Novus Rex Romanorum - Latin Empire TL

Interim - State of the Balkans in 1205

Bulgaria (Moesia)
Bulgaria is quite stable in 1205 but is starting to recede economically with the expensive war with the Latins

Epirus
Epirus is unstable and is ridden with treachery and betrayal as Manuel I Komnenos Doukas takes control of the region. It has a large standing army which was able to expel the Latin intrusion by Baldwin of Flanders.

Makedonia
Makedonia is under a Latin-Bulgarian dispute as the Bulgarians hold small armies that control most of Makedonia but it is de jure Latin territory.

Thrace
Thrace is a rich and stable territory but was heavily pillaged in the 4th Crusade making it currently poor but is returning to its wealthy state rapidly.

Anatolia
Anatolia is currently peaceful and the border between the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm and Latin Románia is hostile but try to keep peaceful relations for the sake of both of their economies. Trebizond in the north east of the region is under the control of the Council of Trabzon which seeks to place Alexios Komnenos as the head of Trebizond.

Thessaly
Thessaly is recovering from Bulgarian incursions but was mostly spared the pillaging that Makedonia and Hellas received.

Aegean Islands
The Aegean is undisputed territory of Venice and is under the provisional government of Enrico Dandolo, which is stable and is one of the richest regions in Románia (after Thrace was displaced by the 4th Crusade).

Hellas
Hellas is disputed between Latin and Bulgarian forces while the Moreans hold the Isthmus of Corinth. The Bulgarian Tsar Kayolan has been cornered in Attica and has set up a provisional Duchy of Athens with his son Vitleem at its head.

Morea
Morea is controlled by Andronikos I Doukas Komnenos Palaiologos, who currently holds an alliance with the Bulgarians so he can gain control of Hellas. Morea is the richest area in mainland Greece in 1204 and it is centred upon the city of Mystras (near ancient Sparta).

romania 1205.PNG
 
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Part #7: Peace at Last

Chapter I, Part VII

By the time Boniface had planned an attack, the Bulgarians had established control of all of Attica and Eobea. Kayolan had proclaimed his son the Duke of Athens and was prepared to call an offensive on Thebes but was cut short with the first phase of the invasion of Attica, with the landing of Venetian forces in Eoboea which attracted the Tsar and his main army to combat the landing force. In this short period of fighting, Boniface and his army quickly raced to siege Athens and begun to reclaim villages in Attica. The Tsars son, Vitleem with his army of 2,000 charged on the siege camp on the 26th of March and was horribly defeated, forcing him and his soldiers to retreat to his fathers fort in Eoboea. Kayolan heard of the massive losses in Attica and returned to Athens early May with only small success in Eoboea. The Bulgarians skirmished with the Latin forces for over a month before the Bulgarians finally assured dominance over Attica with the successful Assault of Thebes in mid June.

With the fall of Thebes, the Latins were forced to fight a doubly massive force in Hellas, which they could not handle. The Latins returned to Larissa and pooled in most of the troops in the empire and recruited former Roman soldiers. This combined force was not as big as the Bulgo-Morean allied force but could hold them off, which they did for a matter of weeks until Boniface was forced into a peace treaty, handing over Thebes to the Moreans, Northern Makedonia, the rest of Boetica, Attica and Eobea to the Bulgarians, in which they were proclaimed the Tsars of Bulgaria and Athenais. This treaty was painful for the Emperor and the Venetians to accept, but Doge Enrico Dandolo promised himself that the lands of Hellas would return to Roman rule. But this promise could not be fulfilled, as Enrico died of a heart attack on the 16th of July 1205.
 
