early youth, it seemed to have a special interest for me, and the song I am referring to is "Vlora":

"Jam vlonjat e jam vlonjat, Shkaben e kam mëm e at, Shkabe trime dykrenore, Fron e saj e ka ne Vlora." ("I'm a Vlorian, I'm a Vlorian, The eagle is my mother and father, Brave double-headed eagle, Her throne lies in Vlora.")

Some of you know the song and know it well, its origin and, especially, its meaning, but I didn't, So after some investigation and exploration, I discovered that the song commemorated a battle which took place between the Italians and the Albanians on June 5th, 1920 that began as small skirmishes and then developed into a real battle by June 15th in the seacoast town of Vlora in southern Albania. And that's what I am going to describe very briefly to you tonight -- the Battle of Vlora. You will be amazed at how little there is written in the English language about this historic battle, a battle which, incidentally, represented the last major fighting on Albanian soil between Albanians and foreigners until the Italian invasion of Albania on Good Friday, April 7th, 1939.

And it was certainly because of the fierce fighting spirit shown by the Albanians during this very significant battle that the destiny of Albania was changed. That's how important the battle of Vlora was, and it seems rather extraordinary to me that we haven't accorded this particular uprising with the historical meaning that I feel it so richly deserves. There is a book on this battle written in the Albanian language (Lufta e Vlores by Ago Agaj, published by Harmony Printing, Ltd., Toronto, Canada) but precious little exists in English. It is impossible in the time that I have to do justice to all of the events that led up to and transpired during this historic battle. Rather, I will try to relate some of the high points to give you a picture of the times and the important effect they had in the final emergence of Albania as an independent nation.

To begin with, let me set the stage in this manner: after the proclamation of Albania as a free nation by Ismail Qemali on November 28, 1912, coincidentally in the town of Vlora, the boundaries of Albania were defined by the Great European Powers in 1913. It would be the subject of many talks to describe the 1913 agreement, so let me hopscotch over it to the end of World War One and the Peace Conference in France in 1919, where the Albanian question -- that is, its future and the official boundaries -- were being discussed. Among those present for the Great Powers at the Peace Conference were Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of England and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America. The English, through the connivance of the Greeks, supported Greek territorial claims to southern Albania especially Korça, where I was born, and Gjirokaster, but I want to digress for a few moments to talk about the Greek occupation which was then taking place in southern Albania. Albanian school children were forced to learn the Greek language since the teaching of Albanian was prohibited. Sometimes, prison terms were imposed on Albanian teachers who attempted to teach the national language. Greek priests entered enthusiastically into the persecution. Greek teachers and priests even told the Albanian children that it was useless to pray in Albanian because Christ was a Greek and did not understand any other language. Such were the times then, gratefully this is now long past.

Back to the Peace Conference: To repeat, the French, through the connivance of the Serbs, supported Serbian claims to northern Albania, especially Shkodra, and the Americans, as far as I can make out, indirectly through the influence of the Italians, appeared to support Italy's territorial claims against Vlora and the areas surrounding it. As we will find out a little later, this seemed to be just a ploy at this stage of the negotiations since America wanted Italy to act as a buffer between Greece and Serbia. Whatever would have constituted an independent Albania would have been a small section in the central part: Durres on the coast over to Tirana and the areas adjacent to it. If the partitioning had taken place, that little section of land in the center is all that would have remained of Albania,

Now, I am going to oversimplify the situation, but let me emphasize at least this much: Albania, during this period, was beset by fear, intrigue, doubt, suspicion, and repression. Albania was a pie, ready to be divided, and the unique and strange thing about it was that Albania wasn't even a beligerent nation. It was neutral -- it took no side during the World War One and now it was about to be cut up. Albania represented a pawn in the power struggle among the three nations of Italy, Serbia, and Greece, and, then, a subsequent secret agreement between Italy and Greece made the partitioning of Albania all the more imminent. That, briefly, was the setting, so now let's get on with the Battle of Vlora.

