The Visconti Victorious 2.0
- Thread starter The Undead Martyr
- Start date
Another thought I have is seeing Lombardy and France unite into a single kingdom though that’s probably a pipe dream.
That really wouldn't be Italy any more though. Conquering a good chunk of southern France, the balkans, and North Africa is already pushing it.
The Canaries would be a bit distant to take at the current moment.
I understand that. Look forward to that! Besides, I am really liking this "2.0" of your TL, keep up your excellent work!
Ultima Ratio Regni
Ultima Ratio Regni
The Lord Regent Henry, Duke of Lancaster appointed his son Henry of Monmouth as Duke of Aquitaine on October 5, 1405. Henry arrived in Aquitaine with two thousand men and back pay for the existing garrison, but it was clear that he would have to depend largely on his own resources. The young prince staked his career on the issue, financing much of the campaign through loans with Florentine banks mortgaged against his wife’s estates in Avignon; he also appealed directly to his uncle by marriage- King Henry of Castille- and Henry’s brother King Ferdinand of Aragon, offering an alliance against the House of Foix by which the three men might destroy French power in Occitania forever.
Two decades prior, Gaston Phoebus had balked at outright insurrection, but he had for all purposes been the king in all but name below the Loire. Occitania chafed under harsh taxation orchestrated and overseen by appointees for the licentious absentee Duke of Berry; according to the terms of the Anglo-French truce the region was additionally forced to pay patis, or protection money, to Anglo-Gascon routiers occupying key strongholds throughout the region, the sole restraint being a tepid admonition to maintain “reasonable” demands against the population. Largely ignored and neglected by Paris, the Occitans had already rioted against the king’s minister the Duke of Berry; only fear of England, and loyalty to the King- and the obvious reprisals that would follow overt treason- prevented the province from directly breaking with the royal government. Aragonese invasion thus opened the door towards a clear political alternative, and many in the region were tempted to cast their lot with the invaders.
Ferdinand had until this point tacitly allied with King Charles III of Navarre against James of Urgell, owing to the marriage of Charles to Eleanor of Castille, aunt of Henry of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon. A prudent and cautious king, his policy of diplomatic reconciliation and internal reform had done much to stabilize the kingdom after the disastrous reign of his father Charles the Bad, and Ferdinand had married one of his sons to Charles III’s daughters, the Princess Blanche, as part of a general Navarrese policy of cautious diplomatic neutrality. Had Charles III lived, he likely would have continued to maintain a careful balance between France, England, and the Spains, but his unexpected illness and death in 1406 at the age of forty-two created a dangerous power vacuum in the Basque homeland. Charles left no sons; the throne was claimed by Charles’ eldest daughter Princess Joanna, now twenty-four years old, and her husband, the Grailly Count of Foix; not willing to allow a rival to accede to such a critical position, Ferdinand- backed by his brother Henry- claimed the throne on behalf of Blanche, Joanna’s twenty-one-year-old younger sister and spouse of the seven-year-old John of Aragon, Ferdinand’s second son. Castille and Aragon launched a joint invasion of Navarre, occupying the kingdom and installing the young John as King John II of Navarre alongside his wife, who reigned as Blanche I of Navarre; the lords of Grailly in their desperation allied themselves with the Duke of Orleans and the Counts of Armagnac, who both refused to acknowledge John’s accession. Ferdinand in retaliation revived the old Navarrese claims to Normandy and Champagne. War between Spain and France was now inevitable.
Ferdinand and eight thousand Spaniards crossed the Pyrenees with the spring thaw in early March 1407, proclaiming their intent to reassert lapsed Aragonese rights to the Kingdom of Mallorca’s estates in Languedoc, as well as the more extravagant and historic claims to the County of Toulouse, which before the 13th Century conquests of Philip Augustus had largely followed the orbit of Barcelona; in truth, Ferdinand’s ambitions may have extended all the way to the Alps, encompassing both Provence and the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia and even the distant Duchy of Athens, all territories claimed or held at times by the Catalans in the preceding centuries. Like so many ambitions of the period, Ferdinand would in time run aground on the harsh rocks of fiscal reality.
The Fortress City of Carcassone had long been the cornerstone of France’s southern border. Considered impregnable by contemporaries, the Old City had resisted Edward II in 1350, although the New City had succumbed to a sack. In the event Ferdinand did not intend to take the city by force. Ferdinand’s agents were already active in the city, playing on fears of a new Taille imposed by Louis of Orleans to provoke armed insurrection; dissident citizens succeeded in murdering the royal castellan and opening the gates, admitting the Catalan army with little bloodshed. Ferdinand proclaimed his intention to “liberate” Languedoc and reclaim the old County of Toulouse, vowing to defend the cities’ ancient liberties, free them from the hated taille levies and ending all pillaging and extortion at the hands of the hated English.
Ferdinand’s offer of protection had the hidden dagger of a potential sack, made especially dangerous by his tacit alliance with Henry of Aquitaine. Ferdinand was not prepared to openly acknowledge Plantagenet claims to the French throne, but he was prepared to recognize English sovereignty over Gascony and support his cousin with military force; in return Henry acknowledged that Aragon would rule the Languedoc territories in full sovereignty- such as the English could offer- and that the two men would “advance like brothers and equitably distribute the spoils of the conquest.” The ambitious young Duke was contemplating the destruction of French power below the Loire and had attempted already to entice his father-in-law Azzone Visconti to abandon his ties with Burgundy and invade France alongside the Spanish. Azzone had little interest in the scheme- for he saw the Burgundians as more useful allies in his confrontation with the Germans, and throughout 1405 repeatedly attempted to pose as a mediator in the renewed hostilities, with little success- but the prospect was serious enough that John and Louis agreed, in a rare moment of unity, to dispatch an envoy to Pavia and negotiate a treaty of friendship with the Italians, including formal recognition of Matteo Visconti as King of Italy. The French also desperately needed Genoese naval support, for Castille- their traditional naval ally- was now an enemy, and the French royal arsenal at Rouen was destitute after successive mothballing of the French Royal Fleet; John himself forced his Flemish subjects to provide ships, which together with the Bretons were dedicated to a prospective blockade of Gascony.
