Summary
In 1907, Greek and Bulgarian political circles attempted to form alliances with the Albanian national movement for their own strategic interests. Greece, through the “Hellenism” society and Nikola Kazazi, proposed a Greco-Albanian alliance. Ismail Qemali, seeking support against Slavic threats, signed a pact with Greece in April 1907. The agreement emphasized equality, respect for historical borders, and mutual defense against Serbo-Bulgarian aggression, while rejecting any federation or territorial concessions. However, Greek expansionist claims on Southern Albania (Epirus) quickly undermined the pact. Bulgarian circles also proposed cooperation with Albanian çetas, but Bajram Topulli and other patriots rejected it, recognizing Bulgaria’s territorial ambitions. Both alliances remained largely on paper and were opposed by most Albanian patriots.
The Question of the Albanian-Greek and Bulgarian-Albanian Alliance (1907)
The growth of the organized Albanian national liberation movement aroused particular interest in the ruling circles of Greece and Bulgaria. Both hoped to exploit it for their own purposes and direct it against their rivals, whom each side presented as enemies of the Albanians.
The political circles in Athens were especially active. During 1906–1907, when it became clear that the idea of “a Greco-Albanian dual kingdom,” propagated by Athens, had completely failed and would not be accepted by the Albanians — who were fighting in a more organized way for an independent or autonomous national state — Greek political circles proposed the establishment of a Greco-Albanian alliance. This orientation was described in Greek and European diplomatic circles as a realistic and at the same time national policy that Athens began to pursue toward Albania.
In addition to the Greek organization called the “Albanian-Greek League,” which worked for rapprochement between Albanians and Greeks and for an alliance against Serbs and Bulgarians, the Association “Hellenism” (“Hellenismos”), based in Athens and headed by Nikola Kazazi, a well-known Greek professor and personality, also began to operate.
The Albanians, left alone and without any support against the Ottoman rulers and threatened by the chauvinist policies of neighboring states, sought to benefit from the contradictions between them and to cooperate with those peoples who would respect their demands for national liberation. Starting from these motives, Ismail Qemali, who paid great attention to the international position of Albania, considered it useful for the Albanian cause to establish Albanian-Greek cooperation.
While still in Turkey, he had made efforts to convince the leaders of the Greek minority in the Ottoman Empire to cooperate with the Albanians and with progressive Turkish forces on the basis of preserving the status quo in Turkey and implementing decentralizing reforms. However, this political line met with opposition from the governing circles in Athens and from Greek organizations operating in Greece.
After leaving Turkey, Ismail Qemali — although he was aware of Greece’s expansionist ambitions toward Albania — sought to secure its support against a possible Slavic invasion by Serbia and Bulgaria, which threatened Albanian interests in the vilayets of Kosovo and Monastir as well as Greek interests in Macedonia. He managed to conclude an agreement for Albanian-Greek cooperation. The first talks for a Greco-Albanian alliance had begun in 1906 with Nikola Kazazi, president of the “Hellenism” society.
In February 1907, he went again to Athens. After several meetings with Kazazi and other Greek personalities, he concluded an alliance or pact with them. The basic principles of this alliance were proclaimed in a special manifesto on 4 April 1907. This manifesto was published in the Athens press in the name of the “Committee of the Greco-Albanian League.” On the same day, a “Special Protocol” was also signed, which provided for the establishment in Paris of an “Albanian Society.” This society, together with the Greek “Hellenism” and on equal terms with it, would take concrete measures to implement the agreement.
In both documents, emphasis was placed on the common interest of Greeks and Albanians — as the oldest peoples of the Balkan Peninsula — to defend themselves against a future Bulgarian-Serbian aggression. Albanians and Greeks committed themselves to respect the status quo in the East and to support the reforms of the Great Powers, but on the condition that they be radical and apply to all peoples of the Ottoman Empire.
In the Greco-Albanian agreement and in both its acts, the main condition was full equality between the two sides. No kind of Greco-Albanian federation, subjection of Albania to Greece, or territorial concession to Greece was accepted. “Our common program,” the manifesto stated, “is the national evolution of each race within its historical borders. As long as the present situation is maintained, we will work for the creation of a free and independent Albanian homeland (state), as well as for the reconstruction of Greek lands, if the present political regime should ever disappear.”
The “Protocol” also declared “mutual and common defense of the rights of both peoples, the limitation of the ambitions of both peoples within their historical and geographical borders, taking into consideration the majority of inhabitants who speak one of the two languages.” Convinced that these documents would in no way harm the Albanians’ right to an independent state life, Ismail Qemali pointed out in one of his public statements at the time that “Albania, which has its own language, its own literature, its own history and traditions, has the right to demand its national recognition according to the ideals of freedom and independence.”
Ismail Qemali defended these principles of equality between the two peoples — which left no room for Greece to violate Albania’s territorial integrity — also in an interview given to the newspaper “Tribuna” (Rome) at the end of July 1907. In it, he stressed that cooperation between Albanians and Greeks was based on “the parallel development of the two nations within the national sphere of each.” “The Albanian,” Ismail Qemali continued, “known for his language, his history and his consciousness, will continue to remain where he effectively is, and so will the Greek.”
However, later events showed that Greece had no intention of abandoning its expansionist aims toward Albanian territories. As early as March 1907, when the Albanian-Greek agreement was already prepared, Greek Prime Minister Theotokis, during a meeting with the Austrian envoy in Athens, openly expressed Greek claims on Epirus (Southern Albania).
Meanwhile, the cooperation and alliance that Ismail Qemali concluded with Greece was strongly opposed by Albanian patriotic circles throughout Albania. In articles and correspondence published in the Albanian press of the time, these circles — taking into account Greece’s chauvinist policy and its intentions to extend its claims over most of Albania after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire — rejected any possibility of an alliance with Greece. In reality, the Albanian-Greek cooperation remained a mere declaration that was never put into practice.
Similar attempts to establish an alliance with the Albanians were made in the spring of 1907 by Bulgarian political circles. In March of that year, Bulgarian Minister Genadiev proposed to Bajram Topulli (who was then in Sofia) the establishment of cooperation between Albanian rebel çetas and Bulgarian-Macedonian ones operating respectively in Albania and Macedonia.
The Bulgarians promised on this occasion to supply the Albanians with weapons. The idea of an Albanian-Bulgarian alliance, which was also to include the Vlachs, was supported by some representatives of the Albanian colony in Bulgaria. However, Bajo Topulli and other Albanian activists, although they supported the liberation struggle of the Macedonian population, refused to cooperate with them. They were well aware of the expansionist ambitions of Bulgarian political circles toward Albanian territories in the vilayets of Kosovo and Monastir, as well as their intention to use the Albanians against Serbian and Greek invasion in European Turkey.
Source
https://www.shqiperia.com/Ceshtja-e-aleances-shqiptaro-greke-dhe-bullgaro-shqiptare-(1907).348/
