Greece to roman road

Seeing Constantine talking about their land issues, several representatives of the big landowners suddenly tightened their heartstrings and looked at Constantine nervously.

These people were able to become big landowners because they had worked for the Ottomans for generations, and were responsible for collecting taxes for the Ottoman government, or serving as officials. Relying on their rights, they seized a large amount of Albanian land, so that now, half of the land in Albania , in the hands of several big families.

Judging from the words of several people, it is obvious that due to the relationship between interests, these large landowners and Albanian nationalists have different demands.

For these large landowners, it doesn't matter who rules Albania, whether it's the Ottomans or the Greeks, as long as they don't take advantage of their land.

Obviously, nationalists like Jermali disapprove of such a large landowner class. They want to fight for Albania's independence. It is unimaginable that nearly half of a country's land is in the hands of a few big families. matter.

In order to unite and win over more Albanians, it is certain that nationalists like Jermali advocate certain land reforms.

Just imagine, if nothing changes after Albania becomes independent, for the poor people who make up the majority of Albania's population, what does it matter whether they are independent or not?

After hearing what Metaxas said, these thoughts flashed through Constantine's mind.

Seeing Constantine's silence, Farona gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness, as long as you can guarantee that you will not engage in land reform in Albania, our Faroan family is willing to convert to Orthodoxy."

"We can send the younger members of the family to the University of Athens or even the Athens Military Academy to receive the most orthodox Greek education."

As soon as his words came out, even the other landowner representatives were stunned and sighed to themselves: The Farona family is really letting go.

But think about it, Greece is now ruling Albania, not the Ottomans.

In a country like Greece where the Orthodox Christian faith is the mainstream, a few MSL family landowners control a large amount of land in Albania. It seems that they are too conspicuous and will be dealt with by the political forces of Greece sooner or later.

After converting, you can also better integrate into Greek society.

Thinking of this, the other three landowner representatives, Frioni, Toptani, and Verrachi, also nodded in agreement with Faroan's suggestion.

"His Royal Highness, as long as you agree that Albanian can be used for education and publishing, we can agree that Albanian can only be spelled with Greek letters in the future," Gemalli said helplessly.

This kind of compromise is also out of helplessness.

First, the Albanians were not united, but now these large landowners have made a separate deal with the Greek government, leaving aside the nationalist forces in Albania.

Secondly, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1878, because the Albanian democrats at the time misjudged the situation, they believed that the Ottoman Empire would inevitably collapse under the joint attack of Russia and its Slavic allies, Bulgaria and Serbia. They Albania has a good chance to fight for independence.

Therefore, during the fierce war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Albanian nationalists took advantage of the fact that the Ottoman Empire had no time to worry about Albania. Under the organization of the Prizren League, the Albanian national armed forces began to attack the government institutions of the Ottoman Empire in Albania and refused to pay taxes. Waiting for the uprising.

As a result, after the war between Russia and Austria ended, the situation turned around at the Berlin Conference in 1881. Almost all countries stood against Russia and supported the Ottoman Empire.

After the Ottoman Empire freed its hands from the war, it naturally could not spare these guys who added insult to injury and stabbed people in the back. After all, traitors were more hateful than enemies, and they bloodyly suppressed Albania's independent activities.

The alliance of Albanian democrats at that time was also the main leader of the uprising - the Prizren League. Its members were almost massacred by the Ottoman government. A total of two to three thousand people were either directly killed or killed. He died in prison, and only a few small fish and shrimps were left, which could not become a big deal.

In Albania, there are only two to three hundred thousand people in total.

The elite was almost wiped out.

Thanks to the Ottomans, when Greece took over Albania, it encountered little resistance - all the thorns were wiped out.

The nationalists represented by Gemali were at their lowest point in strength and they really did not have many significant bargaining chips to trade with Constantine.

Looking at the submissive Albanian representatives, Constantine first agreed not to carry out land reform in Albania for the time being. The conditions were that they converted to Christianity and sent his family's children to Greece to study.

As for the issue of Albanian language authority mentioned by Jermali, Constantine was somewhat hesitant.

In Albania, it is natural from a Greek perspective to suppress the Albanian language and promote Greek.

However, Albania is somewhat special. There are hundreds of thousands of Albanians living in southern Italy, and Kosovo is also a place where Albanians are dominant. The Greek government's strong promotion of Greek in Albania and the abandonment of Albanian will not only anger Albanians living outside Albania. , and at the same time, it will also create a strong rebellious mentality among Albanians in Greece and cause some trouble.

Thinking of this, Constantine said to Gemalli: "If it is Albanian spelled based on Greek letters, I can agree on behalf of the Greek government to allow such Albanian to be used for education and publishing. However, Greece is located in The language of government, offices and administration in the Albanian region still uses Greek”

As for whether allowing the use of the Albanian language will become a hidden danger for Greece to rule Albania, it is certainly possible, but the threat is not great.

There are only about 300,000 Albanians in Greece, and a considerable number of them are pro-Greek Orthodox Christians.

Secondly, a "minor language" spoken by hundreds of thousands of people cannot threaten the orthodox status of Greek.

Moreover, the Albanian language is very immature. It does not even have a written language yet, which is far from enough to compete with the extremely mature Greek language that has been developed for two thousand years.

This kind of language is fine for daily communication, but it will encounter many difficulties when used for scientific and cultural communication.

What's more, Albanian is based on the Greek alphabet.

In Constantine's view, with the breakthroughs and innovations in communication technology and transportation, and the convenience of information exchange, personnel movement, and material movement between Greece and Albania, Greek will eventually defeat Albanian.

Albanian, which is based on the Greek alphabet, is more like a dialect of Greek.

For nationalists, this is also a huge progress. During the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian language was allowed to be used in public education and publishing. Albanians struggled for decades but failed to achieve it.

Both sides have taken a step back and have partially achieved their goals.

First, slow down the Albanians, and wait until Greece digests the newly acquired land. The initiative will still be in Greece's hands.