Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - UNLOCKED: Leka I, the Mad Prince of Albania

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

The pretender to the Albanian throne and Rhodesia fan boy declares himself king, gets arrested for smuggling guns, and gets in a high speed private plane chase while armed with a rocket launcher. Joe is joined by KD, writer and runner of the War Takes blog. https://wartakes.com/ Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys @war_takes Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/01/leka-zogu https://www.ft.com/content/6f2f39aa-21ab-11e1-a1d8-00144feabdc0 https://web.archive.org/web/20210613055654/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/royalty-obituaries/8926722/Leka-I-Zogu.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010122090100/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1127/balkankings.html

Hello and welcome to a bonus episode. I think this is gonna be a bonus episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. Clearly a professional outlet that has things scheduled. I'm Joe and with me today is KD. I was gonna call you the host, but that's not accurate. The writer of War Takes. I'm the War Takes guy. I'm the war guy. I'm here to take all your war. Yeah, please. As someone sitting in Armenia right now, please, you can have it. Please take it.

Sorry, we're at capacity. You're going to have to come back another time when we have more room in the war tanks. You need a war strategic reserve. Just like a big... One of those big war grain silos, which will no doubt, like a actual grain silo, catch fire if you so much as sneeze next to it and explode. As someone who grew up in a city, that was probably one of the weirdest things that someone... I learned, I think it was in basic training or something, when someone was from Nebraska or whatever, like, oh yeah, corn will just explode. I was like, bullshit. That's not

how corn works. No, I'm with you. And we both grew up in the Midwest. And when I learned that grain like corn could just explode in storage, storage and just like, that's not true. It's just food. Food doesn't blow up. Yeah. I have to say this episode is very weird for me because it is a normal hour where I am. Normally I record in the morning. It is like 5 p.m. here, 530.

I actually get to have a beer while I'm recording. I actually stopped by my corner store to get beer just so I could have a beer while I'm recording. Because normally I'm recording at 5.30 a.m. I was going to say, I'm recording with the rare... It has not just woken up and it's not 5 o'clock in the morning Joe Kasabian. I feel like I got a rare Pokemon card. I know. I kind card i know it's uh i kind of forget what it's like to talk into this mic and not fucking want to go to bed

what are you drinking i am drinking uh kotike gold it's a local beer here i got it for the princely sum of i believe 400 drum which is a dollar actually i think it's slightly less than a dollar at the moment. Inflation is kicking the drum's ass. Was the drum doing so good even before war? It was actually doing okay. It was at least stable. A lot of people think it's pegged to the ruble or something, but it's not. Apologies to the drum then. Apologies to the drum then. Yeah. Well, it's doing reasonably well, all things considered, when you think one of our largest economic allies is currently imploding the world.

Thanks, Putin. It's doing okay. It's doing better than it has been in the last couple months. But it's very weird. I can't really go into details because I don't know enough about i don't know enough about economics but our ministry economics is made up yeah it truly is money is in is an invention um and and just make number go up but you know our our ministry of uh like economics and stuff isn't the most robust ministry on earth so it's kind of like you know how everybody said during COVID in the United States when people were like, oh, they're just letting things work themselves out. That's literally what

every ministry of our government is doing in regards to the coming recession. They're like, I don't buff out. We probably don't have to do anything about this. The coming recession, it seems like everyone just decided like, yep, not only are we going to have it, but maybe we should actually try and force it. Again, economics is made up. I'm an international relations guy. At least we sort of act like it's all made up and accept that it's made up. Economists will try and convince you it's real when it's made up. Yeah. I mean, as of right now, I think our inflation is like 9%,

up. Yeah. I mean, as of right now, I think our inflation is like 9%. But it's been jumping up and down. So I get paid in dollars. So it just means every time I go to the store, things are just weird. The prices have jumped up between $300 and $500 a drum. The poor thing is you can get an evening equivalent of a Tonus to record your podcast with. That is correct. I still can't find that ever again like ever since i've that became a thing when i drank it i believe it was 4 a.m uh i've been looking around the corner stores here to find like i found drinks from the the brand like it's not it's not called tonus it's actually uh tesla is the brand name. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.

Unfortunately, my energy drink has bought Twitter and made it more racist. And now it's catching on fire. Yeah. But I can't find the Tesla Tonus drink. I will keep looking. I will open the store. It's like the store for gremlins. You go back the next day and it's just never existed or burned down. Yeah, I can find only

sugar-free Red Bull for some reason because whoever is the import-export guy for Red Bull fucking hates my country. He's probably a Zeri. Oh, God. Now, interestingly, a podcast that you were on inspired me to write this episode. And I did not

actually think you'd be able to come on because our time zones are so different. Because you're like, oh, you know, I... We were spending all summer trying to figure out what we should talk about. And we were overthinking it because we're massive nerds. That is very accurate. And yeah, I was... We were talking about series and all of this other stuff. And then I listened to the Well, There's Your Problem episode where you guys talked about Rhodesia for, I think three hours, which if I,

if memory serves me correctly, you had to do that twice. Yes. We had to do that twice because the first time we did it, I think like 30 minutes to an hour. Yeah. That day was the day that Roe versus Wade got overturned and we were all birthday. Oh, I'm Ah, yes. Also, no, it was my birthday.

Oh, I'm sorry, buddy. Yeah. And we were all- And in tradition of being Joe Kasabian's birthday, we were all in various states of being drunk, distressed, and depressed. So we got through it. It's also just called my birthday. And I think people might have listened to it and realized, you know what?

Maybe we should give this another shot. So yeah, we did it twice. And both times, it was like two and a half hours. But it was absolutely worth it. Love those folks. It was still... The first time, it actually helped us cope with it being a horrible day. And the second time, it was just fun.

But I'm glad it resulted in some inspiration for you. Yeah, because there was an aside during the whole thing. And by the way, if you're listening and you don't listen to Well, There's Your Problem, which one, I don't know why you don't. Liam is normally a co-host on the show. He co-hosts that one. We're kind of like weird cousins at this point as shows. I've had every host of that show on my show at separate points.

Now you're on the guest hosts. Yeah, yeah. I'm working my way down the set lists. But during the Rhodesia episode, you ended up talking about the Prince of Albania. I believe his name is Lika or

Leka Zogu. Albanians, I apologize. I don't know how to pronounce this name. I'll call him Leka? I think it's Leka. Your guess is as good as mine. I was just looking at Wikipedia to see if there's a pronunciation guide,

and there is nothing. Just go with what sounds natural. Yeah, I'm going with Leka. He sees his royalty and he's dead. Who gives a shit? Yeah, yeah. If I've offended the house of Zogu, then I guess I can't go to Albania.

Uh, but if, if there's one thing that's a constant on this show is that we love up some Albania. Uh, this started as a joke, um, because we did one episode about Albania forever ago about the Albanian civil war. And we became the most listened to podcast in Albania.

Uh, yeah. And then after that happened on, and we became the most listened to podcast in Albania. Real heads remember. Yeah. And then after that happened, on Well, There's Your Problem, they all kind of agreed that I was Albanian rather than Armenian. And I think it was Alice that was like,

no, he's Armenian, which is hilarious because at the time, Liam was my co-host. That's about the time that I think I made this really bad resolution graphic that I think you pull out once in a while, though I just divided the world between greater Albania and greater Armenia, making sure that on the half that was greater Albania, which I think I made the Western Hemisphere, I put a couple of dots in Detroit and Los Angeles that were still greater Armenia. Yeah, as things should be. Now, I was really interested in this Lekazogu guy

because if there's one thing I like, a type of guy that I like is mad royalty. I would say a mad monarch, but he never quite made it that far. But we'll talk about why exactly. And that's because L lekazogu is possibly the arms trafficking prince turned self-proclaimed king of albania who really fucking love brodija yeah um he had a personal army at some point he had multiple arms caches he's been he's been arrested probably more than

most nobility um because normally when nobility get arrested, it's because they're about to go on the literal chopping block. But not him. This guy used all nine of his lives if he was a cat. He did. He took part in a terror attack at one point. He did his own January 6th in Albania. Yeah. This guy, he has layers like an ogre.

