Well what seems to be keeping them going at this point is the plentiful supply of Syndicate doo-dads and the idiocy of the Genoese (like the shepherds and mountaineers having no place to go but to Theodore in hopes of veangance). That would probably tide them over until they start smuggling in goodies from England and what not. At this point I think Theodore and the royalists have solidified themselves pretty strongly as fixtures of the revolution, so they'd have a power base of personal relationships and Genoese vendetta even at rock bottom.
King Theodore's Corsica
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
Honestly, I can't see Austria having an impact in Corsica even if they declare their intention to intervene in Genoa's favor. Charles is scheduled to die on October 20th which is a little over 6 months away at the end of the last update, so unless his OTL death is delayed or the Austrian soldiers and ships are ready to move immediately after signing the treaty I don't expect them to do much of anything against Theodore or the Corsicans before the WoAS begins.
Prior to Ponte Novu, the French force was at somewhere in the vicinity of 8,000 men. Around 1,000 of those were killed, wounded, or captured at Ponte Novu, and another thousand (or somewhat less than a thousand) are tied up at Ajaccio and unable to support the rest of Lautrec's men. That leaves <6,000 in north and east Corsica at the start of winter.
Then you have to account for attrition, both from sickness and low-level skirmishing with the rebels. From November to April there's basically no malaria in Corsica's eastern plains, so they aren't going to be dropping like flies as they were in the summer of 1739. Furthermore, winter in coastal Corsica is quite tolerable; nobody's going to be getting frostbite. Still, we can expect at least some deaths/invalids from the usual diseases of pre-modern army cantonments, perhaps aggravated by the fact that prior to Lautrec's arrival the army's discipline (which, presumably, affects things like camp layout and sanitation as much as combat readiness and base security) had slipped rather low. It's also worth noting that some "casualties" from Ponte Novu and elsewhere will have recovered by this time. This is really just a guess, but let's assume we're looking at <5,500 men by the time Lautrec gets there.
Lautrec's force at Pietralba is approximately 2,500 men. This leaves <3,000 for all other posts in the north and east - Calvi, Balagna, Nebbio, Bastia, and the eastern cantonments (presumably Borgo, Vescovato, and Cervioni, or on the plan near those sites). The most restive will be the eastern camps; Villemur and Rousset can be assumed to have at least 1,500 there. That leaves 2-3 battalions for all other duties in the north and northwest, probably spread between Calenzana, San Fiorenzo/Oletta, and Isola Rossa, with a few support/administrative staff (like the artillery companies) at Calvi and Bastia. This requires handing much of the defense of the Balagna and Nebbio to the Genoese, which is why Rauschenburg was able to whip them in Speloncato and Belgodere in the last update; there's probably no significant French forces within at least five miles of those positions.
About 200 casualties are suffered at Ponte Leccia, with up to a hundred more in the skirmishes around Moltifao and elsewhere. This leaves Lautrec with some 2,200 men at Pietralba. If he wants reinforcements, he has to pull them from other posts - the Nebbio, the Balagna, and so on. Unlike Boissieux, however, he's not committed to the "cordon" around the interior, and in any case the rebels really aren't in a position to be on the offensive against the Nebbio or elsewhere given their concentration of resources in the upper Golo. Lautrec can probably strip away a few battalions from other posts, or at least some companies from those battalions, and get away with it.
We have evidence for how quickly their mobilization can happen because there was a previous Austrian intervention in 1731. IOTL/ITTL, the Senate formally requested the Emperor's help on the 10th of May, 1731. The Convention of Milan which formally authorized the intervention was signed on July 19th. The first imperial troops under Wachtendonk embarked at Genoa on August 6th, Wachtendonk arrived on the 9th, and a general disembarkation began on the following day. The troops marched forth from Bastia and first engaged the Corsicans on the 14th.
Thus, although negotiations took about 9 weeks, the time between the signing of the convention and "first blood" was less than a month. Furthermore, I haven't found any mention of preparations being ordered prior to the convention, so it's possible that most of the military prep was done in the 2-3 weeks following the convention. ITTL, the emperor ordered Traun and Wachtendonk to start getting ready back in late March, so by the Battle of Pietralba they've already had about two weeks. If a new convention gets signed at the beginning of May, the Austrian troops (at least those at Livorno) could feasibly be on the island by mid-May, and they'll definitely be there by the end of the month. If the emperor dies on Oct 20 as OTL, they'll still have a good five months before word gets to them of the emperor's death. Boissieux did a lot in five months when he actually decided to get off his butt; the Austrians, with far fewer men and a much more equivocal command, will undoubtedly accomplish much less, but they can still be a factor during a very critical time.
