That’s okay, school takes priority over this.
also will we be getting a map update soon?
also will we be getting a map update soon?
The Undying Empire: A Trebizond Timeline
- Thread starter Eparkhos
- Start date
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Part VIII: The Brothers' War (1465-1466)
Eparkhos
Banned
Part VIII: The Brothers’ War
Through January 1466, 2,000 Kartvelians braved the harsh winter winds and snows that had turned the Caucasus into a frozen hellscape. They were sent by the king himself, with the knowledge that their families would be held accountable for their failure keeping many of them going even as their comrades collapsed from cold and exhaustion. Their purpose was clear; They would join the army of Alexios Megas Komnenos and install him upon the throne of the Trapezuntine Empire, or die trying. After a harrowing crossing of the mountains, the Kartvelians finally descended back into the (comparatively) less daunting Pontic landscape, arriving at Kapnanion in late March. Their arrival was fortuitous, for only a few days later battle would be joined between the two claimants.
Sabbas had immediately set about clearing the roads after the storm abated, throwing the considerable (well, on a Trapezuntine scale) manpower of the western bandons into digging them out. The aftokrator was furious that a swift victory had been denied to him by calamitous fate, and so set every man to work. He himself even took up the spade, as he was determined to get through to Kapnanion and was willing to lead by example. Following two weeks of round-the-clock work that saw hundreds of trees burned to keep the exhausted soldiers and workers from freezing and several dozen men lost to frostbite anyway, the road to Kapnanion had finally been cleared. However, the loyalist army had been so exhausted by their struggle that Sabbas was forced to remain in camp for the better part of the following week to let his men recover. He wasn’t foolish enough to be angry at his men, but he was still in a foul mood that clouded his judgement while planning, which would have a large impact down the road.
Alexios, meanwhile, was anxiously observing his brother’s advance while overseeing his own preparations. His plan was reliant on him escaping over the mountains to the southern border, but he was fully aware that Sabbas might reach his position before the passes thawed. As such, while his men were in winter quarters he put them to work constructing fortifications around Kapnanion. The frozen ground and all-around miserable winter conditions made construction a nightmare, but the resolve of doomed men kept them working at a similar exhaustive pace to Sabbas’ army. A berm was dug out on all sides of the city, which would both delay enemy advance as well as provide a makeshift moat if a concealed dike was pulled. A concealed ditch lined with spikes was then dug out, covered with the dense foliage of the Pontic mountains, on the closer side of the moat. Most importantly, the fortress of Kapnanion itself--which had been poorly maintained ever since the Safavis had sacked it nearly twenty years previous--was rebuilt and repaired, with the castellan stones being quarried out of the nearby mountains. All of this was rushed, given the short amount of time that Alexios had until his brother’s army made it through the pass, but it was enough to make an assault on the city a daunting prospect under the best of circumstances.
The daunting proved to be enough to prevent Sabbas from assaulting the fortress. The army of the aftokrator finally advanced to Kapnanion in early march, having finally recovered from their exhausting labor. However, Sabbas arrived to find not, as he had expected, a demoralized force camped on exposed ground and weakened from the privations of the cold but instead a well-garrisoned fortress bristling with defenses. He was duly furious that such an easy victory had been denied to him and flew into a rage, ordering an assault that he then swiftly halted. After a few hours spent stalking back and forth at the head of his army, Sabbas developed a plan.
The loyalist army camped in a semi-circle several hundred yards out from the trenches, with enough space between the two to form up in the gap. This accomplished its intended purpose of cutting off Kapnanion’s landward side. Then, the megas doux was summoned from Trapezous, putting out in late March after the winter storms had passed. Almost the entirety of the fleet had rallied to Sabbas and the few ships that had been crewed or commanded by Alexios’ supporters had either been captured or sunk on the rough seas. As such, Sabbas’ force was able to completely seal off Kapnanion from the outside world. This actually made one of Alexios’ previous decisions--back in February he had stood down several bandons and ordered them to return to their homes--surprisingly a good one, as he now had fewer mouths to feed. More importantly, it now meant that Sabbas had to divide his forces to deal with the irregulars who were harassing his camp.
For the next few weeks, the siege of Kapnanion carried on as most sieges do. The besiegers made occasional probing attacks across the moat, losing several dozen men to the spike pits and caltrops, but were unable or unwilling to directly attack the walls. The defenders, meanwhile, watched and waiting on the ramparts and behind murder holes in case the enemy launched a surprise attack. However, unlike most sieges where the defenders were the ones who had to deal with the cold and a lack of supplies, these issues beset both armies. There had been a large host of men in the region since December, and they had slowly but steadily burnt through the locals’ food reserves. Both Alexios’ army, who had taken as much food into Kapnanion as they could, and Sabbas’ army, which was having to be resupplied by sea, were rapidly running out of foodstocks. This situation was worsened by another major storm that flooded much of the countryside and forced the loyalist navy to be beached for several days until the skies cleared (well, as clear as they ever get in Pontos). The heavy rain also caused a section of Kapnanion’s hastily rebuilt walls to collapse, as the sudden deluge ate away at the thin crust of mortar. This caused the only assault of the siege, as hundreds of Sabbas’ men rushed the fortress. Despite an initial advance, Alexios’ appearance amongst the ranks of the defenders caused them to rally, pushing the loyalists back after an hour of fighting. The failure of this assault caused morale to plummet in the siege camps, but Sabbas’ natural charisma and a few speeches kept mass desertions from happening. In spite of this, the aftokrator was now aware that he would be unable to take the city by storm and would likely exhaust his own reserves before his brother did. He sent an expedition back to Trapezous, with orders to take the cannons from the walls and bring them to the siege.
Alexios, meanwhile, was in similar straits. Unbeknownst to the besiegers, the Alexian food stores had gone out three days previous, and many of the defenders had consumed nothing but boiled leather and rainwater for several days. Alexios was beginning to wonder if his best course of action would be to surrender in exchange for his children (Alexandros (8), Basileios (5) and Anna (2))[1] being given safe passage to Kartvelia. However, any thoughts of surrender were ended on 16 April, when lookouts in both Kapnanion and the camps spotted a gleaming serpent appear over the eastern horizon.
Both the loyalists and the Alexians rushed to arms, the former forming up in their camps facing eastward while Alexios’ men formed up on the small strip of land around Kapnanion facing southwards. Seeing his enemy’s flank turned towards him, Alexios and his men splashed across the moat, losing several dozen men to the spike pits but hitting the loyalist line with great force nonetheless. The initial strike at their flank disorganized loyalist forces and pushed them back a great deal, and for several minutes the center was in anarchy as Alexios’ men pressed their advantage and bit hard into the enemy flank. Word reached Sabbas and he abandoned his position at the head of the army and galloped back to the center, pulling sections of his own center back to reform at a distance. The entire battle was chaos at this point, as the fighting had shifted into the camp itself, breaking up both armies’ formation. Any semblance of formation was now gone, with battle devolved to duels between lone men or groups of soldiers flinging themselves at each other. Corpses piled together densely amongst the tents and blood turned the cold mud into a bog. One of the loyalist strategoi, a Laz named Alexios Mgeli, took de facto command of the bandons that were west of the now-overrun camp and charged across the plain to Kapnanion, thinking to secure the fortress and cut the Alexians off from their lines of retreat. However, the sudden absence of the men to their left caused the remaining defenders of the camp to throw down their arms and route, stampeding through Sabbas and his reformed section in their rear. In the chaos, Sabbas was knocked off his horse and dragged beneath it, killing him. This went unnoticed amongst the chaos, for most of his men were either in route, with Mgeli or part of the few remaining formations in the front who were now being pinned down by the Kartvelian. Pinned down, mind you, as both were hungry and tired and weren’t especially eager to die. In spite of their hundred of mile trek across the mountains, the Kartvelian would never actually fight, just stand menacingly.
