He was only able to hold his own possessions within the very small area in today's northern Albania. This is where almost all of his victories against the Ottomans took place. Skanderbeg's military skills were a major obstacle to Turkish expansion, and many in western Europe thought he was a model of Christian resistance against the Muslim Turks. For 25 years, from 1443 to 1468, Skanderbeg's 10,000-man army marched through Ottoman territory, winning against larger and better-supplied Ottoman forces. He was greatly admired for this.