g of this people: during
the War, when General Franchet d'Esperey was straightening his line, he
paid some hundreds of Albanians to maintain his western flank, and they
were very satisfactory. (It troubled them very little whether they were
holding it against the Austrians or against other Albanians.) When Italy
took over that part of the line she employed a whole Division, which--to
the amusement, it is said, of Franchet d'Esperey--provided the local
population with a great deal of booty, and in particular with mules.
There was constant trouble in those regions of Albania which were
occupied by the Italians,[72] and in June 1920 things had come to such a
pass that the Italian garrisons, after being thrown out of the villages
of Bestrovo and Selitza, were actually retiring with all the stores they
could rescue to Valona. Their retreat, said Reuter, in a euphemistic
message from Rome, was "attended by some loss." As Valona was their last
stronghold in Albanian territory, it seemed that very few, if any, of
the tribes were in favour of an Italian protectorate. And since it was
calculated that during the first six months of 1920 the Italian
Government was paying from 400 to 500 million lire a month for corn, and
the year's deficit might be enough to lead the State to the very verge
of bankruptcy, one was asking whether from an economic, apart from any
other, point of view, it would not be advisable for the Italians to cut
their losses in central Albania. And this they very wisely determined to
do. Would that their subsequent policy in northern Albania had been as
well-inspired.

It would also seem as if the affair of Tuzi shows that the Albanians
have no wish for a Yugoslav protectorate, and there are a good many
Serbs, such as Professor Cviji['c], who view with uneasiness any
extension of their sway over the Albanians. Many of the tribes are
prepared, after very small provocation or none, to take up arms against
anybody; and those who, in the north and north-east of the country, are
in favour of a Yugoslav protectorate would undoubtedly have opposed to
them a number of the natives, less because they are fired with the
prospect of "Albania for the Albanians" than on account of their
patriarchal views. We must, however, at the same time, acknowledge that
those Albanians who are impelled by patriotic ideals, and who would like
to see their countrymen within the 1913 frontiers, resolutely turn away
from the various attraction