Skanderbeg: The Albanian General Who Defied the Ottoman Empire | History Camp

This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only, greater than 50 gigabytes, may slow when network is busy. See terms. The most powerful empire in Europe couldn't kill him. Two sultans came for him in person. They sent army after army. They tried bribes. They tried sieges. They tried starvation. They even turned his own nephew against him. And still, this one man trained in their own army until he walked away and went home and held them off for 25 years. This is the story of Skanderbeg. He reportedly stole fortresses with a forged letter. He made his army vanish into the mountains and then reappear right on top of his enemies. A traitor nephew, an officer skinned alive, and a grave that legend says his enemies broke open so that they could wear his bones as good luck charms. Today, his banner is the flag of Albania. And his story is the greatest legend of loyalty, bravery, and pride that his people have. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, dude? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single Wednesday we explore the most interesting, fascinating, and controversial stories from all history from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do here is I try to figure out everything that's ever happened in history. And oh boy, it's made every day, as they say. We got all sorts of stuff to jump into. Specifically, we're talking about Skanderbeg. Now, if you've never heard of him, we'll buckle up. Because you're about to, okay? His story is absolutely fascinating, and more people need to know about this guy. The Albanians already know. The Double Eagle Boys. You know what I'm saying? Y'all already know what's good. Y'all have ball knowledge. But for all the uninitiated, this is a wild one. But before we jump into it, I want to say a few things. More than usual. First, I want to say thanks to you, dude. Truly, I want to say thanks. Because every time you tune into an episode, you click, comment, like, any of that good stuff, you keep the lights on in the tent, and you keep the fire burning here at the campsite. I also want to thank my pal Christos Pakadopoulos. How are you? What's up, everybody? Christos, you're going to be happy about this one. Am I? Because we're talking about crushing the Turks. Okay. But it is also about Albanians. It is about Albanians. Look, the enemy- Who I like. Who you like. Look, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Exactly. So I'm saying, if someone's going up against the Ottomans, all of a sudden, old Greek Christos here is like, I'm listening. Yes. This sounds like an interesting tale. Tell me all about it. Also, the Albanian women, beautiful. Low-key gorgeous. Yeah. Known for being gorgeous. Yep. A little intense. Yes. But gorgeous. Gorgeous. Yeah. Now, the reason we got this episode, I've seen a couple comments pointing it out, but this was a request from someone that I met in Plano. Hmm. A great guy, currently, you know, now a friend of mine. He goes by the name DL, and he wrote me a letter. And in the letter, he was like, he's a wonderful guy, truly. He's like so nice. One of the best audience members I've had at the shows, which you can get tickets to, markagdonlive.com. And he wrote me the whole letter, and he goes, Mark, I don't want to ask too much, but I want to request one episode. And he goes, could you do an episode about this guy, widely known as Skanderbeg? He was a prominent Albanian nobleman, military commander, and national hero of Albania. And he wrote a whole thing basically breaking him down, and I sat in the back of that comedy club just reading this, and I was like, this is crazy. This is a wild story. Like, I couldn't believe how insane this guy's life was, and I was like, we absolutely need to do an episode on this guy. He gave you notes? Yeah, DL'd it. Wow. He wrote a book. He wrote up, like, a whole dossier. Like, he read a bunch of books on him. DL's also an Albanian from Kosovo, and then moved to Dallas 35 years ago so that he could get a medical treatment, and now lives in Dallas, and was like, dude, for Albania, for my people, do something on Skanderbeg. Also Albanian from Kosovo? Dua Lipa. No way. Yeah. Is that true? I mean, this guy did look like Dua Lipa a little bit. That's kind of crazy. They were both stunning. But, DL, your dreams are coming true. They're coming true. All right? Your wish has been fulfilled, and your suggestion is excellent, I must say. Sometimes you get suggestions for episodes, and you're like, well, I already did that. Or they give suggestions, and you're like, I don't know if that's really for us. This one is perfect. So, let's jump in to the story of Skanderbeg. Now, Skanderbeg starts all the way back in the early 1400s, okay? So, let's go there. If you're like a small lord in the Balkans, and an Ottoman sultan basically came to you and was like, hey. I need a tribute. Maybe I need one of your sons as collateral. You give it to him. And that's how our story starts, okay? So, first off, let's draw a quick map, because Americans don't really know anything about Eastern Europe. So, Albania in the early 1400s does not mean what it means today, okay? Let's get a map on screen here. Picture the western edge of the Balkans. You got this, like, rugged strip of mountains running down from the Adriatic coast all the way to the heel of Italy, okay? There's no kingdom of Albania here. There's not a single ruler. There's no capital. There's no, like, national army. You can see it right here, right? Coming down that side. It's like a patchwork of noble families. Kind of like, they got, like, their little plot of land. Like, okay, this is my castle in this valley. Leave me alone. And each of them are kind of, like, cutting deals with whatever, like, bigger power is, like, in the region at the time. Now, at this point in the 1400s, there's only two powers that really matter, okay? To the west, across the sea, you have the Republic of Venice. Now, you know about Venice. Obviously, they owned it. They own a bunch of ports along the coast. And, you know, they basically really want to keep these ports. It's very important. And then to the east, happening very quickly, were the Ottomans. This is a Turkish dynasty that started out as a small principality in Anatolia. And within a couple of generations, they crossed into Europe and started swallowing the Balkans one territory at a time. And one of the families caught in the middle was the Kastrioti family, okay? They were the lords of a mountainous chunk of north-central Albania. Now, the head of the family was John Kastrioti, okay? And John was a survivor. He fought the Ottomans when he could, okay? He made nice with Venice when they were, you know, helping him out. And they're just trying to survive, okay? You're basically stuck between these two big powers. You kind of just got to, like, work with them. And so when the Ottomans got too strong to resist, he did what a lot of Balkan lords were forced to do. And you got to make some concessions, okay? And so, in this case, he submits to the Sultans. And becomes the Sultan's vassal, which brings us back to his sons. So the Ottomans regularly took the sons of the