Cham Issue - Background

Background

In 1913, the area of Chameria, as the whole Southern Epirus came under Greek control. Cham Albanians were given no minority status and they were discriminated. Muslim Chams were counted as a religious minority, and some of them were transferred to Turkey, during the 1923 population exchange, while their property was alienated by the Greek government, this being a term of the Turkish-Greek peace agreement. Orthodox Cham Albanians were counted as Greeks, and their language and Albanian heritage were under pressure of assimilation.

During the Fascist regime Italy cultivated the irredentism by promising expansion of Albania towards Thesprotia prefecture as part of the creation of a "Greater Albania". Italy organized ethnic Albanians in tactical army units and fascist militia inside Albania and groups of spies, saboteurs and irregulars in Chameria. The latter had orders from Galeazzo Ciano to cause unrest in Chameria, while Italy was preparing for invasion in Greece in October 1940. In August 1940 the killing, possibly by Greek police, of an Albanian possibly acting as saboteur, was used by Italy as a pretext to worsen relations with Greece and as a tool of propaganda in Albania. When Italy started the invasion in Greeco on 28 October 1940 there were at least two battalions of Albanian fascist militia acting against the Greeks in the Korca area. Mussolini claimed publicly that two Albanian battalions were attached to each Italian division that invated Greece. During the German-Italian occupation of Greece (1941–1944) the Italians gained control of Greek Epirus and attempted to annex it to Albania but Germans did not allow it. However, a small district of Epirus came under the administration of Tirana
At the end of World War II, nearly all Muslim Chams in Greece were expelled to Albania. They had collaborated with occupation forces and decided to join the Greek resistance only after the summer of 1944 when it was clear that the Germans are withdrawing.