galileo-034 mentions different succession meaning that maybe Andronikos III doesn't die so young due to sudden illness. Or even he marries with a Vatatzes in the civil war to secure an alliance with the Despotate. Indeed there can be a lot of changes ITTL like maybe he doesn't even kill his brother in an accident and his father survives. That alone changes the dynamics in the Roman Empire. It all remains to be seen when we get there in TTL.
The eagle's left head
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
Technically, the Vatatzes took over Sicily after the Council of Lyons "unified" the churches, so would not be considered schismatic.
Well we both know that if the barons want to think you are a heretic then you most likely will be considered one. Indeed technically the Despotate is under the Pope's jurisdiction but they use those damn orthodox rituals like heretics. Also they empower the peasants which arguably is even more condemning from a Latin noble point of view.
We are not getting "something resembling drill" if in OTL Maurice of Nassau was making use of Byzantine military manuals why Philanthropenos would be doing anything less? After all he was raised in the post-Komnenian military tradition.
Philanthropenos might have been "Belissarius of the Palaiologan era" but Philip of Macedon he was not. On the other hand copying his Catalan mercenaries under the circumstances he found himself seems very much logical. Since it worked going from "pike wielding warrior" to "drilled pike wielding soldier" seems... well obvious
One might question how many survived after getting Halmyros on steroids 3 years early. After all the Greek peasantry will be SO accommodating of stragglers...
The Catalans are a different beast. Venice now has multiple reasons to get spooked. The Hospitalers, the Catalans, the Sicilians... who should they get spooked about more?
First you need to take the acro-Corinth which isn't the easiest of things in the world.
Well after his exiled nephew has just massacred the flower of Latin Greek knighthood Andronikos won't be exactly complaining if his epitropos grabs some land that otherwise would be falling in the hands of Vatatzes...
"Come and take it" sounds for some reason about right for a general running shop from Sparta does it not?
Alexandros was inheriting both the Lascarid and the Hohenstauffen centralization proclivities, mid 13th century Sicily was Europe's most centralized state after all. This has it's own failure modes and disadvantages but at the moment when you have in effect his sons waging a war against a hated foreign ruling class and coopting a revolution against said ruling class...
That tidbit about Maurice sounds interesting. Do you have any more info?
That Maurice introduced classical concepts to the armies of his time is pretty widely known of course. His reading material included Leo's Taktika, Aelianus and Vegetius.
It does ^^."Come and take it" sounds for some reason about right for a general running shop from Sparta does it not?
Wrong wording on my part. In my mind, that would be more like Ioannis telling Andronikos "hey, that's my wife's land, so I need it back. No? Oh sorry, my ships which were going to relieve Rhodes need some refitting first ..."
When it comes to Argos and Nafplio there might be a compromise between Syracuse and Mystras. The young Ioannis Kantakouzenos might hold these fiefs in the name of Ioannis Vatatzes. Somehow I don't see the Despotate that has spent much of its treasure to claim Morea, leaving the rich argolic plain to an opportunistic land grab. The good relationship between Young Kantakouzenos and Theodore also help.
When it comes to the Duchy of Athens, I can think of the following cases:
- The barons realize they lack a field army and the rapacious Catalans are coming to replace them as the rulling elite. They take up Vatatzes' previous offer.
- Vatatzes uses the Catalans to subdue the Duchy, distributes lands to them across his various holdings. They won't be a solid power bloc after they are dispersed.
- The Catalans take the Duchy for them. They establish a new state and they seek legitimacy in the face of Frederick. Then they continue their OTL path, becoming a pirate state and attacking everybody in the Aegean, sometimes with the assistance of turkish raiders. The Maritime Republics are horrified as in OTL. I could see Venice preferring the steady hand of Vatatzes rulling the duchy than having the Saronic Gulf being turned into a pirate haven. And the day when the Emperor will cross the Alps - to the delight of the Ghibellines, is close. The time of reckoning with Frederick will mean that the Catalans will find Philanthropenos with a rested army crossing the Isthmus of Corinth.
When it comes to the Duchy of Athens, I can think of the following cases:
- The barons realize they lack a field army and the rapacious Catalans are coming to replace them as the rulling elite. They take up Vatatzes' previous offer.
- Vatatzes uses the Catalans to subdue the Duchy, distributes lands to them across his various holdings. They won't be a solid power bloc after they are dispersed.
