Part XIV: The Calm Before the Storm

October 14, 1939. Durres, Albania.

So much for a second front… Walter Mandel thought as he sighed and placed the newspaper down. Even though everyone on the haschara (1) knew that the German's initial victories were unlikely to be reversed, many of them, Walter included, held out hope that the outbreak of war would finally shatter the rotten edifice of Nazi Germany. Yet what more could be expected when the Anglo-French alliance refused to launch an offensive while Poland fought not only Germany but the Soviets? With yet another "easy victory" under his belt, Hitler and his cronies would become even more insufferable as they undoubtedly entrenched their control over his home country.

Even more proof of the Führer's genius and the Führerprinzip in general… He couldn't help but smirk. Everything he'd experienced here in Albania had shown Walter that the idiot in Berlin couldn't recognize the genuine Führerprinzip if it slapped him in the face. As much as Hitler cited Zog's successes in Albania as proof of what he could do for Germany, and as much as Walter had feared that Zog was little more than a fascist with better optics, his experiences in Albania had shown him what truly great leadership could do for a country and its people. If only a man of similar character could have been found to rule over his homeland…

Over Germany… Walter corrected himself. He'd been born in Hamburg. He'd done everything possible to be the best possible German citizen. "More German than the Germans." It hadn't been enough. Even if all of Hitler's cronies perished in the coming conflict, he couldn't go back. Not after he'd decided to flee the country only to find that the violence escalating so quickly that he had to find a safer place to await the processing of his visa. Though his feelings about Albania had changed since his arrival, the process of leaving the only home he had ever known for a mystical, underdeveloped, backwater had irreparably damaged his opinion of Germany. Despite the haschara's leaders' insistence on promoting Zionist ideals, those too grated on Walter. He truly was a man without a home. Even if his meeting next month went perfectly and the Americans granted him a visa, he doubted if he would ever feel the same feelings he had felt in Hamburg. In a surprising twist of fate, he found that the Kingdom of Albania of all places had become the only country he felt anything for even as he watched his last days in it pass by.

Tractor Albania.jpg

A tractor plows the field of the Training Farm outside of Durres. Following its founding in 1932, the Training farm grew dramatically to accommodate not only additional Albanian students, but Jewish refugees as well. Royal investment ensured that the training farm was one of the few mechanized farms so that Albanian students could be taught more modern agricultural methods.​

"Not hungry Walter?" his friend Otto Levy (2) quipped from beside him, snapping him out of his funk. "We only have a few more minutes."

After a glance at the cafeteria clock revealed he was right, Walter turned his attention from the old newspaper and towards his rapidly cooling lunch and inhaled the simple meal in front of him.

"I know it's difficult to focus, but you still have work to do here."

Walter snorted "That's rich coming from you. You have what, four more days?"

"Five." Siegfried shot back "Anne of course wants to stay. She's become quite attached to this place."

"And Hannah?"

Siegfried laughed, "Hannah wants to leave yesterday!" His wife's refusal to disembark upon arriving in Durres had become something of a running joke between them. She'd been so struck by Durres' ramshackle appearance that she insisted that she was going back to Italy. Fortunately for Siegfried, she'd softened a bit once they reached the Emigrantenheim in downtown Durres and things had gotten progressively better once they moved to the training farm. (3) "But seriously, I think when all this over she'll have positive memories as well. The haschara isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the alternative and I swear I've slept better here than I have in years."

"Reconsidering aliyah?" Walter shot back as they made their way back to the fields. Neither of them particularly liked the training farm as some of their "instructors" had developed quite the authoritarian streak. Still, physical labour coupled with the stark contrast between the environment here and the one they left back in "Greater Germany" or Romania meant that pretty much all the refugees put up with the instructors in order to sleep soundly in their beds. Though the Zionists had been hesitant to agree to cooperate with Zog and the JDC to help Jews of all ages, from every walk of life and every political orientation to take up residence at the training farm, it had proven to be a recruitment dream. (4) Sure most of the refugees wouldn't ultimately end up in the Yishuv, (5) but they'd probably be donating to Zionist causes for the rest of their lives nonetheless.

"Can't afford the shipping!" Like so many refugees here, the Levy's had sent their goods directly to America, their ultimate destination, while they awaited the processing of their visa applications. "Besides, I'm not going to try my luck with the British after waiting so long for the Americans… even though the waiting hasn't been the worst experience."