That is more or less the thinking of every empire that has ever embarrassed itself in situations like this.
I stand corrected, that will be an issue for the Corsicans and Theodore.
Could you explain this in a bit more detail, btw? How were they essentially fixed?
I imagine it's because by the 1700s Europe's states have pretty much solidified themselves and barring something major, like the example with Prussia, no one will be able to magically create a new kingdom title. A few centuries earlier all you would need to do is have the might to back up your claims and eventually people would just kind of acquiesce, or speaking in CK2 terms the title would become dejure as well as defacto.
The short version of this (that is, without going into detail on the history of Christian European kingship) is that new royal titles essentially stopped being made after the Middle Ages.
By the High Middle Ages, royal titles were generally recognized (at least in the Catholic world) as things that could be formed de novo only by the Pope and the Emperor. Of the two, the Pope was more prolific - Hungary, Sicily, and Croatia are examples of states which became kingdoms with Papal blessing in the early/high Middle Ages, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. As already mentioned, "Corsica and Sardinia" was created as a kingdom by the Pope in just such a fashion.
Kingdoms granted by the emperor were much rarer. One could argue, I suppose, that Poland was the recipient of an imperially-authorized kingship in the early 11th century, but the more generally accepted beginning of this imperial prerogative is in 1212 with the coronation of Duke Ottokar as King of Bohemia. Ottokar was not the first Bohemian duke to be granted the title of king, but before him the appointment was non-hereditary, granted as a lifetime prize to certain dukes. After Ottokar, Bohemia became a "kingdom" as such, whose rulers claimed the royal title as birthright. Bohemia, however, turned out to be something of an exception - no more kingdoms, to my knowledge, were created by the emperor in the Middle Ages, and it was eventually established by tradition that there could be no kingdoms within the empire save Bohemia.
The great exception was Brandenburg-Prussia, whose duke-elector secured a pledge from the emperor in 1701 to recognize him as a king in exchange for his support in the War of Spanish Succession. This was possible because of a unique technicality - while Brandenburg was within the empire, Prussia itself lay outside it. Thus, argued the duke, Prussia could be elevated to royal dignity without breaking the long-established norm of "no kingdoms in the empire (except Bohemia)." The new king was originally titled King "in" Prussia, rather than "of," to emphasize that the Prussian king was sovereign only in Prussia and not within Brandenburg or other imperial fiefs he might hold. Even so, the creation of a new kingdom did not go over well in Europe, and it was years before the title was widely recognized. The Papacy refused to call the "King in Prussia" anything other than the "Elector of Brandenburg" until the rule of Pius VI (1775-1799). Even those monarchs who accepted their royal title often regarded the Prussian kings as brash upstarts whose royal dignity was dubious at best. What was "Prussia," a royal title which at the start of the WoAS was not even 40 years old, compared to the 740 year old Hungarian crown, or the ancient crown of France? Even the Kingdom of Corsica had, in some form, been around for more than 400 years.
Between the Late Middle Ages and the Napoleonic era, when the World's Most Famous Corsican started creating and destroying titles left and right based purely on his own fiat and the might of his armies, the European constellation of royal crowns was almost totally static. They were, save Prussia, medieval institutions which could be inherited but not formed from scratch. This is why the Doges of Genoa crowned themselves "Kings of Corsica" and not, say, "Kings of Genoa" - they obviously cared much more about Genoa than Corsica, but while Corsica was a real, centuries-old, Pope-established kingdom, Genoa was not. It's also the reason why the Savoyard kings were "Kings of Sardinia," not "Kings of Savoy" or "Kings of Piedmont" or anything else. They had acquired Sicily, which was a kingdom, in the War of Spanish Succession, and that made them kings; but then they lost it, and so to preserve their royal title they arranged for a swap with Sardinia, which like Sicily was an established kingdom. If they had been able to simply call themselves Kings of Savoy, they would have hardly needed poor Sardinia. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Grandmaster of Malta want Corsica for the same reason - Corsica is royal, while Tuscany and Malta are not, and stand no reasonable chance of being so in the 18th century.