I am so ready for this. But it's honestly, the story started about him. And to be completely honest, his life story isn't quite long enough, but you can't tell his life story without telling the very weird story of Albanian royalty in general, which just means about his dad, weird story of albanian royalty in general which just means about his dad um who goes by king zog the first um and i need to point out that like i i know the word zog in a lot of people's minds is very very bad for uh mostly neo-nazi reasons and conspiracy theory shit that is not what it means here i just need to say that now this unfortunate name, is nothing to do with any weird anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Oh, God, I didn't even make that connection

at first until you mentioned that just now and then I suddenly remembered, oh, God. Yeah, that's like the first thing that left to my mind. I was like, oh, fuck. Their last name is Zogu or Zagu, but he'd go, like, when they become king, they go by Zog.

I don't know apparently that was the apparently that was the name he took because apparently last name he was born with was zogoli yeah sounds like a first draft of waluigi it's it's the albanian counterfeit version of waluigi if there's one thing i know about the caucusus and the Balkans is that intellectual property rights don't exist. So there's a theme park here that has a Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff, which has Johnny Depp's face. There's the entire cast face on it, but it just says pirates. Gonna drop off my kids at the shady daycare with the unlicensed bad paintings of the characters from cars on the side. Yeah, and it's called like vehicles.

Now, Lekazogu's dad, King Zog I, was born Ahmed Mutar Bey Zogoli in Ottoman Albania in October 9th, 1895. He was born to a Beylik family. Now, Beyliks were something of akin to Turkic nobility and akin to chieftains, but sometimes given more power. So he was some kind of aristocracy. Kind of, yeah. I wouldn't call him Ottoman aristocracy. He was not that powerful. He was certainly regional. And generations of his family had held that position and as such, they held quite a bit of regional political power within

Ottoman Albania, mostly centralized in the north. Actually, this guy wasn't a nobody. No. He certainly wasn't anything I would call a king or anybody that would think of a future king or even a future unifier of albania

now this family is quite powerful his mother claims uh to be a descendant of skanderberg who uh is easily the greatest national hero in albanian history um he's honestly skanderberg skanderberg yeah uh i thought you were going to say Norway or Sweden, and then you came in with the Albania and you just floored me. Yeah, and I do have to point out here, this is kind of like

when every boring white person claims to be some long-lost descendant of some British, Scottish, or Irish lord or something. You're not, and there's a very good chance that they're not related to Skanderberg either. A ton of regional political people within Albania at the time

claimed Skanderberg family ties. And for good reason. Russian American with Romanov in their name, claiming they're related to the Romanovs. Right. And not just some guy who's like literally a shit shoveler for the Romanovs serfdom or some shit.

Exactly. And I mean, I don't know. It's never been proven that they're actually related to Skanderberg, but they claimed it. It's a power flex.

It's, you know, like honestly, it's like saying you're related to George Washington, which like is much easier to prove. Yeah, it's much easier

to prove. Though Skanderberg is significantly more badass than george washington at some point i will do uh probably was a series on him because he's super interesting uh but just know for now for this for our purposes here very important guy um now this regional uh very important important, Skanderberg. Now, there were easy... For Albanians in general, not all Albanians, but for practicing Muslim Albanians, because there are some non-Muslim Albanians, existence within the Ottoman Empire was good. Your experience may vary, I screamed from the back of the room. They weren't considered Turks.

Generally speaking, you're probably going to do better than if you were greek or iranian or you know or any religious or ethnic minority really um and they weren't considered turkic um but i know some people probably disagree with me on that turn my comment section into a balkan argument i don't care um okay youtube, let's go. Yeah. Fuck. I love that goddamn Twitter account. Uh,

okay. Uh, so they were there. Albanians were practicing Muslims. They weren't considered Demi. They were allowed a regional self rule, a certain amount of freedoms. I won't call them freedoms in general because it is still the Ottoman empire.

Uh, when in comparison, like, uh, Christians or Assyrians or Yazidis, whatever, they were considered dimmy. They were barred from most political power. Though there were some outliers. People always like to point this out to me that some non-Muslim, non-Turkic people rose to power in the Ottoman Empire. That's absolutely true. For example, at one point, an Armenian was the foreign minister for a little while. They're outliers. It doesn't

happen that often. Yeah. It's another one of those things where people... It was like here in America with the whole black faces in high places. Like, well, an African-American has been appointed the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which means racism is gone. Yeah. We had a black president, therefore racism is solved. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I love being in a country where racism has been solved. Everything's going super well. Yeah. Anyway, let's flick on the news. The N-word was trending on social media the other day. So that's not fun. I woke up to that. I was like, I'm turning my phone off. The N-word and anti-Semitism, because

you know what? You know what? Let's focus on happy things. You know what? Fuck you, King Zog. I can't believe you bought Twitter and you blew a dog whistle to say racism's okay. Fucking King Zog. I blame Kanye.

Now, even being a non-Turkic Muslim within the Ottoman Empire fucking sucked. You were still racially considered inferior. You weren't going to make your way in any sublime portes anytime soon. And a lot of these minorities were arguing for independence, Albania amongst them. Albanians began to revolt, and this happened more and more frequently as time went on. This ramped up considerably once the Young Turk Revolution happened. The reason for this is without going into excruciating details, which I

tend to do whenever I talk about this, the Young Turks and the resulting Committee for Union and Progress, or CUP, or Cup of Shit, were hardline Turkish nationalists. They saw the ability to continue the existence of the Ottoman Empire as a Turkish nation state in the future. They did not see a future for any minorities within the empire, hence all of the genocides. But that also meant people like Albanians who are not Turkish. Before this, in the Ottoman Empire, you could have your own language. You could generally keep your own religion as long as you paid extra taxes. You'd go to schools in your local... You wouldn't be forced to learn Turkish or anything like that.

It sounds a lot sort of parallels, like basically when Yugoslavia fell, when Slobodan Milosevic took power. It's not like he intended to break up Yugoslavia, but what he wanted to do was basically be like, hey, none of this, you're all equals. It's Serbs first, Serb everything, and you're all second to us. And that's what led to the downfall. start forcing people to give up their native languages, their native customs, people are going to start getting the old boomstick and shooting you in the face. And that's generally what happened. When the Albanian language

and customs suddenly got the old Thanos finger snap from the local government, people started burning shit down. It's like you said, it's not like you can cut this part out. Sorry if it sounds like I'm jumping over your thing. It's just a slight delay. But like you said said it's not like uh you can cut this part out sorry if it sounds like i'm jumping over your thing it's just like um but but like uh you know like you said it's it's not like they were being like super tolerant and super accepting beforehand but it was just like they were at least maybe being a little bit more quiet about it and now it sounds like the quiet part is

being said very out loud oh yeah if it's one thing the CUP was good at was not really hiding who they were. The minister for the interior once told Henry Morgenthau, who was the ambassador to the United States, to the Ottoman Empire, that he needed to give the Ottoman government all of the Armenian life insurance uh because they'd already killed them all and since there's no families left the money should go to the state so like yeah they were not good they didn't try to hide shit like they they told everybody given all the genocide denial you know they don't try to hide any of this shit but that that one genocide didn't happen yeah say what you will but if the cup was around, they wouldn't deny anything. They'd be very proud of it. They'd want a participation trophy and everything.

Yeah. Now, the Ottomans pretty quickly ceded to Albanian demands, left Albanian schools open, they lowered taxes, and weirdly, I left this in here because it's the most bulked shit on Earth, agreed to only draft people from Kosovo for the military. Oh, no.

Kosovo just getting the shaft again. One of those countries that just... They've had it a little bit better in recent years, but just one of those countries that for the longest time just is always getting the shaft no matter what. Yeah. I mean, like, I know we're talking about the balkans here so you knew some kind of balkans ass shit was coming but that just jumped out to me that that the albanians burning everything down and getting mad and rightfully so we're like no you're conscripting too many of us you have to only

conscript people from our province of kosovo they're like fine deal just albanians is typing theories these like albanians should not be draft. Only draft Kosafar's job for dog people. Those are not my opinions. I am just trying to emulate a Balkan YouTube comment. Anyway, KD is an Albanian supremacist now.