"I can only hope the Poles have the same luxury…" (6)

Otto shook his head "It's no use carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders Walter…"

"There was more graffiti on the Emigrantenheim this morning…"

"So? Graffiti is just that. A feature of urban life. Why should Durres be any different? People are just nervous. War is breaking out in Europe, more foreigners are coming to their country than ever before. First us, then the Italians…"

"Nobody's marking up Italian buildings…"

"Who do you think's stirring all of this up? If Zog didn't strike his deal with the Zionists he'd have to rely on them even more and they'd have set up their agricultural settlement years ago." (7) Siegfried sighed as they took up their tools and resumed their work. "Besides it's just some young thugs…."

"You said the same thing almost a decade ago…look where we are now."

"Zog's no Hindenburg or Hitler no matter how much he's admired by the devil. How much more does he have to do to prove that to you?"

"At the end of the day he's still a tyrant."

"So was Cyrus." Otto was obviously getting frustrated. Their conversation had drifted and now they were rehashing a well-rehearsed argument.

Walter could understand his friend's argument to a point. Otto had a family. He couldn't afford to be as idealistic. Still, for all of his benevolence and his work with both the Zionists and the JDC, Zog's powers were too close to a czar for his liking. It could all change so quickly.

"I'll grant you that things have been getting worse." Otto said after a pause "But it's not just Zog, the Union is still saying that we're the canary in the coal-mine. If gangs start going after us the factory workers are going to go after them because they think the gangs will start coming after them next. We didn't have that back home. Moreover, we didn't have a King, a good King, who wants peace. He'd send in the Gendarmes before anything like that blew up because he wants to keep the money flowing."

"Or it's all a part of his game." Walter shot back "Why bring in so many of us for no obvious benefit? Is he really that morally superior to the rest of the world? Or is it all a ploy to get on the Germans' good side? Facilitate their Judenfrei dreams while at the same time building an excuse to kick out the 'blood sucking foreigners' and wiggle out from under Italian domination. If he wanted to he could end Jewish immigration in a heartbeat with one broadcast to the Gendarmes. Everyone knows nobody has 500 Francs these days, least of all the poor souls leaving now…"(8)

Siegfried laughed "You need to stay out of the sun my friend!" He shook his head "First off, I wouldn't say 'no obvious benefit.' The King's men did their best to recruit Dr. Meyer and they've recruited others who have the skills they want. If you didn't have an upcoming appointment, I'd recommend that you take another look at that radio job. (9) A single man like you could make a good life here. Your sunstroke is even worse if you think Zog would willingly trade Mussolini for Hitler. Do you really think he'd be able to play the Germans like he's played the Italians?"

"You still really think that Zog brought in thousands of refugees just so he could recruit a few doctors and radiomen?"

"I think that neither of us have all the information. I also think that there are times when you don't ask why a blessing looks a certain way. Sometimes you just have to accept it. Besides, what actual hard evidence do you have that Zog's not going to just continue playing the Italians for fools? Perhaps bringing in all of us is all part of a larger plan that we can't make sense of. I bet people were saying the same thing when he was throwing money at East Texas. He's had his share of failures, true, but what has he done to deserve this level of suspicion?"

A shout from one of their supervisors prevented Walter from responding.

Only a few more weeks of Zionist bullshit…

Notes

1. Training farm. In OTL Jewish organizations of all ideological stripes established dozens of these to combat antisemitic stereotypes and to facilitate immigration either to Palestine or other countries. Zog entered into negotiations via Hermann Bernstein to establish one in OTL in the early 1930s but was unwilling to provide any money or any significant help at all.

2. Walter Mandel and the Levy family are all fictional characters. This segment is based off Johanna Neuman's self-published memoir "Via Albania." In OTL her family arrived in Albania 5 weeks before the Italians invaded and were not able to continue their journey to America. Instead they remained in Albania until 1945, surviving with the help of several Albanian families. They were able leave the country in 1945 as a part of a deal in which the Albanian communists provided exit visas for 100 Jews in exchange for medicine.

3. In OTL the American Jewish community worked with the small Albanian Jewish community to support newly arriving refugees and founded the Emigrantenheim. According to Johanna's childhood memories, it functioned like a kibbutz, but in OTL there was no training farm for them to find more comfortable accommodations in.

4. JDC = Joint Distribution Committee. An American Jewish organization which provided support to Jewish refugees abroad. After the war it became increasingly dominated by Zionists, but in the 1930s it had considerably more ideological diversity. The JDC played a major role in establishing a similar settlement in the Dominican Republic. In TTL Jack is able to deploy his own funds in such a way as to get both the Zionists and the JDC on the same page in this particular instance to further his goals of facilitating Jewish emigration from Germany. The Zionists had a similar training farm in Romania which was closed in 1938. Part of the settlement Zog negotiates is to allow the Romanian Zionists to resume their work in Albania.

