Summer:
Duke Robert of Taranto launches from Lecce with 12,000 men on 26 June.
Planoudes’ message arrives in Thessalonika on 29 June, but Glabas wasn’t there. When word of Alexios’ victories in the Morea arrived in his court in late April, Glabas had raised 6,000 Armanj cavalry and crossed the Albanian frontier. By late June they had reconquered most of the Angevin client and were outside the walls of Durres. However, this left only his 18-year old son, Mikhael Glabas the Younger, and 3,000 infantry in Thessalonika. The Younger is smart enough to know that attacking ~40,000 men with 3,000 would be suicide, and instead marches north-west to harass the supply lines between Konstantinopolis and Tarnovo. The message is passed on to Nikolaos himself, but instead of seeing this as a reason to pull back and defend the capital, he instead marches on Epirus, intending to secure his flank before he marches to retake the city from the Russians and install himself as emperor. With Durres taken on 7 July, he crosses the frontier on 11 July, and twelve days later Arta is taken by storm, effectively ending the Despotate of Epirus, though resistance continues in the hills for over a decade.
Meanwhile, on 3 July, the defenders of Konstantinopolis feel a rumble as the ground shakes beneath them. Thankfully, it’s not strong enough to damage the walls. Instead, these are the shockwaves from a massive (7.8) earthquake with its epicenter in the Gulf of Taranto. The earthquake generates a wall of tsunamis that sweep over southern Italy and the western coast of Greece. The tsunamis, some as tall as ~45 feet, kill an estimated 450,000 people, among them King Charles II, his sons Robert and Philip and 30,000 Angevin soldiers in Italy alone, not counting the entirety of the expeditionary force, which was swallowed by the sea off of Zakynthos. This leaves the 13-year old John King of Naples with his cousin Charles of Valois as regent. Of Valois frantically sues for peace with both the Aragonese and Romans, as the Angevin army had lost upwards of 80% of its strength. A peace messenger arrives in Alexios’ camp outside of Argyrokastra on the 14th of July. Alexios agrees to a twenty-year peace with the Angevins in exchange for acknowledgement of the Roman gains in the Morea and the ceding of Albania (Alexios was unaware of Nikolaos’ campaign at the time). Charles agrees, and in early August (6 August) a messenger crosses the lines into Argyrokastra with a message to Florent of Hainault, signed by King John, that can be summed up as “You’re on your own.”
Alexios sends a messenger the next day to demand surrender from the Franks. The messenger was Konstantin Asen, who was sent in an effort to mollify Hainault. (Like how the King of Saxony asked the King of Prussia to come to the German Diet in the 1850s, Alexios sent the exiled King of Bulgaria to ask the “King” of Achaea.) But Hainault refuses, executes Asen and then chucks his head over the walls. Andronikos Asen, who had rejoined the army in July, leads his ~1,000 men against the Franks and manages to breach the walls. Asen kills Hainault in a chaotic battlefield duel, but is himself killed when the Franks throw bundles of flaming straw into the lower courtyard before retreating into the citadel. Alexios orders the citadel destroyed, and over the next three days volley after volley of ballistae and cannon fire hammer away at the fortress. Finally, on 10 August, the eastern wall crumbles and the Romans fire blindly into the void, cutting down the few survivors as they attempt to escape. On 11 August Alexios orders the fortress be torn down, brick by brick, and the prisoners from the summer’s campaigns are set to work doing so. What few survivors remain in the ruined fortress are all executed, and Alexios leaves a small force behind to oversee the destruction before marching east with his main army on the 19th. He himself breaks away from the column and rides south into Lakonia, where Philip di Amicae still holds Mystras. Alexios rides up outside the fortress under a flag of truce on 27 August, where he offers di Amicae a pronoia in Euboea and a command in the Imperial Army if he would swear fealty to the Emperor. Di Amicae, seeing the walls closing in, agrees and surrenders Mystras. The two return to Argos on the 2nd of September, where they are greeted by a ship from Thessalonika with the news of the Siege. Alexios commandeers every ship in Naupolis and sails, with 3,000 men, for Kalliopolis.