rulers under them and then brought them into the royal court. And this was done by the Ottomans a lot. A lot of different kingdoms did this, but the Ottomans were known for it. They did this almost as, like, an insurance policy, okay? Like, hey, you're a lord over here and you got your little town. We'll let you keep it, but you're going to be under us. You're paying us tribute, and we're going to take one of your kids so that if you decide to rebel, we're going to give you something that we can hold hostage, we can hold over you. But also, it's part of, like, a recruitment program, okay? Because all those boys that go into the Ottoman court, they get an elite education. They're learning language and customs and politics. And a lot of them went into imperial service as adults and, like, lived pretty good lives. Funny enough, Vlad the Impaler and his brother also were a part of this whole system. Check out the episode on him. We did a whole episode on him, as we always say. But Vlad the Impaler and his brother. were also, like, the princes, basically, of a lord that got brought into the sultan's court and then later rebelled against the sultan that they had been brought up in. Pretty crazy. So the next generation of local lords would ideally grow up to be, like, loyal Ottomans because they were raised in that culture. So it's a pretty clever system, and it worked most of the time, with the exception of, you know, obviously, Vlad the Impaler, which, you know, 1442. That's when he goes in there. And then, obviously, as we're about to find out, Skanderbeg. Now, John's youngest son was named Jerich. He was born around 1405. And at some point, he and his brothers were sent to the Ottoman court in Edirne. And at the time, that was the capital of the empire. Now, to be clear, this is where sources get a little messy. This is the famous version, okay? This is the one that's in movies and on statues, okay? This is the one that I'm going to roll with because Albanians are awesome, and I'm sometimes scared of them. So I'm going to roll with this one, okay? It says that Jerich was snatched away as a young boy. The truth, no one's really sure how he got there or how old he was or whether he was sent more than once or just one time. Some historians think that he may have been a teenager. So the child hostage story has roots, but we don't know exactly what happened. But what we do know is that he converts to Islam. He trained as a soldier alongside the empire's rising elite, and he was really good. He was good enough to climb the ranks, good enough to fight in the sultan's campaigns, and good enough to be trusted with command. He had soldiers underneath him and with government posts back in Albanian lands, including the territory that his family used to rule. And along the way, he gets a new name. His name is Iskender. This is the Turkish version of Alexander. And so then you add the Ottoman title of Bey, which literally means like lord or commander, and the word that you get is Iskender Bey. Iskender Bey. And you say it fast enough and through a couple European languages, language interpolations, and you get Iskandarbe, Iskandarbe, Iskandarbeg, Iskandarbeg. And that's how we get his name. It literally means like Lord Alexander Iskandarbeg. And that is the name that he would end up going down in history with. So Iskandar is a pretty common, you know, like Muslim name. But people have pointed out the irony is very funny. The empire had given this Albanian kid the name of the greatest conqueror in history, Alexander the Great. They just didn't expect him to start conquering them. Now, hold on to another detail here, because it comes back later. In 1430, while his sons were serving the empire, John, the daddy, right? He was defeated by an Ottoman commander named Isik Bey, who took most of the Kastrioti land. Remember that name, Isik Bey. So John ends up dying in 1437. And after his death, the rest of his family's land didn't go to his sons. The empire just kind of absorbed it. So by the early 1440s, here's where Iskandarbeg stands. He's in his late 30s. He's a successful Ottoman officer with a Muslim name and a very solid career. And everything that his family once ruled, the valleys, the castles that he grew up around, they now belong to the sultan that he worked for. So he's looking at this and he's like, hold on a second. I get like kidnapped from my family. I'm living with this foreign people. They give me a new name. And then the land that I was entitled to, that was my father's land, is now just belonging to me. And so he's like, hold on a second. So was he secretly planning revenge the whole time? Or did this like once very loyal Ottoman subject just kind of change his mind later on? We don't know. His early biographers turned his youth into a hero, kind of like biting his time kind of story. Like, hey, he was always true to his father. He never let go of that. But again, we don't necessarily know for sure. But in November of 1443, on a battlefield in Serbia, the Ottoman army starts to fall apart. And Iskender Bey, the empire's loyal officer, made a decision that would cost the sultans the next 25 years. So they're fighting near Nis, and this is like a little city and it was chaos. Okay. A Hungarian commander named Janos Hunyadi had driven deep into Ottoman territory, the kind of Christian counterattack that the empire hadn't seen in a really long time. And now in what is today Serbia, the sultan's army was taken a beating. Okay. And somewhere in that confusion, Skanderbeg makes his move. He slipped away from the Ottoman ranks, reportedly with a few hundred other Albanians, and they just went straight home. And here's how the story goes. Before he ran, Skanderbeg grabbed the sultan's secretary and forced him to write an official order. Sealed, stamped, bang, legit looking from the sultan's secretary. And it named Skanderbeg the new governor of Kruja, the fortress. At the heart of his family's old territory. So he rides up to Kruja and hands the Ottoman commander his paperwork. And he's like, hey, look. And the commander reads it. He sees the sultan's seal and just goes like, all right, the sultan wants this guy to take this land, whatever he says. And he hands over the keys. And that night, Skanderbeg's men took the castle and wiped out the Ottoman garrison. Now, to be clear, historians treat the letter thing as a story. It's not like a confirmed fact. But Skanderbeg's men took the castle and wiped out the Ottoman garrison. But the results don't change anything, right? By the end of 1443, Skanderbeg held Kruja. It was his. He renounced Islam and returned to Christianity and walked away from the Ottoman life completely. I mean, crazy. Like, this guy lives in the courts his whole time. I'm convinced that he's just buying time. Like, he's like, look, I don't think you just like live 20 years as like a Muslim Ottoman fighting for the sultan. And then one day just be like, eh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Actually, I'm going to change that. I think he was always like, dude, I'm going to avenge my father. I'm going to go back and take my land that's rightfully mine and just waited for his moment, saw the chaos and beelined it. Now, according to tradition, he