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{{Quote|text=Nothing more terrible has taken place in any part of the world, or in the whole history of war.|sign=Christopher Birdwood Thomson|source=Old Europe's Suicide: The Building of a Pyramid of Errors. Library of Alexandria, 1920}}
{{Quote|text=Nothing more terrible has taken place in any part of the world, or in the whole history of war.|sign=Christopher Birdwood Thomson|source=Old Europe's Suicide: The Building of a Pyramid of Errors. Library of Alexandria, 1920}}


[[Noel Malcolm]] pointed out that [[King Petar of Serbia]] himself ordered the execution of Albanians in Kumanovo, which was part of an intentional extermination policy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mehmeti |first1=Leandrit I. |last2=Radeljic |first2=Branislav |title=Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences |date=2017 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-8157-2 |url=https://books.google.se/books?id=IWMqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT74&dq=chetniks+cruelty+Kosovo&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOi-vg09joAhUypIsKHXwcBy0Q6AEIMjAB#v=snippet&q=1912&f=false |accessdate=8 April 2020 |language=en}}</ref>
[[Noel Malcolm]] pointed out that [[Peter I of Serbia]] himself ordered the execution of Albanians in Kumanovo, which was part of an intentional extermination policy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mehmeti |first1=Leandrit I. |last2=Radeljic |first2=Branislav |title=Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences |date=2017 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-8157-2 |url=https://books.google.se/books?id=IWMqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT74&dq=chetniks+cruelty+Kosovo&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOi-vg09joAhUypIsKHXwcBy0Q6AEIMjAB#v=snippet&q=1912&f=false |accessdate=8 April 2020 |language=en}}</ref>


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Revision as of 11:06, 8 April 2020

Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars
LocationAlbania, Kosovo Vilayet
Date1912–1913
TargetAlbanian population in the territories occupied by Serbia, especially in the regions of today's Kosovo, Western Macedonia and Northern Albania
Attack type
Deportation, mass murder, death march, others
Deaths20,000–25,000
PerpetratorsKingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro
The New York Times, 31 December 1912

A series of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were committed by the Montenegrin Army, Serbian Army and paramilitaries, according to international reports.[1][2] During the First Balkan War of 1912-13, Serbia and Montenegro during the war with the Ottoman forces (many Albanians were among the Ottoman forces) and after expelling the official Ottoman Empire's forces in present-day Albania and Kosovo - committed numerous war crimes against the Albanian population, which were reported by the European, American and Serbian opposition press.[3] Most of the crimes happened between October 1912 and summer of 1913. The goal of the forced expulsions and massacres of ethnic Albanians was a statistic manipulation before the London Ambassadors Conference which was to decide on the new Balkan borders.[3][4][5] According to contemporary accounts, between 20,000 and 25,000 Albanians were killed or died because of hunger and cold during that period.[3][5][6] Many of the victims were children, women and old people and were part of an warfare of extermination.[7] Aside from massacres, civilians had their lips and noses severed.[8]

According to Philip J. Cohen, the Serbian Army generated such fear that some Albanian women killed their own children rather than let them fall into the hands of the Serbian soldiery.[9] In relation to Serbia and Montenegro, the Carnegie Commission, an international fact finding mission concluded that both its armies perpetrated large-scale violence that aimed at "the entire transformation of the ethnic character of regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians".[10]

According to the Committee of Kosovo, during this period, around 23 000 Albanians were killed or died in Serbian, Montenegrin and Greek prisons. According to an Albanian imam organization, there were around 21 000 simple graves in Kosovo where Albanians had been massacred by the Serb gender armies.[11] On August-September 1913, Serbian forces destroyed 140 villages and forced 40 000 Albanians to flee.[12]

According to newsman William Howard in an interview titled "Let Albanians Starve: They are Mohammmedans", at the New York Globe, 1914, the Serbian army carried out modus operandi: "Serb regiments of 1100, led by General Carlos Popovitch, entered Albania with kerosene oil, force pumps and dynamite bombs. They captured such Albanian men as they could. Then they tied them together by the elbows and shot them down. The women were outraged. I believe that every woman who fell into the hands of the Serb troops fell a victim to them. Then they were locked up in the house and bombs planted in the walls. Kerosene oil would be sprayed over all and a fire started. When the flames reached the dynamite, the walls were shattered. Albania is filled with fire blackened heaps of stones that were once houses".[13]

Background

The modern Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in the expulsion of the Albanians in 1877-1878 from areas that became incorporated into the Principality of Serbia.[14][15] Prior to the outbreak of the First Balkan War, the Albanian nation was fighting for a national state. In mid 1912, an Albanian revolt resulted in Ottoman recognition of the "14 points", a list of demands that included the establishment of an autonomous Albanian vilayet.[16] The push for Albanian autonomy and Ottoman weakness were viewed at the time as directly threatening the Christian population of the region with extermination by regional Christian Balkan powers.[17] Albanian scholarship states the realisation of Albanian aspirations were received negatively by Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece.[16] The Balkan League (comprising Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria) jointly attacked the Ottoman Empire and during the next few months partitioned all Ottoman territory inhabited by Albanians.[2] The Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Greece occupied most of the land of what is today Albania and other lands inhabited by Albanians on the Adriatic coast. Montenegro occupied a part of today's northern Albania around Shkodër. The Serbian army in the region viewed its role as protecting local Orthodox Christian communities and avenging the medieval battle of Kosovo,[18] though it forced Catholic Albanians to convert to Orthodox Christianity.[19] Serbia also doubled its territory, according to Dimitrije Tucović. A majority of Albanian historians state that Montenegro, Greece and Serbia did not recognise Albanian autonomy and the cause for the Balkan Wars was to stop its establishment on Ottoman lands they claimed.[16].

