King Zog’s crossroads Seventy years later, the diaries and memoirs of the period provide many answers to the dilemmas surrounding the king’s escape. Here is what Count Ciano, Francesco Jacomoni, Colonel Faik Quku and others wrote in their diaries… BY HAZIS GJERGJI Albania on the eve of invasion... In the second half of March 1939, travellers on the Bari–Durrës and Brindisi–Vlorë routes had begun bringing to Albania suspicious news about concentrations of Italian troops in the ports of Bari and Brindisi. Meanwhile, the foreign minister of fascist Italy, Count Ciano (Galeazzo Ciano), wrote in his “Diary”: 23 March 1939 The Duce decides to speed up the timetable for the Albanian question and himself draws up a very short draft agreement, with three dry articles. The draft has more the form of a decree than of an international pact. I am also preparing one... It is an arrangement which, while preserving appearances, accepts an effective annexation of Albania. The Duce approved it. Either Zog accepts the conditions we have set out, or we undertake a military occupation of the country. For this purpose we are mobilizing and concentrating in Puglia four regiments of bersaglieri, an infantry division, air units and the entire first squadron”(1). On 26 March 1939, the secret envelope with the draft agreement for the “effective annexation” of Albania was on... On page 2

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