Austrians occupy San Giovanni di Medua

A British chronology of the war records under 25 January 1916 the capture by Austro-Hungarian troops of the Albanian port of San Giovanni di Medua, today Shëngjin. The war diary of The Times gives the same date. Other sources, however, point to a later day. An American chronicle of the war from 1916, based on contemporary communiqués, links the occupation of Medua and nearby Lezhë with 28 January, and the British official history of the war at sea states that the Austrians entered the town on 29 January. The Austrian official history does not name the day. It says only that the detachment of Lieutenant-Colonel Krammer, which had taken Scutari on 23 January and then grown to four battalions with two mountain batteries, occupied Lezhë and Medua by the end of January and pushed outposts forward as far as the river Mat. All the sources agree on one thing: the port was not defended.

A port of rescue that failed

The small harbour near the mouth of the Drin, occupied by the Montenegrins in June 1915, was the port nearest the sea for Scutari. When in the winter of 1915 the remnants of the Serbian army came down from the Albanian mountains, it was here that the Allies unloaded food for them. Medua, however, was only an open roadstead, without quays or warehouses, and it lay close to the Austro-Hungarian base at Kotor. On 5 December Austro-Hungarian warships sank supply ships here, and submarines were active nearby. At the turn of the year the French General Mondésir, who had come to Albania to take charge of the Serbian army, nevertheless wanted to embark 88,000 soldiers at Medua. The British Admiral Ernest Troubridge, to whom the Serbs had entrusted the management of their affairs on the coast, replied that Medua was the worst of the available ports and the nearest to the enemy, and that the whole operation was ill-conceived and would end badly. The Frenchman conceded the point. On 7 January 16,000 Serbs set off on foot southwards to Durrës.

How dangerous the waters off Medua were was shown by the disaster of 6 January. On the morning of that day the Italian steamer Brindisi, which had crossed the Adriatic overnight with several hundred Montenegrin volunteers from North America, struck a mine near the port and sank within a quarter of an hour. According to Montenegrin historians, more than four hundred people died, including 389 volunteers and twelve members of an American Red Cross mission. Most of the evidence suggests that it was an Italian mine from the barrage protecting the port. In Montenegro this “tragedy at Medova” is remembered to this day.

The last days

After the capture of Lovćen and the fall of Cetinje it became clear that Medua would fall. The Allies decided to empty it at once. Serbs who could not be taken off by ship were sent along the road to Durrës, and on 17 January it was agreed that further embarkations would take place only at Durrës and Vlorë. According to the British official history, by 22 January all the artillery, stores and wagons had been shipped out of Medua and the port was left empty. According to Italian studies, the Italian navy stopped embarkations here on the same day. According to the Austrian official history, the last Serbs left Medua for Durrës on 24 January. Admiral Troubridge, whose task had been taken over by the French, had already sailed for Taranto on 20 January. In those days, according to some accounts by way of Medua itself, King Nicholas I of Montenegro also left his country. According to the Austrian official history, on 20 January he arrived at Brindisi on an Italian torpedo boat.

From Lezhë and Medua the Austrians moved on southwards, towards Krujë and Durrës, where the Italians and Serbs were completing the evacuation. The Austrians planned to use Medua to supply their troops in Albania by sea. It remained in Austro-Hungarian hands until 29 October 1918, when Italian troops occupied it.