I have my entire backyard is just all bunkers. It's just every square inch. A black eagle tattooed across your chest. I mean, if you have nothing but bunkers in your backyard, you could just be the guy from Austria. I can't remember his

fucking name now. Josef Fritzl? Yeah. Come into my basement to do your podcast. I haven't made a Josef Fritzl joke since the last time I was on a show with Milo Edwards, so

whoops. I think Milo might be solely responsible for educating a large portion of the Internet on who Joseph Fritzl even is, like just by his actual own. We should all thank him for his service. Thank you for your service, Milo. Now, while all of this is

happening, the Ottomans were getting their teeth kicked in during the Italio-Turkish War, which had been raging on since 1911. And this is a war akin to watching the NCAA Division 6 t-ball. Everybody is just fucking up constantly and the Italians fucked up less. We'll talk

about it at some point, I'm sure. The Ottomans lost the war. They caved to internal unrest and showed the world that, you know, the empire is kind of held together with genocide and duct tape at this point. So if somebody wants to come in and kick the mother down,

they should do so. And so people did so, which was the Balkan League, famously, which was probably most famously known as that one time the Balkans were on one side of anything ever we love a league we love a good league uh balkans fantasy football league that that could be a thing yeah i don't know i drafted montenegro oh dark i got a good feeling about montenegro this this

season i don't know the numbers are looking good we're doing the saber metrics on them i have good feelings about montenegro. I'm going to go with Northern Macedonia because they're the only country to be bullied so hard by someone else, they changed the name of their own airport. They changed the name of their own country because they had to add the north. But hey, you know what?

They added the north and then they got to get to NATO. So now they're not going to get attacked by anyone. So I mean, trade-offs. Actually, I fully, you know, trade-offs. Actually, I fully support Armenia changing the name of our airport if it means us suddenly being able to join the EU. Would you change it to Kim Kardashian International Airport? Yeah, why not? Fuck it.

Fuck it. Why not? Fuck it. I mean, put her in charge of it. She can't run it any worse. The loading and unloading zone is dummy thick. Now, the Balkan League was made up of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, banded together to effectively kick the Ottomans out of Europe in the course of a year. And it would be the biggest disaster the Ottoman Empire would suffer, at least for a couple years until World War I happened.

Good. Yeah. It couldn't have happened to a nicer group of assholes. Now, during this, Albania declared independence from the empire, though decided not to get involved in the Balkans War, which is probably a good call because it was horrific. Albania was officially the principality of Albania, which is weird because up until now, they had no nobility. And it was headed by a guy named Prince Wilhelm, which if you're guessing by the name, was not Albanian.

Okay. Okay. In the great tradition of implanting monarchs from countries that they're not the monarch of, where did they draft this guy from? He was the second cousin of the German Kaiser. Of course. I suppose, you know what? That's par for the course around there. I mean, Prince Philip, late of the United Kingdom, was originally Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece for some reason. Yeah. Why not? I at At least they get good food out of Greece.

I don't know what Denmark has. I assume some kind of spoiled fish. Pancakes, I think. I think they have pancakes of some kind. They like a pancake with jam. Do they eat the wooden shoes, or is that the Netherlands? Oh, that's the Netherlands.

They're the same. You got to put on the wooden shoes while we dance around to Honkbo Hooteklasse on my radio tonight. Look, the only thing that I know about generally Europe as a whole is I recently flew through Brussels in Brussels Airways. Worst airline I have ever been to I no longer recognize is Belgium's Independence. Belgium needs to just go away. I don't know how a member of the EU has such a terrible airline and is still allowed to fly. This is at the point where all the Dutch and French irredentists who want to divide it up between them are just going, yes, yes.

You know what? Good. Go nuts. Nothing good has ever come out of Belgium, except maybe French fries, which, wait, no, those are French. Fuck it. Nothing good has ever come out of Belgium. Jean-Cla, which, wait, no, those are French. Fuck it. Nothing good has ever come out of Belgium. Jean-Claude Van Damme? He's Belgian, right?

Is he good? Did he do something terrible? He probably did something terrible. I was about to ask you the same thing. You know what? Let's just assume that he did. We'll just table that and, yeah, assume that he did because it's the same fruit. Yeah, and, you know, Nate can edit this in when we find out that he did something terrible.

Nate can edit this in when we find out he did something terrible. We do not support or defend Jean-Claude Van Damme's career in any way. Or his high kicks. Yeah, or his splits, his many splits. He did splits in between fucking semi-trucks one time, didn't he? I feel like that was Jean-Claude Van Damme. That feels like something he would have done. Spiritually, he would do it if he didn't do it physically.

Now, I don't even know what that fucking means. So Prince Wilhelm was picked to be the prince of the principality of Albania in the dumb in any way, as they had no recent history or really any history in the last, I don't know, several hundred years since their time in the Ottoman Empire as a monarchy. And they were kind of shaping themselves to be some form of republic. However, the Queen of Romania, Elizabeth, heard that the great Western powers wanted to extend their sphere of influence into this newly independent country. And because she really wanted to be involved in all of this and be that bridge

that could bring them all closer, she recommended Wilhelm because she was related to him. Of course. The big massive interbreeding web expands further. Exactly. And since this is before World War I, of course they're doing this.

Everyone generally thought this was a great idea other than, weirdly, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, who was also related to him, who pointed out, weirdly, correctly, that maybe we should pick an Albanian Muslim because they're Albanian and also Muslim. Nobody paid any attention to that. Who is this guy and what did he do with Kaiser Wilhelm? This is that one time where the broken-ass clock is correct. The worst guy you know makes a good point. A man who never saw a plot that he didn't like.

Imagine Kaiser Wilhelm, a man who oversaw two genocides in Africa, looking at Albania like, maybe we should have some Muslim Albanian representation over here. looking at Albania like, maybe we should have some Muslim Albanian representation over here. Kaiser Wilhelm getting ready for his 33-minute spot on MSNBC. Oh, hell yeah. Instead, I'm pretty sure he retired to – no, it was the Netherlands. It doesn't say Belgium, but I'm pretty sure it was the Netherlands. It was the Netherlands. He got exiled there. Despite everything he did, and despite the Nazis not even liking him that much,

I think just died of old age. And again, another thing that a dumb person can be very right about, he also didn't like Nazis. So see what you will about Kaiser Wilhelm exploding the world of a very stupid war. He also didn't like Nazis. So that's one plus. Didn't like Nazis, but only because he liked his own sort of apolitical brand of authoritarianism. Oh, yeah. If the Nazis would have reestablished the monarchy, he would have been a huge fan. That was the main reason he didn't like them. He didn't give a shit about the anti-Semitism or any of this other shit.

I mean, he was an anti-Semite, but they were staunchly against the monarchy returning. So he's like, man, fuck you too. That's all boiled down to. Why couldn't you guys have been more like Italy, which is going to come into play here very soon? Yep. Now, a group of Albanian old power figures, including members of the Zogu family,

told Wilhelm that they would accept him as prince, assuming he would immediately usher Albania into the open arms of Europe, which, of course, that didn't happen. It still hasn't happened, depending on, I guess, where you're from in Europe. Now, pretty much immediately, revolts broke out with people pointing out that we just got rid of the Turks. Why the fuck is some German asshole in charge? Which, you know what? Good point. The Greeks thought this was hilarious in support of the opposition. And this turned to a three-way as Wilhelm's chief minister accepted a bribe from Italy to form an opposition group to the prince.

So it's a four-way now. I've already lost and this is great. So this went from independence to a kind of a four-way civil war, all because some German asshole showed up, and Italy and Greece thought it was funny. Albania's starting its history of bizarre civil wars. The most Balkan country ever. Oh, and then World War I started. Now, as you can imagine, as a German with deep royal relations

with Austria, Hungary, and Germany, tiny, half-exploded Albania was immediately pressured to support Daddy Austria and Germany. Somewhat surprisingly, Wilhelm said no, which was mind-blowing to me. However, his entire government... Seriously, what did this guy do with the actual Wilhelm?

