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Albania
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES
Albania's military heritage antedating World War II is highlighted
by the exploits of its fifteenth-century national hero known as
Skanderbeg, who gained a brief period of independence for the
country during his opposition to the Ottoman Empire (see Glossary).
In the seventeenth century, many ethnic Albanians, most notably
members of the Köprülü family, served with great distinction in
the Ottoman army and administration (see ch. 1, Albanians under
Ottoman Rule). National feelings, aroused late in the nineteenth
century, became more intense during the early twentieth century,
and fairly sizable armed groups of Albanians rebelled against
their Ottoman rulers. However, Albania achieved national independence
in 1912 as a result of agreement among the Great Powers of Europe
rather than through a major military victory or armed struggle.
Hardy Albanian mountaineers have had a reputation as excellent
fighters for nearly 2,000 years. Nevertheless, they rarely fought
in an organized manner for an objective beyond the defense of
tribal areas against incursions by marauding neighbors. Occasions
were few when Albanians rose up against occupying foreign powers.
Conquerors generally left the people alone in their isolated mountain
homelands, and, because a feudal tribal society persisted, little,
if any, sense of national unity or loyalty to an Albanian nation
developed (see Traditional Social Patterns and Values, ch. 2).
The Romans recruited some of their best soldiers from the regions
that later became Albania. The territory of modern Albania was
part of the Byzantine Empire, and the Bulgars, Venetians, and
Serbs took turns contesting their control of Albania between the
tenth and the fourteenth centuries. As the power of the Byzantine
Empire waned, the forerunners of modern Albania joined forces
with the Serbs and other Balkan peoples to prevent the encroachment
of the Ottoman Empire into southeastern Europe. The Ottoman victory
over their combined forces at Kosovo Polje in 1389, however, ushered
in an era of Ottoman control over the Balkans.
The Albanian hero Skanderbeg, born Gjergj Kastrioti and renamed
Skanderbeg after Alexander the Great, was one of the janissaries
(see Glossary) who became famous fighting for the Ottoman Turks
in Serbia and Hungary. He was almost exclusively responsible for
the one period of Albanian independence before 1912. Although
it endured for twenty-four years, this brief period of independence
ended about a decade after his death in 1468. In 1443 Skanderbeg
rebelled against his erstwhile masters and established Albania's
independence with the assistance of the Italian city-state of
Venice. He repulsed several Ottoman attempts to reconquer Albania
until his death. The Ottoman Turks soon recaptured most of Albania,
seized the Venetian coastal ports in Albania, and even crossed
the Italian Alps and raided Venice. The Ottomans retook the last
Venetian garrison in Albania at Shkodër in 1479, but the Venetians
continued to dispute Ottoman control of Albania and its contiguous
waters for at least the next four centuries. Albanian soldiers
continued to serve in the military forces of the Ottoman Empire
around the Mediterranean into the nineteenth century.
Data as of April 1992
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