The Albanian Regiment () was a military unit of the First French Empire formed in 1807 in Corfu. Consisting mainly of Albanians, but also Greeks, Italians and Dalmatians, it was commanded by Colonel and served mainly as a defense unit in the French-ruled Ionian Islands. It was disbanded in 1814.
History Background The Albanian regiment traces its origins back to a previous Venetian regiment that was transferred to French service in 1797, along with an Albanian militia that was raised by the Russians in 1799 and that was transferred to the French in 1807.
In 1804, after the Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha of Ioannina conquered their homeland, some 3,000 Souliotes settled in the Ionian Islands, i.e. the islands of Corfu, Paxoi, Lefkada (Santa Maura), Ithaca, Cephalonia, Zakynthos (Zante) and Kythira (Cerigo), then comprising the Russian-dominated Septinsular Republic. In view of the rapprochement between the Ottoman Empire and Napoleon's French Empire, the Russians began to recruit the Souliotes, both for local defence, as well as for a potential offensive against Ali Pasha. Soon the Souliotes, along with Himariotes, Acarnanians, and Moreotes, were recruited into the Greek Legion, which was placed under the command of the Greek-born Russian Major-General Emmanouil Papadopoulos. In autumn 1805 the Greek Legion participated in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Naples, and in 1806 it fought against the French at the Bay of Kotor. However, in the Treaty of Tilsit, Russia returned the Septinsular Republic to France and the legion was disbanded on 30 August 1807. The majority of the legionnaires received recommendation letters from the Russian army and were recruited into the French Albanian Regiment under the condition of never fighting against Russia.
Establishment The return of French rule found some 3,000 Albanian armed members of the Legion and other Greek military formations in the Ionian Islands. As they were mostly recruited from mainland refugees, they posed a problem for the new authorities. To keep them disciplined and maintain order, the new French Governor-General, César Berthier, recruited these men into French service, but the exact manner of their employment was left open. Berthier initially suggested creating independent Greco-Albanian companies to serve alongside regular French line infantry regiments as skirmishers () or light mountain infantry (), and even proposed that two such companies be attached to the royal guards of Napoleon and his brother Joseph Bonaparte, the King of Naples.
This plan was soon shelved, and Berthier decided to form a single corps, under the command of Christakis Kalogeros from Preveza. This choice provoked much opposition from the former Legion members, however. This agitation may have resulted in part because the Souliotes, whose loyalty was determined by ties of kinship rather than any formal military hierarchy, were unwilling to accept being subordinated to a commander not of their own clan. The French scholar Auguste Boppe also adds an element of ethnic rivalry, since the Souliotes were Albanian-speakers and Kalogeros was Greek, but this is unlikely to be the main reason when the Greek Papadopoulos had commanded the same men for over two years. A prominent member of the corps, Christoforos Perraivos, provides an entirely different explanation in his memoirs, whereby Kalogeros had incurred the enmity of his fellow officers after denouncing his previous allegiance to the Russian Emperor to the French. The Souliotes in particular saw this as contrary to their code of honour; according to Perraivos, having once sworn allegiance to the Tsar, they intended to honour that promise, and insisted that they would fight for the French against all enemies, except Russia.
The French authorities initially tended to view this mutiny with hostility, and the difficulty of dealing with the intransigent former Legion members led to Berthier having a very low opinion of them. In the end, on 12 December, the French established the Albanian Regiment () with a nominal strength of 3,254 men in three battalions of nine companies each, and a 14-member command staff. The terms 'Greek' and 'Albanian' were used somewhat indiscriminately by the French at the time—the Albanian Regiment included Albanians, among whom Souliotes and Himariotes, as well as mainland Greeks, and even Dalmatians and Italians.
The first three battalion commanders were the Moreote Anagnostaras, the Himariote Konstantinos Androutsis (a veteran of the Neapolitan Army), and Kalogeros, although by February 1808 he was replaced by the Souliote Fotos Tzavellas. To command the regiment, the French chose Colonel , a veteran of the campaigns of Italy and Egypt, who approached his task with zeal and diligence, investigating the qualities and loyalties of each of the officers under his command. However, the French failed to attach to the regiment any Greek officers serving in the French regular regiments, who might have been able to better handle matters of discipline, language, and customs, and help integrate the unit better with the regular forces. In part this is probably due to the relative scarcity of such men in the French army, unlike the Russians who had a longer history of Greeks serving in their army.
Kalogeros was moved to command the eight companies of Greek Foot Chasseurs (), also known as Pandours of Albania (), comprising eight companies with 951 men in total. According to the historian Nicholas Pappas, their creation may have been solely a means of separating the supporters of Kalogeros from his opponents within the Albanian Regiment. At any rate, this distinction did not last long, for the were again amalgamated into the Albanian Regiment in July 1809. In its new form, the Albanian Regiment numbered 150 officers and 2,934 other ranks in six battalions, an organization very similar to that of the former Legion. Each battalion was placed under the command of a prominent chieftain: Konstantinos Androutsis, Christos Kalogeros, Fotos Tzavellas, Christakis Kalogeros, Kitsos Botsaris, and Anagnostaras. Surviving lists of the members of the battalion of Fotos Tzavellas show that, in line with Souliote customs, the officers were drawn from the main members of his clan and allied or related families. Auguste Boppe mentions that the regiment had a chaplain (Arsenio Yanucco from the Morea) and a surgeon (Ducca Zappa).