With Sabbas dead, there was no one left to rally his men and Alexios’ supporters were now chasing the remaining loyalists from the field. However, he would not live to see his triumph. As his steed cantered across the field, it stumbled over the body of a fallen man (the common story that it was Sabbas’ body is almost certainly apocryphal) and threw him. Alexios’ neck was broken, killing him instantly. By now, the fighting had calmed enough that the shouted message that both Alexios and Sabbas were dead quickly spread through the ranks. With both of their champions gone, both sides quickly stopped fighting, not quite sure what to do. Many of their soldiers, considering their causes to be pointless, threw down their arms and began to fraternize with their former opponents. Eventually, both armies assembled in the bloody ruins of the loyalist camp, with the Kartvelians standing by. After some debate, they concluded that the best plan of action was to march back to Trapezous and install Alexandros, Alexios’ young son, upon the throne, something that the Kartvelians also supported. With Alexios Mgeli--the highest ranking officer from either of the armies still alive--at their head, the army departed back towards Trapezous.
The losses from the Second Battle of Kapnanion and the civil war at large were immense, with more than two thousand men going to their deaths in the battle alone. As always, several hundred were also maimed, but the true losses of the war were the cold and illness. Nearly 5,000 men had frozen or died of illness or been killed by the warring factions over the winter of 1465-1466, a truly devastating blow for Trapezous. The pocket empire had a manpower pool of 35,000 at the very best, to cover both campaigns and garrisons. With one out of every six potential recruits either killed or maimed, the Empire had been exhausted by the civil war and was far weaker in December 1466 than it had been in December 1465.
After arriving back in Trapezous, Alexandros Iunior was installed as Alexandros II on 11 May 1466. There were few who were opposed to his installation, as the general consensus was that further division would result in Trapezous becoming a shiny new province of either Kartvelia (at best) or one of the Turkish states (at worst). However, no-one could decide who the regent would be, and the realm was once again plunged into instability
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[1] Alexios had kept his children close to him, and they had been evacuated to the inland fortress of Ophos before the siege began.
Through January 1466, 2,000 Kartvelians braved the harsh winter winds and snows that had turned the Caucasus into a frozen hellscape. They were sent by the king himself, with the knowledge that their families would be held accountable for their failure keeping many of them going even as their comrades collapsed from cold and exhaustion. Their purpose was clear; They would join the army of Alexios Megas Komnenos and install him upon the throne of the Trapezuntine Empire, or die trying. After a harrowing crossing of the mountains, the Kartvelians finally descended back into the (comparatively) less daunting Pontic landscape, arriving at Kapnanion in late March. Their arrival was fortuitous, for only a few days later battle would be joined between the two claimants.
Sabbas had immediately set about clearing the roads after the storm abated, throwing the considerable (well, on a Trapezuntine scale) manpower of the western bandons into digging them out. The aftokrator was furious that a swift victory had been denied to him by calamitous fate, and so set every man to work. He himself even took up the spade, as he was determined to get through to Kapnanion and was willing to lead by example. Following two weeks of round-the-clock work that saw hundreds of trees burned to keep the exhausted soldiers and workers from freezing and several dozen men lost to frostbite anyway, the road to Kapnanion had finally been cleared. However, the loyalist army had been so exhausted by their struggle that Sabbas was forced to remain in camp for the better part of the following week to let his men recover. He wasn’t foolish enough to be angry at his men, but he was still in a foul mood that clouded his judgement while planning, which would have a large impact down the road.
Alexios, meanwhile, was anxiously observing his brother’s advance while overseeing his own preparations. His plan was reliant on him escaping over the mountains to the southern border, but he was fully aware that Sabbas might reach his position before the passes thawed. As such, while his men were in winter quarters he put them to work constructing fortifications around Kapnanion. The frozen ground and all-around miserable winter conditions made construction a nightmare, but the resolve of doomed men kept them working at a similar exhaustive pace to Sabbas’ army. A berm was dug out on all sides of the city, which would both delay enemy advance as well as provide a makeshift moat if a concealed dike was pulled. A concealed ditch lined with spikes was then dug out, covered with the dense foliage of the Pontic mountains, on the closer side of the moat. Most importantly, the fortress of Kapnanion itself--which had been poorly maintained ever since the Safavis had sacked it nearly twenty years previous--was rebuilt and repaired, with the castellan stones being quarried out of the nearby mountains. All of this was rushed, given the short amount of time that Alexios had until his brother’s army made it through the pass, but it was enough to make an assault on the city a daunting prospect under the best of circumstances.
The daunting proved to be enough to prevent Sabbas from assaulting the fortress. The army of the aftokrator finally advanced to Kapnanion in early march, having finally recovered from their exhausting labor. However, Sabbas arrived to find not, as he had expected, a demoralized force camped on exposed ground and weakened from the privations of the cold but instead a well-garrisoned fortress bristling with defenses. He was duly furious that such an easy victory had been denied to him and flew into a rage, ordering an assault that he then swiftly halted. After a few hours spent stalking back and forth at the head of his army, Sabbas developed a plan.
The loyalist army camped in a semi-circle several hundred yards out from the trenches, with enough space between the two to form up in the gap. This accomplished its intended purpose of cutting off Kapnanion’s landward side. Then, the megas doux was summoned from Trapezous, putting out in late March after the winter storms had passed. Almost the entirety of the fleet had rallied to Sabbas and the few ships that had been crewed or commanded by Alexios’ supporters had either been captured or sunk on the rough seas. As such, Sabbas’ force was able to completely seal off Kapnanion from the outside world. This actually made one of Alexios’ previous decisions--back in February he had stood down several bandons and ordered them to return to their homes--surprisingly a good one, as he now had fewer mouths to feed. More importantly, it now meant that Sabbas had to divide his forces to deal with the irregulars who were harassing his camp.
For the next few weeks, the siege of Kapnanion carried on as most sieges do. The besiegers made occasional probing attacks across the moat, losing several dozen men to the spike pits and caltrops, but were unable or unwilling to directly attack the walls. The defenders, meanwhile, watched and waiting on the ramparts and behind murder holes in case the enemy launched a surprise attack. However, unlike most sieges where the defenders were the ones who had to deal with the cold and a lack of supplies, these issues beset both armies. There had been a large host of men in the region since December, and they had slowly but steadily burnt through the locals’ food reserves. Both Alexios’ army, who had taken as much food into Kapnanion as they could, and Sabbas’ army, which was having to be resupplied by sea, were rapidly running out of foodstocks. This situation was worsened by another major storm that flooded much of the countryside and forced the loyalist navy to be beached for several days until the skies cleared (well, as clear as they ever get in Pontos). The heavy rain also caused a section of Kapnanion’s hastily rebuilt walls to collapse, as the sudden deluge ate away at the thin crust of mortar. This caused the only assault of the siege, as hundreds of Sabbas’ men rushed the fortress. Despite an initial advance, Alexios’ appearance amongst the ranks of the defenders caused them to rally, pushing the loyalists back after an hour of fighting. The failure of this assault caused morale to plummet in the siege camps, but Sabbas’ natural charisma and a few speeches kept mass desertions from happening. In spite of this, the aftokrator was now aware that he would be unable to take the city by storm and would likely exhaust his own reserves before his brother did. He sent an expedition back to Trapezous, with orders to take the cannons from the walls and bring them to the siege.
