Of all the Crusaders, Romania had the most reasons to fight for -
Independence and lots of valuable European Lands inhabited by
hundreds of thousands of Romanians resenting the Ottoman yoke.
First Romanian-Ottoman War
9 January 1622, Alba Iulia
Mihai: "Stanca dear, are you feeling better today?"
Stanca: "Yes, Mihai, I am. God gave me the strength to fight this awful disease. Do not worry, I shall still be here, waiting for you to come back from battle, victorious as always."
M: (hugging his wife) "Oh, my dear, I love you so much. We shall see each other again and that's a promise too."
S: (growns)
M: "Have I hurt you?"
S: (trying to smile) "No... Only a little."
M: "I am so sorry, dear. I keep forgetting how fragile you are..."
S: "I am fine, really. Please, do not worry about me, you have a whole country to worry about."
M: (gently kisses her) "I think that Florica's visit has really helped you."
S: "Oh, yes. It has been wonderful to have her home again, even if only for a week. And Carol, Maria and Cazimir as well. I am a happy grandmother, am I not? Florica is a mother and a queen. I am so happy for her. And proud too..."
M: "And, after the war, we shall go and visit them in Varșovia (Warsaw). And we shall dance at our grandson's wedding!"
S (weeping): "May God hear you."
M (kissing her again): "Good bye, Stanca, see you later."
S: "Take care, Mihai. I will pray for you every day. God be with you!"
Mihai exits and Stanca lays on her bed, exhausted[1].
Minutes later, Mihai huggs his seven year old granddaughter Iulia.
Mihai: "I will be back soon. Till then, listen to your parents and let your grandmother have some rest. And be good with your teachers and do not skip your classes, will you do that for me?"
Iulia (jumping in his arms): "Sure, granddaddy. I love you very much and I will miss you!"
Hours later, on the
Field of the Army near Alba Iulia, Mihai is ready to leave his Capital City for the first war in almost two decades.
And what a war! If a quarter of a century ago, during his last war against the Turks, he led a 20,000 strong Wallachian army all the way to Adrianople, now he is backed by the whole Romanian People and an army of more than 300,000 men! Yes, victory is now certain. The Turks will be utterly defeated and thrown over the Bosphorus!
The premises to start the war and win it are now ripe, so he can no longer wait. At the age of 65, he is already an old man. It is questionable if five years later he could still be able to ride for hours and lead his soldiers in battle. Win it or not, this may be his last war. At least, the last lead by him personally.
Mihai: "Nicule, we are leaving now. And no, we have already talked about this! You may not come with me. Your place is here to take care of the Country while I am away. And to take care of your mother and your wife and your daughter who is the future ruler of this country! And while you do that, do not forget to take care of yourself. It seems that since you returned from our forest mansion you have been coughing again[2]. Go there to rest at least every other week. It will improve your health. Eat well and do not work too hard. Remember that your lungs will never be like those of a healthy man ever again and learn to live the life God gave you."
Nicolae: "Yes, father, you know me. I will do everything you told me."
M: (hugging him) "Very good then. Good bye, my son."
N: "Good bye, father. Bring back home a victorious army and may God be with you and protect you in battle!"
10-31 January 1622, Romanian banks of the Tissa and of the Danube
With the Anti-Ottoman War already raging on the Sea, the land invasion could not be delayed any further. 336,000 Romanian soldiers were preparing to cross the frozen Danube and Tissa and finally engage the Ottomans in battle.
On 30 January, the Slovaks crossed their border into Ottoman Hungary, encountering a strong resistance.
The Romanian uprisings in the Balkan Peninsula, helped by the Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians, were still strong and would prove extremely useful, greatly helping the advance of the Romanian armies.
In the mean time, other Christian peoples have revolted as well: the Croats, the Greeks and the Georgians. The Armenian and Hungarian uprisings have already been crushed by the Ottoman armies in a short span of time.
Mihai had split his army in six Groups:
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Army Group 1 will cross the Tissa near Segŭedin (Szeged) and advance towards Buda, trying to link with the Slovaks (as far to the North as possible).
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Army Group 2 will cross the Danube near Belgrade and advance westwards through Slavonia, trying to link with the Croats (as far to the West as possible).
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Army Group 3 will cross the Danube at the Iron Gates and advance through Bosnia, aiming for the Adriatic Littoral south of Cattaro, possibly linking with the Venetians.
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Army Group 4 will cross the Danube near Vidin and advance towards Macedonia, trying to link with the Greeks, preferably South of Thessaly.
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Army Group 5 will cross the Danube near Rusciuc (Russe), press for Salonika and support the Army Group 6 if necessary.