Azzone exploited French desperation to secure the elevation of Pope Benedict XIII, but otherwise asserted his intention to maintain the truce at Leulinghem, vainly demanding that his nephew’s betrothal to princess Catherine be reinstated with the Dauphinate as dowry; the French departed with rich gifts and a promise not to interfere in the recruitment of Genoese ships and other mercenaries but little else. The Prince of Italy saw little immediate benefit in making an enemy of both Castille and England; indeed, he was corresponding regularly with Henry and had already received an offer of all the lands east of the Rhone in return for an alliance against France- a prospect which did not seem particularly enticing, for although he desired these territories Azzone was not prepared to seize them by force alone, recognizing that French enmity was not worth a sparsely populated border region. Henry nevertheless succeeded in negotiating a temporary truce, for two years, between Italy and Spain, and a vague pledge to appeal to the Pope for mediation of the Anglo-French dispute, which ultimately did little to stop the oncoming hostilities.
From the beginning the French campaign was poorly augured. A Castilian fleet destroyed the Flemish in the Bay of Biscay, ending the possibility of cutting off Bordeaux by sea and rendering a siege impossible. Louis thus decided, somewhat controversially, to divert the army south into Toulouse, hoping to confront the Spanish and retake the Languedoc; in part, this was undoubtedly an effort to appease his allies the Duke of Berry and the Count of Armagnac, but the decision was to prove fatal to the campaign. Louis poorly understood the situation in Southern France- sapped by war and plague, the region was simply not capable of supporting his massive army without incurring serious hardship, and Louis’ ham-fisted requisitions and demands only enflamed tensions and drove the local population further into the arms of the Spanish.
Ferdinand’s army refused to give battle and withdraw into their captured fortresses. Louis found Toulouse firmly garrisoned and provisioned and openly defiant against its nominal sovereign- after unfurling the Oriflamme, Louis was astonished to hear the city’s representatives boldly proclaiming that “your sovereign” had lost God’s favor, reiterating their loyalties to the House of Trastamara and mocking the ancient banner of French royalty. Louis was forced to commit to a siege, all while facing continual harassment from the English and the Aragonese; an outbreak of disease worsened the situation, including the death of the Duke of Anjou, last of his line, to a wasting sickness. Within weeks it was clear that the French were unlikely to prevail without a dangerous assault, and Louis began seeking a diplomatic solution; his enemies, understanding the appeals as a sign of weakness, gave no reply and waited out the clock. By August the siege had been abandoned, the French retreating in disgrace for want of funds and supplies.
Ferdinand meanwhile had withdrawn further to Rousillon, scathingly castigating his brother for failing to substantively support the war effort in favor of a renewed campaign against Grenada. While at Rousillon he was informed of King Henry’s demise, forcing him to scurry back across the Pyrenees into Castile- in the words of an English playwright, racing his own tongue back to his brother’s corpse- and assumed the regency for his infant nephew; this would be the limit of Ferdinand’s involvement in France for the foreseeable future. Yet Spain, tremulous or not, now had a foothold north of the mountains- Toulouse, for now, remained defiantly loyal to Ferdinand and his ministers, seeing little profit in begging forgiveness from a distant and dysfunctional Parisian government, while Narbonne and Montpelier had declared themselves under the sovereignty of Mallorca and cast out the French governors; the Aragonese also held both Foix and Bearn by inheritance, although the forces of Armagnac successfully resisted an attack on Comminges. French weakness further enabled Henry of Aquitaine to go on the counterattack, overrunning the Perigord and Limousin. By the end of 1407 it seemed that France might lose all her territories south of the Loire, only the County of Armagnac offering any meaningful resistance.
Louis- now twice humiliated- returned to Paris and immediately set about seizing control over the government. He asserted that the defeat was the judgment of God for abandoning Avignon and demanded new taxes to continue his war, additionally “persuading” the King to grant Anjou and Maine to himself, an act which instantly made Louis the largest landowner in France other than the King. Control over the royal treasury gave Louis and his allies an enviable stream of income; conversely, John of Burgundy found his income drying up- indeed, the measures would likely have bankrupted Burgundy eventually. Under the circumstances, John’s decision to murder his cousin was entirely predictable; John had not forgiven Louis’ meddling in Gelre, nor for the effective banishment of his supporters and was not prepared to accept the loss of power and status in the capital. On 1407 Louis was cut down in the streets of Paris. John- far from repentant of his fratricidal plot– celebrated the murder, summoning the radical lawyer to denounce the murdered Louis as a tyrant and professing the murder an act of justice. Louis’ kin naturally took a poor view of this line of argument but overplayed their hand- caught between Burgundian troops and the unrelenting hostility of the Parisian mob, Louis’ supporters were gradually neutralized throughout the next two years as John gained control over the state. John’s hamfisted demagoguery and paranoid hoarding of power and influence bruised the sentiments of other leading princes. Timidity and want of wealth and leadership temporarily delayed hostilities, but the Armagnac Party- named for the Count of Armagnac who would come to lead them- slid inexorably towards an armed confrontation with the Burgundians.
