Narrative Appendices: Yes or No

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I'm currently working on 3., but it's exhausting to write. I've spent four hours typing up one of the updates today alone, and have pretty much hated all of it. Before I go any further, I'd like to see what you guys want.
I prefer 2. I also like 3 but if writing it takes too long and you don't like the quality, I don't recommend it. I don't mind 1 also, but I'm not sure a major war can be covered in only one update.
 
I prefer 2. I also like 3 but if writing it takes too long and you don't like the quality, I don't recommend it. I don't mind 1 also, but I'm not sure a major war can be covered in only one update.
Depends on the major war; dragging out something like that over several posts isn’t healthy; which I can say from experience.

Personally I prefer breaking things up into year-by-year blocs, but if it’s warranted you should dedicate each major war its own post that breaks down those years in a functional manner.

Word count doesn’t mean anything as long as the content is good enough to use—as we say here in South Africa; Too much is too much.
 
Thanks.

So, I'm currently writing out the War of the Three Leagues, which is a major turning point in European history. Now, there are three formats I'm considering using;

1. Brief recap describing the broad events of the war, probably ~4k in one update
2. Longer recap, describing the events in the two main theaters (Italy and Flanders), probably two updates of ~3.5 each.
3. Full retelling of the war, blow by blow. Five updates of >4k each.

I'm currently working on 3., but it's exhausting to write. I've spent four hours typing up one of the updates today alone, and have pretty much hated all of it. Before I go any further, I'd like to see what you guys want.
Number 2 would be better, number 3 would mean that there'd be at least 20k words, which I think is overkill considering the focus of this TL is on Trebizond and the surrounding regions. Number 1 is also very short for such an important war.
 
Making a suggestion based on my experience running my own TL which you can disregard; make a core post that details only the war itself--keep it focused and easy to handle.

Once this core post is done you can add secondary posts on going into detail on specifics; which is how I'm handling the Great Crusade in my own TL. If you find this advice unusable feel free to ignore it though; its likely my methods aren't going to jive, but on the off-chance they do and this helps you I still feel the need to make it heard.
 
I’m gonna suggest a mix of 2 and 3. 2 seems very reasonable to me but if there’s any particularly important event you think should be covered in detail, make an extra post or two of whatever length you’d like, even if it’s short.

As a writer myself, the most important thing is preventing burnout. If you’re hating what you’re fighting it’s a lot easier to decide it’s not worth it.
 
Part XXX: The Brief Reign of Nikephoros I (1506-1507)

Eparkhos

Banned
Going with 2. Too tired to respond to questions. Will in the morning.

Part XXX: The Brief Reign of Nikephoros I (1506-1507)

The sudden abdication of Alexandros II in 1506 sent Trapezous and the Trapezuntine court reeling. The aftokrator had presided over more than two decades of stability during a period of intense court politics and foreign diplomacy after the siege of 1485, and many believed that he would continue doing so for another decade, at least. As such, none but the most paranoid and cautious of the courtly schemers had made plans for the aftokrator’s surprise abdication, and even fewer of these had considered that it would be neither of his sons who took his place but instead an obscure nephew. The coming times would be interesting, and not just in the Chinese sense….

Of course, when unexpected events strike, those who are best in a position to exploit them are those who had already made contingency plans for them. In the above mentioned case, the only court figure who had considered the possibility of Nikephoros ascending to the throne--as well as every other male member of the Imperial family, and then some--was a woman named Anastasia Katsarina. Katsarina had been born into the ranks of a minor merchant family from Sinope in 1472, shortly after the return of Trapezuntine control. Unfortunately, the Katsaroi had been bankrupted when their entire mercantile fleet (an old cog and a small galley; they were a minor trading family, after all) was burned in the Ottoman attack on Sinope in 1485. The Katsaroi had then picked up stakes and moved to Trapezous, where it was hoped that a revival in the family fortunes would occur. It did, in a way, because in the 1490s, Anastasia became a hetaira[1] in the Imperial court. This brought her into close proximity (heh) with a number of prominent noblemen, and within a few months she had turned to the far riskier but far more profitable business of information dealing. Throughout the 1490s, she was able to construct a network of informants--mostly prostitutes and servants, but also a handful of impoverished nobles and aides--throughout the court, which allowed her to gather information on the goings-on of the darker corners of the palace practically at will. An anonymous poet noted around 1498 that “Upon an agreement being made in secret, three parties know of it; the former two being those who conducted it and the third being the Universal Spider[2].” This, of course, made her both a loose end to be tied up and an indispensable information (and thus power) broker to many courtesans, often at the same time, and so Katsarina was forced to have contingency plans for any occurance to keep her head upon her shoulders. This eventually paid off with the sudden accession of Nikephoros I, for which she was the only figure prepared to shift to make the best of this new ruler.

