Back مذابح الألبان في حروب البلقان Arabic Zločini nad Albancima u Balkanskim ratovima Croatian Masakri nad Albancima u Balkanskim ratovima Serbo-Croatian Krimet kundër shqiptarëve në Luftërat Ballkanike Albanian Злочини над Албанцима у балканским ратовима Serbian Serbiska krigsbrott i Kosovo (1912–1913) Swedish Balkan Savaşlarında Arnavut Katliamları Turkish

Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars

Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars
Part of the Balkan Wars and the Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction
Albanian civilians taken prisoner in Pristina during massacres by the Serbian army in 1912
Situation in the western Balkans after the Ottoman defeat in the First Balkan War
LocationScutari Vilayet, Kosovo Vilayet, Manastir Vilayet, Janina Vilayet
Date1912–1913
TargetAlbanians
Attack type
Genocidal massacres, ethnic cleansing, mutilation, forced conversions, death marches, others
Deathsc. 120,000–270,000
  • Kosovo: at least 50,000
  • Albania: up to 100,000 Muslims
(see details)
VictimsEthnic Cleansing:
  • 60,000–300,000 Albanians above the age of six expelled from Old Serbia by 1914
  • c. 125,000 Albanians became homeless in northern Albania
PerpetratorsKingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, Chetniks, Greek paramilitaries
MotiveAlbanophobia, Greater Serbia, Islamophobia, Anti-Catholicism
31 December 1912 New York Times headline

The massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were perpetrated on several occasions by the Serbian and Montenegrin armies and paramilitaries during the conflicts that occurred in the region between 1912 and 1913.[1][2] During the 1912–13 First Balkan War, Serbia and Montenegro committed a number of war crimes against the Albanian population after expelling Ottoman Empire forces from present-day Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, which were reported by the European, American and Serbian opposition press.[3] Most of the crimes occurred between October 1912 and the summer of 1913. The goal of the forced expulsions and massacres was statistical manipulation before the London Ambassadors Conference to determine the new Balkan borders.[3][4][5] According to contemporary accounts, around 20,000 to 25,000 Albanians were killed in the Kosovo Vilayet during the first two to four months, before the violence climaxed.[6] The total number of Albanians that were killed in Kosovo and Macedonia or in all Serbian occupied regions during the Balkan Wars is estimated to be at least 120,000.[7][8][9][10][11][12] Most of the victims were children, women and the elderly.[13][14] In addition to the massacres, some civilians had their lips and noses severed.[15] Multiple historians, scholars, and contemporary accounts refer to or characterize the massacres as a genocide of Albanians or the Muslim population in the Balkans as a whole. Further massacres against Albanians occurred during the First World War and continued during the interwar period.

According to Philip J. Cohen, the Serbian Army generated so much fear that some Albanian women killed their children rather than let them fall into the hands of Serbian soldiers.[16] The Carnegie Commission, an international fact-finding mission, concluded that the Serbian and Montenegrin armies perpetrated large-scale violence for "the entire transformation of the ethnic character of regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians".[17] Cohen, examining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report, said that Serbian soldiers cut off the ears, noses and tongues of Albanian civilians and gouged out their eyes.[18] Cohen also cited Durham as saying that Serbian soldiers helped bury people alive in Kosovo.[19]

According to an Albanian imam organization, there were around 21,000 simple graves in Kosovo where Albanians were massacred by the Serbian armies.[20] In August and September 1913, Serbian forces destroyed 140 villages and forced 40,000 Albanians to flee.[21] According to documents from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 239,807 Albanians were expelled from Old Serbia between 1912 and early 1914 (not counting children under the age of six); by late 1914, this number increased to 281,747.[22] These figures, however, are controversial and scholarly estimates can be as low as 60,000 or as high as 300,000.[23][24][9] American relief commissioner Willard Howard said in a 1914 Daily Mirror interview that General Carlos Popovitch would shout, "Don't run away, we are brothers and friends. We don't mean to do any harm."[25] Peasants who trusted Popovitch were shot or burned to death, and elderly women unable to leave their homes were also burned. Howard said that the atrocities were committed after the war ended.

According to Leo Freundlich's 1912 report, Popovitch was responsible for many of the Albanian massacres and became captain of the Serb troops in Durrës.[26] Serbian Generals Datidas Arkan and Bozo Jankovic were authorized to kill anyone who blocked Serbian control of Kosovo.[27] Yugoslavia from a Historical Perspective, a 2017 study published in Belgrade by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, said that villages were burned to ashes and Albanian Muslims forced to flee when Serbo-Montenegrin forces invaded Kosovo in 1912. Some chronicles cited decapitation as well as mutilation.[28] Leon Trotsky and Leo Freundlich estimated that about 25,000 Albanians died in the Kosovo Vilayet by early 1913.[29][3] Serbian journalist Kosta Novaković, who was a Serbian soldier during the Balkan wars, reported that over 120,000 Albanians were killed in Kosovo and Macedonia, and at least 50,000 were expelled to the Ottoman Empire and Albania.[8][7][9] A 2000 report examining Freundlich's collection of international news stories about the atrocities estimated that about 50,000 were victims within present-day borders of Kosovo.[30]

