The Undying Empire: A Trebizond Timeline
- Thread starter Eparkhos
- Start date
- Status
What are the sizeable ‘Turkish’ Anatolian population doing?Did they convert back to Christianity or did they get slaughtered by the Christian rebels?Or are they fighting sectarian wars against Christians?
I don't think this revolt is going to bring the Greeks of Trebizond the sort of dominance and revival they're hoping for.
It should be in the Medieval section of the Turtledove Awards Polls. Should be one of the first threads listed since it is pinned.
Part XXXVII: Return to the Sangarios (1516-1517)
Eparkhos
Banned
Not best, not a lot of time, thank you all, will revise later
Part XXXVII: Return to the Sangarios (1516-1517)
When Nikaia’s call for aid arrived in Trapezous, it arrived at what was probably the most opportune moment given the previous years’ turmoil. Ratetas had set about trying to reorganize the chaotic and undisciplined remnants of the army into a true fighting force, making surprisingly good progress in a mere two months. The primary losses had been amongst the officer corps, and while they would take time to replace in terms of quality, in terms of quantity it wasn’t especially difficult to just promote NCOs and junior officers up the ranks. The bandons, thank God, had remained mostly intact and could still be called upon if need-be, while the standing army had been significantly diminished but were still a capable force. The eleutheroi had been reduced to less than two hundred by the purges, Sabbides’ revolt and Ypsilantis’ coup, but they could be used as a core to rebuild around. Already, Trapezuntine ships were stalking the coasts of Circassia, waiting to pounce upon any slaver they caught unescorted. Speaking of ships, the Trapezuntine navy was in great condition, as Ratetas had managed to keep them firmly latched to the treasury’s teat, and any postponed repairs or equipment changes were rushed through once he was officially in power.
Moreover, Ratetas was also eager to join their western brothers in their struggle for independence. He was a deeply pious man and had been infuriated by the reports of the atrocities against the faithful that came streaming out of Bithynia after Kolpazar’s fall, and had gone so far as to dispatch ships to evacuate refugees from Pontoherakleia in 1515. His personal desire for vengeance was not the only motivating factor, however, as there was a great deal of political and strategic benefit to be gained from intervention. By leading a successful campaign against the infidels--and the hated Ottomans, at that--he would legitimize himself as regent, making it far more difficult for any rivals to unseat him, as well as make himself enormously popular. Annexing such lands as were held by the rebels, excuse me, Nikaians, would also benefit Trapezous by at the very least creating a buffer zone and at the very best allowing them to establish complete control of the Anatolian littoral. He wasn’t deluded, of course, and he knew that the best that he could realistically hope for was all of Paphlagonia with Prousias and Pontoherakleia thrown in, but still, it was a tantalizing prospect. As such, he wrote to Lefkos and Panagiokhristophorites and promised that he would arrive in July to aid them if they could just hold out for a few more months.
In the interim, he set about raising an army. He was able to muster some 10,000 soldiers from the regular army while still leaving enough behind to secure the capital and the Empire proper, and then raised sixty bandons (15,000 men) from the lands surrounding the capital, promising them vast rewards taken from those Turkish bastards when they drove them away from Christian hearths and homes. This first force was just barely able to fit aboard the Trapezuntine armada (and a few requisitioned grain merchantmen[1]), and so it would be the force which Ratetas would lead against Bithynia himself. He was a sailor, not a soldier, though, so the actual soldiers aboard would be commanded by a minor general named Khristophoros Raptis. However, it would not be the sole army, as he also raised forty more bandons (10,000 men) and put them under the command of his cousin, Sabbas Tarkhaneiotes. Tarkhaneiotes was a somewhat experienced commander, having commanded forces on the southern frontier and thus being used to the raid-and-counter-raid pattern of conflict with Turkmen bands. Tarkhaneiotes was to stay behind in Trapezous, to keep the Karamanids or Qutlughids from getting any ideas[2]. Of course, securing supplies for such an armada would take time, and so it was not until late June that the expeditionary force was truly assembled. After a week of awkward maneuvering, camps in the middle of the city, and disorganized loading, the armada put out from Trapezous on 6 July 1516. There were 15,000 soldiers, nearly 20,000 sailors, and several thousand horses loaded aboard more than fifty transports and escorted by that and more warships, one of the largest forces raised in all of Trapezuntine history.
After departing the capital, the grand fleet hugged the Pontic coast all the way to Sinope, where they weighed anchor and made some last-minute resupplies in addition to taking on two more bandons and a pair of galleys to join their number. Whether either of these galleys was the Çandarid flagship which Ratetas had captured nearly fifty years previous is unknown[3], but the regent and admiral almost certainly thought of that incident before they departed once again on 19 July. After weighing anchor, the ships continued along the Pontic coast to Abana, the easternmost town in the Empire. A single salvo was fired that afternoon, officially marking the beginning of the Trapezuntine intervention. They pressed further onwards in the same formation, passing Amisos (OTL Amasra) on 23 July and landing five bandons to capture the city. The defenders fled without firing a shot and three of them were left behind to garrison the port.
Four days later, they arrived at Pontoherakleia. The city had been under siege for the better half of the last year by a motley force of klephts and armatoloi, not enough to actually take the city but enough to make leaving the city or receiving supplies overland a nightmare for the garrison. As the vanguard arrived, its commodore[4], Ioannes Psarimarkos, sent a message to the garrison commander demanding that they surrender outright and immediately. This was, as expected, ignored by the city’s commander, who no doubt believed that some of the rebels had managed to hijack/liberate a few slave galleys and were now playing pirates. We can only imagine how the commander felt as he watched the rest of the Trapezuntine fleet pull around the headland north of the city. He hastily tried to surrender, but Ratetas apologetically informed him that allowing a garrison who had refused to surrender to go free would be a bad precedent. Six galleries closed to within cannonshot of the harbor and opened up, sending several hundred pounds of stone and lead into the walls of the citadel at subsonic speeds. Within half an hour the eastern face of the castle had collapsed, and the Turks were allowed to surrender. Five bandons were landed to secure the city, alongside the local klephts and the armatoloi. Ratetas then split his forces, sending twenty galleys to advance before them and sweep the coast of any Ottoman ships while the rest of the armada pressed on along the coast.