It is often said, and probably true, that Anastasia Katsarina was more prepared for the beginning of Nikephoros’ reign than Nikephoros was. The aftokrator’s nephew[3] was on a hunting trip in the Pontic mountains when Alexandros abdicated, and it took several days for a dispatch from Trapezous to track down the aftokrator at an isolated hunting lodge in the eastern foothills. Upon being informed that he was now the aftokrator, Nikephoros initially dismissed it as a failed joke, and told the courier that he should be more careful and not deliver treasonous messages. After several hours, he was finally convinced to at least return to Trapezous and, upon returning to the capital, was shocked to be greeted by a cheering crowd, who hailed him as Nikephoros I. Supposedly in a state of shock, Nikephoros was crowned as aftokrator that afternoon by Basileios II, the Patriarch of Pontos, in the Trapezuntine Agia Sophia, and retired to his chambers in an isolated wing of the palace to mull things over.

Nikephoros, it is important to understand, was far from a good candidate for the throne. He was a quiet and unambitious man, a member of the Imperial bureaucracy who occasionally went out for hunts with his cousins but otherwise was effectively a non-entity as dynastic matters were concerned. In 1494 he had married a Lazic woman named Eirene of Oph[4], a quiet and timid woman, whom he appears to have married out of love, an exceedingly rare occurrence for a nobleman during the Renaissance. The marriage had produced only a single daughter, Alexeia (b.1498) and several unfortunate stillborn pregnancies. Most importantly, Nikephoros, outside of his surname, had no connections to the traditional aristocracy whatsoever, which made his rule tenuous at best and doomed to failure at worst.

After a great deal of consideration, it finally dawned upon Nikephoros that he was now the aftokrator, and that even if he abdicated now then there would still be a target on his back because he was one of the scarce few who had managed to sit upon the throne that so many lusted after. However, he never made the change in character, the adoption of the certain ruthlessness that is needed to stay in power once you have gained it. His first mistake was to refuse to treat with Katsarina, even after his advisors hastily informed him of the great deal of power she held in court. In Nikephoros’ mind, it would be wrong for him, a married man, to have anything to do with a courtesan such as her, and so he willingly cut himself off from a potentially vital source of support. His second, and most egregious, mistake was to allow Alexandros’ sons to go free. Nikephoros, it appears, felt guilty for displacing the two poor men from what he considered to be their birthright, and so refused to heap the further misfortune of imprisonment or blinding upon them. This flew in the face of both common sense and the special unspoken rules of Byzantine and Byzantine-derived courts, which stated quite plainly that any rival claimants needed to be done away with, be it by blinding, tonsuring, imprisonment or straight murder, as quickly as possible. Nikephoros either could not bring himself to do this or believed that they simply didn’t pose a threat; After all, Alexios was, to all appearances, insane, and Romanos was almost comically indecisive.

After taking office, the new emperor went about continuing the policies of Alexandros, especially in regards to foreign alliances. He spent most of his time focused on diplomacy, by which he neglected the eternally festering court and its politics, as well as the feelings of the army and the bandons, by which he might have been able to preserve his rule indefinitely. Remember, the survival of any Trapezuntine regime rested upon three pillars--the army, the church and the court. The church, for the most part, backed the deeply pious Nikephoros, and had the aftokrator been able to rally the army to his cause, he could have easily clung to power for much longer than he truly did. That Nikephoros barely altered the policies of his predecessor leads to the obvious conclusion that he was an empty shirt, albeit one with the presence of mind not to abandon a well-function system on a whim. This view of him is furthered by his lack of decisive action against the schemers and intriguers of the Trapezuntine court. Alexandros had allowed the managed chaos to exist, because he viewed it as a way to knock down any budding rivals through clandestine means. Nikephoros, it appears, allowed it it continue to exist for no apparent reason. All in all, it seems that Nikephoros was an unimaginative but decent ruler, the sort of monarch whose reign would be glossed over in most history books barring some unforeseen disaster.