When the Serbo-Montenegrin forces invaded the Vilayet of Kosovo in 1912, much of the Albanian population was forced to flee due to the feared and actual violence that they experienced at the hands of the invading armies.[20] During the Serb military effort to conquer Kosovo, the armed conflict had overtones of extermination, due to Serb retaliation directed toward Albanians that affected children and women, involved the killing of women and men and homes razed.[21] In this period, 235 villages were burned down in total, with 133 being burned by Serb forces and 102 by Montenegrin.[22] Steven Schwarts states that during the capture of Durrës, Shkodër and Shengjin, Serbian soldiers massacred, pillaged and targeted poor Albanians.[23]

Massacres

Vilayet of Scutari

Malësia

During the Balkan Wars, multiple reports surfaced regarding violent persecutions by Montenegro of Catholic Albanians.[24] In districts under Montenegrin military control, Catholic and Muslim Albanians were subjected to forced mass conversions to Orthodox Christianity, through a policy that aimed to dismantle identities based on a particular religion, and to sever other sociocultural links.[25]

Shkodër

When Serbo-Montenegrin soldiers invaded Shkodër, around 10 000 Montenegrin lives were lost. In the city, they looted and massacred civilians, including the sick and wounded, women and children, many of whom were Christian.[26] In late 1913, international pressure resulted in the Serbian withdrawal of its forces from Shkodër and the Austro-Hungarian consul general within the town reported that during the process, Serb troops killed some 600 Albanians.[24]

Morinë

In 1912, Serbian forces entered Qafë Morinë where they massacred 15 civilians.[27]

Vilayet of Kosovo

The Belgrade consulate of Austria-Hungary reported that during February 1913, Serbian military forces executed all Albanian inhabitants from the villages of Kabash, Tërpezë, Lubisht and Gjylekar.[28]

Chetniks, a Serb irregular force razed the Albanian quarter of Skopje and killed a number of Albanian inhabitants from the city.[29]

Prishtina

When villagers heard about the Serbian massacres of Albanians in the nearby villages, some houses took the desperate measure of raising white flag to protect themselves. In the cases the white flag was ignored during the attack of Serbian army on Prishtina in October 1912, the Albanians (led by Ottoman and Ottoman Albanian officers) abused the white flag, and attacked and killed all the Serbian soldiers.[6] The Serbian army subsequently used this as an excuse for the brutal retaliation against civilians.

The Serbian army entered Pristina on October 22.[30] The events that followed, resulted in the destruction of Albanian and Turkish households, the massacre of children and women, widespread looting and violation of human rights.[31] Based in Skopje, a Danish journalist reported that the campaign of the Serbian army in Prishtina "had taken on the character of a horrific massacring of the Albanian population".[30][31] The number of Albanians of Pristina killed in the early days after the Serbian army took over the town is estimated at 5,000.[32][31][33] The events have been interpreted as an early policy that aimed to change the demographic status of the area.[30]

Afterwards, Serbian settlers were brought in the city and Nikola Pasic, at the time the Prime Minister of Serbia, bought 1,214 acres of land.[34]

In the town, people who wore a plis were targetted by the Serbian army and those who wore the Turkish fez remained safe. This caused the price of the fez in the town's market to skyrocket. On October 18, 1912, 82 Turkish fez could be bought for one Turkish lira. On November 10, 1912, at the same market, a fez could be bought for 82 lira.[35]

Gazimestan

In 1913, when Serb forces entered Gazimestan, they massacred 5000 Albanians.[36]

Gjakova

Gjakova was mentioned among the cities that suffered at the hands of the Serbian-Montenegrin army. The New York Times reported that people on the gallows hanged on both sides of the road, and that the way to Yakova became a "gallows alley."[33] In the region of Yakova, the Montenegrin police-military formation Kraljevski žandarmerijski kor, known as krilaši, committed many abuses and violence against the Albanian population.[37]

In Gjakova, Serbian priests carried out a violent conversion of Albanian Catholics to Serbian Orthodoxy.[19] Vienna Neue Freie Presse (20 March 1913) reported that Orthodox priests with the help of military force converted 300 Gjakova Catholics to the Orthodox faith, and that Franciscan Pater Angelus, who refused to renounce his faith, was tortured and then killed with bayonets. The History Institute in Pristina has claimed that Montenegro converted over 1,700 Albanian Catholics to the Serbian Orthodox faith in the area of Gjakova in March 1913.[38]

Count Albert von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein also told Edward Grey in an interview on 10 March 1912, that the Serbian soldiers committed numerous atrocities on both Muslim an Catholic Albanians in Gjakova, acting in a "barbarous way".[39]

Prizren

After the Serbian army achieved control over the city of Prizren, it imposed repressive measures against the Albanian civilian population. Serbian detachments broke into houses, plundered, committed acts of violence, and killed indiscriminately.[3] Around 400 people were "eradicated" in the first days of the Serbian military administration.[3] During those days bodies were lying everywhere on the streets. According to witnesses, during those days around Prizren lay about 1,500 corpses of Albanians.[6] Foreign reporters were not allowed to go to Prizren.[6] After the operations of the Serbian military and paramilitary units, Prizren became one of the most devastated cities of the Kosovo vilayet and people called it "the Kingdom of Death".[6] Eventually, General Božidar Janković forced surviving Albanian leaders of Prizren to sign a statement of gratitude to the Serbian king Peter I Karađorđević for their liberation.[6] It is estimated that 5,000 Albanians was massacred in the area of Prizren.[6] British traveller Edith Durham and a British military attaché were supposed to visit Prizren in October 1912, however the trip was prevented by the authorities. Durham stated "I asked wounded Montengrins [Soldiers] why I was not allowed to go and they laughed and said 'We have not left a nose on an Albanian up there!' Not a pretty sight for a British officer."[31] Eventually Durham visited a northern Albanian outpost in Kosovo where she met captured Ottoman soldiers whose upper lips and noses had been cut off.[40]