This is Prince Wilhelm. Sorry. Prince Wilhelm of Albania. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Also, you're not wrong because this is the only good decision he made while he was Sorry. No. Also, you're not wrong because this is the only good decision he made while he was prince

is like, I don't want to do World War I or like, okay. So he did personally, but he didn't think Albania should,

which is correct. Wilhelm's entire Albanian government was being bankrolled by his fellow inbred monarchs in Europe. And because he told,

you know, Austria, Hungary, and the German Empire to go fuck themselves, they simply cut off his allowance, which meant Albania no longer had an economy. No economy for you, young man,

until you join that war. Well, he did. Kind of. He buckled down and did the thing that a responsible monarch should do. He abandoned his country and joined the German army under a fake name while still claiming to be prince. Yeah. I was about to say, is he just going to go off and join the German army? And he did because it was the dumbest thing I could think

of. Now, weirdly, Zogu, who would eventually become King Zog I, also fought in World War I for Austria-Hungary while Albania stayed out of it. After the war, the victorious allies were absolutely not going to recognize Wilhelm's claim to the throne of Albania because fuck the Germans. And it became a republic with Zogu

as its first president with a seven-year term. No, there was no elections. It was kind of like some behind-the-doors meddling type situation. Smoke- there was no elections. It was kind of like some behind-the-doors meddling-type situation. Smoke-filled rooms and such. Oh, every room back then was full of smoke. Everybody chain-smoked and windows weren't invented yet.

Windows are a peasant invention. Everybody lived in an unventilated cube. The cube was just smoking. Hot-boxing would just hot-box your cigarettes while staring into the wonder of the cube. That's right. Now, unfortunately for, I assume, everybody, the Albanian constitution kind of made their president a dictator. I'm shocked and appalled.

Yeah, it gave him power over all three branches of the government, and he was allowed to appoint everybody, which is a problem. And so, of course, he used this to silence dissent, and he declared himself king of Albania within three years of taking office. First, he was prime minister. Then he was president. And then he becomes king all in the span of like six years, which is just the best case of started at the bottom and now we're here I've ever seen. It's that Napoleon grind set, baby. We love when Napoleon grind set on the show. Yeah.

First council's like, nah, man, I'm going to set the new record. I'm going to break this. this bokasa looking on in jealousy uh well to be fair this he was king a lot longer than bokasa was emperor but this is true he also made himself field marshal of albania despite that not being a rank that they've ever had before because fuck it why not what's like albania probably not even having like not enough people let alone troops to constitute naming yourself a field marshal of anything. Yeah, exactly. Though I'm not going to shit on this guy the entire time because during World War II, he opened his borders to absorb any and all Jewish refugees.

Like no questions asked. If you're a Jew and you came over the Albanian border, you're welcome. We like a crazy guy who has at least a couple redeeming qualities. Yeah. He has one. One redeeming quality. You know what? All you need is one. Yeah. He was also massively paranoid. To be fair,

this is kind of earned. Albania was something of a tradition of a blood feud, which we've talked about before on the show. A small slight, for example, breaking off an engagement to someone means someone in traditional Albanian law, not actual law, but tribal customary law, means that someone is well within the rights of killing you in revenge. Okay. All right. Zero to 10. Yeah. This is something of a problem. And it has been a problem up until modern times. Because say if you piss someone off, say you break off and engage them with someone.

Normally, it's something much worse than that. But not always. And you die. Natural causes or whatever. The blood feud will pass on to your children because they didn't get revenge on you. So you're not getting out that easily. You have to go get revenge on your kids. Yeah, yeah.

My God. Yeah. From my understanding, there's been a lot of work done to stamp this shit out. And again, from my understanding, it's largely dead. But back in where King Zogu or King Zog the First is. Very, very fucking real. Now, as king, as you would imagine, King Zog accrued one hell of a blood feud debt. He's just racking them up left and right. It was thought to be anywhere from 600 to 1,000 fucking people

who, according to tradition, had all the rights in the world to connect him to Allah's Wi-Fi. And this resulted in at least 55 attempted assassinations at him, though probably more, and then maybe someone got cold feet, but like at least 55. 55? He was only king for like a decade.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a painful average. He stopped going out in public pretty much. His wife did all the public appearances. But now, as the world is getting closer and closer to World War II and the Great Depression whooped everybody's ass, King Zog had a bit of a problem. Albania was fucking broke. I mean, they were broke before the Great Depression, but now they're really fucking broke.

It's like there's a between being broke and being broke. Yeah, literally like wearing a barrel for clothes, but also king. Though actually, I should point out, the royal family never suffered. Of course they didn't. That's not how royalty works. But thankfully for Zog, he had a good friend that would totally help him pay his debts. Benito Mussolini of Italy. There we go. I was waiting for him. He's here.

Things were tough for him. Things were tough for Albania, but luckily he had something. I'm missing the word here. He had a... What's the word for a friend like that. He had a... Thank you. Now, I'm just thinking of that Toy Story song, You've Got a Friend in Me, but it's Mussolini and Zog walking down the street together. Oh, that's the most

cursed mental image. You've got a friend in me. You've got a friend in me. Now, Mussolini, of course, Mussolini wasn't friends with Albania. This is Empire shit. He had been supporting Albania for years, mainly to

push British influence out of the region because the Brits were also leaking in, which is the only way Brits go everywhere is they leak in. And like we talked about before, Mussolini dreamed of his own idiotic Roman Empire one day. And we talked a lot more about that during the Greco-Italian War. So if you want more insanity about Mussolini's Roman Empire Part 2, go listen to that. But he included Albania within that. And after the Great Depression tore through Albania, Italy was financing so much of the government's budget

that the Albanian National Bank's headquarters just fucking moved to Rome. I remember this. Just waking up one day, walking down the street, and your bank, much like that one pizza place that used to be on the corner, is just like, sorry, we've moved to a new location. It's like, you're the national bank. That reminds me of during the sick man of Europe phase of the Ottoman Empire, the debt

management administration put in place by the French in the Ottoman Empire because they were giving so much money to the Ottoman Empire. It was bigger than the Ministry of Treasury for the Ottoman Empire. they were giving so much money to the Ottoman Empire was bigger than the Ministry of Treasury for the Ottoman Empire. It's like, oh man, there's empire shit and there's this. You see, the nude today, they would just hire McKinsey to do that.

Yeah, yeah. The nude also have worked for fascist Italy. Do not look at Pete Boudinieg's resume. Oh, God. Now, effectively, Italy owned the country. And Italy began making demands that the king put Italians in charge of virtually every branch of government as well as the military. And, oh, yeah, by the way, teaching Italian is now mandatory in school.

So, at this point, they're just kind of doing the, like, you know, we're going to make you an Italian territory and all but name before we do it formally. Yeah, until we eventually do it by force, which they're about to do. Now, that is when the main character of our story comes in. 40 minutes later, Leku Zogu was born April 7th, 1939. And two days later, Italy invaded. Wow, that is a good omen to be born under now this is the length of lecca's existence in albania until he's an old man um because the albanian army was led by italians mostly and it didn't really fight at the time and the royal family simply fled into exile when bombs began to fall on albania, Zog urged his people,

fight to the last drop of blood to defend our independence, all while he and his family ran to Greece. Oh, and for good measure... He was just bravely advancing in the wrong direction. And for good measure, they looted the entire national bank branch in Tirana and took all of the gold

with them, which I think Leka lived on for his entire life. It was a lot of money. They could only loot the branch because they had moved their national bank to Rome. They could only loot the Tirana branch of their own national bank.

The family moved around constantly, seemingly never staying in one place for very long. A lot of this was due to regular paranoia. Lekas apparently gained admission to Sandhurst Military Academy in the UK, where he graduated. Now, this has a huge asterisk next to it.

I cannot find an original source on this fucking anywhere. Yeah, I couldn't find anything about that either, because I went down this little rabbit hole when I inserted this slide on him into the What Does Your Problem episode. And that's the problem with a lot of things about his life is there's a lot of asterisks all over and a lot of citation needed. But ostensibly, he was in the British Army, which isn't out of the question because this has happened with other sort of British-friendly monarchs. Like the King of Jordan was briefly in the British army. The King of Jordan was technically on a training rotation, technically in the US army for a while. Yeah. And I can't find anything other than

people saying he was a Sandhurst graduate. I can't even find what unit he was in if he was in the British military. It seems like it could be true, but it also seems like it could be bullshit. It could really go either way. And especially because the main source for this is Lekazogu, which he loves him some him. Yeah. I could easily see it being him lying, but I could also see it being he was there and everyone who knew him who was there would rather everyone forget that he was there. everyone who knew him who was there would rather everyone forget that he was there. That sounds also possible because he loves military uniforms.

So he got that love from somewhere. And I think it may have been Sandhurst. But he was also fucking huge. Like the guy, you can't tell from pictures unless he's standing next to someone. Like he is almost seven feet tall. He's Joe sized. No, he, he, he, he's Joe size. I know. I am only six,

four. This guy is only six, four. Yeah. This guy is six, eight and over 300 pounds. Like he is fucking massive. Yeah.

