1609 and the Sundering of the Rus
JohnSmith: It's complicated. The Avignon Papacy has historically had the best relations with the Empire, but Hungary follows it as well so any Catholic expansion in Serbia is to Avignon's benefit. The Roman Papacy meanwhile is following a delicate balance between the Kingdom of Lombardy in the north and the Despotate of Sicily in the south. Both are a threat so making nice with Constantinople is a good way to protect against Sicily but Hungary is also very useful at keeping the Lombards honest.
1609: Despite the belligerency with which the Hungarian envoy is met it is plain that fighting wars in the east, in the Balkans, and in North Africa is untenable. In the east chances for peace on acceptable terms are not good. With the withdrawal of forces to Europe the Shahanshah has resumed the offensive, sweeping the Romans out of all pre-war Ottoman territory with one exception.
That one exception is Duhok. Ideally Mosul would have been retained as a more substantial bargaining chip but the difficulty of supplying such a major fortress farther from Roman lines was deemed too high. Iskandar in early May is able to march in without opposition, although the burnt-out husk of the metropolis is a pathetic shadow of its glory five years past.
Duhok though is meant to be held at all costs. Its late-fifteenth century walls have been massively reinforced with packed-earth bastions and an artillery park of over two hundred cannon, garrisoned by nine thousand regulars and eight thousands of the best militia, with enough rations to feed them for fifteen months. When Iskandar settles in for a siege on June 1, he is further challenged by clouds of Roman light cavalry and tribal auxiliaries. Despite their limited success attacking his supply train, their activity wears down his own cavalry and hampers foraging. Meanwhile a second Roman army at Cizre looms menacingly over the Persian left flank, making no move to attack but a constant reminder to the Shah to remain on guard. On the Armenian front, a similar defense anchored on Theodosiopolis is also able to blunt the Ottoman attack.
Despite this peace talks continue between ambassadors in Aleppo but repeatedly stall on the question of the Black Stone. The Romans are willing to return it but are emphatically not willing to hand it over directly to Iskandar or any Persian official for that matter. Iskandar’s earlier stubbornness has only caused the Romans to withdraw their earlier inclination to give it up to the Shah personally if absolutely necessary. If the Omani or Idwaits were to receive the Black Stone that would be acceptable to Constantinople but the Ottoman ambassadors reject such proposals, counter-proposing that it be delivered to the Sharif of the Hedjaz. As a client of the Shah, Empress Helena and Emperor Demetrios are adamant that such a thing cannot be done. Under no circumstances must the Shah be given the propaganda coup of restoring the Black Stone to the Kaaba.
More success beckons in the west against Mouley Ismail. An attempted siege of Carthage has been a miserable failure, despite the massive damages to the farms and villages outside of the walls. Heavy losses against the defenders of Carthage and Mahdia combined with raids by galleys and fregatai based from Tabarka and Djerba, whilst not fatal, are extremely irritating.
The Treaty of Carthage is signed in April and despite the climb-down from the Sultan’s demands a year earlier it is still a sizeable Marinid victory. Carthage’s borders are reduced to a region bounded by the line of (dead) Bizerte-El Fahs-Hammamet, plus the enclave of Mahdia, a loss of two-thirds of her pre-war territory. Djerba and Tabarka also remain in Roman hands. In addition Carthage, Sicily, and the Roman Empire herself must each pay Mouley Ismail an annual ‘gift’, in exchange for which the Sultan forbids any corsair attacks on the three states. Finally, to the impotent rage of the Shah, the Black Stone is handed over to the Sultan himself outside the gates of Carthage.
He makes no attempt to return this to Mecca. It is highly doubtful that the Romans, Egyptians, or Ethiopians would grant it safe passage. More importantly by holding it, Mouley Ismail is arguably the premier sovereign of Islam, a position previously occupied uncontestably by Shah Iskandar. The Black Stone is deposited reverently in Marrakesh, housed in a perfect replica of the Kaaba (Mouley Ismail himself had completed the hajj just a year prior to the Roman conquest). Despite the fundamentalist nature of Hayyatist Islam, the dominant variant in Marinid Africa, there is very little complaint when the Grand Mufti of Marrakesh states that a visit to the new Kaaba qualifies as a hajj.