The town of Prizren offered no resistance to Serb forces, but this did not avert a bloodbath there. After Prishtina, Prizren was the hardest hit of the Albanian towns. The local population called it the "Kingdom of Death". Serb forces forced their way into homes and beat up anyone and everyone in their way, irrespective of age or sex. Corpses lined the streets for days while the Serbian victors continued with brutality, and the native population which had survived did not dare to venture out of their homes. The attacks continued night after night throughout the town and region. Up to 400 people perished in the first few days of the Serbian occupation. When the Serbian troops were about to set off westwards, they could not find any horses to transport their equipment so they used 200 Albanians and forced them to carry the goods. Most of them collapsed during the journey and the Serbian commander expressed his satisfaction and approval of the action.[41][42]

Rugova

In 1913, General Janko Vukotic told British traveler Edith Durham that his soldiers had committed atrocities against the civilian population of Rugova; in response to her protests, he reportedly said "but they are beasts, savage animals. We have done very well",[43] which Slovene author Božidar Jezernik interprets as an attestation of the Montenegrin goal of removing local Muslims from their newly captured territories, and resettling the lands.[43]

Ferizaj

The capture of Ferizovik as the town was known in Ottoman times by the Serbian army and the events that followed were documented in contemporary accounts. The entry of the Serbian army was followed by a massacre of the population.[30] Leo Freundlich recorded on his Albania's Golgotha the existing reports about the situation in Ferizaj at the time. The Italian war correspondent of Il Messaggero of Rome reported that the town was destroyed and most of its inhabitants were killed.[44] A Catholic priest in the region reported that resistance had been strong for three days against the advancing Serbian army. When the town was finally taken, the locals who were fleeing the town were invited back in the town on the condition that they surrendered their arms. After the surrender of arms, the army went on to kill about 300 to 400 people. Only a few Muslim families remained in the town after this event.[44] Freundlich put the total number of deaths at 1,200.[44]

Another source of first-hand accounts in the region was Leon Trotsky, who at the time was a war correspondent for the Kiev newspaper Kievskaya Misl. His reports about Ferizaj describe the killings and looting which took place after the town was captured by the Serbian army.[45]

Luma

File:Krahina e Lumës - (Luma region).png
Luma region

During the Balkan wars (1912-1913), Serb military forces attempting to assert their control of the region entered Luma and attacked local inhabitants, killed tribal chieftains, removed livestock belonging to the population and razed villages.[46] The actions resulted in a local uprising by Albanians.[46] Serb forces retaliated through a scorched earth policy and massacres of the population ranging from the young to elderly, both men and women such as barricading people in mosques and houses and then firing upon or burning them.[46] Following the events, 25,000 people fled to Kosovo and western Macedonia.[46] The events have been considered by scholar Mark Levine as constituting a "localized genocide".[46]

When General Janković saw that the Albanians of Luma would not allow Serbian forces to continue the advance to the Adriatic Sea, he ordered the troops to continue their brutality.[3] The Serbian army massacred an entire population of men, women and children, not sparing anyone, and burned down 100-200houses and 27 villages in the area of Luma.[6] Reports spoke of the atrocities by the Serbian army, including the burning of women and children bound to stacks of hay, within the sight of their fathers.[3] Subsequently, about 400 men from Luma surrendered to Serbian authorities, but were taken to Prizren, where they were murdered.[3] The Daily Telegraph wrote that "all the horrors of history have been outdone by the atrocious conduct of the troops of General Jankovic".[3]

The second Luma massacre was committed the following year (1913). After the London Ambassador Conference decided that Luma should be within the Albanian state, the Serbian army initially refused to withdraw. Albanians raised a great rebellion in September 1913, after which Luma once again suffered harsh retaliation from the Serbian army. A report of the International Commission cited a letter of a Serbian soldier, who described the punitive expedition against the rebel Albanians:[2]

My dear Friend, I have no time to write to you at length, but I can tell you that appalling things are going on here. I am terrified by them, and constantly ask myself how men can be so barbarous as to commit such cruelties. It is horrible. I dare not tell you more, but I may say that Luma (an Albanian region along the river of the same name), no longer exists. There is nothing but corpses, dust and ashes. There are villages of 100, 150, 200 houses, where there is no longer a single man, literally not one. We collect them in bodies of forty to fifty, and then we pierce them with our bayonets to the last man. Pillage is going on everywhere. The officers told the soldiers to go to Prizren and sell the things they had stolen."

Italian daily newspaper Corriere delle Puglie wrote in December 1913 about official report that was sent to the Great Powers with details of the slaughter of Albanians in Luma and Debar, executed after the proclamation of the amnesty by Serbian authorities. The report listed the names of people killed by Serbian units in addition to the causes of death: by burning, slaughtering, bayonets, etc. The report also provided a detailed list of the burned and looted villages in the area of Luma and Has.[47]

A Franciscan priest who visited Luma reported seeing "poor bayonetted babies" on the streets.[48]

Kumanovo

British army officer Christopher Birdwood Thomson was told by a Serbian general in Belgrade in 1913 that after the 3rd Serbian Army defeated the Turkish forces in Kumanovo, they entered the city and wiped out entire villages, massacring men, women and children in their homes, forcing others to flee resulting in death due to famine and cold. In 1920, he writes:

Nothing more terrible has taken place in any part of the world, or in the whole history of war.

