The Italian ultimatum to Albania

On 25 March 1939, ten days after German troops entered Prague, an official of the Italian Foreign Ministry named De Ferraris set out from Rome for Tirana. He was carrying a draft treaty that the Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, simply called a “protectorate pact” in his diary. The Italian envoy in Albania, Francesco Jacomoni, was to present it to King Zog I and obtain his signature. The document preserved the appearance of an alliance between two sovereign states, but in practice it handed Albania over to Italy: it gave the Italian army the right to enter the country and occupy its ports, airfields and roads, and gave Italians settling in Albania the same rights as its citizens. Mussolini and Ciano were clear about it, if for the moment only between themselves: either Zog would accept the terms, or Italy would occupy the country by force. Bersaglieri, infantry, aircraft and the First Squadron of the fleet were already being concentrated on the coast of Apulia.

It is often stated that 25 March was the day on which the King “rejected the Italian ultimatum”. The sources present it somewhat differently. On 25 March Rome sent its demands, but there was as yet no formal ultimatum with a deadline, and Zog did not reply with a refusal. For the next two weeks he played for time, sent contradictory signals and sought help abroad. Mussolini did not issue a real ultimatum, with a time of expiry, until early April: it ran out at noon on 6 April.

Albania in Rome’s orbit

The Italians had taken an interest in Albania from the moment it came into being in 1912. The port of Vlorë and the islet of Sazan at the entrance to its bay, together with Otranto, commanded the entrance to the Adriatic. During the First World War the Italians occupied Vlorë and a large part of the country, and the Treaty of London promised them a protectorate. In the summer of 1920, however, Albanian insurgents drove them out of Vlorë, and Rome had to make do with the islet of Sazan. The Fascists regarded this as one of the humiliations of the “mutilated victory”.

Benito Mussolini returned to the Albanian question soon after taking power, this time by means of money rather than troops. In 1925 the Italians set up the National Bank of Albania, controlled by Italian capital, and a company that granted Tirana a large loan for roads, ports and administration. Ahmed Zogu, who ruled the country – at that time still as president of the republic – needed the money, since his state had almost no revenue. On 27 November 1926 he signed in Tirana a first pact with Italy, of friendship and security, and on 22 November 1927 a second, a twenty-year defensive alliance. Italian instructors came to the Albanian army, and Italian advisers appeared in government offices. Albania became an informal protectorate, although Zogu, King of the Albanians from 1928, made sure that it was not one formally.

This balancing act lasted throughout the 1930s. In 1931 Zog did not renew the first pact. When Albania stopped paying interest on Italian loans during the Great Depression, Rome demanded Italian commanders in the gendarmerie, a customs union, monopolies on sugar, the telegraph and electricity, and the teaching of Italian in all schools. The King refused, cut state spending, sent the Italian military advisers home and nationalised the Italian-run Catholic schools in the north. In 1934, after Albania had concluded trade agreements with Yugoslavia and Greece, an Italian squadron appeared off Durrës, and Zog bent once more. When Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935, Albania, along with Austria and Hungary, did not join the League of Nations sanctions. Further loans, including that of 1937, bound it ever more closely to Rome.

Ciano’s plan

In 1936 the matter was taken in hand by the new Foreign Minister, Mussolini’s son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano. Albania was his personal project. He visited Tirana in the spring of 1937, and in April 1938 he came for the King’s wedding to the Hungarian countess Geraldine Apponyi. He returned convinced that Zog would never voluntarily agree to a protectorate and that Albania simply had to be annexed. On 30 April 1938 Mussolini agreed that a “total solution” was needed and gave him a free hand for the following spring. Ciano considered three options: binding the country further with money, partitioning Albania with Yugoslavia, or annexation in the form of a personal union. Italian agents bought the goodwill of tribal chiefs and politicians, and Italian instructors in the Albanian army were to form cells of supporters of annexation within it. Ciano even contemplated getting rid of the King himself. In February 1939 Zog announced the discovery of a plot against his life and expelled one of the Italian agents.

In the winter of 1938–1939 Ciano tried to reach an understanding with the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Milan Stojadinović, to whom he offered border adjustments in exchange for consent to an Italian Albania. At the beginning of February 1939, however, the Regent, Prince Paul, removed Stojadinović from power, and the new Prime Minister, Dragiša Cvetković, was no friend of Rome. Mussolini preferred to wait: first for the end of the war in Spain, then for an alliance with Germany.

An answer to Prague

Everything changed in mid-March. Hitler seized Bohemia and created a protectorate, and Rome learned of it at the last moment. For Mussolini, who since the Anschluss and the Munich conference had presented himself as Hitler’s equal partner, it was a slap in the face. Ciano argued that the Italians now needed “satisfaction, compensation”, and that the compensation should be Albania. On 16 March Mussolini was still hesitating: he feared that turmoil over Albania would shake Yugoslavia and that the Croats would declare independence under Berlin’s protection. Ciano then told Jacomoni to halt preparations. A few days later, however, Germany assured Rome that it recognised Italy’s exclusive interests in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. On 23 March, the same day that Germany took Klaipėda, Mussolini decided to “speed up the Albanian affair”.

