"Were it that I was able to be there myself, and lead the van' against the enemies of Christ, and you. Alas, that is not to be, for now; the duties of my own realm keep me rooted here, unpleasant as they may be.
Stand strong, my dear brother; the Almighty is watching, and I'm sure, in your favour,"
- Excerpt from a letter of Edward, the Black Prince, to the Emperor John V, c. 1375
1374 to 1375
On the offensive again come February, and having mustered around 16,000 men, John V would, alongside Khader and John Artemiou (who he had created Duke of Nicaea, considering the passing of his brother Nikephoros, and his heroics), lead a number of sorties into central Aydin; being met with several Ottoman irregulars, as Murad had resorted to public calls of 'ghazw' against Aydin, and the Roman lands, in order to cause mayhem while he mustered a rebuilding of his army.
The Ottomans hadn't been able to hold onto Efes under these conditions; with Murad effectively pulling out his entire garrison and leaving a skeleton guard--come March the Romans had retaken it for Aydin, and from there started counterattacking the irregulars gradually--pushing them further, and further, out of Aydinid territory.
It would take another month before the raids ceased into Aydin--but only because they now battered Roman lands; forcing John V to detach his forces from Khader's, and leave behind the Aydinid Bey to handle his own lands for a bit, in order to see off the raiders.
Thankfully, the garrisons of the Duchy had held--even if the lands around had been ravaged; forcing farmers, herdsmen and akin to flee to fortified positions again for the first time in decades. It was a sight the Emperor found disgusting--wrong, and in retaliation, he quickly led his forces deeper into the West Anatolian lands of the Ottomans; taking a number of lesser forts, and pushing the border further east, before being stopped firmly at Kotyaion in April.
Across Europe, and Africa, around this time the Death would remerge, and amongst those worst affected were the Mamluks of Egypt, and the lands of France contested between the English and French--the latter? Unfavourably for the English.
News reached John in late April that Trebizond had begun raiding the Ottoman lands in the vicinity of Amisos, and then later Kamacha, under the orders of Alexios III Megas Komnenos; the Emperor having seen an opportunity, and having Georgian backing.
This had been a key distraction of Murad's, and by the time he forced those of Trebizond to flee back through the 'Pontic Gates', John had developed a much stronger position than the Ottoman Sultan had intended.
He had wished for a quick, decisive, victory--and had been robbed of that by a hair's breadth; he intended to finish the job.
No less than a dozen inconsistent clashes met, and broke, over the environs of Prusa, and Nicaea--as Aydinid raids deep into Ottoman territory wrought havoc with their supplies. In retaliation, Murad himself led a raid that stabbed the very coastline of the Propontis, from which he arrogantly took a flask of water on the return back to his lands.
Finally, a decisive battle took place in the Meander Valley come June, as Murad led a force of 20,000 deep into Aydin and once more put it to the sword; killing Khader's last remaining son in a pitched battle prior.
John and Khader rode to meet Murad, and the battle was bloody; the Emperor being badly wounded as an Ottoman rider nearly disembowelled him with a lance blow that killed his horse. Khader was forced to take charge while John V regrouped; with Duke John leading a massive breakout effort that punched through a growing Ottoman encirclement as night began to settle.
Finally, however, the Romans were able to force Murad to retreat come the following morning, as news that the Mamluks were kicking around his southern border forced the Sultan's hand.
Picking back up the pieces, the Emperor left Duke John in charge of the Roman forces; retiring to Philadelphia for a time to heal, and recoup, before returning to the front in late July with several raids into the periphery of Ottoman Pisidia--which Murad responded to by sending a brutal force of radical ghazi's under his new de facto heir Bayezid; routing the Roman raiding force.
An uneasy calm settled over the battlefield for less than a month, as Bayezid then came like thunder over the hills and mountains; badly mauling the Aydinid forces, and killing Khader in a massive battle in the environs of Denizli, which he quickly put to siege once equipment arrived.