In the Thrakesion, a young Christian Turkish officer in the local command named Mensur Targan raises an army of 2,000 Tourkopoloui cavalry and 5,000 Roman and Turkish infantry, uses said force to depose his superiors, and then marches north gathering reinforcements from the veterans living in Eastern Anatolia. By the time he crosses into Europe in late July, his force numbers 15,000. He camps at Selymbria in early August, and his cavalry begins harassing the Bulgarian rear.
Meanwhile, yet another Roman force moves against the allies. Remember how Manouel Planoudes was planning on recalling Manouel Tarkhaneiotes in May? Well he didn’t, mostly due to the giant invasion and all. As the siege progressed, reports of the death of Dmitry and the capture of Andriy filter out to Kherson. There, Manouel, believing that Andriy would likely have been executed or blinded, does some calculations and comes up with his wife being second in line to the throne of Halychia-Ruthenia. He convinces Tügä Khan, the Khan of the Nogai Horde, to invade the Golden Horde to distract them, and then on 1 August he sails from Kherson with 4,000 men, leaving Anastasiya and his two month old son Nikephoros/Nikifor in the city. He lands in Bilgorod on 8 August, where the locals recognize Anastasiya as Grand Princess of Halychia-Ruthenia. Lev, Yuri’s second son, learns of this a week later and marshals 5,000 infantry and 5,000 Tartar auxiliaries in Halych and marches south. Manouel marches north from Bilgorod, burning the fields of villages that refused to recognize Anastasiya. This makes him easy to track, and Lev zeroes in on his location in late August. But just as he closes in Manouel’s track disappears. Manouel’s scouts had spotted Lev’s army, and he had stopped raiding and quick-marched west. He crossed into Transylvania in Early September, where he finds Siemowit of Dobyrzyn, the former leader of the exiled Poles in Halychia and enemy of Lev II. Siemowit and his ~5,000 hussars (Not winged, wingless) join forces with Manouel and the combined army re-invades Halychia and marches on Halych. Lev rushes back and attempts to block the march. At the fateful Battle of Halych on 21 September, the Halychians are routed and Lev is captured. He is executed, and his head hoisted on a pike in front of Halych’s gate. The city surrenders, and Manouel sends word to Kherson that it is safe for Anastasiya and Nikifor to sail for Bilgorod.
Fall:
Yuri learns of the turmoil in Halychia in Early October, and he abandons camp and marches north with the 15,000 remaining Russian men and the fleet. However, he dies of a heart attack on October 17th at age 55. His second-in-command, Mikhail Gorbachev, orders the army to continue north, but sends a messenger north to Halych recognizing Anastasiya as the Grand Princess. Samuil II is left alone with 15,000 men beneath the Theodosian Walls.
A week after the Russians withdraw, Mensur decamps Selymbria and marches against the Bulgarians. On 23 October Mensur’s standards come into view and Samuil turns his army to face the incoming threat. But as he does so, Nikephoros sallies out from the walls and charges into the Bulgarian rear as the Anatolian army presses into the front. The Bulgarian right dissolves and flees, but the center and left are slaughtered. Samuil II’s head is stuck on a pike above the Golden Gate, and Mensur’s cavalry wheels north and pursues the Russian force.
Alexios lands at Kalliopolis on the 27th and marches north. He is greeted at Selymbria by messengers from the city, who inform him of the collapse of the invasion. Alexios re-enters the city on the 29th of October. Sancia of Aragon arrives on 2 November, and as such there is a dual triumph, one each for Alexios and Mensur, and an Imperial wedding on the 7th of November. Sancia’s dowry is Malta, and on 28 November the Romans reoccupy Malta for the first time since 870.
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Before anyone says anything, the tsunami was not a deus ex machina. I had plans for the Angevins to counter-invade the Morea with the same results as in the current version, I just thought the tsunami was badass more creative.