Corfu Channel incident

Corfu Channel incident
Part of the Cold War

Corfu Channel Incident
Date1946
Location
Corfu Channel
39°46′N 19°58′E / 39.77°N 19.97°E / 39.77; 19.97
Result

World Court case concluded in 1949

  • Albania ordered to pay UK£843,947 (£24.4 million in 2019) in compensation to the United Kingdom, but they did not pay.
  • Albania agreed to pay US$2,000,000 in reparations to the United Kingdom in 1992.[1][2][3]
Belligerents
Albania Albania  United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Albania Enver Hoxha
Albania Mehmet Shehu		 United Kingdom Winston Churchill
United Kingdom Clement Attlee
Units involved
Albanian Naval Force Royal Navy
Casualties and losses
none 84 killed
42 wounded
2 destroyers damaged (one of them beyond repair)

The Corfu Channel incident consists of three separate events involving Royal Navy ships in the Channel of Corfu which took place in 1946, and it is considered an early episode of the Cold War.[1][4][5][6][7] During the first incident, Royal Navy ships came under fire from Albanian fortifications.[4] The second incident involved Royal Navy ships striking mines; and the third occurred when the Royal Navy conducted mine-clearing operations in the Corfu Channel, but in Albanian territorial waters,[1] and Albania complained about them to the United Nations.[4]

This series of incidents led to the Corfu Channel case, where the United Kingdom brought a case against the People's Republic of Albania to the International Court of Justice.[8] The Court rendered a decision under which Albania was to pay £844,000 to the United Kingdom.[6][9] This is equivalent to £37.7 million in 2015 terms.[10] Because of the incidents, Britain in 1946 broke off talks with Albania aimed at establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Diplomatic relations were only restored in 1991.[11]

  1. ^ Cook, Bernard A., ed. (2001). "Corfu Channel Incident". Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-8153-1336-6. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ABC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Cook, Bernard A., ed. (2001). "Corfu Channel Incident". Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-8153-1336-6. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  4. ^ Times Online Obituary: Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Knollys Navigator who won a DSC on D-Day and survived when his destroyer hit a mine in the postwar Corfu Channel incident.
  5. ^ a b Roselli, Alessandro (2006). Italy and Albania: financial relations in the Fascist period. I.B. Tauris. pp. 136–137. ISBN 9781845112547. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  6. ^ Waibel, Michael, (2012) ‘Corfu Channel Case’ in Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, vol III (Oxford University Press 2012), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1919599
  7. ^ JSTOR The Corfu Channel Case Quincy Wright The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July 1949), pp. 491–494 (article consists of 4 pages) Published by: American Society of International Law Retrieved 31-07-08
  8. ^ "Corfu Channel (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. Albania)". International Court of Justice. 30 September 1947 – 15 December 1949. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2010.
  9. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference UK Embassy was invoked but never defined (see the help page).