This long German report, written by Marie Amelie Freiin von Godin, states that more than 800,000 Albanians were cut off from their motherland after the Serbian invasion of 1913. Serbian soldiers would commit massacres on defenceless civilians, and even rape 60-year old women. 100,000 Albanians became refugees as a result of Serbian oppression. Serbian soldiers would also destroy monasteries in Tirana and old Albanian castles, like the castle of Beis of Beqjin.
Serb soldiers raped Albanian women in Peqin, and a consequence, 16 Serbian soldiers were killed by Albanians. The Serbs also destroyed the windows and doors of baracks and schools, and burned down the oak tree forests, just to let them char. In Struga, the Serbs murdered the Albanian men, and then violently married the widows in front of altars and priests. The same night, the Serbs murdered the women, which resulted in the Serbs becoming the heirs of the new stolen land.
Cited from Marie Amelie Freiin von Godin:
“The damage inflicted on Albania by the war is not limited to the loss of almost all revenue; rather, it is only the negative aspect. Greeks, Montenegrins, and especially Serbs, in the country they occupied almost without resistance at the beginning of the war, behaved more or less in the same manner that had already become known to Europe’s horror in Macedonia.
In particular, the Serbian invasion of autonomous Albanian territory after the last uprising in September, ostensibly to repel attacks by Albanians who had invaded Serbian territory, was accompanied by an almost unheard-of cruelty. From the Serbian perspective, this behavior may seem understandable, perhaps even prudent, since the preceding uprising, in the eyes of the Serbs, was supposed to justify all reprisals against the Albanian population.
It seems to me that the rest of Europe will find it difficult to agree with this Serbian judgment. The uprising of the Albanian population in the autumn of 1913 was by no means an act of insubordination or even lust for plunder, but rather an almost inevitable one.
As a consequence of the border agreements reached in London, quite apart from the fact that almost 800,000 Albanians reside in the newly Serbian territories, compared to just under 200,000 non-Albanians—a fact that alone was bound to cause all sorts of difficulties—the border, so splendidly drawn on paper, has practically countless disadvantages.
In many cases, villages were separated from their fields, their pastures, their springs; these villages, thus deprived of their means of existence, were awarded to Serbia, while those villages were awarded to Albania. So when the Serbs closed the borders, the despair of the armed population must have reached its peak. In addition, news of Serbian atrocities crossed the border daily.
I know from European eyewitnesses that in some villages, the Serbian occupation forces even publicly violated sixty-year-old women in the marketplaces. Therefore, the uprising broke out spontaneously, without sufficient preparation or unified leadership, driven everywhere by the feeling that it was better to die than to have one’s hearth and honor destroyed.
Only very poorly armed and without leadership, the Hordes of Albanians, naturally unable to hold their own against the rapidly reinforced Serbian troops, equipped with cannons, had to relinquish the initially brilliant advantages gained, and the enemy on their heels brought to the land the misery and calamity of which I have spoken. Certainly 100,000 refugees—men, women, children—burst out like a wave.
Now the Serbs closed the border here as well, thus denying the people of Unter Dibra the possibility of a tolerable life. From time immemorial, however, the people from the area around Dibra have been warlike and accustomed to rifles and knives like hardly any other segment of the Albanian population.
They fled from the Albanian mountains to the plains by the sea, starving, freezing, and exhausted to death. They found themselves in flight, as Albania itself had become destitute after sixteen months of war, exposed to the most desolate hardship. Of course, everyone in Albania shared their last piece of bread with these unfortunate people, everyone who had the smallest space by their hearth.
He opened his house to them, but in far too many houses they now starve and freeze as fellow sufferers, guest and master. In Scutari there are 15,000 refugees, in Kruja 6,000, in Elbassan 10,000, in Tirana and the surrounding area 12,000. I went to Tirana because the field hospital of the Austrian Red Cross was there, and because the refugees from Dibra had moved there, from Dibra, whose fate is so particularly sad and worthy of pity.
Dibra, the city of Dibra e Madhe, Great Dibra, came under Serbian rule, even though no other than Albanian souls breathe there. Not a single Slav, Wallachian, or Greek lives in this once rich, beautiful, and industrious city. The rural communities around Dibra, Dibra e Vogel, Little Dibra, with about 20,000 souls, came under Albanian rule. These people have no other market than that of Dibra e Madhe to sell their produce, because they are separated from every other city by almost insurmountable mountains, which are closed off for seven months of the year.
