alternatehistory.com
26
The memes! They are like food to me!
Ok, so I know I said I was going to do France and friends next, but what had happened was I started looking into the direction the ERE's military would go and I got a burst of creativity.
So please forgive me blatantly lying.
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Romania came out of the war both a winner and a loser. The first step in reclaiming the Anatolian heartland had commenced, with the frontier once more reaching the Sakarya river. Her prestige had swelled with the victory over the Ottoman Beylik. Her major rival in the east had been utterly obliterated. Any threat to the newly gained territories was, at the time being, either pacified or exhausted. And lastly, positive relations had been confirmed with several of the Turkish beyliks, giving new opportunities for business. That’s the good, now here’s the bad: Rome also had her army smashed to bits and military weakness displaced to the whole world; it had her allies battered, her northern neighbor indirectly strengthened, her treasury drained, and her manpower dipping. Despite much posturing about how the empire has improved, it was self evident to nearly everyone of value that Romania would have to undergo a new round of reforms. She had neglected that very thing that made her last for so long against all odds: the army. And so as soon as the ink was dry on the peace treaty, Emperor John V authorized the creation of a vast new army from the ground up. Romania was to have match, no exceed the Ottomans- 20,000 men were to be at her disposal at all times, ready to defend and advance the empire’s interests.
Of this new army was to be a core of professional, full time soldiers. Disciplined troops that would be mobile and on call at all times followed by -like the army of Constantine I before them- a series of supplemental regiments that would be drawn in from a wide variety of sources: Militia troops, mercenaries, auxiliaries, reserve units, allied nomadic Turkish tribes (although this isn’t the case for the first few decades) and even repurposed naval soldiers. But lets slow down for a bit: What’s this new army corps made up of? How are they recruited? How are they paid? What are they equipped with? And most importantly, how are they trained? Essentially, what’s the profile of Rome’s land forces?
The answer is that the army was a mix- a mix of what Romania had seen to be successful on the battlefield in recent times: the Janissaries, the Condottieri, the Heavy Cavalry of the Bulgarians, light cavalry of the Golden Horde and so forth. The bulk of this new army (around ⅔ of the men usually) were infantry units, normally on the heavier side with regards to armor. The ‘standard’ soldier would be protected by lamellar armor and mail that was common amongst Middle Eastern soldiers (mostly the latter). The remainder of the professional forces would be a mix of cavalry and other supplementary units.
One might wonder ‘why Lamellar armor?’ Why not the plate armor that was common in the west?
The answer to that is simple: Money. Or rather, the lack of it. And this is going to be a repeating point with the remainder of the army reforms, so please, forgive the redundancy. Basically, Rome is perennially short on cash. Now I know what you’re thinking: Wait a minute, what about the Renovation? And all that trade money? And then the expanding? That should amount to something, right?!
To which the answer is: "Well... yeah, but that’s not enough." Recent events, both within and outside Romania have done much to prevent the Romans from getting the necessary funds they need.
-First off, the war with the Ottomans. Expensive and long. Ultimately net loss in the treasury for the first few years despite the accomplishments in geopolitics.
-Second, infrastructure and vanity projects in the European part of the empire. Trying to revitalize Greece is also expensive, and long investments that take a while to pay off.
-Three is the recent slowdown in economic growth: Since the mid 1350s the Roman economy has been massively growing thanks to an expansion in imperial trade and manufacturing. With this there has been a feedback loop that has led to (by 14th Century Roman standards) absolutely massive economic growth. The thing is, most of that has been (wisely) reinvested into the empire it doesn’t leave too much on hand. This has been compounded by the fact that the 1360s have been a slowdown in growth (basically, the ‘vacuum left by Venice’ has been more or less completely filled and new opportunities haven’t shown up) and a time of rising prices thanks to instability along the Silk Road, in turn caused by the Golden Horde’s civil wars (and later the war with Timur).
-Fourth, the fortification of the Asian provinces: With the memory of the last outposts in Asia being overrun by the Turk, Romania vowed never again to let such a thing happen, and took steps to enforce this. From the border at the River Sakarya to the Marmara, an extensive series of forts, roads, warehouses and army camps were established to make sure the territory was thoroughly secure. Settlers were also encouraged from back in Europe were encouraged to settle the territory with various tax breaks to ensure the loyalty of the region (Yes the areas is still Hellenic but the empire isn’t taking any chances). Ultimately a short to mid-term money sink.
-Fifth, the Roman army had large amounts of mercenaries: Some lessons are never fully learned it seems. [1] Despite the warnings of many in the older generations about the preference of an entirely native army, the regime once more turned to using large amounts of mercenaries (anywhere between 3-5 thousand at any time) as they’re skilled yet easy to replace soldiers that would help fill in the vacuum on the numerical disparity until the native army is replenished and of course would serve as advisors and trainers in the armed forces. [2]
All of these factors mean that there despite the ambitious goals, there isn’t that much money to divert to this new army. And of course the actual ‘arming’ and ‘training’ part means that the military is a big ticket item that just simply can’t be given a blank cheque. Its worth noting at this point (1370) that while Romania has likely been probably making more than double the money in 1330 [3], that’s still much less than pre Fourth Crusade, which is in turn much less what the state was collecting in the days of Manuel. The new conquests in Asia will very much help alleviate the costs in the future, but again, those fortifications mean that this won’t be within the next few years.
