The Life and Deeds of Stephen the Great, King of Romania

Located at a crossroads between influential European powers such as Poland, Hungary, the Ottomans or the Mongols, the Principality of Moldova often struggled to maintain its independence, often changing allegiances when the situation demanded it. Supporting a population numbering nearly half a million people, Moldova had a relatively prosperous agricultural economy, being an important supplier of grain and cattle, particularly the latter. Also important to the state revenue were the trade routes, particularly those linking the Black Sea ports of Chilia and Cetatea Alba in the South (and with them access to Genoese and other trade networks) with Poland to the north (and further north to the economies on the Baltic).Urbanization was not particularly wide-spread, with most towns being rather small, but also heavily fortified after decades of withstanding the occasional Mongol raid.

The state was founded by the Kingdom of Hungary as a defensive border province as part of their ongoing efforts against the Golden Horde, with the rulers being Romanian noblemen from east of the Carpathians appointed by the Hungarian King. Eventually, another Romanian nobleman by the name of Bogdan fled Hungarian lands into Moldova where he successfully led a revolt, installing himself as Voievod. Subsequent attempts by the Hungarians to outright conquer the rebels proved fruitless, and Bogdan’s dynasty, the House of Muşat, continued to rule an independent Moldova.

On January 1st 1432, Alexander I “the Good”, a direct descendent of Bogdan I “the Founder”, died, and with him died the peace his long reign had brought to the country. No sooner was his body cold that his relatives started fighting one another in an on-again-off-again civil war that would last for more than 25 years. The year after Alexander’s death, Bogdan, a son of Alexander’s brother (also called Bogdan) had a son whom he called Stephen. By the time he was 16, Stephen had become heir to the Moldavian throne. Little more than two years later, in 1451, he accompanied his father to the wedding of one of his boyars. Unfortunately for them, they were walking into a trap, as said boyar was part of a conspiracy headed by Petru Aaron, Bogdan’s step-brother. Stephen barely managed to escape with his life, while his father was captured by his uncle and beheaded on the spot. After only a couple of years of peace, the flames of civil were lit again, as Petru Aaron was challenged to the throne by Alexandrel, one of Alexander the Good’s nephews. As the two fought it out for almost four years, Stephen took refuge in Transylvania, seeking the protection of Hungary’s ruler, John Hunyadi. There, he furthered his education in the arts of governing and war. After John’s death in 1456, he moved to the court of his first cousin Vlad III Dracula, where he planned his next move.

In 1457, two years after Petru Aaron finally managed to defeat Alexandrel, Stephen, riding at the head of 6,000 horsemen provided to him by Vlad Dracula, entered Moldova gaining wide boyar support after promising to regain the important cities of Chilia and Cetatea Alba on the Black Sea coast. After two battles, at Doljești and Orbic, Aaron flees to his overlord in Poland, while Stephen is crowned Voievod.


Beside consolidating his rule, renewing trade links with Transylvanian merchants and removing any boyars still loyal to Petru Aaron (of which many feld, but subsequently returned as the years passed), Stephen also led an expedition into Poland that year in search of the man who had killed his father.

For two years, Stephen besieged the castle of Khotin, eventually taking it in 1459, along with the surrounding area, which had all been Moldavian prior to the civil wars brought about by Alexander’s death. However, he couldn’t hope to engage Poland in a protracted fight and conceded to signing a treaty recognizing King Casimir the IV Jagiellon as his suzerain whilst retaining the lands won.


As part of the treaty, Aaron was banned from entering Moldavia and lost all Polish support. As a result, he fled to Transylvania, in the Székely Land bordering Moldova, where he came under the protection of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary through his representative, the Voievod of Transylvania Sebastian de Rozgony. On June 5th 1461, Stephen led his first incursion into Hungary, but soon backed out when he realized the potential consequences of his action.
During the civil wars, Budjak, the contested region on the Black Sea coast, had reverted to Wallachian control, with Chillia being co-ruled by Hungary and Wallachia. Unable to do anything while things were calm and his hands were tied in his Polish campaign, Stephen bid his time, consolidating his grip on power and undertaking a massive reform of the army, by extending the right to bear arms to ordinary farmers and villagers, even going to far as to introduce the death penalty to anyone who was conscripted and failed to show up armed with at least a sword or spear. Vlad Dracula meanwhile became ever deeper involved in a confrontation with the Ottomans as he refused to pay the Jiza or send young boys to be trained as janissaries. Then, in late 1461, conflict finally erupted between Wallachia and the Ottomans.


