Corfu Canal Incident

The Strait of Corfu, crossed by the Greek-Albanian border

The Strait of Corfu today from the north with Saranda on the left and Corfu on the right

The Corfu Canal Incident refers to three independent incidents in which ships of the Royal Navy were damaged in the Strait of Corfu in 1946. The Royal Navy suffered the highest loss of life since World War II . The incident is considered an early Cold War episode .

During the first incident, Royal Navy ships were shot at from Albanian fortifications. In the second incident, Royal Navy ships were damaged by sea mines , killing 44 British seamen. The third incident occurred when the Royal Navy cleared sea mines in the Strait of Corfu in Albanian territorial waters , which sparked protests by the Albanian government at the United Nations . This series of incidents led to the Corfu Canal case , a complaint brought by the United Kingdom against the People's Socialist Republic of Albania before the International Court of Justice . Because of the incident, London broke off talks with Tirana about establishing diplomatic relations in 1946 . It was not until 1991 that the two states established diplomatic relations.

procedure

The HMS Orion was shot at in the first incident

The damaged HMS Volage after the second incident

The HMS Saumarez suffered the worst damage in the second incident and had the most casualties

The light cruiser HMS Mauritius was present at the second incident

The light cruiser HMS Leander was also part of the flotilla of the second incident

Shelling on May 15, 1946

The incident began on May 15, 1946 when the Royal Navy's two ships, HMS Orion and HMS Superb, were sailing through the Strait of Corfu, which had previously been inspected and cleared. During the passage they were under fire from fortifications on the Albanian coast. Even if the ships were not damaged and no one was injured, the UK formally requested an immediate and public apology from the Albanian government . However, no apology was given and the Albanian government alleged that British ships had entered Albanian waters. The ships were not recognized as British, they only hoisted the flag after the shelling. On May 21, the Albanians wrote to London that it was hoped that this unfortunate incident would not ruin relations with the allied Great Britain and would not prevent the establishment of diplomatic relations and the further expansion of friendship.

On May 17th, the Albanian General Staff announced that no ship should cross Albanian territorial waters without prior notice and permission to do so, which the British rejected as unacceptable. This action was justified by the Greek declaration that it was at war with Albania and the penetration of Greek ships into Albanian waters. The Albanologist Owen Pearson described the Albanian fears of a Greek invasion in southern Albania as entirely justified.

Disasters caused by sea mines on October 22, 1946

The second incident was by far the most serious. On October 22, 1946, a Royal Navy flotilla consisting of the cruisers HMS Mauritius and HMS Leander and the destroyers HMS Saumarez and HMS Volage was ordered north through the Strait of Corfu with the express order that the Albanian response to the claim of the right of to test peaceful passage . The crews were instructed to fire back in an attack.

The ships passed near the Albanian coast in a zone that had been assessed to be mine-free. HMS Mauritius led the flotilla, HMS Saumarez followed closely. HMS Leander and HMS Volage were about three kilometers behind. The HMS Saumarez ran into a mine near the Bay of Saranda at 14:53. The ship was badly damaged amidships under the bridge and fire broke out in the oil tank. The destroyer HMS Volage , about one and a half kilometers away , received the order to tow the HMS Saumarez into the port of Corfu .

At 16:31 h the HMS Volage also ran into a mine and was badly damaged. The bow of the HMS Volage was completely blown away. Despite the damage and the fire that broke out, she towed the HMS Saumarez , but had to drive with the stern ahead, with the towing journey being made more difficult by unfavorable weather conditions in the strait. After twelve hours, both ships reached the port of Corfu. 44 men died in these accidents and 42 were injured. Of the 44 dead, 31 belonged to the crew of HMS Saumarez - many of whom were killed in the fire - and eight belonged to HMS Volage ; of the remaining five it is unclear which ship they were on. Great Britain granted full military pensions to all war invalids and widows of the dead.

In contrast to the HMS Volage, the HMS Saumarez was so badly damaged that it could no longer be repaired. It was scrapped in Charlestown near Rosyth in 1950 . The Albanian coastal guns did not fire during this incident. A ship of the Albanian Navy , which had hoisted the Albanian flag and a white flag , approached the scene.

