The scanty accounts of the fighting in Albania do not
encourage us to believe that the Turkish army has yet made much impression on the insurgents. The Katchanik Pass, which is a strategic point of great importance, has indeed been captured; but the Albanians seem to have been scattered only to reform elsewhere in true guerilla fashion. The official Turkish accounts represent the casualties of the Imperial army as insignificant, but the correspondent of the Kolniachd Zeitung tells quite a different story. He says that when the Turkish troops were following up the retiring Albanians after the capture of the pass, they were enticed into an ambush and lost many men, and even some guns. A significant affair has occurred at Djakova, where a certain Albanian chief was besieged in his house because he refused to join the insur- rection. The Turkish troops which tried to rescue him were defeated, and the same fate befell reinforcements. Djakova itself seems then to have fallen into the hands of the insur- gents. Some reports say that the Albanians aim at nothing less than independence; but this would require a prearranged
and united movement, and we are not prepared to believe in that till we have further evidence.
Previous page