With Dracula at war with Mehmet II, Stephen wrote a letter to his cousin, demanding he hand over the two cities. After receiving his refusal, Stephen allied with the Turks and together they attacked the castle of Chillia on June 22nd, while Vlad was busy battling the Ottomans. Unfortunately for him, the Hungarian garrison and their Wallachian reinforcements of 7000 men held their ground for eight straight days, after which Stephen was forced to retreat. It was during this battle that he nearly got his leg blown off by shrapnel, but managed to escape relatively unscathed (1).

Three years later, in 1465, with Dracula imprisoned by Matthias Corvinus and Wallachia firmly under the Ottoman boot (with Vald’s brother Radu the Handsome installed as Voievod), Stephen again advanced towards Chilia with a large force, mainly Poles, and siege weapons; but instead of besieging the fortress, he showed the garrison, who favoured the Polish King, a letter in which his suzerain required them to surrender the fortress. The garrison complied with the King's demand and Stephen entered the fortress escorted by Polish troops. Mehmed, upon hearing the news, demanded that Chillia be returned to his Wallachian vassals, but backed off from war, for which he was not yet ready when Stephen, in a show of force, raised a large army (mainly Moldavian peasants).

To celebrate his victory, Stephen commenced construction of the monastery of Putna. An impressive sight even to most boyars let alone peasants, the monastery served as a demonstration of both his power and piety, solidifying his grip on power. After each successful campaign, Stephen would go on to build a monastery in northern Moldova to celebrate his victory.


While it did not end up provoking a war with Hungary, the attack on Chillia and Cetatea Alba seriously strained relations between Moldova and Hungary, with the King of Hungary increasing his support of the exiled Petru Aaron. The reaction came swiftly, as Stephen, now benefiting greatly from his direct control of the trade routes, used his newly-earned money to foment a minor uprising in Transylvania, with the intent of killing Petru Aaron. The operation backfired though, as Matthias Corvinus managed to quash the uprising and then proceeded to assemble a large army of 40,000 men, along with 500 cannons, with the intent of either directly annexing Moldova or at least installing Petru Aaron back on the throne.
Starting in October 1467, the Hungarians invaded Moldova and proceeded to burn down several important towns without meeting any organized resistance. During early December, Stephen sent envoys to negotiate a peace treaty, but the two factions could not agree and the war continued, with the Hungarians reaching the town of Baia. There, Corvinus met with a Hungarian by the name of Sythotus, who revealed to him the Moldavian position, their numbers (2) and their plan to attack before dusk. Upon hearing this, he proceeded to fortify the city with ramparts, ditches and a ring of wagons and had his men stay alert.

On December 15th, as dusk was approaching, Stephen sent smaller detachments that set the town on fire from three different places: thereafter, noise and confusion set in the Hungarian ranks. Stephen ordered his men to dismount and soon after they launched their attack and made battle at the gates and then in the burning streets until dawn. As the Moldavians got the upper hand of the battle, they engaged the royal guard, which consisted of 200 heavily armed knights, the aristocrats and Corvinus. Many Moldavians were killed in the tumult that followed, as the knights tried to defend the entrance to the market. Attacked from multiple angles and with little cohesion left, the Hungarian army was rapidly disintegrating. Corvinus himself was hit the back by three arrows and was carried from the battlefield on a stretcher. Thereafter, the Hungarians attempted to retread. Unfortunately for them, Steven had decided to personally lead the cavalry attack on the enemy rear once he saw the Hungarian lines collapsing (3). Caught in the open, with cavalry charging at them from both sides and with their King wounded, the men of the royal guard surrendered, followed by the rest of the army shortly afterwards.


