Reports of Essad Pasha's government in Naples

A British chronology of the war records under 28 February 1916 that the Albanian provisional government of Essad Pasha Toptani had established its seat in Naples. Four days earlier Essad had left Durrës aboard an Italian destroyer, and on 27 February the town was taken by the Austrians. The available sources, however, describe no formal act of 28 February. They rather show a government without a country, whose head travelled between Italy and France over the following weeks.

Essad first sailed to Brindisi, and on 26 February arrived in Rome. He was accompanied by only a few people. About three hundred of his soldiers were to reach Italy on a separate steamer. The Italian government had been trying for weeks to ensure that the pasha took refuge in Italy itself, and not in Vlorë, where an Italian corps was stationed, nor under the protection of the French, who had also offered to evacuate him. Italian commanders and diplomats suspected that France wanted to gain influence over Essad in order to weaken Italy’s position in Albania.

The pasha did not stay long in Rome. According to Reuters, as early as Tuesday 29 February he arrived in Nice, where his wife lived, and announced that he would stay there until his presence was needed in Albania again. In March he returned to Rome, and at the turn of March and April he went to Paris, where on 3 April he was received by the Prime Minister, Aristide Briand. From there he planned to go on to London.

Documents of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that the question of Essad’s seat was still unsettled at the end of April. On 26 April the Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, set out the conditions on which Italy would receive the pasha if he stayed in the country until the end of the war. The Italian government was to communicate with him through a special representative, Baron Aliotti, and other states could not have official representatives accredited to him. Essad could live wherever he wished, but Rome advised him to choose Naples. He was to receive 50,000 lire a month for himself and as much again for the upkeep of his officials, officers and soldiers. The soldiers were to remain for the time being on the island of Ponza.

In the end Essad relied on France and Serbia. According to the British chronology, in September 1916 his government was set up again, this time in Salonika, where the Entente troops were stationed.