Siding with Austria during World War I, Zog thereafter became a leader of the reformist Popular Party. He held ministerial posts from 1920 until he was forced into exile in June 1924, but he returned with Yugoslav assistance in December, was elected president on Feb. 1, 1925, and was proclaimed king on Sept. 1, 1928. Zog ended a period of postwar political turbulence, and Albania enjoyed relative tranquility under his regime. He began a fateful association with Italy in 1925; a loan in that year was followed in 1926 by a treaty of friendship and security and in 1927 by a 20-year defensive military alliance between the two countries. Mussolini made Albania his bridgehead to the Balkans, and by 1939 Italy controlled the country's finances and army. Zog tried but failed to break that hold from 1932 onward. On April 7, 1939, Mussolini finally made Albania into a protectorate; Victor Emmanuel III became king, and Zog went into exile. His hopes of returning after the war were disappointed by the establishment of a communist republic under Enver Hoxha in 1945. He formally abdicated on Jan. 2, 1946.