1912-1913 - Balkan Wars
In 1906 opposition groups in the Ottoman Empire emerged, one of which evolved into the Committee of Union and Progress, more commonly known as the Young Turks, which proposed restoring constitutional government in Constantinople, by revolution if necessary. In July 1908, a month after a Young Turk rebellion in Macedonia supported by an Albanian uprising in Kosovo and Macedonia escalated into widespread insurrection and mutiny within the imperial army, Sultan Abdül Hamid II agreed to demands by the Young Turks to restore constitutional rule. Many Albanians participated in the Young Turks uprising, hoping that it would gain their people autonomy within the empire. The Young Turks lifted the Ottoman ban on Albanian-language schools and on writing the Albanian language. As a consequence, Albanian intellectuals meeting in Bitola in 1908 chose the Latin alphabet as a standard script. The Young Turks, however, were set on maintaining the empire and not interested in making concessions to the myriad nationalist groups within its borders. After securing the abdication of Abdül Hamid II in April 1909, the new authorities levied taxes, outlawed guerrilla groups and nationalist societies, and attempted to extend Constantinople's control over the northern Albanian mountainmen. In addition, the Young Turks legalized the bastinado, or beating with a stick, even for misdemeanors, banned carrying rifles, and denied the existence of an Albanian nationality. The new government also appealed for Islamic solidarity to break the Albanians' unity and used the Muslim clergy to try to impose the Arabic alphabet.
The fiercest hornet's nest stirred up by the Young Turks proved, to every one's surprise, to be Albania. The Albanians refused to submit to the Young Turks' campaign to "Ottomanize" them by force. New Albanian uprisings began in Kosovo and the northern mountains in early April 1910. Ottoman forces quashed these rebellions after three months, outlawed Albanian organizations, disarmed entire regions, and closed down schools and publications. Montenegro, preparing to grab Albanian-populated lands for itself, supported a 1911 uprising by the mountain tribes against the Young Turks regime that grew into a widespread revolt. Unable to control the Albanians by force, the Ottoman government granted concessions on schools, military recruitment, and taxation and sanctioned the use of the Latin script for the Albanian language. The government refused, however, to unite the four Albanian-inhabited vilayets.
The Young Turk revolution of 1908 blew the lid off the policy of repression with startling effect. The Albanians interpreted the loudly proclaimed liberty to mean freedom to agitate for their nationality and set busily about organizing schools, circulating newspapers, and making preparations for an autonomous state. As early as 1909 this frankly separatist policy got on the nerves of the Young Turks, who attempted to interpose with their nostrum of Ottomanization. Troops were ordered into the country and scattered clashes occurred between natives and invaders. Suppressed at one point, the national movement quickly flared up at another with the result that, following at a long distance the example set by the other Balkan peoples, Albania found herself involved in a war of liberation.
By 1912 the Turks had shot their bolt and, perplexed by the growing disturbances elsewhere, more particularly by a war with Italy, which had broken out in 1911, and by the almost certain prospect of a war with their Christian neighbors in Balkania, they resolved to come to terms with the insuppressible Albanians. By a peace concluded in the summer (1912) the brave mountaineers received practically all they asked. In return for accepting the sultan as suzerain, they were accorded a broad home-rule, which, while leaving them independent as of yore, conceded them in addition the right to establish native schools and to circulate native books and newspapers.
The neighbor states resolved to resist the creation of a large Albania. Far and away the most considerable concession which they obtained, however, was a territorial definition of Albania. The country had hitherto been a mere geographical expression without precise limits. If it was now to start on a political career, it would have to be endowed with boundaries and, naturally enough, the victorious Albanians insisted that these be drawn as liberally as possible. Accordingly the Turkish government recognized that Albania was comprised of the four vilayets of Scutari, Janina, Monastir, and Kossovo.
It was, to say the least, doubtful if the Albanian nationality could justly claim all this territory; in any case, the older neighboring states, which had long pressed claims of their own to these districts or to parts thereof, were not likely to sit quietly by while the Balkan people which was the last to open the fight for freedom, satisfied its national aspirations in their most extreme form. These neighbor states made no merit of a retiring modesty. The Greeks, for instance, passionately coveted the vilayet of Janina and the Montenegrins that of Scutari, while Monastir and Kossovo were Macedonian areas which had for years been the meeting place of the bitter rival activities of Bulgar, Greek, and Serb bands.
As soon as it became apparent that an autonomous Albania was about to come into existence which would encroach heavily on the expectations of its neighbors, these were of one mind regarding the experiment. They would fight it tooth and nail, and as the projected Albania would be a part of the Ottoman empire, with which they had a multitude of other scores to clear, they began to gird their loins for a life-and-death struggle with their ancient foe. Moreover, it was manifest that the Young Turks, once aptly described by an observer on the scene as " young men in a hurry," and fatally disorganized the empire and made it vulnerable. The time to strike was therefore now, while the Ottoman state was weak and the Albania of the four vilayets no more than a paper sketch.
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