tion of a century's hopes.

[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the
Albanian language.]

The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the 'Hellenism' of the
Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem
neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same Albanian
tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated them to the
ruling race. They had been superior to their Christian kinsmen by the
weight of numbers and the possession of arms, which under the Ottoman
regime were the monopoly of the Moslem. At last, however, the yoke of
oppression was broken and the Greek occupation seemed a harbinger of
security for the future. Unluckily, however, Epirus was of interest to
others besides its own inhabitants. It occupies an important geographical
position facing the extreme heel of Italy, just below the narrowest point
in the neck of the Adriatic, and the Italian Government insisted that the
country should be included in the newly erected principality of Albania,
which the powers had reserved the right to delimit in concert by a
provision in the Treaty of London.

Italy gave two reasons for her demand. First, she declared it incompatible
with her own vital interests that both shores of the strait between Corfu
and the mainland should pass into the hands of the same power, because the
combination of both coasts and the channel between them offered a site for
a naval base that might dominate the mouth of the Adriatic. Secondly, she
maintained that the native Albanian speech of the Epirots proved their
Albanian nationality, and that it was unjust to the new Albanian state to
exclude from it the most prosperous and civilized branch of the Albanian
nation. Neither argument is cogent.

The first argument could easily be met by the neutralization of the Corfu
straits,[1] and it is also considerably weakened by the fact that the
position which really commands the mouth of the Adriatic from the eastern
side is not the Corfu channel beyond it but the magnificent bay of Avlona
just within its narrowest section, and this is a Moslem district to which
the Epirots have never laid claim, and which would therefore in any case
fall within the Albanian frontier. The second argument is almost
ludicrous. The destiny of Epirus is not primarily the concern of the other
Albanians, of for that matter of the Greeks, but of the Epirots
themselves, and it is hard to see