The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-14
KING IF ALBANIA
 TELLS HOW AUSTRIA
 OFFERED HIM DR|BE
Would Have Paid Him $200,- 900 Yearly for Support of Central Powers
 in War

Athens, September 4-(Special Corre- spondence of the Associated Press. )-Es- sad Pasha, the ruler of Albania, who Is Saloniki front and who will cast the vote of Albania at the peace congress. today gave representative of the Associated Press one of the secret chapters of the outbreak of the European war which has not before been disclosed-that Austria Hungary, wishing to divide the Balkan states and turn them against Servia and the entente allies offered him life pen- sion of s200,000 a year if he would pro- claim Albania as an ally of the central powers
 The proposal was rejected with con- tempt. Essad Pasha said. He dismissed the representative of Austria Hungary from Durazzo. the Albania capital, and soon thereafter declared war against Austria Hungary and all it's allies He felt then as he feels now, that the in- terest of Albania was with the entenu, allies as the defenders and upholders of small nations, and he preferred that with all the hardships of war which he has since experienced, rather than the luxury and leisure which Austrian diplomacy held out to him as the price of Albania s leading the Balkan states into the Ger manic camp.
 STRIKING FIGURE
 Essad Pasna was a striking figure as he related this incident in the course of talk on Albania's part in the war, and what they are looking forward to at the end of the war. He had just come from the Saloniki front for a short ogf o,d fo fav rxrtf1 icrI 1ffio oJ.1l here and at Paris He was in full uni- form of tan gray, fitting snugly after the French form. The red facings on the collar showed the stars of his high con- mand, for as ruler of Albania he is commander in chief of the army and navy, with the status of a sovereign accompanying his troops. On his breast was the cross of war placed there only a few days ago by General Sarrail. the French commander of all the entente forces on this front. His dark face and black eyes and mustache give him rath- CT a fierce look, refiecting the adventur- ous life he has led-a sort of Rob Roy of the Ralkans-once one of the Abdul Hamid's most trustly generals, through score of bloody campaigns, and now the ruler of Albania with the casting vote of that sovereign state in the final peace congress.
 Essad Pasha was asked as to the CnarSe that AlaDdnla IS pachWaru anu semi harbarous and not entitled to be ranked as an independent nationality.
 That is usually the charge said he, when powerful nations have political designs and ambitions on small states. The first charge always is that the small state is not capable Of looking after itself and needs some strong nation to watch over it. That is the preliminary to absorption and conquest. Albania has naturally attracted the covetous eyes of some of the stronger powers. It has a great sea front lying along the eastern Adriatic, with ports and harbors which are of great strategic and commercial advantage to any power which possessed them.
 That is doubtless one of the reasons that Albania is often represented as backward, needing some powerful neigh boring state to look after her. It has always been one of the favorite methods for political extension and conquest in the Balkans. Austria felt that Bosnia and Herzegovina were not capable of