...Plav. A border tribesman at the time…

...Plav.

A border tribesman at the time describes the frontier as "floating on blood."

In August 1878, the Congress of Berlin orders a commission to trace a border between the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro.

The congress also directs Greece and the Ottoman Empire to negotiate a solution to their border dispute.

The Great Powers expects the Ottomans to ensure that the Albanians will respect the new borders, ignoring the reality that the sultan's military forces are too weak to enforce any settlement and that the Ottomans can only benefit by the Albanians' resistance.

The Sublime Porte, in fact, arms the Albanians and allows them to levy taxes, and when the Ottoman army withdraws from areas awarded to Montenegro under the Treaty of Berlin, Roman Catholic Albanian tribesmen simply take control.

The Albanians' successful resistance to the treaty forces the Great Powers to alter the border, returning Gusinje and Plav to the Ottoman Empire, and ...