— Christopher Birdwood Thomson, Old Europe's Suicide: The Building of a Pyramid of Errors. Library of Alexandria, 1920

Noel Malcolm pointed out that Peter I of Serbia himself ordered the execution of Albanians in Kumanovo, which was part of an intentional extermination policy.[49]

Gostivar

After the Battle of Kumanovo on October 23-24, 1912, the Serbian army Morava division entered Gostivar, where hundreds of Albanians were massacred, which resulted in protests from Vienna. Leopold Berchtold was appalled by the massacres and asked Belgrade to withdraw from Albanian territory.[50] On November 21, 1912, he wrote letters to Paris, London, Berlin, Rome and Petrograd where he stated: “The behavior of the Serbian army towards the Albanian people does not belong to any international human rights norm, but after the occupation of the countries they choose no means of dealing with it anymore. They acted brutally against the innocent and defenseless population".[51][52]

Mitrovica

On 18 November 1912, Sir F. Cartwright sent a letter to Sir Edward Grey explaining how the Serbian army entered Mitrovica and arrested the Austrian consul and held him prisoner for 15 days until he escaped to Budapest after he had witnessed atrocities being committed on Albanian civilians.[53] According to an article in the Japan Times & Mail in 1912, the reason for the arrest of the consuls of Prizren and Mitrovica was the Serbian government did not want news to reach Austria that the Serbian soldiers had massacred Albanian civilians.[54]

Vusthrri

On August 13, 1913, 17 Albanian civilians were massacred by Serbian soldiers when they entered Vushtrri. The event was despatched from the British Vice Consul W.D. Peckham in Skopje to the British Ambassador Sir Ralph Paget in Belgrade.[55]

Peja

In 1912, the Serbian army bombarded the city of Peja and razed village after village, and were aided by Chetnik paramilitaries.[56] Edith Durham writes about refugees from Peja after the Serbian army entered in 1913: "An Ipek man, well educated and of high standing, told of what happened there. "Every day the telal cried in the streets 'To-day the Government will shoot ten (or more men! No one knew which men they would be, or why they were shot. They were stood in a trench, which was to be their grave. Twelve soldiers fired and as the victims fell the earth was shovellwed over them, wether living or dead. Baptisms were forcd by torture. Men were plunged into the ice-cold river, and then half roased till they cried for mercy". Many, terrorized into baptism, came to me".[57]

Gusinje and Plav

After the armistice, Serbian troops bombarded the villages of Gusinje and Plav, rushed them and threw hand grenades, burning the villages, resulting an exodus of Albanian women and children fleeing to the mountains with many dying in the snow. An English doctor in Scutari examined the bands of refugees and travelled to Gusinje to examine the area and was immediately arrested by Serbian soldiers.[58]

Novi Pazar

Captain Carlo Papa di Castiglione d'Asti (1869-1955) was an Italian Major and military attaché in Belgrade and Bucharest between 1908 and 1913 who observed the advancing Serbian Army. He reported that the Serbian army exterminated the Albanian population of Novi Pazar in order to facilitate Serbian domination.[59]

When the Serb troops entered Sandzak, they massacred hundreds of civilians.[60]

Vilayet of Monastir

In the town of Ohrid, Serbian forces killed 500 people consisting of Albanians and Turks.[10]

Dibra

On 20 September, the Serbian army carried off all the cattle of the Malësia of Dibra. The herdsmen were compelled to defend themselves, and to struggle, but they were all killed. The Serbians also killed two chieftains of the Luma clan, Mehmed Edem and Djafer Eleuz, and the began pillaging and burning all the villages on their way: Peshkopi, Blliçë, and Dohoshisht in lower Dibra; and another seven villages in upper Dibra. In all these villages the Serbians committed acts of horrible massacres and outrage on women, children and old people.[61]

As the Serbian Army invaded Albania through Dibra, Elbasan and Shkodër, they bombarded cities and villages with artillery. The Albanian government telegraphed their delegates in Paris stating that the aim was the suppression of the Albanian state and the extermination of the Albanian population.[62]

Pelagonia

In September 1912, Serb majors M. Vasić and Vasilije Trbić gathered 30 Chetniks and travelled to the village of Desovo where they shot 111 Albanian men and razed the village.[63] In nearby Brailovo, Trbić executed 60 Albanians.[63]

Porcasi and Sulp

In these villages Porcasi and Sulp, Serbian soldiers took all the men out and asked the women to pay for their release. After payment, they were put inside a mosque which was blown up. In Sulp, 73 Albanians were murdered as well.[64]

Eyewitness accounts and reports

For 12 years, the British anthropologist Edith Durham traveled to the region and became deeply interested in and knowledgeable of Albania and Albanians.[65][66] In August 1912, Durham was in Montenegro and saw firsthand Montenegrin preparations for war along the border and altered the British press.[67] She thought Montenegro was attempting to provoke the Ottomans into a conflict and Durham witnessed the outbreak of hostilities when Montenegrin king Nikola directed his army to fire artillery shots into Albania.[68] As the war began, Durham dispatched the news to the British press and for a prolonged period was the only war correspondent from the Montenegrin area.[68] Newspapers sought her reports and Durham wrote over the course of many days for the Chronicle and Manchester Guardian, later she ceased after finding out they "were cutting and even doctoring her articles".[68]

