Italy finances the Albanian army

1936

From 1936 to 1939 the Albanian army was mainly financed by Italy. Zog had dismissed Italian military advisers in the early 1930s, but the reconciliation of 1936 restored and deepened the dependence. The army that failed to resist the invasion of April 1939 was one Rome had been paying for. This is the sharpest single fact about the end of the reign and it is rarely stated plainly: the invader had funded the defending army for the preceding three years.