Alexios, meanwhile, was in similar straits. Unbeknownst to the besiegers, the Alexian food stores had gone out three days previous, and many of the defenders had consumed nothing but boiled leather and rainwater for several days. Alexios was beginning to wonder if his best course of action would be to surrender in exchange for his children (Alexandros (8), Basileios (5) and Anna (2))[1] being given safe passage to Kartvelia. However, any thoughts of surrender were ended on 16 April, when lookouts in both Kapnanion and the camps spotted a gleaming serpent appear over the eastern horizon.
Both the loyalists and the Alexians rushed to arms, the former forming up in their camps facing eastward while Alexios’ men formed up on the small strip of land around Kapnanion facing southwards. Seeing his enemy’s flank turned towards him, Alexios and his men splashed across the moat, losing several dozen men to the spike pits but hitting the loyalist line with great force nonetheless. The initial strike at their flank disorganized loyalist forces and pushed them back a great deal, and for several minutes the center was in anarchy as Alexios’ men pressed their advantage and bit hard into the enemy flank. Word reached Sabbas and he abandoned his position at the head of the army and galloped back to the center, pulling sections of his own center back to reform at a distance. The entire battle was chaos at this point, as the fighting had shifted into the camp itself, breaking up both armies’ formation. Any semblance of formation was now gone, with battle devolved to duels between lone men or groups of soldiers flinging themselves at each other. Corpses piled together densely amongst the tents and blood turned the cold mud into a bog. One of the loyalist strategoi, a Laz named Alexios Mgeli, took de facto command of the bandons that were west of the now-overrun camp and charged across the plain to Kapnanion, thinking to secure the fortress and cut the Alexians off from their lines of retreat. However, the sudden absence of the men to their left caused the remaining defenders of the camp to throw down their arms and route, stampeding through Sabbas and his reformed section in their rear. In the chaos, Sabbas was knocked off his horse and dragged beneath it, killing him. This went unnoticed amongst the chaos, for most of his men were either in route, with Mgeli or part of the few remaining formations in the front who were now being pinned down by the Kartvelian. Pinned down, mind you, as both were hungry and tired and weren’t especially eager to die. In spite of their hundred of mile trek across the mountains, the Kartvelian would never actually fight, just stand menacingly.
With Sabbas dead, there was no one left to rally his men and Alexios’ supporters were now chasing the remaining loyalists from the field. However, he would not live to see his triumph. As his steed cantered across the field, it stumbled over the body of a fallen man (the common story that it was Sabbas’ body is almost certainly apocryphal) and threw him. Alexios’ neck was broken, killing him instantly. By now, the fighting had calmed enough that the shouted message that both Alexios and Sabbas were dead quickly spread through the ranks. With both of their champions gone, both sides quickly stopped fighting, not quite sure what to do. Many of their soldiers, considering their causes to be pointless, threw down their arms and began to fraternize with their former opponents. Eventually, both armies assembled in the bloody ruins of the loyalist camp, with the Kartvelians standing by. After some debate, they concluded that the best plan of action was to march back to Trapezous and install Alexandros, Alexios’ young son, upon the throne, something that the Kartvelians also supported. With Alexios Mgeli--the highest ranking officer from either of the armies still alive--at their head, the army departed back towards Trapezous.
The losses from the Second Battle of Kapnanion and the civil war at large were immense, with more than two thousand men going to their deaths in the battle alone. As always, several hundred were also maimed, but the true losses of the war were the cold and illness. Nearly 5,000 men had frozen or died of illness or been killed by the warring factions over the winter of 1465-1466, a truly devastating blow for Trapezous. The pocket empire had a manpower pool of 35,000 at the very best, to cover both campaigns and garrisons. With one out of every six potential recruits either killed or maimed, the Empire had been exhausted by the civil war and was far weaker in December 1466 than it had been in December 1465.
After arriving back in Trapezous, Alexandros Iunior was installed as Alexandros II on 11 May 1466. There were few who were opposed to his installation, as the general consensus was that further division would result in Trapezous becoming a shiny new province of either Kartvelia (at best) or one of the Turkish states (at worst). However, no-one could decide who the regent would be, and the realm was once again plunged into instability
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[1] Alexios had kept his children close to him, and they had been evacuated to the inland fortress of Ophos before the siege began.
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Oh boy, this is gonna be messy. Here’s to hope that Alexandros junior will be a good ruler
No, Alexios's children still survive and Alexandros II is the nominal ruler of Trebizond, although he's 8.
To think that they both die unceremoniously during the Brothers' War.....it's a bit funny. Still, it's very sad for those living in Trebizond and it seems like the civil war will probably continue, but over the regency instead of the crown.
Hopefully the Turkmen or the Latins don't take note of what's transpiring in Trebizond because it just seems like the perfect opportunity to take something from the Komnenoi.
Eparkhos
Banned
The Komnenians are still alive and well, I'll put up a genealogy later. As for the Turkmen, they've been busy.......
I have Alexandros II earmarked for a long and successful reign, the Trapezuntine Edward III.
The world may never know.
Part IX: The Struggle for Regency (1466-1467)
Eparkhos
Banned
Part IX: The Struggle for Regency (1466-1467)
After the coronation of Alexandros II, the question that dominates the rule of all underage monarchs became a pressing problem. As eight-year olds aren’t exactly capable rulers, the boy aftokrator needed a regent to handle the day-to-day necessities of government until he came of age. Naturally, this position would be one of great power, and so the many court factions were unable to agree on who ought to assume the position. Even with the realm as exhausted from the Brothers’ War, another civil war was looming on the horizon as the question of regency was answered….
The reign of Alexandros I had seen the two most prominent court factions, the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi reduced significantly in size and importance, but they were far from gone by 1466. By the reign of Alexandros II they had morphed significantly, with the Skholai becoming the faction of the Greek aristocracy and the Amytzantarioi becoming the faction of the Lazes. Obviously, this increased tensions between the two ethnic groups, and both factions were eyeing the regency as an opportunity to permanently subdue their opponents. The Skholai, being the party of the Greek aristocracy, saw this as especially important, as the reigns of Alexandros I and Sabbas had seen many Lazes advanced into positions of power, which could easily lead to the toppling of the Greek-centric government[1]. The Amytzantarioi, on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to push themselves upwards and take the high positions they considered their right. These extra layers of conflict made the struggle for the regency more fierce than most conflicts over power normally were.