The result for the Kingdom of Hungary was devastating – the cream of their fighting force was killed or captured, along with many influential barons and most importantly, their king. What’s more, Stephen immediately began crossing the Carpathians back into Transylvania. There, he extracted large sums of gold from the local communities which he used to further enlarge his forces by hiring numerous mercenaries. Seeing the situation hopeless, Matthias Corvinus acceded to Stephen’s demands: a huge sum of money paid for his release, the region of Maramures (from where Stephen’s dynasty originally hailed) to be directly annexed to Moldova, large estates in Transylvania to be given to Stephen as well as granting him the title of Voievod of Transylvania (replacing Sebastian de Rozgony), thus effectively making Stephen the second most important man in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Once all of this had been done, Corvinus realized that his days as King of Hungary were numbered unless he did one of two things – either confiscate a good part of the wealth of his barons, execute or exile anyone who opposed him and defeat the rebellion that would surely follow or attack Stephen, decisively defeat him and thus undo all the damage he had caused. Unwilling to burn his own country down just to save his skin, Corvinus opted for the latter.

Thus, for most of 1468, Hungarian forces battled Moldavian mercenaries across Transylvania in numerous minor engagements, sieges and skirmishes. Eventually a tipping point was reached when Stephen finally tracked down and caught Petru Aaron, personally beheading him on the spot as the usurper himself had done to Stephen’s father. This caused even the last opposition among the Moldavian nobility to rally to Stephen’s cause. Shortly afterwards, most of the German cities throughout Transylvania, sensing which way the wind was blowing, switched over to Stephen’s side, followed shortly afterwards by a majority of the Szekely nobility. Without even meeting his rival again in battle, Matthias Corvinus died childless, poisoned by his own nobles.



1 – This is the POD. OTL, Stephen was wounded by said shrapnel
2 -Stephen had 12,000 men under his command
3 – given that he has no injury preventing him to do so TTL

In the chaos that was the Hungarian civil war, Stephen managed to get his cousin Vlad Dracula released and planned to lead an expedition into Wallachia in order to place him back on the throne. However, the vast problems presented by administering Transylvania in addition to Moldova, the need to finalize agreements with all of its major players, as well as to gather the necessary funds to pay off his overlord Casimir of Poland, so that he may accept Stephen’s dominion over Transylvania, meant that the expedition was delayed throughout 1469. Then, in August, a large Mongol force, headed by Ahmed Khan’s son and brother, split in three and invaded Poland, Lithuania and Moldova.

Stephen mobilized against them and again employed his scorched earth policy in an attempt to deny the Golden Horde any gains. The Mongol horsemen however proved to be extremely mobile, and managed to capture several thousand women and children, hundreds of herds of cattle, horses, and flocks of sheep. Their own success proved to be their undoing though, as the great convoy severely hampered their mobility. During their retreat, they were ambushed by Stephen’s army at the edge of the lime tree forest near Lipnic, in northern Moldova near the river Dniester. The Moldavian cavalry quickly closed in on the Mongol horse archers, pinning them down long enough for the great mass of peasant spearmen to arrive. Cornered on all sides, the Mongols attempted to flee by swimming back across the river, whereby many drowned.



The Moldavian victory was final – the spoils included not only the people and animals previously captured by the Mongols (which were released, or, in the case of the animals returned to their owners or sold off), but also numerous Mongol slaves, mainly of Roma origin. These were not as fortunate, as Stephen decided to either keep them as slaves in the service of the state or sold them off to his boyars and monasteries. Among the captives were the two Mongolian commanders, the Khan’s son and brother. Ahmed Khan sent 100 envoys to secure their release, only for Stephen to have the young boy split in four pieces and then impale 99 of the envoys, sending the last one back, all in a show of force meant to intimidate Ahmed. Meanwhile, Emenic, the Khan’s borther, was kept alive and eventually ransomed off later that year. For Stephen, the victory was especially important as he saw it as revenge for the killing of one of his childhood friends years before while he was still a boy.

The following spring, in 1470, Stephen finally lead his expedition into Wallachia, at the head of a large mercenary army. Several cities, including Braila, were burned down and Radu the Handsome, following a brutal battle near his capital city, fled south across the Danube into Ottoman territory. His brother Vlad Dracula was placed back on the Wallachian throne and swore allegiance to Stephen.

