The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline
- Thread starter Augenis
- Start date
Actually, I already have the national anthem prepared, don't worry about that
Actually, I already have the national anthem prepared, don't worry about that
Good, just make sure you go over the property rights first so that it doesn't get taken down
Never thought I'd root for Lithuania this much!... just sorta seemed an 'eh' of history.
Sadly for Lithuania, Orthodoxy and anti-intellectualism go hand in hand.
Chapter 39: The Last Crusade
Part 39: The Last Crusade (1675-1680)
As time went on, this empire's weakness was slowly becoming apparent. Much like the preceding great Islamic caliphates, the Turks were the Scourge of Europe who scared everyone from Spanish sailors to Hungarian peasants, their elite Janissary and Sipahi forces were a terror in the battlefield, but their expansion from the Atlantic to the Indus River came at a great price - the burden of administrating and maintaining this gigantic territory with their administrative apparatus. The need to constantly crush and defeat rebellions across the Empire, maintain order, keep up the necessary bureaucracy to collect taxes and continue expansion was a constant drain on the state's resources, and a large portion of the spending being needed to maintain the court and pay for the Sultan's luxuries did not help. From the outside, the Empire looked like a giant with legs made out of clay, despite it still being among the five great powers of Europe. Although, you can say the same thing about Lithuania as well.
Within the last century or so, Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire conflicted numerous times, with the biggest war between them taking place during Albertas Jogaila I's reign, which he won and reacquired access to the Black Sea for his recently established empire as a result. And now, Žygimantas I wanted more. While Lithuania had sea access both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea, in both cases their access was blocked by foreigner-controlled straits, which, in the case of Constantinople (Konstantinyye), were often blocked to Lithuanian merchant ships. This "thirst for warm waters" was among the main driving factors for Lithuanian southern expansion. Religion played a role as well - the Balkans, dominated by the Turks for centuries, were Lithuanian brothers in faith, and the empire's status as the leader of the Orthodox was calling for liberation of the Balkans. In addition, the Ottoman Empire was not protected by the Amsterdam System, the set of "eternal treaties" made after the Twenty Years' War which set in stone the concept of "balance of power in Europe", making sure that none of the four great powers of Europe - France, Spain, Visegrad and Lithuania - get too powerful at each other's expense. This was the view that cost Lithuania the Polish Crisis a few years earlier, but it did not take the Ottoman Empire, which was considered to be "outside the boundaries" of Europe and it's politics, into account.
In 1674, after the assassination of the 13 year old Murad IV by smothering him with a pillow, the Ottomans descended into a succession crisis between three vying successors, which Lithuania saw as the perfect opportunity to strike. Preparations were made for a great campaign to the south, food was being stored, taxes were raised to fill up the half-empty treasury for the war, and plans were being drawn for the attack. While many people today credit Žygimantas I as the mastermind of the conflict, this is a historical misconception. While the Emperor indeed wished to make a blow to the Turks, the true mastermind of the invasion was his Grand Hetman, Jaunutis Songaila, who held many manors and lands in the south of the empire, especially along the Black Sea, and was keen on expanding his holdings on the expense of the Ottoman Empire. News arrived to the Lithuanian court in the beginning of 1675 - after taking care of his rivals for the throne via assassination and imprisonment, as well as swaying the Janissaries to his side, the dead Sultan's cousin Abdulmejid was crowned as his successor, Abdulmejid I.
Assuming that the succession crisis has left the country unstable and that the new Sultan is weak, Žygimantas I officially declared war on the Ottoman Empire in March of 1675, crying out for the liberation and protection of his "Orthodox brothers".
But was he going to fight alone? Of course not! Why not try to get Visegrad on his side? They have been fighting the Ottoman Empire for centuries now, and wouldn't they want to reconquer some of the lands they had lost? But Abdulmejid I was faster.
What Žygimantas didn't know was that he shouldn't have underestimated his opponent. Before his tenure as Sultan, Abdulmejid had been a seasoned warrior and leader of the Janissaries, and was well versed in the intricacies of Ottoman diplomacy with their northern and western neighbours, among other things. He was aware that if Visegrad were to join on Lithuania's side, the two European powers would be able to push the Turks out of the Balkans, so what he had to do was to prevent that from happening. And while both Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire were mobilizing their armies for a great conflict, Abdulmejid traveled to Buda, to King Charles VI of Visegrad, and after less than a week of negotiations, they signed the Treaty of Budapest. The Ottoman Empire agreed to cede Transylvania and some of their Croatian provinces in exchange for Visegradian neutrality in the conflict. Both of the nations knew this to be a temporary measure, but both left satisfied anyway.