The snow made it completely impassable. They banded together, knowing that many Albanian brothers on the Serbian border suffered similar hardships, knowing that they too were about to rebel against the burden and suffering, knowing that their Albanian compatriots over on Serbian territory had to endure and bear even heavier suffering.
Therefore, the day came when they marched to Groß Dibra with rifles, knives, and axes. There, the Albanians were disarmed and initially unable to help them, but the Serbs were not very numerous, and the few who were there were overwhelmed by fear. Thus, the people of Unter Dibra approached the magnificent, rich Dibra e madhe. And a rush seized them.
From victory, Albanian brothers from all the villages came to fight with them. They wanted to liberate all of Kosovo. Women and children, old men, all of them marched against the enemy, on the heels of the fleeing enemy, into Serbian land. Albanian land is Albanian land, before all the world it should be again.
It’s better that no one knows the news, so a little hope still lives on, pointless and presumptuous, but it lives on. Eight went back to Unter Dibra, hid in their huts, impatiently waiting until their wounds had healed somewhat and they could follow their brothers. Instead, after three weeks, the fighters returned in wild flight. They had to abandon Groß Dibra to the Serbs.
Once again, Unter Dibra, they stood for battle. The women and children grabbed planks and poles, defending house after house. And house after house was taken. Then men, women, and children fled or fell. And the wounded on their cots were all slaughtered. That’s why the field hospital of the Austrian Red Cross in Tirana had so few wounded to care for. But not a stone remained of Unter Dibra, and the 15,000 people who returned home after the Serbs left the country live in ruins, not knowing how to survive.
I myself spoke with the Austrian General Staff officer who… Anyone who has traveled to the area knows that if no aid expedition with food is sent to Unter Dibra by mid-February, then none of these 15,000 will see spring. What happened in Dibra e Madhe, across the border, who wants to know? The refugees in Tirana ask themselves with fearful eyes. What happened to their houses, their warehouses?
Upon landing in Durazzo, one suspects nothing of the misery. On the blue bay with its belt of lagoons, its wide ring of mountains, separated from the rest of the range by Kavaja to the south, the white cone of Mount Tomor glimmers across like a laughing magic greeting from sunny southern Albania.
The old, angular city rises. At first, everything seems as before. But then one encounters Essad Pasha’s gendarmes everywhere, and then there is the bodyguard of the Almighty himself in front of the government building. Everywhere as far as one can see, order and peace. I sit in Essad Pasha’s study and sip a cup of coffee with him. We chat quite comfortably about Politics and Family I’ve known Al’s family for so many years. You portrayed me quite badly in your brochure about Albania. Barona, he laughs at me, me and our women. Not all pashas, just a certain type; a third are merely Albanian, a third Turkish, and a third misunderstood European. You were right, but I’ve already been told…
Did I lie, Pasha? Did I say something wrong? He laughs again, far too generously to hold it against me. You can’t expect me to answer that. And we chat happily on, in Albanian of course, because I don’t speak Turkish and he can’t speak anything European. Essad Pasha is a magnificent, tall man, an aristocrat of the finest blood from head to toe.
Forty-eight years old and certainly far too clever to believe he could become king of Albania, but indomitable, ambitious, and possessed of iron will. No one dares to speak out under his rule. I never believe he betrayed Scutari, for he could only have gained shame from that deal, but I am convinced he eliminated Hassan Riza. A second-in-command—that got on his nerves, and he knows no scruples.
If I were the Prince of Albania, I wouldn’t want to let this iron will be lost to the country. Essad Pasha is certainly ignorant, but for now, he would be the Minister of War par excellence. I believe He would be clever enough to sense the changing times and adapt to them properly. If not now, in the new Albania, the laws no longer need to stop before the high nobility. One mustn’t be narrow-minded at the beginning.
People with Essad’s worldview will, in twenty years in Albania, if the government is any good, have quite naturally lost the ground that brought it about. But until then, they have energy and strength, why waste it unnecessarily? It’s a shame that at the beginning, for reasons of justice, Ismail Kemal can hardly be used for work anymore, because through his mismanagement in Valona he lost so much sympathy that even a landing of the prince in Valona seems out of the question, since the new government cannot risk showing itself as a friend of Ismail Kemal, and because these two have become too partisan, Essad’s use can hardly be considered immediately.
