Albania under Fascist Italy

During 1939-1940, the Italian authorities undertook a series of measures for political, economic and social annexation of Albania. A series of laws and decrees reversed state sovereignty, while the imposed the imported ideology of invaders, the Fascism.

On the other hand, the Italian occupiers followed a careful policy intended to create a peaceful climate in Albania in view of their plans for the Balkans. They launched a series of public construction projects; social aid campaigns and they also fondled Albanian nationalist feeling, hence fuelling their irredentism.

This policy helped the Italian invaders to keep Albanian resistance until under control the commencement of the Greek-Italian War. In the course of this war, Mussolini's Italian army suffered an embarrassing defeat. The Greek army progressed during winter 1940-1941 invading the major cities of the South: Gjirokaster, Korca etc. The Front line terminated in Tepelene mountains. The intervention of Hitler’s German military forces, that invaded the Balkans in the spring of 1941, saved Italian Army’s prestige.

In April 1941, after a bilateral agreement between Ciano and Ribentropp, Balkan borders were reconfigured. Italy managed to unite under its occupation zone most of the territories inhabited by Albanians in the Balkans, creating the so-called "Greater Albania"