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Part #8: Rise of the Latinokratia

Chapter I, Part VIII

On hearing of the loss of Attica and Boetica, most Western leaders saw the newly founded Crusader state a complete utter failure, and foresaw a future where it would never see the light of power again. However, the Papal States saw this as a way to intervene with the Turks and push them out of former Christian lands and so sent money from the Popes tax to the Emperor of Constantinople, hoping to sway him towards an Anatolian Crusade. The reality was, the state was in no shape to fight a war. Emperor Boniface had decided to shape the internal poltics of his state by granting nobles land. He granted Renier de Trit the Duchy of Nikaea, Geoffrey of Villehardouin the Duchy of Adrianople, Conon de Béthune the Duchy of Makedonia, Othon de la Roche the Duchy of Thessaly and William of Champlitte the Duchy of Hellas. The Duchy of the Aegean Islands was granted to Baldwin of Flanders who swore alliegance to the Venetians instead of Boniface. The Venetians claimed only Crete as their territory in Greece.

The Venetians had heard of the Empire of Trebizond, a newly proclaimed state under Alexios I Komnenos, who had set his sites on reclaiming the trade routes from the Venetian monopolists. Enrico persuaded Boniface to launch a raid on the small state to deter them from attack and Boniface agreed to it. From Constantinople they set out in September and raided the coast of the Crimea and Trebizond for over 2 months until the Venetian ships had to return home for supplies and repairs. Boniface truly didn't care about the Trebizondian petty empire but more about the Bulgarian Duchy of Athens, and its key territories that Boniface needed if he were to conquer Morea.
 
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Part #9: Invaders of Anatolia

Chapter I, Part IX

The armies of Latin Emperor Boniface of Montferrat had be all but quiet since the treaty at Larissa and were intent on staying that way. But in late December 1205, the armies of Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan I of Rum attacked the city of Smryna on the Asia Minor coast. The Turks had not suprised the Latin garrison but were not powerful enough to hold off the attack and on the 2nd of Janruary 1206, the city fell the Turkish menance. A Crusader army from the Aegean headed by Baldwin of Flanders quickly attacked the Seljuk army with the help of the remaining Venetian navy (the part that had not returned to Venice to resupply). The Duke was able to hold out a northerly advance but another Seljuk army, numbering over 8,000 bluntly attacked Nicaea, raiding and pillaging the land before they arrived at Nicomedia, where they were confronted by Boniface and his allied forces from Thrace. The Seljuks were content and still decided to attack, which ended in failure as the Latins were able to flank them and destroy their main infantry grouping, around 3,000 men. This force was obliterated and forced the Sultan and his remaining troops to flee and disperse back to Ankara, where reinforcements awaited them.

The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum was in shock of the Sultans loss at the Battle of Nicomedia and declared him unfit for ruling, and thus his relatives, his contenders, rose up across Anatolia attempting to steal the throne. This forced Kilij to declare a de facto peace with Boniface, leaving Roman territory in early February. The Sultanate quickly fell into a civil war, which that Boniface did not want to intervene. He then travelled by ship to the court of Duke Vitleem of Athens and demanded that he swear allegiance to the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Vitleem declined the offer, stating "I'd rather fall to the Turk than swear allegdience to some Latin scum". Boniface was outraged and started to plan invasion of the territory, while Kayolan tried to diplomatically persuade him to give up his claims, which he wasn't going to do so lightly. Romans would not be dealt with diplomatically, they would give in dead on the battlefield.
 
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I am going change the pace of this timeline into a shorter format in which I can get 2-5 years done in a single post. Hope you like the start of Chapter 2.

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Chapter #2: Revenge of Románia

Part #1: Dimming of the Bulgarian Blaze

Chapter II, Part I

Boniface had begun to prepare his armies in Hellas for an invasion of Attica. The Venetians had sailed to Thessalonica and prepared a land invasion of Bulgarian Makedonia with the support of Geoffrey of Villehardouin. Conon de Béthune and the army of Constantinople prepared to defend Thrace. All was in set. On the 5th of September 1206, the assault on Bulgaria begun. The support of Venetian soldiers was gratefully accepted and allowing for a quick reclaiming if the Makeodnian lands throughout October and November 1206. The invasion of Attica took much longer and took up almost half the standing manpower of the empire to finally defeat the Morean supporters at Cornith in late December, finally expelling them from the mainland. The army of Prince Vitleem, Duke of Athens and army of Boniface of Montferrat, Emperor of Constantinople collided on the 12th of May for a final time at Bulgarian fortress outside Athens where both the armies suffered large losses but were finally able to be defeated and forced to sail across the small channel to Morea, where the defeated Despot of Morea, Andronikos I, was injured from the battle and retired back to Mystras, abandoning the campaign and leaving the Bulgarian remnants settling in Napflio where they retired for the rest of the war.

