[9] Pro-Ottoman Muslim landowners and priests supported Essad Pasha Toptani, who remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and maintained close contacts with the government in Istanbul.

[10] A plot by the Young Turk government and led by Bekir Fikri to restore Ottoman control over Albania through the installment of an Ottoman-Albanian officer Ahmed Izzet Pasha as monarch was uncovered by the Serbs and reported to the ICC.

[14][11][15] The International Control Commission (ICC), an organisation temporarily administering Albania on behalf of the Great Powers allowed their Dutch officers serving as the Albanian Gendarmerie to declare a state of emergency and stop the plot.

[12][11][16] During Fikri's trial the plot emerged and an ICC military court under Colonel Willem de Veer condemned him to death[16] and later commuted to life imprisonment,[12] while Qemali and his cabinet resigned.

Austria and Italy supported the intentions of Ismai Qemali and his government to create a state whose territory would span all areas populated by Albanians, including Kosovo, parts of Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece.

[19] In his work, Memorandum on Albania, Essad Pasha Toptani denied that Qemali's government was legitimate, writing that it was "the personal creation of a number of men.