Part XX: The Battle of Tirana

Excerpted from Cornelius Reese "Europe's Last Warrior King" 2011)

…Though military historians have long maintained that the Battle of Vorë was by far more technically impressive than the Battle of Durres, most observers continue to see the latter as Vehib Pasha's crowning achievement. This perception largely stems from a number of factors, the most obvious being that the Battle of Vorë refers to two weeks of fighting leading up to the far more consequential Battle of Tirana and that it was not the subject of a massive international propaganda campaign like the Battle of Durres. Whereas Durres was a complete surprise to most and featured the complete repulse of the Italian invasion force and occurred mere days after the Franco-German armistice, by the time the Italians began their offensive to Tirana, not only had the fighting qualities of Vehib Pasha and his command been well established, but the war had progressed. Even the most masterful tactical withdrawals could not compare to the drama occurring in the skies above Britain in July 1940.

The fact that the Battle of Vorë began not in the village itself, nor in the key pass it inhabits but in the village of Shijak along the Erzen river also adds to its obscurity. Indeed, initial Albanian after action reports did not group the engagement around Shijak with the subsequent battles at Marikaj and Vorë, largely because intermittent skirmishing had been taking place along the Erzen since July 18. Only with the value of hindsight do the attacks of August 1 mark the beginning of the Italian offensive towards Tirana. Interestingly enough, long before the official Albanian histories began to use the term, Albanian veterans seem to have been using it themselves, largely due to the phonetic similarity between Vorë and vorre the Albanian word for grave from which the town takes its name. According to the veterans, while Skanderbeg buried his fallen soldiers there during his conflict with the Turks, Zog and Vehib Pasha preferred to let the Italians do the burying as, pressured by Mussolini, Ubaldo Soddu ordered his men to break Vehib Pasha's carefully planned defenses through sheer weight of numbers. The Battle of Vorë would be the last gasp of the guscio d'ouvo strategy, a belief that the Kingdom of Albania would crumble after one decisive battle. Paradoxically, when combined with the subsequent Battle of Tirana, the Battle of Vorë seemed to justify the strategy only for the Italians to fully realize the true nature of Albania several months later.

Of course, upon his appointment to succeed General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca on July 18, 1940, the under-secretary of the Ministry of War, General Ubaldo Soddu had no idea what the following months would hold. His private correspondence shows that his public profession of his utter conviction that the Royal Albanian Army was one defeat away from collapse merely served to mask deep anxieties. Like Prasca, the man he had replaced, Soddu privately believed that the Italian Army would need months of additional preparation to overwhelm the Albanians in the manner Mussolini demanded. (1) Yet try as he may, his efforts to convince Mussolini to delay the offensive until the repairs on the Albanian ports were complete fell on deaf ears. Instead, Mussolini repeated the same demands he had made to Prasca to Soddu and hinted at his immediate replacement should he refuse. Seemingly the only concession the Duce was prepared to make was to ignore whatever additional casualties were required to bring the embarrassing Albanian campaign to an end.

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General Ubaldo Soddu: Supreme Italian Commander in Albania July 17, 1940 – June 28, 1941​

Given his future fate, Soddu was right to take Mussolini's so called "concession" with a grain of salt. After all, the sheer numbers of casualties suffered by the Italians during the first few weeks had been what established Italy's Albanian campaign as a national embarrassment in the first place and had led to Prasca's removal after only 3 weeks of fighting. Yet, having staked his career on trying to salvage the situation in Albania, Soddu felt he had no other choice than to go ahead with a sweeping offensive towards Tirana and sacrifice no more troops than were necessary. Undoubtedly working with a considerable amount of cognitive dissonance, Soddu came to believe that an early offensive was necessary to capitalize on the effects of the Regia Aeronautica's terror bombing campaign which had recently come to an end. A shortage of munitions, maintenance problems, and the events of Operation Hurry had all combined in mid-July to force Mussolini to abandon his attempt to bomb the Albanians into submission. (2) Whether Soddu actually believed his statements regarding the effectiveness of the terror bombing campaign and the timing of the offensive is largely unimportant and likely changed daily or perhaps hourly given the circumstances, the only thing that truly matters is that they together with his careerism and arrogance laid the groundwork for the utter slaughter that was to follow.

