By Ekrem Spahiu
-The Albanian Kingdom – the promoter of the Anti-Fascist War-
Memorie.al / History has all the historical, political, legal and military evidence and justifications that the Albanian Kingdom was the promoter of the resistance and the Anti-Fascist War. Communist historiography, despite the indisputable evidence and impartial justifications, fabricated alibis for Zog’s relationship with Italy, as if he sold Albania, as if he welcomed the fascist invasion with open arms and as if he abandoned the country. But the historical truth is not ideologically defined.
It is a fact that Zog addressed the largest volume of economic and military relations with Italy. But we ask: at what time and which Albanian statesman did not consider Italy the greatest strategic partner? Even the Albanian communist state; considered that “Our relations with Italy are normal, have been constantly improving and there are all possibilities for their further improvement”.
It is important to note that at the moment when King Zog realized that Italy had far-reaching plans to invade Albania, he did not accept the invitations, demands, ultimatums or Italian fascist pressures to bind Albania forever with the so-called “mutual defense treaties”, which were political instruments of the pre-military invasion, a “suffocating embrace of Italy”, as a foreign scholar would describe it.
Italy probably prejudiced King Zog as a statesman who could “give way, after Italian pressure against his will or his own interests”.
Within this prejudice, the Italian side had thought that the financial threat could be used as pressure to accept the renewal of the Treaty and that; “the policy of tightening the screws, the cessation of aid, i.e., the suspension of the loan installment…would be the lever of Archimedes, which would break the King”. But these pressures, as has been proven in many documents, “failed to shake him from his irreversible stance”.
It is already proven with authentic documents, that; “from mid-February 1939, Albanian-Italian relations took a further turn for the worse, when the King of the Albanians began to play with open cards” and that the efforts of King Zog, to denounce the Italian subversive activity, the Italian side sought to suffocate them through its own efforts, even “to eliminate King Zog”, as the main obstacle to the invasion plans.
If King Zog had “sold” Albania, as communist historiography suggests, then Italy would have come to Albania on tourist yachts. On the contrary, it is now universally known that Italy invaded Albania with a well-studied military plan, through a genuine military operation, which involved the forces of large operational units, over 25,000 soldiers, hundreds of fighter jets, dozens of warships, etc.
Meanwhile, the dignified resistance of the Albanian army and gendarmerie under the leadership of Major Abaz Kupi, one of Zog’s loyal soldiers, is also officially recognized.
Communist historiography, even later ones, has anathemated King Zog’s departure from Albania, as if it constituted “abandonment of the anti-fascist war.” But, with sound, not blind, reasoning, we will find King Haakon VII of Norway, who refused to submit to German pressure in World War II, which asked him to abdicate, inspired the resistance of the army, went into exile in England and returned from exile to Norway in June 1945, thus enjoying the respect of the Norwegian people.
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was also subjected to approximately the same peril. In contrast, King Leopold III of Belgium, who remained in the country but, forced by German military supremacy, was forced to carry out an act of surrender, which cost him a long and humiliating political ordeal, until the loss of the throne.
King George II of Greece, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, King Peter II of Yugoslavia, President Edvard Beneš of Czechoslovakia, and President Władysław Raczkiewicz of Poland all went into exile during the Nazi occupation of their countries.
No one called these heads of state “traitors” to their countries. They simply refused to accept the occupation and, therefore, would not accept the humiliation they would suffer at the hands of a power tens of times greater and more brutal than Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Then, even the sound reasoning of Albanian historiography, must write in capital letters that; King Zog’s departure from Albania, was an expression of the rejection of the occupation, sparing Albania’s prestige and himself humiliation, by the fascist or Nazi invaders.
If we were to accept the communist thesis, that; “Zog sold Albania”, then we would also have to accept the thesis that he, quite naturally, would go and settle in a villa in Italy, where he would be welcomed with flowers. But, as is known, Zog never set foot in Italy, throughout his entire life.
On the contrary, he chose to stay and work for the anti-fascist war, precisely in Britain, in the state that led the war against fascism and Nazism, to exercise his anti-fascist and anti-Nazi commitment, through active diplomacy in London and the activation of Zogist forces within Albania, in support and backing of the Great Anti-Fascist Alliance.
Meanwhile, his loyal forces in this war, led by Major Abaz Kupi, continued the anti-fascist resistance, precisely at a time when no other political force had started this war.
Abaz Kupi preserved precisely the King’s anti-fascist legacy and loyalty, continuing the anti-fascist resistance even further, accepting at the same time to cooperate with the other anti-fascist military forces of the country, being accepted for this stance and contribution, as an equal member of the Anti-Fascist General Staff, with Commander Major Spiro Moisiu, a former soldier of the Zog Monarchy.
Thus, history has all the historical, political, legal and military evidence and justifications that the Albanian Kingdom was the promoter of the resistance and the Anti-Fascist War. Because history is not made with ideological justifications, as the communist regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and his successor, Ramiz Alia, did for 45 years, which unfortunately, some of his followers continue to do even today, 33 years after the collapse of that regime, with the same zeal!
Therefore, just as the Kingdom was monumentalized as a state, so should its anti-fascist contribution, that of Ahmet Zog and the Albanian Kings, be officially monumentalized in the historiography that the Academy of Sciences is preparing. Memorie.al
