Unwilling to become an Italian puppet, King Zog, his wife, Queen Geraldine Apponyi, and their infant son Skander fled to Greece and eventually to London.

Upon invading, Galeazzo Ciano tried to reinforce an impression of benevolence with a number of initial gestures aimed more at public relations than at addressing any of Albania's profound social and economic problems.

[15] Faced with an agrarian and mostly Muslim society monitored by King Zog's security police, Albania's Communist movement attracted few adherents in the interwar period.

Born in 1908 to a Tosk landowner from Gjirokastër who returned to Albania after working in the United States, Hoxha attended the country's best college-preparatory school, the National Lycée in Korçë.

In his memoirs published in 1984, British Special Operations Executive David Smiley wrote: "Mehmet Shehu was a short, wiry, dark sallow-faced man of about thirty who seldom smiled except at other people's misfortunes.

Initially the Albanian Fascist Party received support from the population, mainly because of the unification of Kosovo and other Albanian-populated territories with Albania proper after the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece by the Axis powers in the spring 1941.

Several groups were led by Baba Faja Martaneshi, former gendarmerie officer Gani bey Kryeziu, communist Mustafa Gjinishi, and rightist politician Muharrem Bajraktari.

An attempt to unite those groups in one organization was undertaken by Major Abaz Kupi, by now a democratic politician, who created an underground organisation called the Unity Front.

Originally the slogan of building the "Greater Albania", into which the Italians promised to incorporate a substantial part of Greek Epirus (Cameria), allowed collaborationist authorities to mobilise several thousand volunteers for the army (besides regular troops).

The collapse of the Italian offensive in Greece caused a crisis among the regular troops, who refused to take part in further fights, as well as in volunteer units, which dispersed; some soldiers made for the mountains.

On 17 May 1941 in Tirana a young man called Vasil Laçi attempted to assassinate king Victor Emmanuel III by shooting at him.

During the war, the NLM's Communist-dominated partisans, in the form of the National Liberation Army, ignored warnings from the Italian occupiers that there would be reprisals for guerrilla attacks.

On 17 May, twelve partisan detachments under the homogeneous command carried out an attack on the Italian garrison in Leskovik, which protected an important road junction.

[20] The NLM formally established the National Liberation Army (NLA) in July 1943 with Spiro Moisiu as its military chief and Enver Hoxha as its political officer.

The Butka group had been giving valuable assistance to the fighters at Vlorë and had recovered from the military depots in the villages of Dardhe, Suli, Gračani, Progri, Pleshishti, and Verbinj all the agricultural production (corn, tobacco, wool, etc.)

[22] The fighting that took place with general commander Hysni Lepenica during August 1942 in Dukat, Mavrovë, Vadicë, Drashovicë and Llakatund [sq; pl] with the help of Allied aviation resulted in victory.

[23] At the battle of Gjorm that resulted in a decisive victory for the Albanians and the death of Italian Colonel Clementi, Lepenica committed suicide when he heard that clashes between the Communists and Ballists had started.

Fearing reprisals from larger forces, the Balli Kombëtar made a deal with the Germans and formed a "neutral government" in Tirana with which it continued its war with the LNC and the Yugoslav Partisans.

With the overthrow of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime and Italy's surrender in 1943, the Italian military and police establishment in Albania buckled.

In August 1943, the Allies convinced communist and Balli Kombëtar leaders to sign the Mukje Agreement that would coordinate their guerrilla operations.

The communists supported returning the region to Yugoslavia after the war with the hope that Tito would cede Kosovo back to Albania peacefully, while the nationalist Balli Kombëtar advocated keeping the province.

The British military mission urged the remnants of the nationalists not to oppose the communists' advance, and the Allies recalled their representatives with them to Italy.

The NLF's strong links with Yugoslavia's communists, who also enjoyed British military and diplomatic support, guaranteed that Belgrade would play a key role in Albania's postwar order.

The Allies never recognized an Albanian government in exile or King Zog and failed to raise the question of Albania or its borders at any of the major wartime conferences.

Most of them were sent to concentration camps or for forced labour in Albania in the service of the German army, and there were also mass killings of Italian officers, mostly from the Perugia Division centred in Gjirokastër.

There were also other small groups of Wehrmacht deserters dispersed among Albanian partisan forces, composed of Germans, Austrians, Frenchmen, Czechs and Poles.

[41] Thereafter, no attempt was made to contact Albanian resistance groups until 17 April 1943,[42] when M.O.4, a branch of the liaison organisation SOE, dispatched a mission commanded by Lieutenant Colonel "Billy" MacLean, with Major David Smiley as his second-in-command.

The bulk of the stores received in this and subsequent drops were donated to the NLM, who were the dominant group in Southern Albania, and were used to equip the "First Partisan Brigade".

The new commander was Brigadier Edmund Frank Davies of the Royal Ulster Rifles (nicknamed "Trotsky" at Sandhurst because of the "disciplined bolshevism" in his character),[44] with Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Nicholls as Chief of Staff.

Brigadier Davies was captured, while Lieutenant Colonel Nicholls died of exposure and post-operative shock after leading the survivors to safety.