The surprise ascension of Nikephoros had left the court divided into two factions. The first had banked heavily on the ascension of Alexios following his father’s death or abdication, and so they had a great deal of invested interest in installing him upon the Imperial throne. The second party were those who were willing to work with Nikephoros, seeing an opportunity to increase their own power at the expense of a weak monarch. The leader of this second faction was one Konstantinos Romanou, and exiled westerner who had managed to work his way up into the nobility with a great deal of murder and blackmail. Romanou had managed to set himself up as an information broker similar to Katsarina. Her spurning by the aftokrator in mid-1506 had placed the ‘Universal Spider’ decisively in the former camp, and so throughout 1506 and into 1507 the two intriguers and their many supporters were having it out in the darkened halls of the palace. Nikephoros, of course, remained willfully ignorant of all of this, because he believed that if he became aware of a murder plot or something similar and failed to stop it, no matter the realpolitik impacts of it, it would count against his soul on God’s ledger. A noble belief, to be sure, but the kind of belief held by nobles.

These events culminated in August 1507. Alexios Katsaros, Katsarina’s half-brother, was a merchant of middling repute in Trapezous, having succeeded in reviving the Katsaros family name in the mercantile currents of the Black Sea. One night, shortly after one of Romanou’s chief lieutenants had been poisoned, a small group of mercenaries broke into Katsaros’ home. They abducted the poor merchant and tortured him for several days, trying to discover some incriminating evidence they could use against his sister. To his credit, Katsaros refused to give up anything for several days of agony, but finally broke down and confessed that his sibling had been involved in a plot against the aftokrator’s life. This was false, but by that point the poor wretch was willing to say anything to get the pain to stop. This information was relegated to Romanou, who at once set out to inform Nikephoros, who was at that time at a hunting lodge in the western mountains. However, Katsarina was also informed of her brother’s death and, furious, made plans for Romanou himself to be axed. A few nights later, Romanou and his retinue arrived in an inn near Sinope. They went to bed suspecting nothing, only for the building itself to explode less than an hour after their arrival. This was attributed to a great deal of manure stored in the building’s basement, and Romanou’s death was written off as an unfortunate accident. Katsarina was now the uncontested power broker of the court.

Alexios, throughout all of this, had remained in court, seemingly ignoring the potential danger to his own life and freedom. As before, he remained primarily engaged in riding out in the wilds beyond the city, with his social experiences consisting mostly of talking to himself and occasionally having violent seizures, neither of which were traits that made him an ideal ruler. However, there were a great number of noblemen who had invested a great deal of time and money into winning them to their side and so there was still a potential candidacy for him. There were also some hardliners who believed that the throne was his by right, as Alexandros had ignored centuries of succession precedents to cover up for his own failings in neglecting the rearing of his heirs. However, support for his cause was limited by the general public opinion being that he was crazy. This was not true, Alexios was (mostly) fine. He genuinely disliked human contact, but the general insanity, such as randomly convulsing or having nervous breakdowns upon being exposed to certain types of fruit, were all an act. Alexios was fully aware that he was a loose end that would be tied up even a semi-competent ruler, and as such he had adopted the mannerisms of a lunatic so as to not appear threatening. Even as Nikephoros seemed to ignore him, Alexios retained this healthy dose of paranoia and kept up the act. However, he also maintained his own network of spies and informants, albeit under the guise of his secretary, Andronikos Ralleis Kantakouzenos, and as such remained quite aware of ongoing trends in the court. He used this to maneuver himself into a position to advance his claim to the throne, in spite of his outward appearance of retardation.

