A short-lived royal adventure

Jason Tomes’ excellent book charts the rise and fall of Albania’s only king. Of perhaps greater interest is the story it tells of this Ottoman outpost’s late essay into statehood. Overrun by seven foreign armies during the first world war, Albania was always under threat of being carved up among it neighbours. Ahmed Zogu can be credited with successfully manipulating Italian-Serbian rivalry, and earning Albania 20 years’ independence, of a sort.

Zogu began his career as a hereditary chieftain with no more than a few thousand clansmen to his name. His rise to power was inevitably opportunistic and as such involved a bewildering succession of alliances both with local tribes (one of which he was in blood with) and with any foreign power (occupiers included) with enough money and interest to back him. Tomes argues that it would be naive to draw a clear division between true patriots and mere adventurers in the history of Albanian nationalism.