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Why Kosovo Was Left Outside Albania
The Serbian and Montenegrin occupation of Kosovo in 1912, the agreement among the Great Powers, the negotiations over Shkodra and the cities of Kosovo: how a border emerged that did not follow the geography of Albanian-speaking communities.
On 7 April 1913, while Europe was debating how to prevent the Balkan war from spreading, British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey explained to the House of Commons what the Great Powers had already agreed concerning Albania’s fate. Shkodra and the coast would remain within the new state; Peja, Prizren, Dibra and, following particularly difficult negotiations, Gjakova would be excluded. The justification offered was neither a census nor a consultation of the inhabitants. It was the need to preserve peace among the European powers. [1]
This statement, made almost two months before the Treaty of London of 30 May, provides a key to understanding one of the most consequential questions in Albanian history: why did Kosovo, with its substantial Albanian-speaking population, not become part of the state that declared independence in Vlora on 28 November 1912?
The answer cannot be found in a single signature on a map. It took shape through war, the military occupation of Ottoman territories, Vienna’s fears, Belgrade’s claims, Russian support for Serbia and Britain’s determination to prevent a local crisis from becoming a European war. Language and nationality were frequently invoked, but these criteria were not applied consistently and did not prevail over every other diplomatic consideration. [2]
Kosovo Before the Border: A Contested Region, Not a Political Vacuum
Before discussing Kosovo as a territory “left outside,” an important historical distinction is needed. In 1912 there was no Kosovar state with the borders of present-day Kosovo. There was the Ottoman vilayet of Kosovo, an administrative unit much larger than Kosovo today, encompassing territories that now belong to other Balkan states. Moreover, in Serbian political discourse, the word Kosovo also denoted a broader historical region invested with national and religious significance. These two geographies did not fully coincide. [2]
Kosovo played a central role in the emergence of the Albanian national movement. In 1878, Prizren hosted the Albanian League, formed amid the crisis of that year, when the Russo-Ottoman War and the territorial settlements then under discussion threatened to transfer lands also inhabited by Albanians to neighbouring Balkan states. The League sought to establish political representation and defend those territories. The resolutions of 1878 record delegates from Prizren, Gjakova, Peja, Prishtina and other districts, while organisational documents also envisaged Albanian forces in Kosovo. From that point onward, and in different forms, the question of uniting Albanian-speaking regions accompanied the crisis of the Ottoman Empire. [3]
In the summer of 1912, Albanian mobilisation reached another turning point. On 21 May, at the initiative of Hasan Prishtina, an assembly at Junik, in the Gjakova area, had already prepared the uprising. Following the advance on Ferizaj, Prishtina presented the Ottoman government with a programme of fourteen demands. The uprising, supported by figures such as Hasan Prishtina, extended its control as far as Skopje, then the administrative centre of the Kosovo vilayet. Its demands concerned autonomy, administration, language and political guarantees. Albanians were therefore not passively awaiting the collapse of Ottoman rule: they had launched their own political initiative, but the time available to them was extremely short. [4]
In October, the First Balkan War broke out. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece attacked the Ottoman Empire and rapidly occupied extensive parts of its European territories. When Ismail Qemali proclaimed independence in Vlora, neighbouring armies already controlled many areas that Albanian representatives regarded as part of their national space. The state was thus born under conditions radically different from those envisaged during the uprisings against Istanbul: independence had been proclaimed, yet much of the territory was subject to occupation and negotiation. [2][4]
Serbia and the Meaning of “Old Serbia”
For Belgrade, Kosovo was more than a territorial conquest. In Serbian national and political discourse, it was “Old Serbia,” a region associated with the memory of the medieval Serbian kingdom, Orthodox monasteries and the battle of 1389. These references carried an identity-forming significance and were translated into a political claim: for Serbian nationalism, recovering Kosovo meant bringing together territories considered part of Serbia’s history. [2]
That appeal to Serbian history, however, did not encompass the whole reality of Kosovo. Albanian communities were deeply rooted there and took an active part in national mobilisation. In towns and rural areas, communities of different languages, religions and affiliations lived alongside one another; their composition varied from district to district and could not be inferred from a single statistic for the entire region. At a time when religious affiliation, everyday language and national consciousness did not always coincide, statistics were frequently used as instruments of diplomatic contention. The ethnic categories employed by governments were far from neutral as well. [2]