Early on in the conflict Durham, as a nurse, was involved in humanitarian relief work with the Red Cross and became aware of the atrocities.[69][66] Durham was close to the theatre of war and described the razed villages, the refugees and their dire plight, such as some resorting to sheltering in outhouses.[32] She wrote a strongly worded indictment on the behavior of Serbs and Montenegrins.[65] Durham recounted in one instance that she went to see over thousand families whose homes were razed and referred to the negative views Montenegrins held against Albanians.[65] She encountered people from the frontlines like a Serb officer who viewed his time in Kosovo as "heroism" and "nearly choked with laughter" as he talked about how he "bayoneted the women and children of Luma".[69] Durham heard sentiments from more officers about how "no one would dare speak the dirty language" (Albanian) in the newly acquired territories.[69] Speaking in an open manner, they told Durham of the violence used to convert Catholic and Muslim Albanians into Orthodox Christianity.[69] At the Montenegrin-Albanian frontier, Durham in her accounts described mutilation of "nose cutting" and other body parts sliced for "their commanders".[66] The events of the war made Durham end her friendship with King Nikola due to the actions of the Montenegrin army.[70] At the time, the Albanian leadership used reports by Durham as firm evidence to strengthen their own nationalist rhetoric and put forward a position that objected to the violence committed by various armed forces present in the region, due to the war.[71]

Leon Trotsky, later one of the leading figures of the Russian revolution, was at the time sent by a socialist Kiev newspaper as its wartime journalist to cover the Balkan Wars and he reported on the violence committed toward Albanians.[65][72] In the space of a few days after Skopje came under Serb control, Trotsky described the situation in and surrounding the city.[72] Trotsky was not present directly in the theatre of war, and he compiled his information from discussions he had with witnesses such as a Serbian friend who referred to "horrors" in the region of Macedonia.[65] The same friend had gained a military pass to travel to Skopje and told Trotsky:[65][72]

...the horrors actually began as soon as we crossed the old frontier. By five p.m. we were approaching Kumanovo. The sun had set, it was starting to get dark. But the darker the sky became, the more brightly the fearful illumination of the fires stood out against it. Burning was going on all around us. Entire Albanian villages had been turned into pillars of fire... In all its fiery monotony this picture was repeated the whole way to Skopje... For two days before my arrival in Skopje the inhabitants had woken up in the morning to the sight, under the principal bridge over the Vardar- that is, in the very centre of the town- of heaps of Albanian corpses with severed heads. Some said that these were local Albanians, killed by the komitadjis [cjetniks], others that the corpses were brought down to the bridge by the waters of the Vardar. What was clear was that these headless men had not been killed in battle.[73][65][72]

The account given to Trotsky by the Serbian friend referred to the actions of Serb troops and their responsibility in Skopje for looting, fires, and in one example, the torture of local Albanian inhabitants of whom they spoke publicly about their deeds.[74] Many of the events in Skopje took place at night by Serb paramilitaries and in the morning, hundreds of headless Albanian corpses were in the Vardar river at the main bridge.[72] There was certainty that the bodies were not casualties from warfare and ambiguity on whether they were Albanians from the area or had flowed down from the upstream part of the Vardar.[72] The destruction of villages through arson resulted in the loss of homes and amassed wealth of targeted Albanians, whereas irregular troops entered homes to kill and steal.[65] Trotsky's Serbian friend described that Skopje had turned into a military camp and among the troops there were Serb peasants engaged in looting food, livestock and the doors and windows from Albanian houses.[72]

In observations of Serbian officers, the informant expressed disgust with their brutality and in moments of confrontation regarding their behavior, a corporal said to him that they differed from the komitajis (paramilitaries).[72] The corporal stated that the army "would not kill anyone younger than twelve years of age", whereas "the komitajis engage in murder, robbery and violence as a savage sport".[75] Authorities from the army responded by sending some komitajis home, due to the embarrassment they caused to the military.[76] The Serb informant wrote to Trotsky that "meat is rotting, human flesh as well as the flesh of oxen" and that the conflict "brutalized" people and made them lose "their human aspect".[76] Trotsky's Serbian friend also encountered a corporal in Kosovo who after being questioned about his actions responded "Roasting chickens and killing Arnauts [Albanians]. But we're tired of it."[65] In his report sent to Kiev newspaper Kievskaya Misl Trotsky writes about many "atrocities committed against the Albanians of Macedonia and Kosovo in the wake of the Serbian invasion of October 1912".[77] Trotsky reported that when King Peter I Karadjordjevic was on a tour at the frontlines, he said that Albanians ought to be clubbed till death as they did not deserve the ammunition.[78]

Among other instances he tells a shocking case of drunken Serbian soldiers torturing two young Albanians.

Four soldiers held their bayonets in readiness and in their midst stood two young Albanians with their white felt caps on their heads. A drunken sergeant – a komitadji – was holding a kama (a Macedonian dagger) in one hand and a bottle of cognac in the other. The sergeant ordered: 'On your knees!' The petrified Albanians fell to their knees. 'To your feet!' They stood up. This was repeated several times. Then the sergeant, threatening and cursing, put the dagger to the necks and chests of his victims and forced them to drink some cognac, and then… he kissed them... Drunk with power, cognac and blood, he was having fun, playing with them as a cat would with mice. The same gestures and the same psychology behind them. The other three soldiers, who were not drunk, stood by and took care that the Albanians did not escape or try to resist, so that the sergeant could enjoy his moment of rapture. 'They're Albanians,' said one of the soldiers to me dispassionately. 'Hell soon put them out of their misery.',

Trotsky wrote several dispatches and sent them home where he described the atrocities saying "an individual, a group, a party of a class that is capable of 'objectively' picking its nose while it watches men drunk with blood, and incited from above, massacring defenceless people is condemned by history to rot and become worm-eaten while it is still alive".[79]