In November 1507, Alexios spoke to Katsarina, a momentous occasion for such a reclusive man. A few weeks previous, Nikephoros had finally stirred from his stupor, and had ordered the arrest of a priest named Basileios Davidopoulos for insulting the monarchy. Basileios had been the only one of Alexios’ childhood tutors to show even an ounce of kindness to the poor boy, Alexios had clung to him dearly. He had been the closest thing to a mentor and advocate for the prince in court, and when Nikephoros had repeated the common insult that Alexios liked horses, Davidopoulos flew into a rage and snapped at him, for which he was arrested. His ward was quite angry at this, but also feared that this would lead to Nikephoros arresting him. Katsarina was more than a little shocked to have the prince, who normally spoke through intermediaries due to his hatred for human contact, speak to her directly, but was willing to listen to his proposition. As Alexios said, the two had a shared interest in getting him upon the throne. Alexios’ interest is quite obvious, but Katsarina’s is slightly less so. Alexios had correctly guessed that her ultimate desire was to keep a firm grip on power, for which she would need to be an active member of the sitting regime or at the very least tied to it in such a way that she could not easily be foisted out. For a woman in this time period, the only position that she could aim for that wouldn’t leave her as disposable (at least in the Orthodox world) was as aftokratorissa, the wife of the sitting ruler. Alexios promised that if Katsarina leveraged her considerable network to help him get into power, they would marry, thus securing her her desired hold on power and Alexios his desired support of the court. Neither of them found the other especially attractive or even pleasant to be around, but the proposed power-sharing agreement was acceptable to the both of them. And so, the plot against Nikephoros began in earnest.

Of course, it isn’t exactly easy to stage a coup, and before Nikephoros could be dethroned a great deal of planning was needed. The court was fairly solidly under Katsarina’s control, but the court alone was not enough to overthrow a sitting monarch. The church was firmly in Nikephoros’ corner, and this left the army as the final potential column that could be knocked out from under the sitting regime. The army had remained uninvolved in court politics during Alexandros II’s long reign, but many of them had expressed discontent with the abdication of their veteran commander in favor of a literal who. Nikephoros had since done little to earn their loyalty, having refused to call out the bandons to defend the frontier from Turkmen raiders in 1507. As such, while many of them were skeptical of giving Alexios power over anything, several of the higher-ranking officers were willing to help install a new aftokrator. Chief among these was Mikhael Kantakouzenos Philanthropenos, who was on the verge of retiring at the age of seventy-three. Alexios chose to reveal his ruse to Philanthropenos, which proved to be all that was needed to convince him to join his cause. With Philanthropenos would surely come a sizeable chunk of the army, as he was well-respected as a wise and capable commander.

However, they couldn’t just march on the capital. The eleutheroi had, just as Alexandros I had intended, remained completely apolitical and fiercely loyal to the throne. Any Trapezuntine rebels would have to fight through them to get through the aftokrator, in which case they could very easily be defeated. Instead, they needed to attack Nikephoros while he was without the protection of his guards. This opportunity came in the autumn of 1507. Nikephoros had remained completely unaware of the brewing plot against him, and so when in October 1507 word began to spread across the court of a legendary, almost mythical, really, albino stag spotted near Kapnanion, he at once rushed out to go hunting. He traveled only with a handful of eleutheroi and his usual hunting companions. On 26 November , Nikephoros and his party rode into the interior along a narrow, winding road. Here, Alexios, Philanthropenos and three Alexian bandons were lying and wait, and as soon as Nikephoros and his party passed by them, they rushed out and fell upon them. Taken by surprise, the eleutheroi were quickly overwhelmed, and Nikephoros was summarily executed. Alexios and Philanthropenos then marched back to Trapezous, with Nikephoros’ head on a pike.

With their nominal leader’s head no longer attached to his body, the eleutheroi accepted the coup as a fait accompli and allowed Alexios to enter the capital. The church, of course, protested, but it’s not like they had an army to resist, and after a few hours of soldiers drilling outside of the Hagia Sophia, Patriarch Basileios II reluctantly followed the guardsmen’s lead. On 1 December, 1507, Alexios Alexandropoulos Megas Komnenos was crowned as Alexios V of the Trapezuntine Empire. A few hours later, Alexios V married Anastasia Katsarina, who was then invested as co-empress. Alexios then had a dozen people arrested and executed for treason, including Martha, and several dozen more blinded and exiled, including his own brother and two cousins. This was both incredibly ironic for a blatant usurper as well as an ominous hint of the shape of things to come.

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[1] This is a nice way of saying courtesan, which in turn is a nice way of saying prostitute.
[2] The Greek form of this is ‘O Katholikos Arakhne’, or in its Anglicized version, ‘The Catholic Arachnae’. I just find that amusing.
[3] ‘Nephew’ was a term bestowed upon all male relatives of the sitting emperor to within four degrees of affinity, regardless of their actual relation. In truth, Nikephoros was a distant cousin of Alexandros II.
[4] Oph is actually home to the largest Greek-speaking population in Turkey in OTL.
 
