Scanderbeg: A History of George Castriota and the Albanian Resistance to Islamic Expansion

“For men’s souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-hissar A city of the plague; And the loud exultant cry That echoes wide and far Is `Long Live Scanderbeg!’” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“…the exploits of Scanderbeg, it would be inestimable; for he excels all the officers, ancient and modern, in the conduct of a small defensive army. I met with him in the Turkish History, but nowhere else.” — James Wolfe to Thomas Townshend, 18 July 1756

Written in 2018, this is an excellent modern overview of the great Christian Albanian Crusader and hero, Skanderbeg.  During the mid-15^th century, Skanderbeg or Lord Alexander in Turkish, saved Christian Italy and central Europe from the Ottoman Jihad.  An overview of Skanderbeg is here. 

The Christian resistance in Albania

As the author writes, for a quarter of a century, from 1443 until his death in 1468, Skanderbeg used his military prowess to thwart the efforts of the most powerful Empire in the world at that time to subdue his tiny country. Despite this, few English language studies of his remarkable feat have been written. The British General of French and Indian War fame, James Wolfe’s comment on Scanderbeg recognizes the historical importance of the Albanian resistance to the Ottomans in the fifteenth century, but since his complaint, over two and a half centuries ago, that he could only find mention of Scanderbeg in Richard Knolles’ The Generall Historie of the Turkes, relatively few works on the subject have appeared in major languages.

Writing of Scanderbeg in 1905, William J. Armstrong said, “the exploits even of the renowned paladins of the crusades, whether Godfrey or Tancred or Richard or Raymond, pale to insignificance by similar comparison. Only the legendary feats of King Arthur and his knights, or of the Guardsmen of Dumas suggest a parallel of wondrous achievement.”

As Brackob rightly depicts, Skanderbeg as an image is similar to Saint George or the Archangel Michael, a militant fighter for Christendom, the leader of a holy crusade against the Turkish Infidels. To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Scanderbeg’s death, in 1968, Pope Paul VI declared: “This Holy See is pleased to join in the praise of this man of great nobility, a faithful son of the Church and a son whom sovereign pontiffs before us have praised possibly more glowingly than any other man of his time. For twenty-five years, he saved his country from the assault of enemies. He defended his country threatened by the greatest danger, at the head of an army which the rampart and defence of Christianity.”

Saving Civilisation

Brackob correctly concludes that Skanderbeg defended Europe for a quarter of a century and, it can rightly be said, helped to save Western Civilization from being overrun by Islam. Although the challenges have changed over the centuries, the clash of civilizations, which the history of the Albanian struggle to fend off the Islamic onslaught represents, continues today.

Methods

Geography played an important role in the success of Scanderbeg’s resistance to the Ottomans. The mountains served as a natural shield against the Islamic invaders; in his History of Mehmed the Conqueror, the Greek chronicler Kritoboulos, a contemporary of these events, testified to this fact: “there were but one or two passes through the mountains into the country, they guarded these with strong garrisons, and kept their land inviolate from enemies, and free from injury, unless a large force should invade it and forcibly occupy the mountains and the passes, and so open a door into the whole country.”

Skanderbeg’s genius lay in his system of organization which created greater possibilities for defence, making it easier to raise armies, while assuring the distribution of labour to meet the needs of the local community. It also created the basis of a type of feudal organization, as local communities were obligated to provide labour or goods to the ruling family in return for the social order and protection which it provided. Thus, the origins of a distinct Albanian feudalism can be found in the extension of these familial ties and the need to organize to ensure social order and defence.

Albania’s important geographical position

Flourishing cities dotted the coastline of Albania during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The major ports were Durazzo, which had been an important harbour since its founding in the seventh century B.C., and Valona, the principal port in the southern part of the country. These coastal cities had a developing middle class whose prosperity depended largely upon Venetian trade with the interior. Ever since the Fourth Crusade at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Venice had sought to gain control over the coastline to exploit the rich economic resources of Albania.

Already in the thirteenth century Albania had become an important wheat exporter to Venice, Ragusa, and Constantinople meaning that the country was producing a significant surplus of grain.  

The growing threat posed by the Ottomans, however, finally led Venice to seize control of Durazzo in 1392, and most other major coastal cities of northern and central Albania the following year. Venetian administration was established in these cities, and commerce was placed solely in the hands of Venetian merchants, thus destroying the native merchant class,

Venetian rule imposed heavy taxes and labour obligations upon the peasants in the coastal areas leading to major uprisings in 1399 and 1405. The causes of these rebellions lie in the fact that Venetian administration upset the traditional relations between the peasants and the native nobility.

The Ottomans

Sultan Mehmed I launched a campaign against Albania in 1415, reasserting Ottoman authority over the central and southern parts of the country. In the south, the timar system was extended, while in the central part of the country the aristocracy maintained their lands by paying tribute.  

Ottomans imposed the devshirme, which led to the conscription of their most able-bodied children into military service, depriving the village community of valuable labour and violating local tradition. The peasants also blamed the Ottomans for the increasing fiscal burden they had borne since the beginning of the century. Free peasants in the mountainous regions actively opposed efforts to incorporate their villages into the timar system as they struggled to maintain their independence.

Between 1433 and 1436 Albanian rebellions defeated three separate Ottoman armies sent by Murad II to quell the uprisings. Finally, in 1436, the Sultan sent a large army, again led by Ali Bey, that crushed most of the uprisings; “[They] pillaged and destroyed the lands of John Castriota, the men were put to the sword, while the women were made slaves,” Oruç records, “They completely conquered Janina and Kanina and returned with great plunder... The son of Evrenos bey conquered the vilayet of the Albanians and was satiated with plunder from pillaging.” Only George Araniti managed to maintain a small pocket of resistance in the mountains of central Albania. Widespread opposition to the Ottomans remained, leading to a new revolt in Berat in 1437, but this new uprising was quickly suppressed by the Sultan’s forces.

Enter the former Muslim slave and Ottoman general, the great Christian Skanderbeg and his 25-year resistance which bought Italy and Europe valuable time, while defeating and erasing much of the Ottoman military.  Much of this history is sadly forgotten.  More here.