On 30 July, the fleet made landfall at its final destination, the mouth of the Sangarios River. (Note: the modern coastline around the mouth of the Sakarya was created after extensive dredging by the Turkish government during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Prior to this, much of the coastal strip was taken up a mangrove swamp, and the river was constantly silting up its mouth, which was much wider than OTL. At this time, the mouth of the Sangarios would have been 5km inland from the modern coast, near the OTL village of Tuzla. The river mouth would have been a sizable harbor, albeit a fairly shallow one outside of the main channel.) The Trapezuntines weighed anchor in the narrow river mouth and quickly captured the small nearby village of Kontolimani, which was turned into a bustling harbor. Over the next few days, the entire host was put ashore there, forming up in a sprawling camp system that encompassed more than a square mile. On 3 August, the unloading was finally completed, having been delayed by the lack of good port facilities. At long last, however, Ratetas and his army were ready to do battle.
It was excellent timing, to say the very least. The reversal of fortunes had only gotten worse since the Nikaians had sent their cry for help, and they were now on the ropes. While the klephts and the armatoloi still clung on in the highlands, Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey and his cavalrymen had succeeded in driving them from the lowlands of Bithynia, and many of the major cities had surrendered rather than share the fate of Kolpazar. Back in June, Ebülhayr Paşa had dispatched a small force to put down the revolt, and the two factions had made common cause to put down the rebels. Magnesia itself was under siege, and if it were to fall the fire would go out of the rebellion altogether. Ratetas was hastily informed of all of this by Panagiokhristophorites, who had mustered a host of 3,000 in hopes of breaking the siege or at the very least wearing them down. The arrival of the Trapezuntines was a welcome relief, and the regent and the thief soon began concocting a plan….
After departing Kontolimani, Ratetas and his army marched directly for Magnesia. No doubt driven by fear of the rebel capital falling, they moved swiftly (well, as swiftly as one can when most of your experienced commanders are dead) southwards, beating back Turkmen outriders in all directions. They moved along the left bank of the Sangarios this entire time, seemingly with no regards to secrecy or security. Word of their march reached Malkoçoğlu, and he was left to watch in confusion as they blundered directly towards them. This Ratetas fellow was far from a skilled general according to all reports, but he had to be a special kind of stupid to be acting like he was. Come on, marching 10,000 men directly towards the enemy’s camp when they are superior in both numbers and experience? Nonetheless, the bey decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and moved to intercept. In order to approach Magnesia from the north, the Trapezuntine army would have to pass through the narrow Sangarios Pass. The Turkmen lay in wait, of course, camped upon the steep slopes of the mountains and waiting for the enemy to make contact with them. Finally, on 17 August, the approaching Trapezuntine force became visible, and Malkoçoğlu readied his men for battle. As the enemy infantry entered the valley, he raised the horsetail banner and ordered his men to open fire, sending a hail of arrows down at them.
But then the left side of the valley exploded into gunfire, sending a hail of bullets and cannonballs streaking across the breadth of the valley. The bey turned to look, or rather he would have turned to look had the left side of his body not decided to try and occupy the same space as a cannonball. More Greeks came swarming out of a small side valley, ranks of men on the side of the mountain opening fire with cannons, arquebuses and crossbows. With hoarse war cries, the Ponts streamed across the valley and fell upon the Turkish ambuscade like a bolt from on-high, easily cutting down the practically unarmored dismounted archers. Taken completely off-guard, the Turkmen were unable to respond in kind for several crucial moments, and with their commander dead and his standard fallen, many of the Turkmen ran for their lives. The Trapezuntines followed them, cutting down many before they reached their waiting horses and fled in disarray.
Panagiokhristophorites had led nearly 15,000 men through a winding series of valleys, over rough hills and in one case even across the face of a sheer cliff to arrive in the flank of the valley, where they hoped the Turkmen would be waiting for Ratetas and the bait force. By sheer luck, it had worked exactly as planned, and now the Ottoman army was shattered, running scared across the valley. The next day, the Trapezuntines relieved Magnesia and paraded through the streets of the beleaguered city to the roar of the townspeople. Ratetas formally accepted Lefkos’ offer of the Nikaian crown on behalf of his charge.
In the following weeks, Trapezuntine forces would spread out across the region, recapturing several cities from the Turks and driving their raiders from much of the highlands. Prousias still stood strong, and Bolu would be put to a siege as their Turkish garrison fought to the bitter end. Phrygia[5] proper was quickly secured, and Ratetas soon directed his attention to an offensive against the still-Ottoman lands to the north and west. That October, Ratetas and a force of 15,000 marched against Nikomedia, once the chief port city of the region. Under Ottoman rule, the city’s defenses had lapsed due to a perceived lack of threat, and its garrison had been siphoned away to join the fighting in Europe. The regent had cannons hauled onto the heights to the north of the city and pounded away at the city walls, but in spite of his best efforts the defenders stood as strong as those in Ferrara, fighting on from the rubble against overwhelming odds. Ebülhayr Paşa was bogged down in Europe, believing that Mehmed was on the ropes and could be defeated within that campaign season, but recognized how damaging the loss of Nikomedia would be and redirected forces to support the city, fearing that with its loss Constantinople would be left open to attack. Because of this, in spite of the long odds facing the defenders, they were able to hold out throughout the autumn of 1516, into the winter of 1516 and then into the spring of 1517. Even as the city was reduced to a glorified pile of rubble and Ratetas ordered frequent assaults across the many breaches in the city’s walls, they were able to hold out. By March of 1517, however, it had become apparent that they wouldn’t be able to do so for much longer. The slow trickle of reinforcements had been cut off entirely as Mehmed’ second wind drove the vizier’s forces back down the Axios Valley, and Ratetas hoped that at long last he would take the city.
But Nikomedia would receive a stay of execution as Ebülhayr Paşa sued for peace. Mehmed had somehow managed to turn the tide in the far west, and he needed every man available to him to be in the field ASAP. He believed that the Trapezuntines would be seriously overextending themselves by pushing into Bithynia, and so they could be rather easily defeated once he had managed to restore order within the Ottoman realm. He was willing to take territorial losses in the east, because he thought they were recoverable. As such, he proposed that Bithynia proper (sans the ports, of course, because the last thing he needed were Trapezuntine ships in the Marmora) be given over to the Nikaians. Ratetas, however, refused. He was far from a seasoned administrator, but he knew that having such a large exclave on the far side of Anatolia was a recipe for disaster. After several weeks of back and forth, the regent and the grand vizier settled upon an agreeable arrangement. All of Ottoman Paphlagonia and Kontolimni would be given over to the Trapezuntines, while the Nikaians would be ceded a decent section of land, a map of which will be posted alongside this. The Nikaians weren’t the happiest, being forced to give up a great deal of their conquered/liberated lands so the Trapezuntines could take Paphlagonia. However, Ratetas brushed off these concerns, instead concerned with word coming out of the Qutlughid Empire. But of course, all of this would be overshadowed by the brewing conflict in the west….
