First of all i want to make clear that is out of my interest what happened between serbs and other south slavs, musslims and catholics. I am speaking about albanians.
Personaly i don`t prefer to use Wiki. I can enter now and edit the pages posted by you.
Let see what british military sources have to say:
1945
Ralph Skrine Stevenson:
Kosova in the spring of 1945
The Second World War ended in Europe on 7 May 1945. German forces had withdrawn from Kosova on 19 November 1944 on their retreat northwards, leaving the region in a state of confusion and uncertainty. British career diplomat, Ralph Skrine Stevenson, who had served in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and was later to become British Ambassador to Egypt, was in Yugoslavia after the German withdrawal and sent the following report to the Foreign Office, describing the turbulent state of events in Kosova and western Macedonia in the spring of 1945.
Belgrade, 21th April, 1945
1. I have the honour to report that there have recently been a number of indications that in the last few months there has been serious unrest amongst the Albanian population of the Kosovo and Metohija, and the north-western corner of Macedonia
2. The areas in question have throughout the war been in the main hostile to the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation and it appears that up to the present the partisan movement has found little sympathy or understanding there.
This is due to a number of factors, the chief of which was the repression of the Albanian minority by the Yugoslav Government between 1920 and the present war.
3. In the face of this strong opposition, the partisan movement in the Kosovo never reached considerable proportions. From 1941 efforts had been made to enlist some support amongst the Albanians and in that year, two delegates from Tito, Ali Dusanovic and Miladin Popovic, are believed to have attended a conference of the Albanian Communist party. They were arrested in Albania in 1942 but escaped with the help of Albanian Communists, and apparently continued to maintain contact between the Yugoslav partisans and the Albanian Communist party and to try to build up the partisan movement in the Kosovo and Metohija. Towards the end of 1943, the first was heard of Kosmet, the staff of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation for the Kosovo and Metohija. This was responsible directly to Tito and consisted half of Serbs and half of Albanians, amongst whom were Mehmet Hoxha and Fadil Hoxha. Kosmet was forced to confine itself to political activity, mainly trying to abate anti-Serb feeling among the Kossovars. Some attempt was made to set up a partisan political organisation in the Kosovo, and a few National Liberation committees were formed. Contact was maintained with the Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian partisans, and in 1944 a conference was held at Kolgecaj which the Serbian and Montenegrin partisans attended.
4. Despite the lack of military activity in the Kosovo, Kosovo units fought from an early date with the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation both in Macedonia and Serbia under the command of the headquarters for these areas. In 1942, two Kosovo battalions formed in the hills west of Tetovo and fought with the 1st Macedonian Brigade until transformed into the 1st Kosovo Brigade, about 800 strong, in June 1944.Another Kosovo brigade, some 400 strong, formed probably in the Skopska Crna Gora, was, in the early part of 1944, in the area east of the Nis-Skoplje railway. Part of the Kosmet staff were located in Serbian territory south of the Radan, protected by a battalion of about 100 Kossovars.
The partisan forces in the Kosovo remained, however, weak, and failed to bring in with them any other resistance movements, of which the most important was built up by Gan Kryeziu, a Kosovo landowner from the Djakovica area. Relations between Kryeziu and Kosmet were correct and occasional military operations are thought to have been carried out together, but because of his failure to join them, Kryeziu incurred the dislike of Kosmet, who are believed to have threatened his life. Furthermore, the attempts of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation to send troops into the Kosovo were not successful. The resistance put up by the Kossovar frontier guards was fanatical, and in May the 2nd Corps, attempting to break through Montenegro, and in July the Serbian forces of Lieutenant-General Popovic advancing from the north on to Gnjiline, were driven back.
In general, the majority of the partisans, who had much to do with the Albanian minority during the war, such as General Vukmanovic Tempo, often stated that they were unregenerate bandits who must be brought to heel by harsh methods when the country was liberated. The Albanian minority in north-west Macedonia, many of whom belonged to the Bal Kombetar, were particularly regarded as brigands.
