In 1993, shortly after diplomatic relations were re-established between Britain and Albania, an exhibition of photographs taken in Albania during the second world war opened in Tirana. The photographer was David Smiley, an officer with Special Operations Executive (soe), the agency Winston Churchill set up in 1940 with a mandate "to set Europe ablaze" by supporting anti-German partisans throughout the continent. Mr Smiley, then a captain, had been the first officer soe sent to Albania. His exhibition in the mausoleum of Enver Hoxha, the partisan leader who became Albania's lifelong dictator, was designed to counter the huge efforts Hoxha had made to efface every trace of Britain's wartime involvement in Albania.rnRoderick Bailey tells the story of soe's work in Albania in admirably balanced fashion, soe promised arms and gold to any group that was able and willing to fight the occupiers. But the Albanians were more focused on the post-war struggle for power. By the autumn of 1943 the three main resistance groups were attacking each other. Mr Bailey explains how the balance tipped increasingly towards the Communist-backed partisans, who by the spring of 1944 had become the strongest and most effective force in the country.
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