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[1] Trapezuntine merchants were required to give up their ships to the aftokrator in times of crisis, but they weren’t exactly happy about this
[2] The Qutlughids were, nominally speaking, allies of the Trapezuntines, but alliances only last as long as their members are willing to honor them.
[3] Some truly ancient galleys were kept around in reserves or mothball fleets, ready to be reactivated in times of crisis if they were needed. Of course, they weren’t exactly effective, but, hey, if push comes to shove it’s always good to be prepared.
[4] i.e. subcommander
[5] This refers to the hilly areas in the north and east of Bithynia.
Part XXXVII: Return to the Sangarios (1516-1517)
When Nikaia’s call for aid arrived in Trapezous, it arrived at what was probably the most opportune moment given the previous years’ turmoil. Ratetas had set about trying to reorganize the chaotic and undisciplined remnants of the army into a true fighting force, making surprisingly good progress in a mere two months. The primary losses had been amongst the officer corps, and while they would take time to replace in terms of quality, in terms of quantity it wasn’t especially difficult to just promote NCOs and junior officers up the ranks. The bandons, thank God, had remained mostly intact and could still be called upon if need-be, while the standing army had been significantly diminished but were still a capable force. The eleutheroi had been reduced to less than two hundred by the purges, Sabbides’ revolt and Ypsilantis’ coup, but they could be used as a core to rebuild around. Already, Trapezuntine ships were stalking the coasts of Circassia, waiting to pounce upon any slaver they caught unescorted. Speaking of ships, the Trapezuntine navy was in great condition, as Ratetas had managed to keep them firmly latched to the treasury’s teat, and any postponed repairs or equipment changes were rushed through once he was officially in power.
Moreover, Ratetas was also eager to join their western brothers in their struggle for independence. He was a deeply pious man and had been infuriated by the reports of the atrocities against the faithful that came streaming out of Bithynia after Kolpazar’s fall, and had gone so far as to dispatch ships to evacuate refugees from Pontoherakleia in 1515. His personal desire for vengeance was not the only motivating factor, however, as there was a great deal of political and strategic benefit to be gained from intervention. By leading a successful campaign against the infidels--and the hated Ottomans, at that--he would legitimize himself as regent, making it far more difficult for any rivals to unseat him, as well as make himself enormously popular. Annexing such lands as were held by the rebels, excuse me, Nikaians, would also benefit Trapezous by at the very least creating a buffer zone and at the very best allowing them to establish complete control of the Anatolian littoral. He wasn’t deluded, of course, and he knew that the best that he could realistically hope for was all of Paphlagonia with Prousias and Pontoherakleia thrown in, but still, it was a tantalizing prospect. As such, he wrote to Lefkos and Panagiokhristophorites and promised that he would arrive in July to aid them if they could just hold out for a few more months.
In the interim, he set about raising an army. He was able to muster some 10,000 soldiers from the regular army while still leaving enough behind to secure the capital and the Empire proper, and then raised sixty bandons (15,000 men) from the lands surrounding the capital, promising them vast rewards taken from those Turkish bastards when they drove them away from Christian hearths and homes. This first force was just barely able to fit aboard the Trapezuntine armada (and a few requisitioned grain merchantmen[1]), and so it would be the force which Ratetas would lead against Bithynia himself. He was a sailor, not a soldier, though, so the actual soldiers aboard would be commanded by a minor general named Khristophoros Raptis. However, it would not be the sole army, as he also raised forty more bandons (10,000 men) and put them under the command of his cousin, Sabbas Tarkhaneiotes. Tarkhaneiotes was a somewhat experienced commander, having commanded forces on the southern frontier and thus being used to the raid-and-counter-raid pattern of conflict with Turkmen bands. Tarkhaneiotes was to stay behind in Trapezous, to keep the Karamanids or Qutlughids from getting any ideas[2]. Of course, securing supplies for such an armada would take time, and so it was not until late June that the expeditionary force was truly assembled. After a week of awkward maneuvering, camps in the middle of the city, and disorganized loading, the armada put out from Trapezous on 6 July 1516. There were 15,000 soldiers, nearly 20,000 sailors, and several thousand horses loaded aboard more than fifty transports and escorted by that and more warships, one of the largest forces raised in all of Trapezuntine history.
After departing the capital, the grand fleet hugged the Pontic coast all the way to Sinope, where they weighed anchor and made some last-minute resupplies in addition to taking on two more bandons and a pair of galleys to join their number. Whether either of these galleys was the Çandarid flagship which Ratetas had captured nearly fifty years previous is unknown[3], but the regent and admiral almost certainly thought of that incident before they departed once again on 19 July. After weighing anchor, the ships continued along the Pontic coast to Abana, the easternmost town in the Empire. A single salvo was fired that afternoon, officially marking the beginning of the Trapezuntine intervention. They pressed further onwards in the same formation, passing Amisos (OTL Amasra) on 23 July and landing five bandons to capture the city. The defenders fled without firing a shot and three of them were left behind to garrison the port.
Four days later, they arrived at Pontoherakleia. The city had been under siege for the better half of the last year by a motley force of klephts and armatoloi, not enough to actually take the city but enough to make leaving the city or receiving supplies overland a nightmare for the garrison. As the vanguard arrived, its commodore[4], Ioannes Psarimarkos, sent a message to the garrison commander demanding that they surrender outright and immediately. This was, as expected, ignored by the city’s commander, who no doubt believed that some of the rebels had managed to hijack/liberate a few slave galleys and were now playing pirates. We can only imagine how the commander felt as he watched the rest of the Trapezuntine fleet pull around the headland north of the city. He hastily tried to surrender, but Ratetas apologetically informed him that allowing a garrison who had refused to surrender to go free would be a bad precedent. Six galleries closed to within cannonshot of the harbor and opened up, sending several hundred pounds of stone and lead into the walls of the citadel at subsonic speeds. Within half an hour the eastern face of the castle had collapsed, and the Turks were allowed to surrender. Five bandons were landed to secure the city, alongside the local klephts and the armatoloi. Ratetas then split his forces, sending twenty galleys to advance before them and sweep the coast of any Ottoman ships while the rest of the armada pressed on along the coast.
On 30 July, the fleet made landfall at its final destination, the mouth of the Sangarios River. (Note: the modern coastline around the mouth of the Sakarya was created after extensive dredging by the Turkish government during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Prior to this, much of the coastal strip was taken up a mangrove swamp, and the river was constantly silting up its mouth, which was much wider than OTL. At this time, the mouth of the Sangarios would have been 5km inland from the modern coast, near the OTL village of Tuzla. The river mouth would have been a sizable harbor, albeit a fairly shallow one outside of the main channel.) The Trapezuntines weighed anchor in the narrow river mouth and quickly captured the small nearby village of Kontolimani, which was turned into a bustling harbor. Over the next few days, the entire host was put ashore there, forming up in a sprawling camp system that encompassed more than a square mile. On 3 August, the unloading was finally completed, having been delayed by the lack of good port facilities. At long last, however, Ratetas and his army were ready to do battle.