Unfortunately for the soldiers under Soddu's command, the month of August 1940 would show that the Italian terror bombing campaign had completely failed to "avenge the treachery of Saseno and bring the Albanians to their knees." On the contrary, all available evidence points to the terror bombing only reinforcing the resolve of everyday Albanians and increasing Zog's popularity. No small part of this reaction must be attributed to Zog's tireless efforts organizing civil defense measures and his farsighted measures to move Albanian civilians out of the country's larger cities and into smaller towns and villages. When combined with Zog's establishment of royal storehouses (Hambarët e Mbretit)throughout the country, a rationing and welfare system, as well as a stirring propaganda campaign, these evacuations more than any other policy contributed to the Albanian resistance's rapid recovery later in 1940. Yet the resiliency of the Albanian people should not be entirely discounted. Had the majority of Albanians been further removed from abject poverty they might have reacted just like the Italians did later in the war. (3) Instead, most Albanians seem to have regarded the bombing and the displacement as a temporary setback. They had endured worse and each time had risen from the dust to rebuild, the only real difference now was the presence of Zog's resources and genius to make the process that much easier.

Rather than listen to the Albanian citizens in the coastal cities they had recently captured which told them as much, Soddu, like Prasca before him chose instead to join the small, but steadily growing number of Albanian aristocrats which began to trickle over to the Italian side. Together with Shefqet Vërlaci in Brindisi, these beys continually cited the massive destruction wrought by Italian naval and aerial bombardment as evidence of the Zogist's coming collapse and dismissed any evidence to the contrary as the opinions of blind fanatics. Having been isolated from the experiences of everyday Albanians for their entire lives, these beys and their families simply could not imagine anyone coping with the Italian bombardment and thus projected their views on a people they ended up knowing very little about. Nevertheless, in the absence of other politically palatable voices, Soddu and his men largely believed the "intelligence" from the beys as they began to prepare the final offensive of the Albanian campaign.

Had the Italians succeeded in capturing all 4 Albanian ports intact like they initially planned, their army's march on Tirana would have been almost impossible for the Royal Albanian Army to defend against. (4) Yet rather than facing forces coming from the Northern, Southern and Western approaches, Zog and Vehib Pasha were able to focus their attention as Italian logistics limited their attack to a single thrust. Furthermore, the defensive successes of the Royal Albanian Army had successfully compounded the difficulties posed to the Italian offensive by Albania's poor infrastructure and harsh terrain. For though an attack via the Southern Road and Elbasan would have made the most logistical sense given the fact that Saranda was the only port operating at full capacity, such a route not only faced terrain ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, but the remnants of Abas Kupi's army and Muso Ulqinaku's naval infantry which had bled the Italians so effectively at Vlora. While the forces facing a hypothetical advance from Shengjin in the north were far less formidable, delaying actions at Shengjin and Lezha Castle had allowed Moisiu's garrison to destroy the bridges over the River Mat and join up with Zog's reserves south of the river. Italian failures to properly gauge the strength of Musa Juka's command in Shkodra further inhibited an attack from the North as it caused Soddu to fear an attack from the rear if he attacked south.

These restrictions led Soddu to believe that the Tirana/Durres road was the only feasible option for the offensive Mussolini demanded. While in hindsight the choice seems disastrous, it is important to note that the route did posses a number of features which made it attractive. Perhaps most important was its length: out of all the options it was by far the shortest and the pass through the Kodra I Gjate(5) range was by far the easiest terrain to navigate. Furthermore, the road was by far the best in the Albanian Kingdom due to heavy investments from both Zog and the Italians in the pre-war period. Finally, due to high levels of pre-war development, the region had also been the most heavily bombed out of any of the major approach. If any Albanian troops were demoralized by the Regia Aeronautica's campaign, Soddu firmly convinced himself that it would have been Vehib Pasha's command. After all, according to Italian intelligence, their resistance at Durres had been the result of extensive preparation which they couldn't have possibly duplicated in the days since their withdrawal.

