Pre-Communist Albania gained independence in 1912 after 4-½ centuries of rule by the Ottoman Turks. The movement toward nationhood during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth took advantage of the disintegration of Turkish power and the rivalry between European nations vying for control over the Balkans. The opportunity for independence came when a group of Balkan nations attacked Turkey and proclaimed their intention of seizing the European part of the Ottoman Empire. A group of Albanian patriots, under the leadership of Ismail Qemal bey Vlora, thwarted the desires of Albania's neighbors to partition the country by declaring independence on November 28, 1912. The new nation sought and received backing from the great powers of Europe, thus forcing the weaker Balkan nations to give up their plans for the annexation of Albanian territory. Under the cruel, corrupt, and inefficient Ottoman rule, institutions and capabilities for self-government were not allowed to develop, and the country was ill prepared for statehood when it arrived. Development had hardly begun when World War I brought chaos to the country as the opposing powers used it as a battleground. After the war, as Albania struggled to assert itself as a national entity, the lack of natural resources and a poorly developed economy created a heavy requirement for foreign aid. Excessive reliance on Fascist Italy during the 1920s and 1930s eventually led to annexation by that expansionist power. After regaining its independence during World War II, Albania again compromised its sovereignty by excessive reliance on outside powers: first on Yugoslavia, which was heavily involved in the establishment of the Communist Party in Albania, and then on the Soviet Union. Catastrophe was averted in each instance by a split between Communist nations. When Joseph Stalin expelled Yugoslavia from the Communist bloc of nations in 1948, Enver Hoxha switched his allegiance to the Soviet Union and ended his country's economic reliance on Yugoslavia, which had all but incorporated Albania into its federation. For the next several years Albania was a Soviet satellite but, as the rift between the Soviet Union and Communist China widened, Hoxha continually sided with the Chinese and, when the break came in 1961, Albania severed its Soviet ties and became an ally of Communist China. The lack of resources and an undeveloped economy, the same economic problems that had plagued newly independent Albania in the 1920s, continued to be problems in 1970, and foreign aid was still a necessity. Communist China provided an undetermined amount of assistance during the 1960s and into 1970 but, from the Albanian point of view, the danger of loss of sovereignty to distant China was much less than it had been during the periods when the country was a client state of nearby Italy, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.