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Very interesting (and probably should be threadmarked!). So what about Spain's multitude of royal titles in Spain proper, like the kingdom of Majorca, the kingdom of Toledo, etc... What was the logic behind all of those titles existing and being retained when they already had other titles elsewhere like Naples and Two Sicilies?
It gives them prestige. At that time there were even rules about the precedence of ambassadors depending on which title their sovereign had.
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/royalty/nations.htm
Spain was special. Because it was on the frontier of Christendom in the Middle Ages, there was the possibility of carving new realms out of formerly non-Christian land in Spain in a way that didn't really exist in the rest of western/central Europe. Kingdoms like Valencia, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Jaen, Mallorca, and so on were for the most part created from sovereign Muslim states that fell to existing Spanish kings by conquest. The only exception I can think of is Portugal, which was self-proclaimed by the then-Count of Portugal, defended by force of arms, and only recognized by the Pope some decades later.
Many of those constituent Spanish kingdoms were not just flourishes on the end of the king's list of titles; they had their own laws, parliaments, and administrative systems. Despite the union of Aragon and Castile, for instance, the two crowns continued to be administered separately for centuries, and even within these crowns some kingdoms enjoyed a lot of autonomy (the Kingdom of Valencia within the Crown of Aragon, for instance). By 1740, however, that was no longer true for the Crown of Aragon, whose existence as a separate administrative and legal entity was abolished after the Bourbon conquest of Spain.
That, however, is about as much as I feel comfortable with saying on the matter; I'm not a Spain expert.
As @Gonzaga said above, it was in large part a matter of prestige and ceremony. This might sound a bit silly to us moderns, but it was tremendously important to rulers of the time. In the case of Prussia, Frederick may have been motivated by a desire to achieve parity with his neighbor Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony who was raised to royal rank in 1697 by his election as King of Poland.
Royalty, however, was a bit more than just being above a duke or prince in ceremonial honor; it was the sine qua non of true sovereignty. Even the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, usually thought of as effectively sovereign under the Medici, was legally an imperial fief. Kingship meant, at least in theory, that you answered to nobody but God.
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Calvary
Calvary
The Granitula, a spiral religious procession traditionally held on Good Friday
The Granitula, a spiral religious procession traditionally held on Good Friday
Although it had been a respectable showing by the Corsicans, the Battle of Pietralba did little to bolster the morale and confidence of the rebels. Marquis Simone Fabiani's conduct was generally praised, but soon jealousy and recrimination—which had never fully tamped down after the recent Aleria debacle—began dividing the royalists again. Colonel Carlo Felice Giuseppe, among others, accused Colonel Paolo Francesco Giannoni of cowardice. "Who has ever heard," Chancellor Sebastiano Costa recounts Giuseppe as saying, "of a captain fleeing the field twice in one battle?"[1] Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Buttafuoco, who already hated Giannoni, was quick to join in. This was especially injurious to the royalist cause because of the importance of Rostino and its militia to the defense of Ponte Leccia and the rest of the interior. The men of Rostino had already been aggrieved by the sacking of Brigadier Gio-Giacomo Ambrosi di Castinetta, and after having fought and bled on the field they bristled at Giannoni, another one of their native sons, being ridiculed as a coward.
It was inevitable that this conflict would escalate. On the 15th, just five days after the battle, King Theodore obtained a most damning letter. Allegedly sent by Castinetta to Giannoni, it bemoaned the state of the royalist command and proposed the assassination of Gianpietro Gaffori and Marc-Antonio Giappiconi, Theodore's secretaries of state and war, respectively. Two other captains of Rostino, Clemente Paoli and Marco Pasqualini, were also named as actual or potential co-conspirators. According to Costa, the letter was only found because Giannoni, being quite illiterate, had the letter read aloud to him by an aide, which was overheard by a militiamen who subsequently stole the letter and gave it to the king's men. Discovered two days before Easter Sunday, it became known in Corsican history as the "Good Friday Plot" (Congiura del Venerdì Santo).