Though Soddu had hoped to launch offensives from both Shengjin and Vlora to force Zog to divide his forces, a lack of transport and artillery prevented him from doing anything more than station a few units to keep those forces in place. Again, in hindsight, Soddu's division of his forces seems foolhardy but his contemporaries unanimously believed that the offensive had more than enough strength to overwhelm Vehib Pasha's position at Shijak. To delay for additional reinforcements or to weaken the holding forces at Shengjin or Elbasan would have been nothing short than politically suicidal for Soddu. Such a move would have been interpreted as a profound vote of non-confidence in the efforts of Italian engineers repairing the ports of Durres, Vlora, and Shengjin, and would have opened the door for the dozens of other Italian generals who believed that they too were capable of salvaging the situation.

So, after nearly 2 weeks of preparation, Soddu's troops surged forward to overwhelm Vehib Pasha's men at Shijak on August 1. True to form, the Albanian army did their best to once again unleash hell on the Italian invaders and in large part succeeded, but were unable to completely repulse Italian efforts to cross the Erzen due to a large disparity in artillery. While casualties were high and progress was slow, progress was being made and the gross disparity between Italian artillery and Albanian artillery seemed to bode well for the coming battles. Unfortunately for Soddu, the truth proved to be far more sobering as in the eyes of both Vehib Pasha and Zog the battle for Shijak had been a total success. Having always intended it to be a delaying action, the length of time it took for the Italians to take Shijak and the heavy casualties they suffered paved the way for future successes. This became particularly true as Vehib Pasha was able to yet again use Albanian skills at camouflage and strategic deception in conjunction with the cover of night to withdraw his forces with minimal casualties.

The sudden disappearance of Vehib Pasha's forces momentarily bewildered the Italians, but it did not take that long for the bewilderment to turn to euphoria as it seemed that the long-awaited Albanian collapse had finally occurred. Believing that the road to Tirana now lay completely open, Soddu abandoned his plans of a more methodical advance and sent his troops forward as rapidly as possible to bring and end to the embarrassing campaign. Yet in doing so Soddu played directly into Vehib Pasha's hands as his troops rapidly outdistanced their artillery support as they pushed into the mountain pass. There at the village of Marikaj they ran into Vehib Pasha once again, only he was not leading the same group of men he had led at Shijak, those had continued marching to Vorë where they were able to rest and be reinforced by the reservists who had been building fortifications there since June 10.

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A tired but satisfied teamster stands on one of the evacuated Albanian howitzers having finally arrived in Marikaj​

Rather than the tired men who had fought at Shijak, the men at Marikaj had been preparing their positions since shortly after the Battle of Durres and had been waiting for their moment for weeks. It quickly became apparent that the reason for the Italians' massive numerical superiority in artillery at Shijak was due to the fact that Pasha had long evacuated most of his guns into his defensive lines in the pass. Rather than wait for the Italian artillery to arrive and reduce Vehib Pasha's new position, Soddu once again ordered his men forward in the hopes that like Shijak he would be able to drive the Albanians back. Unlike the Albanian positions at Shijak, Vehib Pasha's men at Marikaj could not be easily flanked forcing the Italians to revert to frontal infantry assaults with minimal artillery support and predictable results. Despite Mussolini's promise to overlook increased casualties, as report after report from Marikaj arrived, Soddu was left with no other choice than to halt his advance and allow his artillery to arrive.

Even with additional artillery and support from the Regia Aeronautica, Vehib Pasha's position at Marikaj proved to be both difficult and costly to overcome. Nevertheless, inch by inch the Italians made progress through the pass paying dearly in blood and perhaps more importantly ammunition. Then just like at Shijak, the Italians awoke to find the Albanian positions empty and booby trapped.