Iskandar is positively livid when he hears of the deal but there is nothing he can do about it. In fact by removing the Black Stone from the equation it makes the possibility of Roman-Ottoman peace more tenable. Furthermore at the same time as the Black Stone is placed in Marinid hands a great battle takes place at Rajanpur near the west bank of the Indus. A great coalition of petty states left over from the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate and Bihari kingdom smashed a Sukkuri army, gravely weakening the one respectable power in northern India. But the coalition members, rather than following up their victory, instead have turned on each other in a messy free-for-all. Some of the immediate losers such as the Emir of Multan and the Rajput King of Jaisalmer have already appealed for the Shahanshah to intervene.
With the riches of India beckoning ever more strongly Iskandar is more willing to make peace in the west. The agreement is brokered at Khlat in autumn and like the treaty of Carthage is still a Roman defeat. The Romans withdraw from all Ottoman territory still held as well as Jedda and Yanbu, in both cases destroying the new fortifications as they withdraw. By the terms Iskandar is not to build any of his own along the Red Sea. Ten million hyperpyra also restock Iskandar’s now perilously empty coffers (almost a full year’s revenue for the Roman government), a million pledged for next year, with a quarter million promised for every year of the peace after that.
Furthermore although no Georgian ‘gifts’ are incoming, the Georgians are forced to cede all of the trans-Aras lands. It is a humiliation in Tbilisi causing much resentment against the Romans. Constantinople shares the frustration as the loss greatly complicates the defense of Armenia. It is a situation neither Orthodox nation regards as permanent; the accord signed at Khlat is not a peace but a six-year truce.
Saying the war stops though is not accurate; it merely changes form. Gone are the great organized armies, but the frontier is filled with raid and ambuscade. The northern Anizzah, roused to full fury by ghazi attacks, scourge much of northern Mesopotamia with their cavalry columns, amply backed by Roman supplies, arms, and men. As soon as the Romans evacuate Arabia, the southern Anizzah, seeing the loot their cousins are amassing, change sides and let fly as well. The hajj to Mecca, still viewed as the proper pilgrimage outside of Marinid lands despite the Grand Mufti’s claims, is more dangerous after the truce than it was during the war.
Further to the north both sides harry each other, with frequent raids punctuated by skirmishes and the occasional pitched battle, a few of which have as many as ten thousand combatants. Neither side has a clear advantage nor causes much damage. With both imperial powers focused on far distant frontiers, this simmering mess is the status quo for the entirety of the truce period.
King Andrew had counted on the majority of Roman forces being deployed in Asia. The sweeps of last year have not been repeated this summer. Thessaloniki remains defiant and a push down into Boeotia stalls at Thebes, largely from supply problems caused by raiders from Epirus.
When the autumn harvest comes in though the situation is drastically transformed. Even before the truce at Khlat was signed the War Room started transferring troops westward. In September the Hungarians find ten thousand Egyptians in the Peloponnesus, fifteen thousand Sicilians in Epirus, and twenty five thousand Romans marching down the Via Egnatia towards Thessaloniki. Faced with foes on three sides, the Hungarians promptly fall back to Ohrid, chastened but largely unharmed.
Winter imposes a truce of its own but the season is not idle. Andrew appeals to Krakow and Munich for aid. While the Poles promise to send twenty thousand men come spring, the response from Munich is not encouraging. Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich IV has, since the defection of General Blucher, managed to win a series of medium-sized victories over his brother Karl, but the ‘Saxon Emperor’ is by no means done. Furthermore Triune attacks on Lotharingia have commenced again, endangering the Empire’s western frontier. There will be no aid from Germany.
Roman diplomatic efforts are more successful. King Theodoros Doukas of Lombardy has in the past few years conquered Florence and Pisa, forced the Duchy of the Marche into vassalage, established Siena as a client state, and squashed a noble conspiracy with somewhat lurid efficiency. The possibility of gaining the Duchies of Verona and Padua, ruled by an illegitimate branch of the Hunyadi family as a Hungarian vassal, plus the Veneto and Friuli administered directly by Buda, has him quite interested in a Roman alliance.