In report by the British Foreign Office, a description of a telegram by the Italian consul in Skopje stated that "atrocities being committed by Serbian troops and their evident intention of extirpating as many of the Albanian inhabitants as possible".[76] A Swiss engineer, employed as an overseer for the Oriental railway submitted a report to the British embassy in Belgrade that gave details regarding Skopje following the arrival of Serbian soldiers.[80] The report described that the conduct of Serbs against the Muslim population was "cruel in every way" and appeared to "have for its object their complete extermination".[76] The Swiss engineer had written that the sound of arms discharged began from early in the day and continued till late, and prisoners were treated badly such as officers shot without trials.[76] The report described that "an order was issued to soldiers in certain places to kill all Albanians from the age of eight years upwards with a view to extermination. The Serbians have ill treated the sick, women and children."[76] Other details in the report described that mosques were destroyed, villages razed in their entirety and that the number of bodies floating in the Vardar were some 500.[81] The Swiss engineer summed up the situation and said that "the Albanians were "desperate".[82]

Historicity of information

Scholarship treats wartime correspondences from the entire Balkan Wars as first-hand evidence and historian Wolfgang Höpken says those sources need to be handled with care.[83] Höpken states that reporters, such as Trotsky who provided first hand data were not near the theatre of war,[83] however, his accounts of the Balkan Wars were "some of the most brilliant and most analytical war reports".[84]

Journalists of the time based in the Balkans like Richard von Mach from Kölnische Zeitung described that the accounts were often either data from a third party or "even pure fiction".[83] Writers such as Carl Pauli attained their data from nameless witnesses or gathered evidence from the extensive compilation of information by Leo Freundlich, who wrote about the situation in the Albanian conflict zone and expressed empathy for Albanian victims.[83] Höpken states that these sources have significance, although the information given "can hardly be taken for granted".[83]

The report by the International Carnegie Commission, often cited by the prosecution as an important witness and quoted multiple times, "cannot" says Höpken, "be read without a due deconstructative effort on the part of the historian".[83] Historian Alan Kramer regards the Carnegie Commission report as a "remarkably well-documented and impartial investigation, coolly sceptical of exaggerated claims, reached conclusions that have not been improved to this day."[10] Diplomatic missions located in the Balkans repeatedly sent reports on the rumors and news regarding violent actions committed by all participants in the Balkan Wars.[85] On multiple occasions they made complaints about being unable to get first-hand data.[85] Reports from British consuls described many examples of violent actions perpetrated by Serb irregular forces in Kosovo and Macedonia following their capture during 1912-1913 by the Serbian military.[84] The British government was suspicious about the authenticity of the complaints and reports that made them hesitant to undertake any political action.[86]

At a time when political relations were tense with Serbia, Austro-Hungary took a keen interest to gather together details of Serbian atrocities and subjected their sources to critical scrutiny and to determine whether informants were reliable.[86] Austro-Hungarians described that often there was "a great deal of exaggeration" of certain data that came into their possession.[86] They also stated that accounts from witnesses whose reliability was verified, confirmed that heavy use of violence occurred such as the killings of children and women, wide scale theft and the razing of villages and houses.[86] For example, in Skopje, Macedonia, the Austro-Hungarian consul Heimroth sent his assistants multiple times out into the field to closely examine news of atrocities before sending reports such as Gausamkeiten der Serben gegen Albaner back to Vienna.[87]

An extensive report by Catholic bishop Lazër Mjeda regarding Serbian violence toward Skopje Muslim and Albanian inhabitants was the subject of detailed discussion in the Austro-Hungarian consulate.[87] Afterward they came to the conclusion that it was well founded in the overall depiction of the situation it portrayed.[87] In a long report on what he witnessed, Consul Heimroth stated that at a bare minimum, Serbian forces ought to be held to account for not halting the violence committed against Muslims after their arrival into Skopje.[88] Heimroth described that in this war he heard more complaints regarding wartime violence then in the Russo-Japanese war and that the conflict whose aim was liberating fellow Christians concluded with an attempt to exterminate non-Orthodox inhabitants.[88]

Accounts given by nonpartisan witnesses from the Balkan Wars of what they saw included foreign workers and engineers from the Oriental Railway and the local and foreign Christian clergy.[86] For some observers, they suspected that forced population movements (ethnic cleansing) were part of an organised effort of extermination.[86] Höpken states there is insufficient support for that position in the sources, and instead, those events "radicalised" the continuing course toward homogenising populations along ethnic lines.[86] Historian Mark Mazower states despite the "careless talk of 'exterminating' the Albanian population", the killing of "perhaps thousands of civilians" by Serbian armed forces in the provinces of Kosovo and Monastir was "prompted more by revenge than genocide".[89]

Edwin E. Jacques quotes the French L'Indépendance Albanaise stating in an article from Mars 15, 1915 that the atrocities were committed in cold blood.[90]

The information gathered from observations by individuals or "reliable" and "non-partisan" informants who witnessed the events "left no doubt", Höpken says, that extensive violence took place against people, like the razing of homes and villages and forced population movements.[86] Separate to what Höpken calls "suspicious slaughter narratives" from second and third hand accounts, medical physicians and nurses verified from what they witnessed in hospitals that the "conflict had gone beyond all rules and regulations".[86]

In literature and scholarship among Albanians, the actions and conduct described in Durham's accounts are the outcome of intentional anti-Albanian policies that the Serb government organised to "exterminate Albanians".[69] Scholar Daut Dauti states that Durham's wartime reports "amounted to atrocity testimonies committed against Albanians".[71] The accounts given by Durham came under criticism from individuals such as Rebecca West, a fellow traveler of the region and author.[32] West stated that Durham showed naivety and mocked her support of a report from 1912 that claimed falsely the Austrian consul was castrated by the Serbs at Prizren.[32] Historian Benjamin Lieberman wrote that West also has been accused of showing a preference toward Serbs in her works.[32] Lieberman said that Durham was an eyewitness to the conflict and in the interviews Trotsky conducted with Serbs, his informants lacked a motive to portray their fellow troops and citizens in a negative manner.[32] In the accounts recorded by Trotsky, Durham and other people of the time, Lieberman states they are consistent and corroborated by additional sources such as from Catholic Church officials who referred to multiple massacres.[32]