Having already been fooled once, Soddu was loathe to send his infantry ahead once again, but was forced to face the fact that he had very little choice. Continual delays in the opening of the port facilities at Durres and Vlora meant that his logistical situation had not improved in the week and a half since the beginning of his offensive. Furthermore, the unexpectedly fierce resistance at Marikaj had not only raised the ire of Mussolini but burned through his ammunition stockpile, leaving him with vast numbers of guns but precious few shells. Convinced that to wait for additional ammunition shipments from Saranda to build up a new stockpile would directly lead to his dismissal, Soddu nevertheless pressed forward, albeit more slowly this time, in the hopes that perhaps this time the road to Tirana was open.

Once again, Soddu quickly found out that it was not, as Vehib Pasha's fortifications at Vorë stopped his assault cold. Trapped in the mountain pass, the supposed lightning campaign quickly devolved into the same kind of attritional warfare which had dominated the First World War as Vehib Pasha used the terrain and his fortifications to negate Italian advantages in numbers and training. However, all the preparation and the favourable terrain could not compensate for the fact that Albania remained a largely undeveloped nation without the requisite industrial capacity to wage the kind of war that was being fought. Zogist ammunition stockpiles, once thought excessive by many, eventually began to run low at roughly the same time as Italian shipments from Durres finally began to arrive at the front. While the Italians would attempt to credit Soddu's tactical brilliance for their eventual breakthrough on August 27, the ugly truth of the matter was stark for everyone to see. Logistics and not tactics had been the true deciding factor of the Battle of Vorë. An advance that was supposed to take a week ended up taking a month and resulted in over 3000 casualties.(6) Furthermore, while Vehib Pasha's force had also taken sizeable casualties he had once again been able to withdraw in good order to join Zog's reserves around Tirana for the most intense urban fighting of the war since the Siege of Warsaw...

Notes

1. All of these developments largely mirror the experience of the Italian invasion of Greece.

2. If anyone wants to correct me on the Regia Aeronautica's readiness to launch a massive bombing campaign in 1940 I'm all ears, but given the difficulties faced by the RAF and Luftwaffe in OTL I think this is reasonable.

3. While not the most developed argument in the debate on Strategic bombing, I'm actually fairly partial to the thesis that Italy was particularly vulnerable to "terror bombing" due to its level of development and politics. Japan and Germany were both too advanced to truly succumb to it and Vietnam later was not advanced enough to truly feel it. Despite all the gains made in TTL, Albania is still far closer to Vietnam and the fact that most of the citizens remember living essentially feudal lives because they're either a) still living that way or b) have only been living something according to modern life for 10 years or less makes them particularly resilient.

4. Basically what happened in OTL. If Zog wanted to make a stand in April 1939 he would need to do it at the coast.

5. A low mountain range/hills separating Tirana and Durres.

6. I'm estimating here. If anyone wants to argue numbers should be higher/lower feel free to let me know.

September 1, 1940. Tirana, Albania.

For the first time in weeks Mario Guerico wished Giovanni Ravalli was with him.

So many better men have died… he thought bitterly. What I wouldn't give to just be able to weed out the bastards and send them into the Albanian guns. As it stood, the good and the bad alike charged the Albanian positions and while Ravalli's fate reminded him that every now and again the bastards got what they deserved, far too often it seemed like they found ways of living while other better men died.

But what does that make me?

He still heard Ravalli's screams from time to time in his nightmares. Not often enough for him to use the bullet he reserved for himself in his sidearm, but often enough for him to wish that one of the snipers the man continually bitched about had killed him and not one of the white phosphorous shells he'd feared. Sometimes he wondered if wishing that made him just like Ravalli. He would have shot almost anyone else who was screaming to be put out of his misery…if that ended up happening to him, would his men give him the same courtesy?

He hoped so. While it was true that war made monsters of all men, Ravalli's experience went to show that some men were far closer than others to being monsters. It hadn't taken long for what had only been talk in Durazzo to morph into action. All it had taken was a fougasse in Shijak which killed one of Ravalli's men and injured 4 more to set him off. By the time Mario had arrived, he'd already emptied his sidearm into one of the handful of families that had stayed behind. Perhaps one of the small mercies of the offensive so far was the fact that the Albanians had evacuated most of the civilians as a part of their scorched earth campaign.