The first of Alexandros’ regents was the Metropolitan of Trapezous, a Goth named Basileos of Funa. As an outsider, both factions believed he could be trusted to remain neutral until they were able to install their favored candidate as regent. These favored candidates were Isaakios Afxos of the Skholai and Andreas Lazos of the Amytzantarioi. Afxos was a cousin of the aftokrator and had spent several decades in both the army and bureaucracy, securing for himself a great number of loyalists in both institutions. He was a cruel but cunning man, short and balding. Lazos, on the other hand, did not have a long or distinguished career in either branch of government. Instead, he was a mercenary who had spent several years fighting across both the Caucuses and the Black Sea before returning home in the early 1460s. His vast wealth and military experience made him a promising candidate for the regency, and thus he was selected by the leadership of the Amytzantarioi. Both factions convened their supporters in the city in late 1466, as Funa would be forced to yield his control over the young prince at the beginning of the new year.
Naturally, a mob of partisan opponents gathering in a fairly small area caused tensions to rise, and many of the more quick-witted Trapezuntine residents left the city in November and December. Their cautionary actions would prove to be fortuitous, as a series of brawls and street fights broke out in the market district in the first weeks of winter, as the areas of common interaction proved to be points of stress. These riots caused a great deal of damage to the city and her merchants, but the city watch and constabulary were unable to prevent the violence, as many of the perpetrators were freed from the various jails of the city by angry mobs of their compatriots. Any difference in the treatment between the two groups of partisans, no matter how small, was taken as evidence that the authorities were backing the other side. This put the city watch in an effective state of war with the two factions, with many partisans being arrested to no avail. Finally, after several weeks of conflict, the eparkhos, Thomas Komnenos Branas, threw up his hands and ordered his men to stop even trying to enforce the law. All of this infuriated Funa, as he considered the destruction done to his flock and their possessions as direct insults against both him, the church at large and God himself. As such, he began planning to deny the regency to either faction.
On 7 January, the set date for Funa to abdicate the regency, both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi assembled outside of the Hagia Sophia of Trapezous[2], where Funa was giving mass. For once , the mob was more focused on their mutual opponent than they were each other, with both groups chanting for Funa to hurry up and make his appointment. The bishop, now furious at the audacity of these rabble-rousers, stormed out in the middle of his sermon. He declared that neither Afxos or Lazos would be the regent, as neither of them were competent. Furthermore, neither of them had a legitimate reason to become regent, as they would have no cause to take the regency other than the backing of the mob. Instead, he would be abdicating the regency in favor of the dowager empress, Keteon. This aroused no little amount of shock, as Keteon had to date not been a major political figure, instead having retired to an obscure estate near Soumela. Supposedly, even Keteon herself was shocked by this when Funa asked her to return to the capital in late December. While she was far from popular amongst either group, this mutual unpopularity was enough to satisfy the leaders of both factions that she would be a neutral leader.
Keteon’s period of sole regency was a tumultuous one. She had every intention of securing the best position possible for her son when he was old enough to rule alone, and so refused to make a number of large land concessions that were proposed by a number of both Greek and Lazic noblemen, which alienated many in the higher echelons of both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi. While she had the backing of the church in the form of Funa, bothe bureaucracy and the army were filled with partisans of the court factions, and so she was unable to secure the needed pair of institutions to ensure her governance continued unchallenged[3]. This failed to daunt her at first, but as her tenure as regency dragged on she became fully aware of how vulnerable her position was.
There no direct assassination attempts on her or her son, but many of her underling died under suspicious circumstances. All of these strange deaths were followed by members of the court factions clamoring to take their place, which led Keteon to reasonably assume that they had been behind them. She was willing to tolerate this to an extent at first, dismissing it as typical of court politics, but as these attacks continued she concluded that all of it was part of an attempt to unseat her. However, she was aware that keeping the delicate balance between the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi was necessary to keep one of the factions from establishing a monopoly on power, and so she hesitated to strike against either of them until she was sure which one was acting. She brought a number of personal supporters across from Kartvelia and scattered them across the court, with many of the more clever agents covertly entering the court factions. These agents discovered that the assassinations had not been the work of one particular faction but instead the product of infighting between both the highest-level factions and the smaller groups within the factions themselves.
Most importantly, her agents uncovered a conspiracy in the army. The moirarkhs of several of the bandons closest to the capital were plotting to overthrow Keteon in favor of one of their own, Andronikos Palaiologos Kamateros. Kamateros and his co-conspirators were quickly arrested and blinded, but it revealed just how vulnerable the dowager empress' position was. Kamateros’ conspiracy had included members from both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi in an unholy alliance, and she was unsure of how to treat the rest of the faction members. The highest-ranking members were rounded up and blinded, but Keteon knew that she could not carry out a purge of all faction members, as that would gut both the army and the bureaucracy. However, she could effectively insulate herself from further coup attempts by bringing the army around to her cause, and in late 1466 she did so.
After leading the Trapezuntine army back to Trapezous, Alexios Mgeli returned to his old position of moirarkh of a Limnian bandon. He had spent the better part of the next year in quiet obscurity, continuing his pre-civil war life. However, retained one souvenir of his brief time as commander of the Trapezuntine armies, that being a healthy respect (some might even call it reverence) amongst many of the bandonoi, who regarded him as a hero for healing the division caused by the Brothers’ War and for leading his combined army back to civilization across the rough country of the Trapezous. Keteon was well aware of Mgeli’s popularity and his ability as a general, and so in September 1466 she sent a series of gifts and messengers to him. She offered to appoint him as commander-in-chief of the army and elevate him as a pronoiar if he would come out in support of her. After mulling over his options for several days, Mgeli made a counter-offer; In exchange for Keteon’s hand in marriage, he would use his considerable influence to crush any brewing conspiracies and rally the army to her. Keteon agreed.
The dowager and the general were married in late October. This was not an unopposed marriage, as many members of the church--even several bishops--opposed this marriage, but the support of Funa and his partisans allowed it to carry on with little public protest. Mgeli held up his end of the bargain and outed several conspiracies in the army that had gone unnoticed, and the direct support for the regency on the part of the army finally quelled the more vocal agitators amongst the court factions. Alexios and Keteon got on fairly well, with a political arrangement quickly turning into a marriage of love. This, however, just caused more problems, as by the end of 1466 the regentess was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Basileios, in July 1467, which spawned another crisis. Many supporters of the Komnenoi were concerned that the newborn child would supplant Alexandros II as basileus, as both the regent and the head of the army would have cause to depose him. It took several weeks for many of these partisans to be quieted, but in late July both Keteon and Alexios took a solemn oath, with Funa as their witness, to respect the right of Alexandros II to reign.
With the issue of regency and succession finalized, the de facto joint regency is now tasked with ensuring stability, a difficult task in a land as tumultuous and isolated as Trapezous. It would prove to be fortunate that the regentess was now married to an experienced general, as the Trapezuntine Empire would soon be forced to raise the bandons once again….
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[1] The primarily urban Greek population was vastly overrepresented in government. Records from the Vazeplous Monastery show that in the eastern half of the empire, two-thirds of the rural population were Lazic or Armenian.
[2] Many Trapezuntines considered this Hagia Sophia to be an extension of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, as it had been consecrated by the final pre-Sack Patriarch of Constantinople
[3] Both historians and commentators then and now considered it essential for any Byzantine or Byzantine-derived government to have the support of two out of the three primary organs of state, those being the army, bureaucracy and church.
After the coronation of Alexandros II, the question that dominates the rule of all underage monarchs became a pressing problem. As eight-year olds aren’t exactly capable rulers, the boy aftokrator needed a regent to handle the day-to-day necessities of government until he came of age. Naturally, this position would be one of great power, and so the many court factions were unable to agree on who ought to assume the position. Even with the realm as exhausted from the Brothers’ War, another civil war was looming on the horizon as the question of regency was answered….
