HanEmpire: The Poles are free, except they're allied with Hungary.
Evilprodigy: I can't give you an exact number without knowing OTL 17th army pay levels to use as a comparison. But in the Roman armies the pay of a basic infantry recruit is comparable to that of an unskilled day laborer, nothing great. But there are the possibility of pay raises as pay goes up based on your years of service and also the higher ranks get paid more. Also getting posted to one of the guard tagmata or serving in a tourmai that earns guard status is another pay increase. More illustrious branches of the military such as the kataphraktoi get paid more too. Also unlike a day laborer a Roman soldier has job security plus barracks to sleep in and rations to eat without paying for either. So while a skilled artisan wouldn't think twice of joining the army, many agricultural laborers without farms of their own are often enticed.
MarshalofMontival: They're busy eyeing the Rhine valley and the Netherlands while the Germans fight each other and also slowly expanding their foothold in the New World.
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1608: With the crippling of the Georgians at Astara, the allied position in the trans-Aras has become untenable. Aside from the heavy casualties, the near-annihilation of the Royal Guard demoralized the regular Georgian tagmata, giving Iskandar a morale ascendancy, one that by no means is restricted to the Georgians. In the spring the War Room instructs the strategoi to avoid all direct military confrontations with Ottoman units under the command of the Shah if at all possible, hardly instructions that curb the Georgian suspicion that the Romans are proving to be a frail reed on which to lean.
Iskandar pushes against a near-vacuum of opposition, driving back the Roman-Georgian lines back to their status two years earlier with minimal losses. It is a clear-cut example of the advantage of having a formidable reputation as Iskandar himself admits that his post-Astara army was in no position for another major battle.
One disadvantage of the Shah’s prolonged presence in Azerbaijan is that it could encourage the Romans to resume the offensive in Iraq, but the Roman forces there are in no position to do so. With Hungary’s seizure of Serdica, the eastern front is no longer the top priority of the War Room. Roman forces have been withdrawn west to the frontiers of Anizzah territory and to Mosul to set up secure defensive lines, not without laying waste much of the countryside with substantial wreckage to the canal network. This is in preparation for transferring several tagmata to Europe, even if an arrangement is not made with the Shah.
Other Roman forces are in motion as well. The War Room has decided to cut its losses in North Africa, maintaining 2500 men at Tabarka and four thousand at Carthage but withdrawing the rest to Apulia to potentially be used to menace the Hungarian flank. This is much to the dismay of the Carthaginians and Sicilians but the Romans do not have the manpower to stare down Iskandar, Andrew VII, and Mouley Ismail.
An initial peace proposal to Mouley Ismail fails as the Sultan insists on regaining Tabarka and receiving a substantial tribute from Sicily and the Empire and the cession of Carthage, his only concession the recognition of Carthaginian Mahdia and Roman Djerba. The Romans are not that desperate for peace and it is highly unlike Mouley Ismail seriously expected the offer to be taken.
But what he has been unable to take by the pen he is willing to hazard with the sword. Although harassed by the Tabarka garrison he pushes into Carthaginian territory, a Carthaginian-Berber army outnumbered four to one declining to engage. Retiring into Carthage itself, Mouley Ismail follows to place the great city under siege, launching skiffs to contest control of Lake Tunis. Three days after the Sultan pitches his tent, Izmirli, leading a huge Berber fleet, blockades Carthage by sea.
Serious peace negotiations begin with Iskandar himself. The Roman proposal is that they will withdraw all forces from the Arabian Peninsula, including Yanbu where the Roman offensive stalled miserably after the seizure of the port due to sandstorms, smallpox, and raids from the Southern Anizzah. Although often willing to follow the lead of their orthodox northern cousins despite the lack of any formal allegiance to the Empire, their Muslim faith has won out due to the continued Roman threats to the Muslim Holy Cities. The new Jeddah fortifications are to be destroyed prior to the Roman withdrawal, at which point an Idwait emissary will receive the Black Stone to return to Mecca.
Aside from that, the Empire will pay Iskandar two million hyperpyra and Georgia six hundred thousand (the negotiations are conducted by a joint Roman-Georgian delegation), with all frontiers restored to the pre-war positions. The Romans also offer a quarter million Syrian Muslims to be transferred to northern Mesopotamia, moving expenses to be met by the Roman government.