Hearing from Khader's surviving lieutenant, and the last male Aydinid, the now-dead Bey's nephew Selim, John rallied his forces and punched through several attacks by ghazi's to reach Bayezid's siege come August.
The terrain of Denizli, hilly and full of wild game, meant that the battle ended up broken into several skirmishes that dragged on over a full week--and by the time a pitched battle commenced, which the Romans narrowly won, Bayezid had torn down a large section of Denizli's walls; insultingly tossing bricks at the Romans as he departed with his surviving troops.
The Romans had been too exhausted to chase after him.
In letters written to Manuel by his father, the Emperor was quite open with his disdain for the Ottomans--proclaiming, "They don't even wish victory through conquest, only to trouble us as punishment for surviving them,"
Constantinople, which had been a slowly growing flurry of activity, was once again silenced when Plague burned through the city; undoing a number of the rebuilding efforts enacted by John, and Manuel--only to peter out just as quickly, once it had had its fill of death.
Manuel, who had been focused on supplying his father men and material, now had to work to stitch back together the city wherever tears had occurred; the Plague having claimed Basil of Lesbos, and left the Imperial Fleet without a leader.
October had seen the Ottomans launch the first of their Mediterranean ships from former Teke lands; causing havoc for all the polities involved--including the Hospitallers, as attempts to drive off the Ottoman corsairs had seen their own fleet crushed along the coasts of Myra in early November.
In Aquitaine, the Black Prince would be forced to depart from the lands he'd called his home for decades--as the Plague killed any it pleased in France, and he could not risk his own family there; leaving for England.
As he departed he swore to himself he'd return, although it would end up being under quite different circumstances.
December, and thus winter, set in; forcing an end to much of the hostilities in Anatolia. John found enough time then to return to Constantinople and have a quiet, and rather sombre, Christmas--before finally being forced to return after news of renewed raids by Murad into Bithynia came to Constantinople.
At the same time, the Black Prince was unravelling a large, tangled, web of sales, and downright thefts by a singular woman; Alice Perrers--the mistress of his, by now, ailing father.
Perrers had eased her way into Edward III's company in the aftermath of the death of his wife, Philippa of Hainault; the beloved, and active, Queen of England, in 1369. While at first a quiet affair, as Edward grew yet older and more infirm, she became more open in her cunning; convincing the King to afford her, on her own merit and thus not even reclaimable with ease by the Crown, several properties, incomes, and more.
When the Prince of Wales had returned to England, and found this out, it was needless to say he was quite livid--finding the general manner of the country agreeing with him.
Parliament had been on the verge of demanding her removal from the court, and the Black Prince--having long grown to dislike the growing power, and arrogance, of the Parliament, especially that of the Commons, due to their control over the taxes of the Crown (which had caused him no end of grief in the Aquitanian equivalent, thus necessitating Roman aid), would listen to the advice of his wife Maria, and play politics.
Presenting himself as unlikely to aid them, the Prince was able to gather a concession of increased powers over incomes in both Wales, and Cornwall, from Parliament [1], and in turn he would see to it that Perrers, who he had planned to deal with anyway, was banished from court.
Thereafter, while maintaining magnanimity despite his utter disgust at sullying his mother's memory, the Black Prince would still leave Perrers in possession of at least some of her estates upon her banishment in March.
Not long thereafter, the Black Prince would lull Parliament into naming him Regent in his father's name, as the by-now impotent, and unwilling, Edward III refused to govern now that his mistress had been ejected.
Many considered it a sad end to such a great, chivalric, King--many, including the Black Prince, pointing to the death of the Queen as the catalyst.
Things were effectively dashed in France however; the Plague, which the Prince of Wales and his family had thus so barely avoided, had destroyed the citizens and soldiers of Aquitaine, and from there Charles V of France would reclaim effectively all of France save the coastal possessions of the Plantagenets by late April; forcing the English to the table at the Treaty of Bruges.