Wow @Eparkhos this chapter is awesome!

The way you captured the court intrigue was very well done. It perfectly describes some of the shenanigans I used to pull playing CK2 as the Byzantines.

In terms of the managed chaos under Alexandros , it reminded me of the way players would play their vassals against each other by awarding various titles and land grants.
 
Gotta love court intrigue, and both Alexios and Anastasia delivered in spades.

Alexios is actually very terrifying, especially for those in court who practically dismissed him as a threat, much less an Emperor. Seeing him practically walk to the Capital and go on a rampage would make any courtier quiver in their boots. Hoping that Alexios proves himself to be a shockingly competent aftokrator with Anastasia at his side, although that might be asking for too much hahahaha.

I wonder what sort of war will emerge in the next chapters? Will it be France vs Hungary or something else?
 
Alexios is actually very terrifying, especially for those in court who practically dismissed him as a threat, much less an Emperor. Seeing him practically walk to the Capital and go on a rampage would make any courtier quiver in their boots. Hoping that Alexios proves himself to be a shockingly competent aftokrator with Anastasia at his side, although that might be asking for too much hahahaha.
He’s basically a much more competent Pontean Claudius. I love it!
 
Big ass fucking damn son! Props to Alexios for pulling off the plot and even managing to trick practically everyone in the Empire. He does seem like a ruthless ruler and I'd doubt anyone can over throw him but he does have a lot to live up to. Here's to hoping he's gonna do well
 
Very impressive chapter, i quite liked the court intrigue plot and the coup d'etat. It seems that Alexios is going to be a, well, interesting ruler.
 

Eparkhos

Banned
Wow @Eparkhos this chapter is awesome!

The way you captured the court intrigue was very well done. It perfectly describes some of the shenanigans I used to pull playing CK2 as the Byzantines.

In terms of the managed chaos under Alexandros , it reminded me of the way players would play their vassals against each other by awarding various titles and land grants.
I may or may not be drawing from one of my own CK2 games for some of this.
Gotta love court intrigue, and both Alexios and Anastasia delivered in spades.

Alexios is actually very terrifying, especially for those in court who practically dismissed him as a threat, much less an Emperor. Seeing him practically walk to the Capital and go on a rampage would make any courtier quiver in their boots. Hoping that Alexios proves himself to be a shockingly competent aftokrator with Anastasia at his side, although that might be asking for too much hahahaha.

I wonder what sort of war will emerge in the next chapters? Will it be France vs Hungary or something else?
Alexios will be an alright ruler, skillswise, but his various disorders will make for a very....interesting reign, regardless of the chaos in the west.
He’s basically a much more competent Pontean Claudius. I love it!
I respectfully disagree. You're re really shortchanging Claudius here--he's my favorite pagan emperor, so I could be biased--in the depth and length of his deception. Claudius was a sane man pretending to be crazy, Alexios was a whacko playing it up for the court.
One wonders when Trebisund and the Komnens will become mature enough to not cause dynastic civil wars in the modern age...
Nah, it comes with the territory. If they make it long enough, they'll have dynastic civil wars on the Jovian moons.
Good chapter, @Eparkhos, and waiting for more...
Thank you, I hope to provide.
Big ass fucking damn son! Props to Alexios for pulling off the plot and even managing to trick practically everyone in the Empire. He does seem like a ruthless ruler and I'd doubt anyone can over throw him but he does have a lot to live up to. Here's to hoping he's gonna do well
Yeah, his reign will be a good one, in terms of story potential. My current guide is the quote from Lord of War: "He gained quite the reputation after hacking off the limbs of anyone who he suspected of betraying him....his tenure has been described as 'A seven year long orgy of violence and unprecedented barbarism'. That about sums him up."
Very impressive chapter, i quite liked the court intrigue plot and the coup d'etat. It seems that Alexios is going to be a, well, interesting ruler.
As I said, interesting in the Chinese sense.
 
Part XXXI: The Samtskheote War (1507-1509)

Eparkhos

Banned
Forewarning: I won't be posting on this TL tomorrow, I want to get my new TL off the ground as quickly as possible.

