ABSTRACT
Albania was the only European state with a Muslim majority; 70 per cent of Albanians were Muslim, 20 per cent Orthodox and 10 per cent Catholic. The population after the first world war was 92 per cent Albanian. But if Albania was one of the most ethnically homogeneous of states in eastern Europe, it was also the most backward. Four-fifths of the population were illiterate; in 1919 the only working motorised vehicles in the country were three dilapidated Ford trucks left behind by allied troops; in 1927 the country had one hundred trained doctors, twenty-one dentists, and fifty-nine pharmacists, whilst the districts of Dibër and Kosovë had hospitals but no doctors; in 1939 only 1.5 per cent of the population were engaged primarily in manufacturing industry.
