The Six Month Kingdom: Albania 1914

238 Pages·2005·1.59 MB·English

by  Duncan Heaton-Armstrong

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The Six Month Kingdom
Albania 1914
Captain Duncan Heaton-Armstrong
Edited by Gervase Belfield and Bejtullah Destani
With an Introduction by Gervase Belfield
in association with
THE CENTRE FOR ALBANIAN STUDIES
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Published in 2005 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd.
6 Salem Road,
London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In association with
The Centre for Albanian Studies
In the United States of America and in Canada distributed by Palgrave
Macmillan, a division of St Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York
NY 10010
Introduction 2005 Gervase Belfield
Text 2005 Natalia Adam
The right of Duncan Heaton-Armstrong to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book or
any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introducd into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 1 85043 761 0
EAN: 978 1 85043 761 1
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
using camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the editors.
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Contents
Editorial Notes and Acknowledgements v
Introduction ix
One Potsdam 1
Two Vienna - London - Paris 6
Three The Albanian Deputation 12
Four Trieste - Durazzo 16
Five Small Beginnings 23
Six Life At Durazzo 29
SevenApril 35
Eight State Visit To Tirana 40
Nine The Outbreak Of Rebellion 46
Ten A Day With The Insurgents 51
Eleven The Coup D’État - 19th May 57
Twelve Essad Arrested And Released 63
Thirteen 23rd May - Flight 70
Fourteen 23rd May - Return 77
Fifteen End Of The Month 84
Sixteen Intrigue And Rebellion 90
Seventeen The Rebels Attack Durazzo 96
Eighteen The Insurgents Repulsed 102
Nineteen An Unsuccessful Sortie 107
Twenty A Decisive Defeat 112
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Twenty-One An Armistice Arranged 118
Twenty-Two Prenk Bib Doda Pasha’s Artillery 123
Twenty-ThreeThe King’s Power Broken 128
Twenty-Four The Beginning Of The Collapse 134
Twenty-Five The End Of July 140
Twenty-Six The King Visits Valona 146
Twenty-Seven Valona 151
Twenty-Eight The Last Month 156
Twenty-Nine Goodbye To Durazzo 164
Epilogue Humpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall 170
Notes 175
Select Bibliography and Sources 183
Index 187
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EDITORIAL NOTES
AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
. . . . .
Ever since I studied Balkan history at university in the mid-1970s,
I have wanted to write a book about Albania, and the opportunity
presented itself when my Albanian friend, historian and publisher,
Bejtullah Destanti, suggested I edit the memoirs of Captain Duncan
Heaton-Armstrong (1886-1969). For nearly nine months, between
January and August 1914, Heaton-Armstrong held the post of
“Private Secretary and Comptroller of the Privy Purse” to Prince
William of Wied, a young German prince who had been persuaded by
the six Great Powers of Europe to accept the throne of Albania. These
memoirs were entitled The Six Month Kingdom; they give the most
detailed narrative of the reign of Prince William of Wied known to
exist.
It should be pointed out at once that, strictly speaking,
throughout the period with which this book is concerned, Albania
was not a kingdom, but a principality, and Prince William of Wied
was not a king but remained a prince. My justification for calling him
“King William” after he accepted the throne, and for calling Albania
a kingdom, is two-fold. First, he was known to the Albanians as
“Mbret” (and is often referred to as this by Heaton-Armstrong),
which translates more closely into English as King than Prince.
Secondly, he was generally known throughout Europe as “King
William of Albania”, and Heaton-Armstrong refers to the “King” and
“Kingdom” of Albania throughout his memoirs.
The manuscript of the memoirs was given by Duncan Heaton-
Armstrong’s daughter, Mrs Griselda Adam, together with a
photograph album and many press cuttings, to the Centre for
Albanian Studies, which was set up by Bejtullah about ten years ago
to publish source material relating to the history of Albania. Bejtullah
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vi THE SIX MONTH KINGDOM
suggested a very brief Introduction, but as I proceeded, I soon realised
that both before and after King William accepted the throne, there
lay an extraordinary story, most of which had never been told before.
