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Document/ How it was proposed in 1918 that Albania be declared a Republic under US supervision for 25 years!
2026-01-25 21:32:52 / JETË
In November 1918, at the height of the end of World War I,
a text was published in the US that seems
unbelievable today.
In the magazine The Christian Work, William Willard Howard, Secretary of the Balkan Relief Fund, proposed that Serbia be declared a Republic under the direction and supervision of the United States for 25 years.
The article was sent to President Woodrow Wilson by editor-in-chief Frederick Lynch, as a call to action on behalf of a people who, according to the author, had been devastated by wars, invasions, and famine.
Howard describes Albania as a country devastated by the violence of Serbian, Greek and Austro-Hungarian armies, with hundreds of villages destroyed and a population exhausted by hunger.
He speaks of a land that had lost everything, but which still kept its pride and national identity alive.
In this context, he presents a radical plan: Albania would become a republic modeled after the American system, with a local government, but under direct US supervision.
According to him, America was the only power that could do this without colonial interests, because it had entered the war
"for principles and not for territories."
A central part of his vision was the Albanian diaspora in the US, which he considered the nucleus of the new Albania.
He outlines a clear vision for economic recovery: roads, modern agriculture, factories, exploitation of natural resources, energy from mountain waters, and industry for export.
Essentially, Albania was seen as a country with great potential, but which, according to him, needed a "strong hand" and Western direction to emerge from backwardness.
Today, the language of this document sounds deeply colonialist and paternalistic.
Albanians are depicted as stuck in
the Middle Ages and the local elites as incompetent.
However, the text remains a rare historical testimony that shows how close Albania was to a completely different political and geopolitical path.
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