Saseno — the island Italy couldn't hold

APR 29 2026 · 12:00

Italy seized Sazan — which it called "Saseno" — in 1914, a claim recognised by the Treaty of London in 1915. It became the Italian Royal Navy's southernmost base and the most heavily fortified small island in the Mediterranean, guarding the Strait of Otranto at the mouth of the Adriatic, until Italy ceded it to Albania after the Second World War in 1947.