The First World War (1914\u20131918) erupted as a large-scale conflict between two opposing alliances: the Tripartite Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side, and the Entente Powers\u2014composed of England, France, and Russia\u2014on the other. Alongside the Entente Powers, Italy (formerly a member of the Tripartite Alliance), Japan, and the USA participated in the war, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Balkan monarchies of Serbia and Montenegro immediately joined the forces of the Entente, with Greece also aligning with them in 1917. The war concluded with the victory of the Entente Powers and the USA, collectively referred to as the “friendly powers.” Throughout the conflict, 74 million soldiers were mobilized, resulting in approximately 10 million fatalities and around 20 million wounded. Despite the turmoil, the Albanian state maintained its neutrality; however, the war’s outbreak and progression had serious political and economic repercussions for the country, placing the existence of the Albanian national state at risk. Albania’s territory was occupied by the armed forces of the belligerents, effectively turning it into a battlefield. In October 1914, Greece invaded Southern Albania (Kor\u00e7a and Gjirokastra); Italy occupied the island of Sazan in the same month and took control of Vlora by December 1914. By June 1915, Serbia occupied Central Albania, while Montenegro extended its control into Northern Albania. In April 1915, the Secret Treaty of London was signed between Italy and the Entente Powers, which dictated the division of the Albanian state among four neighboring countries. From 1916 to 1918, Albania\u2019s front line between the warring Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian forces and the Serbo-Montenegrin and Italian forces began at the confluence of the Vjosa River with the Adriatic, roughly following the river’s course south of Berat, through Skrapar, to reach Pogradec. On one side of the front were the Austrian and Bulgarian forces, while the Italian and French forces were positioned on the other side. The latter entered the province of Kor\u00e7a in October 1916, while the Italian forces advanced into Southern Albania, pushing out Greek troops and joining their French allies in Cologne. The economy of the country suffered considerable destruction during the First World War, particularly in sectors such as agriculture and livestock, with hundreds of villages burned and destroyed. By the end of the First World War, the entire Albanian territory was occupied by the victorious forces. French military units were stationed in the districts of Kor\u00e7a and Pogradec, as well as partially in Librazhd, Gramsh, and Skrapar. In the northeastern provinces, Serbian forces were deployed, primarily around the district of Peshkopia and in the province of Luma. An inter-allied military garrison was established in the city of Shkodra, while Italian forces occupied the remainder of the country. They withdrew from Albania in August 1920, while the Serbian forces exited at the end of 1921. (In the photo: Historical map of the Eastern Front during the First World War.)<\/i><\/p>\n
Text:<\/strong> Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 <\/i>, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1551.<\/p>\n Photo: <\/strong>\u00a9 https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/World-War-I\/The-Serbian-campaign-1914<\/p>\n Graphic processing: <\/strong>AHCF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The First World War (1914\u20131918) erupted as a large-scale conflict between two opposing alliances: the Tripartite Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side, and the Entente Powers\u2014composed of England, France, and Russia\u2014on the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ngjarje"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10134,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions\/10134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.albanianheritage.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}