In World War I, Albania was an independent state, having gained independence from the Ottoman Empire on 28 November 1912, during the First Balkan War. It was recognized by the Great Powers as the Principality of Albania, after the Ottoman Empire officially renounced all its rights in May 1913. Being a fledgling new country, it quickly unravelled and just a few months after taking power, its German ruler, Prince Wilhelm, was forced to flee. After World War I broke out, anarchy took hold of the country as tribes and regions rebelled against central rule. To protect the Greek minority, Greek control was established in the southern districts replacing the Northern Epirote units beginning in October 1914. In response to this, Italy, although officially neutral at the time, also sent troops into the port of Vlorë, while Serbia and Montenegro took control of northern regions. In 1915 Serbia was overrun by combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces; the Serbian army retreated across the mountain passes of northern Albania, towards the Adriatic. Italian troops drove the Greeks from southern Albania and brought almost all Albanian territory under their control. Austrian forces invaded in June 1916; Austro-Hungarian forces remained in Albania until the end of the war when a multinational Allied force broke through and pushed them out in 1918.
Background Albania declared its independence only two years before World War I. In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece all occupied and claimed parts of Albania. It was decided that Wilhelm of Wied, a German prince, would become the leader of the new Principality of Albania. The principality under Wilhelm was established on 21 February 1914 and Prince Wilhelm arrived in Albania at his provisional capital of Durrës on 7 March 1914 along with the royal family. The security of Albania was to be provided by an International Gendarmerie commanded by Dutch officers. Inside Albania he was called King Wilhelm; outside Albania, Prince Wilhelm.
The southern part of the country, Northern Epirus, which had a large Greek population, grated at being part of Albania and when the Greek soldiers left, it rose up against William. Under pressure from the great powers the Greeks backed down on independence demands and negotiations were carried out on the island of Corfu, where on 17 May 1914 Albanian and Epirote representatives signed an agreement known as the Protocol of Corfu. According to its terms, Northern Epirus would acquire complete autonomous existence (as a corpus separatum) under the nominal Albanian sovereignty of Prince William. The agreement of the Protocol was ratified by the representatives of the Great Powers at Athens on 18 June and by the Albanian government on 23 June.
Revolt against Prince William
On 7 March, one month after accepting the throne, King William arrived in his provisional capital of Durrës and started to organise his government, appointing Turhan Pasha Përmeti to form the first Albanian cabinet. This first cabinet was dominated by members of the nobility (Essad Pasha Toptani, defence and foreign affairs, George Adamidi bey Frachery, finances, and Aziz pacha Vrioni, agriculture).
His brief reign proved a turbulent one. Immediately following his arrival Muslim unrest broke out in central Albania, influenced by Ottoman propaganda which portrayed the new regime as a tool of the Christian powers and the large landowners. By early May 1914, the discontent had evolved into a general revolt led by Haxhi Qamili and other Muslim clerics. The aim of the rebels was to restore Ottoman rule over Albania, and they violently rejected Albanian nationalism and secularism.
There are differing accounts as to the exact nature of Toptani's involvement in the uprising. Some sources indicate that he had a leading role in the uprising from the beginning, yet others describe the rebels as explicitly anti-Toptani. In any case, and regardless of whether he actually enjoyed widespread support among the rebels, Toptani wanted to take advantage of the chaos to oust Prince Wilhelm and seize power for himself, and was backed by Italy, which viewed Wilhelm as too pro-Austrian. Dutch officers led by Lodewijk Thomson who were stationed in Albania as part of the ICC ultimately decided to have Toptani arrested, despite Wilhelm remaining indecisive on the matter. On 19 May, Toptani's house was raided by government forces and he surrendered; the following day he was exiled to Italy.
World War I
War broke out in Europe on July 28, 1914, with Albania continuing to be in disarray. Throughout the war, occupying forces, of both Central and Allied powers, massacred the Albanian population on multiple occasions.
Departure of Prince Wilhelm (September 1914) The outbreak of World War I presented more problems for Prince William as Austria-Hungary demanded that he send Albanian soldiers to fight alongside them. When he refused, citing the neutrality of Albania in the Treaty of London, the remuneration that he had been receiving was cut off.
With the Muslim rebels placing Durrës under siege for months, and under overwhelming pressure, Wilhelm evacuated Albania on 3 September 1914. On 7 September, Durrës finally fell to the rebels. With these events, remaining central authority crumbled and any sense of national unity in Albania evaporated.
Establishment of the Senate of Central Albania (September–October 1914) The "Senate of Central Albania" was the polity that was formed by the Muslim insurgents after their capture of Durrës on 7 September 1914. Inside the city, the victorious rebels hoisted the Ottoman flag, began imprisoning supporters of Wilhelm, and declared that they would seek to install a Muslim prince. Prince Şehzade Mehmed Burhaneddin, a son of the former Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II, was invited to take up this position, but this proposal never materialized. The vast majority of the population living in the northern and the southern part of Albania disassociated themselves from the Senate of Central Albania.