Part XXXI: The Samtskheote War (1507-1509)

The coup of 1507 had left Alexios V and Katsarina as the undisputed rulers of the Trapezuntine Empire. However, as in all states in this period, there was still a great deal of the populace who believed that God’s support for a regime, or lack thereof, was displayed through military feats and victories. Alexios’ coup had seen the involvement of the bandons in a military capacity, but massacring a royal entourage from an ambuscade wasn’t exactly an awe-inspiring victory. Like his father before him, Alexios would spend the first years of his reign trying to establish legitimacy for himself by military means, while Katsarina solidified their rule on the home front.

Alexandros’ long reign had seen Trapezous’ strength girded with a network of alliances and non-aggression pacts with all of her immediate neighbors, bar only the Ottomans, who were far too powerful to fight. However, the looming civil war between Ebülhayr Paşa and Mehmed III could present an excellent opportunity to expand the buffer zone with the Ottomans. This conflict will be discussed at a later time, but eastern Anatolia was primarily loyal to Mehmed III, who would need to muster every man he had to fight the numerically superior forces of Paşa. Indeed, as the spring of 1508 drew near, Alexios ordered that the western bandons be ready for quick mobilization in case the conflict broke out before an Imperial army could arrive to intervene.

However, the first conflict of Alexios V’s reign would not come from the west but from the east. In November 1508, Alek’sandre II of Kartvelia keeled over after nearly three decades upon the throne, shattering Kartvelia. The succession laws of this time, while not the demented empire-destroying Salic breed that were common in the west, still mandated that every son of the late king be given a great deal of land to compensate for not receiving the crown itself. This was obviously problematic in that it gave any ambitious son the means to overthrow his brother, but even worse, Alek’sandre had five sons; Bagrat (b.1485)[1], David (b.1486), Vakhtang (b.1492), Giorgi (b.1497) and Demetri (b.1497). Obviously, Giorgi and Demetri weren’t exactly in a good position to coup their brother, seeing as they were only twelve years of age, but the elder three could all spell disaster for each other. Better still, Bagrat, who was legally entitled to inherit the crown, had been leading a raid against the Shirvanites at the time of his father’s death and so was trapped on the far side of a mountain range until the frost came. This left David and Vakhtang to fight each other in Tbilisi, not over whether Bagrat should receive his birthright, but rather over which one of them should usurp him. In April 1509, David barely escaped an assassination attempt and fled the capital, eventually reaching relative safety in Trapezous. Following his departure, Vakhtang crowned himself as Vakhtang V, officially beginning another civil war.

Obviously, securing the stability of Kartvelia was a vital Trapezuntine policy, as it was one of their best allies and formed a bulwark against raiders coming from the north and east. Under most circumstances, the Trapezuntines would have swiftly intervened on behalf of whichever prince’s position appeared the most stable. However, the unexpected arrival of David to the court changed all of that. If Alexios could manage to install the third brother upon the Kartvelian throne, he would gain an ally who would be beholden to him for the rest of his reign, effectively turning their larger neighbor into a vassal (or so he thought). However, if he failed in doing so, then it could potentially see the collapse of the ancient alliance, which would leave Trapezous out in the cold, and could even embolden the Karamanids enough to try and one-up the Ottomans with an invasion. It was a very high-risk, high-reward situation. Alexios was in favor of the foremost course of action--raising the bandons and marching eastwards to install David upon his throne. However, Anastasia argued against it, as it was simply too much of a risk, not realizing she was putting herself in near equal amounts of peril. Besides, they could simply imprison David and use him as a bargaining chip further down the road. The two went back and forth on the matter for several weeks, but finally, Anastasia prevailed upon her husband. David was imprisoned and “blinded”[2], in fact merely being shipped across the Black Sea to join Alexandros and Romanos in Tmutarakan. Alexios and Trapezous pledged their support to Vakhtang, and in the summer of 1509 a Pontic army was raised to join the war.

The intervention of the Trapezuntines did not substantially alter the balance of power in Kartvelia, as Vakhtang had already had the majority of the kingdom’s men-at-arms at his back. Bagrat had been able to scrounge up some 8,000 footmen from Kartli and a few thousand more auxiliary Shirvanite cavalry and Avar footmen. Vakhtang, in contrast, had raised more than 25,000 men out of his own strength, which was shortly thereafter supplanted by 20,000 Trapezuntines. Vakhtang’s plan was to trap his brother and his army in the Upper Alazani Valley, in which they could be encircled and destroyed, while Bagrat’s plan was to try and slip past his brother’s army into the western two-thirds of the kingdom, where the local nobles could hopefully be rallied to his banner in exchange for increased privileges.