With his western front secure, Abdulmejid could turn all of his focus towards Lithuania. The Four Year War has begun.
Abdulmejid (Abdülmecid) I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
1676 rolled in, and neither side seemed to gain a clear hand over the other. In March, the Lithuanians captured Varna, a major Turkish port in Bulgaria, then seized Burgas to the south, not far away from Konstantinyye itself. The 11 000 men large Ottoman garrison in the region was decisively defeated, and after this victory, Žygimantas I sent Abdulmejid I a peace offer, demanding numerous territorial concessions in the Balkans and the Circassian Coast. The Turkish chronicles state that the Sultan laughed while reading the entire offer - this man was demanding a harsh peace after capturing a few cities! The answer was simple - no. Despite this insult, Žygimantas I was unable to just march to Konstantinyye and take the fight at the Ottomans - the city was too heavily defended, and the large Turkish army could very easily push back his offensive. So the war turned into a stalemate. Advancing deeper into Bulgaria was not an option due to the large mountain ranges in the way, so the Lithuanians spent their time raiding the region to the south of Varna. Abdulmejid I, however, moved in a weapon that the Lithuanian monarch did not even take into account - the supreme Ottoman Navy. From 1676 onward, this massive fleet constantly bombarded Lithuanian ports along the Black Sea and set up an effective blockade on all Lithuanian merchant ships in the region. The tiny Lithuanian Black Sea Fleet could hardly do anything in response, they couldn't even leave their port in Khadjibey without fears of being shelled to death.
In 1677, the Turks finally advanced forward, and the two armies met in the fields near Dyulino, south of Varna. 75 000 Lithuanians meet 110 000 Turks. However, neither army attempted to advance on the opponent, nobody wanted to risk it and attack. The Battle of Dyulino resulted in a few minor skirmishes between the frontline forces of each armies before Žygimantas I finally retreated back towards Varna. As a result, the Turks recaptured Burgos the month after the "battle". Both armies were starting to run low on supply, however - the Ottomans had fielded a massive army which could hardly be fed from the land, while the Lithuanians were far from their homeland and were scraping the last bits of the supply they brought with them. The war was stalemated even further, both empires employed raiding tactics to make the other force succumb to hunger, but all it did was ruin the land even more. Already there were recorded cases of hunger and famine in the region, and Žygimantas's planned "revolt by the Balkan Orthodox" didn't come. Lithuania's history of collaborating with the Catholics through the Concordate of Brest and abandoning most of original Orthodox doctrine was still remembered by the priesthood in the region, and the Patriarchate in Konstantinyye spoke out against the Lithuanians. The people may have wanted to revolt, but they lacked any strong leaders to rally them, and Abdulmejid was careful in suppressing any news about Lithuanian successes in the war to not incite the Serbs, Bulgarians and Albanians to take arms against him. When you hear that the Lithuanian heretics will be defeated soon and are falling, would you raise your pitchfork to support them, even if your priest, the only authority you know, tells you that you shouldn't?
Of course, you can't say that the South Slavs were content with living under the Ottomans, either. Just that this was not their time.
By 1678, Žygimantas was getting desperate, and he finally decided to make a move, meeting Abdulmejid's army near Bliznatsi, a bit to the south from Varna, and the Battle of Bliznatsi began. The Lithuanians had the element of surprise, but their main force moved too slow to take full advantage of this edge. However, the Turks had their own problems, most notably their lack of food supply after the long campaign marching across Bulgaria. They did have the numerical advantage, however. The fight began with a long and drawn out skirmish between the infantry of both sides, neither side able to make a successful push through the deep swamps that the battle was set in. Eventually, however, the Turks began to flank the Lithuanian forces, slowly trying to surround them, and in response Žygimantas sent out his empire's feared Lithuanian light cavalry for a harass charge. While the first few hit-and-run strikes were successful and pushed the Turkish infantry back, the hostile terrain of the battlefield was not good for maneuver, and a few failed charges resulted in heavy volley damage on the raiders, effectively ending the cavalry offensive. However, Abdulmejid was unable to counter with his own cavalry due to the terrain as well. Luck was on his side, however, as Žygimantas I eventually gave the order to retreat, leaving the Turks in control of the battlefield with heavy casualties on both sides.