  1. ^ United States Department of State (1943). Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 115. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Leo Freundlich: Albania's Golgotha Archived 31 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Otpor okupaciji i modernizaciji". 9 March 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  5. ^ Hudson, Kimberly A. (5 March 2009). Justice, Intervention, and Force in International Relations: Reassessing Just War Theory in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-203-87935-1. Retrieved 6 September 2016 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :20 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Novakovic, Kosta. "Colonisation and Serbianisation of Kosova". The Institute of History, Prishtina. Archived from the original on 25 December 2013.
  8. ^ a b Rifati, Fitim. Kryengritjet shqiptare në Kosovë si alternativë çlirimi nga sundimi serbo-malazez (1913-1914) (PDF). Journal of Balkan Studies. p. 84. According to Serbian Social Democrat politician Kosta Novakovic, from October 1912 to the end of 1913, the Serbo-Montenegrin regime exterminated more than 120,000 Albanians of all ages, and forcibly expelled more than 50,000 Albanians to the Ottoman Empire and Albania.
  9. ^ a b c Alpion, Gëzim (30 December 2021). Mother Teresa: The Saint and Her Nation. Bloomsbury. pp. 11, 19. ISBN 978-93-89812-46-6. During the Balkan wars, in total '120,000 Albanians were exterminated', hundreds of villages' were shelled by artillery and 'a large number of them were burned down' across Kosova and Macedonia. The figures do not include people killed in present-day Albania and the devastated houses, villages and towns that Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers left behind when they were eventually forced to retreat.'
  10. ^ Ademi, Haxhi (2019). "THE CASE OF THE "DISPLACEMENT" OF SERBS FROM KOSOVO DURING WORLD WAR TWO" (PDF). Analele UniversităŃii din Craiova. Istorie: 32.
  11. ^ Zhitia, Skender (2021). "The Anti-Albanian Policy of the Serbian State, Programs and Methods (XIX-XX)". Journal of History & Future.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference :18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Bessel, Richard (2006). No Man's Land of Violence: Extreme Wars in the 20th Century. Wallstein Verlag. p. 226. ISBN 978-3-89244-825-9. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  14. ^ Bytyçi, Enver (2015). Coercive Diplomacy of NATO in Kosovo. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-7668-1. Chronicles also record the fact that during that period, it was mostly women, children, and elderly people who were destroyed and cruelly massacred,
  15. ^ Tatum, Dale C. (2010). Genocide at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Darfur. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-230-62189-3. Retrieved 3 January 2020. In October 1912, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece launched an attack to dismember the decaying Ottoman Empire. This war was notable for its brutality. Acts of genocide and mayhem were committed during the war. Civilians were massacred and people's lips and noses were severed. Thus, the relationship between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians began to spiral downward. From this battle, the Serbs gained control of Kosovo, their 'mythic land' of origin.
  16. ^ Cohen, Philip J. (1997). "The Ideology and Historical Continuity of Serbia's Anti-Islamic Policy". Islamic Studies. 36 (2/3). Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University: 361–382. JSTOR 23076201. Among the worst and most consistent offenders were the Serbs, who generated such fear that some women killed their own children, rather than let them fall into Serbian hands
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kramer138 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Philip J. Cohen, Islamic Studies Vol. 36, No. 2/3, Special Issue: Islam in the Balkans (1997), p. 4.
  19. ^ Cohen, Philip J. (1996). Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. Texas A&M University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-89096-760-7. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  20. ^ Horvat, Dr. Jusuf Osmani, Mislav (2010). Jusuf Osmani - Kolonizimi Serbi Kosoves (The Serbian colonisation of Kosovo). Pristina: REND Prishtinë. p. 66. Retrieved 29 March 2020.
  21. ^ N.Y.), Near East College Association (New York (1921). The Near East. s.n. p. 45. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  22. ^ "SERBIAN OCCUPYING WARS AND OTHER MEASURES FOR EXPULSION OF ALBANIANS (1912-1941)". The Institute of History, Prishtina. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012.
  23. ^ Štěpánek, Václav (2010). Problem of colonization of Kosovo and Metohija in 1918–1945 (PDF) (in Czech). p. 88.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Qirezi46 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ "Albanian Peasants Burned by Servians: New Rulers Task". British Newspaper Archive. 2 February 1914. p. 9. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  26. ^ That was Yugoslavia. Ost-Dienst. 1991. p. 53. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  27. ^ Thomassen, Carsten (21 April 1999). "En krig om historien II". Dagbladet.no (in German). Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  28. ^ Biserko, Sonja; Perović, Latinka; Roksandić, Drago; Velikonja, Mitja; Hoepken, Wolfgang; Bieber, Florian; Sofrenović, Sheila; Hrašovec, Ivan (2017). Yugoslavia from a Historical Perspective (PDF). Belgrade: Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. pp. 272–73. ISBN 978-86-7208-208-1. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  29. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  30. ^ Aggression Against Yugoslavia Correspondence. Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. 2000. p. 42. ISBN 978-86-80763-91-0. Retrieved 29 April 2020.

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