Italy wanted Vlora very badly because, with the exception of Venice, she would have no naval base on the Adriatic Sea. And that's really the heart of the matter: Italy wanted Vlora to protect itself from possible Yugoslav attacks from her natural harbors along the Yugoslav coasts. And to ensure that she would get Greek support for her sovereignty over Vlora, Italy and Greece concluded the secret, infamous Venizelos-Tittoni Agreement * on July 29th, 1919, whereby Italy agreed to support Greek claims for the annexation of southern Albania, and whereby Greece bound herself to support Italian sovereignty over Vlora and the Italian claim to a mandate over the remainder of Albania. But the secret pact was found out, and then Yugoslavia, in a complete turnabout, suddenly supported the concept of a completely independent Albania, but not for noble reasons, but only to thwart the aims of Greece and Italy, especially Italy, and the business of the Italian mandate over the rest of Albania which then would threaten Yugoslavia's own territorial ambitions in Albania. So a sort of stand-off was created, and an Albanian provisional government was elected at the Congress of Lushnja on January 20th, 1920, which invoked President Wilson's proclamation of the self- determination of nations and proclaimed its "besa" - its pledged word - to die in the defense of the political and territorial integrity of their country. But the newly-elected Albanian provisional government had little power and practically no authority. More importantly, it had no army to speak of. Moreover, fighting incidents between Italian troops and the Albanians in Vlora occurred with increasing frequency. In pursuit of a national program; a league was formed by Albanians in Vlora with the object of bringing control of the city under the provisional government now located in Tirana. The Italians found out about it and deported fifteen leaders of the league and, at the same time, repeated their intention to remain in Vlora. This incident, among others, created considerable hostility towards the Italians and so the Albanians on June 10, 1920 issued an ultimatum calling on the Italian government to give up its claim to Vlora, and it set June 11 at 7pm as the date for an answer to the ultimatum. General Settimio Piacentini, who commanded all the Italian forces in the Vlora district, replied to the Albanian ultimatum with gunfire. Salvo after salvo of the guns on Italian warships in the Vlora bay martyred many Albanians who had no arms to defend themselves, and so the hostilities began in earnest. *Italian Foreign Minister Tommaso Tittoni and Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos 3. Frosina Information Network/162 Boylston St/Boston, MA 02116/Tel: 617/482-2002/Fax: 617/482-0014 Web Site: www.frosina.org eMail: VanChristo@frosina.org On the 11th of June Albanian volunteers, men of all ages, ferociously attacked the outlying Italian detachments. Barbed wired fortifications, some of them electrified, protected the Italians because the Albanians had no means of cutting through the wire. But Albanian on-the-spot ingenuity triumphed! An old Albanian man, a plak, pulled off his thick wool cape, his guna, and threw it over the barricades. Its thickness protected the Albanians from the wire barbs, and its wool acted as a natural isolator against the electricity. "Hidhuni (climb over)!" said the old plak , and then all the gunas came off and the Albanians stormed over the barricades and captured most of the outlying detachments. On June 12th, just southwest of Vlora, the garrison of Tepelena held by four hundred Italians was compelled to surrender, and when the Albanians stormed the inner defenses of Vlora itself, a terrific battle took place, and the Albanians were driven back with severe losses because of the heavy gun fire, again, from Italian warships in Vlora Bay. And what were the Albanians fighting with? With swords, sticks, bricks, shovels, old fashioned front-loading muskets, even their bare hands, against Italianmachine guns, artillery, tanks, other mechanized weapons, and, more importantly, the heavy guns of the Italianwarships in Vlora bay. The uprising in Vlora quickly created a spontaneous response from volunteers from every part of Albania; Muslims, Christians, highlanders, lowlanders -- all flocked to support the Vlora irregulars, and please understand here, that there was no official Albanian army or other Albanian government action involved -- this was truly a people's uprising against a foreign invader! And do you know what some of those Albanians did just before battle? They sang, they danced the "valle", they proclaimed their love of the land and swore to defend it to the death against all invaders. It has been said that Skanderbeg, after having made a similar call centuries before for volunteers to join his fight against the Turks, watched a contingent of southern Albanians approaching his camp to join his army. He was standing on a little hill with a couple of his generals and saw the Albanians in their white kilts, their fustanellas, approaching. And they were singing and dancing the "valle". Skanderbeg turned to one of his generals and said: "Apo nisin per lufte ose dasme -- are they getting ready to go to a war or a wedding?" But that's how Albanians are, and, almost 500 years later, that's how they were before besieging the town of Vlora. 4. Frosina Information Network/162 Boylston St/Boston, MA 02116/Tel: 617/482-2002/Fax: 617/482-0014 Web Site: www.frosina.org eMail: VanChristo@frosina.org Let me emphasize here that the Vlora battle was an unpopular war even in Italy. There are some 250,000 Albanians, known as the Arbershe, living in southern Italy, who set up a protest that was heard all over Italy, especially in Italy's Chamber of Deputies. In a major propaganda effort to gain national approval of the war, the Italian government reported atrocities by Albanians against Italian prisoners of war. But, here again, the Albanian national character was misjudged and maligned. The Albanians, athough stern and relentless in battle, have always had a saying: "Koke falur nuk pritet -- a bowed head cannot be cut off" meaning that an enemy who has submitted or who has been captured must not be put to death. Subsequent investigations by neutrals showed that Italian prisoners were very well treated so the Italian propaganda backfired. In fact, because the war against the Albanians was so unpopular in Italy, Italian seamen mutinied aboard their supply ships, Italian soldiers destined to fight in Vlora laid down their arms and deserted, and Italianrailwaymen refused to transport supplies -- all in support of this unjust cause. In short, the Italian people clamored for the war to end so a new Italian government was formed, and the secret Italian-Greek agreement was repudiated. Attempts at peace negotiations were initiated by the Italians but because they stipulated less than complete withdrawal from Albanian soil, the negotiations failed, and on the 23rd of July, Vlora was again savagely attacked by the Albanians who now gained partial control of the town. The Italians, because they had so completely misjudged the nationalist spirit of the Albanians and the fierceness with which the Albanians fought, were finally compelled to sue for peace. Italy agreed to evacuate the whole of Albania including Vlora. In exchange for her influence and promise to help Albania obtain full and unreserved recognition of its independence, Albania agreed to permit Italy occupy Sazano, a small island in Vlora Bay. On September 2, 1920, the last Italian troops left Vlora, and this Italian withdrawal considerably strengthened the prestige of the Albanian people all over the world.