5. Hebrew for Settlement. Used to refer to the Jewish community in Palestine during the 1930s.

6. Interestingly enough, Albania was floated as a possible alternate Jewish homeland as early as 1935 in a Jewish newspaper in Warsaw as well as in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's paper. The Kingdom of Albania also has diplomatic independence due to the 1939 Pact of Tirana (see retconned Part XIII) so there's an Albanian diplomat there to help get refugees out.

7. Re-read Part XIII, a big part of the 1939 Pact of Tirana was the granting of state land to 300 Italian settlers. In OTL this happened in 1937 as part of one of the many concessions Zog had to make to keep Italian money flowing into his country. In TTL Jack's flush with cash, doesn't need to make as many of those concessions, and can use them as leverage in negotiations.

8. It's worth noting that in OTL the constant infusion of Italian cash into Albania coupled with strict monetary policies enforced from Rome meant that the Albanian Gold Franc was one of the strongest currencies in Europe. In TTL the Italians aren't providing as much cash, but Jack's investments coupled with the aforementioned monetary policy means that the Albanian Franc is even stronger in TTL thus making the prospect of actually having the 500 francs required to visit Albania even more unobtainable for the Jewish refugees.

9.In OTL Jewish refugees played a key part in the Albanian partisan movement due to their education with many serving as doctors, translators, or radio operators.

(Excerpt from Drita June 1st 1960) (10)

Prince Leka Reflects on His Wartime Experiences Abroad

…

Ismail Kadare (IK): To what extent was your decision to join the army and volunteer for deployment abroad shaped by your experiences during the War of National Liberation? (11)

Prince Leka (PL): I would say it was the driving force more than anything else. I felt like I needed to prove to the nation and to myself really, that I was a worthy successor to my father.

IK: Do you think you've succeeded? If you could speak to them, what would you say to your cousin's supporters?

PL: While I certainly wasn't perfect, no one is, I believe my record speaks for itself. As for my cousin, what can I say, he's a fine man who served our country just like I have. He and I have our disagreements but at the end of the day we are still family. For that reason and for the good of the country I fully intend to respect the constitutionally expressed will of the Albanian people when my father passes. I would only ask his supporters if they truly thought that my cousin's more American approach is in keeping with the strategy that my father has used so effectively.

IK: A fair question. Changing subjects, as I am sure you are aware, today is the twentieth anniversary of your infamous "escape" which many consider to be the act which incited the Albanian Civil War. Looking back on it now, what is your perspective? What do you remember from those days?

PL: (laughing) Inciting incident? Hardly! I'm sure my mother and grandfather were obviously not pleased with my father's actions, but their opposition to him and that of the other Quislings had been brewing since well before his coronation. It should be noted that for all their bluster, most still behaved like loyal Albanian citizens until the Battle of Tirana. At the time, my "escape" as you call it was little more than a family squabble. My mother, uncles, and grandfather had made their wish for me to study abroad in Italy very clear, my father disagreed and wanted me to go to America but was willing to accept the UK as a compromise. I on the other hand clearly remember wanting to remain in the country.

IK: Why was that?

PL: I would love to say that at 9 years old I saw the coming war and wanted to fight for Albanian independence. Lord knows I wished that I had stayed whenever news from Albania arrived. But looking back at it, I probably had a subconscious desire to remove my education as a source of conflict between my parents. That combined with a natural childlike fear of the unknown drove my desire to stay. Everyone seems to forget that for all my father's international connections, he never travelled abroad before the war due to fears of domestic instability, Italian intrigue, and a desire to be an involved father.

IK: Do you feel like he was an involved father?

PL: He certainly tried his best. But he was the infamous "King Zog" after all so sometimes it didn't feel like it back then. Looking back at it, his commitment to me, especially now that I know all of the details about my parents' marriage that I had been shielded from as a child, is inspiring. As a new parent, I only hope that I can do the same for my children.

IK: So you intend to send them abroad as well?

PL: We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but I'm fairly confident that our country is in a vastly different place now so my family's decision-making process will be different. It's not his decision to send me abroad that I find inspiring, but my father's willingness to sacrifice for not only the people of Albania, but me. He always seemed to care deeply about me as a person and he was there for me in a way that my mother and her family weren't. That care was probably why I gravitated to him even though I only received letters from him when I was abroad. It was also probably why he was able to get away with the whole caper in the first place.

