Summary
Between 1906 and 1908, the committees “For the Freedom of Albania” organized armed çetas to spread national ideas and prepare a general uprising. The first çeta was formed in April 1906 in Kolonja under Bajram Topulli; others operated in southern and central Albania. Led by figures like Çerçiz Topulli and Mihal Grameno, the çetas conducted propaganda, clashed with Ottoman forces and Greek bands, and carried out targeted actions (including the Battle of Mashkullorë in 1908). Supported by Albanian colonies abroad and patriotic press, they recruited deserters and volunteers. Despite Ottoman persecution, the çetas expanded, contributing to the atmosphere of widespread resistance on the eve of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. Workers in Shkodra also began organizing societies and strikes.
Activity of the Armed Çetas (1906–1908)
Although local popular uprisings continued, the main feature of the national movement from 1905 to 1908 was its organization on a national scale, the establishment of unified leadership by the committees “For the Freedom of Albania,” and the creation of armed çetas. These çetas spread the ideas of national liberation and prepared the people for a general uprising. The Central Committee “For the Freedom of Albania” drafted the Regulation of the Çetas (“Guide for the Brave, Committee of Albania”), which, alongside the national political program, defined the rules for organizing the “armed forces” (as the çetas were called). According to this document, the çetas would operate in the mountains of Albania but would also maintain secret armed units in the villages, thus forming a national army with its own commands, uniting voluntarily all “brave Albanians,” both Muslim and Christian.
The decision to create the first çetas as units of combat and national propaganda was taken by the Monastir Committee in January 1906. Due to lack of financial means, the committee could not initially arm 500 fighters as planned. Nevertheless, it formed a series of çetas that operated in various parts of the country, especially in southern and central Albania. The first çeta was created in April 1906 in Kolonja (Korça region) with 20 fighters, commanded by Bajram Topulli. Its operations extended to Gorë, Starovë, Bërzeshtë, Gramsh, Opar, and later to districts in the Vilayet of Janina. Other çetas commanded by Fehim Zavalani and Sali Butka were also formed in Kolonja.
Additional small armed çetas operated in the spring and summer of 1906 in the districts of Berat, Devoll, Leskovik, and Përmet. A letter from Bajram Topulli shows that by May 1906 the influence of the Committee and its movement had spread widely to Janina, Gjirokastra, Berat, Vlora, Mallakastra, Myzeqe, Kolonja, Korça, Tirana, Elbasan, Ohrid, Dibra, and other places.
Concerned by the propaganda activity of the çetas, the Turkish government mobilized reserve soldiers to pursue them. The first serious clash between Albanian çetas and the Turkish army occurred near Leskovik in May 1906.
The Albanian çetas also fought against Greek andarte bands that persecuted Albanian patriots and prepared the ground for the Hellenization and annexation of southern Albania. In retaliation for the massacre of the patriot Papa Kristo Negovani and his fellow villagers, Çerçiz Topulli’s çeta killed the Greek Metropolitan of Korça, Foti, in September 1906, as one of the instigators of violent acts by Greek bands in the Sanjak of Korça.
In the sanjaks and kazas of the Vilayets of Kosovo and Monastir — such as Kumanovo, villages around Skopje, Ohrid, Monastir, Dibra, etc. — Albanian armed çetas were also active during 1905–1906. Although not all were organized by the committees “For the Freedom of Albania,” they pursued the same patriotic goals and defended their compatriots from the violence of Serbian and Bulgarian bands operating in those areas.
The Turkish government quickly tracked the Monastir Committee. In an order sent in early April to the military command in Monastir, the Sublime Porte emphasized that the Albanian Committee, formed in western Albania, had advanced significantly and demanded information about it. In July 1906 it took strict measures against members and supporters of the Monastir Committee.
Among those arrested were many officers of the Monastir military garrison and state officials who had joined the Committee. By order of the Sultan, at the end of July, Nafiz Bey from Ohrid, a colonel (lieutenant) of the Ottoman cavalry who had secretly gone to Monastir, Korça, Skopje, and Tetovo for the Committee’s purposes, was arrested and sent in chains to Istanbul. In January 1907, the official gazette of the Vilayet of Monastir published the names of patriots who were to be surrendered and arrested as soon as possible, including Bajo and Çerçiz Topulli, Beqir Sali Butka, Islam Arifi, Ahmet Zylfiqari, Dervish Ismaili, Fejzo Bey from Dëshnica, Mersin Abdyli, and others.
These pursuits by the Turkish authorities made the activity of the Monastir Committee as the central body more difficult. They forced its leaders to move their center to Bucharest and leave a local committee in Monastir that maintained contact with Bucharest. In November 1906, the brothers Bajram and Çerçiz Topulli were forced to leave the homeland for Sofia and Bucharest. Idriz efendi Gjakova also settled in Bulgaria (Ruse) after his escape.