The hang-up is that the Duchess of Verona and Padua is Anna Drakina, granddaughter of Empress Helena by her daughter Aikaterine. The Duchess’s younger brother is Demetrios Sideros, who has already been promoted to the rank of prokathemenos, the second in command, of the Kephalate of Thyatira.
The compromise is as follows. Theodoros will, in exchange for providing twenty thousand men against the Italian holdings of the Hungarians, be recognized as Duke of Verona and Padua. In return he will ensure that the Duchess Anna and her children are not harmed and will recognize her as the Duchess of the Veneto and Friuli, providing full military support in effecting a ‘proper and smooth transfer of the titles’. A to-be-determined ‘tributary due’ will be established after an assessment of the region to be split halfway between Milan and Constantinople. No mention is made of her husband.
The negotiations with Vlachia are much easier. In the spring the Vlachs will invade Transylvania with thirteen thousand men. The Vlach support is welcome but not quite enough to cancel out the Poles. However the next preferred ally from Constantinople’s perspective, the Great Kingdom of the Rus, is not an option, on account of it no longer existing.
In retrospect appointing a Megas Rigas used to the autocratic traditions of the Roman court to preside over a ‘constitutional federative monarchy’, as political scientists term the early Vladimir-Russian state, was a bad idea. Old Ioannes Laskaris, son of Giorgios Laskaris, the friend of Andreas Drakos, has never cared for his largely figurehead status in the lands west of the Volga.
East of the Volga is a different matter. Here he is in charge and from his capital of Kazan he has pushed expansion eastwards, encouraging immigration from Germany and Georgia, along with a strong Armenian strain especially prominent in the Ural Mountains. But the lion’s share of newcomers is from the Russian principalities. In 1600 the city of Tyumen, an important nexus not only in the fur trade but with long-distance commerce with the caravan cities of Central Asia and China, can muster three thousand souls. Exploratory expeditions have made it to the western shores of Lake Baikal.
Immigration plus the new mines and foundries of the Urals have given Ioannes a respectable military strength, enabling him to force the Kalmyks and Bashkirs into submission. Given significant autonomy they provide the Megas Rigas with tribute and formidable light cavalry to supplement his Russian infantry. Over his thirty year reign he has made impressive progress, more than the Shuiskys had done in a century.
Still manpower is a significant issue and as Ioannes thinks of the future of his dynasty, over the past several years he has been scheming to remake the Russian crown in the image of the Roman. The veches of the principalities have had none of that though and tensions have risen steadily, finally exploding in 1607.
Theodoros Laskaris is the second son of Ioannes and Eudoxia Drakina. The latter is the twin sister of Aikaterine, the mother of Demetrios Sideros. The most capable and most belligerent of Ioannes’ sons, in that year he leads an army of Armenian infantry and Kalmyk cavalry to seize Vladimir and the members of the zemsky sobor. It is only a partial success, as sixty percent of the members escape while many of Ioannes’ supporters are alienated by the move.
A Pronsky army moves to retake the city but is joined by a smaller Novgorodian detachment whose commander arrogantly demands command of the combined force. The ensuing row between the generals nearly comes to blows but the Novgorodians depart. Theodoros retreats in the face of the Pronsky army but when Vladimir falls the Great Pronsk veche declares that it will reorganize the government of Russia to prevent such an event from occurring again.
Novgorod, Lithuania, and Scythia protest, all four principalities mobilizing troops as tensions rise. A Novgorodian claim to preeminence is rejected with vitriol; the previous Novgorodian preeminence in Russia has been crippled by the loss of the Baltic and White Sea coastline during the Great Northern War. The attempt however fractures the pending anti-Pronsky alliance.
Normally the monarchy might have served to smooth these inter-principality tensions but no one trusts Ioannes Laskaris after Theodoros’ little invasion. Somewhere along the Novgorod-Pronsk frontier shots are fired, people are killed, and in dismaying speed the land of Russia turns into a five-way free-for-all.
Perhaps the sheer confusion keeps the destruction and death down somewhat but when the dust clears two years later the Principalities of Novgorod, Lithuania, Great Pronsk, and Scythia plus the Kingdom of Khazaria, as the Romans style Ioannes’ Trans-Volga domains, are independent and separate states.
