Giorgio Basta (Albanian: Gjergj Basta) also known as Count of Huszt or Gheorghe Basta (1550 – 1607) was an Italian general, diplomat, and writer of Arbëreshë Albanian origin, employed by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to command Habsburg forces in the Long War of 1593–1606. He was later sent to administer Transylvania as an Imperial vassal and to restore Catholicism as the dominant religion in the region.

On his orders, his ally Michael the Brave, who ruled Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, was assassinated on 9 August 1601, a few days after the common victory at the Battle of Guruslău, for trying to turn against Rudolf II. For this, he is often depicted as disloyal and violent by Romanian and Hungarian historians. Basta was also the author of books on the art of military leadership.

Basta was born to an Arbëreshë Albanian family. He is claimed to be born in La Rocca, modern day Roccaforzata, a village in Salento, Italy, however historical sources claim he was born in Ulpiano nel Monferrato.

He was the son of Demetrius Basta, an Albanian Epirote who had fled the Ottoman conquest of the region to Italy, where he served the Spanish Empire. His father fought in the Piedmont countryside in the middle 1500s, and then in Flanders as commander of a cavalry regiment under the Duke of Alba. Very young, Basta became a soldier and eventually got promoted to the rank of officer in a detachment commanded by Demetrio. Then after his father died, Basta served in a cavalry company run by his oldest brother Niccolò. In 1589, he married Anne de Liedekerke de Gavre, with whom he had 5 children: Charles, Georges, Demetrius, Ferdinand and Madeleine.

He began his military career in Flanders, where the young officer impressed Don John of Austria, and gained the governorship of Nivelles. In 1577 he joined the forces of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma in Flanders. He led his army mainly on the French front during the War of the Three Henrys and the Catholic League. In 1584, Basta gained his first major victory when his troops were blocking communications between Malines and Antwerp. Similarly, during the siege of Brussels which ended with a capitulation of the besiegers in March 1585, Basta led the blockade of the city. During the end of the year, the commander led the cavalry of the expeditionary body, which at Charles de Mansfeld's orders.... When the Catholics, in 1589, marched to retake Paris, it was the cavalry led by Basta who rescued the back of the Spanish army from the sudden attack of Henry of Navarre.

He returned to France in 1591 and partook in the siege of Rouen with the rank of Commander General of the cavalry. He, however, was almost killed by Sir Roger Williams, who sliced his neck in personal combat. In February 1592, he separated Navarre from his greater army, and the prince fled capture by his forces. He was tasked with ensuring communications between Rouen and the Netherlands, which was massively threatened by the French army, and then protecting the retreat of the Spaniards after the injury of Alexander Farnese in Caudebec.

In 1596, after the death of the Duke of Parma, Basta followed the fate of many Italian princes and had to abandon the Spanish. He then went to the service of Emperor Rudolf II, on the recommendation of Philip II. Rudolph II named Basta general of his light cavalry and made him a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur on February 16, 1598. He served as general master in the army of Archbishop Mattia, later deputy governor of Upper Hungary, and finally the commander of the armies of Hungary and Transylvania. Ambrogio Merodio, in his Istoria Tarantina, calls him the "terror of Ottoman armies".

For more than a decade, Basta fought against Hungarians, Transylvanians, Vlachs, and Tatars, gaining much fame as one as the best generals of the Empire. In 1597 he was released, together with General Schwarzenberg, from Pápa, which was conquered three years earlier by the Turks. In 1597, while he was deputy governor of Hungary, he recaptured the city of Huszt, which had rebelled against the Empire.