And I'm remembering now the pictures I've seen of him. Like when you say it's, you know, when you think 300 pounds, this guy's not a fat man. He is a tall, broad. He, he he's a we love a big guy no if you're if you're seven foot tall and you're fat you're probably way over 300 pounds uh because your body just carries the weight differently he's a big fucking guy um but you

know eventually albania was liberated from the italians and the germans via a pretty chaotic group of partisans that tend to form whenever anybody invades someone else. That tends to happen. If you invade someone, you're going to get a rainbow of ideologies who put aside their differences to shoot you in the face. Now, the most powerful of these groups is Enver Hoxha's National Liberation Movement, which is supported by the Soviet Union and Tito's Yugoslav partisan movement. Two sides that will totally never fucking turn out to hate one another in the future. Nothing bad ever happened. Nothing bad ever happened.

Hoxha was eventually elected head of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation because as leftists, we all know that the titles for everything have to be fucking incomprehensible. And after that, he made a provisional government of Albania. Now, we've talked a lot about

Hoxha before, but he was something of a chaotic whirlwind of different communist ideologies starting somewhere around Stalinism and turning into Maoism at some point and then simply calling himself a Hoxhaist because neither of the two ideologies allowed him to build

all those sweet bunkers he wanted so much. It's always great every so often on Twitter when you see somewhere in your replies or follows, you see someone who has Hoxha in their bio. Yeah. All that means is that person wants a niche. All that means is that person is 14 years old and plays Hearts of Iron. Yeah. Hoxha,ha was a...

If you took... It's like mixing paint. If you took all of the ideologies that he followed during his time as leader of Albania, none of them match and none of them go together well at all. But... It's like mixing the paint and then

huffing it. Well, yeah, of course. I mean, the guy is probably one of my favorite it's like mixing, of course it's mixing the paint and then huffing it. Oh, well, yeah, of course. Um, I mean, I, the guy is probably one of my favorite weird off the fucking rails, uh, uh, rulers that existed during this time period that nobody really ever talks about other than the bunkers.

Cause he did other wild ass shit too. Like insisting that his military actually just need to be a, a countrywide militia with no training. Like, uh, just, yeah. Oh, he's more than just the bunkers folks. He, actually just need to be a countrywide militia with no training. Just good stuff all the way. Oh, he's more than just the bunkers, folks. He's like an ogre.

He has layers. I love that. Now, he did a lot of stuff. We talked about more on the Albanian Civil War episode. But one of the good things he did do was abolish the monarchy. Because after Albanian liberation King Zog still made it known that he claimed the throne of Albania and

since the fascists were gone he should be able to take over again despite the fact he himself actually never did anything to liberate his country also weirdly nobody in the west actually recognized King Zog as the rightful leader, nor Hoxha at this point in the late 1940s. However, by the late 40s, Albania was not doing

so great. It was by far the poorest country in Europe and multiple countries had designs on its borders to include Yugoslavia and Greece because Balkans, Hoxha had not done a great job in uniting the country. And that was still outside of major urban centers. It was very much rule. And they were very much used to ruling their own life. Albania generally ran with the king ruling Tirana and a few larger cities. And everybody else doing what the fuck they wanted. It's kind of like what Afghanistan was when they still had the king.

Yeah. And that's how the king actually kept peace is he didn't make those people do what he wanted. He's like, no, actually, you guys are good. Fine. Do whatever. And thankfully, that had a happy ending. Yep. Afghanistan, another place on our list of places where things have famously gone very well. on very well. That's right. Now, in the middle of all this, and Hoxha was really trying to clamp down this rural individualism because he's a Stalinist at this point, the CIA showed up.

Yeah. Now, their plan was to airdrop a bunch of fascists and people who vaguely supported King Zog to prop up this idiot king as a thorn in the side of the communist East, as well as scrap Soviet plans to build a submarine base off the Albanian coast. Now, if you're

thinking that the CIA put a lot of thought into this, you'd be very wrong. This was the CIA and I won't say peak CIA brain because that's the 60s for me. 50s and 60s. But this is a crapshoot. This is an early CIA brain.

This is like they're still like, and I'm guessing this is what the late 40s, early 50s at this point. Yeah. So they're still pitting their stride. They're still figuring out what they're doing with their life. They're backpacking around Europe. Yeah, exactly.

They're in their gap year before they started doing unfathomably evil shit. Yeah, they're in their gap year before Operation Ajax. Yeah. Now, the CIA thought this was going to be fucking easy because Albania looked like it was held together with duct tape and spit at this point. And they thought it would be an easy domino to kick over in their anti-communist crusade that, thankfully, wouldn't lead to untold horrors behind our comprehension for decades to come. But it was also kind of perfect for their goals. The Soviets and Hoxha hadn't started hating one another quite yet,

but the CIA also knew that the Soviets didn't actually care that much about Albania. So if people knew that the CIA was doing fucked up shit there, which of course people would know that quite quickly, the Soviet Union wouldn't get involved. They're like, ah, whatever, who cares? It's also like when you look at a map at the time, because Yugoslavia was firmly... They never joined the Warsaw Pact and even before the split with Stalin and Tito, they weren't super cool with one another. And Albania is physically separated from

the rest of the Soviet sphere of influence. There's no direct land route to there. Right. And the Soviet Union was never really great at deploying soldiers abroad for any continuous amount of time unless it was over a direct land border. Exactly. The CIA kind of figured that we could probably pull this off. They were

going to create a new Albanian civil war to overthrow Hoxha. The operation had a lot of different names. One was Operation Valuable. The other was BG Fiend in all caps like a super villain group but my personal favorite operation obo-puss i have no idea what the fuck it means you fucking excuse me operation obo-puss Operation Oboe Puss? Imagine walking into a briefing room and selling out a butcher board and finding Operation Oboe Puss as a go. Oh, I know something that's going to be going

in my Twitter handle for a while now. There's so many different ways you can think of Oboe Puss. Is it an oboe with eight arms or whatever? Is it an oboe? Oh, see, like, what is it? Oh, I just, I, I, I was already kind of there with BJ fiend or BJ, BG fiend or whatever the hell that was, but that's already been obliterated in my head by operation. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm embodied by it. I'm, I'm destroyed. by Operation Opopus.

I'm embodied by it. I'm destroyed. When I read that, I minimized my screen, walked outside, and smoked a cigarette. I'm like, I'm done with this for the day. I'm done.

The CIA is just, especially the 1950s and 60s CIA, the things they didn't end up doing didn't cause like, again, you know, man-made horrors beyond their comprehension, it would be the funniest bullshit in the world. The things they tried to do,

like killing, trying to kill Casco with like exploding cigars or something like that, or like putting poison in his scuba suit or whatever. Yeah. They, they, well, you know what they never tried was to uh fire a cannon uh um with a guy inside with

a knife and and over from florida into cuba never they never see they they hired bugs bunny as a consultant with the exploding cigar but they never hired wiley coyote just unfortunately you see show it's not that they didn't do that is this that they probably haven't declassified it yet because the guy in the cannon might still be alive the guy in the can is still circumnavigating the earth uh he he broke orbit and he's stuck there um now this is the operation oboe puss which i think we can all agree is what we're going to call this uh it was a shit show from the very beginning most of the dudes at the cia and mi, because of course they're involved, brought in for the operation, actually did not want the king. And instead, one of their own semi-democratic provisional government in exile.

Though I should point out here, what they did form as the Free Albania National Committee was a 100% CIA-fronted spook group. This is not an actual government exile. But this is all like the Albanian diaspora. They couldn't actually find anybody within Albania that wanted anything to do with this movement. Whether it be because Hogeshaw has been really good at killing his political enemies, which he was,

or because people knew this was some spy shit and had no chance of succeeding when they saw it. How big of an Albanian diaspora even was there? Because it's not like Albania is especially big. At least two dozen people, at least, because that's how many people they had.

There are literally dozens of us. Instead, the Albanian diaspora was recruited and put through training in Malta of all places, and then their unit was nicknamed the Pixies

for reasons I have not been able to find out. This is all just a bit now. The Pixies are going in, then their unit was nicknamed the pixies for reasons i have not been able to find out this is this is all just a bit now the pixies are going in to carry out operation obo this is actually the origin story for the band the pixies um this is where this is actually a lot of people know but operation obo post is where we get the term manic pixie dream girl manic pixie alban Dream Girl, yeah. They cut the Albanian part out because they're Albanian phobic.