Meanwhile, the activity of the çetas did not stop. At the end of 1906, four new çetas were formed: one commanded by Fejzo Dëshnica (8 fighters) that moved to the Dibra region, one by Riza Bey (17 men) operating in Kolonja, one by Apostol Kuçkova (7 men) that went to the Prespa districts, and one by Sait Efendi (5 fighters) near Korça.
In Sofia and Bucharest, where they stayed from November 1906 until the spring of 1907, Bajo and Çerçiz Topulli, together with Nikolla Lako and supported by Albanian patriotic societies — especially Shahin Kolonja and Kristo Luarasi in Sofia, Pandeli Evangjeli, Rafael Dako, the Zografi brothers in Bucharest, and Dr. Ibrahim Temo in Constanța — held several meetings and took measures to secure financial aid for the armed struggle of the çetas in Albania.
In April 1907, Bajram Topulli went to Paris for this purpose, and in July of the same year to the United States, where, with the help of Fan Noli and other patriots of the Albanian colony in Boston, he collected aid for the Committee “For the Freedom of Albania.” The patriotic societies of Boston and New York also organized protest meetings against Ottoman terror and the violence of Greek andarte bands in Albania. Financial means for the Committee were also collected from the Albanian colony in Cairo and Egypt in general.
The formation of çetas and the beginning of organized armed struggle were especially supported and propagated by the patriotic Albanian press organs such as “Drita” (Sofia), “Kombi” (Boston), “Shpnesa e Shqypnisë” (Ragusa-Trieste-Rome), etc. Due to its editor Shahin Kolonja’s connections with the Committee “For the Freedom of Albania,” the newspaper “Drita” (Sofia) became the organ of this Committee. In December 1906, it published Çerçiz Topulli’s article “Feelings of a Patriot,” which called on Albanians “… to unite Ghegs and Tosks, Christians and Muslims, to go to the mountains, to fight to the death, and to make the voice of the uprising heard from Preveza to the borders of Serbia and Montenegro.”
However, not all Albanian patriots held the same position toward the armed struggle of the çetas. In the magazine “Albania” (Brussels-London, 1897–1909), directed by Faik Konica, one of the main organs of the Albanian press, several articles were published (“Final Thoughts of the Year,” no. 11, 1902; “Bajo Topulli and the Policy of Assassinations,” no. 8, 1906) in which the Albanian uprising was called “futile and harmful,” the national movement was to be limited to cultural activities, and especially acts such as the killing of the Greek Metropolitan Foti were condemned.
Writings of this kind, which opposed the armed struggle of the çetas and promoted “the spread of Albanian writing and reading, knowledge and learning among the people” as “the shortest and best path for the liberation of Albania,” were also published in other Albanian press organs, including “Drita” of Sofia.
In the spring of 1907, Bajo Topulli, in order to calm Vienna (which was not inclined to support actions that would disturb the status quo in the Balkans), declared to its consular representatives that “the situation in Albania was not yet ripe for a general uprising,” but that the committees “For the Freedom of Albania” would continue to organize armed çetas to prepare for it. These çetas, however, would not carry out terrorist acts and would focus on spreading national ideas among Albanians.
In March of that year, Albanian patriots of the Sofia colony formed another çeta under the command of Çerçiz Topulli, joined by the patriotic writer Mihal Grameno (who had come from Bucharest) and Idriz Gjakova, who was then in Bulgaria. The çeta’s primary task was to spread “national feelings in all parts of Albania.” In April 1907, the çeta departed from Italy (Brindisi) and landed on the Albanian coast near Vlora. It carried out extensive propaganda activity in southern Albania, especially in the regions of Gjirokastra and Korça, to raise Albanians for the liberation of the country. It distributed Albanian flags, pictures of Skanderbeg, and Albanian books and primers brought from the colonies in Bucharest and Sofia.
In 1907, alongside the struggle of the çetas, popular movements continued in various cities and villages of the country against the heavy burden of taxes and the Ottoman administration in general. In January they spread to the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and that of Prishtina, where dozens of villages rose and demanded that the government remove the taxes and Turkish officials, kaimakams, and gendarmerie commanders.
Despite the Ottoman authorities’ efforts to suppress the movement using both persecution and negotiations with Albanian leaders, it gradually spread throughout the Vilayet of Kosovo. By spring it had also engulfed regions such as Llap, Drenica, Mitrovica, Presheva, etc.
