Zog has signed a number of accords…
1933 CE
Zog has signed a number of accords with Italy in order to stabilize Albania.
These provide transitory financial relief to Albania, but they effect no basic change in its economy, especially under the conditions of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Italy, on the other hand, views Albania primarily as a bridgehead for military expansion into the Balkans.
The social base of Zog's power is a coalition of southern beys and northern bajraktars.
With the support of this coalition -- plus a vast Oriental bureaucracy, an efficient police force, and Italian money -- King Zog has brought a large measure of stability to Albania.
He has extended the authority of the government to the highlands, reduced the brigandage that had formerly plagued the country, laid the foundations of a modern educational system, and taken a few steps to Westernize Albanian social life.
In 1932 and 1933, Albania cannot make the interest payments on its loans from the Society for the Economic Development of Albania.
In response, Rome turns up the pressure, demanding that Tiranë name Italians to direct the Gendarmerie; join Italy in a customs union; grant Italy control of the country's sugar, telegraph, and electrical monopolies; teach the Italian language in all Albanian schools; and admit Italian colonists.
Zog refuses.
Instead, he orders the national budget slashed by 30 percent, dismisses the Italian military advisers, and nationalizes Italian-run Roman Catholic schools in the northern part of the country.