However, there was a small problem with this plan. And by small, I mean a problem with the entire plan. One of the main organizers of the entire thing was a British intelligence agent named Kim Philby. Now, a lot of people would probably just pick that up. Oh, no. Well, one I was all no because, of course, the British are going to show up. I knew they were going to show up the moment you said Malta. And then you said Kim Philby. Now, for people who are unaware, Kim Philby

was a legendary double agent for the Soviet Union. So he fed all of that info of Operation Obopus to the Soviets, who then, of course, told Hoxha that all these pixies are going to show up and try to blow stuff up. So as soon as the pixies landed in 1950, they got killed on the fucking spot. It was like they got spawn

camped in real life. The pixies got killed during Operation Obopus because Kim Poopy told the son. This is the craziest sentence I've ever said. The Pixies get spawn camp during Operation Obopus is a sentence that only people who listen to this podcast will fucking understand. Go ahead and enter that one into the lore catalog. Oh, God.

Now, nobody knew that Philby was a mole, so they sent more teams in over the next couple years, and they all fucking died too. Oh, just sending in recurring waves of pixies for Operation Obopus 2, 3, 4. Guys, guys, I know Operation Obopus 4 failed, but I have a really, really good idea. I have a good feeling about Operation Obopus 6. Look, they didn't expect us to do Operations Obopus 1 through 11, so they won't expect us to do Operation Obopus 12. They just won't be expecting it this time. They wouldn't expect us to do it a dozen times. My God, is that Luigi Cardona's music?

Is that Luigi Cardona's music? Now, the CIA was so deeply embarrassed about this that it remained top secret until 2006. I was about to say, Wyatt, this is one of the few instances of CIA fuckery I'd never heard of, and now it makes absolute sense because even compared to some of their other failures, this is an especially embarrassing failure. Yeah, it was pretty good. Oh, by the way, while all of this is still happening, Prince Wilhelm was still alive and claiming the throne. Nobody gives a fuck about him, though. So they have two monarchs claiming the throne

that nobody gives a fuck about. Yes. Now, Hoxha was a super paranoid weirdo, but this Operation Obapus did him no favors in that front, So he believed as long as Prince Lekha and his dad were alive,

someone would use them to try to coup him. He wasn't worried about Prince Philhelm. He didn't give a fuck. So like any good despotic pariah state, Hoxha eventually developed a brutal security apparatus. This is normally used internally, as you would imagine, but he also sent them abroad to hunt the Zogu royal family. Because of this, they eventually formed a small army of bodyguards. Weirdly, most of them were from Thailand. I cannot find a good reason as to why.

Okay, the hunt for the Zogus is on. The game is afoot. Though there was a fair amount of hardcore Albanian royalists who followed the family into exile or had been picked up from the diaspora. Though, again, I don't know why so many Thai people were in his army of royal bodyguards. Maybe he was in tight with the Thai royal family or something. You know what? That's entirely – it may very well have been. They were one of the only monarchies that stuck around in Asia after the war. Oh, they're still there. Yeah.

And if you go there and insult them, you will go to prison. Oh, you will be the most in prison you have ever been in your life. You'll be in so much prison. You'll be like, damn, how did I get in so much prison? Now, King Zog I, the only actual king of modern Albania, died in 1961. Zog I, the only actual king of modern Albania, died in 1961. And the weird collection of royalists who'd been following the

family around immediately proclaimed Leka as King Leka I. And just to set the stage for you, this happened in the banquet room of a hotel, the same place that your memaw gets roped into pyramid schemes. They had to have the ceremony

done by 1pm because then the guys have to start setting up for the wedding that evening. Now, after this, Lekha continues to move around constantly because he was worried about an Albanian death squad that was sent out to kill him, which sounds wild, but it was a thing that absolutely existed. Yes. At one point, he ended up in Thailand in the 1970s on a private plane. And when he was going through customs,

he figured he just wouldn't have to go through customs because he's king, though not really. So when the Thai customs agents searched his plane, they found it nose to tail full of guns,

rocket launchers, and grenades. And folks, if you're not aware, this is what we know as illegal. It's also what we know as dudes rock behavior. There's a hundred percent dudes rock behavior. Cause like,

why did he have them? I'd like, that's why most people think that he actually ran out of money from his family. And he was just an arms trafficker though. Nobody's been able to actually prove that for sure for certain, which actually means I don't buy that. He was an arms traff trafficker because King Lekha or Prince Lekha, whoever, was not a bright man. If he was an arms trafficker, he would probably have all of his money in a bank account labeled arms trafficking proceeds.

Yeah. If you don't want to get caught, and he's like, again, he may ostensibly be a royal, but he doesn't have any real pull or anything, any sort of influence to avoid being arrested. So if you want to be an arms trafficker and you don't have that kind of pull, you kind of have to have some intelligence and gravitas to be able to work the system, which this guy seems like he does not have. He mostly just got around in favors for his family. He got arrested and Thai authorities, I assume, slapped a giant boot device in his private jet. But he was never kept in prison for very long, certainly not for this many weapons. And when he was released from prison, he moved to Franco's Spain, where Franco was in close with his dad. And he was allowed to live hassle-free

under the government under the only rule is that he kept his personal bodyguard to a minimum and did not turn his house into an arms cache. He broke both of these rules. I was about to say, I feel like you're making these both really specific for a reason. Yeah. His Spanish estate hired anywhere from 50 to 150 mercenaries, building them all on the property where he stacked upon what has to be conservatively hundreds of weapons.

He's just chilling out in Spain on his estate, which is basically a reinforced infantry company. Yes. In a palatial barracks building, apparently. Spain's government, despite being fascist, was pretty sure he was attempting to build some kind of private army to try to invade Albania in some way. This is what we can think of here that makes the most amount of sense. Um, but this is mostly because he also used to tell Franco who he met personally a few times that he really wanted to go and take over Albania by force and restore the crown. So he saw, he saw the Bay of pigs invasion and thought that went really well.

I'd like to try that. What if we did this in the mountains? Um, so, uh, this ended up being a little bit too much for, uh, for Franco and he was told to stop being fucking weird, pack it up, and get the fuck out of Spain. And in 1979, he did after two years. And the reason why he was officially expelled was for, quote, supporting irredentist activities, which is... I don't even know how badly you have to fuck up to get kicked out of Spain when you're a close personal friend of the dictator, but he managed. Yeah, like you have to do when you're a weird right wing shithead monarch, you have to do a lot of shit to get kicked out of Franco era Spain. Yeah, yeah. I mean, credit where credit's due, in all honesty.

Let's do in all honesty. But from here, he decided there's only one place left to go for a fascist supporting communist hating private army owning arms smuggling due to the private plane. Rhodesia. Oh, here we are. We arrive. Though while on his way to Rhodesia, his plane had to make a refueling stop in Gabon or Gabon. I think it's Gabon. Gabon.

Let's go with Gabon or Gabon? I think it's Gabon. Gabon. Let's go with Gabon. As his plane landed and got hooked up to a fuel truck, dozens of armed men rode onto the airship in the back of pickup trucks and gunned straight for Lekka's jet. Now, Lekka ordered the pilot to take off. Knowing that these guys weren't there to kill him, they'd probably been hired by Hoxha to capture him and bring him back to Albania. capture him and bring him back to Albania. So as the jet began to taxi on the runway, Lekka kicked open that side door and hung out the side with a fucking RPG in his hands and pointed it at the truck.

This is just a call of duty level. Yeah. Seeing that this guy was clearly nuts or not wanting to be the only truck ever who's been clapped by a drive-by shooting committed by a king of Albania off the side of a personal jet, the gunman backed off. Oh my God. was not the biggest fan of this guy. However, when you're a shitty racist apartheid state,

you generally don't turn help help when it shows up on its own in a private plane packed with the gills of guns and eager anti-communist volunteers to join your ongoing civil war. Yeah, and this is, I'm guessing by now, this is what, the mid to late 70s? By what point the Rhodesians were really getting desperate, so they were just taking anything that they could get.

It wasn't going great. About the volunteers. Lekha told Ian Smith that his royal guard would gladly fight for the cause of Rhodesia in exchange for Rhodesia, once victorious in their ongoing race war, supported his goal of conquering Albania and restoring his throne. Now, Ian Smith took one look at this guy and his plan and said, Nope.

