Our Man in Tirana

Zog I, King of the Albanians

Career Highlights:

Aubrey Herbert who met him in 1913, when Zog was only eighteen, described him as "a reader of Shakespeare and a fine fighting man".

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During Zog's presidency, serfdom was gradually eliminated. For the first time since the death of Skanderbeg, Albania began to emerge as a nation, rather than a feudal patchwork of local beyliks. Many referred to him as "king", as they had no idea what the word "president" meant.

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According to Zogists, the Albanian throne had a 2,500-year history. By positing continuity from semi-mythical Pelasgians (mentioned by Homer and Herodotus) and asserting that ancient Macedonia, Epirus and Illyria were in some sense Albanian states, they devised a list of precursors for Zog which included Achilles, Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus and Queen Teuta. This roll-call of monarchs, however, suffered from the weakness that none of them had actually thought himself or herself Albanian.

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A new royal residence -- fit for a King -- was long under construction outside Tirana, and, in the nearby port of Durres, a showy Summer Palace was actually completed in 1932. Though likened by a British tourist to `the casino in one of the minor Belgian sea-coast resorts', it boasted marble halls and Louis Quatorze decor. It was shockingly under-used. `He built this palace for distinguished guests,' the steward on the Bari-Durres ferry would explain, `but he never seems to have any'.

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Only the President of Turkey, however, openly derided the change. `What's going on in Albania?' laughed Kemal in 1928, `Are you performing an operetta?' This jibe hit home, and was widely credited with persuading Zog to appear less often in his most flamboyant white and gold uniform (the one with plumed fur hat and black cloak).

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The King's chamberlain was instructed to accost visitors to the local hotel in the capital Tirana with the demand that they attend a royal audience, at which formal morning dress should be worn. The visitor would be referred to a local outfitter where they could buy the requisite clothes, although this turned out to be quite expensive. The subsequent audience at the palace would be brief and perfunctory. The outfitters was owned by King Zog.

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In the absence of nightclubs or theatre in Tirana, the king spent much of his time playing poker, usually with his sisters. He was also a great lover of perfumed cigarettes, and smoked about 150 a day. His household expenses made up nearly two percent of the national budget.

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Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria all had kings. The ruler of Albania wished to be their equal. Thanks to alphabetical order by country, he now took first place in the Almanach de Gotha, the unofficial handbook of European royalty.

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Officials stencilled `Long live the King' on the walls of public buildings and ordered shops to display Zog's portrait on pain of a fine. In some places, a huge letter `Z' was burnt onto the hillside.

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His one and only foreign trip, to Vienna for health checks in 1931, ended with the most famous of many assassination attempts. After Zog drew a gun and fired back, his reputation as a dashing royal gangster was sealed so far as the European press was concerned. `One of the most picturesque and romantic figures of our time,' enthused one popular reporter, who judged that His Majesty might have stepped straight from the movie screen.

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During a trip to Vienna, he narrowly escaped assassination. Two assailants opened fire on his entourage as it exited the Vienna Opera House following a double bill performance of I Pagliacci and the Strauss ballet Josephs-Legende. The king ‘drew a gun from inside his tail-coat and returned fire,’ writes Tomes. ‘…Zog emptied five chambers of his revolver and then asked [an aide] to hand him his pistol, unaware that [he] was already dead. Fearing attack from the other side of the car, he squeezed past the body and ran back into the Opera House, shouting in German, as the police appeared and seized everybody.’

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During his reign he is said to have survived over 55 assassination attempts. One of these occurred in 1931 while Zog was visiting a Vienna opera house for a performance of Pagliacci. The attackers struck whilst Zog was getting into his car, and he survived by drawing his own pistol (which he always carried) and firing back at his would-be assassins. This is the only occasion in modern history when a Head of State has returned fire with potential assassins.

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After Italy's invasion of Albania in 1939, King Zog, having been exiled by Mussolini, set out with his royal retinue for London's Ritz hotel. The hall porter, surprised by the unusual weight of the king's cases, asked him whether they contained anything valuable. "Yes," Zog replied. "Gold."

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Italy had intervened, said Ciano, to liberate Albania from 'a selfish, narrow-minded, venal, treacherous, cruel ruler possessing all the despicable attributes of a feudal lord in the dark ages.'

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While in France, the Royal Family survived a German air raid during the invasion, reputedly because the entourage was travelling in a Mercedes-Benz identical to Adolf Hitler's (in fact it had been a wedding present from the German dictator). The effect of this was that none of the bombers had the nerve to fire on a car identical to the Führer's.

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In January of 1944 in an interview with members of the Anglo-Jewish Association, Zog offered to sponsor a plan for a large Jewish settlement in Albania - apparently on the order of some 50,000 families to be given land owned by the state - if the British Jews helped him to regain his throne. The association seems to have taken this seriously enough to consult the British Foreign Office which quickly dismissed the notion. Zog at this point was of course desperate, considering that no official entity had allowed him to form a government in exile or indeed had recognized him as anything more than a private citizen. Still this was certainly a unique offer and perhaps can be considered as an indication of Zog's commitment to religious diversity.

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When Zog briefly went to the United States, he wanted to bring along his Court, but the immigration authorities allowed only twenty members. Zog tried unsuccessfully to bribe the American Senate to permit the remainder to join him.

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In 1951, he bought the Knollwood estate in Muttontown, New York, for approximately $102,800, though some stories claim that he bought the mansion for a bucket of diamonds and rubies. The sixty-room estate was described as a castle. Zog intended Knollwood to be his kingdom-in-exile, staffed by loyal Albanian subjects, but he never moved into the mansion. The house was never used and Zog sold the estate in 1955, by which point vandals had done over $8,000 worth of damage, apparently hunting for treasure in his absence.

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Records of his conversations with friends and family indicate that he wished to set up a feudal kingdom outside Albania if he was not restored to the throne.

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A main street in Tirana has since been re-named by the current Albanian government to "Boulevard Zog".

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Soon Albanians will be able to look dispassionately at their history in the twentieth century: liberation, instability, occupation, instability, Zogist dictatorship, occupation, civil war, Stalinist dictatorship, and more instability. When they do, they may will count the reign of King Zog among the good times. It is a sobering thought.

Sources:
All the King's Men
Religious Diversity Under Zog
Zog Photo Album
Zog's Kingdom