The decisive factor in the autumn of 1912, however, was another: the Serbian army was already on the ground. Serbia had occupied much of the Kosovo area and was unwilling to relinquish it. Enforcing a withdrawal would have meant challenging one of the outcomes Belgrade considered central to its victory over the Ottoman Empire; it would have required international pressure that the powers, divided though they were, were not prepared to pursue to the point of risking another war. Drawing on British diplomatic records, Nicola C. Guy identifies effective occupation as one of the reasons why the Kosovo question was settled without consistently following the professed ethnographic criterion. [2]
Serbia Denied Access to the Sea, and the Compromise over Inland Territories
Austria-Hungary regarded Serbia’s advance towards the Adriatic as a strategic threat. A Serbia firmly established on the coast, with Russian backing, would have altered the regional balance and heightened tensions along the Balkan flank of the Habsburg monarchy. Italy, for its part, considered it essential that no rival should dominate Albania’s coastline and the approaches to the Strait of Otranto. Vienna and Rome did not have identical interests, but they ultimately converged in supporting the existence of an Albanian state. [2][5]
In London in December 1912, the powers agreed in principle to deny Serbia the territorial corridor it had sought to the Adriatic. They discussed possible commercial access by rail to a neutralised port—a very different arrangement from Serbian sovereignty over the coast. Belgrade thus lost the principal maritime outlet it had attempted to secure following its military victories. [2]
That refusal, however, did not mean that the occupied eastern regions would be returned to Albania. Instead, negotiations shifted towards the concessions each bloc might be prepared to accept. Russia defended Serbian and Montenegrin expectations; Austria-Hungary insisted upon an Albanian state that would prevent Serbia from reaching the sea; and Britain, under Grey, sought above all an agreement capable of averting conflict between the Great Powers. France and Germany also intervened in accordance with their respective alignments. [2]
Kosovo consequently became one of the areas where the political price of the compromise was paid. There was no straightforward application of the principle that a linguistic community should belong to its own nation-state. Rather, governments negotiated according to the strategic value of territories, the balance of power and the urgent need to avert a wider crisis. This does not mean that every town was the subject of a formal exchange written into a treaty. It means that territorial concessions were linked, within the logic of the negotiations, to the resolution of the crisis as a whole. [2]
Shkodra and Gjakova: The Negotiations That Reveal the Mechanism
The fate of Shkodra reveals this mechanism more clearly than any abstract formula. Montenegro was besieging the city and claiming possession of it. Vienna maintained that Shkodra should belong to Albania; Russia defended Montenegrin claims. Meanwhile, diplomats were also discussing Peja, Prizren, Gjakova and Dibra. [1][2]
According to Guy’s archival reconstruction, on 22 January 1913 Grey sought to link Shkodra’s fate to that of the major towns in the northern and north-eastern areas. In the following months, the Austro-Hungarian representative in London showed himself willing to relinquish further eastern centres in order to secure Shkodra for the new state. Gjakova remained a particularly contentious point. In Guy’s account, on 21 March 1913 the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Mensdorff, offered it as a concession in the negotiations over Shkodra: this was a diplomatic position, not a final act of territorial allocation. The political compromise had taken shape before the treaty of 30 May. [2]
On 7 April, before the British members of Parliament, Grey confirmed the outcome: Shkodra and the coast to Albania; Peja, Prizren, Dibra and Gjakova outside its borders. The excluded territories would be divided between Serbia and Montenegro. He presented the agreement as necessary to preserve European peace. This was not a patriotic interpretation formulated decades later; it was the British Foreign Secretary’s official explanation in the midst of the negotiations. [1]
Nor was Shkodra secured for Albania solely by diplomacy on paper. In April, Montenegrin forces succeeded in entering the city, calling the agreement into question once again. International pressure and the threat of further measures compelled Montenegro to withdraw. The Great Powers were therefore prepared to enforce certain decisions when they considered them indispensable to the European balance. They exerted no comparable pressure to bring Kosovo within Albania. [1][2]
The comparison is instructive. Shkodra became part of the Albanian state not because competing territorial claims had disappeared, but because its retention was regarded as an essential part of the agreement among the powers. For the towns of Kosovo and other eastern localities, diplomatic convergence instead favoured exclusion. In both cases, international politics mattered—not the uniform application of a single rule to every population. [2]
Who Decided, and When: The Difference Between London and the Treaty
The chronology is crucial. The story is often summarised by saying that “the Treaty of London separated Kosovo from Albania.” That formulation is effective, but inaccurate if taken literally. Political decisions concerning the main towns had already been discussed and largely agreed upon in the preceding months. The statement of 7 April demonstrates this. [1]