The armies in Thrace needed with a different story, the Bulgarians had unsuccessfully sieged Constantinople and Kayolan had fled back to Sofia. The Bulgarian Tsar quickly was surronded by two armies on his way back, while resting in Philippolis (under Bulgarian suzerainty since the Fall of Constantinople).He was forced out of the city and dragged to the camp of Duke Geoffrey of Adrianople on the 19th of July 1207, where he was forced into a peace treaty where the Bulgarians would pay the Emperor half his treasury and their territories in Makedonia and Athens. Vitleem continued to claim the Duchy of Athens as his and established a exiled government in Napflio under the supervision of Despot Andronikos. The Venetians were paid a large sum of money for their contributions of soldiers and ships in the Aegean, and declared the Latin Empire as "a true ally of Venice". This would echo throughout the ages and sent a Venetians to support the great Empire in its most dire situations.
 
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Part #2: Intervention in Rūm

Chapter II, Part II

The Emperor had quickly returned to Constantinople after the treaty was signed by Kayolan and dismissed the Bulgarians for the time being. The Turkish civil war was in full swing and some military leaders had declared independence from the ruined state, including the newly established Emir Keykaus of Antalya (OTL Sultan 1211-1220). The Emperor took the chance and decided to quickly march south to Antalya and assaulted the city in late September 1207. The Emir held up a fight and fighting ensued until the fall of Antalya in January 1208. The mosques were burnt down in the city and all Islamic artefacts were destroyed, with the attempt to cleanse the city of the Sacaren influence. The Emirate still continued from Keykaus' fort located near the city of Denzili until it's destruction by another Seljuk contender, Keykaus brother, Keykubat, the self declared Sultan of Konya in May 1208. The Sultanate of Konya attacked Boniface and his army in Antayla and were just able to defeat Keykubat due to their attack plans being unsuitable for the ground they were fighting on. The Sultan of Konya abandoned any attempts to reclaim Antayla and decide to move eastward to contend with a rogue general in Ankara.

The Emperor was pleased with his efforts and left Antayla with a garrison, before travelling north to Nicaea and joining with the army of Duke Geoffrey which had came over from Thrace hearing of the attack on Antayla. The two leaders set out for Ankara in pursuit of gaining the city for the empire. The armies attacked a small Turkish brigade outside of Ankara on the 2nd of October and were utterly defeated by another Turkish army attacking from Konya. The army was dissipated, but luckily the core of the army and their two leaders survived, and fled to the border city of Amorion which had been occupied by the Seljuks since the fall of Nicaea to the Latins. As rightful territory the cities rebellious Turkish garrison was quelled and the two tired generals planned a counter to the Turks, as Keykubats Sultanate was sure to come out the victors. Boniface plead for mercy in the hands of God.
 
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Part #3: On the Defense

Chapter II, Part III

Duke Geoffrey of Adrianople and Emperor Boniface of the Roman Empire stood strong at the walls of Amorion as the armies of Sultan Keykubat sieged the city. The two leaders fought a seemingly endless battle lasting for weeks on end, but the walls held, and on the 19th of December 1208, the Latin army sallied force, not attaining a victory but a close defeat. The ensuing battle lasted for as long as the siege itself, finally ending with a Pyrrhic victory for the Turks. The Turkish losses had been far too great and were forced to withdraw their only army from the central western borderland, allowing the arriving Latin armies from the west to seize the region and develop strong defense on their new de facto border.