raised his family's banner over the wall. This is a banner you've probably seen, OK? It's got this black double headed eagle on this red field. Now, remember that flag because we're going to come back to it in a little bit. Now, this revolt caught on pretty fast. Other fortresses fell to the rebels or they just kind of opened their gates. Albanian nobles who'd quietly resented Ottoman rule suddenly had like a rallying point. They had like momentum. They had people really fighting for them that were actually winning. And most importantly, they had a commander who knew exactly how the Ottoman army worked from the inside. But now this creates a new problem, OK? One rebel lord with a castle like, oh, that's annoying. All right. Skanderbeg like defected. He took a castle. That's that's a bummer. The sultan could just like eventually get that back. But in order to survive, Skanderbeg needed Albania's feuding noble families to fight together. These were old Albanian families who had spent centuries fighting each other over disagreements about land and property and marriage and all this stuff. So in March of 1444, he called them into a meeting in the coastal town of Lezha in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, which, by the way, was a Venetian town at the time, which, again, keep that in mind also. And all of them showed up. Every Albanian noble family, the Albanian I mean, I don't speak perfect Albanian, but I have a list of a couple of them. The Aryan, the Aryan Iti, the Muzaka, the Thopia, like all these like nobles that have different chunks of land that all hated each other, all come together. A few of Skanderbeg's own relatives, the who's who of basically like medieval Albanian nobility. They all meet up. And out of that meeting came what historians now call the League of Lezha, an alliance of Albanian lords who agreed to pool soldiers and money and resources against the Ottomans with Skanderbeg as their military commander. There was a catch, a big one, because it shapes everything that happens next for the next 25 years of this entire story. This league, this alliance was not a single country. It wasn't a kingdom. And Skanderbeg wasn't its king. Every lord kept its own lands, its own interests. And this is if a lord thought that he could get a better deal from the Venetians or from the sultan himself, nothing could stop him from just dipping out on the others. You know, like you got, OK, this noble family is good. And all of a sudden the sultan offers him a bribe. It's like, OK, we lost him. Like now we're losing land. And if it just gets down to too small of a crop, they can get defeated. Right. It's less like an army. It's more like a group project where everyone kind of has like their own agenda. And the deadline is we got to figure this out before the war. And so we're going to have to figure this out before the war. And so we're going to have to kill us all. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you something. I had one of those days recently where I woke up super tired. I drank coffee and then I drank more coffee because I was tired. I trained badly because I had too much coffee and then I couldn't sleep because I had too much coffee. And the frustrating part is I'm doing all the things I'm lifting. I'm eating protein. I'm taking creatine. I'm trying to sleep. I'm occasionally fasting because someone on YouTube told me it was good. But sometimes I'm still walking around feeling like I'm only charged to like 60 percent. And that is what got me thinking so seriously about testosterone. Like I think about testosterone a lot because it's the thing that makes me feel amazing. And that's why I've been taking Mars Men. Here's what I learned. Your body can be making testosterone, but a portion of it gets bound to a protein called SHBG. It's literally like the testosterone is there, but you can't use it. It's in jail. Mars Men is designed to help you free up that locked testosterone so your body can better utilize what it's already producing. And what's great about Mars Men is there's no needles, no synthetic hormones. Mars Men uses eight natural clinically dosed ingredients that help support healthy testosterone. Levels, energy and stamina. You can buy all of these supplements independently. But what I love about Mars Men is they put it all into one very simple dose. For me, it's just a steady sense of drive. I feel more locked in during the day. I recover faster. I feel better and more motivated to train. And some men report more consistent energy, stronger physical performance and improved recovery. Ninety one percent of users report higher energy levels. And there are thousands of reviews on the Mars Men website from actual dudes sharing their experience. It's made in the United States. And it's available at GNC's nationwide. And it comes with a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can try it and pay attention to how you feel and see whether Mars Men fits your routine. And for a limited time, the listeners of this show, if you are a camper, you are going to get 50 percent off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts when you go to men. Go to Mars dot com. That is men. Go to Mars dot com for 50 percent off and three free gifts when you check out. And after you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about them. Make sure you tell them that Mark and Christos from the campsite. Now, let's get back to the show. So to sum it up, OK, Skanderbeg gets his castle back. He's got a flag and he's got an alliance. It's fragile, but it's an alliance. And he also has a very angry empire that he screwed over. That's looking for vengeance. I mean, this is a movie right here. Am I wrong, dude? So let's go into it. Summer of 1444. That empire sent an army west into the mountains of Albania to squash the rebellion before it could even spread. And it's a very angry empire. And it's commander expected a very easy win. But he was about to meet the one rebel who knew everything thing that he was about to do. He knew every move he was going to make. So the night before this battle, the Ottoman camp was pretty loud. At least that's how the traditional account tells it. You got thousands of dudes all celebrating a victory that they were sure was going to be happening in the morning. And then across the plain, there's an Albanian camp, right? The fires were out. It was quiet. It was dark. It was June, 1444. Sultan Murad had sent one of his trusted commanders, Ali Pasha, to crush this rebellion with an army that, by most accounts, super outnumbered the Albanians. They don't know exactly how many, but it was a significant amount. So the two sides met on the plain of Torviol in the mountains of eastern Albania. And on the morning of June 29th, Skanderbeg put a small army out on the plain, visibly small. And the Ottomans were like, bang, we're about to go get back our Albanians. We're going to go get all this land back. And we're going to teach a lesson to all the rebels. Let's go. So they attack. And his front line seemed to buckle. They fell back. And Ali Pasha didn't understand what was happening. He continued to push forward. He thought that he had them. And that is when the trap snapped shut. A hidden force of Albanian