Both Vakhtang and Alexios knew that Bagrat, while significantly weaker than either of them, still posed a threat and that weight of numbers was not everything. Alexios in particular was afraid that if he let Bagrat live, the rebel would try and have him assassinated. As such, they set a trap in August 1508. As the royal Kartvelian army moved to encircle the valley, they left a gap along the road near the fortress town of Kvetera. Bagrat, seeing this as an opportunity to escape and move further westward as he had hoped, bolted through this gap, his advance scouts and pathfinders hindered in their efficacy by a lack of time and difficult terrain. As such, when the Bagratid army emerged from the passes west of Kvetera to find a Trapezuntine army arrayed before them across the plain of Tianeti, they were caught completely flat-footed. Bagrat ordered a retreat, only to find that Kvetera, which had appeared to be abandoned, had in fact been occupied by a concealed garrison of Vakhtangists, who now revealed themselves and cut their retreat. Thinking quickly, Bagrat led his men off the road into a small river valley, carved by the Aniskhevi River, and raced southwards along its banks. The Trapezuntines gave chase, following the Kartvelians across several miles of rough terrain. On 29 August, 1508, the Trapezuntines finally caught the Bagratids upon a ridge seperating the watersheds of the Aniskhevi and Kintiskhevi River. Alexios pinned them in place with the bulk of his forces, then sent his right flank around the ridge to encircle them. After several brutal hours of fighting, the Bagratid army was slaughtered to a man, the only survivor being Bagrat himself, who was led off in chains. Alexios lost only 2,000 men killed or severely injured, a remarkably small butcher’s bill. However, he considered this too high and, after a night of paranoid ramblings, had one of his subcommanders executed for trying to get him killed, albeit indirectly, and several others blinded for conspiring to aid him.

After winning this decisive victory, the Trapezuntines linked back up with Vakhtang’s forces. The Kartvelian had his brother blinded and imprisoned in the isolated fortress city of Maghas, deep in the heart of the Greater Caucasus and from which escape would bring only death by exposure. With his hold on all of Kartvelia now secured, Vakhtang appeared to be ready to stand down the Kartvelian army. However, Alexios intervened, and managed to convince the newly-consolidated monarch to accompany him on a joint campaign that would further legitimize both of them against a common enemy; the Samtskheotes.

The Samtskheots have, of course, appeared most prominently so far in their betrayal of a joint Kartvelian-Trapezuntine army at the Battle of Saint Eugenios in 1485. That this betrayal had failed to prevent a de facto Ottoman defeat was disastrous for the atabegdom, which was now left sandwiched between Kartvelia and Trapezous with no Ottoman protection to be had. After getting his affairs in order, Alek’sandre had campaigned heavily against the Samtskheotes, executing the traitorous Qvarqvare II in 1488 and briefly annexing the entire region back into the Kartvelian crown. However, the terrain here was not at all favorable to Kartvelian settlement, more resembling the plains and rolling hills of Mongolia thousands of miles away than it did the Kartvelian valleys and mountains only a few score miles to the north. Attempts at intensive agriculture failed miserably due to poor soil quality and constant raids, from both the tribal vassals of Karaman and of the Qutlughids. After three years, Alek’sandre finally swallowed his pride and allowed the settlers to return to their homes. He settled several small bands of Turko-Mongols from the far side of the mountains, hoping that their presence would keep raiders from attacking the far more valuable heartland to their north. This had worked for several years, but after a decade and a half the nomads had begun to grow antsy. After Alek’sandre’s death, the leader of the largest band, Mengü, revolted and proclaimed himself the Khan of Qersh, refusing to bow down to the weak farmers in Tbilisi.

This obviously insulted Vakhtang. However, it was Alexios who persuaded the monarch to press the attack even as civil war had only just been quenched. The Trapezuntines would also suffer from Samtskheote raids, as there were a number of passes that led across the mountains that lay within their territory. Alexios wanted to both prevent these raids as well as eliminate the possibility of future raids by securing or erecting fortresses on the far side of the mountains. Vakhtang also wanted to close off the southern approach to Kartvelia to any future raiders, and so the two rulers agreed to work together. They dispatched an ultimatum to Qersh in November 1508, intending to march against them the following spring.