During early 1209 Keykubats generals gained many victories against the Latins in the east, but all the same lost too many men in these battles to sustain a true victory. By the 27th of May Keykubat had sent a diplomat to Amorion asking for ceasefire with the Latins. Boniface had already lost much of his ground in central Asia Minor and sent back a counter-treaty asking for the relinquishing of all territory west of the originally planned Amorion line, allowing the Latins to expand nearly all the way to Ankara, their original target during the conflict. The Turks did not agree to the counter-treaty but instead proposed an altered Amorion line which allowed for the people Ankara to have breathing space between them and the enroaching Roman armies. Boniface actually agreed to this and a 10 year no-exceptions peace treaty.

With the peace established the Geoffrey and the Thracian forces headed back to Adrianople to defend the Bulgarian border which had surprisingly had no conflict in the previous year. The new Doge of Venice Pietro Ziani had arrived in Constantinople for poltical talks with Boniface. Pietro proposed interventions in the anarchy-like chaos in Epirus, with the Venetians having an upper-hand in an attack, controlling the Aegean waters and having a strong enough military to land and seize coastal cities. Boniface also proposed to invade Trebizond, as it had next to none in a developed government and the army was disorganised. Deciding to start with Trebizond, Pietro and his navy set out to the Crimea to bombard the coastal cities of Cherson and Theodosia, ending in Boniface calling for an all out invasion of the Crimea. Cherson was quickly set upon by the Venetian forces and was seized, with much of the population attempting to fight off the Venetians.

Renier de Trit, Duke of Makedonia and the head of the Latin invasion force, deciding he and his army unable to make a quick success with their current numbers, made a deal with the heads of the Crimean Goths to fight against the Greek inhabitants of the cities of the Crimea. Boniface along with 200 of his most skilled knights and a 2,000 strong army landed in the city in early September, riding with the Goths to Theodosia. The siege of Theodosia took far longer, with the city actually being prepared for an attack. The siege took about half a year, from late October to early April, ending with a supreme victory for Pietro and Boniface. Venice was granted the port city of Cherson for the purpose of trade monopoly with the Romans allowed to keep Theodosia, also an important port. The council of Trebizond had sent out diplomats to legalise John Komnenos as "Emperor of Rome", wanting to reimburse the glory of the Komnenos family. Boniface had a mighty opponent, who could tear his country from the inside out. It was only a matter of time before they struck back.
 
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Part #4: Contender to the Throne

Chapter II, Part IV

Emperor Bonifaces' victory in Crimea was a short lived one, as soon enough, John Komnenos staged a full scale attack on Nikaea in May 1210. Duke Geoffrey had be aware of Johns intentions and prepared defensive units along the borderlands near the city of Sinop. It was not known what happened during the next two days as the records of it were destroyed, but it is known that the Latin regiments were slaughtered and Sinop burnt to the ground, presumably within the fighting between Renier and John. On the 12th of June, Geoffrey returned to Nikaea, wounded from the fighting, and dressed in a peasants disguise to escape Johns forces. Geoffrey was unable to recover from his injuries, and passed away a week later, leaving the duchy open for a new ruler. Boniface suggested to grant it to Henry of Flanders, but most of the other Latin nobility disagreed with his plans, as he had become a Venetian puppet who could turn on the Empire. Eventually Bonifaces son, William of Montferrat was elected Duke of Nikaea.

Before long Nikaea was consumed in flames like Sinop before it, with John affirming control over the east of Asia Minor. The armies of Boniface, combined with the forces of Baldwin of Flanders and Renier de Trit, was able to hold a defensive line between Troas and Constantinople. This line left Smyrna undefended which fell to an onslaught of enemy attacks. The majority of the citizens in Roman Asia Minor now supported John Komnenos as the Emperor. Boniface was unprepared for the Restless Night of late 1210 when the Greek regiments in his army turned on him and turned the campsites of the Roman armies in battlegrounds. With his entire army infighting, Boniface and his close generals rallied back to the Hellespont and joined the navy in the blockade of Komnenid attacks from the south. The Venetian navy was powerful but could not deter the Greeks, as they had reinstated use of nearly forgotten Greek Fire. This weapon allowed them to be almost even to the Venetians, forcing them into a much longer battle than expected.

TBC
 
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