Recognizing the rising power in the region and fearing the disintegration of Hungary, Pope Paul II praises Stephen for his victories against the Mongols and the Turkish vassals (while at the same time omitting any mention of his war against Hungary) that same year and offers him Zoe Palaiologina, daughter of Thomas, as his bride, along with the offer that Stephen renounce Orthodox Christianity and accept Catholicism.

I love this, this is so cool.

Didn't know Stephen the Great was Orthodox...then again I don't know a lot of things...

Still, the Prince of Moldavia being offered the hand of one of the last descendents of the Byantine monarchs...sounds like an excuse to exercise that claim.

Hi,

A very nice Timeline!

So, everything was as per OTL, except the siege of Chillia (when Stephen was injured) and the batle of Baia were he was even more successful than OTL and this lead to conquest of Transitional.

In OTL Stephen married the Maria Palaiologina of Mangop. You propose that he will marries Zoe Palaiologina (that I think is the daughter of Thomas not the sister). If will happens, that will mean no Ivan IV Grozny (the Terrible)? Oh no! Don't do that! The Russians will hate you!

Still, it's highly improbable that Stephen will convert to Catholicism as he was very pious in the Orthodox faith (Vlad III Impaler still have converted OTL to Catholicism but he was more pragmatical and less pious ).

He was also very inclined (and talented too) in use of artillery (even if he has a small number) and this lead to a veritable tradition in this direction (the artillery park of the medieval Moldavian army was impressive - see Petru Rares and Ioan Voda).

A look at the internal situation of Stephen's realm

The remainder of 1470 was spent by Stephen organizing his new realm, in which disputes were many. Moldova's administrative structure, although having borrowed extensively from the Byzantine model throughout the years, was still barely capable of managing its own affairs without the intervention of the Voievod, let alone taking care of Transylvania (a realm bigger and more populous than Moldova itself) as well. Hence, personal intervention by Stephen was almost constantly required. To make matters worse, Moldova’s upper classes still lacked unity and cohesion. Disputes were many, and they were only exacerbated by recent developments.

Memories of the decades-long civil wars were still fresh, as many boyars, with or without any dynastic claims, still hoped for a quick and easy way to get to the throne. Opposed to these were those who saw in Stephen and his great, in fact unprecedented successes, as just the sort of good fortune and stability the state needed, and, at the same time, hoped to increase their wealth and influence by undermining those in favor of replacing Stephen.

Geographical differences were also in play. Boyars from lower Moldova, being closer to the Ottomans, generally favored a conciliatory attitude towards them, or, in case things did escalate to armed conflict, then they were strongly in favor of early, decisive action, mainly so as to minimize the damage to their estates. Meanwhile, boyars from upper (or north) Moldova were far more inclined to favor resistance to the Ottomans, as well as support Stephen’s favored ‘scorched earth’ tactics, provided the alternative peace wasn’t cheaper. On a totally different note were the Hungarian nobles in Transylvania. They actively hoped the Ottomans would invade Moldova, and were likely to rise up if given half the chance. Lastly there were the German cities – with Hungary embroiled in a civil war, one of their main sources of trade revenue was gone. Their only hope to make up for it was continued peace and increased trade with Moldova and its Polish overlords, something that was impossible if an uprising took place. Therefor, as long as Stephen looked strong enough, the German cities were bound to support, or at least quietly acknowledge him.

Lastly there was the growing segment of Romanian-speaking orthodox nobles in Transylvania. Some of these were indigenous to the land and simply converted from Catholicism to Orthodoxy as a way to maintain, or even increase, their influence as supporters of the new regime. Others had simply been among some of the richer local peasants who had seen their fortunes rise thanks to the chaos of Stephen’s take-over and his need for reliable men he could trust. Lastly among this category there were the newcomers – Moldavian (minor) nobility which gained lands west of the Carpathians following the conquest in which they themselves played a large role in, and which decided to stay. All of these were some of Stephens greatest supporters

Another massive divide was of religious nature. The (still tiny) new Romanian-speaking noble class excluded, most of the Transylvanian nobility and urban middle class were Catholics, and they all strongly courted Stephen to accept the Pope’s proposal to convert. On the other hand there were the Moldavian nobility and clergy. While some of these didn’t really care one way or another and would go whichever way the wind was blowing, a vast majority clamored Stephen not to abandon the “one true faith” in search of ephemeral gains. To make matters worse, Stephen knew he needed the support of both parties in order to have any chance at a successful reign.

