Albanians in Confrontation with the Challenges of World War I
Ma. Veli Kryeziu, PhD. Cand

Abstract
The Balkans as a geographic whole could not resist not being involved in World War I taking into account that the Balkan countries themselves encouraged the Great Powers revolt in reaction to the assassination of the Austria’s heir in June 1914 in Sarajevo. Bosnia's annexation from Austria-Hungary was not easily accepted by Serbia, and this was the reason for the assassination of Prince Franz Ferdinand. From the warring parties, "Battlefield" – Albania suffered the most loss, this did not have any impact on this war, but the consequences for it were great, each of the warring parties had the intention to occupy Albania. The Civil Wars for bajraktarism (system of territorial and military organization along patriarchal clan lines) among Albanians were the worst that happened to Albania. The nonexercise of sovereignty by the Government of Vlora as well as the escape of Vid from Albania left the country at the mercy of fate and captains of the Essad time. The Balkan wars were pulse measurement of whoever could take from neighbors, so the Serbian-Montenegrin and Greco-Italian goals towards Albania were more than reasonable because they had long since plotted plans for the collapse of Albania, namely the establishment of the Great Greece (Megalithic idea) and Great Serbia (Načertanija 1844), where it was seen within the Serbian borders: Bosnia, Montenegro, Northern Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. Serbia had fed its ideology of fabrication "Serbian Kosovo" respectively "Kosovo - the cradle of Serbia", the idea that Kosovo should be Serbian and that Serbia should be its successor has incited violence, murder, ethnic cleansing of Albanians by local Serbs in Kosovo or even Serbs coming as a column, organized and instrumentalized continuously by Serbia's král (king). The Serbian pseudo-history always tried to distort the historical facts about Kosovo, but it is impossible to kill a whole people in order to assimilate, exterminate and expel through ethnic cleansing. In 1911 official records of Young Turks which could not be hidden by Serbia, the Vilayet of Kosovo had a total of 912,902 inhabitants, out of which 106,209 were Serbs, 56,396 Bulgarians and about 7,000 were Jevgs and Jews, while 743,040 were Albanian autochthonous population. Albanians due to the high birthrate and readiness to preserve national identity managed to withstand the bloody Balkan wars.

Full Text: PDF