Operation Retail on November 12th and 13th, 1946

The third and final incident occurred on November 12th and 13th, 1946, when the Royal Navy carried out another demining operation in the Strait of Corfu, code-named Operation Retail . The mine clearance operation was carried out in Albanian territorial waters under the command of the Allied Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean . The operation was not authorized by the Albanian authorities and it was also intended to use the mines as corpora delicti , which were intended to prove that the British were acting with the right to self-defense when they removed objects that were dangerous to shipping. At the British federation was a French observation officer who had been invited by the Mediterranean Zone Board . An aircraft carrier, cruisers and other warships provided escort. 22 contact mines were located and separated from their moorings under water. The location of the mines indicated that the minefield was deliberately created and that it was not a random collection of individual mines. Two of the distant mines were sent to Malta for further investigation . There it was found that they came from the German Reich , but were free of rust or vegetation from aquatic plants. They were freshly painted and the anchor cables were freshly lubricated. It was concluded that the minefield had been laid shortly before the second incident. Mine fragments analyzed by the HMS Volage confirmed that these mines were similar to those studied in Malta.

Albania complained in a telegram to the United Nations about the violation of its coastal waters by the Royal Navy following the event .

consequences

Proceedings before the UN Security Council

On December 9, 1946, Britain sent a note to the Albanian government accusing Albania of laying the mines and demanding compensation for the May and October incidents. The UK requested a response within two weeks, stating that if the answer was negative, the matter would be brought to the United Nations Security Council . In a reply to which it received in London on December 21, 1946, the Albanian government denied all British allegations and stated that the incident was due to the machinations of other states which did not wish for the normalization of Anglo-Albanian conditions and that it was recently Ships from Greece and other countries entered the area where the mines were found. No one knew about the existence of the minefield and did not have the necessary means to lay the sea mines. Again, repeated violations of coastal waters and airspace were complained about. Albania is not to blame and therefore cannot pay any compensation. Although we regret the incident, we cannot apologize for it.

The British government was not satisfied with the answer and brought the matter to the Security Council in early 1947, where Hysni Kapo represented Albania as Enver Hoxha's close confidante and deputy foreign minister. On March 25, 1947, a resolution of the Security Council failed, which considered it unbelievable that an - illegal - minefield in the immediate vicinity of the Albanian coast could be laid without Albania's knowledge, and proposed that the two states settle the dispute based on this view , on the veto of the Soviet representative Andrei Andrejewitsch Gromyko .

Referral to the International Court of Justice

British officers recover mines from the Corfu Canal (December 1946).

HMS Saumarez shortly after running into a mine

The British government filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice in mid-May 1947 , claiming that Albania was not ready to negotiate. It was the first case in which the International Court of Justice delivered a judgment. In a judgment of April 9, 1949, he essentially agreed with Great Britain and in a judgment of December 15, 1949 awarded Great Britain a compensation of £ 843,947 . It took the view that, regardless of who laid the mines, Albania should have noticed such an action because the minefield was so close to its own coast. Thus Albania had failed to warn the British and others of the danger on this international shipping route.

The Corfu Channel case established that states must meet the principle of the overwhelming burden of proof (preponderance of the evidence) in order to be able to assert themselves before the International Court of Justice. The Court rejected the UK's self-defense argument, stating that the UK's demining operation, Operation Retail, was illegal without Albania's prior consent.

The Albanian government refused to pay the compensation awarded by the court. In retaliation, the British confiscated 1,574 kilograms of gold that belonged to Albania. The gold stolen from Rome by the Axis Powers during World War II was deposited in the Bank of England accounts after it was recovered and was awarded to Albania by an American-British-French commission in 1948.

With the end of the Cold War in 1991 came the end of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania . On May 29, 1991, the United Kingdom and Albania established diplomatic relations. Shortly before, on May 8, 1991, the two states had announced that they had reached an agreement on the Corfu Canal case. Both states expressed their regret over the incident on October 22, 1946. It was not until 1996, after long negotiations, that the gold was returned to Albania, which previously agreed to pay a sum of $ 2,000,000 in reparations .

Enver Hoxha wrote in his memoir of his first meeting with Joseph Stalin that the whole matter had been hatched by the British as an excuse for military intervention in Saranda County .

In 2009, underwater archaeologists found the supposed bow of the HMS Volage in the mud in the Bay of Saranda at a depth of around 50 m . The location of the bow only 1200 meters from the coast near Saranda made Albanian authors doubt whether the ships had really followed the course specified by the British and the course adopted by the ICJ. The location suggested that the British ships were sailing in Albanian waters far away from the international shipping lanes.