Which, imagine being so insane that Ian Smith of Rhodesia decides that you have gone too far with your political goals. The one good decision the man ever made in his life. Yeah. You don't have to hand it to him,

but he did do that one thing once. I wish what he had done is actually die when he crashed his hurricane into the desert in Egypt. Alternative history. Now, one thing,

like, this didn't stop Lekha from full-throatedly supporting Rhodesia. Somehow, he even got his royal guard and himself, Rhodesian brushstroke uniforms, famously, because he wore it all the time. Somehow he even got his royal guard and himself, Rhodesian brushstroke uniforms, famously

because he wore it all the time. And he got stitched up with the kingdom of Albania's flag on his shoulders and not Hoxha's Albania, which was, they're two different flags. You can find this on the internet. There's pictures of his royal guard in the 70s

in Rhodesia with those uniforms, with the patches, with the AKs, with the baby poop camo on them. He wore the uniform all the time, too. Oh, yeah. He found a uniform for himself and named himself the commander of the guard. Though he

claimed his men were all going to go fight for Rhodesia and he was going to lead them, they didn't really. There's no evidence that any of the Albanians actually fought. There are a few photos, like you mentioned, of the Royal Guard in Rhodesian uniforms and Albanian flags,

but that's it. In those pictures, they're carrying Rhodesian camouflage AKs rather than the infamous FNFAL. They're not wearing any equipment. They're just wearing a uniform. It seems like... It's totally just like they're doing it any equipment. They're just wearing a uniform. It seems like... It's totally just like they're doing it just for show. It really seems like the government just gave them some clothes.

According to the book Fighting and Writing, The Rhodesian Army at War and Post-War, the Albanians just played dress up for LECA as the Rhodesian government didn't want to train them. Because not because they didn't need the men, Rhodesia certainly did. It's because if we train these guys, they're going to go fight in Albania afterwards and this is going to cause a problem for us. Again, imagine being so fucking weird that Rhodesia does not want you to fight for them. Yeah. And Rhodesia had some weird ass people

fighting for them. A whole lot of Nazis. Including a whole lot of Nazis, Including a whole lot of Nazis, specifically a whole lot of American Nazis, including one that Joe got a lister of this show in Zimbabwe to piss on the grave of. Still my proudest achievement, yeah. Unfortunately, that guy is still buried there. It's unfortunate for Zimbabweans.

Well, you know what? I just, you know what I call that? I just call that, you know, opportunities for more pissing. That's right now uh this actually would make sense that none of this ever happened for real because like i want to train an entire battalion um and he only had like 10 guys yeah like for for reference for those who don't know a battalion like an infantry battalion at least the u.s army is what

like 800 to a thousand guys sometimes sometimes? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he had about... I'll be charitable to him and say he had a dozen people. Yeah, he was like an international problem guy. Nobody wanted to deal with him. But Lekha kept playing dress up with his men in a compound

in Rhodesia. I assume living like a king because he was never any short of money. All the way up until Robert Mugabe took power in 1980, at which point he ran to where a lot of other people from Rhodesia ran to in order to keep up their very cursed and fucked up lifestyle, apartheid South Africa, where he was invited there as a guest of the government. So he wasn't invited to Rhodesia, a country that didn't even have any recognition and in itself was an international pariah. But South Africa, a country that despite everything still had international recognition and was still more connected to the world despite being just as shitty, was like, come on in. Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah. He was given a massive farm near Johannesburg and given official diplomatic status by the government, which was fiercely anti-communist, which meant that put them directly at odds with Hoxha. So of course they're going to welcome him. And that just makes the question, why did he just go to South Africa first? I mean, it's LECA, so he went to the most fucked up country first,

and then when they lost... Yeah, you know what? That's, yeah, that track. See, he had to go to the most fucked up one first, and then once Rhodesia was knocked off the list, then he could go next door. Yeah. Once again, he was allowed to take his royal guard, all of whom are still wearing Rhodesian uniforms, as well as a small stockpile of guns where they all just hung out for a little while. Though he did have a son who he, of course, proclaimed prince as he was still claiming to be king. At the time of his birth on 26th of March, 1982, the South African government declared his maternity ward where his son was born temporarily Albanian territory to ensure that his son, Leka, also named Leka, was born on Albanian soil and therefore his claim to the Albanian throne would still be valid.

I assume this is a made up law. This has actually happened with exiled monarchs quite frequently. Like their maternity ward is declared this kind of soil because some of them have rules that you have to be born in the country to be able to assume the throne. I found like three other occasions something like this happened. Well, it's easy to push through a law or whatever change to do that when only a small minority of your country's population can vote in a sham parliament anyway.

Yeah. Now, his son's name is interesting. Lekha Anwar Zog Reza Badun Mizwehu Zogu. What? Yeah. Anwar was for Anwar Sadat, dictator of egypt i have no idea why is it you have never met uh and he was not a king yeah uh zog was of course for his grandfather even though that was not his actual name reza is for the shah of iran uh badun is the king of the belgians and the and

the last one is a random zulu word that leka absolutely had no idea the king of the Belgians. And the last one is a random Zulu word that Lekha absolutely had no idea the meaning of. Honestly, out of all of those, the one that still gets me the most is Sadat. Because I'm pretty sure he even stayed with the king of Egypt at some point. So I guess it just goes to show that absolutely nobody wants anything to do with King Farouk anymore. Yeah. Poor King Farouk. Poor King Farouk and his largest collection of pornography ever. We respect him. That's an episode right there. Now, eventually things began getting hot in South Africa for them as the apartheid was slowly and

surely beginning to fall under immense pressure. Also, the Hoxha system in place in Albania also began to fail as well. Hoxha had died in 1985, and the system he created, well, it didn't ever really work, but it definitely could not keep working as it hadn't been working without him. And by not working, I mean slowly slugging along and keeping it country. It's like what happened to Yugoslavia after Tito. Basically, it was him that kept the country together, not just because all those countries, there were obviously police state rules in place, though they were more lax than others, but also because people genuinely liked Tito.

Now, with Hoca, I imagine that that like was not as universal. No, it was mostly terror. Yes. But he was the only one that could make the country work the way that he had built it because he's the only leader that they had since the king. It was built for purpose and that purpose was for him to run it. Yes, that's 100% correct.

And the people that took over were realizing a lot of the problems that Hoxha was papering over for decades and reforms were attempted, but they still weren't going well. This led to a lot of reformers that keep trying to keep most of what made up the Socialist People's Republic of Albania in place, but stability was not something anybody could quite figure out. And that is where Leka

reappeared. Well, appear really, because this is the first time he attempted to go to Albania ever since he was born and then exiled two days later. Either way, he thought that when he showed up, because of all of the chaos and instability, people would swarm the streets and greet his return and usher him back onto the throne, which I should point out that he still believed this to be an absolute monarchy, despite the fact it was now 1993. 1993. 1993, and he's been hiding out in Rhodesia and South Africa

and Francoist Spain. Yeah, he's truly preaching to the heart of the common Albanian with that. Now, so he landed in Tirana, though small problem. He didn't have a passport, not a real one. So he had a fake royal government passport made for him with the official job title on the inside as king. He just did the Papers, Please thing. That little guy in Papers, Please, the game, some people might know where this is one guy who just keeps trying to sneak in with various badly made passports.

He's just literally putting his passport on the thing. He's like, yes, I am from Cobra Stan. It is a very nice country. He was refused entry. So he went back to his compound in South Africa where he learned times had changed. Without the official government

protection of the apartheid government of South Africa, he was quickly arrested on weapon smuggling charges on account that he was still carrying a massive stockpile with him wherever he went. Then in 1997, as we've talked about before on the show, the Albanian economy imploded under the weight of the entire economy based around pyramid schemes

and corruption. I invite you to go listen to that episode. Once again, with this happening and the civil war beginning to brew up, Leka saw another perfect time for him to ride back into Albania. Just to frame this so it makes a little bit more sense. Yugoslavia had exploded into war at this point, and Leka had been preaching about a greater Albanian state, much like many YouTube comment sections do to this day. day. While nobody gave a single fuck about him in

1993, by 1997 he was popular as hell, especially in the same place his dad was from. And this time he really was greeted by cheering crowds. There are all sorts of pictures of this. Yeah, it's really wild. He was so popular by

the time that year's parliamentary election came around they also held a referendum about the restoration of the monarchy which which would have officially made King Leka the first king of Albania. It lost, and it lost by a lot. It lost by a lot. I think he did claim that it might have been rigged, to which I say, on one hand, given the state Albania was in the mid-90s, that's not entirely out of the question. On the other hand, don't give a shit. Be mad about it.

