September 13, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Italv and Southern Albania 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
On Italy's New Road 
BETWEEN the de- 
lavs incident to 
the torpedoing of 
a connecting 
steamer off Corfu, a wait 
in the (iulf of Corinth 
during the several days 
necessary to estabHsh the 
fact that some refuse 
dumped by a neutral 
boat — contrary to the 
new rules of navigation 
of the Corinth Canal — 
had not contained cans 
of high explosive, ■ an un- 
explained break in the 
service of the Greek rail- 
ways, and a week's hold- 
up in a pastoral village on 
the slopes of Mount 
Olympus, because my pro- 
mised permit to pass the Neutral Zone in Thessaly had 
failed to arrive from General Sarrail's Headquarters, my 
journey from Italy to Salonika had taken the best part of 
a month, which was a good deal more time than I felt able 
to dispose for the return. The almost equally uncertain 
»ea ^oute bv Malta and Sicily appeared the only alternative 
until an American missionary in Salonika, who had been in 
Koritsa before the war, and knew the region well, suggested 
that it might be worth trying to get back by Albania and the 
Adriatic. 
' ' There has been a sort of a cart road through from Northern 
.Macedonia to Koritza, Ereek, Agyrocastro and Santa Oi'iaranta 
for a number of years. The last time I was over it we were 
three weeks from Monastir to Vallona, the last third of the 
journey — from Teppelina to the coast — being made with a 
pack train ; but I understand that the Italians have been 
working for some time on a motor road that will enable them 
to establish through motor lorry service between the modern 
port they have created at Santa Quaranta and their military 
bases in Macedonia. It will be well worth your while en- 
quiring into, for the region is not only one of the most beautiful 
and interesting in all the Balkans, but also one of the least 
known. 
■ The political status of the region through which the road 
runs is one of the most peculiarly complicated in the Balkans. 
1 1 was delimited as a portion of Albania in the treaty concluded 
at the end of the last Balkan wars, but the Greeks have never 
ceased to regard it as a part of Northern Epirus. Un- 
doubtedly Greek ambitions to-day (if one can speak seriouslv 
of the ambitions of a country so generally discredited— in 
consequence of the policy of its Germanophile king — as 
Greece is at the present. moment), extend to the possession of 
all the territory south of a line from the mouth of the \'oyusa 
to some distance north of Koritsa. On the other hand, this 
region certainly falls within the boundaries which the 
cxlremisls among the Yugo-Slavs mark for their own, though 
I am satisfied that the Serbian moderates will, and should, 
be satisfied with the generous stretch of the littoral to the 
north which all of the .Allied Powers seem agreed must fall 
to their share to give their country* adequate outlet to the 
sea. 
" Again, we have the Albanian Nationalists who hope to 
keep the region as an integral part of tlie .Albanian nation 
they count on founding after the wai", and the Austrians and 
I'.ulgars who would, jointly and severalh'. seize anything 
they could lav hands on in the Balkans. The reasons given 
for the French patronage of the so-called .Mbanian republic 
founded at Koritsa are variously stated as the outgrowth, 
on the one hand, of a desire to further the aspirations of tne 
Albanian Nationalists, and, on the other, of a wish to leave 
the way open for Serbian expansion in this direction. I am 
not clear on this point myself, though I am sure France is not 
impelled by any desire to secure territory for herself. 
