Letters Albanian students sent to Wilson 100 years ago

Letters revealed after 100 years that 9 Albanian University of Vienna students sent to President Woodrow Wilson to help Albania at the Peace Conference.

The letter found in the Central State Archives was made public last night on the “Debat show at the One” Channel of journalist Roland Qafoku, dated December 15th 2018 and has been unknown to researchers and the public.

Written four pages in Albanian and English, students prayed to Wilson that prior to holding the Peace Conference in Paris help Albania, which had lost its independence.

After making a review of Albania's history, the suffering, injustice, the fragmentation, the persecution of the population, the students told Wilson that he remained the only salvation.

The students who wrote the letter and asked Wilson for only 15 minutes of precious time were: Remzi Bache, Jani Basha, H. Hiphzi, Nush Bushati, Jedvat Korca, Luigj Kakarrici, Xhidri Xival, Rak Buda, Fuad Aslan.

It was the moment that Albania had emerged from World War I without a state, and Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, had again divided between them, and practically Albania did not exist.

Meanwhile, Austro-Hungary, who had supported the establishment of the Albanian state, had emerged missing from the war and collapsed.

Under these circumstances, at the Peace Conference, it was certain that Albania would no longer exist.

Just at this critical moment of Albania's existence, 9 students became its saviors.

It was exactly what led Wilson to be initiated and really helped the fragile Albanian state.

Of course, they later have a very important contribution to the Albanian delegation, and especially the American Albanians under the direction of Fan Noley, but this letter served as tissue for the big turn.

After receiving the letter, President Wilson sent Ambassador Calvin Coolidge (later US President) to Vienna to meet with Albanian students.

Coolidge hosted these students at a castle on the outskirts of Vienna (1919) and declared to them that President Wilson's voice at the Peace Conference would be in their country's favour.

In 1920 these same students sent a note to the Peace Conference in Paris for these very reasons.

On the other hand, to see the situation in the country, he sent to Albania the US consul in Turin, Mr. Joseph Haven (1919), who visited South and Middle Albania, accompanied by patriot Tefik Mbre.

The report he sent to President Wilson was entirely in favour of Albania.

One of the most interesting passages of student letter sent to Wilson was when they addressed him and said: “sir! Please take this unfortunate nation under protection from Tuaj” on behalf of the Albanian nation and the Albanian nation.

