ESSAD PASHA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20073, 9 October 1920, Page 3 (Supplement)

ESSAD PASHA.

THE EVIL CEHiUS> OF ALBANIA,

A colourful sketch of the career of Essad Pasha, tHe Albanian leader, who was recently assassinated at Paris, is sent to the “ Manchester Guardian ” by a correspondent who, the paper stages, had been personally acquainted with him. The writer says:—

Essad, a truly medieval figure, has died with medieval appropriateness, by the hand of an assassin. His influence in Albania has been much exaggerated, and, save for a gang of retainers in the neighbourhood of his Tirana estates, ho is regarded as the evil genius of Albania by the bulk of his compatriots. It needed no plot to destroy him. Numbers were ready to do so if the opportunity arrived. Knowing this, he lived iu Paris rather than risk returning to Albania. OUT FROM UNDER.

The writer first heard of him as “ the tyrant of Tirana,” in 1904, and was told he aspired to reign iu Albania hut would never do. so. I made his acquaintance in 1908, when he was in the ser-, idee of Abdul Hamid and commanded' the gendarmerie at Scutari. He had been transferred thither from Janina, where, in a similar post, he had made the place too hot to hold him. From that time he was prepared to help the Greeks to obtain south Albania (for a consideration), ns he knew the south would never accept him as a ruler. Ho was an expert in the art of falling "buttersido uppermost.” Aware that the Young Turk revolution was brewing, ho discreetly retired* “ for his health,” to a foreign watering place, and waited to sco which side won before declaring himself. Meanwhile folk in Scutari, believing that the reign of justice had been inaugurated by the Young Turks, cried: “The first thing the new Government will do will be to hang Essad and make him return all he has stolen.”

RETURNED IN TRIUMPH. They litlo knew Essad’s possibilities. He returned in triumph as a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, and Scutari ceased to believe in Young Turk “reforms.” Relations between him and the folk of north Albania were .so strained that when, on the declaration of the first Balkan War, Essad hastened to Scutari with an army, ho was fiercely opposed by a number of the tribesmen who looked on him as a Turk and tried to prevent him from reaching tho town. He however, fought hia way through. The town was valiantly defended by the Turkish commander, Hussein Eiza, who, when he found no reinforcements could ho hoped for from the Turks, planned to hoist the Albanian flag and call in the mountain Albanians to the rescue. But an Albanian Scutari would not suit Essad’s schemes. He was well aware that Scutari no more than , the south would ever accept him. Tho night before Hussein was to arrange the sortie Essad invited him to supper, and as Hussein left Essad’s house that night he was assassinated by two of Essn'd’s men,’who afterward boasted of the deed. WASTE HE RECOGNISED.

After this Essad entered into communication with tho Montenegrins and surrendered the town to them on condition that they left it fully armed with all his men and plenty of food and ammunition, and that ho -should bo recognised as prince in a small Albania in the centre of the land. Ho oven went the length of having postage stamps with his head on them printed, but these hav© never been used..

Through 1913 he was greatly dreaded in 'Albania, as ho was the only man with an armed force at command. Albania, north and south, hoped for the arrival of a European prince who should crush him, and he was stated in tho summer of 1913 already to be plotting with the Greeks and Serbs to divide Albania- It was Essad who engineered the rising against the Prince of Wied by means of tricks I have not space,to detail.. Ho was arrested and would no doubt have been tried and executed bub for the intervention of Italy, who insisted on his liberation. It appears that Italy was then supporting him, for he went to Home and was decorated. Later on Italv learned that a man who can betrav his own country can also betray others. Essad sided with French and Jugo-Slav plans and: threw over Italy.