cavalry tucked away in the woods behind the Ottoman lines came around and crashed their flank and rear. And so they got hit from two directions at once. And the Ottoman army broke. Ali Pasha barely escaped with his life. And news of Torviol spread across Christian Europe, where people were not used to hearing about Ottoman armies getting beaten at all. And they didn't really understand what was happening. And it set the pattern for what made Skanderbeg so dangerous. Because it wasn't one trick he was playing over and over. It was actually four elements that he was using all at once to work together. So first is terrain. Albania is very mountainous. You have these narrow passes, river valleys, forests, and a giant imperial army dragging a giant supply train through it is very slow and very predictable. So a very small, nimble force is able to get in and out of these little nooks and crannies super easily. Number two is information. He had lookouts on the mountain routes. He usually knew where the enemy was. And the enemy often had no idea where he was. You got to think, OK, a huge, giant imperial force that's all bloated, just slugging along, and one fast, nimble force of guerrilla fighters just making it happen. And then the third military was very fast. They could strike and vanish and strike again somewhere else. And they could get wagons and scouts and foragers. And they were able to be super scrappy and super quick. And number four, and this is the one that tied it all together, he knew the Ottoman Empire's entire playbook. You got to think, he spent years inside the Ottoman military. He literally was not only trained in the courts, but he fought with them. He knew how they marched, how they camped, how they would set up their attacks. He knew what an Ottoman commander, would expect a rebel to do. So he had his book and their whole book front to back, literally lived inside it. Now, to be clear, it wasn't all ambushes. He fought pitched battles and besieged fortresses and held castles. But his strategy came down to one rule, never fight the empire on the empire's terms. So more wins followed in 1445 and 1446. Ottoman commanders kept marching into the mountains and marching back with fewer men, losing battle after them. But the next few years taught him something just as important. Not all of his enemies were Ottoman. He didn't just have to worry about the Ottomans. Because in 1447, he went to war with, you guessed it, with Venice. Remember, the League was formed in a Venetian town, right? Venice and Skanderbeg should have been on the same team. They both wanted to get rid of the Ottomans. But Venice cared about its trading ports first and everything else second. So in a dispute over a coastal fortress turned ugly, Venice reportedly went as far as offering a lifetime pension to anyone who would assassinate Skanderbeg. Literally being like, hey, we're trying to keep our ports. I know, like, we don't like the Ottomans, but the Ottomans are letting us keep our ports and we're making money. So this guy's causing problems in our ports. I know he's trying to get rid of the Ottomans, but he's messing up the business. So can we get rid of this guy? And the whole time Skanderbeg is busy fighting the Venetians, the Sultan came himself to check him. In 1448, Sultan Murad himself besieged Svetograd, a frontier fortress, guarding one of the, like, eastern, like, roads in Talbania. And Skanderbeg harassed these guys trying to, like, siege his castle. But he couldn't break the siege and eventually the fortress fell. Now, according to his early biographers, it fell in the most humiliating way possible. Someone threw a dead dog into the fortress's water supply. So the garrison, believing that the water was now unclean, refused to drink it and then surrendered. Is it true? Maybe. It might just be a story that's going on. But it's not. It's a story that's going on. It's a story that's someone told later. We don't know. Either way, Svetograd was gone and the door into Albania was opened a little bit wider. And two years later, the Sultan walked through it. Now, here's what happened. In 1450, Sultan Murad II marched on Korea with an even bigger army and his teenage son and heir, Mehmed, at his side. Now, medieval sources love to inflate numbers. So the figures for this army run from tens of thousands to well over 100,000. Whatever the real number was, it wasn't anything Skanderbeg could put in the field. So Skanderbeg did something that sounds insane. He left. Kind of. More like he split his forces. So inside Korea, he left a small garrison, just a small number of soldiers under a trusted commander named Vrana Conti, with orders basically to hold the walls no matter what. And Skanderbeg took his mobile army up into a nearby mountain called Tumenishta. And they basically just waited. And for months, the Sultan's army was stuck between a fortress that it couldn't take and an enemy that they couldn't even find. So the Sultan reportedly tried to buy Vrana Conti off. He basically tried to give him gold and high positions within the Ottoman government. He basically went and he was like, hey, Mr. Conti, you can live like a king with the Ottomans and have a bunch of gold and a bunch of wives, anything you want. Just give up the fortress to us and this will all be done. All he had to do was open the gates and it would be over and he would be rich. Vrana Conti said no. And from the mountain, Skanderbeg kept coming down to hit the Ottoman camp and the supply caravans that fed that enormous army. Because again, enormous armies need enormous amounts of food and enormous supply lines. And if you cut off the food, then very suddenly, 100,000 soldiers become 100,000 hungry, sick, miserable men on the side of a mountain. All of a sudden, you're not an army anymore. You're just a bunch of dudes that are starving. So by autumn, spreading through the Ottoman camp and morale was gone. And Murad II, sultan of one of the most powerful empires on earth, gave up. He lifted the siege and just went home. And then that winter, he died. The great sultan came and failed to capture Skanderbeg. Mission accomplished. Does everyone ride off in the sunset? Not quite. Because standing beside Murad throughout that entire siege, watching every raid, every failed assault, every beating that they took, was a teenager who would inherit the empire. And his name was Mehmed II. He'd learned exactly how Skanderbeg fought. And in a few short years, he would conquer the greatest city in the Christian world. So May 29th, 1453. After weeks of bombardment, the walls of Constantinople, the greatest city in the Christian world, founded by Constantine himself, finally gives way. The Byzantine empire, which had lasted more than a thousand years, is suddenly gone. And the man who conquers it is Mehmed II, the same teenager who stood just before him. And he's the one who's going to be the next emperor. And he's going to just outside Kruja, watching Skanderbeg humiliate his father. He's just 21 years old when he does this. Now, everyone in Europe now understands, hey, this Ottoman empire thing is not a small movement. It's not like a cute little country. It is coming fast. It has taken everything in its wake. And they are a legit military