ABSTRACT
The first year of the Second World War found four of the Southeast European governments with close trade ties with Germany but still resisting the military missions that would tie them to the German war effort. Albania was already absorbed into the German-led Axis war effort after the Italian invasion and annexation in April 1939. King Zog had fled to Greece, and the occupying regime proclaimed a personal union with Albania under the Italian royal family. The other royal regimes were still in power but faced domestic challenges to their authoritarian rule along with growing German pressure.