So corners must be cut somehow. The traditional solutions: raising taxes and implementing austerity aren’t considered because A) that would risk upsetting the imperial government’s hard earned popularity thanks to low taxes being the norm and B) the investments are seen as critical to the empire’s future (and also inertia, popularity, wanting to keep up the image of a rich and splendid state- those things)
Now how do they do it? Part of this is in the quality of equipment, as seen above. Part of it is also in payment- about half the payment of the new soldiers is in land, the rest in coin. And another part is in the timing of recruiting- rather than trying to get all 20,000 soldiers at once, the empire goes for gradual increases in its armed forces over the next 2 decades. And finally, the last major thing Romania does is that it starts quietly borrowing money from Italian bankers. The idea is that once the various projects the empire has are completed in the near future, the money no longer going to them will be enough to quickly pay off the loans and Romania will have finished everything nice and quietly. Of course, nothing is ever nice when it comes to finances as the empire would find out when dealing with Genoese Loan sharks...
[1] This isn’t to say the Romans weren’t self aware- Mercenaries were kept highly dispersed amongst native forces to make the likelihood of a Catalan company situation slim to zero and were encouraged to convert to Orthodoxy, to take native wives and settle the country, with the hopes this would increase loyalty. Additionally the numbers of mercenary units were gradually increased along with the armed forces to again, avoid that period critical weakness where the mercenaries might think twice about serving the empire instead of extorting it. Finally, the hired soldiers were almost always given the most dangerous jobs and stationed at the most dangerous posts, like the Macedonian and Anatolian frontiers.
[2]: As you can probably guess, this is where the western influence comes in and we see Romania adopting more western style tactics such as the use of longbows (which work great against horse archers trying to raid) Interestingly, despite the influence amongst the army’s tactics stemming from the Italian Condottieri mercenaries, most of those serving in Romania were of English and French descent. And that’s because the *Hundred Years war between England and France is entering another peace treaty at this time, leaving a glut of soldiers without work and eager for jobs. Romania decided to capitalize on this and hired various mercenary bands.
[3] Definitely less than 1 million Hyperpyra.
Ok, so I know I said I was going to do France and friends next, but what had happened was I started looking into the direction the ERE's military would go and I got a burst of creativity.
So please forgive me blatantly lying.
------
Romania came out of the war both a winner and a loser. The first step in reclaiming the Anatolian heartland had commenced, with the frontier once more reaching the Sakarya river. Her prestige had swelled with the victory over the Ottoman Beylik. Her major rival in the east had been utterly obliterated. Any threat to the newly gained territories was, at the time being, either pacified or exhausted. And lastly, positive relations had been confirmed with several of the Turkish beyliks, giving new opportunities for business. That’s the good, now here’s the bad: Rome also had her army smashed to bits and military weakness displaced to the whole world; it had her allies battered, her northern neighbor indirectly strengthened, her treasury drained, and her manpower dipping. Despite much posturing about how the empire has improved, it was self evident to nearly everyone of value that Romania would have to undergo a new round of reforms. She had neglected that very thing that made her last for so long against all odds: the army. And so as soon as the ink was dry on the peace treaty, Emperor John V authorized the creation of a vast new army from the ground up. Romania was to have match, no exceed the Ottomans- 20,000 men were to be at her disposal at all times, ready to defend and advance the empire’s interests.
Of this new army was to be a core of professional, full time soldiers. Disciplined troops that would be mobile and on call at all times followed by -like the army of Constantine I before them- a series of supplemental regiments that would be drawn in from a wide variety of sources: Militia troops, mercenaries, auxiliaries, reserve units, allied nomadic Turkish tribes (although this isn’t the case for the first few decades) and even repurposed naval soldiers. But lets slow down for a bit: What’s this new army corps made up of? How are they recruited? How are they paid? What are they equipped with? And most importantly, how are they trained? Essentially, what’s the profile of Rome’s land forces?
The answer is that the army was a mix- a mix of what Romania had seen to be successful on the battlefield in recent times: the Janissaries, the Condottieri, the Heavy Cavalry of the Bulgarians, light cavalry of the Golden Horde and so forth. The bulk of this new army (around ⅔ of the men usually) were infantry units, normally on the heavier side with regards to armor. The ‘standard’ soldier would be protected by lamellar armor and mail that was common amongst Middle Eastern soldiers (mostly the latter). The remainder of the professional forces would be a mix of cavalry and other supplementary units.
One might wonder ‘why Lamellar armor?’ Why not the plate armor that was common in the west?
