The creation of the Albanian National Liberation Army and the continued resistance
November 28, 1942 was the 30th anniversary of Albania's independence, and Albanians at home and abroad celebrated Albania's independence.
The Italian fascists tried to organize and guide the march with a nationalist theme, and the Albanians did not buy it, and they shouted loudly towards Italy, demanding to get rid of foreign domination and achieve real Albanian independence.
In Tirana, Shkodar, Vlora and Korca, there were again violent clashes between marchers and the Italian gendarmerie.
In Korca, Albanian partisans set fire to an Italian brewery. Mass demonstrations in the city forced the local Italian gendarmerie to go out for shelter, and several Italians, officers and soldiers were killed. In order to avoid provoking an even more violent conflict, the Italian authorities were forced to take down the fascist flag and raise the Albanian flag.
At the same time, a number of overseas Albanians also held a rally on that day to commemorate the country's independence and oppose the Italian fascist aggression, and the acting president of the Pan-Albanian Federation of the United States, Vasil Pani, proclaimed: "Our interests lie in unity, and only in this way can the independence of Albania be permanently restored." ”
In addition, in Cairo, an Albanian legation received from the Government of Egypt celebrated the day, and in Istanbul, the former Albanian minister, assisted by the consul, presided over a gathering for local Albanian compatriots. In the United Kingdom, the Committee of Friends of Albania also held a celebratory luncheon at the London Club.
The Albanians of 1939 at the time of the Italian invasion would not have expected such an unprecedented spectacle in which more and more people would dare to speak out, and on the 30th anniversary of Independence, Albanians at home and abroad would unite and shout their voices to the world.
At the same time, many Albanians, through reports from the BBC and other sources, learned that the Axis powers had been on the defensive since the Battle of Stalingrad. The December 1942 Manifesto of the United States boosted the confidence of the Albanians.
With the establishment of two important resistance groups in the country, the resistance in Albania grew further. The National Liberation Front grew in strength and led a series of resistances. At the beginning of 1943, the group began to coordinate their first nationwide resistance movement, and unlike in the past, the guerrilla fighting shifted from a scattered contingent to two or more partisan units acting in tandem.
From February 17 to 22, 1943, the Communist Party of Albania held its first national conference in the village of Rabinot. The meeting made an assessment of the political and military situation in the country, pointed out the main points of the next work, and decided to organize the creation of the National Liberation Army.
"The organization of the guerrillas and volunteer units into a regular national liberation army will make the occupiers fearful and will be a reliable and strong guarantee for the liberation of the people." After this meeting, numerous teams were merged into the first battalion. The Communist Party also called on patriots such as workers, peasants, youth, citizens, and women to join the ranks and secretly distributed leaflets to Albanian soldiers, gendarmes, and police officers to rally their support.
Faced with the expansion of the ranks of the National Liberation Army Front, the Italian fascists concentrated their superior forces and began to attack the liberated areas, and the two sides fought several fierce battles in the spring and summer of 1943.
In April, the National Liberation Council commanded a number of troops to launch an attack on the concentration of Italian troops near Senenica. On 17 May, 12 Albanian partisans launched an attack on Italian troops in Leskovicú. The partisans tightly surrounded the town, which was guarded by 1,000 Italian soldiers, and began a three-day offensive, successfully capturing the place before Italian reinforcements arrived.
During the battle, the partisans claimed that 200 Italians were killed and more than a dozen trucks and armored vehicles destroyed. This battle came to be known as the "Battle of Leskovik". On 13 June, 14,000 Italian troops invaded the Besa area, and on 25 June, 8,000 Italian troops began a retaliatory assault on the partisans in the areas of Malagastra and Champiré. Two thousand partisans were in high position in the mountains, and the Italians could not break through their defenses and were forced to retreat.
On 14 July, four more divisions were added to attack the area. At the beginning of July, in Permet, several major encounters took place between the two sides. The Italians brought in reinforcements from Berat, Girocaste and Tepelinath, and after five days of fighting, the partisans suffered heavy losses and were forced to retreat to higher mountains.
On 6 July, in Balmash, on the section from Kolca to Yanina, the Albanians also launched their first attack on the German army, killing not only more than 60 German soldiers, but also destroying several vehicles and some military equipment. In general, from May to July, thousands of Italians were killed and many were wounded.
At the same time, some leaders of the National Front are holding out their resistance. Batka's troops attacked the Italians at Flock in January 1943, and in March there was also armed resistance at Wiskuk. On the 25th, Batka's troops defeated the entire Italian detachment near Voskobuye in the mountains west of Kos.
Both sides suffered heavy casualties, but the volunteers and partisans killed more Italian soldiers. They attacked the enemy headquarters in Voskopaye and released all political prisoners held there, and he also took large quantities of weapons and ammunition from the arsenal in Ercek. "On 13 August, accompanied by British officers Captain David Smiley and Major Neil McLean, his unit also attacked a German convoy in Bamaş.