The reign of Alexandros I had seen the two most prominent court factions, the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi reduced significantly in size and importance, but they were far from gone by 1466. By the reign of Alexandros II they had morphed significantly, with the Skholai becoming the faction of the Greek aristocracy and the Amytzantarioi becoming the faction of the Lazes. Obviously, this increased tensions between the two ethnic groups, and both factions were eyeing the regency as an opportunity to permanently subdue their opponents. The Skholai, being the party of the Greek aristocracy, saw this as especially important, as the reigns of Alexandros I and Sabbas had seen many Lazes advanced into positions of power, which could easily lead to the toppling of the Greek-centric government[1]. The Amytzantarioi, on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to push themselves upwards and take the high positions they considered their right. These extra layers of conflict made the struggle for the regency more fierce than most conflicts over power normally were.
The first of Alexandros’ regents was the Metropolitan of Trapezous, a Goth named Basileos of Funa. As an outsider, both factions believed he could be trusted to remain neutral until they were able to install their favored candidate as regent. These favored candidates were Isaakios Afxos of the Skholai and Andreas Lazos of the Amytzantarioi. Afxos was a cousin of the aftokrator and had spent several decades in both the army and bureaucracy, securing for himself a great number of loyalists in both institutions. He was a cruel but cunning man, short and balding. Lazos, on the other hand, did not have a long or distinguished career in either branch of government. Instead, he was a mercenary who had spent several years fighting across both the Caucuses and the Black Sea before returning home in the early 1460s. His vast wealth and military experience made him a promising candidate for the regency, and thus he was selected by the leadership of the Amytzantarioi. Both factions convened their supporters in the city in late 1466, as Funa would be forced to yield his control over the young prince at the beginning of the new year.
Naturally, a mob of partisan opponents gathering in a fairly small area caused tensions to rise, and many of the more quick-witted Trapezuntine residents left the city in November and December. Their cautionary actions would prove to be fortuitous, as a series of brawls and street fights broke out in the market district in the first weeks of winter, as the areas of common interaction proved to be points of stress. These riots caused a great deal of damage to the city and her merchants, but the city watch and constabulary were unable to prevent the violence, as many of the perpetrators were freed from the various jails of the city by angry mobs of their compatriots. Any difference in the treatment between the two groups of partisans, no matter how small, was taken as evidence that the authorities were backing the other side. This put the city watch in an effective state of war with the two factions, with many partisans being arrested to no avail. Finally, after several weeks of conflict, the eparkhos, Thomas Komnenos Branas, threw up his hands and ordered his men to stop even trying to enforce the law. All of this infuriated Funa, as he considered the destruction done to his flock and their possessions as direct insults against both him, the church at large and God himself. As such, he began planning to deny the regency to either faction.
On 7 January, the set date for Funa to abdicate the regency, both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi assembled outside of the Hagia Sophia of Trapezous[2], where Funa was giving mass. For once , the mob was more focused on their mutual opponent than they were each other, with both groups chanting for Funa to hurry up and make his appointment. The bishop, now furious at the audacity of these rabble-rousers, stormed out in the middle of his sermon. He declared that neither Afxos or Lazos would be the regent, as neither of them were competent. Furthermore, neither of them had a legitimate reason to become regent, as they would have no cause to take the regency other than the backing of the mob. Instead, he would be abdicating the regency in favor of the dowager empress, Keteon. This aroused no little amount of shock, as Keteon had to date not been a major political figure, instead having retired to an obscure estate near Soumela. Supposedly, even Keteon herself was shocked by this when Funa asked her to return to the capital in late December. While she was far from popular amongst either group, this mutual unpopularity was enough to satisfy the leaders of both factions that she would be a neutral leader.
Keteon’s period of sole regency was a tumultuous one. She had every intention of securing the best position possible for her son when he was old enough to rule alone, and so refused to make a number of large land concessions that were proposed by a number of both Greek and Lazic noblemen, which alienated many in the higher echelons of both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi. While she had the backing of the church in the form of Funa, bothe bureaucracy and the army were filled with partisans of the court factions, and so she was unable to secure the needed pair of institutions to ensure her governance continued unchallenged[3]. This failed to daunt her at first, but as her tenure as regency dragged on she became fully aware of how vulnerable her position was.
There no direct assassination attempts on her or her son, but many of her underling died under suspicious circumstances. All of these strange deaths were followed by members of the court factions clamoring to take their place, which led Keteon to reasonably assume that they had been behind them. She was willing to tolerate this to an extent at first, dismissing it as typical of court politics, but as these attacks continued she concluded that all of it was part of an attempt to unseat her. However, she was aware that keeping the delicate balance between the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi was necessary to keep one of the factions from establishing a monopoly on power, and so she hesitated to strike against either of them until she was sure which one was acting. She brought a number of personal supporters across from Kartvelia and scattered them across the court, with many of the more clever agents covertly entering the court factions. These agents discovered that the assassinations had not been the work of one particular faction but instead the product of infighting between both the highest-level factions and the smaller groups within the factions themselves.
Most importantly, her agents uncovered a conspiracy in the army. The moirarkhs of several of the bandons closest to the capital were plotting to overthrow Keteon in favor of one of their own, Andronikos Palaiologos Kamateros. Kamateros and his co-conspirators were quickly arrested and blinded, but it revealed just how vulnerable the dowager empress' position was. Kamateros’ conspiracy had included members from both the Skholai and the Amytzantarioi in an unholy alliance, and she was unsure of how to treat the rest of the faction members. The highest-ranking members were rounded up and blinded, but Keteon knew that she could not carry out a purge of all faction members, as that would gut both the army and the bureaucracy. However, she could effectively insulate herself from further coup attempts by bringing the army around to her cause, and in late 1466 she did so.
After leading the Trapezuntine army back to Trapezous, Alexios Mgeli returned to his old position of moirarkh of a Limnian bandon. He had spent the better part of the next year in quiet obscurity, continuing his pre-civil war life. However, retained one souvenir of his brief time as commander of the Trapezuntine armies, that being a healthy respect (some might even call it reverence) amongst many of the bandonoi, who regarded him as a hero for healing the division caused by the Brothers’ War and for leading his combined army back to civilization across the rough country of the Trapezous. Keteon was well aware of Mgeli’s popularity and his ability as a general, and so in September 1466 she sent a series of gifts and messengers to him. She offered to appoint him as commander-in-chief of the army and elevate him as a pronoiar if he would come out in support of her. After mulling over his options for several days, Mgeli made a counter-offer; In exchange for Keteon’s hand in marriage, he would use his considerable influence to crush any brewing conspiracies and rally the army to her. Keteon agreed.
The dowager and the general were married in late October. This was not an unopposed marriage, as many members of the church--even several bishops--opposed this marriage, but the support of Funa and his partisans allowed it to carry on with little public protest. Mgeli held up his end of the bargain and outed several conspiracies in the army that had gone unnoticed, and the direct support for the regency on the part of the army finally quelled the more vocal agitators amongst the court factions. Alexios and Keteon got on fairly well, with a political arrangement quickly turning into a marriage of love. This, however, just caused more problems, as by the end of 1466 the regentess was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Basileios, in July 1467, which spawned another crisis. Many supporters of the Komnenoi were concerned that the newborn child would supplant Alexandros II as basileus, as both the regent and the head of the army would have cause to depose him. It took several weeks for many of these partisans to be quieted, but in late July both Keteon and Alexios took a solemn oath, with Funa as their witness, to respect the right of Alexandros II to reign.