This is by far the most generous Roman offer to date, but Iskandar is unsatisfied. While the western war has never been a great desire for him, his realm has paid dearly in blood and coin and he wants recompense. Also with the Roman setbacks in North Africa and the hostilities with Hungary, he sees no reason not to drive a hard bargain.
His counter-offer is that the Romans will evacuate Arabia, although they may destroy the Jeddah fortifications. That proviso helps the Romans save face and since the fortifications are all landward anyway, they would not help defend against another maritime assault. But Georgia must cede all its trans-Aras territories, in exchange Iskandar waiving the tribute from both Constantinople and Tbilisi.
Up to this point the Christians are willing to accept Iskandar’s terms. But the Shah also insists that the Romans personally hand him the Black Stone on the battlefield of al-Hasakah, his first major victory over the Romans (the Roman negotiators were authorized to hand the Black Stone over if absolutely necessary to secure peace but the place of transfer is too much to stomach). That is humiliating enough but Iskandar also wants to be granted the title ‘Defender of the Syrian Muslims’ and for said people to be guaranteed certain rights, the Shah to ensure those rights are maintained. The Romans, quite well aware of how their ancestors in the 1400s had used a similar tactic via the Coptic Christians to harass the Mameluke Sultanate, refuse point blank.
By pressing these humiliating terms only on the Romans Iskandar hopes to split the Romans and Georgians so that the latter will make a separate piece. Considering the wretched state of their army it is a tactic that nearly succeeds. But the infant royal Safavid dynasty derives its legitimacy from the marriages with the Drakina Queen and Princess, and the promise of an annual 300,000 hyperpyra subsidy keep Tbilisi in the fight, at least on paper. The talks break up, peace elusive.
In Europe, the Hungarians did attempt to force the Gates of Trajan in winter but failed. The good weather feared by the War Room report did not appear. But the only troops in Europe are the Thracian tagma plus various militias and irregulars such as Albanian stradioti the White Palace can scrounge up.
Epirus and Albania with their mountainous terrain and ornery inhabitants are harassed by Hungarian hussars but largely left undamaged. An attempt to force the Gates of Trajan in the summer fails this time against the fortifications and the impressive tenacity of the Komotini and Xanthi militia, forcing the Hungarians to focus their attentions away from Thrace toward Macedonia.
A thrust spearheaded by the Black Army seizes Ohrid in June, then breaks into two prongs, one heading east towards Thessaloniki, the other south into Greece. Both are harassed but militia formations here are weak and few in number. Veroia falls in early August, Larissa a week later. The east prong gets a bloody nose courtesy of the Thracian tagma at Sindos, a small suburb town of Thessaloniki. The damage to the Hungarians isn’t serious but does spare Thessaloniki a siege, although Magyar raiding parties roam as far east as Drama. The southern prong is repulsed from Volos largely due to Roman warships cruising offshore but the Hungarian army reaches Siderokastron, not far from the pass of Thermopylae, before a halt is called.
As early modern invasions and occupations go, the Hungarian has been rather mild. But still there have been the occasional massacre or other atrocities, particularly in the larger towns where most resistance was staged. And while the Orthodox in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Thessaly, unlike Serbia, have not been persecuted, the upper clerical hierarchy has been imprisoned and beaten, and several of the major churches seized, washed, and converted to Catholic churches. But Andrew VII is not too greedy. The initial reason for the attack was to get the Romans to stop supporting Serbian rebels, and so he is willing to back off some. To that end he dispatches a delegation to Constantinople.
The White Palace, Constantinople, September 17, 1608:
Demetrios Sideros swallowed, looking nervously across the hall. He was clad in the finest outfit he had ever worn in his life. He wore a dark blue silk shirt and pants, interlaced with silver thread. Gold thread adorned his collar and cuffs, a pea-shaped diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald set on each of his cuffs as well. A light purple cloak, although not the shade of Tyrian purple, also outlined with gold thread and fringed with mink, was clasped to his shoulders. A gold chain was around his neck, a diamond centered in each of the six-centimeter long ingots surrounded by two rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. It felt odd; he was used to much plainer clothes. But I can afford it now with my inheritance, and Jahzara likes to be at court.
Jahzara stood next to him, as usual resplendent in finery. She was wearing a floor-length dark blue dress made of the finest Chinese silk, with the usual stitching of the Lion of Judah across her ample bodice. That much was usual, but interlaced in the fabric were dozens of tiny diamonds and emeralds so that she literally shimmered when she moved, sometimes showing her calves through the short slits along the sides.
