THE TROUBLES OF ALBANIA.
A"CONDOMINIUM" is the moat awkward form of authority which necessity has ever forced upon man; and there is the possibility of a condominium— for at the moment the only authority of force proceeds from Austria and Italy—in Albania. The intervention of Austria and Italy has not as yet gone further than the landing of some bluejackets and guns, but all experience proves that the smallest landing-parties may grow in size, and so long as the disorder which provoked the interven- tion is not wholly dispelled it is extremely difficult for the troops to be withdrawn. We hope that it may be possible very soon for every Austrian and Italian under arms to leave Albania, but we need not hide the fact that the act of intervention may lead to perilous complications. Austria and Italy are not formally the mandatories of the Concert. They are in Albania because their interests there are immediate— because Albania is at their doors. And so long as one of them is able to find excuses for keeping a hold on the country, the other will also find excuses. Italian suspicion of Austria is almost without limit. If Austria prosecuted her ambition to form a new naval base in her splendid harbour of Cattaro (two hundred and fifty miles nearer to the Straits of Otranto than her present base at Pola), the Italians would very likely wish to seize the Albanian harbour of Avlona, in spite of their previous ineffectual adventure at that port. Much is implied by the simple fact that Italian and Austrian bluejackets have at last landed in Albania. And yet it is not possible to say that they ought not to have landed. Essad Pasha, the late Minister of War and Minister of the Interior to Prince William of Albania, seems to have had some considerable plot on foot, and shots had been fired. No one can fairly say that the Austrian and Italian ships lying in the harbour should not have sent parties to help the Prince. As a matter of fact, he asked them to come. For all the foreign commanders knew, the lives of the Royal family might have been in grave danger. The blame really lies with the Concert of Europe, which created the independent State of Albania, and appointed Prince William of Wied to become its Mpret without thinking out the next step to take in the event of his authority being defied. It is a cruel position for the Mpret. He has no Army to enforce his word, for the Albanian gendarmerie under Dutch officers is small in numbers and as yet scarcely organized. Nor, if he bad a decently large Army, could he trust it. So it comes about that Italy and Austria step in at the invitation of the Mpret. They will be uneasy co-operators. The French sailed away and left the British to manage Egypt ; the British and the Spanish sailed away and left the French to manage affairs in their own way in Mexico ; but there is no chance that Italy will ever sail away and leave Austria alone in Albania, or Austria sail away and leave Italy alone. Their jealousies are too great. The arrival of Italy and Austria on the scene will delay rather than hasten the settlement of the Albanian question, in spite of the immediate suppression of a conspiracy. For the Mpret, if he is to govern at all, must govern by prestige. He has become the ruler of a fighting people, and if foreigners do his fighting for him, he post- pones the day when the warring factions of Albania will recognize his personal authority. What has happened seems to be as follows. Essad Pasha's reconciliation to the idea of having Prince William as Mpret was not real. When he hailed the Princess as the " Pearl of Albania" be meant to regard the Royal family as jewellery only so long as they were the servants of his schemes. As Minister of War he enjoyed more power than was good for him, and at last the Mpret, who had been kept informed of his ambi- tious doings, challenged his intentions by requiring him to reduce his bodyguard. Essad Pasha declined, and barri- caded himself in his. Louse. He refused to surrender to the gendarmerie, and fired on them when they sur- rounded the house. When the Italian and Austrian sailors had dropped some shells on the house he hoisted a white flag. He has been deported, and it is said that he has given a written undertaking not to return to the country without the Mpret's permission. He is a good man to be rid of—a man of a remarkable and not wholly credit- able history. He was the head of the deputation which announced to Abd-ul-Hamid the decision of the Young Turks to depose him. He is said to have taken a par- ticular pride in the performance of this duty, as he had been the implacable enemy of the Sultan ever since his brother had been assassinated by the Sultan's orders. In the Balkan War Essad was second-in-command at Scutari, and he is commonly believed to have procured the assassination of his superior officer. He then became commandant of the town, and later surrendered it to the Montenegrins, as he had ceased to be interested in its defence when he discovered that there was a better field for his ambition outside. Among his feudal retainers and supporters at Tirana he proclaimed himself King, and established a Government in rivalry to the Provisional Government set up by the Powers at Avlona. Ultimately, however, he consented to accept the rule of a Prince appointed by the Powers, and he led the deputation that offered the crown to Prince William.
Essad is gone, but the spirit of Essad will live on. The trouble is the same as it was under Abd-ul-Hamid ; the Albanians object to paying taxes and to giving com- pulsory personal service to a settled Government. Various factions have also their various grievances—questions of language, religion, and so on. But the instinct of all the best fighting men is to place personal loyalty, however arduous, to a feudal chieftain before tame and conventional submission to a central power. The chieftain at least may protect them from the tax-collector. Anyone who has a large enough number of troops at his disposal is King of the Road in Albania. Knowing that fact very well, the Mpret refused to allow his late Minister of War to raise an Army of twenty thousand men to crush the Epirot rebellion. No doubt the Mpret was wise, yet one does not see how he can go on indefinitely without an Army. Permanent inability to trust an Army of his subjects must mean his failure to rule Albania. Fortunately for the Prince, the difficulties in Northern Epirus, or Southern Albania, are much less acute than they were. The Greek Government have withdrawn their troops, and we hear less of the "sacred battalions " who support the Epirot Pro- visional Government. The International Commission of Control has done a good stroke in persuading the Epirot Provisional Government to recognize the authority of the Mpret. The proposed plan is that Northern Epirus shall be placed under Christian Viceroys, that it shall enjoy a moderate autonomy, and that the new regime shall be organized by the International Commission. In other words, the Greek population of Southern Epirus are pitch- ing their demands much lower than before. Perhaps the chief obstacle to a working arrangement on these lines is that Italy does not approve of it. And so we come back to the fact that Italy's presence in Albania is a very significant thing. It is useless to prophesy. There is a mess ; Austria and Italy may try to use that mess to their profit ; but both Austria and Italy are less to blame in a way—for their contending ambitions have long been known to the whole world—than the Concert which put Prince William to live in a house without foundations.
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