The Senate apparently dropped its plans for a "Muslim prince" and invited Essad Toptani to return to Albania and take over as leader. Toptani had been in France when World War I broke out and immediately left for Albania, seeking to take power and align Albania with the Entente Powers. Along the way, he stopped at Serbia and signed the Treaty of Niš with the Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić on 17 September. The treaty envisioned a Serb-Albanian alliance that would be implemented with Toptani returning to Albania and being elected as leader. On 19 September, with full Serbian support, Toptani returned to Albania. He went to the Dibër region, where he gathered a force of 4,000 volunteers, and peacefully entered Durrës at the beginning of October 1914. On 5 October, with the backing of the Senate, Toptani proclaimed himself as prime minister and president, setting up the Toptani Government, considered the 3rd ruling government of Albania. Immediately afterwards, he declared war on Austria-Hungary to show he was on the side of the Entente.
Toptani was aware that the vast majority of the population governed by the Senate of Central Albania remained pro-Ottoman (the Ottoman Empire was neutral at this point in the war). Therefore, he did not question the Senate's pro-Ottoman policy nor its nominal declaration that the Ottoman sultan (Mehmed V) had suzerainty over Albania.
Greek occupation of Northern Epirus (October 1914)
In the following days after Prince Wilhelm's departure, an Epirote unit launched an attack on the Albanian garrison in Berat without approval from the provisional government, managing to capture its citadel for several days, while Albanian troops loyal to Essad Pasha initiated small-scale armed operations. These events worried Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, as well as the possibility that the unstable situation could spill over outside Albania, triggering a wider conflict. On October 27, 1914, after receiving the approval of the Great Powers the Greek Army's V Army Corps entered the area for a second time. The provisional government of Northern Epirus formally ceased to exist, declaring that it had accomplished its objectives. Greek troops crossed the southern Albanian border at the end of October 1914, officially reoccupying southern Albania, exclusive of Vlorë, and establishing a military administration by 27 October 1914. The Italians were not happy with the Greek occupation and sent in Italian marines to occupy Vlorë, or Avlona, or Valona, as they called it. On October 31 the Italians seized the strategic island of Saseno or Sazan Island. In December Italy reiterated that Albania would remain neutral as stated at the London Conference and that Italian bluejackets were landed at Valona with this objective.
Failed revolt against Toptani (October 1914–June 1915) The Ottoman Empire declared war against the Entente on 31 October 1914. This shattered Toptani's balance between his pro-Entente administration and his overtures to the pro-Ottoman majority of Central Albania. Emboldened especially by the Ottoman declaration of jihad against the Entente (14 November), a Muslim revolt occurred once more, this time starting from the Krujë area. These rebels were extremely anti-Serbian and influenced by Ottoman propaganda which branded Toptani as a traitor to Islam and called for the reconquest of Kosovo from Serbia. Haxhi Qamili returned to become one of the commanders of this new revolt.
These Krujë rebels significantly jeopardized Toptani's position. Many of his followers, swayed by the rebels' rhetoric, defected over to their side. The Central Powers actively supported them, with Ottoman officers arriving in the region to command rebel forces, and Austria-Hungary regularly supplying the rebels with money, weapons, and ammunition. The Krujë rebels also began conducting cross-border raids into Serbia alongside Bulgarian irregulars.
The Krujë rebels continued to expand their territorial gains at the expense of the Senate of Central Albania. Under significant pressure, Toptani requested multiple times for both Serbia and Greece to come to his aid. Seeking to placate Greece, he recognized Greek control of Northern Epirus in a secret agreement. Serbia finally ordered preparations for an intervention in support of the Senate to be made in December 1914, but this was delayed significantly by the concerns of fellow Entente member Russia that operations in Albania might distract from the Austro-Hungarian front and appear to challenge the Italian interests in the country. By then, the Senate- just like Prince Wilhelm's administration before it- had been stripped of all territorial control outside of Durrës, which was under constant siege by the Krujë rebels. Only the Italian navy, present in the adjacent bay, was helping defend Durrës from the rebels. In May 1915, Qamili was elected as leader of the rebels, marking his second time leading a pro-Ottoman revolt in Albania.
Under the secret Treaty of London signed in April 1915, Triple Entente powers promised Italy that it would gain Vlorë (Valona) and the island of Saseno in exchange for entering the war against Austria-Hungary. It was also prospected the reduction of Albania to a tiny Albanian state that would be represented by Italy in its relations with the other major powers, since Serbia and Montenegro were promised much of northern Albania, while Greece was promised much of the country's southern half.