Read below the complete letter of Albanian students to the American president
Mr. Woodrow W ILSON
President of the United States
Palais Murat, Paris é France
Mighty and honorable, sir.
We, signing Albanian students of Vienna University, Austria, receive the freedom to present ourselves with this letter to hear us the greatest and most righteous hearing of your Lord.
Today, when the fate of the world depends so much on Jush, when every single minute of your Lord will be occupied with tomorrow's affairs, many will naturally seem like unforgiving courage on the part of a handful of students of a non-company rather than heard to pray for a quarter hour from the precious time of your Lord.
Sir! In this storm of unexpected events, in these momentous days when kingdoms fall and throughout the new nations are resurrected, we have waited with vivid attention, and with daily hope, for a warning to our wretched homeland. But we seem to be completely forgotten, as if we belong to old history. Our despair robs us of everything when we consider the possibility of an unfair peace. We may be few, but we have decided and sworn under any conditions, what comes from the hand of our beloved country. He is all we have, all of whom we want to have the whole of whom we gladly give our lives.
As the greatest idealist of the century will be very easy for you, very honest Lord, to fully appreciate the purpose of our ambition; He's our ideal. Even as a master's master's master, all the enthusiastic truthfulness of youth can never be foreign to your Lord to believe the righteousness of our purpose.
Even from these conditions, we dare address the Lord Suaj humbly, the most hearing man of the century, who stands with his idea higher than all other people in the history of the civilized world, whose word, for the good fortune of mankind, is heavier than the world's opinion.
Sir! Please be patient with us to the end.
Mr. President! Will it be of no avail to count two, three points from the uncounted disasters of this land? Is there another nation on the surface of the ground that has been banned from the use of its native language? Five hundred years Shqip has been a banned language in Albania, so serious has been the yoke of foreign tyranny! Without this innocent gift of God, without this vivid tool of one nation's culture and progress, how could we have been required to keep up with the free world? However, thinking Europe expected this from us. And a second major disaster for Albania is the failure to follow a united religion to keep the national ideals on fire always burning in the hearts of the people. But despite these different beliefs and other confusions, Albanians have endured, revolted, and fought together for freedom as a nation with its traditions and language.
Most honorable Lord, we will try in every way not to misuse the patience of Mr. Suaj with unnecessary details and with a few words coming below may mention the historical era: National hero Skenderbeun, who for 24 years banned Turks, also fought valiantly against foreign invasion to protect ungrateful Europe with valuable Albanian blood (1443); Prizren's connection in 1879, which Ippen so beautifully equates with the Schwytz Canton Confederate, Ur and Unterwalden in 1307, even with the popular security committee that ruled France 1793 to 1795; Turkey's constitution, won by Albanians for all nations then under Turkey (1908); uprisings against the new Turkish, most despotic regime that could be 1909-10-11.
Sir! This older nation on the Balkan peninsula has always shown its vitality and has demanded the right to a national life, but our neighbours have been much stronger than we, we who tried in such afflictions. Even since our history left us in the Middle Ages in full darkness, Greek and Serbian politicians took the opportunity to deny the right to a political life for us. These went so far that they didn't see our geographical and ethnographic being; They believed that Western Europe and America should sing the confused Balkan jobs only according to their writings, even to look only Greek and Serbian eyes.
But, fortunately, storiesmen heard as Thalloczi and Jrecek (second, though a Slav itself) serving science, have confessed the right and proved to the rational world what Albania and the cerol were and Albanians played in general history. On the other hand, large politicians who have come into contact with Albania have also become the most powerful defenders of our case; for they have seen the truth and the injustice that is committed against us. Among them comes Mr. George Fred Williams, former United States minister in Athens who resigned in 1913 to protest Albania's poor use of major powers in Europe. The right will win, but we look for our grief, how many results our neighbours' efforts have been, in Europe and the West, and they don't care.
True, the London Conference on January 22, 1913, recognised Albania as a separate state, but it is saying 2/3 of the countries that, after justice, should be known as Albania, were allowed to suffer under foreign yoke. Serbs took all of Albanian Kosovo and tried every way to extinguish all non-Serbs in those countries. Montenegro grew twice as much as it was, only with Albanian and Albanian soil, where Montenegrins did not name 1/1000 of the natives.
Greece, on the other hand, was not satisfied with all of South Albania, also demanding a large piece of country as its right. An international committee visited the suspected areas and decided that they would, of course, remain Albania. But Greece disobeyed the committee's decision and arrangement, even to lie to the world, worked every kind of comedy with tragic finals in Korca and Gjirokastra, where active Greek soldiers, dressed by locals, fought against baby Albania.
Mr. President! If in the peace decision a nation is left unrecognized and used so unjustly, can peace ever be provided on that side of the world? Albania, as opposed to the London Conference, could never survive; there was death seed in its blood from its birth.
By this way, Lord, the world has so far used us cruelly, so we raise our voice to you as mankind's protector, knowing with certainty that participating in the United States under the righteous and honest guidance of the Lord Suaj, in the Peace Congress, justice will be fulfilled and Albanians having the right to veto the form of their government will have the permission, as a free nation, to enter the League of Nations.
Sir! Please take this unfortunate nation under your protection on behalf of the Albanian sun and the Albanian nation.
On behalf of Albanian students in Vienna
The lowly ones,
Cand. medGand. Bodenculture can. ing
It's all right. HIFSIA
Cand. Aye. Stud. hil. Cand. Export Academy
BUSHATI BUSHATI Dave KORCHAA Luigi KAKARRIQE
Stud. Inspirant pharm. Stud. ing
Raku BUDA Fuad ASLAN
Vienna, Austria
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