He swallowed again as the doors to the throne hall opened and the herald boomed. “The Count of Pec, Ambassador of his Apostolic Majesty, the Great King of Hungary, King of Croatia and Austria, Duke of Friuli, Aquileia, Transylvania and the Banat!”
Demetrios pushed his eyeglasses a little up his nose, his eyes glancing behind him. The Empress Helena was indisposed but Emperor Demetrios was here, seated on his throne, but the purple curtains were drawn so that no one could see him. The mood amongst the court against the Hungarians was angry, as could easily be seen by the glowers and mutterings as the Hungarian Count walked forward.
As a mark of disdain, the Emperor would not speak to the Hungarian envoy. I’m the one who is supposed to address him. Jahzara glanced over at him, smiled faintly, and held out her left hand. He clasped it and she squeezed gently. I should be angry with her; she arranged this. But her presence was comforting nonetheless.
* * *
The Count came to a stop, bowing toward the throne, although Jahzara noted that the bow was only a slight bow of the shoulders, hardly an appropriate obeisance to an Imperial Majesty. From the whispers in the ranks of courtiers she wasn’t the only one who noticed.
She examined the Hungarian. He was short and a little pudgy, but with long, powerful arms. A luxuriant and likely waxed mustache congregated under a bent nose, but no beard. His eyebrows were some of the bushiest she had ever seen. His hair was short, slick, and thin. Eh, I’m not impressed.
She looked up to the middle of the court to see Stephan Tomasevic and a flutter of desire filled her heart. Stephan was tall and broad-shouldered, with muscular arms and legs, a manly beard of black and gray covering his hard, angular face. Reportedly he already had three lovers amongst the ladies of the Roman court. I’d like to be one of them. But whilst Stephan was far more of a man than Demetrios, the blood of Sideros was far more rarified than Tomasevic.
The Hungarian count stopped, bowed to the veiled throne, and began speaking some meaningless pleasantry, completely ignoring Demetrios. She glanced at him and spotted a very faint flaring of the nostrils. The Count finished and Demetrios answered with another series of pleasantries, the ambassador not so much as turning his head. Jahzara’s own nostrils flared. Wait, what? Did he just call the ambassador’s master a Sultan? There was some murmuring in the crowd.
The exchange continued a little while in much the same vein. The ambassador continued speaking at the veiled throne, seemingly unaware of Demetrios’ presence. But the court was not, as Jahzara noticed that every time Demetrios referenced a Hungarian title he used the Arab equivalent. Finally the Ambassador, his nostrils flared, looked at Demetrios for the first time, and snarled “We are not Mohammedans.”
Flatly, Demetrios replied. “Yes, you are.” A murmur swept the crowd.
The Magyar’s face reddened in rage. “If we were anywhere else, I would kill you for that, boy.”
“This boy, emir, is of the blood of Andreas Niketas and Timur.”
He sneered. “Very little of that blood, apparently. And I am a Count, not an Emir.” He looked back at the Emperor’s throne. “Now, in exchange for-”
“YOU ARE AN EMIR!” Demetrios bellowed. Jahzara gasped in surprise; she’d never heard Demetrios raise his voice. “AND A MOHAMMEDAN! THOUGH YOU DO NOT PRAY TO MECCA IN BODY, YOU DO SO WITH YOUR HEART!” He quieted down. “You and your kind claim to be Christian, but your actions speak loudly than words. Whenever we are faced by a great Muslim foe, your…kind, rather than aiding us as true brothers in the faith would do, instead use the opportunity to attack us instead. You come here, offering peace while you issue threats you would never dare to raise were we not facing the greatest Muslim warlord since the days of Shah Rukh. You claim to be Christian, yet you act like a Muslim.
“At least the Muslim is honest about who he is. But amongst your kind, honesty is a rare thing indeed, almost as rare as an earnest desire for peace. So I say,” he continued, his voice rising again. “There can be no peace with Latins, men of stone and iron and lies. There can be only war!” The court cheered at the words, the ambassador glaring with rage.
Jahzara looked over at Demetrios. He glowered back at the Hungarian. So you do have a backbone after all; that’s good to know. But she did catch a furtive glance at the throne. The Emperor was in no mood to capitulate to Buda’s threats but Demetrios’ words were hardly proper diplomatic material.
The curtain parted to reveal Emperor Demetrios. “Go back to your master, Magyar,” he said. “And tell him what you have heard here. You wish to be paid for your troubles. Very well, we shall do so, but not in the gold you request but in iron.”