It is a shock to the Romans, who have been largely unaware of the growing regionalism in the Great Kingdom. The Romans are now indisputably the great power of Orthodoxy, with Great Pronsk, the number two contender, only having five million inhabitants. With the colossi of Catholicism and Islam beckoning it even more falls on Constantinople to ensure that the one true faith will endure.
1609: Despite the belligerency with which the Hungarian envoy is met it is plain that fighting wars in the east, in the Balkans, and in North Africa is untenable. In the east chances for peace on acceptable terms are not good. With the withdrawal of forces to Europe the Shahanshah has resumed the offensive, sweeping the Romans out of all pre-war Ottoman territory with one exception.
That one exception is Duhok. Ideally Mosul would have been retained as a more substantial bargaining chip but the difficulty of supplying such a major fortress farther from Roman lines was deemed too high. Iskandar in early May is able to march in without opposition, although the burnt-out husk of the metropolis is a pathetic shadow of its glory five years past.
Duhok though is meant to be held at all costs. Its late-fifteenth century walls have been massively reinforced with packed-earth bastions and an artillery park of over two hundred cannon, garrisoned by nine thousand regulars and eight thousands of the best militia, with enough rations to feed them for fifteen months. When Iskandar settles in for a siege on June 1, he is further challenged by clouds of Roman light cavalry and tribal auxiliaries. Despite their limited success attacking his supply train, their activity wears down his own cavalry and hampers foraging. Meanwhile a second Roman army at Cizre looms menacingly over the Persian left flank, making no move to attack but a constant reminder to the Shah to remain on guard. On the Armenian front, a similar defense anchored on Theodosiopolis is also able to blunt the Ottoman attack.
Despite this peace talks continue between ambassadors in Aleppo but repeatedly stall on the question of the Black Stone. The Romans are willing to return it but are emphatically not willing to hand it over directly to Iskandar or any Persian official for that matter. Iskandar’s earlier stubbornness has only caused the Romans to withdraw their earlier inclination to give it up to the Shah personally if absolutely necessary. If the Omani or Idwaits were to receive the Black Stone that would be acceptable to Constantinople but the Ottoman ambassadors reject such proposals, counter-proposing that it be delivered to the Sharif of the Hedjaz. As a client of the Shah, Empress Helena and Emperor Demetrios are adamant that such a thing cannot be done. Under no circumstances must the Shah be given the propaganda coup of restoring the Black Stone to the Kaaba.
More success beckons in the west against Mouley Ismail. An attempted siege of Carthage has been a miserable failure, despite the massive damages to the farms and villages outside of the walls. Heavy losses against the defenders of Carthage and Mahdia combined with raids by galleys and fregatai based from Tabarka and Djerba, whilst not fatal, are extremely irritating.
The Treaty of Carthage is signed in April and despite the climb-down from the Sultan’s demands a year earlier it is still a sizeable Marinid victory. Carthage’s borders are reduced to a region bounded by the line of (dead) Bizerte-El Fahs-Hammamet, plus the enclave of Mahdia, a loss of two-thirds of her pre-war territory. Djerba and Tabarka also remain in Roman hands. In addition Carthage, Sicily, and the Roman Empire herself must each pay Mouley Ismail an annual ‘gift’, in exchange for which the Sultan forbids any corsair attacks on the three states. Finally, to the impotent rage of the Shah, the Black Stone is handed over to the Sultan himself outside the gates of Carthage.
He makes no attempt to return this to Mecca. It is highly doubtful that the Romans, Egyptians, or Ethiopians would grant it safe passage. More importantly by holding it, Mouley Ismail is arguably the premier sovereign of Islam, a position previously occupied uncontestably by Shah Iskandar. The Black Stone is deposited reverently in Marrakesh, housed in a perfect replica of the Kaaba (Mouley Ismail himself had completed the hajj just a year prior to the Roman conquest). Despite the fundamentalist nature of Hayyatist Islam, the dominant variant in Marinid Africa, there is very little complaint when the Grand Mufti of Marrakesh states that a visit to the new Kaaba qualifies as a hajj.
