[1] The existence of the self-declared principality was also opposed by both Fascist Italy[3] and Nazi Germany,[4] as well as by the Greek collaborationist government[5] and by fascist-ruled Romania.

When the 11th Army occupied the areas in 1941, their commanders received orders by Palazzo Chigi (the seat of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time) to survey each village recording their ethnicity and its attitude towards the occupiers, finding that most Aromanians absorbed and assimilated into the Greek community with the exception of some groups who were recorded as anti-Bulgarian, anti-Greek, pro-Italian and pro-Romanian.

[11] After the fall of Greece to the Germans in spring 1941 and the division of the country among the Axis powers, Alcibiades Diamandi created a collaborationist organisation known as the Roman Legion with the support of the Italian occupation authorities and promoted the idea of an Aromanian canton or semi-independent state, called several decades later by the name "Principality of Pindus" that would encompass northwestern Greece.

[5] In reality Italian "military authorities refused to permit any form of self-administration by the Aromanians in the awareness that their irredentist aspirations, or appeals for annexation to Italy, were a masquerade by a minority movement seeking political and economic revenge".

[6] From mid-1942 on, the armed Greek Resistance made its presence felt, fighting against the Italians and their collaborators and the leader of the Roman Legion, Diamandi, left for Romania in July 1942, to be allegedly followed by his second in command and successor Nicolaos Matussis.