The treaty of 30 May 1913 brought the First Balkan War to an end and, in Article 2, expressly excluded Albania from the general cession of Ottoman European territories. Article 3 entrusted the six Great Powers with the delimitation of Albania’s frontiers and other matters relating to the new state. It did not contain a complete list of villages or a detailed description of the line that now separates Albania from Kosovo. That frontier was developed through decisions of the Conference of Ambassadors, protocols and the subsequent work of boundary commissions. [5]
Here, too, the distinction is substantive. Certain political constraints were established first—which towns and regions would not belong to Albania—and only then did work begin to turn them into a border on the ground. Technical delimitation did not begin with a blank slate. At Prizren and along the north-eastern frontier, discussions also concerned the meaning of Ottoman districts, the extent of the areas named in documents, lines of communication and military positions already occupied. Guy shows how differing definitions of a “district” could place entire communities on opposite sides of the border. [2]
Even the existence of a commission instructed, at least in principle, to consider linguistic and ethnographic evidence was not enough to guarantee a frontier based on the language of the majority. The experts received their mandate within political limits already agreed upon. Local geography could be investigated, but it was not free to overturn every diplomatic compromise. [2]
The Ethnographic Criterion: Invoked in Principle, Applied in Practice
The Great Powers frequently used the language of nationality. In delimiting a state, it appeared reasonable to ask which language was spoken by the populations of disputed territories. In practice, however, that criterion was difficult to apply in a region marked by mobility, mixed settlements, differing religious affiliations and incomplete or contested statistics. Above all, it was not the only criterion employed. [2]
It is significant that historians have examined the Kosovo question precisely through the contrast between linguistic boundaries and geopolitical interests. Guy observes that territorial settlements chiefly reflected rivalries and accommodations among the powers rather than the consistent application of ethnography. This conclusion does not justify portraying every village as ethnically uniform; instead, it cautions against mistaking public justifications for the forces that actually shaped the negotiations. [2]
The national claims of the period must be read with the same care. For the Albanian side, Kosovo was essential because of its language, participation in the national movement, towns and economic networks. For the Serbian side, appeals to medieval history, religious sites and “Old Serbia” were integral to the justification of territorial claims. Both traditions would develop these arguments further. Historical reconstruction must record them without treating either side’s assertions as an unquestionable demographic picture. [2][9]
In any event, no referendum was held in London among Kosovo’s inhabitants to determine which state they wished to join. Political destinies were settled through international negotiation and the consolidation of military conquests. The absence of consultation is one of the features distinguishing the territorial decisions of 1913 from the principle of self-determination, which would acquire greater prominence in diplomatic language after the First World War. [1][2][9]
The Border in Everyday Life: Gjakova and the Mountains
What did that line mean to those who took no part in diplomatic conferences? Mary Edith Durham, a British traveller and witness who openly supported the Albanian cause, offers a specific example. In her book published in 1914, she described Gjakova as the market upon which several mountain communities—including Nikaj, Mërtur, Gash and Krasniq—depended. Separating the town from its hinterland, she observed, deprived these communities of the place where they customarily sold their produce and obtained supplies. [6]
Her testimony must be treated for what it is: a contemporary account by an engaged observer, not a neutral expert assessment of the frontier. Yet it brings to light a problem that diplomacy had overlooked. Drawing a line through the mountains could divide not only communities sharing a language, but also markets, paths, pastures, families and customary exchanges. A border that looked clear-cut on a map could produce a territory that was less economically coherent. [6]
The issue had already been raised in British public debate before the peace treaty was signed. On 8 May 1913, Aubrey Herbert criticised in the House of Commons the decision to leave the new state largely with mountainous territories while plains and trading centres were assigned to its neighbours. His remarks formed part of an openly pro-Albanian political intervention, and the demographic figures he proposed should not be repeated without independent verification. The central point of his criticism, however, corresponds to the territorial and economic rupture described by Durham. [7]
The Kosovo question was therefore not merely a dispute about identity. The frontier separated the new state from towns, communication routes and markets that might have contributed to its development. This helps explain why the issue remained alive long after the conferences ended. [6][7]
