flush with victory from the occupation of Czechoslovakia,

Adolf Hitler resorted to the very same tactics this time against Poland.

He expected a similar outcome.

He got a world war.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century. Episode 314.

Here we go again.

I've realized that it's been a very long time since I've had anything to say about the nation of Albania. I told you the story of Albania gaining its independence from the

Ottoman Empire all the way back in episode 71. That was in 1912 on the eve of the Great War.

But since then, Albania has only received occasional passing mention here.

In particular, I didn't say anything about post-war Albania during our 1919 world tour,

a deplorable oversight. You would have thought that in a 40-episode

series, I could have found a few minutes to talk about Albania, but evidently not.

Albania was overrun by Austrian troops during the war, then recaptured by the Allies following the collapse of Bulgaria

shortly before the war's end, episode 167. Afterward, Albania was occupied by Italian and

Serbian soldiers. The British and French had promised to make Albania an Italian protectorate as one of the

inducements offered to get Italy to join the war, but the Paris Peace Conference refused to

fulfill that promise, and others, which induced the Italians to walk out for a while, and later

complained that their war victory had been mutilated.

Paris negotiators considered a plan to partition Albania between Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia,

or the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, as it was known at the time.

But Woodrow Wilson put the kibosh on that plan as well,

...