For the time being though, Stephen looked to stay on top of things, with a major conspiracy, led by some of the top boyars at the court - Isaia, Negrila and Alexa - being thwarted and the conspirators publicly executed.

Sultan Mehmed II's rule had been one of significant expansion for the Ottoman state - Constantinople had fallen in 1453, Serbia was conquered in 1459 and the last remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire had been subdued by 1461. The Venetian-controlled Duchy of Naxos had been forced to pay tribute starting 1458, whilst the former Genoese colonies of Lesbos and Chios were easily annexed in 1462. A year later, the Sultan's armies had conquered Bosnia, putting them within striking range of Venice's Adriatic holdings and of the City itself.



Despite having been lucrative trading partners, tensions between the two states ran high, as the various Venetian outposts shared an uneasy border with the Turkish juggernaut. Predictably, fighting soon broke out, but, unlike previous occasions, it no longer stayed localized. The Venetian Senate narrowly voted for an all-out war following hostilities in the Morea, and this soon grew into an all-out crusade, as Pope Pius II threw his weight behind the project. Trying to assemble a grand coalition capable of defeating Mehmed, Pius struck deals with Matthias Corvinus, Philip the Good of Burgundy and Skanderbeg. The plan was to award Hungary with Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia and Wallachia, the Albanians with Macedonia whilst the rest would form a restored “Greek Empire” ruled by the last Emperor’s brother, now an exile at the Pope’s court.

As hostilities commenced, the Venetian fleet took up station outside the Dardanelles straights whilst an expeditionary force landed in Morea, whilst further north Mathias Corvinus’ forces invaded Bosnia. All the while, the main crusading army was assembling at Ancona in Italy. Despite some early success in both theatres, the Ottomans soon gained the upper hand, expelling the Venetians from all of their continental holdings and retaking Bosnia, albeit with some effort. Pius’s death meanwhile put the final nail in the coffin of the paltry attempt at organising a crusading army in Ancona. By 1470, the situation had become truly desperate, as resistance in plague-wracked Albania was being more-or-less neutralized by the Ottomans, Hungary was completely out of the war, with Ottomans raiding parties penetrating deep into the Pannonian plains and Papal and Venetian attempts to solicit new allies such as the Karamanids or the Crimean Khanate having mostly failed.

It was under these circumstances that the Pope offered Stephen the chance to be crowned King, should he convert to Catholicism, all part of a wider plan aimed at stabilizing the region. The new Kingdom to be awarded to Stephen would include Moldova, Transylvania (which would be detached from the Kingdom of Hungary) and overlordship over Wallachia. Casimir of Poland meanwhile would be compensated for the loss of his vassal by acquiring the Hungarian crown, at the time tenuously held by the Hussite King of Bohemia, George of Podebrad, despite an ongoing effort by a large part of the Hungarian nobility to install their own candidate. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III meanwhile would also renounce his claim on the Crown of Hungary (again), with the promised compensation being the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was to go to his son, Maximilian.

As part of the deal, Stephen also got to marry Sophia Palaiologina, which he did in a lavish ceremony in the autumn of 1470. Her arrival into Stephen’s lands was greeted with much enthusiasm, as peasants and townspeople from all over the land flocked to see the princess and heiress of the Roman legacy.




During the ceremony, the papal envoy and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, cardinal Basilios Bessarion, presented Stephen with a veritable treasure of pearls, gems and gold coins, ostensibly as a wedding gift, but actually meant to finance the coming war against Mehmed. Then, as Stephen walked down the aisle, several Moldovan priests, none too happy to see their Church fall under the Papal boot, took out their daggers and plunged towards their unsuspecting target…

Dun Dun DUNNNNNN! I love it!

It is only natural that the Romanians claim their birthright as descendents of Rome, so shall it be so!

A jolly good read. Keep it up.

Bump!

Is this thread dead?

It looks so promising....

no, its not dead, I just need to work up the interest in writing it