Skanderbeg, the unknown Christian Albanian warrior and hero

Raymond Ibrahim in his seminal study ‘Defenders of the West’, has a chapter on Skanderbeg the 15^th century Christian warrior and hero.  How many in the demoralised, confused, perverted and self-loathing ‘West’ even know the name of Skanderbeg?  In centuries past including as late as the 19^th century, he was well known, feted in songs, poems, and stories.  Today nary a person would recognise his name or associate him with the correct century.  This is indicative of a culture that has lost its roots and history.

Ibrahim quoting Skanderbeg, “I will judge your merits, when I see your swords smoking with the blood of the Turks…Let Muhammad, as long as he will, seek peace. As for us, we will purchase our peace with the sword.”  Without fighting back against the Musulman Jihad and preserving Albanian Christian independence for some 25 years, quite likely eastern Italy, Rome and other areas of Europe would have been conquered and Koranised.  Without Skanderbeg most of central Europe if not parts of Germany and Poland would likely still be Mahometan.

White Slaves

The primary fact of the Musulman Ottoman state, was as Ibrahim emphasises, White slavery.  White slaves powered the Musulman navies, armies, economy and domestic services.  White slaves populated the sex harems, sex depots and sex slave centres.  White slaves were mutilated into eunuchs to guard the palaces, the women and the Sultan and other worthies.  White Christian slaves made up the feared Janissaries, the most potent part of the Ottoman army.  White slavery was the engine of the Ottoman empire.

As Ibrahim states, ‘A second function of slavery revolved around empowering the Ottoman state.  Any Christian exhibiting any ostensible talent – physical or mental, strong body or mind – was enslaved and made use of, usually as an Ottoman soldier or administrator…it was also meant to weaken and bleed dry the Christians.’

Skanderbeg

Skanderbeg’s real name was George Kastrioti and his father was John Kastrioti an Albanian land-holder in Croya or central Albania and leading nobleman.  The Ottomans conquered Albania in 1415 and to ensure good behaviour took the sons and daughters of leading men as prisoners.  George Kastrioti aged 10 born in 1405, was sent to the Janissaries to be trained as a Musulman warrior and to have the Christian faith effaced from his memory and conscience.  He apparently ended up with the Sultan Murad II when he was first sent as a prisoner and quite likely he was raped as a young boy by the Sultan and others at the Topaki Palace.  The name Skanderbeg was given to him by the Ottomans, on account of his massive physical presence, Herculean strength and resemblance in blonde hair and blue eyes to Alexander the Great or Skander-beg, which means Lord Alexander. 

The Albanian Christians were hauled away en masse each year by the Turks, to be retrained as Ottoman solders or used as sex slaves or working slaves.  After a rebellion in 1435, the Turks destroyed Albania erecting pyramids of Albanian skulls and sending to Constantinople, countless slaves and plunder.  Now 30, Skanderbeg had been rising in the ranks of the Ottoman military, fighting many battles in the east and north.  He rose rapidly and became a favourite of the Sultan and his court and was considered one of the Ottoman’s best warriors.  His father died in 1437 a broken man given the Ottoman carnage enacted in Albania and the fact that all 4 of his sons were Ottoman prisoners.  After his father’s death family and others from Albania urged him to take over his father’s lands and raise a Christian revolt.  Some time later, for unknown reasons, the Sultan appointed Skanderbeg governor of Croya – his father’s territory. 

In 1443 at a battle against the Christian Transylvannians led by John Hunyadi, Skanderbeg the great Ottoman champion, defected in the midst of battle taking his men with him.  They went into Croya and took the famous castle and fort from the Ottomans.  Thus began the long Christian war against the Musulman occupation in Albania. Skanderbeg had always remained a secret Christian even as an Ottoman military star.  His rebellion was suffused with Christian symbols, flags, masses and dedications to Christ.

Skanderbeg’s success was premised on unifying the various Albanian nobles and lords into one cohesive and singularly-led enterprise.  Using bribery, political skill, flattery and force, he was able to meld together a disciplined force of some 20.000 full time warriors he trained, along with 10.000 militia or part-timers. The Ottomans routinely confronted Skanderbeg with 80.000 or more men.  In 25 years of warfare, Skanderbeg lost one battle, winning most against great odds, using the mountainous and forested terrain to his advantage and destroying many Turkish armies.  By so doing he save the rest of Europe by delaying the Ottoman advance by 2 generations and crippling its military fighting strength.  General James Wolfe said Skanderbeg exceeded all other generals, from any era, in defensive warfare using a small army.  Few military feats in history can compare to what Skanderbeg accomplished.

As Ibrahim states, Skanderbeg relinquished a life of wealth, riches, plenty, and fame, to lead a revolt, in a small state, against the world’s most powerful empire.  He won at least 24 battles and sieges, with death the only enemy able to defeat him when he died at the age of 58 from fever or dysentery.  Ibrahim states correctly that Skanderbeg’s relentless warring and defence saved Rome buying 30 years or more of time for the ‘West’ to organise a defence.  After he died the Turks unleashed a massive army and destroyed resistance and began a process of Islamification and the erasure of Christianity which turned the Christian country of Albania into a majority Musulman country we see today.

Albania sits directly opposite Italy on the Adriatic and once Skanderbeg was dead, the Ottomans mopped up the Christian resistance with their usual cruelty and malice and set about the invasion of Italy.  They invaded Otranto in 1480 and held the area around that key port until 1481, pushed out by combined Italian forces, who had been allies of Albania an alliance and political strategy created by Skanderbeg.  The Turkish plan was always to use Albania as a launching pad to attack Rome and to fulfil the ambitions of Muhammad II who predicted he would take Rome and then Western Europe with his Musulman hordes.

Without Skanderbeg the ambitions of Muhammad II might well have been realised.