force that we have to be worried about. But Skanderbeg had seen this coming. Hey, guys, we're going to take a break really quick because I want to tell you about GLD. Yeah, GLD sent me this chain, the chain that I'm wearing right now. If you've ever seen an episode of this show for the past, like, probably nine months, I'm wearing this exact chain. And sometimes brands will send you stuff and they'll be like, yeah, try out our thing. And every now and again, you're like, all right, whatever. This one is actually amazing. What impressed me is how substantial it feels in your hand. Like, it actually has a real weight. Like, the clasp feels extremely well made. It feels like really durable. And it looks even better in person. It's comfortable to wear. And it kind of elevates every single outfit that I'm putting on without having to overthink it. Their pieces are sweatproof, waterproof, and made to be durable and guaranteed for life. I literally wear this every single day. I never take it off. And what's amazing is that GLD has something for every style and price point from an 18 karat gold plated piece to a solid gold piece with natural diamonds. And they have collaborations with like the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, literally anything you can imagine. There's something there for you. I mean, obviously, as a Catholic, I had to bust out the crucifix, but they have crosses that are for Protestants even. They got everything you can imagine. So if you want to elevate any outfit, GLD is for you. And for a limited time only, new customers are getting an insane deal. You're going to go to GLD.com and use the code camp and you're going to get 40% off. Yeah, 40% off with the code camp at GLD.com. You can get the exact same crucifix that I'm wearing right now. Maybe we put that in description so people can see exactly the one that I'm wearing. And after you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about GLD. Make sure you tell them that Mark and Christos from the campsite sent you. Now let's get back to the show. PrizePix packs are here. Rip digital packs and get real basketball, football, and Pokemon cards on PrizePix packs. Available now nationwide. Once you see your pull, you have a choice to sell back instantly for real cash cash, or ship it home. Cash from your sale will immediately be added to your PrizePix balance. It's just another way to run your game. New users, download the PrizePix app today and use code SPOTIFY to get $25 instantly in bonus packs when you buy your first $5 pack. PrizePix, run your game. 18 plus eligible areas, terms apply, collect responsibly. Two years earlier, he learned a hard lesson from that first siege. Courage and ambushes can win you a battle here and there, but they can't pay for a war that never ends. He needs money, and he needs weapons, and he needs powerful friends. So in 1451, he signed the Treaty of Gaeta with King Alfonso V, who ruled Aragon and the Kingdom of Naples right across the Adriatic. And this was basically the deal, all right? Skanderbeg accepted Alfonso as his overlord. In return, Naples would send money and grain and soldiers to keep this Albanian resistance alive. To some, it looked like he just traded one master for another, like, he's, you know, having to cozy up with a different, you know, empire or king. But Alfonso was far away and wanted a buffer against the Ottomans. The sultan was next door and wanted Skanderbeg's head. So it was a pretty easy choice. That same year, he marries a woman named Adronica Arianiti, the daughter of one of Albania's most powerful noble families. Was it romantic? I mean, maybe, you know, maybe they had like a little dance, shared a glass of wine, knew each other. Was it strategic? Absolutely. In an alliance that basically, all of these marriages at this time are basically like strategic alliances. But this basically held together the family ties. This wedding was almost like a military treaty. But as the Ottoman pressure grew, even that alliance started to crack. 1455, Skanderbeg went on the offensive and actually tried to besiege Barat, an Ottoman-held fortress in southern Albania. And it didn't go that well. An Ottoman relief army, led by a veteran commandant, commander caught part of his forces off guard and handed the Albanians one of the worst defeats of Skanderbeg's career. The guy who led that Ottoman relief army was a guy named Isak Bey. Remember that guy? That's the guy that actually defeated Skanderbeg's father, John. He's the guy that came back and now defeated the sun in this one battle. Isak Bey. He's one of the very few commanders who was ever able to do both. Now, to be clear, he was not undefeatable, right? He lost, battles. He lost fortresses. And after Barat, he started to lose people too. One of his most trusted commanders, Moisei Golemi, defected to the Ottomans. And in 1456, he came back to Albania, leading an Ottoman army against his old boss. But in this case, Skanderbeg beat him. And then, in a twist that tells you a lot about how these alliances work, Moisei Golemi came back and asked forgiveness. Think about that. Like, Moisei's working with Skanderbeg. He's like, all right, I'm your boy. I'm going to do this. And then, let's fight. He defects to the Ottomans, now leads an Ottoman charge back to Albania to try to kill Skanderbeg. Skanderbeg defeats him. And then, Moisei says, hey, look, Skandi, I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Please take me back. And Skanderbeg took him back. But the next betrayal hit way closer to home. Because Hamza Kastriyati was Skanderbeg's own nephew. He'd been at his uncle's side since Torvio. He was one of his, like, top officers. And since Skanderbeg had no children, a lot of people basically assumed that Hamza would just inherit everything. He's his literal nephew. He's like basically the closest thing that he has to a child. But 1456, Skanderbeg and Andronica had a son. And as a result, Hamza defected. Now, historians often connect those two events, though we don't know exactly why. What we do know is that he went to the sultan, converted to Islam, and got the exact job that would hurt his uncle the most. So just imagine that. You're Skanderbeg, all right? You're trying to defeat the Ottomans. You're trying to hold up your people. You're like holding on by a thread, trying to get money, trying to make it all work. Your own nephew is literally by your side at all times, learns everything from you. And then you have a son. And then immediately you're like, hey, where's my nephew? Your nephew defects, goes with the Ottomans. And then in 1457, there's a massive Ottoman army that's invading Albania. And they have two commanders. One commander is Hamza, literally the nephew. And he basically was promised like his uncle's lands, like, hey, if you fight for us, if you defeat Skanderbeg, you're going to get everything. And this guy knows every tactic that Skanderbeg has. He knows all the hiding places better than almost anyone else alive. The way Skanderbeg was able to fight against the Ottomans because he grew up in the court. Hamza is able to fight Skanderbeg because he grew up in his court. And then the other commander of this whole sort of offensive is this guy, Isak Bey. This is