The answer to that is simple: Money. Or rather, the lack of it. And this is going to be a repeating point with the remainder of the army reforms, so please, forgive the redundancy. Basically, Rome is perennially short on cash. Now I know what you’re thinking: Wait a minute, what about the Renovation? And all that trade money? And then the expanding? That should amount to something, right?!
To which the answer is: "Well... yeah, but that’s not enough." Recent events, both within and outside Romania have done much to prevent the Romans from getting the necessary funds they need.
-First off, the war with the Ottomans. Expensive and long. Ultimately net loss in the treasury for the first few years despite the accomplishments in geopolitics.
-Second, infrastructure and vanity projects in the European part of the empire. Trying to revitalize Greece is also expensive, and long investments that take a while to pay off.
-Three is the recent slowdown in economic growth: Since the mid 1350s the Roman economy has been massively growing thanks to an expansion in imperial trade and manufacturing. With this there has been a feedback loop that has led to (by 14th Century Roman standards) absolutely massive economic growth. The thing is, most of that has been (wisely) reinvested into the empire it doesn’t leave too much on hand. This has been compounded by the fact that the 1360s have been a slowdown in growth (basically, the ‘vacuum left by Venice’ has been more or less completely filled and new opportunities haven’t shown up) and a time of rising prices thanks to instability along the Silk Road, in turn caused by the Golden Horde’s civil wars (and later the war with Timur).
-Fourth, the fortification of the Asian provinces: With the memory of the last outposts in Asia being overrun by the Turk, Romania vowed never again to let such a thing happen, and took steps to enforce this. From the border at the River Sakarya to the Marmara, an extensive series of forts, roads, warehouses and army camps were established to make sure the territory was thoroughly secure. Settlers were also encouraged from back in Europe were encouraged to settle the territory with various tax breaks to ensure the loyalty of the region (Yes the areas is still Hellenic but the empire isn’t taking any chances). Ultimately a short to mid-term money sink.
-Fifth, the Roman army had large amounts of mercenaries: Some lessons are never fully learned it seems. [1] Despite the warnings of many in the older generations about the preference of an entirely native army, the regime once more turned to using large amounts of mercenaries (anywhere between 3-5 thousand at any time) as they’re skilled yet easy to replace soldiers that would help fill in the vacuum on the numerical disparity until the native army is replenished and of course would serve as advisors and trainers in the armed forces. [2]
All of these factors mean that there despite the ambitious goals, there isn’t that much money to divert to this new army. And of course the actual ‘arming’ and ‘training’ part means that the military is a big ticket item that just simply can’t be given a blank cheque. Its worth noting at this point (1370) that while Romania has likely been probably making more than double the money in 1330 [3], that’s still much less than pre Fourth Crusade, which is in turn much less what the state was collecting in the days of Manuel. The new conquests in Asia will very much help alleviate the costs in the future, but again, those fortifications mean that this won’t be within the next few years.
So corners must be cut somehow. The traditional solutions: raising taxes and implementing austerity aren’t considered because A) that would risk upsetting the imperial government’s hard earned popularity thanks to low taxes being the norm and B) the investments are seen as critical to the empire’s future (and also inertia, popularity, wanting to keep up the image of a rich and splendid state- those things)
Now how do they do it? Part of this is in the quality of equipment, as seen above. Part of it is also in payment- about half the payment of the new soldiers is in land, the rest in coin. And another part is in the timing of recruiting- rather than trying to get all 20,000 soldiers at once, the empire goes for gradual increases in its armed forces over the next 2 decades. And finally, the last major thing Romania does is that it starts quietly borrowing money from Italian bankers. The idea is that once the various projects the empire has are completed in the near future, the money no longer going to them will be enough to quickly pay off the loans and Romania will have finished everything nice and quietly. Of course, nothing is ever nice when it comes to finances as the empire would find out when dealing with Genoese Loan sharks...
[1] This isn’t to say the Romans weren’t self aware- Mercenaries were kept highly dispersed amongst native forces to make the likelihood of a Catalan company situation slim to zero and were encouraged to convert to Orthodoxy, to take native wives and settle the country, with the hopes this would increase loyalty. Additionally the numbers of mercenary units were gradually increased along with the armed forces to again, avoid that period critical weakness where the mercenaries might think twice about serving the empire instead of extorting it. Finally, the hired soldiers were almost always given the most dangerous jobs and stationed at the most dangerous posts, like the Macedonian and Anatolian frontiers.
[2]: As you can probably guess, this is where the western influence comes in and we see Romania adopting more western style tactics such as the use of longbows (which work great against horse archers trying to raid) Interestingly, despite the influence amongst the army’s tactics stemming from the Italian Condottieri mercenaries, most of those serving in Romania were of English and French descent. And that’s because the *Hundred Years war between England and France is entering another peace treaty at this time, leaving a glut of soldiers without work and eager for jobs. Romania decided to capitalize on this and hired various mercenary bands.
[3] Definitely less than 1 million Hyperpyra.