Azzone by this time was preparing his war against the Luxemburgs and deeply desirous of a military alliance with France. The Emperor’s claim to Hungary rested entirely on his marriage to Joanna of Anjou, last of the direct Capetian Anjou and daughter of the late King Charles III of Naples, who had won the loyalty of Croatian and Dalmatian lords before his murder in Budapest in 1386. Azzone intended to revive those ties and provoke a revolt against Sigismund in Croatia, by which he would pry the Illyrian littoral out of Sigismund’s hands and create a new salient to contest the King’s control over the Throne of St Stephen; the contest would clearly involve Germany as well, since his claim to the Holy Roman Empire necessitated claiming the Kingdom of Germany. When the King assembled his army and allies in Pavia in the winter of 1406, he did so under the banner of defending Italy against a murderous tyrant; this was no mere rhetoric, for Sigismund was indeed planning an invasion of Italy, benefiting from a renewed truce with the Turks, deep in the middle of a succession crisis after the defeat, capture, and later death of Bayezid at the hands of Tamerlane at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. The Emperor planned a campaign for the summer of 1407, with the goal of seizing Austrian Carinthia and thereafter attacking into the Pannonian plain; this military offensive was accompanied simultaneously with a renewed diplomatic effort to spark resistance to Luxemburg rule in Germany.
Germany itself had two rival kings, both in opposition to Azzone Visconti. An outright alliance with Sigismund’s rival Rupert of the Palatinate was out of the question- having claimed the Holy Roman Empire and maintaining the illegality of Wenceslaus’ deposition, Azzone could not turn about and cooperate with a man purporting to be his liege- but Rupert and Azzone were clearly in communication. Lombard gold found its way into the German King’s pockets, and the two, if not formal allies, nevertheless agreed to a tacit truce, presenting a unified front against the more dangerous Sigismund. Pope Benedict XIII excommunicated Sigismund in late October 1406, citing kinslaying and breaking flag of truce, both crimes he was clearly guilty of; in practice the Pope’s authority was limited to south of the Alps and west of the Rhine, but Sigismund’s inability or unwillingness to elevate a new pontiff did hurt his prestige. Instead, Sigismund embraced the dissident elements within Bohemia and- following in the Spanish and English model- proclaimed the cession of the Hungarian, Bohemian, and German churches from Papal control. Henceforth, the putative Hungarian Holy Roman Emperor would be “advised” by a regency council composing the leading clerical figures within his kingdoms, exercising supreme clerical authority in the Papacy’s “absence.”
The Visconti patriarch sought to secure for himself the Bavarian regency of Ernest’s five-year-old son Albert, heir to Bavaria-Munich, the core of the Wittelsbach domains in southern Germany. Albert’s lands were potentially under threat from a collateral branch, the house of Bavaria-Straubing which ruled in Holland under Count William. William was however an ally of John of Burgundy and therefore amenable to Azzone’s entreaties. He declared his support for Pope Benedict and- alongside John- accepted Azzone’s coronation as Emperor. To do otherwise would have upset the tenuous peace established in Holland at the conclusion of the fratricidal Hook and Cod War between the Countess and her son, William’s late mad brother. Holland and much of the Low Countries had remained loyal to the Roman Pontiff, and most readily accepted the end of the Schism orchestrated by the Burgundians and Visconti. With Albert’s support the Visconti seized control of Munich and the ducal government, marshalling the remaining Wittelsbach partisans against the House of Luxemburg.
Armed force would ultimately dictate the course of events, but the groundwork of the coming campaign was laid with letters, demonstrating the fundamentally political nature of the conflict, in which competing dynastic and political claims compelled the two kingdoms to quarrel. Italy and Hungary had a deep-seated conflict over the Adriatic littoral, owing to the longstanding rivalry between Venice and Hungary, which also embroiled the feudal lords of southern Germany.
Venice had already eroded Carniola’s territory by successfully asserting claims to the Istrian March, while the Habsburgs poached Tirol. By the 15th Century the Counts had largely abandoned Gorizia for Lienz, an Alpine redoubt. Azzone cleverly played up the distant familial ties between the Mainhardiners and the Bavarian Wittelsbachs and swiftly recognized that the family would value a protector willing to defend their rights against both the Venetians and the Habsburgs, and his gifts and attention certainly were well received by the family. The Count entered an alliance after 1406, agreeing to acknowledge Azzone as Emperor and King; in return certain assurances were made as to his territories, and it was hinted that- if he would agree to sell Gorizia to the Visconti Emperor and form an alliance- he might gain in return the Duchy of Styria, then in possession of the Leopoldine [check] Habsburgs. In practical terms the Meinhardiners had little in the way of manpower or money to offer, but the use of their lands- and the denial of these lands to the enemy- consolidated Latin control over the Izonzo Valley. Gorizia was occupied by the Visconti in late 1406, while a contingent of Lombards crossed the Brenner Pass laden with gifts and were feted in Lienz. Together with the coup in Munich and existing alliance with the Swiss Cantons, Azzone had succeeded in marshalling the key rivals to Habsburg power to his side.
Sigismund was likewise cultivating his allies in this period. Since the conclusion of the Turkish War, he had maintained close ties with the Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarevic, as well as the princes of Wallachia and Moldova, all three of whom pledged themselves as Hungarian vassals and allies. Within Germany Sigismund could rely upon the powerful Habsburg dynasty, which dominated much of Austria, as well as maintaining a strong presence in Bohemia owing to concessions granted to the Bohemian magnates. Sigismund also secured an alliance with King Wladyslaw II of Poland by the marriage of his son Louis to the Princess Elizabeth. Wladyslaw and Sigismund were related by marriage, for both had married daughters of King Louis the Great of Poland and Hungary. Sigismund had married Mary and had a living son as well as a daughter, whereas Wladyslaw II of Lithuania had married the youngest daughter Jadwiga, who had died in childbirth in 1399; he had then remarried to Anna of Cillje, whose mother was a Polish Princess, but the claims of Sigismund’s son were too potent to ignore, and the marriage defused tensions as well as inviting the possibility of a renewed union of Poland and Hungary under the Luxemburg Dynasty. Sigismund was in fact clearly angling to position himself as the rightful heir of Louis the Great; he openly styled himself as King of Naples and schemed to destroy the Venetians, asserting Hungarian supremacy in the Adriatic littoral once and for all.