Iskandar is positively livid when he hears of the deal but there is nothing he can do about it. In fact by removing the Black Stone from the equation it makes the possibility of Roman-Ottoman peace more tenable. Furthermore at the same time as the Black Stone is placed in Marinid hands a great battle takes place at Rajanpur near the west bank of the Indus. A great coalition of petty states left over from the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate and Bihari kingdom smashed a Sukkuri army, gravely weakening the one respectable power in northern India. But the coalition members, rather than following up their victory, instead have turned on each other in a messy free-for-all. Some of the immediate losers such as the Emir of Multan and the Rajput King of Jaisalmer have already appealed for the Shahanshah to intervene.
With the riches of India beckoning ever more strongly Iskandar is more willing to make peace in the west. The agreement is brokered at Khlat in autumn and like the treaty of Carthage is still a Roman defeat. The Romans withdraw from all Ottoman territory still held as well as Jedda and Yanbu, in both cases destroying the new fortifications as they withdraw. By the terms Iskandar is not to build any of his own along the Red Sea. Ten million hyperpyra also restock Iskandar’s now perilously empty coffers (almost a full year’s revenue for the Roman government), a million pledged for next year, with a quarter million promised for every year of the peace after that.
Furthermore although no Georgian ‘gifts’ are incoming, the Georgians are forced to cede all of the trans-Aras lands. It is a humiliation in Tbilisi causing much resentment against the Romans. Constantinople shares the frustration as the loss greatly complicates the defense of Armenia. It is a situation neither Orthodox nation regards as permanent; the accord signed at Khlat is not a peace but a six-year truce.
Saying the war stops though is not accurate; it merely changes form. Gone are the great organized armies, but the frontier is filled with raid and ambuscade. The northern Anizzah, roused to full fury by ghazi attacks, scourge much of northern Mesopotamia with their cavalry columns, amply backed by Roman supplies, arms, and men. As soon as the Romans evacuate Arabia, the southern Anizzah, seeing the loot their cousins are amassing, change sides and let fly as well. The hajj to Mecca, still viewed as the proper pilgrimage outside of Marinid lands despite the Grand Mufti’s claims, is more dangerous after the truce than it was during the war.
Further to the north both sides harry each other, with frequent raids punctuated by skirmishes and the occasional pitched battle, a few of which have as many as ten thousand combatants. Neither side has a clear advantage nor causes much damage. With both imperial powers focused on far distant frontiers, this simmering mess is the status quo for the entirety of the truce period.
King Andrew had counted on the majority of Roman forces being deployed in Asia. The sweeps of last year have not been repeated this summer. Thessaloniki remains defiant and a push down into Boeotia stalls at Thebes, largely from supply problems caused by raiders from Epirus.
When the autumn harvest comes in though the situation is drastically transformed. Even before the truce at Khlat was signed the War Room started transferring troops westward. In September the Hungarians find ten thousand Egyptians in the Peloponnesus, fifteen thousand Sicilians in Epirus, and twenty five thousand Romans marching down the Via Egnatia towards Thessaloniki. Faced with foes on three sides, the Hungarians promptly fall back to Ohrid, chastened but largely unharmed.
Winter imposes a truce of its own but the season is not idle. Andrew appeals to Krakow and Munich for aid. While the Poles promise to send twenty thousand men come spring, the response from Munich is not encouraging. Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich IV has, since the defection of General Blucher, managed to win a series of medium-sized victories over his brother Karl, but the ‘Saxon Emperor’ is by no means done. Furthermore Triune attacks on Lotharingia have commenced again, endangering the Empire’s western frontier. There will be no aid from Germany.
Roman diplomatic efforts are more successful. King Theodoros Doukas of Lombardy has in the past few years conquered Florence and Pisa, forced the Duchy of the Marche into vassalage, established Siena as a client state, and squashed a noble conspiracy with somewhat lurid efficiency. The possibility of gaining the Duchies of Verona and Padua, ruled by an illegitimate branch of the Hunyadi family as a Hungarian vassal, plus the Veneto and Friuli administered directly by Buda, has him quite interested in a Roman alliance.
The hang-up is that the Duchess of Verona and Padua is Anna Drakina, granddaughter of Empress Helena by her daughter Aikaterine. The Duchess’s younger brother is Demetrios Sideros, who has already been promoted to the rank of prokathemenos, the second in command, of the Kephalate of Thyatira.