Yeah, exactly. Now, according to Albania, over 65% of the people voted against the return of the monarchy. So, of course, Leka insisted that the vote was rigged, leading to a recount where he still lost. he's still lost on the 3rd of July, 1997, while dressed in his Rhodesian military uniform and armed with a grenade and a pistol strapped to his leg. He greeted around 2000 supporters in Tirana to chance of quote, Albanians will defend their vote down with the communists.

We want a King. So he tried to do a little coup. Oh yeah. Yeah. The, the crowd led by Lekha marched on the Capitol Central Boulevard as bursts of gunfire ripped into the crowd. Nobody's entirely

sure who fired first, whether it be the government or the crowd. Everybody was armed to the teeth. But in the end, one guy was dead and several people were injured and thus died his attempt to make Albania a kingdom once more, though he still refused to accept the results of the vote,

but was now forced to flee the country as his weird royal LARPing had actually killed a guy and he had to go back to South Africa. They let him back in? Yeah. Even though, because he was actually given some amount of courtesy

by the Albanian government, and instead of just being arrested, they sent him a letter in the mail. Like, could you please come to court on this particular day from the prosecutor? So he went to South Africa. He was eventually sentenced to a whole three years in prison for attempting a coup. Though since he never returned, he never served it. Though he was pardoned in 2002 after pressure from parliament. Because there's a lot of weird... In the 2000 timeframe, there's a lot of weird,

sudden warm feelings about the nobility. And I think a lot of it has to do with the state government was bad. So people like... I feel like every country that was once a monarchy periodically, when times are are bad goes to that period of where you have like you know a small but significant minority saying maybe we should go back to the monarchy because rose-colored glasses yeah yeah 100 and that's almost probably almost certainly maybe his people just liked him because he was nuts and he was funny i don't fucking know yeah hey we love a crazy big guy why Why shouldn't they? Yeah, exactly. And he returned after he was pardoned.

Bring with him 11 cases of automatic weapons, grenades, and hunting rifles. My man never changes. He's nothing but consistent. Yeah. Though these were all immediately confiscated upon arrival. An account of, no, you can't have these. But he wasn't arrested. There was like the Albanian customs agency giving him the old,

oh, you, you know. That crazy lecker with all his firearms. And he lived in Albania the rest of his life, doing pretty much nothing other than supporting a local monarchist political party that did not do anything really. He did not even give a shit about this party. When he was asked who he would vote for, he pointed out he had never voted, nor would he ever intend to vote. He said, quote, I'm above all other political parties, even my own. Well, he was trying to do the whole Elizabethan thing of like, oh, I'm so politically neutral. I'm not involved at all. That only really works when everybody adores you and

you're already in power. Yeah. And he was never in power and nobody ever adored him. So weird flex, buddy. Lekha died in 2011 of a heart attack. And despite Albania never reinstating the monarchy to this day, even in a constitutional role, because remember, he wanted to be an absolute monarch. That's what his vote was about. He was given a state funeral and was buried at the Royal Mausoleum, which I assume only ever included his dad. I wonder if they even buried his dad there, cause his dad didn't die in Albania. So I wonder if he's not. Yeah. I don't know if they built one just for this guy,

the Royal mausoleum starring Lekka. Um, I don't know. It's, it's quite possible. His son still claims the title of Prince, which nobody recognizes though. His son actually has held significantly more power than his dad ever did.

he, uh, he was the advisor to the president for a while. He's incredibly popular as just a person. And while he was never nominated for president or to stand for president, he was like... It was an idea that people brought up because he was so powerful. Or he's so popular rather. And from my understanding, he's still doing that. That's where he still is. But yeah, he's not a prince. He's still good. But that's weird.

Like legally, they have no monarchy, but people kind of give him the respect that they think he deserves. It's kind of weird. But good for you, bud. Yeah, good for you. I mean, good that you get people to do that. But that's the thing with weird monarchist exiles or monarchies that are no longer in power that people still pay them. It's like the fact that there's still Napoleons running around Europe.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for every old dead throne somewhere, there is probably 10 people who all claim to run it, which is awesome. I think they should all be locked into a room and the last one to walk out gets the throne. Yeah, we should just take all the sort of monarchist remnants in Europe that no longer have thrones, but all claim it. Put them all in a Thunderdome type situation and whoever lives just gets to be emperor of Europe. Yeah.

But with no power. It's like being the prime minister. Yeah. It's like being a minister of parliament in the EU or something. Exactly. But they get the really nice hat. It'll be great. Yeah.

Give them a sash. Fuck it. Now, KD, thank you so much for joining me today. We do this thing on the podcast called questions from the legion if you'd like to ask this question from the legion you supporting the show already this is a bonus episode you could just write us on patreon and ask us a question um and we will answer on the show uh today his is um actually i i read this earlier as i was going to the store to buy my, my two individual beers, since that's how beer is sold here.

Uh, and, uh, it, it's something that speaks to me in my heart. What is something unimportant that is annoying you at this moment? Um, and that,

that is change. Um, not like things changing, but physical coins for, for currency. Armenia fucking loves coins. I get so many of them whenever you buy it. And there's no good way to carry them.

You can't put them in a wallet. Where do you put these? Can't carry a grip full of loose coins in your pocket wherever you're going. Ridiculous. Can't stand it. See, it's something completely unimportant. It's bothering the shit out of me at the moment. We're just doing old man talk now. That's what we're doing.

I'm doing like the old millennial man talk, I guess because like an old man would be like, coins are good because you can buy things with them and when someone pisses you off, you can flick one at them or something. You gotta make sure to carry a roll of pennies in your fist when you punch someone

that way you put a little extra oomph behind it. Right. Take debit cards. Why won't you just take a debit card? I understand I live in a little bit of a different country, but they accept debit cards here. My corner store cash only. Come the fuck on.

Anyway, your turn. Oh, God. If people want to know what unimportant things are bothering me, they can just take a look at my Twitter account. That's likewise, yeah. But if it's something physical, I guess I'm just trying to figure out the best way to get IKEA to deliver a piece of furniture to where I live that conforms to the weird HOA rules about how and where deliveries are taken. And it's driving me up a goddamn wall. It's like, it's just, I just want to be able to put together my flumphy or whatever the fuck it's called.

But it's just get like, like, oh God, it's just getting things, getting things delivered. It shouldn't be this much of a hassle especially if they want us to use cars and things let's to go pick it up ourselves if you want us to get things to nothing yeah yeah yeah okay i think i hit on that i think i got there i i fully understand what you mean uh i i my i live on the sixth floor and um like my elevator is very very small uh you can't fit furniture into that thing maybe as uh maybe a fucking uh like an end table or something like we have a freight elevator but the thing is like you got to reserve it but then the thing is like yeah you in order to the ikea doesn't let you reserve delivery times they give you a window like the night before when it's going

to show up so now i'm trying to figure out, can I just get this delivered to the front desk? I have to live here. I don't want to have to piss off the people who work at the front desk. I want to keep them on my good side. So I'm just trying to figure out how to circumnavigate this whole medley of weird bullshit of just trying to get a piece of Ikea furniture delivered. You simply hire a guy to throw it through your window. You got to hire a big guy. Big guy, we got to get Licka here. And what he'll do is he'll do like the Team Fortress 2 thing

of firing his RPG at the ground so he can propel with the explosion the table up through my window and the smoking remnants into my living room oh yeah that's just science yeah um it's katie thank you so much for joining me today uh we can end this with your plug for for your war takes oh yeah certainly so i i i most you probably know i i rant about war on stuff on twitter at war underscore takes at the twitter.com. And, you know, if you just want to hear me randomly ramble about whatever furry shit,

you can also find me at KomodoDad on the twitter.com. Thank you so much for joining us today. Everybody else, thank you for supporting the show. If you like what we do here, leave a review. Tell us what you think. And until next time, if you have a personal plane, load it full of weapons and go to a country of your choosing. Yes.