Austrians occupy Scutari

On 23 January 1916 Austro-Hungarian troops occupied Scutari, the main town of northern Albania. According to the Austrian official history, a detachment of Lieutenant-Colonel Krammer of the 14th Mountain Brigade entered it in the evening, without a fight. The same date is given by the British chronology of the war and by the war diary of The Times, while the press of the Entente countries reported it a day later. The next day Krammer was ordered to seize all the boats and vessels in the town. The Austrians needed them to carry supplies across Lake Scutari, because the land roads from Montenegro were in a dreadful state.

A raid on Scutari

Scutari did not lie in Montenegro, but since June 1915 it had been held by the Montenegrins. After the fall of Cetinje and the breakdown of the surrender talks, the chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, advised the Third Army command on 16 January to send a detachment as quickly as possible along the coast south of Lake Scutari, across the Buna river. The army commander, General Hermann Kövess, therefore ordered two battalions with a mountain battery to be sent through Virpazar and Stari Bar. They were to take Scutari by surprise and push on to Lezhë and San Giovanni di Medua, to sow confusion among the enemy. In its guidelines of 17 January the Austro-Hungarian high command decided to occupy northern Albania as far as the Mat river and Debar. Scutari was to be taken as soon as possible. The main forces of General Ignaz Trollmann’s corps were also directed towards the town, but for lack of roads and supplies they moved slowly.

Krammer’s detachment met no resistance. The Montenegrin army was falling apart, and its soldiers were going home. According to the Austrian official history, General Janko Vukotić still wanted to gather those who had remained with the colours on Mount Tarabosh west of Scutari and on the right bank of the Buna, but no defence took place.

The Serbs leave

Since December 1915 Scutari had been the temporary seat of the Serbian government and high command. By January there was no longer room for them there. According to the British official history, as early as 7 January, on the advice of the British admiral Ernest Troubridge, 16,000 Serbian soldiers set out from Scutari southwards to Durrës. Troubridge considered that the open roadstead at San Giovanni di Medua, the nearest port, lay too close to the Austro-Hungarian base at Kotor for the whole army to be taken off safely from there. In mid-January the Serbian government moved to Brindisi. On 17 January the Allies decided that the Serbs would be taken to Corfu only from Durrës and Vlorë. The exhausted soldiers thus had to set off on foot once more across the muddy plains along the Adriatic.

The Austrians were entering a country in which some Albanians saw them as liberators from Serbian and Montenegrin occupation. According to the Austrian official history, the population of the areas abandoned by the Serbs and Montenegrins took up arms, and units of Albanian volunteers were formed under Austro-Hungarian officers. Conrad even considered annexing northern Albania to the Habsburg monarchy. Scutari became the base for the further march south. Austro-Hungarian columns set out from here towards Lezhë, San Giovanni di Medua, Krujë and Durrës. The town remained in Austro-Hungarian hands until the end of October 1918.