IK: Why do you say that?

PL: It is a credit to my father that he regularly carved out time to spend with me. Hiking, camping, we'd even been sailing a few times before we took that trip in June 1940. He also had been planning that trip with me for almost a year. We were going to take one of the Navy's new caiques out from Vlora and then spend a few days sailing up and down the southern coast. Had he tried to just spring that on my mother in June or in May she would have known he was up to something. After all, we now know that her and my grandfather were planning to do something similar and leave with me for Rome prior to the invasion. But even as late as June 1940, people in Albania, Italy and around the world thought that the war could be contained so nobody tried to stop my father when we left on our long awaited trip, least of all me. When we left the palace, I was obviously quite excited to spend a few days alone with my father, but I had every intention of returning and enjoying the rest of my summer vacation there.

IK: When did he tell you the truth about your trip and what was your initial reaction?

PL: I can still remember it. It's one of those cornerstone memories, something you don't forget. I remember him dropping anchor and making supper after our first full day at sea with the fish we had caught earlier on a simple gas stove. The water was calm, and the sky was majestic. After we finished eating, I remember him explaining that war was finally coming and that as a result our itinerary was changing and we were going slip away to Corfu to meet a seaplane that would take us to the UK. I thought he was joking at first, but then he showed me all the extra things he packed. When he pointed out the Italian ship following us was when the reality of the situation dawned on me. I was so excited. Being a child, my first thought was that I'd get so much extra time with my dad.

IK: And your mother?

PL: My mother had her qualities, but she was never particularly warm to me particularly when her usual tactic of buying me things didn't work. Even when it did work, she never quite accepted that I was growing up and always tried to infantilize me whereas my father was always pushing me to mature, perhaps a bit too quickly. Had I known that I had already seen her for the last time, my reaction would have undoubtedly been different, but at the time I didn't really think about it. I didn't really have time we were both so busy slipping away from the Italians. I was so excited to be helping my dad. I felt so grown up. I didn't really think about a lot of things, so I was completely blindsided the next morning when my father told me that he wasn't coming with me and that he was going to stay in Albania to fight the invasion.

IK: What was your reaction to that?

PL: Well, shock obviously. By the time he told me I was already standing in the seaplane and the engines were starting up. He promised to write me whenever he could, and he gave me his first letter as proof. I remember crying and trying to jump out and swim to the boat, but my father's friend Chatin Sarachi was there to stop me. Needless to say, he won. I almost lost that first letter in the scuffle, in fact for the first leg of our flight I thought I had. Sarachi only gave it to me when we boarded the next plane in Malta. By that time, I'd calmed down, if I had read it immediately, I don't know if it would have sunk in. Then again, I don't know if I really understood it until much later after I had read it a few dozen times.

IK: What did you take away from the letter?

PL: I won't bother recounting the letter's contents as it's already included in the book as the first entry. In general, it just confirmed things that I already knew about the state of the country and the war that was coming. I'd always known that my father had his failings and he tried his best, but to have him effectively write that to me and ask for my forgiveness was, in hindsight, quite impactful.

IK: What did you make of him sending you to the UK in defiance of your mother?

PL: Younger readers will have to understand that my father's decision took place in a very specific context politically and a social context that is quite different to today. I have to confess that, at the time, I didn't think anything of it. It was quite normal back then for Albanian fathers to make those kinds of executive decisions. Our current ongoing movement to a more egalitarian system only began during the War as my father was freed from Italian pressure to pursue his initial inclination. Was he inconsistent in the case of my education? Yes. But this was no ordinary decision and by that point my parent's marriage had become so politically divided…

IK: Wasn't your father's decision to send you to the UK a political decision?

PL: Undoubtedly. But in his defense, there really was no non-political alternative available to him. I believe he made the best decision available to him. In the UK not only was I privileged to have an excellent education, but I also was safe and was able to visit family in my Aunt, Princess Adile and my cousins. (12) My childhood was never going to be normal, but in the UK I at least had a far greater semblance of it than I would have of my mother had her wish and I went to Fascist Italy.

Adile.jpg

Adile Zogu (1890-1966): The most traditional of Zog's sisters, Adile had the best experience in exile of all of Zog's sisters in OTL, eventually settling in a house in Henley-on-Thames. She was rarely photographed and almost never wore makeup. Allegedly, she tried a more modern look once but ended up putting lipstick on her eyebrows, much to her sibling's delight.​

IK: What was contact with your mother like?

