To prevent the annihilation of the country, Albanian national delegates met at a
congress in Vlorë. They were led by Ismail Qemal, an Albanian who had held
several high positions in the Ottoman government. On Nov. 28, 1912, the
congress issued the Vlorë proclamation, which declared Albania’s
independence.

Independent Albania.

Creating the new state.

Shortly after the defeat of Turkey by the Balkan allies, a conference of
ambassadors of the Great Powers (Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary,
France, and Italy) convened in London in December 1912 to settle the
outstanding issues raised by the conflict. With support given to the Albanians by
Austria-Hungary and Italy, the conference agreed to create an independent
state of Albania. But, in drawing the borders of the new state, owing to strong
pressure from Albania’s neighbours, the Great Powers largely ignored
demographic realities and ceded the vast region of Kosovo to Serbia, while, in
the south, Greece was given the greater part of Çamria, a part of the old region
of Epirus centred on the Thamis River. Many observers doubted whether the
new state would be viable with about one-half of Albanian lands and population
left outside its borders, especially since these lands were the most productive in
food grains and livestock. On the other hand, a small community of about
35,000 ethnic Greeks was included within Albania’s borders. (However,
Greece, which counted all Albanians of the Orthodox faith–20 percent of the
population–as Greeks, claimed that the number of ethnic Greeks was
considerably larger.) Thereafter, Kosovo and the Çamria remained troublesome
issues in Albanian-Greek and Albanian-Yugoslav relations.