- The Catalans take the Duchy for them. They establish a new state and they seek legitimacy in the face of Frederick. Then they continue their OTL path, becoming a pirate state and attacking everybody in the Aegean, sometimes with the assistance of turkish raiders. The Maritime Republics are horrified as in OTL. I could see Venice preferring the steady hand of Vatatzes rulling the duchy than having the Saronic Gulf being turned into a pirate haven. And the day when the Emperor will cross the Alps - to the delight of the Ghibellines, is close. The time of reckoning with Frederick will mean that the Catalans will find Philanthropenos with a rested army crossing the Isthmus of Corinth.
Could work, though I think that's a matter between Syracuse and Constantinople, not Mystras.
The first choice sounds most probable to me.
Ioannis has this key advantage he has a good relationship with the Catalans, that is the Vatatzes did not stab them in the back and they parted ways in good terms. Ioannis is probably the only person who could hold them off the duchy of Athens if the local Frankish barons need someone to save their skin.
Said otherwise, the Catalans would be the gun to Ioannis' kind word 'peace proposal', to paraphrase Capone.
Cool update! Could we please get an update with a list of everyone and who's who? I'm having a hard time keeping track of all these names and who they are.
I do wonder if and how Venice would use Matilda of Hainault when she reaches them. I doubt that the Athenian barons will have much say in her future for long. I can see the Venetians securing certain rights and privileges from the Vatatzes despotate(s?), or staking their own claim to more pieces of the remnants of the Latin empire, dependant on how much they see long-term profit in fighting a rising power at this time.
Part 30
Aachen January 6th, 1309
Henry of Luxembourg was crowned as king of the Romans with six out of the seven imperial electors voting for him. Come July, pope Clement V would confirm Henry as king and agree to crown him as emperor in exchange of promises to protect and defend the rights of the pope and to go on crusade. But marching to Rome to be crowned emperor and trying to liberate the holy land would have to wait as the newly crowned king had to campaign to Bohemia first.
Avignon, March 9th, 1309
Clement V moved his seat to Avignon from Rome. The pope since his election had not set foot to Italy preferring his native France instead but still his decision to make it official would prove something of a shock across Latin Christedom. Particularly in Sicily, riven by apocalyptic fervor after resuming communion with the Holy See in the aftermath of the peace of Ischia and under the increasing influence of the teachings of Arnau de Vilanova and the Franciscan Spirituals the decision would not be taken particularly well only increasing the urgency felt by king Frederick and many of his subjects to prepare for the coming apocalypse and war with the hosts of evil.
Messina, April 15th, 1309
A squadron of 20 more galleys set sail for the east. With news of the crushing victory the despotate's army had won in Mantineia the previous year it had not taken Alexandros Vatatzes much difficulty to convince the despotate's communes to man the ships. The parliament held at Messina at Christmas had confirmed this with overwhelming majority and the entire fleet of the Despotate of the Two Sicilies, carefully rebuilt with new three banked galea sottili to its numbers prior to the defeat at Cape Orlando a decade before had been set on a war footing. Nearly the entire nobility of Latin Greece was either dead or captured at Mantineia. Conquest and loot were out there for the taking...
Patras, May 1st, 1309
Raynier, Latin archbishop of Patras signed over the document Ioannis Doukas Vatatzes handed him. The little bastard was supposed to be a catholic. He just happened to follow the Greek rite as had Michael VIII post Lyon. A convenient fiction back in Sicily were for the past generation Ioannis father supporting by all means the Basilians and the local Greeks at the cost of the true church under the same convenient fiction. But the realities on the ground were that Patras, under siege for the past 9 months could not hold out any longer. So when Ioannis had offered him 10,000 ducats for his feudal rights on Patras it had been a deal he couldn't refuse. Not when the alternative was the Greeks storming the city and putting every Latin to the sword.
Naples, May 5th, 1309
Charles II of Anjou died. His son Robert would succeed him to the throne of what the Angevins still claimed as the kingdom of Sicily. The new king, the third of his dynasty was certainly more capable than his late father but the challenges he was going to face were certainly formidable. In Sicily king Frederick III was feeling increasingly constrained from his title of king of Trinacria and was starting to claim to be "king of the island of Sicily" with tensions between the two kings rising.
Thebes, July 1309
Walter I, duke of Athens cursed. He had landed in Athens the previous month to be men with what amounted to disaster. Nearly the entire knighthood of the duchy was either dead or in Sicilian prisons, effectively his only knghts were the ones he had brought with himself from France. The principality of Achaea was gone, the only thing stopping the Greeks from taking Attica, for now at least, was that Philanthropenos was besieging the Corinth. From the north the Catalans had crossed Thessaly were its despot had allied with Epirus annd the Byzantines to fend them off and were advancing into the lands of the duchy. As for his coast... Sicilian ships had almost captured him on the way to Athens and were still praying just outside the coast.