Azzone could wield power in the north as regent and suzerain of his nephews, King Matteo of Italy and Duke of Tuscany, but the core of his strength came from his own reputation and resources, both of which he gambled on the upcoming campaign. Naples alone provided half of his army- nearly eight thousand soldiers. Lombardy raised an equal force through a series of coerced loans, a direct levy instituted with the consent of the Pavian Senate, and the pawning of Queen Isabella’s remaining wedding dowry. Funds were sufficient to maintain the army in the field for at least two seasons, but a lengthy campaign of conquest was unlikely to be resolved quickly. After seizing Carniola in the summer of 1407 therefore Azzone determined to find and confront Sigismund in open battle; he therefore took his army south into Croatia, marching along the river, an open challenge that the Luxemburg King amply accepted.
Sigismund’s herald intercepted the Lombards in Slavonia, near the banks of the Sava River. Croatia was loosely controlled by the Hungarians in this period, and Azzone had- with the assistance of the Lackfi Family, dominant players in Croatia and Slavonia before Sigismund had murdered their Ban and his followers in 1397- determined to make a stand in favorable ground. Sigismund initially was inclined not to press an attack, awaiting further reinforcements, but Azzone was able to provoke the Hungarians to battle through a feigned withdrawal. The Emperor’s Albanians engaged the Hungarians in skirmishing, and their retreat triggered a disorderly Hungarian pursuit, in which the better part of Hungary’s nobility would be caught out of position and slaughtered by the Lombard infantry in close quarters combat.
Hungary until this point was justly considered one of the predominant powers in Central Europe. Its strong, prestigious monarchs commanded the richest gold mines in Europe and powerful feudal estates along the rich Danube valley. Northern Italy in contrast, through forcible reunification under the Lombards, had forged a semi-professional mercenary army financed by an impressive civil administration. This force tended to be ad hoc and quite international- the Swiss featured prominently, as would men from the Arpitan provinces and the Albanian and Slavic principalities of the southern Dinarics; native Italian princes from the Two Sicilies or Lombardy were also present, providing a core of heavily armored cavalry. On the banks of the, the Magyar nobility was to learn the same harsh lessons taught to the French half a century prior at Crecy and Poitiers; cut off from their host, the Magyars came under intense fire from crossbowmen and light artillery pieces entrenched in the Italian camp. Much like the English had done at Poitiers, the Lombard cavalry succeeded in outmaneuvering their opponents and taking the Hungarians in the flank. Caught between the Swiss and the Lombards, the cream of Hungary’s nobility was slaughtered; Sigismund himself fled, drowning while attempting to cross the Sava. Also among the slain was Frederick II of Cellje, whose rich estates in Styria were seized by the Emperor, and Nicholas II Garai was captured.
The old Kingdom of Lombardy had effectively ceased to exist after the disastrous Magyar victory at the Battle of the Brenta in 899; victory over the Magyars four centuries later had the opposite effect. Yet beyond this consolidation its immediate effects were somewhat muted. Azzone had claimed both Hungary and the Empire to undercut Sigismund’s authority and outflank German-Imperial attempts at reasserting sovereignty over Italy. Flush with victory, the Emperor was hardly inclined to abdicate his claim to the Roman Empire- and it was likely politically impossible for him to do so- but the Hungarian throne was another matter. Sigismund’s death decapitated the Luxemburgs but did not destroy them- in addition to the venerable Jobst, Margrave of Brandenburg and de facto ruler of Bohemia, Sigismund left behind a twelve-year-old son Prince Louis- now King Louis II of Hungary- and Azzone’s nephew Charles in Bohemia, son of the deposed Emperor Wenceslaus and a prisoner in all but name in Prague. The death of Rupert of the Palatinate and subsequent unanimous election of Jobst of Brandenburg thwarted Azzone’s own hopes to seek election and acclamation by the German nobility.
Under the circumstances Azzone decided to make peace with Budapest. The presence of nearly every major Hungarian noble at Sigismund’s side told the Emperor that his claim was not particularly respected in Hungary itself- Charles of Naples, after all, had depended primarily upon the Croatian nobility, and had been assassinated in Pest by his rivals. A pliant (if independent) Hungary was ultimately more useful to him than an unruly conquest, particularly given the shift in his focus towards the German Electors. The Emperor’s resources, moreover, were not infinite. He could not command the Lombard princes, save as his nephew King Matteo’s nominal suzerain, and such suzerainty depended on assurances of defending against foreign “tyranny.” Continued wartime taxation would have upended the domestic peace of Lombardy, and his own resources, though substantial, were not without limit. His allies, also, were inclined to negotiate. Pope Benedict XIII wanted to restore his authority over the Latin Church and was prepared to accept the Luxemburgs back into his good graces- indeed, he likely preferred them to an unchecked Azzone ruling an Italo-Hungarian union. The Venetians likewise pressed firmly for peace- they entered the war to secure control over Gorizia, Istria, and Dalmatia, and had little interest in encouraging Visconti ambitions vis a vis Budapest; much as with the Turks, they wished to use the Lombards as glorified condotierri, summoned to defeat their rivals and then swept out the door when the deed was done. Ultimately it was the Queen Regent of Italy, Sophia of Bavaria, who took the lead in negotiations. Her greatest concern- beyond asserting her own rights in Pavia and defending those of her son- was to free her brother Ernest from Hungarian captivity. Negotiation suited that purpose far better than continued hostilities, and Mary and Sophia consequently hammered out a “Queen’s Peace” settling the eastern frontier. Azzone agreed to set aside his claim to the Hungarian throne, release his prisoners without ransom, and acknowledge Louis of Hungary as his ally; in return he was acknowledged as “King, Prince, and Emperor” and allowed to retain his twin conquests of Croatia and Carniola. The Hungarians were obliged to pay an impressive indemnity of 2,000,000 florins for the renunciation of Azzone’s claims to the Throne of St Stephen; his wife Joanna was further granted a lifetime annual subsidy amounting to 50,000 florins. Louis of Hungary stood to inherit Brandenburg from his aging uncle Jobst of Moravia. Now in his fifties and childless, upon his death Jobst’s Electorate would pass to Louis of Hungary. It was agreed that upon inheriting the territory, Louis would cast his vote for Azzone Visconti and support his claim to the Empire; in return Azzone pledged that after securing the Empire he would retrocede Croatia- sans Dalmatia- to Hungary and embark upon a new Crusade against the Ottoman Turks.
