Rejeb and others. In opposition to these battalions
were the troops of the so-called National Government, that of Tirana.
This Government is repudiated by a great many Albanians on account of
its reactionary methods, its subservience to the Italians, and its
failure to do anything for the people. The battalions, then, were
engaged in 1921, not against their immediate neighbours to the west, the
Catholic Mirditi, of whom we shall speak anon, but against the more
distant Government of Tirana. Thus the League of Nations beheld that the
administration which they were about to confirm as the legitimate
Government of Albania was violently opposed by compact masses of
Catholics and Moslems. Perhaps some of the members of the League began
to doubt whether they should have accepted the assurance of the
Anglo-Albanian Society that the Tirana Government (containing Moslem,
Catholic and Orthodox members) was really a national affair; perhaps
they began to suspect that the two Christian elements were only there to
throw a little dust in the eyes of Europe; and perhaps Lord Robert Cecil
began to feel doubtful whether, at the urgent request of his friend Mr.
Aubrey Herbert, President of the Anglo-Albanian Society, he had been
well advised to bring about the admission into the League of a country
which had two simultaneous Governments before it had a frontier. Perhaps
one was beginning to recognize that there are Albanians but no Albania.

The emissaries of Tirana might depict as of no importance the
hostilities that were being waged against them by those Moslem tribes,
they might tell the League of Nations that the Mirdite revolution was
not worth considering. It is a fact that the Mirditi are not very
numerous, but in close connection with their 18,000 people are the Shala
with 500 houses and the Shoshi with 300. Tradition has it that they are
descended from three brothers who set out from the arid village of
Shiroka on Lake Scutari to seek their fortune. The most ancient, the
most noble and important family of northern Albania is that of
Gjomarkaj, whose seat is at Oroshi, the capital of the Mirditi. Despite
enormous difficulties they succeeded in maintaining their own position
and the prestige of the Mirditi. They refused to recognize the Turkish
Government and clung so tenaciously to their own usages and laws, and
were so famous for their courage that the Sultans were eager to grant
them privileges and concessions. Thereafter they