With the issue of regency and succession finalized, the de facto joint regency is now tasked with ensuring stability, a difficult task in a land as tumultuous and isolated as Trapezous. It would prove to be fortunate that the regentess was now married to an experienced general, as the Trapezuntine Empire would soon be forced to raise the bandons once again….
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[1] The primarily urban Greek population was vastly overrepresented in government. Records from the Vazeplous Monastery show that in the eastern half of the empire, two-thirds of the rural population were Lazic or Armenian.
[2] Many Trapezuntines considered this Hagia Sophia to be an extension of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, as it had been consecrated by the final pre-Sack Patriarch of Constantinople
[3] Both historians and commentators then and now considered it essential for any Byzantine or Byzantine-derived government to have the support of two out of the three primary organs of state, those being the army, bureaucracy and church.
Ottomans are attacking? Or is it the Karamans to their south? Or even better the Ottomans are gonna fight Shah Rukh?
Part X: Fish of Bronze
Eparkhos
Banned
Part X: Fish of Bronze (1467-1468)
The life of Ahmed ‘the Red’ had been a rough one. Born an illegitimate son of the Çandarid bey, he had had nothing given to him and been forced to struggle for himself since shortly after birth. He had accompanied the Çandarid host on multiple raids against the hated Trapezuntines and other Turkmen bands and beyliks, distinguishing himself by saving the life of a commander in battle on two occasions. His commanders repaid him by advancing him into the court of Sinope. He proved to be as excellent at the arts of court politics as he had at the art of war, and within a few years he had become one of the favorites of his unknowing father. Then, in 1461, he and his co-conspirators sprang upon the old bey and slew him in his sleep, advancing Ahmed to his birthright position. Then, taking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he had rode against the Ottomans with the Karamanids, driving them all the way to Bithynia and expanding his beylik as had no other bey before him. However, the fires of ambition that had driven him to these heights are difficult to extinguish, and so Ahmed turned his attention eastwards in 1468, hoping to complete the ambition of every Çandarid bey and finally end the Trapezuntine Empire….
In the spring of 1468, Ahmed mustered all the men of the Çandarids at Kastamonu. While time and overextension had taken their toll, the bey still had the support of an army of some 15,000 Turkmen, most of whom were veterans of the war with the Ottomans. Ahmed was, if not a great general, then still a competent one. He knew that the Trapezuntines outnumbered him by a good margin, and so he acted to split their forces. His grand plan was to send a force under one of his sons, Iskender, to ravage the Lykos valley and draw off Trapezuntine forces while he and the main force advanced directly on the capital. With the defenders’ force thus split, they could be defeated piecemeal and eventually besieged and forced to surrender. This was a solid strategy, and after a few weeks of final preparations, Ahmed put it into motion. Iskender departed from Kastamonu in late April, at the head of a host of 3,000 horsemen.
However, while creating this plan, there was one factor Ahmed failed to consider; The Genoese. The Çandarid beylik was swarming with Italian merchants, who oversaw the transport and sale of various goods from across central and northern Anatolia, especially in the cities of Kastamonu and Sinope, which were a road hub and a major port, respectively. The massive troop concentration in Kastamonu had alerted more than a few merchants that something was up. The Genoese bailiff in Sinope, Giovanni Cablami, was able to piece together that the Çandarids were planning to make war against the Trapezuntines. As the Trapezuntines were still nominal vassals of the Doge, Cablami decided that it was his duty to alert them of the coming invasion. The Genoese galley reached Trapezous before the Çandarids even crossed the border, giving Alexios time to scramble together a response.
Alexios Mgeli had been eyeing the Çandarids for war since before he was even betrothed to the regentess[1]. He had lived along the military frontier for most of his life and in the process developed a personal hatred for Turkmen at large and the Çandarids in particular as well as a desire to remove the threat they posed to Trapezous permanently. Regardless of any personal feelings, the Çandarids were also the next logical target for Trapezuntine expansion, as they were diplomatically isolated and had a not insignificant Greek minority that would likely abet conquest by their coreligionists. There was also the glittering prize of Sinope, which was one of the great ports of the Black Sea and lay only a few dozen miles away from the Trapezuntine frontier. In preparation for a war with the west Mgeli had reinvigorated Alexandros I’s military frontier and expanded it to the entirety of the Çandarid border, but this had not been completed before the outbreak of war.
Instead, Mgeli was forced to rely upon the bandons. As Iskender and his forces ravaged the Lykos valley, Alexios raised the Pontic bandons to arms, willing to throw the residents of the Trapezuntine territories on the southern side of the mountains completely under the bus to prevent the loss of territories on the northern side. His Genoese informants kept him informed of Ahmed’s troop movements and so he was able to puzzle out that Iskender’s expedition was a trap, intended to draw of forces. It partially succeeded in this latter intention, as Alexios dispatched ten bandons to hold the passes across into Pontos. However, he kept his main force of seventy[2] bandons at Polemonion (Fatsa), which guarded the coastal road eastward to Trapezous. He planned to lie in wait for Ahmed to pass along the coast road and ambush the Çandarid force. Simultaneously, he dispatched Psarimarkos to attack the Çandarid ports of Paphlagonia, hoping to turn Ahmed’s plans on himself and force him to divide his forces.
Meanwhile, in Paphlagonia, the bey was growing impatient. Turkmen hordes were difficult to feed and maintain under the best of circumstances, and with no loot to be found many of the tribal leaders were threatening to take their followers and leave. After executing two of the more insolent elders, he broke camp in early June and went east. He was beste with supply problems from the outset, as many of the farmers and herders of Paphlagonia had correctly assumed that a horde of ravenous Turkmen would be making their way east soon and fled into the hills with their stocks and families. This left Ahmed and his followers with a shortage of food that made keeping even a semblance of discipline nigh-on impossible, and before he even crossed the Lykos several dozen horsemen had deserted. This problem worsened as the Çandarid horde pressed on into the military frontier. The few roads were frequently blocked by fallen trees, spike pits and caltrops, and mudslides were almost suspiciously frequent[3]. Food was also hard to come by, as the Çandarids were tasked with defending supply lines that stretched all the way back to Sinope, if not further. This alone caused the Çandarid force to splinter, as regiments were broken off to garrison supply depots, but the chronic food and feed shortages also caused a wave of defections. A month after departing Kasamonu, the invading horde had dwindled from 12,000 to 9,000, with many horsemen also being lost to cold, disease and ambushes, which were almost nightmarishly frequent. Most important, the delay in the military frontier allowed Mgeli to move his forces to intercept the Turkmen invaders, setting up ambuscades along the most-heavily trafficked roads.
