Essad Toptani was born in 1863 in Tirana, Ottoman Empire (modern Republic of Albania), the son of Ali Toptani and Vasfije Alizoti.[4] He was a member of the Toptani family, a prominent landowning Albanian noble family who helped found the current city of Tirana.[5] From his mothers side of the family he was first cousins with Aqif Pasha Biçakçiu and his family as both their mothers were sisters. During Ottoman rule, Toptani served as a kaymakam and had command of the gendarmerie in Tirana.[6] In 1908 Janina, he joined the Young Turks and the Ottoman parliament.[4][7] In the aftermath of the 31 March incident, on 27 April 1909 four CUP members went to inform Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) of his dethronement, with Toptani being the main messenger saying "the nation has deposed you".[6] As a result, the focus of the sultan's rage was toward Toptani whom Abdul Hamid II felt had betrayed him.[6] The sultan referred to him as a "wicked man", given that the extended Toptani family had benefited from royal patronage in gaining privileges and key positions in the Ottoman government.[6]
In 1912 during the Albanian revolt and aftermath of the Ottoman parliamentary elections, parliamentarians Toptani and Syrja Vlora represented the Albanian side in a parliamentary discussion with the Young Turks.[8] Both called for the cessation of government force and implementation of good governance to alleviate the situation in Albanian lands.[9] Amidst the Albanian Revolt of 1912 Toptani obliged himself to organize the uprising in Central Albania and Mirdita.[10] On 30 January 1913, Hasan Riza Pasha, commander of Shkodër, was ambushed and killed by unknown men disguised as women,[11] thought to be Osman Bali and Mehmet Kavaja,[12] two Albanian officers of Toptani.[11] Riza Pasha wanted to keep up the defense of the besieged city, and after his death Toptani continued his resistance until April 1913. He turned the fortress of Shkodër over to Montenegro, only in April 1913 after a prolonged war and great heroism of Albanian and Turkish soldiers.
In July 1913, he was persuaded by the Vlora family to accept a position of minister of the interior in the provisional government.
Peasant Revolt
Toptani led a faction of his own in the Peasant Revolt against Prince Wilhem.
On 19 May 1914, when Toptani refused to lay down his weapons, armed forces under Dutch gendarmerie officer Johan Sluys surrounded and shelled his house in Durrës, forcing him to surrender. He was arrested for conspiracy, though after consultations with Wilhelm, he was not court-martialled but sent to Bari in southern Italy and banned from returning to Albania.[13][14]
Exile and the Treaty of Niš
Toptani in Salonika
After the outbreak of the First World War, Toptani travelled to Niš, Kingdom of Serbia, where he and Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić signed the secret Treaty of Niš on 17 September 1914.[15] With Italian and Serbian financial backing, he established armed forces, Toptani invaded Dibër on 20 September, and by 3 October 1914 he had taken Durrës without a fight. Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić ordered that his followers be aided with money and arms.[2]
Toptani's rule was not stable because of the First World War. At the end of 1914, Essad secretly agreed with the Greek government to support the annexation of the southern provinces, known to Greeks as Northern Epirus, to the Kingdom of Greece.[16] During the Serbian army’s retreat through Albania in 1915, troops under Toptani's command gave support and protection to the Serbian column where possible.[17]
Edith Durham described Toptani as "a strange relic of the middle ages ... one with the handsome swashbucklers who sold themselves and their services to the rival monarchs, princelings and dukes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and cheerfully transferred themselves to the enemy if he offered better pay – men in whom the sense of nationality was not developed at all, and whose sense of honor was, to put it mildly, deficient."
Perception
Toptani is remembered among Albanians as one of the most negative historical figures and the symbol of treason.[22][23][24]
^Pettifer, James (1 June 2001). "Ihsan Bey Toptani". Retrieved 5 December 2014. The Toptani family were in many ways the founders of contemporary Tirana
^Heaton-Armstrong, Duncan (2005). "An Uprising in the Six-Month Kingdom". Gervase Belfield and Bejtullah Destani (I.B. Tauris, in association with the Centre for Albanian Studies). Archived from the original on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2011. Essad would be sent into exile, without a trial.
^George B. Leon. Greece and the First World War: From Neutrality to Intervention, 1917–1918. East European Monographs, 1990, ISBN978-0-88033-181-4, p. 358: "In return, Essad reconfirmed a promise he had made in the fall of 1914 to support Greece's annexation of North Epirus. However, while he was willing to come to a secret agreement with the Greek government on this question, he indicated that in order to be able to counterbalance the weight of the common adversary, that is Italy, and to stabilize his influence in Albania he could not recognize publicly Greece's claim."
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