PL: Sporadic to say the least. She could write, but unlike my father, she didn't enjoy it. She wanted to take me but was unable to due to my father's preparations and of course the war. She eventually wrote me a few letters but basically considered me to be in captivity. She continually bemoaned my fate, ignoring the fact that I was quite happy and kept promising to "liberate me" once Hitler was victorious. However, her pro-Axis stance paled in comparison to the utter hatred for my father which poured out as she tried to use her letters to turn me against him. She'd always tried to manipulate me just like she was manipulated, but as a child it was difficult to see until it was spelled out in front of me.

IK: Do you think your father purposely allowed her to remain in contact with you for that reason?

PL: No. He consistently tried to paint her in the best light. You can read for yourself how he kept saying that she was being pressured to write things to me. He thought it was cruel to cut off all communication between us. My mother was certainly not perfect, but we shouldn't forget the situation she found herself in. Her letters do not reflect her true nature and for that reason I have declined to publish them. I will speak no further on this.

IK: …What were your first impressions of England?

PL: Well, I was a bit nervous obviously. My father had insisted that I learn English, but my accent was American, so I didn't quite fit in. It took me a couple years to pick up new slang and the English dialect. I came in right at the end of Summer Term, but it turned out my tutors prepared me well. It also helped that when I arrived, I was just another millionaire's child albeit an exotic one. Compared to what it was when I left, the legend of Zog was quite small. After the end of the 1940 school year, I spent the holidays with my family and that wasn't really that different from the holidays I had taken with my extended family back in Albania. Princess Adile after all had been living in the UK for years at that point and while she never fully integrated, her children all spoke perfect English and had fully integrated. Adile also had very distinct views about how children should be shielded from the news, so I had no idea about everything that was going on outside of my father's letters. She was living in Berwick back then so even the war seemed quite distant outside of the occasional flyover. (13) Of course, the fall was a bit different.

IK: Why was the fall different?

PL: Well, my father's second and third letters arrived quite quickly. He even managed to send me a few other messages through the embassy. But your younger readers shouldn't, forget that in the fall rumors persisted for months that he died. That combined with the propaganda from the summer that I caught up on made me a bit of a celebrity at school and created considerable anxiety. I distinctly remember breaking down crying when his fourth letter arrived…

…

Notes

10. Drita was a Tirana daily newspaper during the 1930s. It was disbanded in OTL after the Italian invasion in 1939.

11. Ismail Kadare (b.1936) was briefly a journalist in OTL before going on to become one of the most famous postwar Albanian writers.

12. Zog's older sister Adile, always seemed to be a bit of an Anglophile. Her younger daughters both went to school there and she spent time there before the war and ultimately settled there after the war as well. In TTL she's encouraged to live in the UK and Zog bankrolls it.

13. In OTL Adile eventually settled down in southern England. But in TTL Zog insists on a more northerly location due to foreknowledge.

(Excerpted from Jason Tomes "King Zog: Self-made Monarch of Albania" 2003)

…News of Leka's departure shattered whatever was left of Zog's marriage. Fearing that he was laying the foundation for a purge of his enemies, both Behije and her father had fled the country before Zog returned to Tirana from Saranda. (14) While he maintained that it was just a misunderstanding, many of his opponents didn't feel the same way and took to the streets in protest the next day to demand his abdication, their numbers inflated by the Italians who were caught off guard and embarrassed that they had been unable to prevent Zog from spiriting his son out of the country. (15) Though these protestors were widely mocked for their demand that Zog abdicate for endangering his son, it should be noted that for many anti-Zogists in 1940, Prince Leka represented their only hope for a return to anything resembling the status quo they were used to. (16) Unfortunately for them, a second demonstration the following day in front of the royal palace was met with an even larger crowd of counter-protestors. Only a swift reaction by the Gendarmerie prevented bloodshed in Tirana that day, yet the emergence of civil unrest proved to be enough of an excuse for Italy to seek to intervene on the basis of the 1939 Pact of Tirana.(17)

Saranda.jpg

The Port of Saranda in OTL prior to WWII. In TTL it is more developed due to Zog's emphasis on exports and infrastructure.​