It was excellent timing, to say the very least. The reversal of fortunes had only gotten worse since the Nikaians had sent their cry for help, and they were now on the ropes. While the klephts and the armatoloi still clung on in the highlands, Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey and his cavalrymen had succeeded in driving them from the lowlands of Bithynia, and many of the major cities had surrendered rather than share the fate of Kolpazar. Back in June, Ebülhayr Paşa had dispatched a small force to put down the revolt, and the two factions had made common cause to put down the rebels. Magnesia itself was under siege, and if it were to fall the fire would go out of the rebellion altogether. Ratetas was hastily informed of all of this by Panagiokhristophorites, who had mustered a host of 3,000 in hopes of breaking the siege or at the very least wearing them down. The arrival of the Trapezuntines was a welcome relief, and the regent and the thief soon began concocting a plan….
After departing Kontolimani, Ratetas and his army marched directly for Magnesia. No doubt driven by fear of the rebel capital falling, they moved swiftly (well, as swiftly as one can when most of your experienced commanders are dead) southwards, beating back Turkmen outriders in all directions. They moved along the left bank of the Sangarios this entire time, seemingly with no regards to secrecy or security. Word of their march reached Malkoçoğlu, and he was left to watch in confusion as they blundered directly towards them. This Ratetas fellow was far from a skilled general according to all reports, but he had to be a special kind of stupid to be acting like he was. Come on, marching 10,000 men directly towards the enemy’s camp when they are superior in both numbers and experience? Nonetheless, the bey decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and moved to intercept. In order to approach Magnesia from the north, the Trapezuntine army would have to pass through the narrow Sangarios Pass. The Turkmen lay in wait, of course, camped upon the steep slopes of the mountains and waiting for the enemy to make contact with them. Finally, on 17 August, the approaching Trapezuntine force became visible, and Malkoçoğlu readied his men for battle. As the enemy infantry entered the valley, he raised the horsetail banner and ordered his men to open fire, sending a hail of arrows down at them.
But then the left side of the valley exploded into gunfire, sending a hail of bullets and cannonballs streaking across the breadth of the valley. The bey turned to look, or rather he would have turned to look had the left side of his body not decided to try and occupy the same space as a cannonball. More Greeks came swarming out of a small side valley, ranks of men on the side of the mountain opening fire with cannons, arquebuses and crossbows. With hoarse war cries, the Ponts streamed across the valley and fell upon the Turkish ambuscade like a bolt from on-high, easily cutting down the practically unarmored dismounted archers. Taken completely off-guard, the Turkmen were unable to respond in kind for several crucial moments, and with their commander dead and his standard fallen, many of the Turkmen ran for their lives. The Trapezuntines followed them, cutting down many before they reached their waiting horses and fled in disarray.
Panagiokhristophorites had led nearly 15,000 men through a winding series of valleys, over rough hills and in one case even across the face of a sheer cliff to arrive in the flank of the valley, where they hoped the Turkmen would be waiting for Ratetas and the bait force. By sheer luck, it had worked exactly as planned, and now the Ottoman army was shattered, running scared across the valley. The next day, the Trapezuntines relieved Magnesia and paraded through the streets of the beleaguered city to the roar of the townspeople. Ratetas formally accepted Lefkos’ offer of the Nikaian crown on behalf of his charge.
In the following weeks, Trapezuntine forces would spread out across the region, recapturing several cities from the Turks and driving their raiders from much of the highlands. Prousias still stood strong, and Bolu would be put to a siege as their Turkish garrison fought to the bitter end. Phrygia[5] proper was quickly secured, and Ratetas soon directed his attention to an offensive against the still-Ottoman lands to the north and west. That October, Ratetas and a force of 15,000 marched against Nikomedia, once the chief port city of the region. Under Ottoman rule, the city’s defenses had lapsed due to a perceived lack of threat, and its garrison had been siphoned away to join the fighting in Europe. The regent had cannons hauled onto the heights to the north of the city and pounded away at the city walls, but in spite of his best efforts the defenders stood as strong as those in Ferrara, fighting on from the rubble against overwhelming odds. Ebülhayr Paşa was bogged down in Europe, believing that Mehmed was on the ropes and could be defeated within that campaign season, but recognized how damaging the loss of Nikomedia would be and redirected forces to support the city, fearing that with its loss Constantinople would be left open to attack. Because of this, in spite of the long odds facing the defenders, they were able to hold out throughout the autumn of 1516, into the winter of 1516 and then into the spring of 1517. Even as the city was reduced to a glorified pile of rubble and Ratetas ordered frequent assaults across the many breaches in the city’s walls, they were able to hold out. By March of 1517, however, it had become apparent that they wouldn’t be able to do so for much longer. The slow trickle of reinforcements had been cut off entirely as Mehmed’ second wind drove the vizier’s forces back down the Axios Valley, and Ratetas hoped that at long last he would take the city.
But Nikomedia would receive a stay of execution as Ebülhayr Paşa sued for peace. Mehmed had somehow managed to turn the tide in the far west, and he needed every man available to him to be in the field ASAP. He believed that the Trapezuntines would be seriously overextending themselves by pushing into Bithynia, and so they could be rather easily defeated once he had managed to restore order within the Ottoman realm. He was willing to take territorial losses in the east, because he thought they were recoverable. As such, he proposed that Bithynia proper (sans the ports, of course, because the last thing he needed were Trapezuntine ships in the Marmora) be given over to the Nikaians. Ratetas, however, refused. He was far from a seasoned administrator, but he knew that having such a large exclave on the far side of Anatolia was a recipe for disaster. After several weeks of back and forth, the regent and the grand vizier settled upon an agreeable arrangement. All of Ottoman Paphlagonia and Kontolimni would be given over to the Trapezuntines, while the Nikaians would be ceded a decent section of land, a map of which will be posted alongside this. The Nikaians weren’t the happiest, being forced to give up a great deal of their conquered/liberated lands so the Trapezuntines could take Paphlagonia. However, Ratetas brushed off these concerns, instead concerned with word coming out of the Qutlughid Empire. But of course, all of this would be overshadowed by the brewing conflict in the west….
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[1] Trapezuntine merchants were required to give up their ships to the aftokrator in times of crisis, but they weren’t exactly happy about this
[2] The Qutlughids were, nominally speaking, allies of the Trapezuntines, but alliances only last as long as their members are willing to honor them.