Giappiconi advised the arrest of all those suspected of participation, but Theodore and Costa knew that this was very likely to start a civil war. Instead, Theodore rode to Ponte Leccia on the following day, and in a personal audience with Giannoni confronted him about the letter and asked him what he knew of the plot. Giannoni threw himself on the mercy of the king, insisting that he remained loyal and claiming that he had never agreed to support such a scheme. Theodore could not prove otherwise; he knew only that Castinetta had invited Giappiconi to the plot and mentioned Paoli and Pasqualini as sympathetic. It was certainly suspicious that Giannoni had not reported the letter immediately, but there was no proof that he had sent any reply. Paoli (who was Giannoni's nephew) denied having received any such letter and rejected any association with an assassination scheme, but Pasqualini vanished with a number of his kinsmen. That left only Castinetta, but removing him would be no less dangerous now than after Aleria. Conscious that his crown—and perhaps his life—balanced on the knife's edge, Theodore did nothing.
The day after Theodore confronted Giannoni and Paoli was Easter Sunday, and the king was determined to make a show of unity. Against the advice of his advisers, he chose to celebrate the holiday at Morosaglia, the very heart of Rostino, although for obvious reasons Gaffori and Giappiconi did not join him there. The day was peaceful; a large crowd gathered to take part in the traditional Easter procession and to see the king, and Theodore ate dinner at Clemente Paoli's home. He even exchanged a few polite words with Castinetta, whose home was only a short walk away. The king's display of fearlessness and clemency seemed to have a soothing effect. Underneath the surface, however, tension remained. This was not the jubilant Easter at Cervioni four years past, just before his coronation, when the people cheered for their immanent liberation; this was an Easter celebrated by a people under siege, who had been ground down by years of struggle and did not know who to trust even among their fellow Corsicans.
Mountains of the Upper Asco
Despite stubborn resistance, Lieutenant-General Johann Friedrich von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg was being steadily driven back by the concerted advance of the French. He retreated up the Asco valley, where the terrain was too difficult for the French to pursue him, but by occupying the village of Asco itself Brigadier Montrosier was able to trap him and his Niolesi followers in the high mountains. Surrounded by some of the highest mountains in Corsica, Rauschenburg had no easy escape, and while Montrosier dared not try and root him out of the Forest of Carozzica in the high Asco, he hardly needed to. With little food, the Niolesi would surely starve or be forced to surrender. The French, however, underestimated the mountaineers. Under cover of night, Rauschenburg and his column descended the valley and got within half a mile of the village of Asco, where the French sentries waited, but then turned south and climbed the small tributary valley of the Pinneta, where an old and difficult shepherds' trail led over the Valle Bonna Pass and into the basin of the upper Golo, the heart of Niolo. Rauschenburg had given the French the slip, but he had been effectively taken off the board for the time being. The mountaineers would be unable to render any assistance to the royal army in central Corsica. With this threat removed, Lieutenant-General Lautrec now felt confident enough to resume his southwards advance. Some of Montrosier's companies were reunited with the main force, along with further reinforcements from the northeast, bringing his force to approximately 2,800 foot and 100 horse. On April 22nd, twelve days after the Battle of Pietralba, the French army marched forth from its camp once more.
Fabiani once more led the Corsican army to face the threat. This time, however, King Theodore joined him, udnerstanding that this engagement was no less critical than Ponte Novu. If Ponte Leccia fell, there would be little to stop the French from reaching Corti, which was no more than a two day march further south. The Corsican army arrayed itself alongside the river Asco, across a half-mile gap between the mountains on either side. It was a well-considered defensive position which guarded against any flanking maneuvers, but it nevertheless required the Corsicans to hold their ground against a larger French force across an open field and drive them from it, a feat which they had never before accomplished. The odds against them were even worse than at Pietralba, for while French strength had grown the rebels had diminished. While hundreds of militiamen did come to the king's call, support from Rostino was anemic, and Castinetta himself failed to show up despite earlier promises. All told, the Corsicans had only around 1,800 men against nearly 3,000 French soldiers.
Approaching the gap required the French to cross the Asco. Fed by snowmelt from the high mountains, river was shallow enough to wade through but freezing cold. Theodore, recognizing that his army was at a serious disadvantage, directed Fabiani to use this crossing against the French. It was not enough to simply occupy the bank; the French could cross further up, and by way of Piedigriggio bypass the Corsican position entirely, provided they had sufficient knowledge of the local terrain. The king instead thought to lure the French across by positioning his army some distance back from the river. As the French were crossing, he would order an attack, catch the French off-guard, and turn them back in confusion.