Occupations and Violence: The Human Cost of Partition
The Balkan Wars did more than change the administration of an Ottoman province. They were accompanied by violence against civilians, expulsions, destruction and forced displacement, in a context in which several armies and armed groups committed abuses across different parts of the peninsula. The report published in 1914 by the international commission established under the Carnegie Endowment collected allegations and testimony concerning, among others, Albanians under Serbian and Montenegrin occupation. [8]
In the sections devoted to war and nationality, the report reproduces petitions and accusations relating to Djakova, Peja, Plav, Gusinje and the former Kosovo vilayet. It records the existence of extensive contemporary allegations, but it does not justify treating every reported incident or figure as automatically verified. The commission was unable to investigate every event described directly. That qualification is necessary both for historical accuracy and for the evidentiary strength of the article. [8]
These concerns also reached Parliament in London. In a parliamentary question in August 1913, Grey acknowledged having received reports of restrictions on access to food and freedom of movement in the Gjakova area, while stating that he had no confirmation of certain other allegations. The importance of his reply lies precisely in the distinction between reports received and facts not confirmed: it shows that the population’s circumstances entered the diplomatic agenda without always becoming the subject of a conclusive inquiry. [10]
The consequences of territorial decisions cannot be understood simply by looking at the colour assigned to a region on a map. Institutions changed, as did the authorities to whom people could appeal, military control, the security of villages and the ability to travel between areas that had once been connected. In those months, the peace celebrated in European chancelleries did not mean the same thing to every inhabitant. [6][8]
After 1913: A Question That Did Not End in London
At the end of the First World War, the question of Albania’s borders resurfaced at the Paris Peace Conference. In February 1919, an Albanian delegation renewed its claims to regions assigned to Serbia and Montenegro, referring also to Prishtina, Peja, Prizren, Ferizaj, Gjilan and other districts of the former Ottoman territories. The demographic assertions contained in the memorandum represented the delegation’s arguments, not statistical conclusions adopted by the Conference. The document nevertheless demonstrates that the delimitation of 1913 had not resolved the political and national question. [9]
The frontier was subject to further decisions and adjustments. In 1921, the powers largely confirmed the framework established in 1913 and appointed another commission to complete the demarcation on the ground. The dispute over the Monastery of Saint Naoum shows how ambiguous certain sections of the line could remain: in 1924, the Permanent Court of International Justice examined the effect of subsequent decisions by the ambassadors. The case did not concern Kosovo as a whole, but it illustrates that establishing an international frontier was a prolonged process, not a single act performed on one day in 1913. [11]
In Kosovo’s history, moreover, 1913 cannot be isolated from subsequent transformations. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes after 1918, Yugoslavia and the developments of the twentieth century repeatedly altered the political framework within which the region was governed. Yet to understand why Kosovo did not belong to Albania in 1912–1913, we must return to the founding moment, when armies controlled the territory and the powers negotiated a settlement intended to prevent a wider confrontation. [2][11]
Why, Then, Was Kosovo Left Outside?
When contemporary testimony is considered alongside archival studies, the answer becomes more precise than the formula “it was decided in London” suggests.
Kosovo was left outside Albania because, when the Great Powers negotiated the new state’s borders, much of the region was already under Serbian military occupation, while part of its western area fell within Montenegro’s expansion; because Belgrade attached indispensable national and strategic value to those lands; because Russia supported the positions of its Balkan allies; and because Austria-Hungary, seeking to prevent Serbia from reaching the Adriatic and to preserve Shkodra for Albania, accepted compromises concerning inland towns and regions. The negotiations in London aimed above all to achieve a balance among the powers, not to produce a settlement in which language, territory and state coincided without exception. [1][2][5]
This explanation does not erase Kosovo’s Serbian history or the diversity of the communities living there. Nor does it erase the role that Prizren, Peja, Gjakova, Prishtina and other centres played in the Albanian national movement. Rather, it allows us to distinguish military occupation, historical claims, ethnographic arguments and diplomatic decisions: factors that were intertwined in 1913, but did not carry equal weight. [2][3][9]
The most revealing statement remains that of 7 April. Edward Grey said that the agreement was essential to European peace. He did not say that all the populations concerned had chosen that frontier. The powers managed to avert an immediate war among themselves; on the ground, they left a question that would run through the entire twentieth century.