[3] Some truly ancient galleys were kept around in reserves or mothball fleets, ready to be reactivated in times of crisis if they were needed. Of course, they weren’t exactly effective, but, hey, if push comes to shove it’s always good to be prepared.
[4] i.e. subcommander
[5] This refers to the hilly areas in the north and east of Bithynia.
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And so things go in full circle.The Ottomans became the new Palaiologian empire.Map please!
Seems like the Ottomans will eventually be reduced to the Balkans. Karminads must of expanded a bit, not including possibly expansions of the Catholic/orthodox states in the Balkans during the Ottoman civil war.
What is this region?
Also, looks like a large-scale population exchange is in order between Bithynia and Paphlagonia.
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"Magnesia"? The only references I can find are to two cities in Ionia, far to the southwest. (And to the Magnesia region in Thessaly.)
I cannot find any references to either of these.
Map of the gains from the Third Trapezuntine-Ottoman War
Eparkhos
Banned
Alright, first things first: the map. Sorry for not posting it last night, my basement was being flooded and I was worried I'd lose power.
Dark blue is pre-war Trapezous
Light blue is annexed into the Trapezuntine Empire
Orange is part of the Nikaian Empire, which is in personal union with the Trapezuntine Empire
In each of the cities, there is a pie chart showing the predominant ethnicities. Blue is Greek, Green is Turkish, and Yellow is Armenian
Dark blue is pre-war Trapezous
Light blue is annexed into the Trapezuntine Empire
Orange is part of the Nikaian Empire, which is in personal union with the Trapezuntine Empire
In each of the cities, there is a pie chart showing the predominant ethnicities. Blue is Greek, Green is Turkish, and Yellow is Armenian
Eparkhos
Banned
Yes! The question is, will they face the same fate as the Palaiologians or will there be an Ottoman revival?
The Karamanids have indeed gone into a feeding frenzy and have made excellent gains in Anatolia, which will be discussed later. The Balkans are....interesting. As mentioned in 'Filler Title', the Romanians are also making good gains, having essentially overrun Dobruja. The Balkan states are also taking advantage. The Venetians have seized a number of islands, while Epiros and Albania are both making hay while the sun shines and are hastilly marching into the mountains. The Thessalians have occupied Kastoria and several other cities 'for safe keeping', making use of their position as an Ottoman vassal to hopefully steal away a few border territories while they're distracted. The Moreotes, meanwhile, have both seized several islands and have struck against Thessalia, hoping to advance their position there while their rivals' patrons are busy elsewhere.
For the Trapezuntines, it is. The Ottoman Civil War will continue until
See my response below.
Anyway, I disagree with there being a population exchange. The Trapezuntines have a vested interest in keeping as many Greeks as possible in Bithynia, because they are a potential fifth column against the Turks; even if they remain loyal, the Turks will have to leave behind forces on the off chance their is a rebellion. Paphlagonia, meanwhile, can be fairly easily cleansed of Turkmen, who are the real problem in terms of governance, and land can be resettled at varying paces, as it is of less immediate importance. If they settle using only Greeks, it'll obviously take a while, but if they can rope in some Armenians from the Qutlughids or Karamanids, or even some troublesome noblemen or vanquished rebels from Kartvelia or Circassia--speaking of which, I just realized I've completely neglected Circassia. I'll have to rectify that soon.
I keep on meaning to type out a full response, but it seems like I'm always low on time. I'll put together a response tomorrow and post it as soon as I can, how about that? Sorry to keep you waiting, I just keep losing track of time.
To quote from "A Study of Palaiologan Border Defenses" by Anna Christidou:
"Magnesia on the Sakarya was founded by Andronicus II in 1305 in an attempt to shore up control of Bithynia after the disastrous collapse of the Bithynian military frontier two years before. It was too little too late, as the fortress city--founded at present-day Geyve in Sakarya Province--was able to project power only as far as the edges of the surrounding valley proving to be next to useless against the marauding ghazis. (...) In spite of the great amount of funds put into its settlement and the hundreds of soldiers posted there, Magnesia was effectively abandoned during the civil wars in 1321, being completely wrested from Imperial control after Andronicus III's defeat at Pelekanon in 1329. (...) The last evidence of habitation in the fortress is found circa 1550."
Kontolimni was a small Greek fishing village that existed just south of the modern village of Manavpinari, west of Karasu. It was abandoned in the early 17th century because the Sakarya became too silted to be navigable.
In regards to your PM, the line was a joke I missed during the editing. It's a lyric from the song "Ol' Red",
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Part XXXVIII (1517-1531): The Spoils of War
Eparkhos
Banned
Part XXXVIII (1517-1531): The Spoils of War
Loukas Ratetas’ expedition to the Sangarios had seen hundreds of square miles of land pass under the lordship of David Megalokomnenos, both directly into the Trapezuntine crownlands and into the newly-reestablished Nikaian crown. These new territories encompassed a population of Armenians, Greeks, Seljuks and Turkmen, who followed a bizarre mix of Apostolic and Orthodox Christians, orthodox Sunni Muslims, heterodox Sufi Muslims, and a smattering of Catholics and Shiites. Most of these new territories also lay hundreds of miles away from the Trapezuntine heartlands across regions ravaged by war and brigandry. Administering them would be quite the challenge, to say the least.
The most pressing problem were the Turkmen, who had taken to raiding unabashedly during the absence of Ottoman control, and would need to be either reduced or driven out by force. Between 1518 and 1521, Panagiokhristophorites and a mixed force of Nikaians and Trapezuntines conducted a campaign of eradication, directed both at the Turkmen and the Seljuk or Greek bandits who had taken up residence in the wild country of the hills and the distant forests. The former klepht was successful in defeating his one-time confederates on the one hand, succeeding in eliminating brigandry in the region with the force of overwhelming arms, but while he was able to reduce the Turkish presence in Bithynia by a great number, driving them out of the highlands and the valleys proper. However, the Turkmen were able to retreat to the great rolling plains of nominal Ottoman and Karamanid land, where Panagiokhristophorites could not pursue. Seeking any possible solution to the raiding problem, Ratetas had a series of border fortifications erected along the edge of the hill country. They were far from the Great Wall, or even the Sangarios Line that Andronikos II had erected, and would crumble before a determined assault by the Karamanids or similar, but they were strong enough to fend off the minor bands of raiders that frequented the frontier zones. The construction of the so-called Phrygian Wall was completed by 1525, a string of small earthen forts each four miles apart with cavalry bases established between every fifth station. These were able to hold off Turkmen raiders practically indefinitely, and the end of the raiding endeared the Megalokomnenoi to their new subjects.
