After the Prince's acceptance of the candidacy offered him by the Powers, I received him in the presence of the Chancellor. A certain irresolution in the bearing of the Prince, who contemplated his new task with anything but enthusiasm, strengthened the resolve in me and the Chancellor to try hard once more to dissuade the young candidate from ascending the recently invented Albanian "throne." But in vain. The ambitious, mystically excited wife of the Prince saw in Albania the fulfillment of her wishes. And "ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut" ("what woman wishes, God wishes").
Carmen Sylva [the Queen of Rumania] also worked toward having him accept; she went so far, in fact, as to publish an article in the newspapers beginning "Fairyland Wants Its Prince."
So even the best meant warnings were useless. I had also strongly advised the Prince not to go to Albania before the settlement of the financial question, since the reasons which had led me to suggest the selection of a rich ruler now came to the fore. The Prince was not very wealthy and the Powers had to supply him with a "donation," concerning the amount of which, and the method of paying it by installments, an unpleasant quarrel arose. At last a part payment was made.
Danger lurked for the Prince and his eventual Government in the person of Essad Pasha, an unreliable, intriguing, greedy soldier of fortune, who himself had designs on the Albanian throne and held sway over a certain number of armed adherents. From the start he was an opponent of the new Prince and he plotted secretly with Italy, which was not favorably inclined toward the Prince of Wied. Now, it would have been quite natural and a matter of course if the new ruler had taken with him in his suite men from Germany whom he knew and who were faithful to him. But he did not. An Englishman and an Italian were attached to his person as "secretaries" and they had nothing better to do than to work against his interests, to give him bad advice and to intrigue against him.
REQUIREMENTS OF A RULER
During the time that the Prince of Wied was making his preparations the excellently written pamphlet of an Austrian General Staff officer, dealing with his travels in Albania, appeared. The officer described, in a lively and clear style, the geographical and climatic drawbacks, the population and customs, the general poverty and backwardness of the land.
He pointed out that a future ruler of the land must in no circumstances reside on the coast, but must show himself to the inhabitants and travel about in the country. Owing to the primitive means of transportation, he went on, the lord of the land must sit all day on horseback and ride through his domain, having at his saddle bow the famous "bag of sequins" mentioned in all Oriental tales and legends, in order to sway public opinion in his favor in the places visited by the expected shower of gold. The ruler must be sure, the author continued, to bind some of the clans of the region closely to himself, so as to have at his beck and call an armed force for asserting his will and overcoming any opponents wishing to rebel, since this was the only way to maintain his power, in view of the utter lack of "troops" or an "army" in the European sense of the word.
This meant that the ruler of Albania must lead at first a nomadic, horseback life, and, in addition, provide himself with a wandering camp, with tents and other accessories and the necessary horses. Plenty of men adapted to this sort of life might have been found in his squadron of the Third Guard Uhlan Regiment, since many of his Uhlans, who were very fond of the Prince, had declared that they were ready to accompany him as volunteers. Surely, they would have served him better and been more useful to him than what he did in preparing to take over the overlordship of Albania, without knowledge of the country.
I advised my cousin urgently to study this pamphlet and to follow its recommendations, especially with regard to his residence, which should be fixed at some point as far as possible from the warships of the Powers, in order that he might not be forced to act under their pressure and arouse suspicion among the Albanians that their ruler needed these ships for protection against his subjects. Did the Prince ever read the pamphlet? In any event, the course adopted by him subsequently was contrary to its advice and the advice given him by me.
The Prince and his wife journeyed to Albania, and things turned out as I had foreseen. According to reports describing the arrival of the sovereign couple, the Princess, although she was a German, addressed the assembled Albanians from her balcony in French, since they understood no German! The "court" remained at Durazzo under the guns of the foreign ships. The Prince did not travel on horseback through the land, nor did he scatter gold sequins about—not even from his balcony on the day of his arrival—nor did he push Essad out of the way. So the adventure ended as one might imagine.