Documents previously classified as classified from Albanian and British archives, which could be viewed sixty or more years after the event, show that both sides were not only telling the truth and were partly to blame for the events. The minefields were created in cooperation with Yugoslavia to protect the Albanian coast . The British warships, on the other hand, had - well beyond exercising the right of peaceful passage - the order to penetrate deep into Albanian waters on October 22nd to test the Albanian reaction. Aircraft were ready to support the ships in the event of a counterfire.

literature

Lesli Gardiner: The Eagle Spreads His Claws. A History of The Corfu Channel Dispute and of Albania's Relations With The West (1945-1965) . Edinburgh / London 1966.
Ana Lalaj: Burning Secrets of the Corfu Channel Incident . In: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Ed.): Cold War International History Project . Working Paper # 70. Washington DC September 2014 ( wilsoncenter.org [PDF] full document).

Web links

Commons : Corfu Canal Incident - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Files of the International Court of Justice on the "Corfu Channel" case
Catalog details for document ADM 116/5759, Corfu Channel Incident: correspondence and papers relating to claim against Albanian government in The National Archives
Il Yung Chung: Legal Problems Involved in the Corfu Channel Incident. In: International Affairs. Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–, Volume 37, No. 4, October 1961, pp. 505 f., JSTOR 2611106 .
Leslie Gardiner: The Eagle Spreads His Claws: A History of the Corfu Channel Dispute and of Albania's Relations with the West, 1945-1965. In: International Affairs. Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–, Vol. 43, No. 2, April 1967, pp. 372 f., JSTOR 2614379 .

Remarks

↑ Referring to the English name Corfu Channel Incident was in German literature the term Corfu Channel Incident introduced (see, inter alia, Klaus-Detlev Grothusen:... South Eastern Europe Handbook and Peter Bartl: Albania Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1995. ISBN 3-7917 -1451-1 . ). It would be more correct to use the term incident in the Strait of Corfu or even incidents .
In literature on international law and the law of the sea , the Corfu Canal case is usually spoken of.

