1500 : the Fourth Italian War, part two.
"The Paleologids, finding no grease for their palms in Montferrato, looked for some in Greece", (apocryphal) Charles de Valois-Savoia, on the Paleologid expedition in Morea
Ottoman chaos as usual
After the death of Bayezid II at the battle of Smederevo, the Ottoman Sultanate had, due to their lack of a clear-cut succession law, plunged back into civil war.
Still, to avoid the Hungarians taking advantage of this temporary situation to take major fortresses further south in Serbia or in Bulgaria, the Ottoman Grand Vizier, Çandarli Ibrahim Pasha the Younger, used what little authority he had to offer peace to the Hungarians and the Moldavians in October of 1499. The terms offered, and that Jànos Corvin accepted, were as followed :
- The Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia obtains Herzegovina
- The Despotate of Serbia is returned Smederevo and some hinterland
- The Ottoman Empire will recognize as Voivode of Wallachia the Moldavian candidate, Mihnea Draculesti, the son of Vlad Tepes.
- Wallachia and Moldavia cease being Ottoman vassals, with Wallachia becoming a Hungarian vassal.
After that, the last Ottoman civil war of the century would go on unabated on its main battlefield, Anatolia. Next to that, Rumelia - Konstantinye apart - was merely a bunch of jizya-payers.
Of the Sultan's sons, only four played a role in the civil war, Alemsah being too young to fight for his succession rights. Selimsah had been rapidly sidestepped and executed when Ahmet seized Karaman in November 1499. This only left against him Korkut and Selim. Selim being abroad - on a mission to Crimea - he only returned to his fief of Amasya around the winter solstice. In the meantime, Central Anatolia was the siege of countless squabbles. While Selim was able to bring the Janisseries on his side and had a well-rested army, he was only ever able to become a third partner on the Anatolian balance.
The money of Rumelia would allow to maintain the deadlock for eleven months. Why not longer? Because of the Neapolitans. Indeed, they had been granted custody of Djem, Bayezid's brother, by the French. And they had made a deal with him. They would support him in exchange for parts of Western Rumelia - a vaguely-worded agreement meant by the Neapolitans to correspond to Epirus, Macedonia and Albania, and by Djem to a coastal tract of Albanian land. One way or another, when they set foot in Albania, along with some mercenaries meant to act as Djem's army - he would have to rely on later defections and recruitment to get himself an army - they mostly went after the coastal cities that would become the next Neapolitan frontier.
The fall of Scutari, in May, to the Neapolitans didn't seem to even faze the three claimants. Nor did that of Skopje, in August. However, the Savoyard-organized landing in Morea of a Paleologid army from Montferrato and the Greek revolts that ensued in October, including in Konstantinye and Edirne, scared the Turkish pretenders a lot, as they faced the loss of all of Rumelia and, most importantly, Konstantinye. Korkut allied with Selim to bring Ahmed down, resulting in the battle of Karaman, where Ahmet perished and the bulk of his army either fled or joined Selim or Korkut's ranks. Seeing as though backstabbing was imminent, Korkut swore fealty to his brother and surrendered his troops to him. While remaining distrustful, Selim decided to let his brother see another day and led his troops to Konstantinye, only to find the Straits blocked. The powerful Ottoman navy was assembled and crushed the opposition.
Having passed, Selim received two envoys. One from the Neapolitans, who offered to drop Djem and hand him over, in exchange for Scutari and the coastal Albanian cities. King Louis would also add in a substantial cash payment. This envoy was allowed to live and leave with an acceptation. The second envoy was from the Paleologids, who demanded Morea, in exchange of cash and Morea winding up as an Ottoman vassal. This envoy was killed. The Paleologids of Montferrato had their army crushed in Thessaly in December. But it didn't matter. They would return, as long as they held Montferrato.
The Southern and Eastern Fronts
The Ottomans having peaced out, this left Jànos Corvin with one less front. He therefore found himself with an obvious next target : Venetia. Simultaneously, the French had joined with the Romans and were preparing to face the Veneto-Imperial force in Venetia.
The Valois army counted a total force of about 37 000 men, against the 45 000 Veneto-Imperials. Add to this the 50 000 Hungarians and you could see the problem for the Imperials. This is why the Northern front in the Rhineland was weakened by about 12 000 men, to ensure Imperial superiority in every major battle.
Except, while they were waiting on the reinforcements in Styria, the Hungarians moved into Istria, while the Valois renewed their offensive towards Brescia and Salo. By the time the Imperials understood just how serious the issue was, both armies were converging towards Treviso.
The battle took place in the village of Arcade.
At first, the Imperials only had to fight the Valois. The Venitians on their Western flank, their cavalry on their Eastern flank, and their landsknechts in the center, against the Legions forming the Valois center, along with the Gendarmes; the Savoyards on the Eastern flank, and the Genovese and Swiss on the Western flank.
The Legions had no problem blocking the landsknechts due to superior training and not being a pikeman formation, and the Gendarmes were disciplined enough to fill the spaces between the legions without allowing these to get crunched by the superior amounts of landsknechts. And while the flanks had issues, the center held on.
This state of battle lasted for five hours, with assault and counter-assault placing the Valois in an annoying situation. And then the Black Hussars arrived.