But hopefully in time, because the man could become much more troublesome in peacetime than in office. He is waiting with bated breath for the prince to return; I hope he will accept him willingly. I consider all other claims to be nonsense and slander until further notice. Before my departure, he even moved out of the government building so that it could be prepared as well as possible for the prince’s possible landing. In Durazzo, only a few refugees live outside the old gray wall of the crumbling castle; about two hundred of them are living there, facing the blue sea. I was with them, gave them a little money, and listened to their complaints.
But that was nothing compared to the misery in Tirana. In peacetime, Tirana is the most cheerful, laughing city in Albania. Separated from Durazzo by several mountain ranges of the most fertile soil, it is bordered to the east by a long line of high mountains, the Mirdhita and Mat mountains.
From their slopes, Skanderbeg’s city, the beautiful Kruja, gleams white and almost improbably romantic. All around red Tirana are wide fields, vineyards, and chestnut groves. And Tirana has such pretty houses, a bazaar with hundreds of arches and columns, two delightfully painted old mosques, and then the beautiful palace that today belongs to Essad Pasha Toptani and the widow of his uncle Selim Pasha Toptani.
The Toptans, who belong to the very first blood of Albania, have honored the palace with its twenty gables and colorful arabesques to this day. The Serbs did not destroy it when they were in Tirana in the winter of 1912-1913, just as they had destroyed the magnificent castle of the Beis of Beqjin, a day’s journey.
They destroyed Tirana, robbed it of all its precious treasures, and carried them off so hopelessly that their unfortunate owners, after the enemy’s withdrawal, could only with great difficulty buy back a few of the almost priceless treasures of Albania’s cultural history in the bazaars of the surrounding area. Of course, in the castle of Peqjin, sixteen Serbian officers died a sudden and mysterious death one night after committing atrocities against the women of the region.
In Tirana, the retreating Serbs burned only one monastery, senselessly smashed the windows and doors of barracks and schools, and destroyed the famous forest of Tirana almost down to the last tree. That they cut wood to warm themselves by their watch fires, everyone might forgive them, but why they willfully set fire to the surrounding oak trees just to let them char uselessly is hard to comprehend.
Anyone who speaks of this today… Coming to Tirana, Durazzo sees the blackened tree trunks on both sides of the road. But still, what is the destroyed oak forest of Tirana compared to the Serbian devastation of this year? A day’s journey from Tirana over the Dujani Pass towards Dibra begins to reveal their traces. Here they have destroyed all life, all blossoming, all existence. But although that is so far away, the thought of it haunts everyone in Tirana itself at every turn. Perhaps one drives from the Konak of the Beis from the Toptan estate to go to one of their properties, after the laughing rich Valijes, for example.
The gaze sweeps across the large barracks to the right of the path. Starved, haggard faces at the windows, people from Dibra. Or one hikes up the delightful hill from which Essad Pasha’s summer residence dominates the whole area, rejoices in the snow-covered mountains that glitter in the air of the twinkling city between the black cypresses, goes back down the valley and meets a woman, a woman in a black silk dress with her white veil and wound her bare feet.
A woman from Dibra. Why, poor thing, are you not wearing shoes in this cold? Because I have none left, Mistress, because they left me nothing, nothing. But what do the shoes do? My three children are starving, Mistress, nothing to eat, nothing to eat. And she sobs softly, hopeless, desperate. Her father is dead.
It somehow comforts me in my heart that over there, beside the path, under the large plane trees by the Orthodox church, 1100 Serbs lie buried, who died in Tirana last year, died on the journey to the sea they wanted to possess and saw only a short time. I rejoice in a brief span of time. Long flow the tears of Serbian mothers for the sake of these graves. Justice. But then I shudder. Why rejoice?
Only suffering came to suffering and helped no one. Or one goes to the bazaar. Everything an Albanian could wish for is offered there: cattle, sheep, coal, soap, fruit, furs. People have come to the market from afar. Everything pushes and shoves between the vendors squatting on the ground. Then suddenly, amidst the junk, someone wants to sell a heavy gold chain. Treasures, pennies of dire need from Dibra.
Or one sips one’s Turkish coffee, barely awake in the morning. The fire crackles in the fireplace; through the many windows, the morning glory of the rising sun spills out. Then the maids crowd through the door, quick, eager, with hot faces. “Mistress, look at that beautiful, beautiful dress!” And they lift it high, close to my astonished eyes: a wide, cloak-like azure velvet gown with a broad trim of snow-white fur all over. Gold-embroidered, sunken splendor from Dibra.
