In the period before the First World War – and even later – contacts between Slovenes and Albanians were very infrequent. The first significant contact took place when some of the leading Slovene linguists contributed their expertise to the development of a standardized Albanian language at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. During this period, major newspapers only rarely reported on events taking place in Albania, and if they did, reports were occasionally imbued with cultural stereotypes. Since each nation lived in a strategically highly important area on the margin of a large imperium, one in Austria-Hungary and the other in the Ottoman Empire, their political leaders (unsuccessfully) tried to attain prior to the onset of the First World war solely autonomy, or union of nations within one province (the vilajet or crown land), within each empire. Albanians were the first to develop a strong concept of statehood and national independence. In this period, Slovenes strived for a merger with other South Slavic nations in an independent state of their own, which was the only way to resist intense imperialist German (Austrian) and Italian aspirations. Due to strategic reasons as well as ambitions of neighboring states, and as a result of the secret Treaty of London in 1915, both nations were divided among neighboring nations after the war.