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Army Group 6, headed by Mihai himself, will cross the Danube near Silistra and advance straight towards Adrianople, the conquest of which would open the way to Constantinople.
- The
Romanian Navy had the task to debark troops in Dobrogea and try to conquer Constanța, Mangalia, Balcic and possibly Varna.
The Romanian armies had several advantages:
- They were properly trained, with state of the art modern military exercises.
- They benefited from an extremely fast system of conveying orders and information over great distances, using luminous semaphores at night.
- They used reasonably good cryptography which, although decyphred by some of Romania's allies, still completely eluded the Ottomans.
- They did not depend on foraging with its undesirable consequences: waste of time and loss of momentum, dispersed and unruly soldiers, angry locals etc. Instead, like in the Tatar War 18 years before, the Romanians employed a sound system of supplies carried by lots of auxiliars.
- They prepared a few surprises for the Ottomans, which would scare and confuse the enemy.
- They would be helped tremendously by their conationals already risen in battle against their oppressors.
- They made use of effective intelligence which allowed them to obtain reliable data on the number of enemy soldiers, their locations and movements.
- They had larger and more powerful cannons meaning that sieges were mostly unnecessary because the walls of the fortresses could be easily broken. This would have a tremendous impact also because a lesser number of soldiers had to be left behind to guard the army's rear.
At the same time, the massive Ottoman armies were greatly disadvantaged because:
- They had to fight too many opponents simultaneously.
- Their logistics were very poor.
- Their armies were spread on a large and difficult terrain.
- The movement of their troops was severely hampered on land by the revolutionaries and on sea by the Allied Fleets.
- The State had very little money and the soldiers were dissatisfied.
- The Sultan was clearly mentally deranged and would continuously hamper the War effort until finally assassinated in 1624. The ensuing power struggle in Constantinople would not help the Ottomans either.
Some historians have even concluded that it was a miracle that the Ottoman Empire did not collapse altogether!
February - November 1622, Romanian Invasion of Ottoman Europe
In 10 months, the Romanians managed to achieve most of their objectives but with a loss of more than 90,000 men; about half of them were killed in battle and the rest fell pray to diseases.
Army Group 1, in coordination with the tiny
Slovak Army, conquered the whole territory between the Tissa and the middle Danube including the fortress of Buda. Unfortunately, they were not able to establish a foothold in Pannonia, leaving thousands of prisoners during their two failed attempts to cross the Danube. By May, they were on the defensive and if not for the spectacular victories of Army Group 2, they could have been pushed back into Romania.
Army Group 2 took Belgrade after a three day battle and proceeded to overrun all the lands between the Drava and the Sava until late June when they arrived at the borders claimed by the Croatian Revolutionaries. Unable to cross into Pannonia, they entered Bosnia, helping Army Group 3 in their struggle.
Army Group 3 had probably the easiest task, at first advancing almost unhindered through a territory already liberated by the dense Romanian population from the Timoc Region. The liberation of Bosnia proceeded smoothly as well and by early June they had arrived in Montenegro. There they clashed with the local Serbs which had attempted to create an independent Montenegrin State in an area vital for Romania, being its only access to the Adriatic Sea. Contact with the Venetians from Dalmatia was also established.
Army Group 4 captured Vidin and began to march South, taking Sofia and entering Macedonia in July. Poor leadership resulted in several lost battles and slow advance through mostly friendly Macedonia. With significant losses, the beleaguered army arrived in Thessaly in November, finding the Greek Revolutionaries already in control of Larissa.
Army Group 5 captured Rusciuc and began their march towards Salonica, their great prize. Their advance was slowed by a very large number of low intensity battles with an Ottoman Army fortunate to have an extremely skilled commander. The Battle of the Chalcidic Peninsula in late August witnessed the almost complete obliteration of Army Group 5. Considerable effectives from Army Group 4 were sent to fill the gap, but no further attempts were made to invade the Ottoman held Peninsula. Since the Ottomans did not try to leave the Chalcidic Peninsula either, the Chalcidic Front entered a rather long lull.
The
Romanian Navy managed to land several thousand soldiers on the Dobrudjan Coast, which helped by the local Romanians, managed to free most of Dobrogea by September, with the exception of its extreme North fortified by the remnants of the Dobrudjan Ottoman Army.
Army Group 6, almost 100,000 men under the leadership of Mihai himself, crossed the Danube near Silistra and took the city by force on the same day. Not wasting any time for Turtucaia or other small towns, they headed straight South in order to get to Adrianople as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, the Turks realized that Adrianople and Constantinople were the main targets of Mihai's army and put up a fiersome resistance. During a battle, Mihai's horse was hit by a shell which killed it instantly throwing Mihai on the ground and injuring his back. Unable to ride anymore, Mihai would spend the remaining part of the campaign in a carriage, fact which had a considerable impact on the performance of his army.