■■ Finally — and most important of all— we have the /ail 
accompli of the Italian occupation of this part of Southern 
.Albania, apparently under an implied if not expressed under- 
standing with her .Allies that she is to remain there more or 
less indefinitely. Just what Italy's actual status here is would 
be verv difficult to say. and in my own mind there is some 
doubt as to whether or not it is clearly defined among the 
Allies. I find myself more and more inclining to the opinion 
that her remaining there — assuming jn victorious decision 
•in the war — will depend largely upon how she gets on with ~ 
the .Albanians themselves. Neither the Turks nor the Greeks 
have ever liad an\- success in governing the Albanian (there 
were a number of him in Janina and that part of Epirus which 
Greece wrested from Turkey in- iqi2 and 1913), which is 
not in the least surprising considering that he constitutes 
one of the proudest and most independent races in Europe, 
and that it is a shame to utter the word ' justice ' in the 
same breath with either ' Turk ' or ' Greek.' If Italy will 
rule mildly but firmly, and aboye all fairly, she may succeed 
where these others have failed, and I feel sure that her re- 
maining or not remaining indefinitely in Albania will hinge 
upon her success or failure in getting on with the Albanian. 
That, it seems to me, would be the most valuable thing for- 
you to endeavour to get a line upon in case you are allowed 
to travel across or about Southern .Albania. Try to see how 
the. Italian is getting on with the Albanian." 
***** 
The first definite reports I myself fiad regarding the con- 
dition of the new trans-.Albanian road were rather discourag- 
ing. A French officer told me he had been nine days on the 
road, and had finally come into Fiorina in a motor lorry, 
which was the fourth conveyance he had employed on the 
journey. A British correspondent and an American Red 
Cross doctor had fared somewhat better, having made the 
journey from Santa Quaranta to Fiorina in seven and eight 
days respectively, and having only employed three cars each 
for the journey. .All three, however, were agreed that the 
-progress already made on the road was, considering the 
shortage of labour and material and the tremendous engineer- 
ing difficulties, a stupendous achievement, and that it would 
effect an incalculable saving in time and risk in certain classes 
of transport — when completed. When this would be, none 
of them would hazard a guess. 
Ancient Road-Making 
When I was ready to leave Macedonia, however, and applied 
at Italian Headquarters for permission to go by Albania, 
the report was more encouraging. The road was by no means 
completed, they told me, but the permanent grades were now 
established throughout, and good headway was being made 
with the metalling and bridging. Much work that the 
Romans had done two thousand years ago had been taken 
advantage of, this being especially the case with several 
important bridges over deep chasms where detours would 
have been impossible and where the throwing across of 
modern bridges would have delayed the passage of traffic 
many rrfonths. There were places where it was necessary 
to riin very slowly over newly-laid metalling or where the 
broadening of curves or grades was still going on ; but in 
spite of all delays they were managing to get their mail 
lorries through Santa Quaranta in from two to four days 
right along, and with a fast car and good luck even better 
than that minimum might be made. 
The journey of half way across Macedonia and all the way 
across .Albania — all of the time in the mountains and at several 
points surmounting ranges over a mile high — in two days, or 
perhaps less than two days, sounded positively fantastic. 
But a year or two ago, if the condition of the country- made 
it possible at all, which, on account of the incessant warfare, 
was seldom, that same journey often took anywhere from a 
ff)rtnight to six weeks. But "if the thought of making the 
trip in two days seemed fantastic, what about the trip as I 
actually did make it ? 
By good fortune an Italian staff officer was about to leave 
Macedonia on his way to Rome just at the time I was ready 
to depart, and a seat was offered me in the swift, powerful 
Fiat which had been placed at his disposal. There was a 
chance of catching a certain transport for Italy if the journey 
was made in record time, and the two drivers (both of whom 
had been over the road several times before), were told to do 
their best. This is what happened : 
Leaving Fiorina at daybreak (by a coincidence just as a 
German aeroplane began dropping bombs upon that defence-' 
less town in a raid which as I subsequently learned — killed 
thirty-five civilians and wounded twice that number), we had 
threaded the zigzags of the steep road to the Stara Nerotsca 
Plateau before the military traffic had begun to move. The 
advantage we Iiad gained at the start stood us in good stead 
all dav, and from that time on our record-breaking schedule 
was well in hand. At 7 a.m. we stopped at Koritsa for coffee, 
while hard-driving on the completely finished road in the open 
vallevs beyond brought us into Ersek witVi more than an hour 