The Duce drafted the treaty himself: three short articles which, according to Ciano, looked more like a decree than an international agreement. Ciano, together with the diplomat Leonardo Vitetti, prepared his own, longer version which, while “preserving the forms”, allowed for de facto annexation. Mussolini approved it. On 24 March, in a conversation with the Army Chief of Staff, General Alberto Pariani, it was agreed that for the time being no ultimatum would be issued; instead, negotiations would be opened with the King, and force would be used if he dragged his feet. The next day the draft went to Tirana. Ciano was counting on family considerations: Queen Geraldine was nine months pregnant, and the minister could not imagine that Zog would prefer wandering in the mountains to a peaceful future for his wife and child.

What Rome demanded

The full text of the first draft was never published, and historians describe it in slightly different ways. According to the American historian Bernd Fischer, it consisted of eight points that in practice abolished Albanian independence. The accounts consistently mention the right of Italian troops to enter Albania and occupy its strategic points, ports, airfields and roads in the event of a “threat”; a customs union; full civil and political rights for Italian settlers; and Italian advisers in every ministry. Albania would keep its king, its flag and its ministries, but decisions would be taken in Rome. Ciano later compared this model to the relationship Rome wanted to establish with the Croats: first an alliance and a customs and currency union, then a personal union with Italy.

Playing for time

Zog did not show the demands to his ministers or advisers and began to play for time. On 25 March, in a conversation with the British envoy Andrew Ryan, he said that he was ready for a more accommodating policy towards Rome on two conditions: that the country’s territorial integrity and independence be preserved. That was exactly what the Italians wanted to take from him. On 28 March De Ferraris returned to Rome with Jacomoni’s report. Ciano noted that the King “says yes and then has his ministers say no”, and that the machine was already in motion: the matter would be settled with Zog or against him. On the same day Madrid fell and the war in Spain was practically over, and Mussolini, pointing to an atlas open at the map of Spain, said that it was now time to open it at another page.

On 29 March the Duce settled the plan of action. The army, navy and air force were to be ready within a few days. Jacomoni was to put pressure on the King, and if he did not give way, Italian warships were to enter Albanian waters and deliver an ultimatum: sign, or bear responsibility for refusing. If Zog still refused, the Italians were to provoke disturbances, land, take Tirana, convene an assembly of Albanian notables there and offer the crown to the King of Italy. The one person opposed was Victor Emmanuel III himself. He thought it was not worth risking a major upheaval to “grab four stones”. Mussolini fumed at the King but did not change his mind.

By 31 March it was clear that Zog would not sign a treaty that violated Albania’s sovereignty both formally and in fact. It also turned out that the Italian military preparations were chaotic and that General Alfredo Guzzoni, appointed to command the expeditionary corps, needed time. Ciano therefore decided to give the King a second chance. On 1 April Mussolini approved a new draft, milder in form, which according to Ciano was meant to let the King “save face”. According to Italian and Albanian sources it contained four points: Italian control of ports, communications, roads and airfields if Albania were threatened; an Italian adviser in every ministry; equal rights for Italians in Albania; and the raising of the legations in Rome and Tirana to the rank of embassies. Jacomoni presented it to the King with a warning that if he did not accept the terms, the country would be occupied. On 2 April Zog made a counter-proposal: he accepted some of the points and rejected those that infringed independence. Rome ignored it.

The country learns of the crisis

For a long time the government in Tirana kept the talks secret, and the radio insisted that nothing was happening. But news leaked out. On the evening of 1 April the first demonstration against Italy took place in Tirana, and the next day, now with the King’s consent, a larger one. Zog hoped that this display of feeling would cool Mussolini’s ardour. Mobilisation was announced, and the Italian Foreign Ministry ordered the evacuation of Italian civilians from Albania, claiming they were in danger. This was meant to serve as a justification for intervention. On 5 April the Queen gave birth to a son, Leka. That day the King appealed for help to the Western powers, and the next day to the states of the Balkan Entente. No one responded. When Zog asked for a further twenty-four hours to consider, Mussolini set a deadline in a handwritten telegram: the ultimatum would expire at noon on Thursday 6 April.

Significance

The Italian demands of March 1939 were the second signal that spring, after Prague, that the Axis powers were no longer content with revising borders in the name of national self-determination. The Albanians were not a minority in Italy, and Albania was a member of the League of Nations bound to Rome by a treaty of alliance. Mussolini applied to it a method he had known since the Corfu incident: pressure on the weaker party, a semblance of legality and reliance on the passivity of the powers. At the same time he assured London that he had no intention of violating the Anglo-Italian agreement of April 1938 on maintaining the status quo in the Mediterranean.

The crisis also showed that the Axis worked on the basis of mutual rivalry. Mussolini reached for Albania because he did not want to fall behind Hitler and feared German influence in the Balkans. Within a few weeks the treaty turned into open aggression. On 7 April 1939, Good Friday, Italian troops landed at four Albanian ports, and five days later an assembly convened by the Italians in Tirana offered the crown to Victor Emmanuel III. Britain and France responded with guarantees to Greece and Romania, and the Italo-German rapprochement culminated in May with the signing of the Pact of Steel. From Albania’s ports and valleys the Italians attacked Greece on 28 October 1940.