As expected, the French began their crossing just after noon on the 22nd, and as ordered the Corsicans rushed forth to meet them. The Corsicans, however, were too far back, or perhaps the timing was botched; charging at the stream, they were dismayed to find that the first line of French soldiers was already lined up or very nearly so, and the French infantry was able to get off a largely coherent volley as they approached. The Corsicans turned out to be more disordered from their charge than the French were from the crossing. Some, warned off by the solid line of white coats and their volley of musketry, broke off the advance to fall back or return fire; others drove home the charge and fought fiercely, but were already winded from the long run over the field and were soon overwhelmed by ever-growing numbers of French infantry. When this chaotic attack failed to break the French, the Corsicans recoiled, and there was a general panic. Next the trumpets sounded on the French right as the hussars drove their horses across the river. It was the death knell of the royal army. In short order the whole royalist force collapsed.[A]
It was a crushing defeat. The hussars, though few in number, slaughtered men in droves. Hundreds threw down their arms and were taken prisoner. Those that escaped did so by scattering up into the hills, where there was some skirmishing after the main battle was over, or by reaching the bridge of Ponte Leccia a mile away where a reserve company of the Guard had been stationed. King Theodore escaped, as did General Fabiani despite being shot in the arm. Colonel Giannoni and Lieutenant-Colonel Silvestre Colombani also escaped, but Colonel Giuseppe was captured. Fabiani, despite being wounded, managed to rally a few hundred fleeing men at the bridge. Yet he knew that he could not hold it, and in any case the crossing at Ponte Leccia was easily bypassed. A guard of forty men, both foreigners and Corsicans, volunteered to remain as a rearguard, while Fabiani and the king rode southwards towards Corti. This small force held back a French battalion for two hours, finally surrendering when half their men were dead or wounded.
The carefully maintained coalition of Corsican royalists quickly began to unravel. Colonel Giannoni, who had run into Fabiani during the retreat, informed the general that he was going to Rostino to raise men for the defense of the kingdom. He did indeed go to Rostino, but made no further attempt at resistance and capitulated as soon as the French arrived. On the day after the battle, the French occupied Morosaglia, Piedigriggio, and Ponte Novu, which in turn cleared the way for the advance of French forces on the eastern coast into the interior. The Rostino, formerly a hotbed of resistance, was quickly pacified, with all the alleged "Good Friday" plotters surrendering themselves to the French. Although a large part of the Castagniccia was still in active revolt, the province was nearly encircled.
Having returned to Corti, Theodore and his ministers grappled with what had to be done in the wake of such a disaster. Much of the "regular army," which had only been in existence for a few months, was either killed, wounded, captured, or deserted; Fabiani estimated he had no more than 500 men left from all regiments, plus whatever local militia was still willing to fight. He recommended defending Omessa, a village at a chokepoint on the upper Golo valley six miles from Corti, but this was merely a delaying tactic. Corti itself could be defended, but its food stores were not great, and as it was essentially a medieval fortress it would not stand long once the French brought artillery to bear. Fabiani, Gaffori, Giappiconi, Colombani, Lieutenant-Colonel Drevitz, and Viscount Kilmallock pledged their loyalty to the king and promised to do all they could, but Costa and Theodore's secretary Richard Denis agreed that the mood was grim. None expected to win, and many expected to die.
The Citadel of Corti
All agreed that Theodore needed to leave. When it was suggested to him, Theodore initially refused to leave his capital—or at least went through the motions of protest—but eventually gave in to the entreaties of his generals. He would, he said, relocate to a safer locale to assuage their concerns for his person, but he assured them that he had no intention of leaving Corsica as long as his subjects still fought for him and their freedom. With respect to where he would go, it was agreed that a retreat down the Tavignano would be pointless; with Aleria still in Genoese hands, he would likely be captured. The only option was to escape over the mountains, going by way of Venaco up the valley of the Vecchio. The easiest pass was that of Vizzavona, which allowed a descent into the valley of the Gravona leading all the way to Ajaccio. That, however, was the domain of Marquis Luca d'Ornano, and Theodore's ministers were unsure if his loyalty would withstand the shock of the loss at Ponte Leccia. Gaffori urged the king not to place himself in the hands of the marquis, who he suspected would sell him to the French. The court concluded that it would be better if the king were to travel to Ghisoni and over the Pass of Verdi, which led into the valley of the Taravo. In that direction was Zicavo, where it was believed Theodore would be safe.
