Scanderbeg And His 25 Year Rebellion!

[Guest Scanderbeg]

Here is some info on the man who kept the Ottomans away from Albania and was a help to keeping them out of Western Europe:

 

 

Gjergj Kastrioti (1405

[Primus Pilus]

I don't know what made me think of this, but Scanderbeg was apparantly a contemporary of the Romanian Vlad Tepes (Dracul), fighting for much the same goals for their respective countries. I wonder, had Bram Stoker chosen Skanderbeg as the basis for his novel a century ago, would that name be an infamous part of popular culture.

 

Although it doesn't sound as if Scanderbeg was quite as, how shall we say, brutal as his northern neighbor.

[Guest Scanderbeg]

While he wasnt brutal, he certainly wasn't kind. What this does not tell you is what he did when he went back to Albania. Well, when he entered Kruja he had all the Turks in there slaughtered. At least there were not impalings thought.

Vlad also wasnt too far back from Scanderbeg. The Sultan Mehmed II was the one who defeated him, same one who was the archnemesis of Scanderbeg.

[Hamilcar Barca]

Interesting, I was always curious to find out who your namesake was Scanderberg.

[Guest Scanderbeg]

lol, I find it a cool name also. Also note guys, the black double headed eagle and red background was the military emblem of the Byzantine Empire.

 

The account of his first big victory over the Ottoman empire from Catholic World encyclopedia. So excuse it a bit, it can get pretty offensive.

 

Ali Pasha with around 40,000.

Skanderbeg with about 15,000.

 

 

During the war of Albanian Independance, the Turks, except toward the end, made the fatal blunder of sending immense armies, consisting in some cases of more then 200,000(like most historical army figures, heavy on romanticism) men, into a country they could only be maintained for a single and brief campaign,and to fight a general who was sure, from his experience and bravery, skill, and thousand rough knowledge of every torrent mountain pass, road, valley, to turn defeat into an overwhelming disaster

 

It was thus that the army of Ali Pasha was drawn by a wily maneuver into a narrow district only ninety miles from Croia(Albanian; Kruja) and opening into the very heart of Albania. The upper end was very contracted, and here Scanderbeg drew up his main body of troops, to the number of ten thousand, which were posted in three divisions en echelon. As soon as the enemy was well engaged in the valley three thousand horsemen, who had been watching their slow advance, came down at it's lower end, which had been left quite unguarded, while fifteen hundred irregular infantry lay in ambush on either side amidst the woody acclivities. As sson as the Turks came up to the Albanians they halted, tried to deploy, but could not, repeatedly charged and swept up in heavy columns against the small but solid masses who evenly filled the gap and made it impossible to flank them. The Turks after a while began to waver and fall into great disorder. Ali Pasha blundered.

 

The Albanians now took the offensive. The signal-clarions sounded and,. while the Turks were attacked in front, the cavalry from the lower end of the valley charged them in the rear and the infantry that lay in ambush came rushing down on both sides with terrific cries and sword in had to complete their discomfiture. It was now a slaughter; and although the battle lasted only four hours altogether, over twenty thousand infedels were killed or wounded. Few prisoners-no more then two thousand-were taken. The rest of the enemy, under cover of darkness and from sheer exhaustion on the part of the victors, escaped through the now open passage at the lower end of the valley.

[Guest Scanderbeg]

The Battle of Ujebartha(white water in Albanian)

 

 

The Commanders

 

In spring 1457, Mehmed send against Skanderbeg a 70,000 strong force led by Isa Beg Evrenoz and Hamza Kastrioti. Evrenoz was the only Ottoman general that had ever achieved a victory over Skanderbeg, defeating him in the Siege of Berat. Accompanying him was Hamza Kastrioti, Skanderbeg

[Guest Scanderbeg]

Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London 1776- 1778, Of Scanderbeg, Gibbon had written:

 

"In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly associated, and they are both entitled to our notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, was the hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriot submitted to the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish policy. The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg (Iskender beg), or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his glory and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into a province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horses, and the prospect of the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christians, the rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father's wrongs, the ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the Koran: he was ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long oblivion has surely impaired his original right; and every year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of the Turkish army? Shall we excuse the desertion of his standard, a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi, or principal secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had revealed his design, he escaped in the night, by rapid marches, from the field of battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; and the entire sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his conduct the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven thousand foot: the horses were small, the men were active; but he viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms Scanderbeg resisted twenty- three years the powers of the Ottoman empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious scruple. Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost invisible, adversary; and the disappointment might tend to imbitter, perhaps shorten, the last days of the sultan. In the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender power, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of antiquity,

who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of suspicious criticism. Agaian illiterate enemy, and in the dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to the succor of the king of Naples. Without disparagement to his fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore his bones encased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant ruin of his country may redound to the hero's glory; yet, had he balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be supported by the rational, although fallacious, hope, that the pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria, and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their ancestors.

 

 

16 cf. Gibbon, vol. 5, p. 401-406.

 

http://www.elsie.de/pub/pdf_articles/A1993Disraeli.pdf