ALBANIAN WAR

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4015, 15 June 1920, Page 1

ALBANIAN WAR

THE FIGHT FOR VALONA

A GENERAL RISING. ESSAD PASHA KILLED. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Aust.-N.Z. Cable Association.) Rome, June 14. The fight for Valona raged furiously for four hours, beginning at midnight. Fifteen thousand Albanian insurgents placed mines on all the roads; they destroyed bridges;;;planted captured Italian guns on the heights overlooking the town, and Avith these shelled the naval base during the main attack, the Italis*n warships replying. The defenders' plight ivas almost hopeless at 4 .o'clock, oaving to a treacherous Mussulman attack in their rear, but the, Alpini made a desperate charge, slaying 200 and capturing several thousand, and a number of guns. Then they rounded up all the Mussulmen, wham they deported to Brindisi. The Italian losses are severe; tho first list contains 37 officers missing. There are disquieting rumours concerning the fate of the Scutari garrison. The anti-Italian rising in Albania is noiv general. The Italian garrisons have been forced to quit several Adriatic sea ports, and the evacuation of Durazzo and Scutari is imminent. The garrisons at Santi Quaranta ( (eight miles north-east of Corfu), Dulcigno (on the Montenegrin coast, 12 miles south of Antivari), and Antivari have been forced to embark. ' The small garrison at Tepeleni, 75 miles south-east of Durazzo, though surrounded for many days is still holding out, receiving rations from an aeroplane. Durazzo continues pluckilv to resist, but everything is ready for evacuation. It appears that a national uprising is now in. progress throughout Albania. .Strikes of seamen and railwaymen are occurring in many Italian ports and towhs, the object being to prevent the dispatch of troops and material. Paris, June 14. Rustem, an Albanian student, assassinated Essad Pasha in the Rue de Castielione, holding him to be an enemy of Albania's aspirations. "Essad Pasha ivas entering a motor from the Hotel Continental, when Rustem, avlio was hiding behind a pillar, shot him tivice ivith a revolver. A second bullet penetrated the heart, and Essad dropped deadJ Porters seized Rustem, whom the crowd half lynched. Rustem said that he Avished to avenge Albania's Avrongs, and Essad had been plotting against the newly-formed Republican £ Govern-: ment. Essad came to JRaras "a-s head "of tlie" Albahianoderegs€t«n3yjid hackstayed here since, because-fctaly had' refused a permit for him to return. I