very villages which, said Mr. Herbert, were destroyed--Aras and Dardha
and so forth--were situated in the district to which the Serbs were
legally entitled?

The Mirditi delegates had an interview in Geneva with Lord Robert Cecil.
An attempt was made by the Tirana delegates to discredit Professor
Achikou, by publishing a telegram from Monsignor Sereggi, the Archbishop
of Scutari (but which the Professor accused the rival delegate, the
bearded, bustling Father Fan Noli, of having composed himself),[92] and
in that message it was stated that Achikou was expelled from Albania.
This he did not deny; he was, he said, one of 4000 who had been driven
out by an arbitrary Government and he hoped that they would soon be able
to return. The message called Achikou a traitor; but that is a matter of
opinion. It said that he was in the service of a foreign Power; he
replied that the Mirditi had never concealed their wish to live in
friendship with their neighbours, and the proof that they envisaged
nothing more than friendship was that they were petitioning the League
to recognize the Mirdite Republic. Among the other charges against
Achikou was one which said that he was sailing under false colours. This
was an absurd accusation, and one which enabled the reverend Father to
mention that his opponent Monsignor, who was then being called Bishop,
Fan Noli, was neither a bishop nor an Albanian, but a simple priest, a
Greek from Adrianople, whose real name was Theophanus.[93] This clever
man, who had decided to form an Orthodox Albanian Church and had
apparently become its bishop without the formality of consecration, had
enjoyed some success at Geneva owing to his knowledge of languages. He
circulated a telegram from Tirana which purported to be a disavowal of
the Mirditi delegation by a number of Mirditi notables; but a reply was
sent by Mark Djoni, the President of the Mirdite Republic, an elderly
man of great sagacity and experience, for in Turkish times he had been
chief magistrate of the Mirditi. He pointed out that all the notables
and all the tribal chieftains had gone, like himself, into exile, and
that the names were those of insignificant persons who had acted under
fear of death. Djoni did not in this telegram allude to the position of
those Catholic priests and others in northern Albania who support the
Tirana Government and its Italian paymasters; some of them may believe
that they are acting in the interest of their country