↑ Pearson cites a statement by the British Admiralty dated October 24th, according to which 39 people were dead and missing and 44 injured. On November 4, it was reported that 39 injured had been brought to Malta by a hospital ship and that the number of deaths had meanwhile risen to 44. The number of injuries thus varies depending on the source.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Auron Tare: Incidenti i Korfuzit i rishikuar . In: MAPO . No. 152 . Tirana October 31, 2009 ( article online ( Memento from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )). Incidenti i Korfuzit i rishikuar ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s Australian Journal of Legal History: Lawrence W. Maher: Half Light Between War and Peace - Herbert Vere Evatt, The Rule of International Law, and The Corfu Channel Case. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t Philip E. Wynn: Corfu Channel Incident . In: Bernard A. Cook (Ed.): Europe since 1945: an encyclopedia . tape 1 . Taylor & Francis, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-8153-4057-7 , pp. 224 ( books.google.com ).
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Times Online, May 19, 2006: Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Knollys. Retrieved November 6, 2009 .
^ Quincy Wright: The Corfu Channel Case . In: American Society of International Law (Ed.): The American Journal of International Law . tape 43 , no. 3 (July 1949), ISSN 0002-9300 , pp. 491-494 , JSTOR : 2193642 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Full Embassy History. Part Three - since 1991. In: British Embassy in Albania. January 19, 2010, accessed September 20, 2012 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Jan Martin Lemnitzer: Corfu Channel Incident (1946). In: ABC-CLIO Schools. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on January 16, 2016 .
↑ United Nations: Digest of international cases on the law of the sea, Part 54 . United Nations Publications, New York 2007, ISBN 978-92-1133759-4 , pp. 32-37 ( books.google.com ).
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Owen Pearson: Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy - From Isolation to the Kosovo War 1946–1998 . In: The Center for Albanian Studies (Ed.): Albania in the Twentieth Century: A History . Volume 3. I. B. Tauris, London 2006, ISBN 1-84511-105-2 .
↑ ^a ^b Institute for International Law and Justice: Corfu Channel Case (Merits) - Judgment of 9 April 1949. (PDF; 21 kB) p. 4 ff. , Accessed on April 29, 2019 (English).
↑ Approach of the Storm, Images of WWII - Thomas Arthur Russell's Photograph Album - No. 12. In: WW2 People's War - an archive of World War Two memories. Retrieved November 8, 2009 (English, picture of the mine explosion).
^ ^A ^b The Med Fleet 1945-1948. In: HMS Cardigan Bay Association. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012 ; accessed on November 8, 2009 .
^ Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament, on the Corfu Channel Incident. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
↑ Nikolas Stürchler: The Threat of Force in International Law . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-87388-8 ( books.google.com ).
^ Battleships UK. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c Kabir-ur-Rahman Khan: The Law and Organization of International Commodity Agreements . Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1982, ISBN 90-247-2554-2 ( books.google.com ).
↑ José Antonio de Yturriaga: Straits Used for International Navigation: a Spanish perspective . Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht 1990, ISBN 0-7923-1141-8 ( books.google.com ).
^ ^A ^b New York Times of July 5, 1987: Albania Planning West German Ties. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
^ Encyclopedia of the Nations: The International Court of Justice - Some case histories of disputes submitted to the court. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
^ Klaus-Detlev Grothusen : Foreign Policy . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (= Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 86-156 .
^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Corfu Channel. Retrieved November 9, 2009 .
↑ Why Australia needs a mine warfare capability. In: Semaphore. Royal Australian Navy, July 2004, accessed January 17, 2016 .
^ Enver Hoxha: Encounters with Stalin. Memories. The first meeting, July 1947 (PDF; 9.8 MB), Verlag Roter Morgen, Dortmund 1980, ISBN 3-88196-210-7 .
^ Underwater Archaeologists Find Cold War Wreckage Near the Albanian Coast. Press release. In: Institute of Nautical Archeology. October 21, 2009, archived from the original on June 11, 2012 ; accessed on June 13, 2010 (English).
↑ Associated Press (November 2, 2009): Pieces of WWII-era UK warship apparently found. Retrieved November 12, 2009 .
↑ Skender Minxhozi: "Incidenti i Korfuzit, anijet ranë në mina në ujra shqiptare" . In: MAPO . No. 153 . Tirana November 7, 2009 ( article online ( memento of October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )). "Incidenti i Korfuzit, anijet ranë në mina në ujra shqiptare" ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Ana Lalaj: Burning Secrets of the Corfu Channel Incident . In: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Ed.): Cold War International History Project . Working Paper # 70. Washington DC September 2014 ( wilsoncenter.org [PDF; accessed November 24, 2016] full document).
^ Auron Tare: Incidenti i Kanalit të Korfuzit / Zbulohen dokumentet sekrete që dënuan Shqipërinë. In: Gazeta Dita. October 20, 2016, archived from the original on November 25, 2016 ; Retrieved November 24, 2016 (Albanian).

[1] Referring to the English name Corfu Channel Incident was in German literature the term Corfu Channel Incident introduced (see, inter alia, Klaus-Detlev Grothusen:... South Eastern Europe Handbook and Peter Bartl: Albania Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1995. ISBN 3-7917 -1451-1 . ). It would be more correct to use the term incident in the Strait of Corfu or even incidents .
In literature on international law and the law of the sea , the Corfu Canal case is usually spoken of.

[14] Pearson cites a statement by the British Admiralty dated October 24th, according to which 39 people were dead and missing and 44 injured. On November 4, it was reported that 39 injured had been brought to Malta by a hospital ship and that the number of deaths had meanwhile risen to 44. The number of injuries thus varies depending on the source.

[mapo1-2] Auron Tare: Incidenti i Korfuzit i rishikuar . In: MAPO . No. 152 . Tirana October 31, 2009 ( article online ( Memento from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )). Incidenti i Korfuzit i rishikuar ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[Journal_of_Legal_History-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s Australian Journal of Legal History: Lawrence W. Maher: Half Light Between War and Peace - Herbert Vere Evatt, The Rule of International Law, and The Corfu Channel Case. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .

[Corfu_Incident-4] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t Philip E. Wynn: Corfu Channel Incident . In: Bernard A. Cook (Ed.): Europe since 1945: an encyclopedia . tape 1 . Taylor & Francis, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-8153-4057-7 , pp. 224 ( books.google.com ).

[Timesonline-5] Times Online, May 19, 2006: Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Knollys. Retrieved November 6, 2009 .