Brittany, which had done well to cast away French incursions, was able to once more be confirmed as de facto independent, while the English were forced to concede to Charles his conquests--for now; the treaty for a single year, but would later be increased to continue into 1377.
What was left to the Black Prince now was to put right the various mismanagements of the corelands of England--and in this, he would renounce Aquitaine, what was left of it, to his brother John of Gaunt; both to firmly remove him from the politics of the Isle and to give the man something to govern himself in a bid to perhaps sate his need for something of his own.
John would, of course, begin to use Bordeaux as a nexus from which he planned to claim Castile--it mattered little to the Black Prince, who was simply glad to have him focused elsewhere.
The Prince of Wales was of course bitter about everything to do with this, as little as his brother mattered, after spending his entire youth fighting for those lands, and raising his boys there for much of their life thus far alongside his wife; but he put the needs of his own dynasty above that, and thus focused on the Isle.
To the Romans however, the year had been nothing but the same as a whole; inconsequential, back-and-forth, fighting--gains had been made, but the Turks simply continued to bypass fortresses and armies, to raid.
Only three times would John be able to bring them to a pitched battle, each harder than the last as the Aydinid Beylik gradually disintegrated without a real claimant (Selim having refused, and instead focused on aiding the Romans at sea against the Ottomans).
Finally, however, John pinned Murad down for a fourth, and final, confrontation in the lands of Phrygia; roughly 13,000 Romans, facing 16,000 or so Turks. The battle took place in August 1375.
By the end Murad had lost another son, Yakub Celebi, to Roman arrows--and had to be pulled away, frothing with rage, by his son Bayezid.
Both armies were thoroughly broken; 3/4's of both had died, and many important commanders and aristocrats on both sides had gone with them--including as many as 11 Knights of the Golden Fleece.
The Emperor had collapsed from exhaustion in the aftermath--the battle inconclusive in the end; having to be carried away at Duke John's order as the war effectively came to an end.
Having calmed from his rage in the weeks after, Murad would send terms to John V; status quo ante bellum--the Romans would keep the lands they'd taken from the Ottomans, the Ottomans would keep all the loot and slaves they'd taken.
It was to be a 5-year truce, but would later continue to be extended well past that.
Aydin was gone in all but name, and in organising the marriage of Khader's only daughter to Duke John, who converted to Christianity when becoming the bride, the Emperor annexed Aydin into the Empire in November of 1375.
Selim would too convert, taking on the Romaic 'rename' of Selimos Aidinoglou; being named as the new Megas Doux, and Lord of the Isles, to replace the deceased Basil of Lesbos. Selimos would bring with him the Aydin fleet, and markedly enlarge that of the Imperial one with it.
It would not be inaccurate to say that the Romans had paid with their army to in turn enlarge their fleet.
Only the environs of Smyrna emerged intact within what had once been Aydin--all the rest was ruined and would be a burden until they were brought back to form. In this, the Meander Valley was added to the Roman Empire too--adding a fertile region that would in time pay dividends.
In many ways the Romans had won the war with Murad--but in others? None could deny the fact that Murad had succeeded in at least effectively neutering the Roman field army--something that would take time to rebuild, and keep the Romans from doing to him what they'd done to the Balkans.
In the grand scheme of things, both John and Murad knew that the Ottomans would recover more quickly--but that would be a problem for later.
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[1] This would start a growing trend, as the English Monarchy would begin to seek politically cunning avenues through which to limit the hold Parliament had on them. Seeking amendments to income rights over their own direct demesne, the Monarchy would gradually be able to develop an income that would give them more leeway when it came to financing their ventures, rather than scrape and bow towards Parliament for needed money. Often portraying this as an increase in their natural power as aristocrats of their own lands, the Monarchy would regularly be able to rally the similarly aristocratic House of Lords (although it wouldn't be known as this until the 1500s) in their favour against the 'overreaching Commons'.