The Hungarian army had appeared to the East of the battle, and using their cavalry, they cut off the Imperial cavalry and captured it. The freed Savoyard troops then bolstered the Western flank of the Valois army, while the Hungarians kept pressing towards the enemy center. Two hours later, the Imperials broke off. Venice immediately sued for peace, in order not to lose the integrality of its continental holdings. But the Valois wouldn't settle for a separate peace. Continental Venetia was occupied for quite a while before the war would end...
The Northern and Western Fronts
The French army had not been idling during the winter. After the Battle of Sélestat, Charles the Airhead had split his army in two. The segment he would leave on the Northern Front would keep 13 000 men and the remaining Tortue, as well as a lot of artillery. It would be entrusted to Anthoine de Comminges and would be tasked with holding the Northern Front, seizing the Imperial Cities of the Decapole - Mulhouse, Colmar, Sélestat... and convincing the Prince-Bishop of Utrecht that becoming a French vassal might not be such a bad idea. The other half of the army would go South under King Charles and would try and defeat the Aragonese just enough for them to consider white peace.
Of course, this was overstretching the French resources, and despite Anthoine's skill with artillery, while the Decapole was effectively seized by the French, they lost the battle of Zähringen, right to the north of Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Most military historians blame this on lack of numbers in the French army, especially in heavy cavalry. The lack of any knights and the relative dearth of lancers made sure that the cavalry, under Philipp der Aufrichtige, was able to break the lines, and the lack of an efficient infantry commander allowed the French to break and flee.
A large portion of the French artillery was lost in Zähringen, but de Comminges sacrificed three Gendarmeries to allow the heaviest guns to be put in safety in Freiburg, allowing the French army to maintain siege capabilities in an indefinite future time. The remaining Tortue was left on fire and deserted.
In the meantime, the Western front in Catalonia was not exactly satisfactory. The Aragonese, while maintaining a token force around Barcelona to keep it under siege, still had fifteen thousand men available to fight the French and invade Roussillon. The two armies duked it out in Collioure. While the Aragonese had indeed learned their lessons and were tactically equivalent to the French, including the long lances, the French had the home field advantage, and, even more, had superior numbers. After a charge by Bayard, the Aragonese fled and regrouped near Girona. Of course, the French pressed on, using the Neapolitan policy of arming peasants for auxiliary support (and being duly paid to return their weapons at the end), and ended up ousting the Aragonese from Catalonia by July.
By then, the situation in the North was becoming critical. The French were struggling to stop the Imperials from crossing the Rhine, and had no real chokepoint to force battle on. While they held the line the best they could, the royal army transited from Catalonia to Alsace in a month's time.
After a while, Philipp der Aufritchtige decided that Heidelberg would be a better place to start from than Austrian Brisgau, and after a transit of his own, engaged the combined French army outside Illkirch-Graffenstaden, south of Straßburg, on August 14th.
The French had once again deployed their army in their usual fashion : the infantry in the middle, the cavalry branches on the sides and the artillery behind. Except their artillery barrages were much lighter now. Confident about their numerical advantage, the French took the lead. But while the Iron Phalanx dealt heavy blows to the enemy cavalry, the Imperial morale stayed high. While the French Gendarmes broke the first landsknecht formations, the Imperial morale stayed high. Why? Because many of those Imperial landsknechts were Straßburgers. And they didn't like at all the French offensive on their principality. And when the lancers charged, with Charles the Airhead at their head? Well, their morale stayed high. Well, some of them, at least. Philipp der Aufrichtige narrowly dodged several long lances, and fled. With him, half the remaining Imperials. But the Straßburgers held on. And one of them, an arquebusier, shot Charles VIII right next to the heart.
It was still a decisive victory. The French were enraged enough that they purposefully slew the Straßburger troops to the last man, despite their officers asking for restraint. The Imperials were in no shape to reform, and Maximilian's trust in Philipp had been severely shaken, which meant he would have to look for another general.
Charles VIII survived - barely - through the ceremonies of the Assumption in Straßburg itself - courtesy of the Prince-Bishop, who saw in the wounded King a good way to keep the French from looting his lands any further - and died on August 16th, in the first hours of the morning. His last words, uttered when feverish, were "I am sorry, father, that I always was so rash..."
Regency and peace.
In Paris, the news of the battle were met with wild uproar. The populace, while tired of the taxes for the King's repeated wars, had liked Charles' flamboyant style and generosity towards his capital, compared to the greed of his father, Louis the Spider. The capital observed a week of mourning for their dead King, and there wasn't a town in France that didn't observe at least a day of mourning when the news came in. Barcelona noticeably also observed a week, due to the King's efforts in keeping Barcelona supplied and rescuing it twice.
For a while, a small doubt laid fleeting about the next king, but news from Amboise regularily gave reports on the health of the young Dauphin Philippe, and the Queen herself had given birth to twins on August 6th, which she would name Louis and Isabelle.
Philippe was rapidly named Philippe VII, King of France and Majorca, and the Queen moved towards Reims via Paris. Isabella de Aragon took the regency for the Kingdoms and made peace with their opponents, which were equally tired of war, in the Treaty of Épernay. The terms were as followed :
- Tuscany and Emilia will be returned to their rulers
- The Imperial cities of the Decapole will be annexed by France.
- Tuscany and Emilia will pay war reparations to the Roman Republic, Savoy and Genoa.
- Naxos and Corfu will be returned to Genoa.
- The Paleologid rulers of Montferrato are given the option to purchase Candia (Crete) from Venice, in which case the income of Montferrato will be given to Savoy in peacetime.
On the turn of the XVIth century, the French King was a four-year-old.