The decisive battle came at the small force of Mavrokastron (Akkuş). The castle overlooked a narrow turn in the road surrounded on both sides by dense forests that would make flight impossible while concealing Trapezuntine soldiers only meters from the road. Alexios had already selected Mavrokastron as being an excellent spot for an ambush, and it took several weeks of nudging the Çandarid force towards the fortress through ambushes and road attacks. The Turkish host finally reached the designated ambush point on the afternoon of 15 July. Most of them were hungry and exhausted, having been forced to spend every night for weeks camped out along the narrow road, under near constant attack from irregulars. There was frequent and open talk of mutiny, which Ahmed only abated by giving frequent speeches about the massive wealth that would be theirs for the taking in Trapezous. In truth, he knew that he was greatly over-valuing the amount of potential loot, but was afraid that failure in this crucial mission would end in his lynching or overthrow.
The Turkmen were strung out along the road when the ambush came, their line more of an exposed flank than a defensive formation. The initial attack came in the form of a barrage, with dozens of concealed archers opening fire from mere meters away in the fortress. Believing this to be a routine attack, Ahmed ordered his men to dismount and fire back from behind their mounts, inadvertently giving up any hope of escape. Trapezuntine fire intensified as more bandons moved within range, revealing themselves but unassailable due to the green hell of trees and underbrush between them and the road. With their enemy finally in their sight after so long, many of the Turkmen charged off into the forest, most to be swiftly cut down by sword or axe or taken by an arrow. Claps of thunder echoed from Mavrokastron itself as the cannons concealed within it opened fire, sending makeshift grapeshot of stone and glass scything through the Turkmen lines. Ahmed by now had realized that this was no ordinary attack and ordered his men to mount up and flee, but this message was lost amongst the chaos of the battle. By now the air was filled with arrows and the screams of men and horses as the projectiles found their mark. The Turkmen were lightly armored in the Persian fashion, dressed in wool or silk without leather or iron. The barrage was taking a heavy toll, with clusters of Turkmen concealing themselves behind piles of human and animal corpses or being cut down from all sides. After half an hour of fighting, Ahmed’s standard fell as his horse was shot out from under him, severing any morale that may have remained amongst the Turks. Alexios ordered the bandons to close in and finish the job, axe and spear bearing soldiers hacking through the underbrush to reach the road. This final desperate bout of fighting was fierce, with mounds of corpses an unsteady battlefield as the Trapezuntines stormed towards the few survivors. The Turkmen fought on until the last of them was killed, but was unable to effect losses nor even stand their ground, as few of them were armed with anything other than bows and short swords that proved no match for the longer weapons and shields of the Trapezuntine footmen. The Ponts were merciless, as many of them had lived in regions subject to raids by members of this selfsame tribe for years and now avenged themselves upon their tormentors. Even those drawn from as far off as Kapnanion were vicious in their slaughter of the Turkmen, for their homes and families would have surely been despoiled had the long caravan reached its destination. The baggage train was looted and then burned, the few slaves that had been taken freed and any surviving horses captured. By the end of the battle, more than 7,000 Turkmen lay dead on the field, for the loss of only two bandons’ worth of men. The Çandarid army was destroyed, with only a handful of survivors escaping into the wilderness and fewer still actually making it back across the Lykos. The funeral pyre for the Turkmen took three days to burn itself out.
Mavrokastron--or more accurately, the massive funeral pyre thereafter--was witnessed by one of the supply forced who had come to help Ahmed, and as they fled back westwards they spread word of the disaster. Iskender had already withdrawn from the Lykos after being defeated by an army under a general of absolutely no historical consequence named Mikhael Kantakouzenos Philanthropenos, and when word reached him of Mavrokastron he withdrew back across the river to Paphlagonia. He attempted to sue for peace, offering great tribute in both coin and slaves, but was refused in both. With the Çandarid army slaughtered, Alexios had the scent of blood, and was determined to expand Trapezous’ frontiers. Sinope whispered his name….
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[1] Alexios and Keteon had worked out a power-sharing agreement, where Keteon was sovereign in all domestic and diplomatic matters, and Alexios was sovereign in all military affairs.
[2] A bandon has 200 men; He had 14,000 men with him.
[3] Alexandros’ mountainside sluices had been forgotten even by many defenders, so that the few defenders who were captured and tortured could not betray their presence.
The life of Ahmed ‘the Red’ had been a rough one. Born an illegitimate son of the Çandarid bey, he had had nothing given to him and been forced to struggle for himself since shortly after birth. He had accompanied the Çandarid host on multiple raids against the hated Trapezuntines and other Turkmen bands and beyliks, distinguishing himself by saving the life of a commander in battle on two occasions. His commanders repaid him by advancing him into the court of Sinope. He proved to be as excellent at the arts of court politics as he had at the art of war, and within a few years he had become one of the favorites of his unknowing father. Then, in 1461, he and his co-conspirators sprang upon the old bey and slew him in his sleep, advancing Ahmed to his birthright position. Then, taking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he had rode against the Ottomans with the Karamanids, driving them all the way to Bithynia and expanding his beylik as had no other bey before him. However, the fires of ambition that had driven him to these heights are difficult to extinguish, and so Ahmed turned his attention eastwards in 1468, hoping to complete the ambition of every Çandarid bey and finally end the Trapezuntine Empire….
In the spring of 1468, Ahmed mustered all the men of the Çandarids at Kastamonu. While time and overextension had taken their toll, the bey still had the support of an army of some 15,000 Turkmen, most of whom were veterans of the war with the Ottomans. Ahmed was, if not a great general, then still a competent one. He knew that the Trapezuntines outnumbered him by a good margin, and so he acted to split their forces. His grand plan was to send a force under one of his sons, Iskender, to ravage the Lykos valley and draw off Trapezuntine forces while he and the main force advanced directly on the capital. With the defenders’ force thus split, they could be defeated piecemeal and eventually besieged and forced to surrender. This was a solid strategy, and after a few weeks of final preparations, Ahmed put it into motion. Iskender departed from Kastamonu in late April, at the head of a host of 3,000 horsemen.
However, while creating this plan, there was one factor Ahmed failed to consider; The Genoese. The Çandarid beylik was swarming with Italian merchants, who oversaw the transport and sale of various goods from across central and northern Anatolia, especially in the cities of Kastamonu and Sinope, which were a road hub and a major port, respectively. The massive troop concentration in Kastamonu had alerted more than a few merchants that something was up. The Genoese bailiff in Sinope, Giovanni Cablami, was able to piece together that the Çandarids were planning to make war against the Trapezuntines. As the Trapezuntines were still nominal vassals of the Doge, Cablami decided that it was his duty to alert them of the coming invasion. The Genoese galley reached Trapezous before the Çandarids even crossed the border, giving Alexios time to scramble together a response.
Alexios Mgeli had been eyeing the Çandarids for war since before he was even betrothed to the regentess[1]. He had lived along the military frontier for most of his life and in the process developed a personal hatred for Turkmen at large and the Çandarids in particular as well as a desire to remove the threat they posed to Trapezous permanently. Regardless of any personal feelings, the Çandarids were also the next logical target for Trapezuntine expansion, as they were diplomatically isolated and had a not insignificant Greek minority that would likely abet conquest by their coreligionists. There was also the glittering prize of Sinope, which was one of the great ports of the Black Sea and lay only a few dozen miles away from the Trapezuntine frontier. In preparation for a war with the west Mgeli had reinvigorated Alexandros I’s military frontier and expanded it to the entirety of the Çandarid border, but this had not been completed before the outbreak of war.