The second issue of concern were the Armenians. The Turks and the Muslims could be allowed a degree of freedom because they were outright heathens, but allowing the merely heretical Apostolics the same liberties would infuriate the church, whose support Ratetas needed to keep the regency. As such, he was unable to proclaim complete freedom for the Armenains--Loukas himself believed that the Armenians could be valuable allies against the Turks--and instead gave them a status halfway between the Orthodox and the infidels, sparing them from the taxes levied upon the Muslims and allowing them to serve in the bandons and thus own weaponry. However, the Apostolic Church was kept at an arm’s length, and Ratetas refused to acknowledge its existence, instead directing any delegations from them to the Patriarch. However, he was able to encourage the two churches to try and work out a deal, which shall be elaborated upon later.
And, finally, there were the Turks and Muslims. Ratetas found dealing with all the different imams and ulema an exhausting affair, let alone trying to mediate between the Sunnis and the Suffis. As such, he appointed a bishop named Theodoros of Alexandria as “Grand Counselor of the Mohammedans” or megas symvolos ton mousoulmanon, charged with dealing with the fractious bastards and giving truncated reports to the regent. The rank-and-file Muslims, meanwhile, were ready to go about as per usual, albeit subject to a whole heaping pile of taxes. Ratetas considered subjecting them to the same harsh treatment which the Anatolian Greeks had faced….unwise….given the strength of the Karamanids and how they would jump at the opportunity to carry the jihad northwards. This was protested strenuously by the Nikaians, who were eager for revenge, but Ratetas was firm and the infidels were allowed to continue on as normal. Mind you, there were still persecutions--there were lynch mobs in every major city (their success depended on how willing the city’s eparkhos was to stand against a baying mob) and a quarter of Krateia was burned to the ground in one particularly nasty incident in 1523--but for the most part, they were….not dead.
As previously mentioned, Ratetas had won a great deal of land, split between Trapezous proper and Nikaia. This land was a spectrum of different landforms, from the rolling pseudo-steppe of Inner Paphlagonia, the rainforest-covered mountains of Outer Paphlagonia[1], the broad and fertile plains of Bithynia, the forested hills of Phrygia proper to the dry and scrubby fringes of Galatia. Once again as aforementioned, the denizens of this broad spectrum of land were equally diverse in both tongue and faith. The boundaries of the annexation had been drawn without regard to either geography or ethnicity, instead focusing on control of important cities and roads. Ratetas had concluded that these were far more important in governing the newly-conquered territories than their natural geography, and this was not incorrect.
The most important city in the west was Magnesia (OTL Geyve), the true capital of the Empire of Nikaia. Nikaia itself had been reduced to little more than rubble by the armies of Orkhan I back in the 14th century--its population had fallen from upwards of 15,000 under Ioannes III Vatatzes to only 1200 by the early 16th century--and Ratetas concluded that rebuilding the de jure capital simply wasn’t worth it. Magnesia, in comparison, had a population of nearly 5,000, having soared with refugees and volunteers after becoming the rebel capital, and was strategically located within a large and roomy valley, its northern approaches protected by a gorge along the Sangarios and its western approach, the only other entry large enough to march an army through, having similar natural defenses. Magnesia was also already decently fortified, having once been a major fortress city during the waning days of Byzantine rule in Asia Minor, and these stoneworks could be used as the foundation for more extensive and modern defenses. Finally, the city was also a regional trading center, being a stopover on the route from Constantinople to Ankara or Konya. Ratetas had the remnants of the Nikaian throne room gathered up from their dusty ruins and carried overland to Magnesia, where they were rebuilt using new materials in 1519. David was crowned as Nikaian emperor the following year, following a voyage from Trapezous.
Speaking of which, the easternmost fringe of the Trapezuntine Empire proper was Kontolimni, soon renamed Davidoupoli (OTL Manavpinari), which lay a mere 150 km from Constantinople itself and was the only Megalokomnenoi territory in Bithynia on the left bank of the Sangarios. Recognizing the importance that such a port would have in communications and trade between Trapezous and Nikaia, Ratetas put a great deal of money into developing the port from a sleepy fishing village to a major city. The mouth of the Sangarios was dredged[2] heavily, the excess silt being used to build up a breakwater beside Davidoupoli, ultimately expanding the harbor to nearly a kilometer and a half wide at its mouth and two kilometers front to back. This was a far sight from its maximum size in the 12th Century--the Genoese had constructed a factory at Tuzla, another kilometer beyond the southern edge of the extended harbor--but it was enough to accommodate all but the heaviest of merchantmen. A set of earth-and-stone walls, designed to reduce the threat posed by cannons, were erected around the city’s landward side. Tax breaks were offered to encourage the settlement of merchants and craftsmen, and by 1536 its population had risen from sixty in 1516 to more than three thousand.
While Magnesia and Davidoupoli--together with Pontoherakleia, whose was settled with a number of Pontic farmers on land seized from the former Turkish population and which saw and influx of traders and artisans as it became a stopover point on the route from Davidoupoli to Sinope and Trapezous--were the chief cities of the new territories, there were also several others of significant import. The southern border of the Nikaian Empire had been pushed south of actually Greek land to encompass two almost-entirely majority Turkish cities, Nalisaray and Beypazar. Nalisaray was a major stopover along the trans-Anatolian caravan routes and Ratetas considered it important to project power into Anatolia proper, while Beypazar was a secondary trading city and had several decently-sized silver mines located adjacent to the city. Kolpazar had been resettled with Lazes and Armenians and renamed Martyropolis in 1519, its citizens eventually being commemorated as martyrs in the official canon of the Orthodox church. There were also several cities taken in Paphlagonia proper; the fairly minor settlement Gerede, renamed Krateia, which had been a raiding center for several Karaman-affiliated bands who had only recently been expelled by the Ottomans; Safranoupoli, which was one of the largest centers of crocus growing in the Near East; Beyabad, a mountaintop fortress which guarded the western passes into Pontus.
However, none of these compared to the chief city of Paphlagonia, Kastamonu. Kastamonu was, like so many others, a trading center, but it was one of the chief trading centers of Anatolia. Stories of the great quantities of spices and metals that were exchanged here were told as far away as Morocco, and it was famous for the jewelry and tools that its skilled craftsmen forged out of the white copper[3] which was mined from the surrounding hills. The city was host to a great number of craftsmen and artisans, its pottery and its jewelry being spoken of and valued the world over. It had recovered well from the chaos of the late Çandarid period, and by the time of the Trapezuntine conquest it supported a population of nearly 10,000, a great number in contemporary Anatolia. It was also of great strategic importance, as it lay near the geographic center of Paphlagonia and thus exerted great sway over the surrounding countryside, and sported an excellent set of walls courtesy of the sanjak whose seat it had once been. Amongst its many craftsmen were also a great number of gunsmiths, and it was a fairly important center of Turkish cannon-making.
