By Frank Ledwidge
Unless you include the low level guerilla war fought just after the second world war, or indeed the Partisan/Ballist fight during the Second World War, Albania has never suffered a civil war of its own. Indeed the wars fought on its territory have always ben started by others. One rather significant Civil War, the original , was very nearly decided on what is now Albanian land. At and around Durres in the hot summer of 48 BC Julius Caesar suffered the most dangerous defeat of his glorious career and it was only because his opponent, Pompey, failed to follow it up, that Caesar is not a footnote in history.
Caesar had landed up the coast in Apollonia, and his ally and friend Mark Antony at Lezhe. Once Pompey had failed to prevent them uniting Caesar had built a great 25km wooden wall around Pompeys camp to try to confine his larger army in his camp at Dyrrachuim (Durres). Given that Pompeys fleet had destroyed Caesars just a few weeks earlier it might appear that it was Caesar who was in trouble. Not so fast. Caesar had cut off the supply of fresh water by diverting the Shimmihl Stream. Typically he took the offensive. In those little hills just South of Durres before you get to Golem there was bitter fighting. Caesar was rescued from total disaster in the decisive phase only by the arrival of Mark Antony with reinforcements. It is a mark of the magnitude of his defeat that even Caesar – master of ‘spin’ that he was – admitted that his men fled in disarray; “Today the victory had been the enemy’s had there been any one among
them to gain it” he said in his memoirs. But Pompey had not exploited his victory. With Caesars army in full retreat he assumed the war was over and did not strike while his enemy was down. Caesar, who would most certainly not have made that mistake, got away to Greece where he won the war emphatically at Pharsalus the following year.
The long, draining series of Civil Wars dragged on for another ten years or so. Caesar was murdered and Mark Antony united with Cleopatra against Caesars adopted son Octavius. And here we have another Albanian connection, for Octavius spent much of his young life being educated at the famous academies of Apollonia. He did not remain Octavius. After he had defeated the dissolute Mark Antony and his iconic Egyptian girlfriend, he took the title Augustus and became the first, and greatest, of all the Roman Emperors
So what? At the time these world shaking events were happening Illyria had been an integrated and key part of the Roman World for many years, fully connected in the same way as Gaul (France) or Spain and far more so than what is now Britain or Germany. As every educated Albanian knows Illyria went on to supply many significant Roman figures. Arguably the land that is now Albania remained deep within the Western sphere until just after the death of Skanderbeg. Only now is the country emerging from its exile. Never mind trivia about visas or EU ‘benchmarks’. Albania belongs in Europe.
Its been a long time, but it will be good to have Illyria back.