Peace with Hungary also reflected the Emperor’s growing preoccupation with France, which he hoped to deploy as an ally against the recalcitrant Germans. First, however, he would have to grapple with the simmering civil war between Burgundy and Armagnac, which also by necessity implicated the German principalities of the Lower Rhine.
By the time of his death in 1406, William III and I was arguably one of the most powerful men in Germany. After succeeding to Julich upon his father’s death he had married the heiress Maria of Guelders, successfully fighting for his wife’s claim to that duchy. In addition to marrying his daughter Margaret to the Duke of Orleans, he had made his bastard son Arnold Prince-Bishop of Cologne, and in 1402 he claimed the inheritance of his nephew William VII- the counties of Berg and Ravensberg- assembling a potent collection of territory in the Lower Rhineland. Upon his death, he had allegedly made his three sons pledge to jointly oppose the House of Burgundy, and the eldest, the valiant William IV of Julich, was certainly his father’s son. In December 1405, while he was still heir, the younger William intervened in the revolt of Liege against its thirty-three-year-old bishop John of Bavaria, a man “more akin to Hector or Achilles” whose sole qualification to govern was being the brother of William the Count of Holland and a staunch ally of the House of Burgundy. William of Julich had interceded on behalf of the Liegois, helping to expel the Prince Bishop and taking up the government of the city as regent. After succeeding his father, William thereafter began systematically conquering the principality, with the ultimate goal of annexing it directly into his domains. On July 5, 1408, John departed Paris at the head of an army. A skilled campaigner with a strong numerical advantage, the experienced Duke would nevertheless be outmatched by his audacious young rival. Meeting the Liegois at the Battle of Othee on September 1, John’s army- 8000 strong- initially succeeded in outmaneuvering the larger Liege militia force, but William’s personal retinue counterattacked and routed the dismounted men-at-arms, forcing John to withdraw from the principality and regroup.[2]
Events in Paris quickly forced John’s withdrawal. Even before his departure from Paris, the Queen Isabella’s brother Louis of Bavaria had gained control over the Dauphin’s household, and in late June they extracted King Charles from Melun. On July 2 a council presided by the lucid King secretly met and revoked the pardon issued to John for the murder of Louis of Orleans, and in September the assembled royal court formally denounced John of Burgundy. This was followed by a formal offer of alliance made to Duke William against Burgundy and a call for renewed offensives against the English in Aquitaine.
Edward IV initially disinclined to involve himself in France, but nevertheless- at his wife’s urging- began tentative talks with both sides, seeking to force a resolution favorable to England’s interests. Yet King Edward found that neither parties were much inclined for a direct alliance- indeed, neither the Armagnac nor the Burgundians were prepared to negotiate in good faith, because neither truly desired an alliance with England; rather, both merely wished to prevent England from intervening on behalf of their rivals. The Armagnac flatly refused to consider any treaty failing to acknowledge Aquitaine as a legally French fief- essentially a revisitation of the terms offered Richard II in the 1380s and far removed from the situation on the ground. John of Burgundy meanwhile was perhaps desperate enough to consider serious concessions, but not to England- he had determined to partner instead with Italy, appealing to Azzone Visconti for a new alliance sealed by the marriage of Princess Isabella of France and Matteo the King of Lombardy.
The Lombards, despite their somewhat dubious reputation, did not inspire the same visceral hostility among the Parisian intelligentsia, and Azzone’s territorial ambitions were far less threatening to France: he demanded, and received, the Valentinois, Lyonnais, and Dauphinate as the Princess’s dowry, which would- together with Provence- be reconstituted as an Electoral Kingdom of Burgundy for his younger son. Excluding Lyons, these territories were not de jure part of France, the Dauphinate having passed to the kingdom in 1349 when the last count had sold the territory to France in return for promises of autonomy and a pledge that it would be retained by the crown prince, henceforth known as the Dauphin; in practice it was treated by France as a distant province, albeit one laxly governed. Yet the French had never disputed Imperial sovereignty over the territory, a subtle legal distinction which meant that the provinces east of the Rhone could be ceded without injuring French sovereignty. In return for the territory and recognition of his claim to the Imperial Throne Azzone pledged to personally enter France with an army of ten thousand and support his goodbrother against the Armagnacs, and if necessary, Spain and England as well; John was additionally to receive a royal crown from Azzone’s own hand, probably a reference to the lapsed imperial kingdom of Lotharingia, although the precise title was not explicitly determined until later negotiations.
John’s ultimate ambition was to rule France as the power behind the throne and he was not initially inclined to accept a royal crown. Three factors pressed him towards distancing his realm from Paris. First, the ongoing peace negotiations with England threatened his position by opening the possibility of English sovereignty over the Low Countries. By 1409 it was clear that Edward IV’s government firmly desired a permanent settlement with France and was willing to accept the alienation of Aquitaine under a cadet line, but in return King Edward was demanding sovereignty over Flanders and Artois, a demand that the Mad King Charles of France and the Dauphin Louis- at sixteen, now tentatively in a position to act as an independent agent- were both inclined to accept as the price of peace. John thus somewhat belatedly decided to accept Azzone’s offer and preemptively alienate Flanders from France by incorporating it into a new kingdom.
