The Conference of Ambassadors in London, held in 1912-1913 and otherwise known as the "London Peace Conference", was an international meeting of the six Great Powers of that time: Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Italy.
These powers were assembled in December 1912 as a result of the successes of the armies of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War. In particular, the conference tried to play the role of arbiter between the warring powers on the issue of land distribution and also determined the future of Albania, which declared independence during the First Balkan War.
The London conference was attended by delegates from the countries of the Balkan League, including the Ottoman Empire and Greece, which had not signed an armistice. The conference began proceedings in December 1912 at St James's Palace under the direction of Sir Edward Grey.
Other sessions of the conference continued on December 16, 1912, but were interrupted without any conclusion on January 23, 1913, when a coup d'état took place in the Ottoman Empire. On 30 May 1913, the conference resumed proceedings and signed the Treaty of London, an agreement whereby the Ottoman Empire relinquished all territories west of the Enos-Midia border.
After many discussions, on July 29, 1913, the ambassadors made a formal decision to recognize the Principality of Albania as a sovereign state independent from the Ottoman Empire.
as a result of pressure from Greece and Serbia, the conference took decisions that affected half of the territory of independent Albania, inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians, and about 30% of Albanians remained far from the borders of the newly created Albanian state. 40 percent of the Albanian population was left outside the borders of the Principality of Albania. In particular, the Vilayet of Kosovo was given to Serbia and Chameria to Greece.
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The London Conference, December 17, 1912 and the fate of Albania
A special commission was commissioned to determine the Albanian-Greek border. As it was impossible to study the ethnographic maps, the decision taken by the conference was based on strategic, economic and political arguments.
This decision gave Greece Southern Epirus, a land historically inhabited by ethnic Albanians. Although they took a lot of land inhabited by Albanians, the Balkan allies remained dissatisfied with the congress, and immediately started the Second Balkan War.
Below you can see the map of the proposal of the Albanian government, the proposal of France, Russia and the established Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro) as well as the decision taken by the conference of ambassadors. /KsP.