Unfortunately, there still seemed to be plenty of civilians in Tirana, giving men like Ravalli plenty of targets for the rage they had built up over the past month. Now a Primo Tenete himself courtesy of a pair of battlefield promotions, Mario and others who still believed in the Army's professionalism did their best to reign in those impulses, but they simply couldn't be everywhere at once. While he still found their behaviour abhorrent, Mario was beginning to understand it. All of them were hungry, tired, and traumatized. There was never enough ammunition and every time they took one position the Albanians were already digging into the next one. The towns they were "liberating" had all been largely destroyed by the fighting and almost lifeless. Even Tirana, the supposed "charming Ottoman capital" of Albania had been bombed into oblivion by the Regia Aeronautica before Zog's men turned it into a giant fortress.

Any sane man would have simply besieged the city or gone around it, but no Soddu was far from a sane man. Perhaps it was his own pride, perhaps it was pressure from Mussolini, perhaps it was both, but he'd given the order to attack in some vain attempt to end the war right here. The fact that Zog was still here had driven them onward, right into another trap. While they'd had the common sense to avoid the city center and attempt to cut off the possibility of a retreat to the south, Zog was once again one step ahead of them and had deployed his forces accordingly. What was supposed to be a rapid march around the south of Tirana to seize the "Rruga Elbasanit" had rapidly become yet another example of positional warfare. Desperate to avoid yet another Pyrhhic victory, Soddu ordered his troops to flank Zog's fortifications by moving north into the city. Now they were fighting from one charred ruin of a house to another as Zog made his stand in what was left of his capital.

For now…

None of the generals seemed to understand it just yet, but Mario and more than a few others were beginning to see the method to Zog's madness. He wasn't trying to win this war. He probably knew that even with all his wealth and corporations, he probably never had a chance. No, this was all some kind of grand act of collective suicide. With every passing day it became apparent that all Zog and his men wanted to do was to kill as many Italians as possible.

Not if I kill them first…

At least he had grenades this time. Constant shortages had meant that Mario and his men had been forced to clear their share of houses without them. Still, even with grenades it was bloody work. Work Mario so often wished he could contract out to bastards like Ravalli. After all, the houses here weren't proper houses like back home. Mussolini's architects had wanted to transform the city into a proper European capital, but Zog had forced them to shift their investment to Durres with his constant interference. While it was foolish to think that even back in 1928 he was planning for this, Mario had to admit that the tangled interconnected maze of Ottoman era housing compounds and dead end streets, ruined as they were, was perfect for the urban warfare they found themselves in.(6)

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Members of an Albanian çeta man a barricade in Tirana (picture taken postwar)​

A quick glance over the shattered ruins of a retaining wall which served him as cover revealed that the rest of his platoon was finally in position. They were waiting on him now. Draining his canteen, he cursed the stifling heat before throwing a grenade into the ruined room that now stood as the sole reminder that this house used to have multiple stories.

No rest for the wicked…

The scream which followed the grenade's explosion justified his suspicion about it being the location of the sniper which had claimed two of his men already today. A pair of other explosions followed as his other squad leaders initiated flanking attacks. Having lost his rifle days earlier, Mario cocked his revolver and leapt over the wall hoping that his Light Machine Gunner's suppressive fire would be enough. It wasn't of course, Tirana's red earth mixed with the oiled ammunition needed by the Breda's feed mechanism to produce yet another jam leaving Mario and his men on their own once again. Knowing that the handful of rifle shots the rest of his squad could offer in response was hardly a replacement, Mario threw another one of his precious grenades into the first-floor window in front of him as he ran forward to take cover behind the wall underneath it.

He'd done this kind of attack enough times to know that waiting too long was potentially fatal so mere moments after the grenade went off, Mario leapt up and clambered through the window. Together with his men, they cleared the house finding empty save for the sniper on the second floor. Mario's grenade had wrecked the sight, but the rifle seemed to be functional. Given the similarities in cartridges it would make a fine replacement for the one he'd lost in the hand to hand battle he was fighting a few days ago, at least until he could get his hand on one of the newer Carcanos.