Just like he had in April 1939, Zog decided to call the Italians bluff and hope that he could achieve a similar compromise and delay Italian occupation even further. Yet by June 1940, Mussolini had already decided that he was going to join Germany and attack the Allies. War was inevitable and, in that event, it was imperative that Italy secure Albania both to secure the Strait of Otranto and the oilfields Italy had invested so much in. The fact that Italy hadn't engineered some other excuse to intervene in Albania earlier is testament to both the utter lack of planning with which it entered the country and Zog's impressive propaganda effort to demonstrate his allegiance to Italy and cover his preparations for the coming conflict. While some observers such as Alberto Pariani, (18) called for a more cautious approach, many within the Italian government led by Ciano and Mussolini believed that the occupation of Albania would go off without a hitch and that Zog was far more concerned with his personal fiefdom than international politics. These beliefs, coupled with the faulty presupposition that both Britain and France would quickly capitulate after German victories in France led Italy to go ahead with their declaration of war on the Allies on June 10th, the same day they informed Zog that Italian troops would be arriving to safeguard Albanian independence and that any further delays would be considered as an act of war.

"It is war then." The finality of those four words stand in stark contrast to Zog's earlier behaviour. When coupled with Zog's preparedness for the events which followed many observers have come to believe that he engineered the entire Italo-Albanian conflict to achieve certain predetermined aims. While Zog's subsequent successes and the events of Second Albanian Economic Miracle lend some degree of credibility to this theory, it should be noted that Zog had also consistently espoused publicly that the best course for both Albania and Italy was for them to remain neutral in the coming conflict. His journals also reveal that he believed that firmly resisting Italian occupation was his best opportunity to force Mussolini to reconsider his disastrous rush towards intervening on Germany's side. Such theories also engage in the common mistake of focusing on the events of the Second Albanian Economic Miracle and ignoring the context of the First Albanian Economic Miracle.

In June 1940, the events of the Second Albanian Economic Miracle were far from certain, nor was Germany's eventual defeat. There is no hard evidence of Zog believing that the UK would be eventually victorious, only that he thought the war would be long and destructive particularly in the Mediterranean. He consistently maintained that neutrality was the best way to safeguard the impressive gains that Albania had made so in the 1930s. Yet Zog's major mistake was assuming that Mussolini's irrationality had its limits and would respond reasonably to his sudden willingness to play hardball and the blatant disregard for the text of the 1939 Treaty of Tirana. While he had won similar gambits in the past, this time Zog lost and not only ushered his country into the most destructive war in its history but undid so many of the things he had achieved in the past decade with no guarantee of victory.

In many ways, Albania's rapid postwar recovery and subsequent boom conceals what was lost in the war and has led to the First Albanian Economic Miracle's relative obscurity. Yet a closer look reveals just how crucial the First Miracle was to the second. The industrial advances that occurred after 1945 would not have been possible without the expansion of the Albanian industrial workforce from 2% of the economy in 1930 to 20% in 1940. (19) Nor would it have been possible without the expansion of education as literacy skyrocketed from below 10% in 1928 to near 40% in 1939. (20) Finally, though many of the bridges and roads built by Zog during the 1930s were destroyed or heavily damaged by the war, it proved far easier to repair and rebuild them in the post-war period due both to the nature of the work but also due to the presence of so many trained workers and engineers Zog preserved from the work in the 1930s. Without this critical infrastructure work, so much of Albania's post war economic growth would have been impossible. All of these factors contributed not only to the postwar boom which followed the war but contributed to the construction of the most powerful political constituency in Albanian history which not only placed Zog in a position to succeed but in many ways gave him the tools he so desperately needed.

Notes

14. Saranda is the nearest Albanian city to Corfu.

15. It should be noted that the Italians displayed a similar pattern of incompetence in the final months before Italy's invasion of Albania in OTL incompetently trying to assassinate Zog and perhaps kidnap both him and Queen Geraldine if the latter's account is to be believed.

16. It should be noted that in the 1990s in OTL a not unsubstantial number of people were protesting for the entire country to be governed by the Kanun of Lek Dukagjini with bloodfeuds and everything. Not everyone is onboard with the new Albania Zog is trying to create in TTL.

17. Please re-read Part XIII.

18. Pariani was one of the few Italians to see the Albanian situation clearly and it is a testament to Fascist incompetence that he was only put in charge of the region in early 1943. His plan was later basically copied by the Germans under Hermann Neubacher to great effect following their occupation of Albania in September 1943. Though arguably, Neubacher's success was aided by his ability to break with Italian imperialism and portray the Germans as liberators, it was basically the same overall approach as Pariani.

19. This is a substantial growth, but it should be noted that in TTL Albania is still the least industrialized country in the Balkans, behind Yugoslavia at 80.8%.

20. Again, substantial growth, but 10% below the Balkan average of ~50%.