The leaders of the movement tried to give it an organized character by establishing a general besa (oath). This purpose was served by the gathering held in early February 1907 in Junik, attended by leaders from Drenica, the kaza of Vushtrri, Reka, and the Highlands. Since the government continued to insist on collecting taxes and implementing new measures and did not accept a series of Albanian demands, the leaders of the populations of Peja, Prizren, Gjakova, Prishtina, and Gjilan made efforts to secretly call, in early February, an assembly in the village of Luka in Gjakova, where a general besa or alliance would be established. French consular documents show that in February 1907 a general Besëlidhje (League) for all Albania had already been proclaimed, which would determine measures to organize resistance against the Ottoman government and foreign interventions in European Turkey.
In April, a large gathering of Albanians was held in Presheva with 2,000 participants, demanding the suspension of new taxes and reforms and the creation of local Albanian courts.
These efforts to organize popular armed resistance in Kosovo were linked to the growth of propaganda for national ideas, in which, among other activists, Ismail Qemali had also contributed.
Important events occurred in May 1907 in Elbasan, where the population, dissatisfied with the Ottoman administration, expelled the mutasarrif and the gendarmerie commander. The inhabitants of Peqin did the same with the Turkish kaimakam. The government, alarmed by reports that the rebels were demanding independence, sent four battalions and artillery forces to Elbasan, commanded by Shemsi Pasha, who suppressed the uprising movement in this sanjak. Shemsi Pasha had received orders to eliminate even the smallest manifestation of the idea of Albanian independence.
In the autumn of 1907, after several gatherings held in the kazas of the Vilayet of Kosovo, in those of Prizren, Peja, Prishtina, Luma, and other centers, a new society named “Besa” was formed. It enjoyed the support of patriots of the region, especially intellectuals, teachers, students, and officials. Its task was to unite Albanians of the three faiths in the struggle to defend Albanian national rights against the expansionist ambitions of neighboring states, the terror of their armed bands, and the violence of the Ottoman rulers. The society “Besa” called on all Albanians to join the armed çetas, “the apostles of freedom in all the mountains and fields of Albania, to lead the people onto the true path of freedom.”
Like the committees “For the Freedom of Albania,” the society “Besa” urged Albanians to prepare for the armed uprising, which was expected to erupt in the spring of 1908 and would be, as stated in its appeal, “a true and open war for the freedom and unity of our beloved homeland.”
In September 1907, the newspaper “Drita” published the appeal “Çonju” by the distinguished patriot Hilë Mosi, addressed to Albanians — rich and poor, men and women, young and old, teachers, students, priests, and imams — urging them to work and prepare for the uprising that would erupt in the spring of 1908 and bring freedom to Albania.
The fighters of the çetas, the “apostles of freedom” who remained in the mountains, were asked to “spread national thought in all parts” of Albania. In another article, “Gegë ku e latë?” (“Ghegs, where have you been?”), published in the same newspaper in January 1908, Hilë Mosi called on Ghegs — Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox — to unite with the Tosks “who had gone to the mountains for the freedom of the homeland” and “to take up their Martinis against the enemy.”
On 1 January 1908, “Shpnesa e Shqypnisë” published the appeal “Klithje” (“Cry”) by the Dibra patriot Josif Bagëri, then in Bulgaria, calling for an all-Albanian congress that would form a general committee as the basis for an Albanian government and organize a general uprising in the country. On 1 February 1908, the same newspaper “Drita” published the article “Letter from the Mountains of Albania,” written by Çerçiz Topulli as commander and Mihal Grameno as secretary of the çeta. It emphasized that the army of freedom fighters was growing day by day and that it was the duty of every patriot to help the Committee “For the Freedom of Albania” in “its sacred goal for the homeland.”
In the spring of 1908, after a temporary lull during the winter, the activity of the çetas regained momentum. They operated successfully in the districts of Gjirokastra, Korça, and Kastoria. By decision of the Gjirokastra Committee, a part of the çeta led by Çerçiz Topulli killed the local gendarmerie commander in Gjirokastra in early March 1908. This commander had become known for his terrorist actions and persecutions against patriots and the population in Berat and recently in Gjirokastra.
A few days later, on 18 March, Turkish forces sent by the Vali of Janina surrounded the çeta in the village of Mashkullorë in Gjirokastra. An unequal and fierce battle took place there. The patriotic fighters resisted continuous attacks by numerous Turkish forces for an entire day and managed to break the encirclement. In this battle, only one fighter, Hajredin Tremishti, was killed.
The next day, the prefect of Gjirokastra, in his report to the Vali of Janina, admitted the human losses suffered by the Ottoman forces in the Battle of Mashkullorë. The Battle of Mashkullorë, which was immortalized in folk songs, had wide resonance in Albania, and Hajredin Tremishti was called “martyr of the nation” by the patriotic Albanian press.