5. The fact that Kosmet was able to exist at all in the Kosovo was probably due to the support of the F.N.C. in Albania. So close was the liaison of Kosmet with the F.N.C. that British officers who penetrated the Kosovo at the end of 1943 believed Kosmet to be an offshoot of the F.N.C. The F.N.C. appear, however, to have recognised that Kosmet formed part of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation rather than of their own forces and, during the summer of 1944, Hoxha publicly recognised Kosmet and recognised Kosovo as belonging to Tito's sphere of influence. From Macedonia, constant contact was maintained with the F.N.C. by Tempo and in the summer of 1944, joint operations were undertaken by units of the F.N.C. and of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation against the Germans and Bal Kombetar in north-west Macedonia.
9. In the Kosovo, Miladin Popovic, Tito's early envoy to the Albanian partisans, was assassinated in Pristina on the 12th March.
Trouble, seems to have continued in north-west Macedonia, and on the 7th April, two O.Z.N.A. (police) brigades appeared in Skoplje in answer to a request from the Macedonian Federal Government for reinforcements. The area, bounded by the Albanian frontier, Sar Mountains, Skoplje, Karabzica Mountains, Brod, Kicevo, and inclusive of Tetovo and Gostivar to Debar, was reported on the 16th April to be a war zone owing to the alarming proportions which the Albanian rising there had assumed. Large forces were engaged, including the 1st Skoplje Cavalry Brigade, the 8th, 9th and 16th Macedonian Brigades, and other unidentified troops from the Bitolj area.
7,000 Albanians were alleged to have been imprisoned in Tetovo and large numbers of Albanians from the Skoplje area to have taken to the woods, 140 having deserted from the municipal power station in one day. In Skoplje itself there were continual rumours of Albanian trouble and 12,000 Albanians were stated to have been forcibly deported from the Kumanovo, Gnjiline and Vranje area to the Banat. There is little independent confirmation of these reports, but towards the end of March, there was talk in Belgrade of Albanians being marched northwards through the town under guard, and an American report of cases of typhus among Albanians in the Banat.
From Split there were reports between the 5th and 8th April of the arrival of three parties of Kossovars, totalling about 2,000 men and some of them under guard, who were said to have been mobilised in the Kosovo to clear the area of troublesome factions after trouble in the neighbourhood of Pristina.
10. In recent conversations with members of my staff, General Velebit has confirmed that conditions have been disturbed in the Kosovo and attributed this mainly to the dropping of parachutists by the Germans. These, he said, were mainly drawn from the Skanderbeg Division. He maintained, however, that the trouble is now largely over, due in the main to the co-operation in the suppression of the rising of troops of the Albanian National Liberation Army whose lack of racial differences from the rebels and obvious sympathy with partisan aims has made a deep impression.
The presence of troops of the Albanian National Liberation Army in the area is confirmed by an American report of the 25th March to the effect that the 5th Division of the Albanian National Liberation Army was in the Kosovo with its headquarters at Kosovoska Mitrovica. General Velebit said that in the north-west corner of Macedonia there was a certain amount of brigandage, but this had been the case even before 1941. The Minister for Macedonia made much the same comment.
18. I am sending copies of this despatch to the Resident Minister, Central Mediterranean; His Majesty's Ambassador in Athens; Lieut.-Colonel Clarke, 37 Military Mission, in Bari; and to the British Delegation in Belgrade.
I have, &c.
RALPH SKRINE STEVENSON
[from: Bejtullah D. Destani (ed.),
Albania & Kosovo: Political and Ethnic Boundaries, 1867-1946. Documents and Maps. Slough: Archive Editions, 1999, p. 939-944.]
1945
Brigadier Edward Hodgson:
Report on the Present Administration of Albania
Report on the Present Administration of Albania
May 29, 1945
7. The Albanian National Liberation Army
(a) A.N.L.A. strength is estimated at about 60,000 including all personnel under arms.
(e) The Albanian formations previously fighting in Yugoslavia have now been withdrawn to Albania or
Kossovo.
[British Foreign Office document, preserved in the National Archives in London (FO 371/48091).]
