t Constantinople and Sofia, at Rome and Vienna, in
striving for the independence of the country it was not the Albanians
themselves who had the chief word. Those who were initiated into secret
Balkan policies were aware that Albania was the domain with which
Article 7 of the old Triple Alliance was concerned.... The fiery
Albanian patriot, Basri Bey, Prince of Dukagjin, also agrees that in the
beginning an independent Albania would be productive of anarchy. "I
greatly regret to acknowledge it," says he,[84] "but Albania is, so to
speak, the classic type of a country which has never had a real
government." Nevertheless, he is strongly in favour of independence, his
reasons being because Albania is "at the same time the old mother and
the youngest daughter of the Balkans." This flamboyant prince and doctor
and deputy who denounces both Essad Pasha and his nephew Ahmed Beg Mati,
has got his own panacea for the country, which is a Turkish army of
occupation commanded by a French general. Basri Bey seems to confirm the
remarks of his more enlightened co-religionists, Halim Beg Derala and
Zena Beg, for whereas the Moslems can claim no more than a rather larger
third of the inhabitants, he calmly assumes that the whole country is
Moslem. Albania, he says, is now more than ever attached to Turkey, for
the attachment is purely moral. ... The influence of this gentleman
seems to be confined to Dibra, but he has a good opinion of his own
importance. In 1915, in the days of the greatness of Essad Pasha, he set
up a Government at Dibra with himself as Prime Minister and Essad Pasha
as his Minister of the Interior! There does not seem to be much
justification for Basri Bey to call himself a prince. He is a Pomak, for
his ancestors were Bulgars who accepted Islam. His father was an
official of the Turkish Government at Philippopolis.

Father Fichta told me that his countrymen would do very well indeed if
they could import from other parts of Europe financial help, technicians
and judges. Some years ago the Turks settled to send two judges to
Scutari; then the Albanians would no longer be able to charge them with
not administering the law, so that each man was obliged to take it into
his own hands. "It is entirely your fault," said the Albanians, "that we
are driven to adopt the method of blood-vengeance." So thoroughly did
they adopt it that the assassinations in the region of Prizren,
Djakovica and Pe['c] amounted, according to Glueck