Service
From the outset, the Albanian Regiment was intended for garrison duties on the Ionian Islands, so as to minimize the need to deploy French troops, apart from Corfu itself. For this purpose, the Regiment was complemented by the 'Septinsular Battalion' (), drawn from the native militia of the Ionian Islands, and a 146-strong cavalry unit, the 'Ionian Horse Chasseurs' (). From 1809, to these were added the remnants of the earlier regiment of Greek volunteers.
Plans for employment against Ali Pasha As their relations with Ali Pasha deteriorated over his ambitions against the mainland exclave of Parga, the French twice considered using the men of the Regiment to against the mainland, but nothing came of these plans. The first and more ambitious plan is related in the memoirs of the Greek chieftain Theodoros Kolokotronis, subsequently one of the main leaders of the Greek War of Independence: the Albanian Regiment, along with French artillerymen and Cham Albanians to be recruited by his Muslim Albanian blood brother, Ali Farmaki, were to land in the Morea and overthrow Ali Pasha's son Veli Pasha. In his place they would install a joint Christian-Muslim government, while the French mediated with the Porte to secure its approval. According to Kolokotronis, the plan was about to be carried out in 1809, when it was thwarted by the British occupation of Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Kythira, and Ithaca.
The second attempt involved a detachment of 25 men of the Regiment, under Lt. Colonel Androutsis, who were sent to aid the Himariotes against Ali Pasha's forces in October 1810. Their ship foundered near Porto Palermo, however, and when attacked by Ali's forces, they were captured and taken prisoner to his capital, Ioannina. According to Pappas, this expedition may have been a reconnoitring action in view of then current French designs for an invasion of the Balkans. The French applied diplomatic pressure to have Androutsis and his men released, but Androutsis was found dead, allegedly after falling from his cell window, just after the French secured his release. Ali Pasha was also suspected to be behind the deaths of Fotos Tzavellas, who died on 4 November 1810 of a sudden illness, as well as the murder of Kitsos Botsaris by Gogos Bakolas in Arta in 1813. According to Souliote custom, Tzavellas was succeeded in his rank and command by his twenty-year old firstborn son, Nikolaos Tzavellas. The rapid rise of the young man to this post over older and more experienced men, caused problems both with the other officers and men, and with Colonel Minot. In the end, in December Nikolaos was replaced by the veteran Thanasis Fotomaras.
British landings on the southern Ionian Islands and defections In October 1809, the British attacked and captured Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Kythira, and Ithaca. These islands were defended by small garrisons, with a few dozen regular French soldiers and larger numbers of men of the Albanian Regiment (400 on Zakynthos, 145 on Cephalonia, 46 on Ithaca, and 27 on Kythira) on each island. These forces were completely inadequate to offer anything but a token resistance; the captured men were transferred to Italy as prisoners of war, but more than a few of the Regiment's men—up to about half in Zakynthos—simply scattered into the countryside and resumed their traditional guerrilla habits. Most of these escapees, as well as those taken prisoner, were soon induced to enter British service in what eventually became the 1st Regiment Greek Light Infantry. Over 70% of the Albanian Regiment's men on the four islands switched to the British, including most of the officers.
Fall of Lefkada
These defections made the French increasingly distrustful towards the remaining men of the Regiment, doubts which were enhanced further after the entire detachment of 823 men on Lefkada, apart from 13 men the French held as hostages, defected to the British when the latter landed there in March 1810. The remaining officers of the Regiment justified this desertion by the neglect shown to their colleagues by the local French commander, General Camus, who had retired with his French troops to the Castle of Santa Maura, while leaving the Albanian Regiment men outside to confront the British. This decision not only left the lightly equipped men of the Albanian Regiment exposed to the elements, but Camus also refused to give shelter to their families in the fortress. Indeed, from the reports of the British and the memoirs of the Greeks already enlisted to fight in their ranks, it is clear that the men of the Albanian Regiment resisted the initial offer to defect, and only surrendered after their situation had become hopeless. After the fall of Lefkada, Colonel Kitsos Botsaris, as the senior native Regiment officer, was court-martialled on suspicion of contacts with the British, but acquitted.
Departure of Minot and reduction of the Regiment Nevertheless, these events led Napoleon to order the splitting of the Regiment in October 1810, with 1,000 men kept in the remaining French possessions (Corfu, Paxoi, and Parga on the mainland) and the rest either sent with their families to serve in southern Italy or to return them to the mainland. This decision was not implemented, as neither the Neapolitan government was willing to accept them, nor did the members of the Regiment accept being moved to Italy, citing their previous terms of service agreed with the Russians and confirmed by General Berthier.