• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} King Zog of Albania Europe's Self-Made Muslim King by Jason Tomes King Zog: Self-Made Monarch of Albania. King Zog was a curiosity, and so he has remained: the most unusual European monarch of the twentieth century, a man entirely without royal connections who created his own kingdom. By contemporaries, he was variously labelled 'the last ruler of romance', 'an appalling gangster', 'the modern Napoleon', the finest patriot' and 'frankly a cad'. Even today his reputation is disputed, but Zog was undeniably one of the foremost figures in Albanian history. Though notorious for cut-throat political intrigue, he promised to bring order and progress to a land that had long known little of either. 'It was I who made Albania,' he claimed. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Jason Tomes has lectured in modern history and politics for the universities of Oxford, Warsaw and Boston. His interest in Albania dates back twenty years to when he first heard Radio Tirana on short wave. He is the author of ' Balfour' and 'Foreign Policy' and over fifty articles for the 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'. King Zog not afraid to open fire. King Zog, after a long exile, returned to Albania last week. No, it is not a rock group, but a real king. It is the late King Ahmed Bey Zog, a gun-packing rogue who ruled Albania before he fled the country upon the Italian invasion in 1939, taking 20 trunks of the country’s gold with him. We say “late” because Zog, who lived in splendid exile, died and was buried in Paris in 1960 after years of global wandering, even to the point where he purchased an estate on Long Island, which he never used. He traveled with his wife, son, five sisters and a retinue of some 40 aides and bodyguards, and of course, the trunks of gold. So it is not Zog, per se, who came back to Tirana, the burgeoning capitol — a dusty backwater when Zog left — but his remains, which were exhumed upon the request of the current Albanian government for a proper funeral back home. Some say the king was dug up by cash-strapped Albanian government fortune-hunters looking for the missing gold, some of which was reported to be buried with him. But that was simply an unconfirmed rumor. If it were so, the Albanian government would have secretly dug the king up long ago. No, the real reason for the return of the king is that Albania is observing the 100th anniversary of its liberation from Turkish domination, although almost half of those subsequent years were spent under the Communist dictatorship of the late Enver Hoxha, and the rest of the time fighting various Balkan wars. It should be pointed out, however, that the hated Hoxha, who died in 1985, also had his remains dug up. No gold found buried with Hoxha either. Unlike Zog, who was honored upon his return with a grand reception, Hoxha’s remains, taken from his elaborate marble resting place, were reburied in an unmarked roadside ditch. Apparently flamboyant dead old kings in Albania are more honored than plain dead old communists. Which is a bit ironic since none of the politicians running Albania today, which is a sort of quasi democracy, have ties to the Zog royal family, but many were once closely aligned with Hoxha and the Communist Party, including Prime Minister Sali Berisha. He called Zog an “illustrious figure.” Go figure. Yet there is much to admire in King Zog. Tired of being president of a poverty-stricken nation of rebellious clans and peasant farmers, he declared himself King Zog I in 1928 (there’s never been a King Zog II) and traded his presidential business suits for spiffy royal uniforms, complete with medals and decorations. Hitler sent him a Mercedes as a wedding gift. From 1928 to 1939, Zog’s main preoccupation was borrowing money from the Italians, which he never paid back, and staying alive. It was hard to keep him bought, though, because he kept coming back for more. It never appeared to dawn on him that the peasants might one day object that the vast majority of farm land in the country belonged to just a few families, including his own. Zog, with his money from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, built a couple of palaces for himself and his family, played poker and dodged numerous assassination attempts, both at home and abroad. So it is no wonder that the king never went anywhere without packing heat. His reputation as “a dashing royal gangster,” in the words of his biographer Jason Tomes in his book King Zog of Albania: Europe’s Self-Made Muslim Monarch, was confirmed when Zog was set