Reactions to the killings

French General Frédéric-Georges Herr reported on January 3, 1913, that ”in the Albanian massif, the numerous massacres that bloodied this region reduced the population to strong proportions. Many villages were destroyed and the land remained barren”.[91]

Edith Durham, along with European socialists Leo Freundlich, Leon Trotsky, and Serbian socialists like Kosta Novaković, Dragiša Lapčević, Dimitrije Tucović and others shared the same stance of condemning the atrocities perpetrated on Albanians and all supported Albanian self determination.[92]

In a letter written by Durham in regards to Isa Boletini she writes how Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis and his friends betrayed the Albanians after they successfully revolted against the Ottomans: "Having used their ammunition in the recent rebellions, the bulk of the Albanians were practically unarmed, and were pitilessly massacred by the invading armies. Apis and his friends who had posed as friends of the Albanians now spared neither man, woman nor child. How many were massacred in Kosovo vilayet will never be known".[93]


In order to investigate the crimes, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace formed a special commission, which was sent to the Balkans in 1913. Summing the situation in Albanian areas, the Commission concludes:

Houses and whole villages reduced to ashes, unarmed and innocent populations massacred en masse, incredible acts of violence, pillage and brutality of every kind – such were the means which were employed and are still being employed by the Serbo-Montenegrin soldiery, with a view to the entire transformation of the ethnic character of regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians.[2][94]

— Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars

Serbian territorial claims upon the region were complicated by the issue of war crimes perpetrated by Serbian military forces that were part of an investigation by the Carnegie Commission for the Balkan Wars.[95] The report was received negatively by Serb historians and officials, even though the Serbian side was treated with restraint in comparison to others who had partaken in the conflict.[95] The socialist press in Serbia referred to crimes, such as the prominent Serbian socialist Dimtrije Tucović who wrote about the Serbian campaign in Kosovo and northern Albania.[95]

Captain Dimitrije Tucović

We have carried out the attempted premeditated murder of an entire nation. We were caught in that criminal act and have been obstructed. Now we have to suffer the punishment.... In the Balkan Wars, Serbia not only doubled its territory, but also its external enemies.[96]

— Dimitrije Tucović

Tucović also wrote that the Serbian soldiers burned hundreds of Albanian women and children alive.[97][98] In 1913, Tucović tried to remind his Serbian readers with Marx's "prophetic" quote "the nation that oppresses another nation forges its own chains", however, this proved ineffective as the Serbian Orthodox Church had whipped up nationalist hatred towards Albanians.[99] In his book Srbija i Arbanija, Tucović writes:[100]

The bourgeois press called for merciless annihilation and the army acted upon this. Albanian villages, from which the men had fled in time, were reduced to ashes. At the same time, these were barbarian crematoria in which hundreds of women and children were burned.

— Dimitrije Tucović[101]

In the second half of the twentieth century, historian Vladimir Dedijer conducted research into Serbian foreign relations of the era.[102] Dedijer stated that he was convinced by the information from Tucović and equated the actions of the Serbian military to European colonial armies engaged in Africa, South America and Africa.[102] For example, Prime Minister Nikola Pašić at the time attempted to portray the whole narrative of crimes by the Serbian army to international powers as fabricated propaganda from foreign sources.[102] The press in Britain and Germany kept printing articles about the large numbers of Albanian deaths in Albania and Kosovo, and the attempts by the Serbian government to conceal the reality from its people through censorship.[102] In an issue from 18 January 1913, the most resolute charges of wrongdoing came from the London Times where it described that 25,000 Albanians were killed in northeastern Albania by Serbian forces.[102]

Russia played a significant part in the territorial division of Albanian areas and the propaganda regarding crimes committed by Serbs.[102] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov warned Pašić on multiple occasions through the Serbian representative in St.Petersburg about the need to disavow every single case, as in Gjakova, where Serbian forces were alleged to have shot 300 Albanian individuals.[102] Sazonov repeatedly told Serbs that the Austrians were prepared to accept Gjakova as part of Serbia, so long as no alleged casualties occurred.[102] At the same time, Russia assisted Serbia in gaining the towns of Debar, Prizren and Pec from Albania and undertook similar efforts to gain Gjakova for the Serbs, while Austria-Hungary attempted to retain the remaining territory for Albania.[102]

The Serbian social democrat paper Radnica novice wrote that Albanians were robbed and plundered and the villages devestated and that no one had felt the fury of liberators so strongly as the innocent Albanians.[103]

In 1913, the Russian paper Novoye vremya refused to acknowledge the Serbian atrocities against Albanian civilians in Skopje and Prizren and instead began citing local Catholic priests who said that the Serb army had not committed a single act of violence against the civil population.[104]

An American relief agent named B. Peele Willett wrote in his report The Christian Work Fall from 1914 that:[105]

..."Serbian and Montenegrin troops destroyed one hundred villages in northern Albania without warning, without provocation, without excuse. ... 12,000 homes were burned and dynamited, 8,000 farm folk killed or burned to death, 125,000 made homeless. All livestock has been driven off. Corn fresh from the harvest has been carried away. Like hunted animals the farm folk fled to Elbasan, Tirana, Scutari and outlying villages. I have returned from a 400-mile journey, partly on foot, through these stricken regions. I saw the destroyed villages, the burned and dynamited houses. I saw the starving refugees. I saw women and children dying of hunger."[106]

