re are in the
Albanians, and it would definitely recognize a Yugoslav-Albanian
frontier which is acceptable to both countries.

11. THE POSITION IN 1921: THE TIRANA GOVERNMENT AND THE MIRDITI

While Europe in the year 1921 was either exhausted or belligerent, or
both, she had a vague knowledge that hostilities were being carried on
between the Serbs and the Albanians. Telegrams from Rome, Tirana and
elsewhere appeared in the papers, saying that the Serbs continued to
advance. Occasionally a Serbian statesman would declare that his
Government desired the independence of Albania. Then some Albanian
delegate in Geneva would make a protest and ask the League of Nations,
of which Albania was now a member, to take this matter in hand. A
Serbian delegate would also address the League. Again you would hear of
the Serbian army pushing forward, that a good many soldiers had fallen.
And no one seemed to know why the Serbs would want to shed their blood
in order to add to their miscellaneous problems this very grave one of
administering such a region inhabited by such a people. Why did they not
content themselves with the frontier which the Powers temporarily
assigned to them in 1918 and which, from the junction of the Black and
White Drin, runs south along the rocky right bank of the river and then,
crossing to the other side, passes along the top of a range of
mountains? What more could they wish to have, presuming that it was not
their intention to annex what lay between them and the Adriatic?

Well, it appears that never once did they go beyond the aforementioned
line to which they were legally entitled, except when for a short time
they were in pursuit, towards Ljuria, of certain invaders. Not only were
they legally entitled to take up their position on the mountains to the
west of the Black Drin, but the Moslem tribes, the Malizi and the Ljuri,
who dwell in that uninviting district, were most anxious that the Serbs
should come and should remain. For this the tribes had two principal
reasons: in the first place, they recognized that their compatriots in
Djakovica and Prizren were immeasurably better off than before they came
under Serbian rule; and secondly, they did not wish to be separated from
these towns which are their markets. In fact, they had become so anxious
to throw in their lot with the Slavs that they formed six battalions,
which operated on both banks of the river, under the command of Bairam
Ramadan, Mahmoud