However, the Ottomans were unable to make full use of this victory because of their food shortages. The land was thorougly devastated and couldn't maintain the massive armies, and any offensive into Lithuanian territory would have meant travelling through barely inhabited steppe for hundreds of kilometers, a death sentence for a starving army. Four years had passed and neither side was able to defeat the other in this bloody stalemate. Time for peace. And peace was made in Varna, in October of 1678, reinstating the status quo. Neither side gained anything in the peace deal, except for Circassia, which annexed the Ottoman-held Circassian Coast and managed to break free from Turkish control due to Abdulmejid's focus on the war with Lithuania.
Map of the Four Year War (1675-1678). Hatched territory represents the maximum extent of Lithuanian occupation in 1676. Moldavia, a Lithuanian vassal, is marked as part of Lithuania in this map.
If Visegrad comes attacking now, or another Russian revolt, Lithuania still hasn`t lost but a small portion of its strength; it´s not going to be a pushover. On the contrary, it might be Visegrad`s downfall.
The problem with Visegrad attacking is that the Amsterdam System will affect them too, so they're out.
Somebody like Volga Russia, on the other hand...
This could lead to a war of Lithuania would facing against Sweden and Visregrad in the future.
Chapter 40: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
Part 40: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold (1680-1689)
If Žygimantas II were to rule in, say, the 1630s, perhaps everything could have been fine. After all, Jonas I didn't do too badly in his reign. But this was a different time, and now, enemies from outside and from within were eyeing the weakened empire like a flock of vultures, and thus, there was a lot of reason to fear for the future.
Emperor Žygimantas II of Lithuania
If your answer to all of those questions is "Visegrad", then you'd be right.
The Union of Visegrad was an oddity in European politics. Between the oligarchic democracy of France and many German countries, and the dark autocracy of Britannia and Lithuania, it looked like a mix of the two. It had a King, but an elected one, and he shared his power with the nobility, the National Assembly. These two institutions cooperated to organize the country's policy both domestically and in foreign affairs. The phrase "noble democracy" can sometimes be thrown at it, but the power of the King was too strong to have Visegrad be simply classified as a weird republic. One issue would always form the heart of Visegradian politics - their relations with the big eastern neighbour. The House of Luxembourg, the reigning dynasty, rode of the waves of revanchism that seeped across the country after the defeats in the Twenty Years War, and the reign of Charles VI saw major reforms in the country's military, adapting the Swedish model of military organization and applying mercantilist policies to increase the country's budget. Visegrad was sharpening his teeth, and even though the Amsterdam System prevented them from attacking Lithuania immediately after Žygimantas II's ascension, a stroke of luck was about to shine for them...
While Visegrad was the biggest outside threat for the Empire, internal problems plagued it as well.
After the Great Russian Revolt, the spirit of the Russian people had been broken for a long time. Many of the most energetic and determined leaders of the nation left for the East, where the country of Volga-Russia was formed. The Lithuanian kings, later emperors, tried to stamp out the primary things that incited the Russians to revolt - Volanism, Russian history and their ties to the West. Orthodox priests would travel through Russia day and night to discourage the populace from their heretical faith, official chronicles would avoid any mention of Russian history before the Lithuanians, and trade routes to the region were closed. But even these conditions did not stop the russkaya dusha from thriving and surviving. Volanite ideals and Russian traditions began to form the basis for a new Russian nation, focused on patriotism, piety and the democratic ideas of the Great Russian Revolt. Within the second half of the 17th century, numerous underground Russian organizations began to form, the new generation, educated in Western universities, was starting to take the torch. The undisputed leader of the brewing new Russian Revolt was Vladislav Semyonov, the son of a minor Russian noble from Tver, famous for his charisma and passion only matched by his peers in the so-called "Group for Russian Liberation".