The Habsburg envoy in Belgrade at the time stated that the Serbian authorities were sponsoring and tolerating harsh treatments of Albanians specifically through pillaging, arson, and executions in the "liberated lands".[107]

The German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung wrote it had obtained reports whose plausibility was corroborated by observers from Europe with an impartial stance, that massacres were committed in Albania and the region of Macedonia by Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks.[108] The newspaper stated that the position of the Serbs was the Albanian population "must be eradicated".[108]

In 1921, The Near East published an article of the Albanian deputies who had spoken on 28 July on the Ambassadors Conference in Tirana stating that between 1913 and 1920, Serbian forces had killed approximately 85 676 Albanian civilians in Kosovo, with numerous villages being burned. They also stated that the The Black Hand had brought Russian colonists to settle in the areas where Albanians had been killed or expelled in Kosovo.[109]

On 25 September 1913, British official Mr. Dayrell Crackanthorpe sent a letter to Edward Grey from Belgrade mentioning an Albanian uprising against Serbian forces which the Austrians stated was due to the fact that Serbian army had not withdrawn their forces from Albania and that they had committed massacres on the civilian population.[110] A third reason was that the Serbian authorities had closed the borders thus cutting off important food markets necessary to the local population.

A Romanian doctor named Leonte wrote in the Bucharest paper Adevarul on 6 January 1913, that the horrors inflicted by the Serbian Army in Kosovo were "much more frightening than one could imagine".[111]

Henrik August Angel, a Norwegian military officer and writer who personally followed the trail of the Ottoman army and army of Kingdom of Serbia, in his work[112] described "demonization of Serbs" in texts published in English language newspapers, and especially in German language newspapers from Germany and Austria-Hungary, as "shameful injustice".[113][unreliable source?]

Aftermath

In scholarship, reliable numbers exist for military casualties of the Balkan Wars.[94] A research gap exists on civilian victims, often from a targeted ethnic or religious group, due to the statistics being interpreted and used for nationalist purposes.[94] The Balkan Wars resulted in numerous people becoming refugees and some fled to Istanbul or Anatolia.[114] Following the creation of Albania, Albanian refugees, in particular of the Muslim religion sought shelter in the country.[114] In late 1913, Serbian control was challenged by an insurgency in the Ohrid–Debar uprising and its defeat by Serbian forces resulted in tens of thousands of Albanian refugees arriving in Albania from Western Macedonia.[115] At the time, news reports by Freundlich stated that in the town of Shkodër, the Albanian refugee population numbered 8,000-10,000, 7,000 in the Shala region and 7,000 in the Iballë area.[116] As a large number of refugees were located in northern Albania, scholar Edvin Pezo says that part of the population likely arrived from the Kosovo area.[117] A lack of assistance from the new Albanian government and Albanian immigration restrictions by the Ottomans, drove many refugees to return to their place of origin, often finding their houses were destroyed.[117] People that lived through violent events of the Balkan Wars, such as those in Skopje, often did not talk about their experiences.[82]

As a result of the Treaty of London in 1913 which designated the former Ottoman lands to Serbia, Montenegro and Greece (namely, the large part of the Vilayet of Kosovo being awarded to Serbia), an independent Albania was recognised. As such, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro agreed to withdraw from the territory of the new Principality of Albania. The principality however included only about half of the territory populated by ethnic Albanians and a large number of Albanians remained in neighboring countries.[118]

The previous two Serbian Army invasions into Albania, one in 1913 and the second in May 1915, made many Albanian locals take revenge through sniper attacks upon the retreating Serb army during World War One, in part as retribution for Serbian brutality in the First Balkan War.[119][120][121]

The Balkan wars resulted in Serbian forces viewing themselves as a "liberator", whereas non-Serbs became concerned about the future and their integration into the new reality.[102] The current Serbian position of the Balkan Wars is that it was a "final" freedom struggle to liberate "the cradle of Serbdom and occupied brothers."[102]

In Macedonian and Yugoslav books on history, accounts of violent events such as those that occurred in Skopje are not mentioned.[82] The majority of history books in Albania and Kosovo present the notion of attacking the Ottoman state to liberate Greeks, Serbs and Albanians from government misrule as a positive move.[122] They interpret the arrival and conduct by Serbian, Greek and Montenegrin military forces in Albania, as "chauvinist" and unwarranted.[122] The "liberation" of the Albanian population by military forces, especially Serbian and Montenegrin armies belonging to the Balkan League is described as the "invasion of enemies", or that of longstanding "foes".[122] In Albania and Kosovo, this particular understanding of the Balkan Wars prevails within school textbooks and the education curriculum.[122]

These events have greatly contributed to the growth of the Serbian-Albanian conflict.[123]

See also

References

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  22. ^ ibid. p. 28
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  118. ^ Robert Elsie, The Conference of London 1913 Archived 11 February 2011 at WebCite
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  120. ^ Majstorovic, Steven (2014). "Autonomy of the Sacred: The Endgame in Kosovo". In Máiz, Ramón; William, Safran (eds.). Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Plural Societies. Routledge. p. 8178. ISBN 9781135303945. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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  122. ^ a b c d Dauti, Daut (2017). "Gjergj Fishta, the "Albanian Homer," and Edith Durham, the "Albanian Mountain Queen": Observers of Albania's Road to Statehood". In Boeckh, Katrin; Rutar, Sabine (eds.). The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory. Springer. p. 96. ISBN 9783319446424. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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Further reading

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