Continuously harrassed by the Ottomans, the Romanians advanced slowly, reaching Adrianople only in August.
The Battle of Adrianople was a resounding Romanian victory but was mostly remembered because of an ingenious feat which disrupted and panicked the already losing Ottomans.
A contemporary description made by a terrified Ottoman captain is quite suggestive:
We were losing the battle anyway. The Pasha had realized that very well and had ordered us to start retreating in good order towards Edirne first thing in the morning. Sadly, Allah was not with us that night and the ungodly Vlachs unleashed the full horror of Șeitan on us. Imagine being woken up in the middle of the night by a terrific buzz coming from above, like a horrible swarm of locusts from Hell. And suddenly all skies broke aflame with hundreds of flying monsters buzzing and hissing over our heads, flames errupting from their hungry mouths and having the sign of their cross painted on their chests. While we hurried to take our bows or muskets to shoot them down, the beasts now already engulfed in the flames they breathed began to attack us, diving from the skies and eating several of our soldiers alive. Panick and terror ensued and we all ran for our lives praying to Allah to save us from the wrath of Șeitan. The damn Vlachs, those Christian dogs, then attacked us from the ground and killed or captured most of us. It was a disaster. We could not fight the dark forces of supernatural origin. We were doomed. Please, believe us, for it's only the truth I am telling you.
The use of
petroleum soaked kites, like other Romanian inventions, would not be even nearly as useful in subsequent battles, after the enemy got accustomed to the strange phenomena employed by the ingenious Romanians.
After yet another battle, the Romanians took Adrianople and sacked it, killing most of the Turkish population found in the city. Sufferring from intense back pain, Mihai was unable to stop the vengeful soldiers from looting and destroying the city.
The road to the Ottoman Capital was now opened, only guarded by the might of the remaining Ottoman armies, reinforced with fresh troops brought from the Asian part of their Empire.
The Romanian Army advanced farther and farther into Eastern Thrace, winning battle after battle, despite heavy losses and an increasingly stronger Ottoman resolve.
Constantinople seemed for the first time within reach. By the end of November, the Romanian relentless advance was finally stopped a mere hundred miles from Constantinople.
After marching for more than 300 miles through Ottoman territory, fighting more than 20 battles and losing half of their effectives, the Romanians were completely exhausted, unable to dislodge the heavily fortified and numeric superior Ottomans.
December 1622 - March 1623, Ottoman Counteroffensive
The Ottoman Empire was severely hit but not yet vanquished. The once mighty Empire gathered its last forces and mounted a brutal attack against the Romanian Army in Thrace.
It worked and three weeks later the Romanians lost Adrianople and began to retreat towards the Balkan Mountains.
By February, the Ottomans and the Romanians faced each other on the opposite slopes of the Balkans. The war degenerated into a stalemate, no army having the momentum necessary to cross the mountains.
April 1623 - June 1624, The Theatres of the War
The Crusaders finally realized that it was impossible to completely destroy the Ottoman Empire and started to probe for a negotiated peace.
However, the Ottomans still thought they could win and refused to cede any territory in the Balkans. What was badly needed was a great Christian victory in order to finally bring the Ottomans to the negotiating table.
Sadly, no such victory ever came. The Sarmatians, Cossacks and Slovaks had no means to attack the core Ottoman territories, the Venetian and Maltese Fleets were almost completely destroyed and the Spanish were busy fighting in North Africa.
Only the Swedes kept vigurously attacking in the Aegean Sea and even attempted to land in Asia Minor. All this would come to an end with the tragic death of their warrior King, Gustavus Adolphus, killed by a stray bullet on a beach near the city of Smirna.
It was another unforeseen event that finally convinced the Ottomans to sue for peace.
July - August 1624, Ottoman Armenia and Mesopotamia
Realizing that the Ottomans left almost no armies in their Eastern Provinces, the Persians invaded their long lost lands of Armenia and Mesopotamia, advancing quickly against feeble and thinly spread Ottoman forces.
By the end of August, the Ottoman Empire, being invaded in Europe, Asia and Africa, and with its Navy destroyed, accepted that defeat was inevitable and sued for peace.
15 September 1624, Salonika, Ottoman Empire
A three months Armistice was signed between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Crusaders and Persia on the other side.
A Peace Conference was called for November to be held in Alba Iulia.
The Anti-Ottoman War was over.
Notes:
1. Lady Stanca had terminal phase cancer.
2. Prince Nicolae had a lung disease, possibly tuberculosis. It was more or less under control.
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