Scanderbeg hated the infidels yoke more than anyone else. In the proposed invasion of Hungary, he saw the providential moment to free himself and all those who wished to follow him. Thus, with some three hundred Catholic Albanians who were to be thrown into the fight against the troops of Hunyadi, he set about making a plan that would free them all.
Eighty thousand soldiers under the command of Schahim Pasha advanced against the Magyars. Schahim Pasha was a bully who boasted with the arrogance and haughtiness proper to infidels: My sword is a cloud that pours blood instead of water. Hunyadis Catholic troops numbered just twenty thousand.
On a cold November night, near Nish, the Hungarian vanguard caught sight of the heterogeneous Turkish horde. The warriors of the Cross silently eyed their enemy until the moment Constable Hunyadi joined them and gave the order to attack. Great shouts of enthusiasm resounded on the battlefield as the crusaders cavalry hurtled forward in a furious charge. Clouds of arrows filled the sky. Taking advantage of the confusion of the first clash, Scanderbeg and his followers passed over to the side of the followers of the Cross of Christ.
The first outcries of the Turks wounded by the Hungarians were joined by furious curses of hatred when they saw, to their amazement, that their own bey generalissimo was fighting side by side with Hunyadi.
A tremendous confusion ensued. The Hungarians, fighting with increased strength, won the battle. Thirty thousand Moslems lay dead on the field and four thousand were taken prisoner.
Among the captives was Amuraths secretary of state with his retinue. When he was discovered among the prisoners, Scanderbeg forced him to write and sign a firman [a royal order or mandate]. This document ordered, in the sultans name, the Turkish government of Albania to hand over the government to the person presenting the document. With the document in hand, Scanderbeg had the secretary and his attendants put to the sword, thus rewarding them with the same fate that had befallen his brothers and servants some twenty years before.
Invoking the protection of the Blessed Virgin, Scanderbeg and his Albanians rode seven days and nights to reach Kroia. The seventh night was already extending its mantle of stars over the sky when they entered the city.
Once in the city, Scanderbeg secretly met with the most important Albanian residents, who promised to help him. As dawn broke, he entered the castle of the Turkish governor. Upon reading the document signed by the sultans secretary, the governor surrendered the stronghold without suspecting anything amiss. The following evening, Scander-beg and his Albanians entered the fortress and killed all the Mohammedans.
Scanderbeg thus regained control of the territories that were his legitimate inheritance.
He was ready to avenge the anti-Catholic despotism of the Islamics: their deceits, assassinations, abduction of Albanian women to serve in Turkish harems, and of Catholic youth to pervert and force into service as janizaries, unbearable taxes, and forcible impression of troops for the sultans armies.
On November 13, 1443, after two decades of silence, church bells rang out.
Catholic Albania, freed from the infidels yoke through the protection of Our Lady of Scutari, today known as the Mother of Good Counsel, rejoiced.
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