[Corfu_channel-6] Quincy Wright: The Corfu Channel Case . In: American Society of International Law (Ed.): The American Journal of International Law . tape 43 , no. 3 (July 1949), ISSN 0002-9300 , pp. 491-494 , JSTOR : 2193642 .

[UK_Embassy-7] Full Embassy History. Part Three - since 1991. In: British Embassy in Albania. January 19, 2010, accessed September 20, 2012 .

[ABC-8] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Jan Martin Lemnitzer: Corfu Channel Incident (1946). In: ABC-CLIO Schools. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on January 16, 2016 .

[9] United Nations: Digest of international cases on the law of the sea, Part 54 . United Nations Publications, New York 2007, ISBN 978-92-1133759-4 , pp. 32-37 ( books.google.com ).

[pearson-10] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Owen Pearson: Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy - From Isolation to the Kosovo War 1946–1998 . In: The Center for Albanian Studies (Ed.): Albania in the Twentieth Century: A History . Volume 3. I. B. Tauris, London 2006, ISBN 1-84511-105-2 .

[ICJ-11] Institute for International Law and Justice: Corfu Channel Case (Merits) - Judgment of 9 April 1949. (PDF; 21 kB) p. 4 ff. , Accessed on April 29, 2019 (English).

[Impact-12] Approach of the Storm, Images of WWII - Thomas Arthur Russell's Photograph Album - No. 12. In: WW2 People's War - an archive of World War Two memories. Retrieved November 8, 2009 (English, picture of the mine explosion).

[HMS_Cardigan_Bay-13] A ^b The Med Fleet 1945-1948. In: HMS Cardigan Bay Association. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012 ; accessed on November 8, 2009 .

[15] Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament, on the Corfu Channel Incident. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .

[Threat-16] Nikolas Stürchler: The Threat of Force in International Law . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-87388-8 ( books.google.com ).

[Battleships_UK-17] Battleships UK. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .

[Operation_Retail-18] Kabir-ur-Rahman Khan: The Law and Organization of International Commodity Agreements . Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1982, ISBN 90-247-2554-2 ( books.google.com ).

[19] José Antonio de Yturriaga: Straits Used for International Navigation: a Spanish perspective . Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht 1990, ISBN 0-7923-1141-8 ( books.google.com ).

[New_York_Times-20] A ^b New York Times of July 5, 1987: Albania Planning West German Ties. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .

[21] Encyclopedia of the Nations: The International Court of Justice - Some case histories of disputes submitted to the court. Retrieved November 8, 2009 .

[handbuch-22] Klaus-Detlev Grothusen : Foreign Policy . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (= Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 86-156 .

[Encyclopedia_Britannica-23] Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Corfu Channel. Retrieved November 9, 2009 .

[24] Why Australia needs a mine warfare capability. In: Semaphore. Royal Australian Navy, July 2004, accessed January 17, 2016 .

[Stalin-25] Enver Hoxha: Encounters with Stalin. Memories. The first meeting, July 1947 (PDF; 9.8 MB), Verlag Roter Morgen, Dortmund 1980, ISBN 3-88196-210-7 .

[ina-26] Underwater Archaeologists Find Cold War Wreckage Near the Albanian Coast. Press release. In: Institute of Nautical Archeology. October 21, 2009, archived from the original on June 11, 2012 ; accessed on June 13, 2010 (English).

[27] Associated Press (November 2, 2009): Pieces of WWII-era UK warship apparently found. Retrieved November 12, 2009 .

[mapo2-28] Skender Minxhozi: "Incidenti i Korfuzit, anijet ranë në mina në ujra shqiptare" . In: MAPO . No. 153 . Tirana November 7, 2009 ( article online ( memento of October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )). "Incidenti i Korfuzit, anijet ranë në mina në ujra shqiptare" ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[29] Ana Lalaj: Burning Secrets of the Corfu Channel Incident . In: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Ed.): Cold War International History Project . Working Paper # 70. Washington DC September 2014 ( wilsoncenter.org [PDF; accessed November 24, 2016] full document).

[30] Auron Tare: Incidenti i Kanalit të Korfuzit / Zbulohen dokumentet sekrete që dënuan Shqipërinë. In: Gazeta Dita. October 20, 2016, archived from the original on November 25, 2016 ; Retrieved November 24, 2016 (Albanian).