The Russians were not the only internal problem for Žygimantas II to deal with - his own base of supporters was rapidly shrinking, and to explain that, we need to take a look into the style of rule of the monarchs of Lithuania from the end of the 16th century onward. The rising and powerful nobility was a threat to the ambitions of Queen Sofija and Emperor Albertas Jogaila. Unlike their predecessors, they could no longer rely on the nobles to remain on the throne, especially when they were starting to develop dangerous beliefs on, say, emancipating the serfs or giving the people more power in the government. Instead, they turned towards a fairly recent phenomenon in Lithuania - the military class. Since the establishment of a standing mercenary army, the military was no longer made up of noble volunteers, instead being composed of professional career soldiers from all three estates, and due to the age-old tradition of Lithuanian militarism, they were a force to be reckoned with in political affairs. Because of the expansive nature of the Lithuanian Empire, the monarchy and the military entered a bountiful "marriage of interests", both structures helping one another for their own needs, which led to the position of Grand Hetman (supreme army commander) becoming one of the most influential positions within the country.
However, the ascension of Žygimantas II changed that. Žygimantas II was either not aware of these ties between him and the military, or resented them, as he ignored the army matters and instead shifted his focus on reconciling with the nobility, if not just feasting all the way through. Obviously, angering your family's biggest political ally without a big reason was not a good thing, and this situation was even worsened in 1685, when the old Grand Hetman, Jaunutis Songaila, who was willing to put up with the flamboyant king, died, replaced by Aleksandras Chodkevičius, a general from Black Rus', who was far less tolerant of this betrayal. But one couldn't just remove the Emperor, right? Žygimantas II had no brothers, only sisters, and his closest male relatives were generations apart - plus, removing a 400 year old monarchy and the head of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church wouldn't give great PR with the people, so what could be done?..
Nevertheless, it was a not good time for Lithuania to have infighting.
In 1686, many diplomats and rulers across Europe gasped as France and Spain suddenly went to war. Although, in hindsight, this wasn't as surprising as one might think. It was, in fact, a colonial conflict - while the Spaniards historically were a domineering force in the Caribbean, the rising French nation challenged them, establishing a set of colonies along the northern coast of South Vespucia, the so-called colony of Nouveau-France[1], eventually coming into conflict with the Spanish settlements in the region, who were also colonizing it under the name of Nuevo Galicia. War broke out when a French fleet, sent to reinforce the French settlers, was accidentally shelled by the Spanish ships in the sea, who mistook it for pirates. The war quickly spread to the Old World, skirmishes began in the Pyrenees, and neither country could no longer help enforce the Amsterdam System anymore - a stroke of luck for Visegrad on a scale of the Battle of Buda.
In the first months of 1687, after a portion of the Lithuanian garrisons were pulled out to reinforce troubling Russian regions, Galicia suddenly erupted in a major revolt. The rebels seized numerous towns, villages and fortresses along the Lithuanian-Visegradian border, and even won a number of clashes with Lithuanian troops in the first month. Something was off about this event, though. These didn't feel like simple rebels - they seemed too well financed, coordinated and attached to the neighbour in the West. Many of them were as well armed, if not even better armed, than their opponents. It was quite clear who was pulling the strings behind this revolt, who incited it and who helped make it happen.
However, Žygimantas II's reaction to the news was far from what the court and the military expected. When he was informed of the Galician Revolt and their possible ties to Visegrad, the emperor instantly went for the worst option possible, and ordered his army to mobilize and his diplomatic corps to declare war on Visegrad. It had to be done, in his eyes. And thus, war began. Charles VI, who was having the time of his life with all of the successes falling in his hands, immediately played the victim card. Lithuania broke the Treaty of Amsterdam! They want to annex all of Poland, or even beyond! They will break the balance of power in Europe!
Lithuania, with it's disloyal army and a brewing second Great Russian Revolt, now found itself fighting a war against an adversary who's more than meets the eye.
Apsaugok, Viešpatie.
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1. OTL Venezuela and the Guyanas
Actually, I was planning this story arc before you came here askingWell, I did say I wanted incompetent rulers...
Hmm...
Actually, I was planning this story arc before you came here asking
That's... relieving?
My GOSH what would make me happier to see this Zygimantas (The Sloth Emperor) II get whats coming to him IF this war goes south for Lithuania. Besides that funny thought, it may take as quick as a few decisive defeats at the start to a humiliating peace treaty at the end that causes the Military and Russians to revolt against the Emperor. Such an occurrence will most likely cause Lithuania to fall into Civil War once more between the resurgent Russian Nationalist against the Military Junta in Vilnius.
This may seem out there but another possibility is that the Russian Nationals and Lithuania come to an understanding of sorts that creates a Russo Lithuanian Plurality of sorts within the Nation. But this scenario is doubtful given the history between both ethnic groups.