The world powers, especially through the influence of President Woodrow Wilson of the USA, saw the hornet's nest that would have been stirred up by the Albanians if the partitioning of Albania had taken place. Therefore, all such plans were abandoned, and I want to emphasize here the great debt that Albanians everywhere owe to President Wilson who quickly saw that Albania, as tiny as she was, had every right and reason to exist as an independent country. We should never lose sight of his enormous contribution which allowed us to keep our land and national identity.

To sum up, by agreeing to the partitioning of Albania in the first place, Italian diplomacy had failed to take Albanian nationalism into account, and it was this remarkable and forceful demonstration of Albanian nationalsim -- as revealed in the Battle of Vlora -- that finally allowed Albania to emerge and exist as a small but independent country.

So, it is with a great sense of pride and profound respect that I speak about the Albanians, but more than that, I consider it a great honor, and I am thankful to all of you for giving me this opportunity this evening to speak to you about the noblest and one of the oldest of all European peoples, those marvelous, marvelous people called the Albanians.

Jam Sotiraqi, i bir i Froses dhe Spiros. Ju faleminderit shume.

NOTES: 1. The song "Vlora" was composed by Ali Asllanit (words) and Thoma Nassi (music) 2. See related speech entitled "The Vatra Band and Albania" by Thoma Nassi under Speeches/Lectures by visiting www.frosina.org