However, all of this was secondary to the Trapezuntines in terms of the city’s significance. For centuries, the city had glimmered like a mirage in front of so many Trapezuntine emperors, so close yet so far, and at long last Ratetas had realized their dream of possessing it. The cause for this was almost laughably simple; its name. Kastamonu was the Turkish bastardization of the Greek Kastamone, which was a contraction of the city’s foundational name; Kastra Komnenon. It had been here that Manouel Erotikos Komnenos had been allowed to raise a fort by Basileios Bulgaronktos himself in the closing years of the 10th century, here that the khagkra eagle[4], which would become the symbol not only of the Komnenoi and Megalokomnenoi but of the Byzantine Empire itself, had first been carved into stone by Isaakios I, here where Alexios Komnenos, Alexios the Great, the Restorer, had been born and where he and his great general Tatikios had learned the art of war. The cruel hands of fate had borne the cradle of the great house into the hands of the barbarians for far too long, but at long last, after four-hundred and thirty-one years of Turkish squatting, it was restored to its rightful owners on 13 April 1517 by an army under the command of Sabbas Tarkhaneiotes.
This act alone was worthy of a triumph, and as Ratetas and his protege paraded through the streets of the city in just such a procession, a number of Turkish raiders and defeated soldiers following them in chains, a new era was dawning for the Trapezuntine Empire. As Ratetas spoke in his oration to a cheering crowd:
“With this, the tribulations and humiliations of ourselves and our ancestors have been at last ended. This too marks the beginning of another period, and we shall reverse these despicable woes and cast them upon our foes. Manzikert still waits to be avenged, and with the strength of God behind us, the great project we embark upon will soon be completed….”
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[1] Some parts of Outer Paphlagonia are even rainer than Pontos is, with OTL Zonguldak averaging 145 days of rain in comparison to Trabzon/Trapezous’ 137.
[2] ‘Dredging’ refers to the act of scooping up the sediment from a harbor or cove. This can be done to either deepen a channel or port as in this update, or it can be done to even out or even extend the shoreline.
[3] Medieval name for nickel
[4] This was the first name for the double-headed eagle.
Loukas Ratetas’ expedition to the Sangarios had seen hundreds of square miles of land pass under the lordship of David Megalokomnenos, both directly into the Trapezuntine crownlands and into the newly-reestablished Nikaian crown. These new territories encompassed a population of Armenians, Greeks, Seljuks and Turkmen, who followed a bizarre mix of Apostolic and Orthodox Christians, orthodox Sunni Muslims, heterodox Sufi Muslims, and a smattering of Catholics and Shiites. Most of these new territories also lay hundreds of miles away from the Trapezuntine heartlands across regions ravaged by war and brigandry. Administering them would be quite the challenge, to say the least.
The most pressing problem were the Turkmen, who had taken to raiding unabashedly during the absence of Ottoman control, and would need to be either reduced or driven out by force. Between 1518 and 1521, Panagiokhristophorites and a mixed force of Nikaians and Trapezuntines conducted a campaign of eradication, directed both at the Turkmen and the Seljuk or Greek bandits who had taken up residence in the wild country of the hills and the distant forests. The former klepht was successful in defeating his one-time confederates on the one hand, succeeding in eliminating brigandry in the region with the force of overwhelming arms, but while he was able to reduce the Turkish presence in Bithynia by a great number, driving them out of the highlands and the valleys proper. However, the Turkmen were able to retreat to the great rolling plains of nominal Ottoman and Karamanid land, where Panagiokhristophorites could not pursue. Seeking any possible solution to the raiding problem, Ratetas had a series of border fortifications erected along the edge of the hill country. They were far from the Great Wall, or even the Sangarios Line that Andronikos II had erected, and would crumble before a determined assault by the Karamanids or similar, but they were strong enough to fend off the minor bands of raiders that frequented the frontier zones. The construction of the so-called Phrygian Wall was completed by 1525, a string of small earthen forts each four miles apart with cavalry bases established between every fifth station. These were able to hold off Turkmen raiders practically indefinitely, and the end of the raiding endeared the Megalokomnenoi to their new subjects.
The second issue of concern were the Armenians. The Turks and the Muslims could be allowed a degree of freedom because they were outright heathens, but allowing the merely heretical Apostolics the same liberties would infuriate the church, whose support Ratetas needed to keep the regency. As such, he was unable to proclaim complete freedom for the Armenains--Loukas himself believed that the Armenians could be valuable allies against the Turks--and instead gave them a status halfway between the Orthodox and the infidels, sparing them from the taxes levied upon the Muslims and allowing them to serve in the bandons and thus own weaponry. However, the Apostolic Church was kept at an arm’s length, and Ratetas refused to acknowledge its existence, instead directing any delegations from them to the Patriarch. However, he was able to encourage the two churches to try and work out a deal, which shall be elaborated upon later.
And, finally, there were the Turks and Muslims. Ratetas found dealing with all the different imams and ulema an exhausting affair, let alone trying to mediate between the Sunnis and the Suffis. As such, he appointed a bishop named Theodoros of Alexandria as “Grand Counselor of the Mohammedans” or megas symvolos ton mousoulmanon, charged with dealing with the fractious bastards and giving truncated reports to the regent. The rank-and-file Muslims, meanwhile, were ready to go about as per usual, albeit subject to a whole heaping pile of taxes. Ratetas considered subjecting them to the same harsh treatment which the Anatolian Greeks had faced….unwise….given the strength of the Karamanids and how they would jump at the opportunity to carry the jihad northwards. This was protested strenuously by the Nikaians, who were eager for revenge, but Ratetas was firm and the infidels were allowed to continue on as normal. Mind you, there were still persecutions--there were lynch mobs in every major city (their success depended on how willing the city’s eparkhos was to stand against a baying mob) and a quarter of Krateia was burned to the ground in one particularly nasty incident in 1523--but for the most part, they were….not dead.
As previously mentioned, Ratetas had won a great deal of land, split between Trapezous proper and Nikaia. This land was a spectrum of different landforms, from the rolling pseudo-steppe of Inner Paphlagonia, the rainforest-covered mountains of Outer Paphlagonia[1], the broad and fertile plains of Bithynia, the forested hills of Phrygia proper to the dry and scrubby fringes of Galatia. Once again as aforementioned, the denizens of this broad spectrum of land were equally diverse in both tongue and faith. The boundaries of the annexation had been drawn without regard to either geography or ethnicity, instead focusing on control of important cities and roads. Ratetas had concluded that these were far more important in governing the newly-conquered territories than their natural geography, and this was not incorrect.