In Tirana, much has been done for the unfortunate refugees. Above all, for several weeks now, Essad Pasha has been distributing about a pound of bread per person per day. In Tirana itself, not counting the surrounding area, between five and six thousand people receive this bread daily. But many of those who were wealthy in Dibra cannot bring themselves to put their names on the lists; they cannot bring themselves to come to the distribution.
I was in such a house, with people who had three houses in Dibra e madhe, people who all squatted on the floor in velvet and silk with their many, many children, all Dibrans had, people whose servants and their families still came to them out of ancient custom for food and help, and who neither turned the servants nor their families away from the threshold because it seemed more natural to them that they themselves should go hungry than to let those who served them and belonged to their household go hungry.
I was also in the harem. Twenty women sat around a pot of boiling water and a little corn, enough for two hungry people. The children’s eyes hung on the lid of the vessel as if on the gates of paradise, large, fearful eyes. And there was a small little boy. For him, the young mother, the sister of the master of the house, had prepared a little goat’s milk. The milk was now boiled for me. I objected and resisted, completely in vain. Oh God, please accept it, that is the custom among us in Dibra, a guest without refreshment.
Don’t shame us, we have nothing better. And although boiled milk is the most dreadful thing under God’s heaven, although it was the last bit of milk from a poor little child, I drank it because I know the hospitality of the Albanians, who so bitterly revile their enemies as savages. I know they would have suffered more bitterly from the feeling that their misery no longer even allowed them to refresh their guests than from their own hunger. As I left, my gaze slid over the countless children. “There are many,” said the host. “That’s good against the Serbs.”
Besides this help from Essad Pasha, the consulates of Austria and Italy distributed money to the refugees. And Austria sent further aid with field equipment, an entire hospital, doctors, Red Cross nurses, and medical soldiers. Under the direction of the excellent chief physician, Dr. Popper, it worked for two months with great blessing. Only in mid-December did the staff return home at the same time as me, since the wounded were all but four or five.
These wounded, some of whom had been brought to the hospital from very far away, came from the battles with the Serbs, some even from skirmishes with the Montenegrins. I often chatted with them and had them tell me about their campaign. The people spoke without any boasting, dejected by the misfortune, but no one thought of calmly enduring Serbian rule. In fact, there is probably not a single Albanian who even considers the possibility that the Vilayet of Kos sovo could remain permanently part of Serbia.
Perhaps this is a blessing for Albania, for as primitive as 90 percent of the population still are, cultural factors alone might not yet be strong enough to lift them above internal strife. The common goal of gaining Kosovo is achieved safely and decisively. In this pursuit, Tosk and Gegda find themselves together. Catholic Muslims and peasants, feudal lords and peasants, with feudal lords, opposing interests, inherited and learned enmities, a duty of revenge, tribal animosity.
In this thought and pursuit, they feel one until a new generation has been raised in capable schools, filled with cultural spirit, also capable of sacrificing personal interests for national work in the highest sense. From the wounded in the hospital, I learned many details, followed up on the accounts, and they confirmed it. In Struga, the men had been slaughtered by the Serbs. Understandably, for they were insurgents. Now, however, according to Serbian law, they are the heirs of their property.
The Serbian commander didn’t need to think long about the remedy. Women were forced to marry Serbs legally, before priests and altar. That night, the women were murdered. Now the Serbian husbands are the heirs. In a larger town in the Ljuma region, even the Orthodox clergy testified upon the arrival of the troops that the population had not participated in the uprising.
The commander explained that he wanted to take the situation into account, solely for the purpose of an official survey, and that the population should assemble in the bazaar square. Thereupon, he had the assembled crowd, predominantly elderly, women, and children, shot down. Only 40 escaped this bloodbath. I am not repeating these accounts as an indictment of Serbia. Serbia does not justify all these things for reasons of state.
I am recounting reports to characterize the mood in Albania. The doctors at the hospital, to my delight, spoke very favorably of their patients. I say to my delight because, after being considered a friend of Albanians for so many years, my own judgment could be considered biased. However, none of the three doctors had been to Albania before; they came completely unfamiliar with the situation.
Unprepared, rather expecting to encounter a wild, dirty people where hard work would be linked to considerable self-sacrifice, instead they found patients of goodwill, friendliness, and gratitude, easy to treat, obedient, and polite. The patients never argued among themselves.