the same guy who beat Skanderbeg at Barat. This is the same guy who beat Skanderbeg. And by many accounts, the very same commander who back in 1430 also beat Skanderbeg's father. This is Game of Thrones. It's crazy. The man who beat him, guided by the nephew who defected and knows all of his secrets, is now coming straight into Albania, trying to destroy him. And what does Skanderbeg do? He disappears. The Ottoman army marched into the Mount Vali, the old Kastrioti heartland, and they found nothing. There was no army, no ambushes. Skanderbeg had broken his force into these small groups and scattered up into the mountains. And for weeks, the Ottomans just burned and looted their way across the valley. Well, rumors spread that basically the rebellion was done. They told each other stories. The Ottomans were running around being like, yo, I heard Skanderbeg like abandoned all of his people, that he's a coward, that he left. We heard like, oh, Skanderbeg like fled the country. All of his men abandoned him. Skanderbeg is gone. Skanderbeg is dead. Even some of the Albanians started to believe it. And slowly, the invaders relaxed. They were like, wow, we showed up expecting a big fight. Skanderbeg is nowhere to be found. We can just chill. So they set up a big camp in the middle of an open field, basically known as the field of Abulena between Lezha and Kruja. And they started acting like an army that already won. They were like, hey, we showed up for a fight. There's nothing here. And this was the moment that they had been waiting for. September 2nd, 1457. Skanderbeg's scattered forces quietly just come back together. And they hit the Ottoman camp by surprise from several directions all at once. Hamza wakes up, tries to rally his men, shouting that the Albanians were only a small force, but it didn't work. Convinced that they were surrounded, the Ottoman army started to panic and they fell apart. Isak Bey barely escapes. Hamza did not. He was captured and shipped off as a prisoner to Naples. The German historian Franz Babinger, a leading 20th century expert on Mehmed and by no means a fan of Skanderbeg, called the Abulena Skanderbeg's most brilliant victory. This tiny little, okay, we're going to take all of our guys, fracture them into these small forces, go hide in the mountains. And then when they're least expecting it, we come up on them. It restored his reputation. It fired up his men. And in Rome, the Pope named him a captain general of the church. So think about this. To sum up things so far. Skanderbeg has survived a sultan, a war with Venice, a crushing defeat, his own nephew's betrayal. But notice what this battle didn't change. He still depended on lords who could walk away at any moment. He depended on money from Naples that could dry up. And he also had some promises from Rome that could just go away. He'd won the battle, but he couldn't seem to win this entire war alone. What he needed was all of Christian Europe to march beside him. And for one brief moment, it looked like he was about to get it. 1463. The Pope declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Pope Pius II calls for a new crusade. Armies and fleets from all over Christian Europe would finally come together and push the Ottomans back. And Venice, which had spent years treating Skanderbeg like a rival, now went to war with the sultan and signed on as his ally. For Skanderbeg, this was massive. He had spent 20 years fighting with borrowed money and an alliance that could walk away at any moment. And just a couple of years earlier, he had even taken his cavalry across the Adriatic to fight for the king of Naples, Alfonso's son Ferdinand, basically paying back the one foreign patron who had kept him alive. Now, finally, the rest of Europe is coming. So he broke his truce with the sultan and went back on the attack. In the summer of 1464, Pope Pius traveled to the port of Ancona off Italy's Adriatic coast to launch a new war. And he was able to do that. And he was able to launch the crusade in person, but no one showed up. The great European armies he'd been promised were kind of a no-show. And there, waiting for a fleet that barely arrived, the pope fell ill and died. Literally just like that, it was done. The crusades died with him, waiting on the coast of Italy. And now this left Skanderbeg in the worst possible spot. He had broken his truce with the sultan. This big war with the rest of Europe by his side was gone. Mehmed is pissed and coming for him, with the full attention of the empire. He's like the ultimate thorn in their side. And they want to get rid of him. And Mehmed II has the perfect weapon. His name is Balaban. And his story is basically Skanderbeg's story, but backwards. He was born a Christian in a village in the Met region, right in the middle of Kastrioti country. As a boy, he was taken by the Ottomans and raised as a janissary, which is basically part of the empire's elite corps of soldiers recruited from Christian boys. And by some accounts, he was one of the very first men over the walls of Constantinople in 1453. So think about that. Two Albanian boys, both basically taken as political tools, both raised inside the Ottoman system one turns against the empire to literally fight it. The other became its most determined weapon against him. And in 1465, Balaban invaded at a place called Vetchkal. Skanderbeg won the battle, but some of his officers chased the retreating Ottomans way too far and rode straight into an ambush. Several of his most important commanders were captured, including Moisi Golemi, the same man who had once betrayed him and been forgiven. As a result, they were sent to Constantinople. Skanderbeg offered to trade prisoners, but the sultan refused. And according to accounts that still survive, the captured officers were executed in one of the most brutal ways imaginable. They were skinned alive. That was the real cost of these years. Skanderbeg kept winning battles, but every win chipped away at the men who had been with him from the very beginning. And those men couldn't be replaced. And then in 1466, Mehmed II, came in person. The conqueror of Constantinople marched into Albania with an enormous army and laid siege to Kruja. And he did something that his father never did. Instead of trying to take the castle and go home, he built a brand new fortress right in the middle of the Albanian lowlands at a place called Elbasan. Reportedly, he did it in just a matter of weeks because he wasn't planning one more campaign anymore. He was building a permanent Ottoman base in the heart of the country so that the next invasion wouldn't have to be made. And he started from scratch. And then Mehmed went home and left Balaban behind to keep Kruja under siege. And Skanderbeg, now in his 60s, did something kind of strange. He sailed to Italy to basically ask for help in person. He went to Rome. He went to Naples. He met the new pope, Paul II. Everywhere he went, crowds turned out to see this famous champion of Christendom. And he came home with some money. It was a lot less than he needed, and way less than all those speeches had suggested. But still, it was enough. And in April 1467, Skanderbeg came back, gathered his forces with Phoenician help, and attacked the army besieging Kruja. And the siege broke. Balaban, the Albanian boy who had become the empire's sword, was killed in the fighting. And here we are again. One more win, one more siege broken, but still no closer to winning the war. And to make things even more difficult, Mehmed didn't do what he had to do. He was killed. And he was killed. And he was killed. But his father did. He didn't give up. Because that same summer, he came back with another army and swept through Albania again, just burning and wrecking the countryside as he went. But he still couldn't take Kruja. And that was starting to matter less and less. Because at this point in the heroic version of the story, things get difficult. 