Notes

6. See Part III. TTL's Tirana looks very different than OTL's 1940 version.

September 6, 1940. Tirana, Albania.

"She's not going to leave you know…"

If anyone was more exasperated than Musa Juka it was the King.

"Not. Helping." He snarled between clenched teeth.

"Your jackbooted thug is right your majesty." The sarcasm almost dripped off those last two words. Parashqevi Qiriazi knew how much the King hated to be called royal titles, particularly by those he counted as friends, and especially by her. Looking over Zog's shoulder she made eye contact with Musa "With respect of course Mr. Juka."

Musa merely nodded. Every country, even the paradises of Britain and America needed "jackbooted thugs" like him to keep the peace. While Musa maintained that the vaunted "Oberlin" which Parashqevi attended in America all those years ago had filled her with even more radical ideas than the 21st century had managed to do with the King, at least she was able to see the necessity of his kind of work. That being said, she probably wasn't privy to the fact that what he was doing and what he wanted to do were two separate things. She likely didn't so much respect him but rather respected the man the King was forcing him to be.

Is there a difference anymore?

By all rights they should have left Tirana a week ago, well before the first Italian forces reached the city limits, but the King had insisted on staying. Even Musa risking his own capture by leaving Shkodra hadn't been enough to convince the King to see reason and let the men he'd spent so much money training do exactly what he'd trained them to do. No instead Musa was thrown into the fray himself, ordered to direct the remaining police in the city to either facilitate additional evacuations or join the frantic fight against the Italians. A decade ago, perhaps Musa would have been able to leverage his personal power and influence to sway the King's opinion, but now the power of the Army and FMSh had reduced him from the most powerful player in the Royal Government to merely one among many.

"We've been over this a dozen times already," Qiriazi protested. "I'm too old to become some bandit. I'm not that kind of person. You say that you're saving me by making me leave but the truth is we both know that I wouldn't last out in the mountains."

Normally, the King would have found some far more eloquent way of making his point, but he'd barely slept since the battle began almost a week ago. "Fine." He snapped. "You might die in the mountains eventually. But I'm telling you that you WILL die if you stay here and soon. If not by an Italian bullet than by one of the beys."

He needs to get some sleep…

Musa and almost everyone around him were constantly telling him that, but something had shifted in him with the start of the Battle of Tirana. According to some, it had already begun to shift during the bombing, something about watching Italian bombs tear through the city had unleashed a ferocity Musa had honestly doubted existed. Now it was undoubtable, the man obviously had far more training than Zog ever did, and he was determined to use it to kill as many Italian fascists as possible. What had started as a simple propaganda exercise had morphed into him all too often leading from the front and spurring his çetas on to greater and greater deeds of bravery as the executed the traps he'd laid out so long ago. All that talk about using what he learned in Iraq to plan the Battle of Tirana turned out to be anything but an idle joke.

In any other government, his commanders would have been able to shuttle him off to the rear, but the Kingdom of Albanian was no ordinary government. Having established a consistent pattern of taking crazy risks and coming out on top, his borderline omniscience had made him undeniable. (7) What was supposed to be a simple propaganda exercise ended up becoming a shattering victory as the King personally led a countercharge which sent the Italians reeling. One reckless action led to another and while the King had emerged with little more than scratches and bruises the longer he kept going, the more likely he was to make a mistake. Musa and others kept warning him that his constantly escalating hubris was going to prove to be his nemesis, but they just weren't getting through. The King's appetite for success was relentless as he was unwilling to accept anything less than the perfect execution of his plans. All they could do was try to keep him alive until he could be reasoned with.

"What could they possibly want with a simple schoolteacher like me?" Qiriazi scoffed.

"Seriously?" the King shot back "We both know that you're far from a simple schoolteacher."

Qiriazi raised an eyebrow "We both know? What exactly do we both know?"

