Note 103 — VIII (continued 2)

A later phase was for the Government to recognize that what Albania must have is the friendship of Yugoslavia, so that the eyes of the most powerful Ministers were turned from Rome to Belgrade. Thereupon the Italians, loth to lose their footing in the country, gave their patronage to the anti-Governmental parties. It was pleasant to hear in the summer of 1922 that when the boundary commissioners had left a lamentable neutral zone between the two countries the Albanian Government suggested to the very willing Government of Yugoslavia that they should co-operate in cleansing that zone of its brigand population.