The other two factors touched on John’s control over his unruly Flemish subjects. Talk of tax reform in France incited the Flemings to appeal to Paris as subjects of the French king. John, in a sense, was a victim of his own success; although sympathetic to trimming the fat off the royal government, his objective as a prince was to seize the revenues won through wartime taxation and repurpose them towards his own lavish lifestyle. Fiscal reform therefore undermined the benefit of retaining control in Paris, since it would by necessity reduce the opportunities for graft and patronage. More troublingly, the Flemings were intrigued at the possibility of using the French King to leverage concessions from Burgundy. Only full sovereignty would prevent Paris from meddling in his estates. Finally, John wanted to use the royal crown to assert his rights over the Dukes of Julich, now a clear threat to his influence in the Rhineland. Much as the Visconti had discovered in Italy, a royal crown carried its own inexorable weight, building a political inertia which compelled great magnates to seek total sovereignty over their lands.
Azzone personally entered France with his army in August 1409, besieging and taking Bourbon, a critical Armagnac stronghold. Pressed for time, the Emperor ordered a harsh assault; he began with an intense two-week-long bombardment to destroy the towers, before ordering his Swiss- who had dug trenches leading up to the wall- to storm the battlements. Bloody fighting eventually saw the Italians carry the day, and the city was put to a brutal sack. Azzone personally crowned John of Burgundy the following week, being hailed by the French and Italians alike as August Emperor of the Romans. John effectively dictated terms to his rivals- although the young Charles of Orleans was allowed to retain part of his father’s inheritance, John seized Luxemburg and reclaimed Anjou for the royal domain. John also forced through recognition of his own royal claims and- backed by his supporters in Paris and other cities- pressed a revised taxation scheme, eliminating the wartime levies and inviting representatives of the major cities to air their grievances at court.
This was not simply the demand of the northern cities- John, ever a canny politician, recognized that winning back the Languedoc would require easing the onerous tax burden. John personally invited representatives from Toulouse (but not Lyons, which by agreement had been ceded to the Visconti) and the other cities of the south, even extending the offer to Bordeaux; were it not for Henry’s presence in the city and force of personality the city may well have sent a delegation, for the Gascons were always eager to play both sides of the Anglo-French dispute to their advantage. Simultaneously John opened negotiations with both Ferdinand of Aragon and Edward IV in England, recognizing that both men were likely more amenable to peace than Henry of Aquitaine.
The Lord Regent of Lancaster had come to power with the tacit promise to end Ricardian “tyranny”: this meant, primarily, a reduction in taxes and incorporation of leading men into the government. As regent for an underage king, Henry’s tenure in power was definitionally of limited duration, and the financial strain of the Welsh revolt and war in Scotland sapped his support. Although the capture of the eleven-year-old James I of Scotland had effectively ended the major resistance to Henry’s conquest, the campaigns had resulted in the undue elevation of the mighty Percy family, who seized much of Lothian for themselves. Henry increasingly favored their Neville rivals in Northumbria, a policy which alienated the more powerful Percies and pushed the young heir ‘Hotspur’ in particular into the anti-Lancastrian camp.
King Edward himself also became an increasing factor in the English government. In many ways he was far removed from his father- genial yet diffident, charming yet impetuous, Edward IV was a man, noted by the Castillan ambassador, to be “well suited for the ceremonies of kingship and poorly suited for its duties.” Known to history as Edward the Good and by later historians as Edward the Gilded, his reign was remarkable for its relative placidity and subtle malaise. The King himself, though not particularly talented or opinionated, was- barring disability or tyranny- not a factor to be totally discarded. More to the point, he was the obvious figurehead for any opposition to the Lord Regent’s government. Chief among his supporters was his wife, the seventeen-year-old Isabella of France. Praised as a magnanimous and charming young woman, she had also inherited much of her grandfather’s political acumen. Like her predecessor Anne of Bohemia, she was also fortunate to enjoy an affectionate relationship with her husband; it would be remarked that of the two thoughts typically rattling about in Edward’s vacuous head, at least one was the Queen’s. Isabella, naturally, was a determined advocate of peace with France, and resentful of the upstart Lancastrians; she also seemed to have an intense personal loathing for the Lord Regent Henry, both for his regicide and his brusque and arrogant demeanor. Isabella, together with leading figures in Parliament, succeeded in gaining her husband his majority in 1408, dismissing Henry of Lancaster as regent. The new government then sent out feelers to Paris for a renewed truce. Edward had come around to the idea of trading Aquitaine for Flanders- and perhaps also Brittany- and immediately cut off all material support for the wayward Duke Henry of Aquitaine, commanding that he immediately return to England and assume his father’s estates or else forfeit them to his younger brother Thomas of Clarence and be branded a traitor.
Withdrawal of English support was by this time the least of Henry’s difficulties: Ferdinand of Aragon had opened his own negotiations with France, threatening the entire basis for Henry’s scheme of conquest. At heart a prudent opportunist, Ferdinand had been willing to entertain an invasion of France while the country the verge of civil war, but continued hostility against a victorious Italo-Burgundian alliance was another matter. Ferdinand decided to cash out while he was ahead and secure what gains were possible at the peace table. John, for his part, was willing to be quite generous. He was prepared to accept Aragonese sovereignty over not only Foix and Bearn but also Comminges- for the House of Armagnac was no friend of Burgundy; in return, John demanded the renunciation of Navarrese claims and interests in France and a renewal of the old alliance between Castille and France. The French further offered the port city of Bayonne, ethnically Basque but under English occupation, and nominally a French fiefdom held by the Dukes of Gascony; this offer nearly destroyed negotiations, as it was understood- correctly- as a tacit demand to betray the alliance with Henry and the English. Ferdinand, “extorted” to accept Bayonne, pressed his claims north into Languedoc, gaining the old Mallorcan estate of Montpelier as well as Narbonne and Carcasonne at the border; it was not clear whether the latter two cities were to be held as French fiefs, for the Spanish inserted a term by which they would be exempt from any form of homage until the French paid a cash indemnity and did not explicitly offer any form of homage or suzerainty over the ceded territories. Ferdinand’s remaining supporters in Toulouse and the Languedoc were obliged to either accept a royal pardon or depart for Spain with their property and their lives.