upon in Vienna in 1930 by a pair of gunmen, both disgruntled former Albanian army officers. They ambushed the king and his party as they came out of the Vienna Opera House. Panicked opera lovers ran for cover as shots rang out on the steps of the building. Zog’s aide-de-camp took a bullet for his king when he fell on top of him in the back seat of the king’s limousine. Zog pushed the dead man aside, pulled his revolver out of the waistband of his tuxedo, and fired back, emptying the chamber, and then reloading and firing again. When the smoke cleared the gunmen who, like the king, were in evening dress, surrendered. The news caused a sensation in king-conscious Europe. Where else but in Albania could you find a king, in formal dress no less, willing to shoot it out with a pair of assassins? This, I thought, is my kind of king. I’m sorry I missed the ceremony. They don’t make kings like this anymore. King Zog I of Albania. Richard Cavendish charts the events leading up to King Zog I's coronation on September 1st, 1928. Zog I was probably the strangest monarch of the 20th century. The Times called him ‘the bizarre King Zog’ and his biographer, Jason Tomes, quotes descriptions of him ranging from ‘a despotic brigand’ to ‘the last ruler of romance’. He created his throne for himself and as Europe’s only Muslim king ruled Europe’s most obscure country. He had started life as Ahmed Bey Zogolli or Ahmed Zogu in 1895, the son of an Albanian chief, when the country was still part of the Ottoman empire. Order broke down during the First World War as other Balkan countries tried to seize areas of Albania. From 1920 there was a succession of short-lived governments, in which Zogu held various posts until he was driven into exile in 1924. He returned at the end of the year, crossing the northern border into Albania with Yugoslav backing and an army of mercenaries recruited with money supplied by international oil companies and rich Albanian familes. Another mercenary army, led by Zogu’s lieutenants, invaded from the south. Zogu swiftly established himself as Albania’s dictator with the title of president. He had his principal opponents murdered and ruled by force – there was no other effective way of ruling Albania – but Zogu realized that he could only survive with support from abroad and decided to rely on the Italians. A military alliance was signed in 1927 and Italy soon dominated Albania. In 1928, with Italian approval, Zogu, who genuinely wanted to modernise his Ruritanian country, decided to make his dictatorship permanent. A new Constituent Assembly, elected under strict government control, proclaimed Albania a monarchy under Zog I, King of the Albanians. The king made his way to the ceremony in Tirana in an open car with an escort of cavalry past lines of soldiers, but the streets were kept clear of spectators for fear of assassination. However, every house displayed the Albanian flag, with a black eagle rampant on a scarlet ground. The flags had been mass-imported from Italy on the cheap. In the Parliament House the monarch stood on a dais to deafening applause and swore an oath on both the Koran and the Bible to maintain the country’s national unity, territorial integrity and independence. Loud cries of ‘Long live the king!’ accompanied him to his royal palace and six days of public holiday followed, with bonfires, firing of rockets and much slaughtering of sheep. Handsome, courteous, reserved and ruthless, Zog was a chain-smoker who enjoyed western classical music and films starring Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple. Mussolini ousted him in 1939 and declared Albania an Italian protectorate. Zog went into exile, for part of the time comfortably installed in London’s Ritz Hotel, and died in France in 1961 at the age of 65. The Secret Cold War History of a Ruined Long Island Estate. Deep in the Muttontown Preserve of East Norwich, New York, off a series of winding trails, lies a graffitied staircase to nowhere. It’s one of just a few crumbling structures nearly swallowed by the woods—all that’s left of the Knollwood estate, a once-grand neoclassical mansion built starting in 1906 for Wall Street tycoon Charles Hudson. Although historians call the place Knollwood, locals know it as King Zog’s Castle. The king in question is Zog I of Albania, owner-in-absentia of the estate for several years in the 1950s. While King Zog I purchased the mansion in 1951, he never lived there. In fact, he probably never even visited. His story is one of Cold War intrigue, failed CIA operations, and a lingering, unresolved exile.

Load more

  6

Copy Link