On April 27, 1938 , the wedding ceremony of Ahmet Zogu and Geraldine Apponyi took place in Tirana. This was the most marked holiday of the monarchy in its fall and on the eve of the fascist aggression. On this occasion, the court spent large sums from the budget, which further aggravated the state’s financial situation, which was already very bad. The Italians had proposed to him to marry an Italian princess. Eventually, he decided to marry a girl from a noble Hungarian catholic family, with Geraldine Apponyi, a beautiful 17-year-old girl who had arrived in Tirana months ago and became engaged to the King. They communicated with each other in German. On the eve of the wedding, events in Europe took a turn for the worse. Nazi Germany invaded Austria, even with Italy’s blessing. Now it would be Albania’s turn, especially since it was completely unprotected by the Western Powers. Ahmet Zogu’s wedding was quiet even though it could be called magnificent for the conditions in which Albania was. The Italians at this moment suppressed their anger that the King did not marry an Italian woman and that he did not heed their advice. They were forced to make a “friendly” gesture to respect the importance and solemnity of the event, sending a delegation of dignitaries to the wedding ceremony, headed by Galeazzo Ciano, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was also the first witness at the wedding. The wedding ceremony took place under the direction of the vice president of the Albanian parliament. Ahmet Zogu only had a civil marriage and put on his head, together with Geraldine, the crown with the emblem of Skanderbeg. The wedding took place in the royal palace in a fabulous way for the conditions of the country and was accompanied by a magnificent ball. It was attended by the country’s aristocracy, the entire royal family and people close to it, as well as the diplomatic corps, friends and foreign guests. Gifts on this occasion flowed like a river. With these gifts only, the royal family could afford a normal life for several decades.The best gift to the royal couple was given by Adolf Hitler, who gave them, among others, a luxury “Mercedes” car. The Italian friends, with Galeazzo Ciano at the head, sat at the wedding as if on thorns. They learned that in Tirana and in the country there were many unpleasant thoughts about Italy, that there was an anti-Italian atmosphere, even an open hatred. This and the German gifts completely spoiled the mood of the Foreign Minister, strengthened his previous doubts that the Germans would not be against Albania being included in their zone of influence. Germany had not yet given its approval for Italy’s invasion of Albania. During all these years of the Italian-German alliance, the Nazi government had never let it be understood that Albania belonged to Italy. On the contrary, the with the increasingly deeper penetration into the South-Eastern Europe and the Balkans and the lively economic and political activity in this area, one could think the opposite. Ciano returned to Rome at the end of April, enraged and full of hatred for Ahmet Zogu and his men, but more worried by the unrestrained German penetration into Central Europe (the invasion of Austria). After reporting to his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini , about the situation in Albania and the necessity of speeding up the aggression against it, he immediately sat down to draw up a definite plan of this aggression, which he also valued as a work of personal ambition. (In the photo: The Royal Family on their wedding day.)
Text : History of the Albanian people – Vol. III , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Toena”, Tirana, 2007, page 353-354.
Photo: © National Renaissance and Albanian Independence in the National Historical Museum , Tirana, 2021, page 210.
Graphic processing: AHCF