If Henry had any ambitions to make himself King of Aquitaine, these were swiftly discarded; outmaneuvered diplomatically and facing the increasing hostility of his sovereign in London, the young Duke reacted swiftly, agreeing to a private truce with the French. John was willing to accept this, because staunching the southern ulcer allowed him to shift his attention, towards a wholly self-interested invasion of Germany. After the Lombards crossed the Rhone in May 1409, Henry personally met with and sealed an alliance with his father-in-law; he and his 3000 strong army became a condotierri company in the pay of the Emperor. Aquitaine had long acted autonomously, but Henry’s actions signaled a newfound willingness for the Duchy to manage its own affairs, and fatally weakened England’s bargaining position with France. Edward IV’s government was ultimately forced to accept the fait accompli, although they formally conceded nothing to the French. In 1410, English ambassadors secured a renewal of the old truce; no mention was made of Aquitaine, nor the status of Flanders or Edward’s claim to the French throne; yet the truce was for all purposes quite favorable to France, for it freed John to devote himself fully to supporting the Visconti war in Germany.
Emperor Jobst of Moravia died on 1411, at the venerable age of 65. Lacking any sons, Brandenburg passed to his cousin Louis of Hungary. A new election would have to be held and Charles of Bohemia was the clear German candidate, but before the electors could assemble, they were curtly informed by French ambassadors that they would have to recognize Pope Benedict and the various diplomatic treaties signed between the Visconti and Burgundy- namely, recognition of the Lombard and Lotharingian Crowns. These letters were backed by an impressive military tour de force: including the Anglo-Gascons, the combined armies numbered more than 30,000 men, a hardened military force under capable leaders.
William marshalled his own allies in Liege, and the Prince-Bishoprics of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, assembling a German army of nearly twelve-thousand which crossed into Lorraine on August 4, 1410, attempting to intercept the Duke of Burgundy. Instead, they found the Emperor’s army, and- unwilling to deny the chance to defeat his enemies in detail- William determined to meet and destroy the Emperor’s superior army, making his stand near Metz on August 9.
The Lombards were initially disinclined to give battle. William’s force, although numerically inferior, was strongly positioned along the road leading north towards Flanders, with woodland anchoring both flanks. On the urging of Henry of Aquitaine, the Emperor decided to offer battle; Henry appealed to the Emperor’s pride, noting that “he is graced by God and must assert his rights as sovereign of Europe” by meeting such defiance with overwhelming force. The Emperor had a decisive advantage in both numbers and quality- between the Genoese crossbows and the contingent of English Longbows the Lombards had the advantage in missile combat. Henry proposed advancing their archers in loose formation in front of the Swiss pikes, while the Lombard cavalry would take a long detour around the wood and attack the enemy from the rear. This Azzone agreed to do. The English advanced and began peppering the Dutch from range; the Dutch- irritated at the enemy archers- advanced against the enemy, presumably under the impression that the Lombards were withdrawing due to the cavalry’s visible departure. The two forces were engaged in a rough melee lasting the better part of the afternoon, which eventually concluded with the Lombard cavalry breaking the Dutch from the rear. Among the slain were William of Julich and the Bishop of Mainz; the Prince Bishop of Cologne was captured.
The Battle of Metz effectively destroyed Dutch power for a generation. William’s brothers claimed their brother’s inheritance, as he had died without heirs. On paper an indisputable claim, John of Burgundy was unwilling to let his enemies off so easily. His soldiers confiscated Guelders and Revensberg and likely would have done the same to Julich were it not for the garrison’s heroic resistance and the personal intercession of the Emperor. Arnulf and Gerhard were obliged to due homage to John as King of Lorraine, pay a crippling indemnity, and accept Burgundian garrisons in their lands.
Azzone Visconti sat upon the throne of Charlemagne on September 14, 1411, wearing the Imperial Diadem and demanding that his nephew come and do homage to him; failure would mean continued war and the despoilation of Germany. The Rhineland was Germany’s heartland, a glittering kaleidoscope of baronies, cities, and bishoprics. Few were prepared to accept Visconti pretensions, but none seemed willing to engage in armed resistance; the general reaction was a muted diffidence, defying the Visconti by ignoring him, seemingly hoping that the Lombards would simply go away. Voicing displeasure by remaining distinctly absent was a time-honored tactic in Imperial German politics. With a proper leader, this latent hostility might have been transformed into a dangerous threat, forcing the Emperor to commit to a grueling campaign of sieges, but no such leader emerged. Charles of Bohemia was too weak, too distant, and too foreign, his feckless father still to recently deposed, to rally the Rhineland against the invaders; the four Electors were either dead, in captivity, or in alliance with the Lombards; and the great House of Julich was on its knees.
Azzone Visconti himself further assuaged any tensions through his own personal presence. Now forty-two, he had inherited his father’s good looks and his mother’s charm. As a hardened Crusader and rich magnate crowned by the sole Pope in Europe, he could easily fulfill the traditional pillars of Medieval rule: that of a generous, pious, and valiant warlord, a “ring-giver” who was open-handed in dealing with his subjects. For 15th Century Europeans- a people deeply devout- his military and political ascendancy could only be a mark of God’s favor.