1467, Skanderbeg could keep his castle standing, but he could not keep the country around it from being destroyed. So villages burned, fields got ruined, people were killed. And he was killed. And he was killed. And he was killed. Or fleeing to the coast and across the sea. And now an Ottoman fortress stood at Elbasan. And it wasn't going anywhere. So to sum it up, you have a crusade that collapses because the Pope dies. His best officers chase the Ottomans too far and get ambushed and killed. And the sultan had planted a fortress right in the middle of his country. But still, Kruja is still standing. But the land it was supposed to protect was bleeding out. And the man who had held it together for a quarter of a year, he was able to get it out. And he was able to get it out. And he was able quarter of a century was running out of time. I mean, he had survived two sultans, a war with Venice, defections and ambushes, his own family betraying him. But the thing that finally killed Skanderbeg was probably a mosquito. January 1468, he called the Albanian lords together one more time to plan the next round of resistance against Sultan Mehmed. They met at Lejeune, the same town where 24 years earlier, he had first talked about, you know, bringing all these feuding families into one collection to fight together, to unite everyone. And while he was there, he came down with a fever. Scholars in the modern day suspect that it was malaria, common in the marshy lowlands toward that coast. He was about 62 years old. And after a quarter century of nonstop war, his body couldn't fight it off. And in January 17th, 1468, Skanderbeg died. Not in a battle, not by an assassin or some type of sultan's executioner, in a bed from a fever. And Kruja, the fortress that two sultans had thrown everything at, and they couldn't take, it was still standing. They buried him in Lejeune, in the church of St. Nicholas, the same church where the League had been born, where he originally united all the Albanians. His son, John, was only about 12. And eventually, the family would end up in Italy under the protection of the king of Naples. And this is where you might expect, the story to say, and then unfortunately, the Ottomans came in and Albania collapsed overnight, and they were destroyed and defeated. But remarkably, it didn't. Other Albanian lords and Venetian garrisons and the defenders of Korea held on for another decade, which might be one of the most impressive parts of the whole story, because it means that what Skanderbeg built wasn't just a one-man show. It wasn't just all built on the belief around him as a commander. The resistance continued for another decade without him. But in his absence, the alliance had no center. And Mehmed just never stopped coming. In 1478, after a long siege, the starving defenders of Korea finally surrendered. And 10 years after Skanderbeg's death, the fortress he'd made legendary was now in Ottoman hands. And the next year, the great Venetian stronghold of Skoda fell as well, handed over by Venice in a peace treaty after another brutal siege. And one of the people who lived through that siege was a young man named Marin Bartholomew. Barletti. Now that guy, Marin Barletti, is really important because that is Skanderbeg's first biographer. He escaped to Italy, and about 30 years later, he published the book that would make Skanderbeg famous across Europe. Now, really quick check on Barletti because his book is the source for a lot of what people believe about Skanderbeg and a lot of what we're talking about today. He was writing as a patriot and a refugee and honestly as just an admirer of Skanderbeg. And so as a result, people look at his biography with a little bit of scrutiny, right? It's possible he may have inflated some numbers. He may have invented his speech here and there. Maybe he, you know, made up letters between Skanderbeg and the Sultan. And he writes an amazing story. It's just not something you can take as like 100% verified history. And Barletti's world is also where the eeriest legend from the whole saga comes from. And here's how it goes. When the Ottomans finally took Lejeune, they found Skanderbeg's grave inside the church. And they opened it. Not to desecrate Skanderbeg. They did it because the soldiers wanted a piece of him. According to the legend, they took his bones and they wrapped them in silk and they wore them as amulets, believing that they would carry some of his courage with them into battle. Now, is this story true? We don't know for sure. Nobody knows where Skanderbeg's remains are today. The church in Lejeune was later turned into a mosque. Now it's a memorial with his grave marked out and the grave. It's empty. But think about what the legend says, even if it's only a legend. Think about what it means to people. The empire that spent 25 years trying to kill this man ended up wanting to just hold his bones as good luck charms to carry into battle, just to feel some of his bravery and courage. There's one more date that people used to measure how much he mattered. 1480, just a year after Skoder fell, with the Albanian coast now in their hands, the Ottomans crossed the Adriatic and landed in Italy. And there they captured the city of Otranto in the heel of the Italian boot. And a lot of Skanderbeg's fans point to that. And they basically say, look, as long as he was standing, Albania was a wall. The moment that he fell, the Ottomans showed up in Italy. It's crazy to think, right? Like 1480 is when Albania falls to the Ottomans. And then immediately after, they're in Italy, taking over Italy. Now, to be fair, it's like a perfect, powerful argument. The Ottomans were fighting on a dozen fronts from Hungary to Persia, plenty of things shaped when and where they moved. And the Italian invasion kind of fizzled out after Mehmed died in 1481. So was Skanderbeg single-handedly saving Europe? I think so. But of course, historians are going to debate this. What he did do is a little bit more complicated and arguably maybe more impressive. He had a tiny territory, a really unreliable alliance and allies who kept promising more than they delivered. And he forced the most powerful empire in the region to keep throwing armies and sultans and years at a handful of mountains that they normally would have been able to just defeat in like a single season. And so technically, Skanderbeg is one of the most remarkable commanders and heroes that I've ever read about. And the story is interesting because, yes, he held this resistance for a quarter of a century. And by the end, he ends up dying. And, you know, he's a very, very good soldier. And he's a very, very good soldier. And he's a very, And he's a very, very good soldier. And it would stay a part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 400 years. And his body was gone and his bones were maybe taken as charms or amulets. And his name could have just faded out with them. But instead, it was about to become something bigger than he ever was. Let's fast forward to November 28th, 1912. Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. And they hoisted up a flag, finally declaring their independence. And it was a black double-headed eagle in front of a red field. It was his flag. According to tradition, Skanderbeg first raised it over Kruya on the very same date, November 28th, 469 years earlier. And today it flies over a country of mosques and churches, and its national hero was born a Christian, raised a Muslim, and died Christian again, a man that every side can have a claim to, which is strange when you think about it, because no one knows where he is. So now everyone can claim him, but also no one can. His grave in Lejeu is empty, and if the legend is true, the last pieces of Skanderbeg were carried off by the very soldiers who spent their lives trying to fight him. Wrapped in silk, worn as amulets, taken into battle, and eventually to their own graves. He was Jerj, and then Iskender, and then Skanderbeg. Three names operating on both sides of the same war. And every November 28th, when Albania raises its flag, it flies over an empty grave, over a leap of faith. A leader that no one could hold down, and a people that would never stop fighting for their home. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of Skanderbeg. I mean, fire, dude. What a legend. What an absolute legend. I mean, think about that. Like, even there's parallels here, poetically, where you think like, okay, the Albanians were under Ottoman rule for 400 years, right? But they never forgot about Skanderbeg. The whole time, they're operating with this, you know, foreign government basically imposed on them, and they never forgot. And the second they get independence, what do they do? Hey, this is Albania. Remember Skanderbeg. And they hoist up his flag. And what did Skanderbeg do when he was in the courts of the Ottomans? The whole time, he was like, look, I'm being raised by these people for the next, like, two decades. I'm going to be a loyal sultan's, you know, like, soldier. But the whole time, he goes, I'm never going to forget my dad. I'm going to go back, and I'm going to avenge my people, and I'm going to go get my castle back. He also remembered all their tactics so that he could eventually defeat them. That's what I'm saying, dude. Think about that. So the way that Skanderbeg never forgot his father and his lineage to that land, the Albanian people never forgot their lineage to that land and to Skanderbeg. Fire. Gives me fired up. I mean, you don't think they forgot about him, and then when it came time for independence, they were like, what? No. Okay. No, Christos. For foreigners, they were thinking about Skanderbeg. They were thinking about the double eagle. That's right. And then when the time came, hoist it up. Albanians love that double eagle, man. It's fire. I think one of the best flags in existence. I am jealous of the flag. Oh, you don't like your blue cross? I love the blue cross. It's beautiful. It's an insurance company. What are you talking about? Blue cross, blue shields. This is a flag. Look at that. I know so many Albanians with this tattoo. Yeah, I want to get it. Yeah. That is gas. A lot of them put it. Like on their car, too. Yeah, yeah. They love that. Yeah. I mean, same to the same. And it's fire. It's unbelievable. And I love the Albanians, and I think it just gets me fired up, dude. What an awesome story. Skanderbeg, the legend. Great job to the listener who suggested it. Yes. Thank you so much to DL. DL. DL. Thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate you. Shout out to the Albanians all over the world. You guys are awesome. He literally, in the letter he gave me, bunch of images, came with facts of Skanderbeg. What a legendary guy. Yeah, sure. He may have died of malaria. Yeah, maybe he didn't ever get to see Albania fully independent. Yeah. But he died a hero, defending his people, and the resistance never died. Even though he was gone, the people went on for another 10 years. Even though they fell, they eventually got it back, and they held up the flag. Shout out to you, Skanderbeg, and shout out to all the Albanians out there. Ugh. What would New York be without Albanians? I don't know. Right? They're the best. I don't want to say anything. What? You're going to say a stereotype? Nope. The audacity, the chutzpah. Not me. What do you guys think? Any Albanians out there? If I missed anything, or if I got any facts wrong in the story, please let me know. Again, I'm not immune to being corrected. I get stuff wrong all the time. I'm just a stand-up comedian. I try my best with the research, my friends. Sophia and Zach, they helped me out. If there's anything we missed, please let me know. I would love to be informed. If there's anything you learned, if you're Turkish, maybe sit this one out. This one's not for you, okay? But if there's anything that you learned that you didn't know about the story from before, please drop a comment. Let me know. I read all the comments on YouTube, Spotify. I might not get back to you, but I will read it. I appreciate it. Also, we got Religion Camp. If you like religious deep dives, we talked a little bit about Christianity, Islam today. We go way deeper into that if you want to know everything about that. Check out Religion Camp. We also have a whole channel dedicated to mysteries, the unknown, and conspiracies. That is Camp Gagnon. That's the main channel that we drop twice a week. But if you just like to rock with the history of Apple, great news. You are in the right place. Big, big shout out to DL. Thank you so much for suggesting this episode. God bless you, my friend. I'm praying for you, and I hope the best for you with some of your medical stuff that you got going on. I don't want to out everything that's going on with him because he's a private citizen. But truly, dude, thank you so much. You're the man, and I really appreciate you coming to the show, especially with your mom. She was awesome. You guys are the best. God bless you. And for everyone that's been coming to the shows and just supporting this channel, I love you all. Truly, it means the world. This has been another episode of History Camp. God bless you, and I'll see you in the future to talk about the past. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the future to talk about the past. Does checking your bank statements feel like digging through a dusty attic full of forgotten subscriptions and old free trials? Experian can help take the pain out of canceling by handling it for you. Think of it as Operation Get Your Sanity Back. Over 200 subscriptions are cancelable. So get started in the Experian app and see how much you could save. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. See Experian.com for details.