"We both know that regardless of your brother-in-law's signature, you're the real substance behind my education reform…"

Tears welled up in Qiriazi's eyes "Is that all I am to you? Some policy advisor?"

Just fuck and get it over with already… Musa thought as he struggled not to roll his eyes. The ongoing emotional affair between the King and Qiriazi had been one of the most frustrating things to watch over the past half-decade. (8) While Musa was loathe to criticize any man's taste in women, as lively as she was for a schoolteacher 15 years older than him, Qiriazi nonetheless seemed an exceedingly odd choice when there were plenty of girls half the King's age who would gladly jump into his bed without another word. Not Qiriazi though, her Protestant upbringing had kept her chaste her entire life and when combined with the King's own attitudes had meant that their relationship had never progressed to the physical level even as it intensified over the years.

For a while, it seemed like their emotional and intellectual connection was enough for them. While Musa doubted anyone could fully empathize with the King's situation, Qiriazi's American education put her in a unique position to do so. She also obviously felt isolated in Albanian society and though it took a few years for her suspicion of the King to abate, eventually she had come to rely on the King as much as he was relying on her. Yet when combined with the cooling of the Royal marriage, this mutual reliance had grown exceedingly complicated as the King increasingly looked not to Behije but to Qiriazi for his emotional and intellectual needs. When combined with the fact that, as a woman beyond her childbearing years, and an educated Protestant one at that, Qiriazi had absolutely no romantic prospects it had become a recipe for disaster that Musa was frankly surprised hadn't come to a head earlier.

Of course, it has to happen now when the Italians are overrunning the city.

"Damn it Parashqevi!" The king yelled in frustration as he slammed his hand down on the table. Taking a deep breath he continued "You..you know that you're more than a policy advisor to me. I don't write nearly as many letters to the rest of them do I Musa?"

"No, your majesty." He choked out curtly. Best to play along to get this over with quickly. At this point Musa was willing to stand on his head, juggle, do whatever it took to get out of the basement of the Qiriazi's bookshop. The last thing he needed right now was to get more involved in this spat and prolong it long enough for the Italians to arrive.

Moving closer to her, the King took Qiriazi's hands in his "You are incredibly… special to me Parashqevi. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do whatever it took to keep you alive…and my wife knows this. She's always been suspicious of our relationship. She saw you as a threat to her position and that isn't going to change. If you stay behind her father's relationship with the Italians…"

Zog didn't get to finish that sentence, as a loud boom filled the room with smoke and dust before the creaking beams finally gave in causing the walls to partially collapse in on them. By the time Musa came to his senses the rest of the Royal Guard was already busy digging them all out. Grabbing the nearest soldier he coughed out through the dust "The king! We must get the king!"

At that very moment another soldier yelled out. "MEDIC! I have them!"

Even though his entire body simultaneously burned and ached, Musa pushed himself forward.

Fucking hell…

"Is he breathing?"

The medic nodded frantically. "Barely. He's unconscious, probably has a concussion and several broken bones. We need to get him out of here immediately."

"Ahmet?" Parashqevi Qiriazi coughed as another soldier pulled her from the wreckage. Looking at the bloodied and dust caked body of the King her tears cut rivulets through the dust caking her face as she became increasingly agitated "AHMET?"

Of course he shielded her from the rubble…what a fool…

With his legs feeling a bit steadier, Musa stumbled forward and took hold of her "He's alive Ms. Qiriazi. Just barely but he's alive." That seemed to steady her a bit, hopefully enough for this to work. "We need to get him out of the city Ms. Qiriazi. We need him to survive. If he dies our nation dies with him. He came here because he needs you. He needs you by his side now more than ever. He needs you Ms. Qiriazi. Our nation needs you. Albania needs you. Will you answer the call?"

She managed a nod and that was enough for him. He'd felt this kind of cold calculation the last time the King had been unconscious. As Italian rifle fire began to crackle over their heads, he handed her to another Royal guardsman and picked up a fallen submachine gun. Its weight in his hands helped keep him focused on the task at hand. Right now, all the concern about whether or not the King would wake up the same person he was before or whether he'd wake up at all was decidedly secondary. It wouldn't matter one iota if the Italians prevented them from reaching their truck and getting out of this damned charnel house of a city.