The most important city in the west was Magnesia (OTL Geyve), the true capital of the Empire of Nikaia. Nikaia itself had been reduced to little more than rubble by the armies of Orkhan I back in the 14th century--its population had fallen from upwards of 15,000 under Ioannes III Vatatzes to only 1200 by the early 16th century--and Ratetas concluded that rebuilding the de jure capital simply wasn’t worth it. Magnesia, in comparison, had a population of nearly 5,000, having soared with refugees and volunteers after becoming the rebel capital, and was strategically located within a large and roomy valley, its northern approaches protected by a gorge along the Sangarios and its western approach, the only other entry large enough to march an army through, having similar natural defenses. Magnesia was also already decently fortified, having once been a major fortress city during the waning days of Byzantine rule in Asia Minor, and these stoneworks could be used as the foundation for more extensive and modern defenses. Finally, the city was also a regional trading center, being a stopover on the route from Constantinople to Ankara or Konya. Ratetas had the remnants of the Nikaian throne room gathered up from their dusty ruins and carried overland to Magnesia, where they were rebuilt using new materials in 1519. David was crowned as Nikaian emperor the following year, following a voyage from Trapezous.
Speaking of which, the easternmost fringe of the Trapezuntine Empire proper was Kontolimni, soon renamed Davidoupoli (OTL Manavpinari), which lay a mere 150 km from Constantinople itself and was the only Megalokomnenoi territory in Bithynia on the left bank of the Sangarios. Recognizing the importance that such a port would have in communications and trade between Trapezous and Nikaia, Ratetas put a great deal of money into developing the port from a sleepy fishing village to a major city. The mouth of the Sangarios was dredged[2] heavily, the excess silt being used to build up a breakwater beside Davidoupoli, ultimately expanding the harbor to nearly a kilometer and a half wide at its mouth and two kilometers front to back. This was a far sight from its maximum size in the 12th Century--the Genoese had constructed a factory at Tuzla, another kilometer beyond the southern edge of the extended harbor--but it was enough to accommodate all but the heaviest of merchantmen. A set of earth-and-stone walls, designed to reduce the threat posed by cannons, were erected around the city’s landward side. Tax breaks were offered to encourage the settlement of merchants and craftsmen, and by 1536 its population had risen from sixty in 1516 to more than three thousand.
While Magnesia and Davidoupoli--together with Pontoherakleia, whose was settled with a number of Pontic farmers on land seized from the former Turkish population and which saw and influx of traders and artisans as it became a stopover point on the route from Davidoupoli to Sinope and Trapezous--were the chief cities of the new territories, there were also several others of significant import. The southern border of the Nikaian Empire had been pushed south of actually Greek land to encompass two almost-entirely majority Turkish cities, Nalisaray and Beypazar. Nalisaray was a major stopover along the trans-Anatolian caravan routes and Ratetas considered it important to project power into Anatolia proper, while Beypazar was a secondary trading city and had several decently-sized silver mines located adjacent to the city. Kolpazar had been resettled with Lazes and Armenians and renamed Martyropolis in 1519, its citizens eventually being commemorated as martyrs in the official canon of the Orthodox church. There were also several cities taken in Paphlagonia proper; the fairly minor settlement Gerede, renamed Krateia, which had been a raiding center for several Karaman-affiliated bands who had only recently been expelled by the Ottomans; Safranoupoli, which was one of the largest centers of crocus growing in the Near East; Beyabad, a mountaintop fortress which guarded the western passes into Pontus.
However, none of these compared to the chief city of Paphlagonia, Kastamonu. Kastamonu was, like so many others, a trading center, but it was one of the chief trading centers of Anatolia. Stories of the great quantities of spices and metals that were exchanged here were told as far away as Morocco, and it was famous for the jewelry and tools that its skilled craftsmen forged out of the white copper[3] which was mined from the surrounding hills. The city was host to a great number of craftsmen and artisans, its pottery and its jewelry being spoken of and valued the world over. It had recovered well from the chaos of the late Çandarid period, and by the time of the Trapezuntine conquest it supported a population of nearly 10,000, a great number in contemporary Anatolia. It was also of great strategic importance, as it lay near the geographic center of Paphlagonia and thus exerted great sway over the surrounding countryside, and sported an excellent set of walls courtesy of the sanjak whose seat it had once been. Amongst its many craftsmen were also a great number of gunsmiths, and it was a fairly important center of Turkish cannon-making.
However, all of this was secondary to the Trapezuntines in terms of the city’s significance. For centuries, the city had glimmered like a mirage in front of so many Trapezuntine emperors, so close yet so far, and at long last Ratetas had realized their dream of possessing it. The cause for this was almost laughably simple; its name. Kastamonu was the Turkish bastardization of the Greek Kastamone, which was a contraction of the city’s foundational name; Kastra Komnenon. It had been here that Manouel Erotikos Komnenos had been allowed to raise a fort by Basileios Bulgaronktos himself in the closing years of the 10th century, here that the khagkra eagle[4], which would become the symbol not only of the Komnenoi and Megalokomnenoi but of the Byzantine Empire itself, had first been carved into stone by Isaakios I, here where Alexios Komnenos, Alexios the Great, the Restorer, had been born and where he and his great general Tatikios had learned the art of war. The cruel hands of fate had borne the cradle of the great house into the hands of the barbarians for far too long, but at long last, after four-hundred and thirty-one years of Turkish squatting, it was restored to its rightful owners on 13 April 1517 by an army under the command of Sabbas Tarkhaneiotes.
This act alone was worthy of a triumph, and as Ratetas and his protege paraded through the streets of the city in just such a procession, a number of Turkish raiders and defeated soldiers following them in chains, a new era was dawning for the Trapezuntine Empire. As Ratetas spoke in his oration to a cheering crowd:
“With this, the tribulations and humiliations of ourselves and our ancestors have been at last ended. This too marks the beginning of another period, and we shall reverse these despicable woes and cast them upon our foes. Manzikert still waits to be avenged, and with the strength of God behind us, the great project we embark upon will soon be completed….”
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[1] Some parts of Outer Paphlagonia are even rainer than Pontos is, with OTL Zonguldak averaging 145 days of rain in comparison to Trabzon/Trapezous’ 137.
[2] ‘Dredging’ refers to the act of scooping up the sediment from a harbor or cove. This can be done to either deepen a channel or port as in this update, or it can be done to even out or even extend the shoreline.
[3] Medieval name for nickel
[4] This was the first name for the double-headed eagle.
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