Here lies the difference between the birth of a state and the establishment of a mutually accepted frontier: Albania gained its place on the political map of Europe, but not all the territories in which the Albanian national movement had taken shape. Kosovo was one of the most profound expressions of that divide. The border separated the new state from an important part of Albanian national history, without severing the ties of language, culture and memory that crossed it.
Sources and Documentation
The numbers in square brackets throughout the text refer to the sources listed below. Partisan testimony and memoranda are identified as such; historical interpretations are distinguished from original diplomatic documents.
[1] British Parliament, Hansard, House of Commons, 7 April 1913, vol. 51, cols. 816–819, statement by Sir Edward Grey, “Montenegro (Great Powers)”. View source
[2] Nicola C. Guy, Ethnic Nationalism, the Great Powers and the Question of Albanian Independence, 1912–1921, PhD thesis, Durham University, 2008, especially pp. 89–103; for a methodological synthesis, N. C. Guy, “Linguistic boundaries and geopolitical interests: the Albanian boundary commissions, 1878–1926”, Journal of Historical Geography, 34, no. 3 (2008), pp. 448–470, DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2007.12.002. View source Read article DOI
[3] League of Prizren, resolutions and memoranda of June 1878, in Robert Elsie (ed.), “Texts and Documents of Albanian History”, “The Resolutions of the League of Prizren” (resolutions of 18 June 1878, translation and documentary reproduction). For subsequent claims, see also the Albanian memorandum of 1919 [9]. View source
[4] Muzeu Historik Kombëtar (Albanian National History Museum), “Hall of Albanian Renaissance” section, account of the uprisings of 1912 and the declaration of independence of 28 November 1912. View source
[5] Treaty of London, 30 May 1913, Articles 2–3, reproduced in Amedeo Giannini, L’Albania dall’indipendenza all’unione con l’Italia (1913–1939), 4th ed., ISPI, 1940, pp. 13–14; Antonello Folco Biagini, Storia dell’Albania contemporanea, Bompiani, Milan, 2021, pp. 100–114, especially pp. 100–103, 106–109 and 114. View source
[6] M. Edith Durham, The Struggle for Scutari (Turk, Slav, and Albanian), Edward Arnold, London, 1914, especially pp. 299–305 (notably pp. 304–305 on the market of Djakova/Gjakova). Contemporary testimony by an author sympathetic to the Albanian cause. View source
[7] British Parliament, Hansard, House of Commons, 8 May 1913, vol. 52, cols. 2298–2302, speech by Aubrey Herbert, “Albania and Montenegro”. View source
[8] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, Washington, 1914, Chapter IV, pp. 149–151. The report also reproduces accusations and testimonies not all directly verified by the Commission. View source
[9] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference 1919, vol. IV, document 6, addendum “Albanian Claims”, statement by the Albanian delegation of 24 February 1919. The statistics constitute partisan claims. View source
[10] British Parliament, Hansard, written answers, 8 August 1913, vol. 56, cols. 1935–1936W, “War in Balkans”, questions by Aubrey Herbert and replies from Sir Edward Grey. View source
[11] Permanent Court of International Justice, Question of the Monastery of Saint-Naoum (Albanian Frontier), Advisory Opinion No. 9, 4 September 1924, especially pp. 13–22 of the English version, with the operative conclusion on p. 22. View source
[12] N. Lako, Carte ethnographique de l’Albanie, 1918, copy held by the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) 88694253, with handwritten annotations dating from 1919 concerning existing and proposed borders. View the original map
[13] Illustrations. M. Edith Durham, The Struggle for Scutari (Turk, Slav, and Albanian), Edward Arnold, London, 1914. Page numbers 119, 257 and 343 given for the plates refer to the digitised scan consulted, and do not necessarily match the printed book’s pagination. The colour images reproduced here are digital reinterpretations, not photographically faithful restorations: certain details may differ from the original photographs. They provide contextual illustrations, not direct testimony of the specific events described in Kosovo. The inclusion of a photograph in Durham’s book does not, by itself, establish who took it. View the 1914 volume
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