The Albanian press, especially the newspapers “Drita,” “Kombi,” “Shpnesa e Shqypnisë,” etc., in the first half of 1908 called on young Albanians mobilized in the Ottoman army and being sent to other places “to desert the army and join the Albanian rebels to fight against the savage Ottoman tyranny.” The çetas increased their ranks with new fighters, including many young men who deserted from the Turkish army, as well as many volunteers from the Albanian colonies in emigration.
The çetas linked to the Committee “For the Freedom of Albania” continued to traverse various regions of southern Albania. In May 1908, one of these çetas, consisting of 63 men, entered Saranda, attacked the buildings of the local state administration, and remained there for 6 hours. To pursue the çeta, the Ottoman authorities sent additional gendarmerie forces from Preveza to the Saranda district, making numerous arrests among the population.
More than 70 people, both Muslim and Christian, were sent in chains to Preveza and from there to Janina. The events in Saranda were also reported in the European foreign press.
In June, the çetas clashed with Turkish troops in Libohova, Progonat, and Dhrovian. On 20 June, Çerçiz Topulli’s çeta, consisting of 150 men, entered the Pogoni district, where it fought with gendarmerie forces for 8 hours. In early July, the çetas engaged in fighting in the mountains of Vodica. After assassinations carried out by the çetas against the mutasarrif (prefect) and the president of the court in Gjirokastra, they were forced to resign.
The Albanian press wrote in early July that a battalion of young soldiers mobilized in Elbasan to be sent to Yemen “swore an oath to go to the mountains and rather be killed here than die in Yemen,” as well as the desertion and joining of çetas by a battalion of recruits in Monastir and another in Janina. The press also reported that “Toskëria, and especially the area of Berat, Myzeqe, and Korça, were filled with Albanian rebels.”
The expansion in southern Albania of the armed struggle of the çetas organized by the committees “For the Freedom of Albania,” as well as the movement against the interventions of the Great Powers and Ottoman rule in the Vilayet of Kosovo, showed that on the eve of the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908, Albania stood on the threshold of a general uprising.
In the years 1905–1907, another social category — workers — also began to participate in the country’s political life. Although they expressed dissatisfaction with low wages and poor economic conditions, workers became more involved in the general national movement against the violence of the state apparatus and Ottoman slavery.
In centers such as Shkodra, the first workers’ societies were formed. In March 1905, the “Workers’ Society for Mutual Aid” was founded in Shkodra, which, in addition to workers, included artisans and intellectuals.
Although it operated illegally, it was soon forced to cease its activity due to persecutions by the Ottoman state apparatus.
The first workers’ strikes took place in 1904–1905. In March 1904, dockworkers in Durrës declared a strike against the local contracting company, demanding an increase in pay for night work even when the sea was not calm. In May 1905, shoemaker workers in Shkodra presented a series of demands to workshop owners for improvement of economic conditions and wage increases.
When these demands were rejected, more than 60 workers and apprentices from the shoe workshops declared a strike and gathered outside the city, where speeches were held on workers’ rights. The strike was suppressed by the Ottoman authorities, who arrested its initiators, accusing them of being “conspirators” against the government. In the spring of 1904, a few days after the shoemakers’ strike began, workers from the tobacco workshops, the cigarette factory, and tailor workers also declared a strike, demanding wage increases. The strike ended with the workshop owners meeting the workers’ demands.
In 1905, May 1st — the international workers’ holiday — was celebrated for the first time in Shkodra. On that day, a group of dockworkers, artisans, apprentices, and educators organized a picnic outside the city.
In 1906, on the initiative of a group of workers, artisans, and small traders, labor cooperatives and a consumers’ cooperative were created in Shkodra, financed by the contributions of their members. On 1 April 1907, also in this city, the “Auxiliary Society” was founded with the aim of helping the poor and the sick. Being broader and better organized than the previous ones, it became well known in the city. To help awaken the workers, the Society also established a night school where, alongside lessons in the Albanian language and patriotic ideas, knowledge about workers’ rights was taught.
One month after the creation of the “Auxiliary Society,” under its leadership, May 1st (1907) was widely celebrated in Shkodra. Workers, apprentices, and others participated. They demonstrated in the streets, singing patriotic songs and chanting slogans for “freedom and general progress, for the brotherhood and unity of the people,” etc. Under the conditions of enslaved Albania, the celebrations of May 1st served more for the national awakening of Albanians in the struggle for the liberation of the homeland. The 1907 May 1st celebrations were held under the slogan “Long live Albania!”
However, workers’ societies were persecuted by the Ottoman administration from the moment of their birth. In September 1907, the gendarmerie raided the premises of the “Auxiliary Society,” arrested its leaders, and seized documents and equipment. Under these conditions, the “Auxiliary Society” dissolved after five months of existence.
Source
https://www.shqiperia.com/Veprimtaria-e-cetave-te-armatosura-(1906-1908).347/