Having accepted this course of action, Theodore then declared that his ministers were released from their oaths. If they capitulated to the French to preserve themselves and their families, he said, he would never hold it against them, nor consider them anything less than perfectly faithful. There was then a sorrowful farewell, with, as Costa wrote, "tears shed as much for the fate of their beloved country as for a regretful parting from dear comrades." There was no time for a drawn-out goodbye, however, as much still had to be done, and the French were on the move.
Just as he had released his cabinet of their oaths, he did the same for his troops. Some indeed abandoned the army and returned to their homes or surrendered to the French. Many, however, chose to remain with the king. Even some eighty men of the Foreign Regiment stayed on—some were deserters who feared for their necks if they fell into the hands of the French or Genoese, but others were legitimately dedicated to the king and refused to abandon him. It was a testament to his personal charisma that even in the face of total defeat, the king was able to set out from Corti with a volunteer regiment of nearly 300 soldiers. Before leaving, they gathered all the donkeys and mules that were ready for travel and burdened them with muskets, pistols, gunpowder, bullets, and other military supplies; it was as much a supply caravan as it was a regiment. Cannon, however, was quite out of the question. To take even a few guns over the mountains was a major undertaking which the royalists did not now have the time or resources to attempt. The most valuable part of the syndicate fleet's cargo would have to remain in Corti, where it would likely fall to the French. That could not be helped, but to avoid the French having the use of potentially valuable pack animals, all the beasts of burden in Corti that were not taken by Theodore's men were slaughtered.
The French encountered only sporadic resistance on the march south. Fabiani's men, who must have numbered fewer than two hundred, held back an attack at Omessa as promised, but he only managed to delay the French by a day before being forced to flee. On the 27th of April, five days after the Battle of Ponte Leccia, a French column under the Comte de Montmorency approached Corti. As the French drew near the town, however, they saw the Moor's Head flying defiantly from the citadel, and soon they were warned off by cannon-fire. Montmorency sent a party under a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the town. Count Gaffori appeared at the gate and gave his reply: He had no quarrel with the King of France or his officers, but Corti belonged to His Majesty the King of Corsica, and as podesta of Corti and Major-General in His Majesty's army he was obliged to defend the castle as long as he was able. If the French insisted upon its capture, he would have no choice but to oppose them with force.
The Situation at the End of April 1740
Blue: Franco-Genoese
Red: Genoese
Green: Royalist
White: Unknown or neutral
Footnotes
[1] He was presumably referring to the first engagement of Pietralba, when Giannoni and the Rostino militia were put to flight by the French (an engagement which Giuseppe was late for), and the second when the royalist right gave way after the death of Lt. Col. Giudicelli, Giuseppe's second-in-command.
Timeline Notes
[A] What did you think this was, a Corsica-wank?
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Isaac Beach
Banned
So I suppose this is ultimately coming down to the wire of when the WoAS breaks out? It seems impossible (though I hesitate to use that word on this site of all places) for the Corsicans to recover without the French being distracted by a much greater threat. Kind of disappointed that rush at the river didn't work, it seems like it would have made for an intense engagement had the Corsicans better timed their attack.
It seems this may be the darkest hour of the rebellion. I hope enough Victory points remain uncapped and dissent isn't too high.
Oh no this was certainly a let down! I am genuinely sorry for Corsica...
But, after Quaresima, Pasqua comes!
But, after Quaresima, Pasqua comes!
Ach, poor Teddy.
Still the outbreak of the WoAS might just save him and his crown.
Still the outbreak of the WoAS might just save him and his crown.
Well that was certainly an unmitigated disaster for Corsica. Hopefully Corti can hold out for several weeks or even a few months to at least buy some time, but as you said its a Medieval Castle going up against 18th Century artillery. At this point one has got to hope for a miracle for Theodore, because it doesn't look good right now.