The arrival of this ultimatum in Qersh had a disastrous effect. Many of the minor bands immediately fled from the Khanate, not wanting to risk it all for some upstart who they hardly cared for. This left Mengü with only a few thousand horsemen, all of the three largest tribes who remained loyal to him. He began drawing up plans for meeting the Kartvelians and their allies, hoping to draw them out onto the plains and encircle them as so many other horse lords had done throughout history. As such, he ordered all potential provisions to be stripped from the north and west of his country, so as to deny his enemies forage while he maneuvered them into a kill zone.

Unfortunately for him, he would never get the opportunity to employ these plans. As soon as the passes froze, the allies struck. Suspecting that the Samtksheotes would have destroyed significant amounts of foodstuffs, the allies had split their forces, both outnumbering the defending horsemen. Alexios advanced along the western road from Borjomi, while Vakhtang and his men moved along the road from Tbilisi. Mengü devoted his attention to harassing the Trapezuntines, as he thought that they were less eager to fight than the Kartvelians and thus could more easily be persuaded to withdraw. However, Mengü significantly underestimated the size of the Trapezuntine army, and so was unaware that the force he was facing was in fact 5,000 men smaller than the one which had departed Borjomi. As the Samtskheotes pulled back, harassing the Trapezuntines as they went, they were unknowingly tightening their own noose. On 28 April, as the Samtskheotes were fording the Kuranenri River, just downstream from the small fortress of Art’aani (OTL Ardahan), a Trapezuntine formation, led by one Ioannes Sabbiades, sprung upon them from ambush, attacking the front of the formation. Mengü beat a hasty withdrawal back to the north bank and decided to try and grind down Sabbiades' force from range. However, while he was pinned here, the rest of the Trapezuntine army rushed ahead, hoping to encircle them. Desperate to evade this trap, Mengü ordered his men to scatter, but it was too late. Trapped between the hills to their left and a canyon to their right, the Samtskheotes were unable to escape the closing trap. The lightly-armed, lightly-armored horsemen were utterly slaughtered, being cut down in droves by the far heavier-armored Ponts. After two hours, nearly the entire formation was dead, except for a handful who had managed to ride off into the hills or hide among the dead.

The Battle of Sabbiades’ Ford effectively saw the end of a sovereign Samtskhe. The rest of the campaign season was spent hunting down the remaining Turko-Mongol bands in the region, after which preparations were made for the reintegration of the region into Kartvelia proper. Alexios, of course, grew paranoid and feared that Alek’sandre was prolonging the war in hopes of weakening the Trapezuntines, and so withdrew while there were several enemy forces left in the field. A double fort system was constructed across the breadth of the southern frontier, stretching along the Aras Cliffs and into the hills westward of that great natural embankment as far as the Vol’tik (Oltu River). From here, the new conquests were ceded to Trapezous, encompassing a broad range of dense, isolated hills that stretched to within a few scant miles north of Theodosiopolis. Alexios gave orders for the construction of a number of fortresses, both to secure those passages as well as the breadth of the Akampsis River, which was the only effective means of communication on the far side of the mountains. He left Sabbiades behind with twelve bandons to erect these fortresses before withdrawing back to Pontos proper. He awarded himself as triumph upon returning to the capital, no doubt hoping to emulate his father, but became uncomfortable partway through and fled the parade.

The completion of the campaign in 1509 proved to be fortuitous timing, as just the following year, the Ottoman Empire would collapse into civil war. Trapezous would need all hands on deck to exploit this crisis, or maybe even to just survive it….

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[1] This was the historical Bagrat III
[2] Alexios here took a leaf from his namesake and had David ostensibly blinded, in fact just shunting him off to Tmutarakan as an insurance policy in case Vakhtang tried to double cross him.
 
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The completion of the campaign in 1509 proved to be fortuitous timing, as just the following year, the Ottoman Empire would collapse into civil war. Trapezous would need all hands on deck to exploit this crisis, or maybe even to just survive it….
Guess the Ottoman policy of fratricide backfired on them.
 
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