Nor were they ever loud or particularly addicted. No one was dirty, much less unseemly. The behavior of the refugees once again proved to me what good qualities the Albanian national character possesses. An Albanian from Dibra, from whose head doctor the chief physician bought a carpet, told me about a house where the misery of the refugees was particularly appalling.
We then set off. Duleiman Alaman and I, Duleiman Bei, from one of the first families of the Matja Mountains, is not yet sixteen, but his father fell fighting the Serbs last year. He is the head of the house where five younger brothers live. He is already married, although he still wants to attend school in Tirana for another two or three years. He owns three estates and properties in the wildest region of the Matja.
He has invited me to join him for bear hunting so often that I will probably accept the invitation on my next trip to Albania. Duleiman Bei is a clever and kind fellow, brave to the point of absolute disregard for death, but still a real child. “You, leiman,” I said, “I have 6000 francs with me. Don’t let me down. If you leave me alone, I’ll kill you when I get home.” I laughed because, in truth, I’d never been afraid of Albanians.
At first, Duleiman didn’t understand me at all, then he blushed furiously. “But, mistress, what can happen to a woman in Albania? And you? You are our sister.” The house I had been made aware of truly harbored a misery beyond description. Children, men, women, sick and healthy, all crammed together in one ground-floor room without windows or a floor. And the most horrifying thing was that different, new mothers with small children kept emerging from the darkness, each one more hollow-eyed, more starved and desperate than the next.
I helped as best I could because these people, in the bitter cold of Tirana, didn’t have a blanket, not a bit of coal, not a penny of money. But finally, I became afraid and dreadful of this never-ending stream of misery. So I slowly went to the door and gently pushed two or three of the unfortunate people inside.
He turned aside and ran out. A woman, however, ran after me with her infant in her arms. She didn’t scream, she only pleaded very quietly, “Mistress, have mercy, I have seven children,” and was left alone. Before I could answer, Duleiman turned calmly and reprimandingly to her and the small children who had run after us with their mother. “Don’t belittle yourselves,” he said. And his eyes were full of astonishment that good Albanian blood, not mixed beggars from the port cities, could debase themselves so.
The woman truly paused with her requests and would have said nothing further even if I hadn’t given her a gift. A few words should be said about the last aid operation in Tirana, which alleviated the suffering of the unfortunate refugees. This aid operation was organized by the German Balkan Association Dubvid, on whose behalf I gave lectures and issued appeals.
The collection yielded approximately 15,000 Swiss francs. I myself traveled to Tirana, although only returning a few months after almost a year’s stay, to ensure its practical distribution. Since the cold was almost the greatest torment, I first distributed a mat to each person to lie on and a large, thick blanket. In total, 800 blankets and 800 mats were distributed.
Furthermore, I gave 1-2 kg of coal to each person’s head. In particularly sad cases, I also gave food and money. Now, as I write these lines, donations are still coming in, so I hope that my wish to be able to send the urgently needed aid expedition to Unter Dibras at the beginning of February can be fulfilled through German charity. It is obvious that not everything has been done with this temporary aid. Once the new government has taken hold, comprehensive measures will be necessary.
Rules must be put in place to provide all these unfortunate people with a new opportunity for existence without a single one being forced to leave their homeland, thus ensuring that not a single Albanian worker is lost to the already sparsely populated Albania. In my opinion, this is perhaps the most important task of the new ruler. And whoever emigrates from the Vilayet of Kosovo, the Albanian New Serbia, must be able to find refuge and work in Albania.
To make this possible, the completely uncultivated, fallow state estates would have to be subdivided and leased to the refugees under the most favorable conditions. Even a loan for this purpose would prove to be a brilliant business in the long run, as the state estates consist largely of the most fertile soil.
If the immediate hardship is alleviated, and all the well-founded despair in Albania is quelled as quickly as possible, insofar as human strength allows, then much will have been achieved. Then, as most connoisseurs of Albania, this beautiful country, and its fundamental nature hope, Such a promising people confidently expect that the future of the country will unfold to the joy of its friends and the glory and pride of its prince.”
Source
“Albanien nach dem Kriege Von Marie Amelie Freiin von Godin”. 1914. Velhagen & Klasings neue Monatshefte. Volume 28. Edition 2. pp.359-365.
