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The Dibra refugees were still camped in Albania, and the Prince hoped for as a Messiah still did not come. Prince Arthur of Connaught was the desire of the Albanians. "Give us even your King's youngest son," they said, "and we shall be safe. No one will dare attack us." Essad now insisted on being a member of the provisional government. All feared him. None wanted him.

The plan, however, was thwarted by the desperate resistance of the Dardani and of the adjoining tribes concerned; the Bastarnae were obliged to retreat, and the whole horde were drowned in returning home by the giving way of the ice on the Danube. The king now sought at least to extend his clientship among the chieftains of the Illyrian land, the modern Dalmatia and northern Albania.

And the extreme limit, on the south and east, of Turkish territory assigned to Servia by this treaty was fixed by a line starting from Ochrida on the borders of Albania and running northeastward across the Vardar River a few miles above Veles and thence, following the same general direction, through Ovcepolje and Egri Palanka to Golema Vreh on the frontier of Bulgaria a terminus some twenty miles southeast of the meeting point of Servia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.

It was my first view of him since I had left Albania and it required all my self-control to prevent me springing at him in the street and tearing at him with my hands. "Once he was out of sight I went to the house adopting all the style and all the mannerisms of poor Gathercole.

By the middle of March I was quite certain no rising would take place. The Foreign Office in London still expected one, and notified all relief workers up country to wind up work and return. The others did, but I stayed and managed to ride right through Albania. "Where rougher climes a nobler race displayed."

It was green and pastoral, with a short skirt of cultivation along the bottom of the hills. Abrupt and rapid as the foregoing sketch of the journey through Albania has been, it is evident from the novelty of its circumstances that it could not be performed without leaving deep impressions on the susceptible mind of the poet.

Of course the peace-compelling forces operative in the Balkan states themselves might be counteracted by hostile activities on the part of some of the Great Powers. And there is one danger-point for which the Great Powers themselves are solely responsible. This, as I have already explained, is Albania.

Dec. 14 Belgrade recaptured by Serbians. Dec. 16 German cruisers bombard Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby, on English coast, killing fifty or more persons; Austrians said to have lost upwards of 100,000 men in Serbian defeat. Dec. 25 Italy occupies Avlona, Albania. January 1 British battleship Formidable sunk. Jan. 8 Roumania mobilizes 750,000 men; violent fighting in the Argonne.

Such a plan was proposed by the Foreign Office, and I and some others asked to enlist the men. But Russia and, I believe, France vetoed it. Consequently the Bulgars and Austrians took and held most of north and central Albania till the armistice.

On August 11th the conference agreed that an international commission of control, consisting of a representative of each of the great Powers, should administer the affairs of Albania until the Powers should select a prince as ruler of the autonomous State.