lav army. In both cases the
refugees were moved sometimes by hopes for a brighter future, sometimes
by fears which were caused by their clouded past. To speak first of
those who fled on account of a guilty conscience, it is evident that
these were more numerous among the refugees in Albania than among those
in Yugoslavia, for it was the Yugoslav authorities and not the Albanian
who extended their sway. Mr. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., wrote[85] "that in
the North the Yugoslavs had destroyed more than 120 Albanian villages."
It would have been interesting if he had given us their names, because
the Yugoslavs appear to have set about it so thoroughly that one cannot
find anything like that number on the Austrian maps, which are the best
pre-war maps for those regions. The Anglo-Albanian Society tells the
British public, in November, 1920, of the 30,000 destitute refugees in
Albania, and in such a way that the cause of their exodus is ascribed,
without more ado, to the terrible Yugoslav. But as the names are known
of a good many Albanians who did not wait for the Yugoslav army, on
account of past troubles between themselves and Yugoslavs, as also
between themselves and other Albanians, it would have been as well if
the Anglo-Albanian Society had reminded the public that all who fly in
those parts are not angels. It would, on the other hand, be just as rash
to sing the undiluted praise of those Albanians who, at odds with the
Tirana Government, thought it opportune to leave their native land; but
one can safely say, I think, that among these wanderers there was a
larger proportion of laudable men....] Yugoslavia attracts the Albanians
for more than one reason--not so much because the ancestors of many of
these Muhammedan Albanians were, and not so long ago, Christians, as
because inclusion in Yugoslavia would be to their economic
advantage--Scutari can scarcely exist without the Yugoslav hinterland,
while the people of the mountains are longing for that railway which the
Yugoslavs will only build over land which is moderately immune from
depredation. Other causes which have made so many of the borderland
Albanians--to speak only of them--turn their eyes to Yugoslavia are the
admiration which any primitive people feels for military prowess and the
knowledge of what has taken place in the Prizren-Pe['c]-Djakovica
region since it came into possession of the Serbs in 1913. Let us in the
first place see what sentiments are now entertaine