Tinos island, August 15th, 1309
The men of the garrison looked with dismay at the 40 galleys under the walls. George I Ghisi the lord of Tinos had been killed the previous year at Mantineia. The duke at Naxos William I Sanudo had survived the disaster but was of questionable help, in the past William and the Ghisis had gone to war over a donkey and Naxos was also under attack. Surrender looked to be the better option. George's wife Alice dalle Carceri asked for terms. Her young son could still be triarch of Negreponte, neither the Sicilians nor the Catalans dared touch Euboea and court Venice's hostility, after all. Tinos surrendered.
Athens, September 1309
Walter took count of his situation. He had tried to bring the Catalans to his service. De Rocafort had just dismissed his offers outright and with Walter having no army to speak of had begun taking the duchy's fortresses one after the other. Bodonitsa and Thebes were gone and now the Catalans had him under siege in the Acropolis while De Rocafort had married his cousin Jeannete, Guy II sister and proclaimed himself duke of Athens. This was not a fight he could win, he had to seek terms, but seek terms from a bunch of commoners? it was sticking to his crawl. He would fight on. Who knew perhaps Bernat would pick a fight with Vatatzes and give him an opportunity.
Porto Leone (Piraeus) October 1309
"So we meet again your highness. It's been what 7 years since your father had me fighting on your side in Calabria?"
Ioannis gave De Rocafort a tight smile. "Something like that yes. We've both gone places in the meantime. So what's going to be Bernat? Peace or war?"
"It depends. What do you offer?"
"The islands are mine for a start."
De Rocafort gave a shrug. "You have the fleet and I do not. What else?"
"We'll leave you do as you please here in Athens. You want to call yourself duke of Athens, be my guest, Syracuse will recognize you. The fiefs De la Roche held in the Morea though? These are ours. You stay north we stay south and everyone will be happy."
"I think we have a deal" For now it was left unsaid.
Henry of Luxembourg was crowned as king of the Romans with six out of the seven imperial electors voting for him. Come July, pope Clement V would confirm Henry as king and agree to crown him as emperor in exchange of promises to protect and defend the rights of the pope and to go on crusade. But marching to Rome to be crowned emperor and trying to liberate the holy land would have to wait as the newly crowned king had to campaign to Bohemia first.
Avignon, March 9th, 1309
Clement V moved his seat to Avignon from Rome. The pope since his election had not set foot to Italy preferring his native France instead but still his decision to make it official would prove something of a shock across Latin Christedom. Particularly in Sicily, riven by apocalyptic fervor after resuming communion with the Holy See in the aftermath of the peace of Ischia and under the increasing influence of the teachings of Arnau de Vilanova and the Franciscan Spirituals the decision would not be taken particularly well only increasing the urgency felt by king Frederick and many of his subjects to prepare for the coming apocalypse and war with the hosts of evil.
Messina, April 15th, 1309
A squadron of 20 more galleys set sail for the east. With news of the crushing victory the despotate's army had won in Mantineia the previous year it had not taken Alexandros Vatatzes much difficulty to convince the despotate's communes to man the ships. The parliament held at Messina at Christmas had confirmed this with overwhelming majority and the entire fleet of the Despotate of the Two Sicilies, carefully rebuilt with new three banked galea sottili to its numbers prior to the defeat at Cape Orlando a decade before had been set on a war footing. Nearly the entire nobility of Latin Greece was either dead or captured at Mantineia. Conquest and loot were out there for the taking...
Patras, May 1st, 1309
Raynier, Latin archbishop of Patras signed over the document Ioannis Doukas Vatatzes handed him. The little bastard was supposed to be a catholic. He just happened to follow the Greek rite as had Michael VIII post Lyon. A convenient fiction back in Sicily were for the past generation Ioannis father supporting by all means the Basilians and the local Greeks at the cost of the true church under the same convenient fiction. But the realities on the ground were that Patras, under siege for the past 9 months could not hold out any longer. So when Ioannis had offered him 10,000 ducats for his feudal rights on Patras it had been a deal he couldn't refuse. Not when the alternative was the Greeks storming the city and putting every Latin to the sword.