The compromise is as follows. Theodoros will, in exchange for providing twenty thousand men against the Italian holdings of the Hungarians, be recognized as Duke of Verona and Padua. In return he will ensure that the Duchess Anna and her children are not harmed and will recognize her as the Duchess of the Veneto and Friuli, providing full military support in effecting a ‘proper and smooth transfer of the titles’. A to-be-determined ‘tributary due’ will be established after an assessment of the region to be split halfway between Milan and Constantinople. No mention is made of her husband.
The negotiations with Vlachia are much easier. In the spring the Vlachs will invade Transylvania with thirteen thousand men. The Vlach support is welcome but not quite enough to cancel out the Poles. However the next preferred ally from Constantinople’s perspective, the Great Kingdom of the Rus, is not an option, on account of it no longer existing.
In retrospect appointing a Megas Rigas used to the autocratic traditions of the Roman court to preside over a ‘constitutional federative monarchy’, as political scientists term the early Vladimir-Russian state, was a bad idea. Old Ioannes Laskaris, son of Giorgios Laskaris, the friend of Andreas Drakos, has never cared for his largely figurehead status in the lands west of the Volga.
East of the Volga is a different matter. Here he is in charge and from his capital of Kazan he has pushed expansion eastwards, encouraging immigration from Germany and Georgia, along with a strong Armenian strain especially prominent in the Ural Mountains. But the lion’s share of newcomers is from the Russian principalities. In 1600 the city of Tyumen, an important nexus not only in the fur trade but with long-distance commerce with the caravan cities of Central Asia and China, can muster three thousand souls. Exploratory expeditions have made it to the western shores of Lake Baikal.
Immigration plus the new mines and foundries of the Urals have given Ioannes a respectable military strength, enabling him to force the Kalmyks and Bashkirs into submission. Given significant autonomy they provide the Megas Rigas with tribute and formidable light cavalry to supplement his Russian infantry. Over his thirty year reign he has made impressive progress, more than the Shuiskys had done in a century.
Still manpower is a significant issue and as Ioannes thinks of the future of his dynasty, over the past several years he has been scheming to remake the Russian crown in the image of the Roman. The veches of the principalities have had none of that though and tensions have risen steadily, finally exploding in 1607.
Theodoros Laskaris is the second son of Ioannes and Eudoxia Drakina. The latter is the twin sister of Aikaterine, the mother of Demetrios Sideros. The most capable and most belligerent of Ioannes’ sons, in that year he leads an army of Armenian infantry and Kalmyk cavalry to seize Vladimir and the members of the zemsky sobor. It is only a partial success, as sixty percent of the members escape while many of Ioannes’ supporters are alienated by the move.
A Pronsky army moves to retake the city but is joined by a smaller Novgorodian detachment whose commander arrogantly demands command of the combined force. The ensuing row between the generals nearly comes to blows but the Novgorodians depart. Theodoros retreats in the face of the Pronsky army but when Vladimir falls the Great Pronsk veche declares that it will reorganize the government of Russia to prevent such an event from occurring again.
Novgorod, Lithuania, and Scythia protest, all four principalities mobilizing troops as tensions rise. A Novgorodian claim to preeminence is rejected with vitriol; the previous Novgorodian preeminence in Russia has been crippled by the loss of the Baltic and White Sea coastline during the Great Northern War. The attempt however fractures the pending anti-Pronsky alliance.
Normally the monarchy might have served to smooth these inter-principality tensions but no one trusts Ioannes Laskaris after Theodoros’ little invasion. Somewhere along the Novgorod-Pronsk frontier shots are fired, people are killed, and in dismaying speed the land of Russia turns into a five-way free-for-all.
Perhaps the sheer confusion keeps the destruction and death down somewhat but when the dust clears two years later the Principalities of Novgorod, Lithuania, Great Pronsk, and Scythia plus the Kingdom of Khazaria, as the Romans style Ioannes’ Trans-Volga domains, are independent and separate states.
It is a shock to the Romans, who have been largely unaware of the growing regionalism in the Great Kingdom. The Romans are now indisputably the great power of Orthodoxy, with Great Pronsk, the number two contender, only having five million inhabitants. With the colossi of Catholicism and Islam beckoning it even more falls on Constantinople to ensure that the one true faith will endure.