The intended “brief Introduction” rapidly grew into a book covering
Albanian history between 1912 and the proclamation of a Republic
by Ahmed Bey Zogu (the future King Zog) on 22 January 1925.
Within this period, there were about 40 serious candidates for the
throne, and at least as twice as many replied to an advertisement
placed in the “Situations Vacant” section of a London newspaper,
which read “Wanted, a King; an English country gentleman preferred
– Apply to the Government of Albania”. I hope to publish, as a
separate book, the story of Albania’s quest for a king.
There was little in the way of standardisation in the spelling of
Albanian names of people and places. I have retained Heaton-
Armstrong’s naming of the main towns as they were generally known
at the period in which he was writing. This is often different from the
names now found on modern maps of the country. Thus, the former
capital, Durazzo, is now known as Durres; Scutari is now known as
Shkoder, and Valona as Vlora. As for the spelling of given names and
surnames, I have followed the advice of Bejtullah. Albanian names
are often complicated. For instance, King William’s great enemy,
Essad Pasha Toptani (1863-1920), was generally known as Essad
Pasha. Essad was his given name; his surname Toptani was very rarely
used. The name Pasha is a title derived from the Ottoman word for
governor; it was not a surname. Similarly, “Bey” is a title used to
denote a landowner. I have made very few alterations to the text of
Duncan Heaton-Armstrong’s manuscript, and have left some of his
footnotes intact, but I have added more of my own to identify people
and to explain places.
This project has, to a large extent, been a joint enterprise with
Bejtullah, whose knowledge of Albanian history is unrivalled. Over
the past year, a package has arrived almost every week on my doorstep
from him containing some new and fascinatingly obscure source
(often in Albanian, Italian or German), revealing another unlikely
candidate for the throne or shedding fresh light on the reign of King
William. His enthusiasm has been enormous, and my debt to him is
large. I am grateful for information, advice and friendly encourage-
ment from the Heaton-Armstrong family, particularly Duncan’s
great-nephew, Anthony Heaton-Armstrong, and Mrs Griselda Adam.
I must also thank Mrs Marlis Hutchings for skilfully translating
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THE SIX MONTH KINGDOM vii
William of Wied’s Denkschrift uber Albanien into English. My wife,
Drusilla, and our children must know more about the bye-ways of
Albanian history than most families in Winchester, and I thank them
for their forbearance.
The Centre for Albanian Studies gratefully acknowledges the
assistance of Mrs Griselda Adam, Kosova Aid, Mr and Mrs Tanush
Frasheri and Margaret and Pam Davis.
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INTRODUCTION
. . . . .
By Gervase Belfield
Prince William of Wied
From the second half of the fifteenth-century until independence
was declared on 28 November 1912, Albania was part of the Ottoman
Empire. The country emerged very hesitantly into the modern world
when, on 28 November 1912, its independence was proclaimed at the
port of Valona (now called Vlora) by its 68 year old nationalist leader,
Ismail Kemal Vlora (1844-1919). Left to themselves the Albanian
leaders would have preferred another twenty years, at least, to prepare
their nation for independence, under the nominal suzerainty of the
Sultan of Turkey. The country was a desperately poor and neglected
backwater. King William arrived in 1914 to find no railways,
appallingly bad roads and communications, few public buildings or
schools and no university. There was no police force outside the towns,
and Albania was famous for its blood feuds. It had no currency or
banks, and the economy was primitive and almost entirely agricultural.
Albania was the creation of the Great Powers, particularly
Austria-Hungary and Italy; without their intervention in 1913 at the
end of the First Balkan War, the Ottoman province of Albania would
have divided up between its victorious neighbours, the Greeks to the
south, the Serbs to the east and the Montenegrins to the north.
From December 1912, for nearly a year, the ambassadors in London of
the six Great Powers of Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Russia,
Austria-Hungary and Italy), under the chairmanship of the British
Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, met regularly to fashion the new
state of Albania into a shape which would be acceptable to all the
powers. Albanians played no part in the selection of their future