In the midst of the rising tide of struggle, the Albanian Communist Party believed that the time had come for the creation of the Liberation Army. On July 4, 1943, the General Headquarters of the National Liberation Army was formally established at the National Liberation Conference in the village of Rabinot, with former Army Major S. Inyixiu as the Supreme Commander of the General Command, Enver Hoxha, as the political commissar.
The General Headquarters organized the Albanian National Liberation Army, and in order to centralize the leadership of the guerrillas in the regions, several state commands, the First Theater Command were formed. On 15 August, the First Assault Brigade was also formed, with Mohammed Shehu as its commander. At the time of the formation of the Liberation Army, Albania had a standing guerrilla force of about 10,000 people, or 20,000 if you include the rural support units and fighters from the occupied areas.
The formation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) led to a higher level of organization and rapid expansion of the resistance. However, ELN's military operations were directed not only against the Italian fascists, but also against the Communist Party's political opponents at home, including the pre-war liberal, nationalist, and monarchist parties.
The collapse of fascist rule in Italy
Faced with an increasingly critical domestic situation, Jacques Inni ended the rule of the Kruja government again in early January 1943 and formed a new one. This time, he planned to create a government of large landowners. Ziano naively believed that these landowners still had considerable influence in Albania and could have a powerful influence on public opinion.
Jacquemoni chose Ekrem Bey Libochowa, who had been a court minister in Sogu and had blocked a bullet for the king in Vienna in 1931. Jacqueni hoped that he would have no qualms about co-opting the southern landowning class that had been alienated during the Kruja government.
But the situation is no longer the same as it was two years ago, and the vacancies in the new government are difficult to fill, and some Albanian politicians "want to overshoot" Ziano complained in his diary: "The news from Albania is unsettling. The government in Libohowa is also playing tricks. Those who ended up with us are trying to "abandon ship", even Frioni and Verazzi. These are all signs of the times. I think it will be a short time before all power will have to be put under the control of the military. ”
On 3 February, Ziano proposed to Mussolini that Jacmoni be removed and that Guzoni or Paliani, who knew Albania better, be appointed governor of Albania.
On 5 February, Mussolini intended to reshuffle his cabinet, and Ziano, who had been offered to serve as governor of Albania, rejected the offer. "If I go to office, I will be the executioner of the people there, and I have promised to treat them with brotherly affection and equality. ”
After Jacmoni and Ziano left office, Marik Busati replaced Libohowa in a new interim government, with Kosovar Ilyaz Agush as deputy prime minister. Mussolini chose General Alberto Pariani as his successor. This man had extensive political experience in the Balkans, and he was head of the Italian military mission in Albania from 1927 to 1933.
Respected by the locals, even the Germans praised his abilities. Having learned about the real situation in Albania, Pagliani wrote a personal letter to Mussolini about the current serious and chaotic situation. He proposed that the authorities be given a considerable degree of independence to the Albanians as a first step towards de-escalating the situation, which included the establishment of equal diplomatic rights for both countries and; Restoration of a truly independent Albanian army: return control of Albanian customs, etc.
While expressing concessions, he increased the strength of the Italian army to about five and a half divisions in order to maintain the original suppression.
Pagliani's policy was a certain success, attracting the attention of some leaders of the National Front. On March 5, 1943, the commander of the Italian Ninth Army, Lorenzo Dalmazo, and Ali Cortrila, one of the leaders of the National Front, signed an agreement.
The signing of the agreement indicated that the National Front would cease fire in Albania by the Italian army. "The signing of the treaty significantly reduced the military operations of the National Front and relieved some pressure on the Italian side, but the overwhelming majority of the resistance was in the hands of the National Liberation Front, and the situation facing the Italian fascists remained critical.
Mussolini's regime has been battered by mounting military defeats and growing domestic opposition. German and Italian armies suffered serious defeats in North Africa. Its war against Greece also proved to be a disaster.
On July 10, Allied forces successfully landed on the Italian island of Sicily. At the same time, the situation in Italy was out of his control, workers and people rebelled one after another, and the opposition within the Italian fascist ruling circles openly expressed their dissatisfaction with Mussolini.
On 25 July, the members of the Great Council summoned by the fascists to depose and arrest Mussolini in order to save their lives. Petro Bardolio, who succeeded him, was unable to recover and surrendered to the Allies on 8 September.
epilogue
Albania also played an important role in the struggle to destroy the Italian fascists. During the more than four years of the Italian occupation, the national cohesion of the Albanians developed as never before, and the resistance struggle moved from dispersion to unity, and the forms of resistance were constantly changed.
According to statistics, by July 1943, Italy had 7 to 8 divisions stationed in Albania, and Albania contained 100,000 Italian troops.
After the surrender of the Italian fascists, these remnants were not completely expelled from Albania, some of them fled into the mountains, and hundreds of soldiers joined the Albanian resistance to form the "Antonio Gramsci Brigade" to fight the Germans together.