Historical Corner: Wildest Province by Roderick Bailey

By Frank Ledwidge
On 28th November 1944, following the Battle of Tirana, Enver Hoxha and his staff were driven to the city in trucks and began the formal entry into the city. In photos of that parade, a few metres behind Hoxha one tall man stands out of the crowd of gray uniforms in his bright white coat. This man was Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Lyon, at the time the senior British Liaison officer (BLO) to Albania. Nearby are Lieutenant Tom Stefan, his US counterpart, Colonel Velimir Stojnic, Commander of the Yugoslav mission, and Major Ivanov from the two man Soviet Mission.
Many Albanians may remember being taught in Communist days that there was indeed a British mission to the Partisans, but that they were closely aligned to the Bali Kombetar and insofar as they did provide assistance to the heroic partisan struggle, it was in the form of cases of unmatched boots and weapons that did not work. In common with so much of the ‘history’ taught in the Hoxha era schools, it was nonsense of course. A new book Wildest Province( Jonathon Cape 2008) by Roderick Bailey examines what really happened.
In an informal agreement between the allies in 1941, Albania and most of the Western Balkans was to be assisted by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). For the first two years of its operations it was hardly a resounding success. But in 1944, as the partisans developed their strength and capacities, so the British assistance called in by the British Liaison Officers (BLOs) really began to take effect.
By that time however, there had developed a deep mutual distrust between the Partisan leadership and the British assistance mission. This was partly due to the now well-known dishonesty and paranoia of Hoxha. This in itself was perhaps not surprising since the British had also sent a mission to Abbas Kupi and his Zogists. Churchill had asked of his operators in Yugoslavia and Albania ‘Who is killing Germans’. The British Officers attached to Kupi were never prepared to accept what was obvious to many. That whilst Abbas Kupi himself was an honourable and brave man, he was never going to attack the Germans in any force. Instead of striking at the Germans, Kupi needed to conserve his forces for what he rightly believed was the coming fight against his real enemy the Communists. Besides as one Officer observed with surprise, there was a ‘very noticeably lack of anti-German feeling’ in the North’.
In the South, Hoxha was certainly a highly unreliable ally, to say the least. But from his perspective having a British mission with the Zogists, men who had never struck against the Germans, for so long was hardly likely to assist in building rapport. On the contrary it simply resulted in stoking Hoxhas natural sense of persecution and isolation. This was something the Yugoslav mission, headed by the immensely experienced well-travelled Serbian speaking politician and diplomat Fitzroy Maclean, who headed the UK’s Mission to that country realized comparatively early. Whilst not explicitly stated, Bailey makes it clear in Wildest Province that this the Albanian Office of the SOE, based initially in Cairo and then in Bari made a strategic error in failing to do likewise
When the decision was made to support the Albanian partisans exclusively, very late in the day in mid 1944, rumours grew amongst some of the BLOs that there was a communist conspiracy within the SOE Command. Those rumours have bubbled away ever since. Wildest Province finally lays these old ghosts to rest. By 1944 the (not entirely communist) Partisan forces were giving the Germans in Albania a real headache. They had several thousand men under some form of organization, and in some places had acquitted themselves very well indeed against the German forces. This was notably the case with the heroic activities of the 4th Brigade at Borsh and their Commander Nexhip Vincani in January 1944, an action which particularly attracted British admiration. Whilst it was clear to many that Hoxha was not to be trusted, and that his allegiances lay with the Soviet Union, the answer to Churchill’s question was clear. Common sense and tactical realities pointed only one way. There is in fact no evidence that any British SOE official was a Communist agent.
Some British reviews of Wildest Province concentrate with apparent approval on the sometimes negative and acutely patronizing views some of the BLOs held of their hosts. These have revealed more about the prejudices of the reviewers than the contents or approach of the book itself. It is instructive that when Anthony Quayle, a BLO who subsequently became an A -List film star in the 1950s, was posted to Albania the British Officers he encountered seemed ‘a bewildered and unhappy lot’. Wildest Province, written by someone who clearly respects and likes the country, and rightly admires the SOE officers involved treads a rather more subtle line in this respect.
The SOE for the British are a somewhat legendary group. Perhaps the time has now come for an objective reassessment. Wildest Province, although sympathetic and admiring in tone, has begun that process for the SOE’s Albanian Mission. It also contains lessons for today’s conflicts. Many of the officers sent to Albania were men not trained or equipped by way of background or education for operations there. Amazingly, not only did none of them speak even the most rudimentary Albanian, none could communicate in Serbian or Greek, common second languages. Most were sent only for six month tours. Few of the many British officers who had served in the country before the war were used on wartime operations, and had little or no idea of Albanian culture. Frankly until matters began to professionalise in 1944 the operation might be described as somewhat amateur in execution. With no means of communication, except schoolboy French or poor interpreters it was no wonder many of them failed almost totally to build significant rapport with their partisan hosts.
Wildest Province is a must read for anyone who has the slightest interest in Albania or the Balkans in the Second World War.