Naples, May 5th, 1309
Charles II of Anjou died. His son Robert would succeed him to the throne of what the Angevins still claimed as the kingdom of Sicily. The new king, the third of his dynasty was certainly more capable than his late father but the challenges he was going to face were certainly formidable. In Sicily king Frederick III was feeling increasingly constrained from his title of king of Trinacria and was starting to claim to be "king of the island of Sicily" with tensions between the two kings rising.
Thebes, July 1309
Walter I, duke of Athens cursed. He had landed in Athens the previous month to be men with what amounted to disaster. Nearly the entire knighthood of the duchy was either dead or in Sicilian prisons, effectively his only knghts were the ones he had brought with himself from France. The principality of Achaea was gone, the only thing stopping the Greeks from taking Attica, for now at least, was that Philanthropenos was besieging the Corinth. From the north the Catalans had crossed Thessaly were its despot had allied with Epirus annd the Byzantines to fend them off and were advancing into the lands of the duchy. As for his coast... Sicilian ships had almost captured him on the way to Athens and were still praying just outside the coast.
Tinos island, August 15th, 1309
The men of the garrison looked with dismay at the 40 galleys under the walls. George I Ghisi the lord of Tinos had been killed the previous year at Mantineia. The duke at Naxos William I Sanudo had survived the disaster but was of questionable help, in the past William and the Ghisis had gone to war over a donkey and Naxos was also under attack. Surrender looked to be the better option. George's wife Alice dalle Carceri asked for terms. Her young son could still be triarch of Negreponte, neither the Sicilians nor the Catalans dared touch Euboea and court Venice's hostility, after all. Tinos surrendered.
Athens, September 1309
Walter took count of his situation. He had tried to bring the Catalans to his service. De Rocafort had just dismissed his offers outright and with Walter having no army to speak of had begun taking the duchy's fortresses one after the other. Bodonitsa and Thebes were gone and now the Catalans had him under siege in the Acropolis while De Rocafort had married his cousin Jeannete, Guy II sister and proclaimed himself duke of Athens. This was not a fight he could win, he had to seek terms, but seek terms from a bunch of commoners? it was sticking to his crawl. He would fight on. Who knew perhaps Bernat would pick a fight with Vatatzes and give him an opportunity.
Porto Leone (Piraeus) October 1309
"So we meet again your highness. It's been what 7 years since your father had me fighting on your side in Calabria?"
Ioannis gave De Rocafort a tight smile. "Something like that yes. We've both gone places in the meantime. So what's going to be Bernat? Peace or war?"
"It depends. What do you offer?"
"The islands are mine for a start."
De Rocafort gave a shrug. "You have the fleet and I do not. What else?"
"We'll leave you do as you please here in Athens. You want to call yourself duke of Athens, be my guest, Syracuse will recognize you. The fiefs De la Roche held in the Morea though? These are ours. You stay north we stay south and everyone will be happy."
"I think we have a deal" For now it was left unsaid.
And so after 4 years of war and sieges Morea is now under Ioannes control. Good thing the Catalans gave up on Corinth as its castle is rather formidable. Now the Despotate's army is full of grilled veterans ready for any conflict is coming their way. The fun thing here is Ioannes is under Robert Anjou while the main provinces of Alexandros are under Frederick's jurisdiction.
What's the total naval capacity of the Despotate? Since the Sanudos were being attacked as well, I guess it is more than 40 galleys.
Are they referring to the Cyclades or also the islands of the Saronic gulf?
The Cyclades were in the possesion of the Duchy of the Archipelago . Although the Duchy was not a territory of Venice, it was ruled by Venetian families. Wouldn't anyone attacking the Duchy be considered an enemy of Venice?
Well at that point as the wiki says they were under the Angevins of Naples so it is in line for Vatatzes to make a move especially after their involvement in the war. Venice could of course do something about it but that remains to be seen.
Sicily as a whole when war resumed with the Angevins could raise fleets of 65-70 galleys so the Despotate's Italian holdings can likely raise around 40 galleys. Add to this ships that can be raised from the Aegean...
And isn't this an interesting question?
Possibly. But conveniently or inconveniently, counting whom you ask, Venice has just gone to war with the papacy over Ferrara the previous year and the pope put it under interdiction in March. Starting a war with the Despotate on top of this would be... imprudent.
yeah they're going to fight in the future again. I wonder when tho... Considering that Roger is king now and we're getting close to the Guelph wars I wonder who the Vatatzes would support. If Reggio is attacked by Frederick I don't see Alexandros and Ionis not responding accordingly...