Forsaken Albania

Italo-Greek War, Winter of 1940-Spring of 1941. Amongst all the insanities of Mussolini’s fascist megalomania, the folly of the war against Greece occupies a place of honour, both from the ludicrous viewpoint, (the superpower of the time failed to win over a primitive Balkan State), and from the tragic viewpoint, that more than thirteen thousand Italian soldiers were killed, several thousands were wounded and maimed and similar losses in the Greek ranks too. As if this were not sufficient, the theatre of this entire conflict between these two States was a third State, Albania, its southern parts, which suffered vast damage, destruction, devastation, evacuation, but above all, this revived the other insanity of the time, that of Northern Epirus.
As regards the Albanians mobilized into the ranks of the Italian Army, somewhere between 10-12.000 men, including dozens of different ranking officers, they failed to live up to their military reputation inherited from the time of Turkey. Amongst the dozens of photographs pertaining to this six month long conflict, I have tried to select a few that depict the presence of the Albanians in the events on the Front.
In the first photo, in a ward at the Tirana Hospital, you can see two Albanian fighters wounded in the fighting at the front. On the wall, above their heads, are three sheets of black hardboard on which their particulars have been chalked. One of them reads: “1 X R. PRENG / II COMP.MOBILE / 24-XI-40 / AMPUTATION. LEFT LEG. Now, our Preng, with his moustache intact at least, lies in this hospital bed content that he has done his bit in this ludicrous conflict. The other board shows only the unit the wounded solider belongs to (4th Regiment) and the beginning of the diagnosis, “CONŮ” which was probably the word, “Congelamento,” Italian for “Frostbite.” Due to lack of proper equipment and clothing in the dead of winter, there were thousands of cases of soldiers suffering from all degrees of frostbite.
The second photograph takes us to Gjirokastra. On the road leading up to the castle, an Albanian soldier escorts a captured Greek officer. From his uniform, the Albanian appears to belong to the Royal Carabineers, and during the conflict their duty was to maintain control in the rear areas and that included supervision of prisoners of war. The contrast in the garments the two individuals are wearing once again denotes how unprepared the High Italian Command were for a modern conflict such as the one that was being waged. And in fact, the triumphant Albanian, not for any fault of his own, appears to be more experienced than the Greek captive. Nevertheless the Albanian fighters in the photographs do deserve our respect, for at least doing our ranks proud with their fighting, which is more than can be said for many others who fled the battle field on the excuse that they had no desire to fight a war that was not theirs.