Instead, Mgeli was forced to rely upon the bandons. As Iskender and his forces ravaged the Lykos valley, Alexios raised the Pontic bandons to arms, willing to throw the residents of the Trapezuntine territories on the southern side of the mountains completely under the bus to prevent the loss of territories on the northern side. His Genoese informants kept him informed of Ahmed’s troop movements and so he was able to puzzle out that Iskender’s expedition was a trap, intended to draw of forces. It partially succeeded in this latter intention, as Alexios dispatched ten bandons to hold the passes across into Pontos. However, he kept his main force of seventy[2] bandons at Polemonion (Fatsa), which guarded the coastal road eastward to Trapezous. He planned to lie in wait for Ahmed to pass along the coast road and ambush the Çandarid force. Simultaneously, he dispatched Psarimarkos to attack the Çandarid ports of Paphlagonia, hoping to turn Ahmed’s plans on himself and force him to divide his forces.
Meanwhile, in Paphlagonia, the bey was growing impatient. Turkmen hordes were difficult to feed and maintain under the best of circumstances, and with no loot to be found many of the tribal leaders were threatening to take their followers and leave. After executing two of the more insolent elders, he broke camp in early June and went east. He was beste with supply problems from the outset, as many of the farmers and herders of Paphlagonia had correctly assumed that a horde of ravenous Turkmen would be making their way east soon and fled into the hills with their stocks and families. This left Ahmed and his followers with a shortage of food that made keeping even a semblance of discipline nigh-on impossible, and before he even crossed the Lykos several dozen horsemen had deserted. This problem worsened as the Çandarid horde pressed on into the military frontier. The few roads were frequently blocked by fallen trees, spike pits and caltrops, and mudslides were almost suspiciously frequent[3]. Food was also hard to come by, as the Çandarids were tasked with defending supply lines that stretched all the way back to Sinope, if not further. This alone caused the Çandarid force to splinter, as regiments were broken off to garrison supply depots, but the chronic food and feed shortages also caused a wave of defections. A month after departing Kasamonu, the invading horde had dwindled from 12,000 to 9,000, with many horsemen also being lost to cold, disease and ambushes, which were almost nightmarishly frequent. Most important, the delay in the military frontier allowed Mgeli to move his forces to intercept the Turkmen invaders, setting up ambuscades along the most-heavily trafficked roads.
The decisive battle came at the small force of Mavrokastron (Akkuş). The castle overlooked a narrow turn in the road surrounded on both sides by dense forests that would make flight impossible while concealing Trapezuntine soldiers only meters from the road. Alexios had already selected Mavrokastron as being an excellent spot for an ambush, and it took several weeks of nudging the Çandarid force towards the fortress through ambushes and road attacks. The Turkish host finally reached the designated ambush point on the afternoon of 15 July. Most of them were hungry and exhausted, having been forced to spend every night for weeks camped out along the narrow road, under near constant attack from irregulars. There was frequent and open talk of mutiny, which Ahmed only abated by giving frequent speeches about the massive wealth that would be theirs for the taking in Trapezous. In truth, he knew that he was greatly over-valuing the amount of potential loot, but was afraid that failure in this crucial mission would end in his lynching or overthrow.
The Turkmen were strung out along the road when the ambush came, their line more of an exposed flank than a defensive formation. The initial attack came in the form of a barrage, with dozens of concealed archers opening fire from mere meters away in the fortress. Believing this to be a routine attack, Ahmed ordered his men to dismount and fire back from behind their mounts, inadvertently giving up any hope of escape. Trapezuntine fire intensified as more bandons moved within range, revealing themselves but unassailable due to the green hell of trees and underbrush between them and the road. With their enemy finally in their sight after so long, many of the Turkmen charged off into the forest, most to be swiftly cut down by sword or axe or taken by an arrow. Claps of thunder echoed from Mavrokastron itself as the cannons concealed within it opened fire, sending makeshift grapeshot of stone and glass scything through the Turkmen lines. Ahmed by now had realized that this was no ordinary attack and ordered his men to mount up and flee, but this message was lost amongst the chaos of the battle. By now the air was filled with arrows and the screams of men and horses as the projectiles found their mark. The Turkmen were lightly armored in the Persian fashion, dressed in wool or silk without leather or iron. The barrage was taking a heavy toll, with clusters of Turkmen concealing themselves behind piles of human and animal corpses or being cut down from all sides. After half an hour of fighting, Ahmed’s standard fell as his horse was shot out from under him, severing any morale that may have remained amongst the Turks. Alexios ordered the bandons to close in and finish the job, axe and spear bearing soldiers hacking through the underbrush to reach the road. This final desperate bout of fighting was fierce, with mounds of corpses an unsteady battlefield as the Trapezuntines stormed towards the few survivors. The Turkmen fought on until the last of them was killed, but was unable to effect losses nor even stand their ground, as few of them were armed with anything other than bows and short swords that proved no match for the longer weapons and shields of the Trapezuntine footmen. The Ponts were merciless, as many of them had lived in regions subject to raids by members of this selfsame tribe for years and now avenged themselves upon their tormentors. Even those drawn from as far off as Kapnanion were vicious in their slaughter of the Turkmen, for their homes and families would have surely been despoiled had the long caravan reached its destination. The baggage train was looted and then burned, the few slaves that had been taken freed and any surviving horses captured. By the end of the battle, more than 7,000 Turkmen lay dead on the field, for the loss of only two bandons’ worth of men. The Çandarid army was destroyed, with only a handful of survivors escaping into the wilderness and fewer still actually making it back across the Lykos. The funeral pyre for the Turkmen took three days to burn itself out.
Mavrokastron--or more accurately, the massive funeral pyre thereafter--was witnessed by one of the supply forced who had come to help Ahmed, and as they fled back westwards they spread word of the disaster. Iskender had already withdrawn from the Lykos after being defeated by an army under a general of absolutely no historical consequence named Mikhael Kantakouzenos Philanthropenos, and when word reached him of Mavrokastron he withdrew back across the river to Paphlagonia. He attempted to sue for peace, offering great tribute in both coin and slaves, but was refused in both. With the Çandarid army slaughtered, Alexios had the scent of blood, and was determined to expand Trapezous’ frontiers. Sinope whispered his name….
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[1] Alexios and Keteon had worked out a power-sharing agreement, where Keteon was sovereign in all domestic and diplomatic matters, and Alexios was sovereign in all military affairs.
[2] A bandon has 200 men; He had 14,000 men with him.
[3] Alexandros’ mountainside sluices had been forgotten even by many defenders, so that the few defenders who were captured and tortured could not betray their presence.
)))?"general of absolutely no historical consequence named Mikhael Kantakouzenos Philanthropenos"
Hmmm, I wonder. 🤔
Hmmm, I wonder. 🤔
Man I really love how Anatolia is playing out. The Karamanids and the Candarids manage to take the Ottomans down a peg while they are beginning to reassert themselves as strong regional powers alongside the Trapezuntines. Well...that's unless Alexios Mgeli has anything to say about it hahahaha.
Will Trebizond take back Sinope? I'm too cautious to say yes, considering how the Romans take one forward and two steps back in this timeline.
Will Trebizond take back Sinope? I'm too cautious to say yes, considering how the Romans take one forward and two steps back in this timeline.
But that's just the history of the Romans in general, it just becomes more and more frequent as the centuries go by.
So many collapses and resurgences it's maddening to follow.
That's certainly true but perhaps Alexios Mgeli will be the first Emperor to delay or even break this destructive cycle.
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