Musa took aim at one of the nearby buildings at let out a burst at one of the Italian soldiers. A predatory smile emerged as his efforts were rewarded with a scream. As the rest of the Royal Guards began to return fire as well, Musa couldn't help but release a predatory grin. The Battle of Tirana might be lost, but here and now the men of the Royal Guard were far better equipped than the Italian unit that had been sent forward. Taking cover behind a ruined wall, Musa continued to fire until he was out of ammunition. By that point nearly a dozen BARs were firing and smoke grenades had already been deployed to cover their escape.(9)

Moving to the rear, Musa shooed the stretcher team sent for him away and made his way to the convoy of FIAT trucks ready to carry them out of the city. By the time he reached the truck carrying the King and Qiriazi, the rest of the Royal Guards had successfully pulled back and he barely had time to secure himself before the trucks' engines roared to life and they began their jostling ride down the Rruga Elbasanit. While the King was still laid out on a stretcher, the medics had cleaned him up and dressed his wounds.

"How is he?"

"He fades in and out… The doctor says he should make a full recovery…" Qiriazi's answer was barely audible over the truck's engine.

Musa exhaled as the tension he'd been holding in his body began to dissipate. While the Italian artillery strike had been unexpected, it did have the added benefit of curtailing the conversation with Qiriazi. They still had several hours of darkness to get out of the city. With any luck they could make it to the çeta base at Pëllumbas (10) and hole up there for a while.

For a while no one in the truck said anything, allowing the noise of the battle raging around them and the trucks to fill the air. Once they made it over the bridge over the river Lana and through the remnants of the Gabel (11) village south of the city, Musa felt even better. Now that the King had been evacuated Vehib Pasha's battered units would finally be able to pull back from their positions and begin the next phase of the war.

Having quieted his own mind, Musa looked over to Parashqevi Qiriazi. Still caked in dust, she held on to her seat with white knuckled intensity as she alternated between looking at the King and staring at the floor.

As the noises of the most intense fighting began to recede, Musa spoke. "Are you alright Ms. Qiriazi?"

She shook her head "I'll be fine." (12)

"We're almost out of the battle. There will be clothes and other things for you at our next stop." Musa ventured in an effort to console her.

"I'm not worried about clothes." The obvious venom in her voice then rapidly turned to sorrow and guilt "All of this is my fault…"

As much as he was tempted to agree with her, Musa gave a curt nod (13) and took a deep breath before replying "No Ms. Qiriazi you didn't do this. He made the choices that led us here. If he wasn't so busy fighting in front of the cameras we could have dealt with your situation days ago."

"What a fool…"

Musa chuckled "You're right, for such a brilliant man he does have his moments."

That drew a small smile from the woman.

"That's why he needs you. On our own neither of us can control his worst impulses, but together we might just have a chance of keeping him from doing anything so stupid again."

Lord knows the mess from this entire escapade is going to be difficult enough to deal with. Who knows what things will be like by the time he recovers…if he recovers at all…

Notes

7. IMO this is another one of the downsides of foreknowledge. Consistently taking crazy risks which are vindicated would likely lead to overconfidence IMO. Said overconfidence would also be made that much more dangerous by the fact that almost nobody would have the grounds to go against you.

8. See Part VIII. This relationship was one of the things I wanted to build up to more gradually in the later 1930s but I didn't know how to make it not bog down so I cut it.

9. In both OTL and TTL the Royal Guards were lavishly equipped. The only real difference here is the emphasis on automatic weapons courtesy of some foreknowledge.

10. A series of caves between Tirana and Elbasan which were not particularly well known in OTL until they became a partisan base.

11. Gabel = settled Roma (see Part VI). In OTL this village was eventually demolished/incorporated into the newer parts of the city particularly around OTL's University of Tirana.

12. Shaking one's head in Albania signals yes…

13. … and a swift nod signals disagreement