By 1412 Azzone’s allies included both Hungary and Poland, as well as France and Aquitaine. In the north, King Wladyslaw and his ally Vytautas met and destroyed the Teutonic knights at the bloody battle of Grunwald on 1410. The presence of a Hungarian contingent was keenly appreciated, especially in the aftermath of the battle; the Order, although mortally wounded by the battle, continued to fight, skirmishing with the Poles as they invaded Prussia. Yet absent any clear leader to organize a more serious resistance, the knight’s great citadel at Marienburg was forced to submit.[2] The Poles- weary of war and anxious to avoid a costly siege of the great fortress- offered magnanimous terms to induce a peaceful surrender. The Knights were permitted to depart with their arms and personal property, on sufferance of an oath not to take up arms against Poland or any Christian King, and were promised new estates to the south to compensate for the loss of Prussia and Livonia. The order was to be relocated once again, to the edge of the Black Sea, where the Poles would use them to fight the Crimean Tatars. Freed of the threat to his north and now also allied to Louis of Hungary, Wladyslaw reconciled with Azzone Visconti, receiving the Emperor’s blessing to revive Polish claims to Silesia, then under Bohemian control. Charles of Bohemia found himself attacked from three directions, as Louis of Hungary also claimed Jobst’s duchy of Moravia, and the King was captured by the Hungarians and presented to Azzone Visconti as a gift. Charles presented himself before the Emperor at Aachen on May 14, 1412, being embraced and reconciled after doing homage as King of Bohemia. Europe, it seemed, was now at peace; what remained was the formal reunification of the Church and the question of a new Crusade into the east.
[1] Liege’s revolt happened OTL due to Louis of Orlean’s meddling. Here, the deposition of the Avignon Pope and Louis’ captivity in Italy prevented him from doing the same, but the Lords of Julich stepped into the role. William’s presence essentially flipped the result of the battle- OTL John’s veteran mercenaries annihilated the untrained townsmen, earning him the moniker “Fearless.” TTL William wins the battle and sparks an earlier Armagnac coalition against John of Burgundy.
[2]OTL the architect of Marienburg’s resistance was Heinrich von Plauen, who was freed from captivity by a successful skirmish between the Teutonic Knights and Poland. Here, he remains a captive.
Could Azzone be biting a lot more than he could chew? That could seriously bite him back eventually.
I am loosely modeling him after OTL Henry V, though Alexander or Otto the Great are other comparisons that will be made.
Territory wise he hasn't gained much just yet- the Dauphinate, Carniola, and Croatia aren't nothing, but they're not especially rich prizes, and Croatia was almost immediately pawned off to secure his election. Far more important is his role as de facto arbiter of Europe and introducing the idea of Italy as a major imperial power.
Territory wise he hasn't gained much just yet- the Dauphinate, Carniola, and Croatia aren't nothing, but they're not especially rich prizes, and Croatia was almost immediately pawned off to secure his election. Far more important is his role as de facto arbiter of Europe and introducing the idea of Italy as a major imperial power.
I don't think the "ally" was a good word to describe their relationship, the "vassal" would be more suitable word, as Vytautas did homage to Vladislaus and his succesor was supposed to be singlehandedly chosen by Vladislaus's fiat.
Other than that, very good update.
Meaning the Byzantines or the Dynasty?
Montferrat is a more-or-less willing vassal of the Kingdom of Lombardy, along with Saluzzo, both having rather seamlessly made the transition (like Ferrara and Mantua) from "ally" of Gian Galeazzo to feudal subject; Savoy (both branches) are also vassals albeit somewhat less willingly.
The Byzantines proper are a glorified city state lacking the resources to do much even with (slight spoilers) the Timurid Empire having survived Tamerlane's death in a somewhat better position to intervene against the Ottomans in Anatolia. While the Genoese specifically are happy to keep them alive, Byzantine resurgence in the Morea clashes heavily with Azzone Visconti's own ambitions re: the Latin states (Athens, Achaea, and Albania were all Neapolitan vassals, and since his first war with the Ottomans all three specifically acknowledge him as suzerain as the putative Latin Emperor of Rhomania). They will be a major issue in the next update, as the Emperor is pressing for a renewed Crusade and is personally disinclined to recognize a "Greek Pretender" as a coequal partner, especially if he can't readily enforce a lasting Church Union or keep his vassals from attacking Latin vassal states in Greece.
But the house will have better fortunes this TL right?
Possibly. Short of an Italian civil war or extinction in the male line, there's little risk of any of the minor vassal principalities being deposed before the industrial era's revolutionary upheavals, since they can generally rely upon the King in Pavia to support them against the urban mob. The tendency even OTL was towards territorialization and the transition of the Italian signoria- urban populist dictators basically- to Imperial Princes under the guidance of the Habsburgs; here, the Kings of Italy serve the same role as protector and patron.
Having looked back at the original TL, I wonder if the Polish-Lithuanian-Brandenburgian-Prussian union will still happen here.
Most likely yes, but in different circumstances, as the House of Luxemburg has survived and maintained control over Bohemia, Brandenburg, and Hungary, as well as marrying a Polish princess; Sigismund's TTL son and successor Louis has a strong claim to the Polish throne, being the grandchild of Louis the Great who roled both Hungary and Poland. Moreover, the Teutonic Order has been decisively defeated and "invited" to relocate to Crimea by the Poles, so Prussia as we know it won't exist.
Lithuania was, for all intents and purposes, a Polish vassal state by this time, politically and militarily subservient. I see no obvious reason why that would change without a major change like the Reformation, which historically was largely defused in Poland (I would argue at least in part due to the weakness of the monarchy). The marriage contract of Hedwig and Frederick II stipulated that the couple would inherit both Poland and Lithuania- this for the second son (and eventual successor) of an upjumped Swabian count who literally bought Brandenburg from the Emperor. A hypothetical Luxemburg king has a much stronger dynastic claim and pedigree, as well as a firmer power base, and the substantial contacts between Poland and Bohemia.
Emperor of the Romans
Emperor of the Romans
Although France and Italy had, de facto, forced a reunification of the Latin Church through their independent depositions of Pope Benedict of Avignon and Innocent of Rome, formal reconciliation of the Great Western Schism necessarily required a general conclave led by the Holy Roman Empire and attended by the majority of the Latin West. The conference also quickly became an international forum for diplomatic mediation, in particular a renewed attempt at a lasting Anglo-French peace treaty and Azzone Visconti’s attempt to gin up support for a renewed Crusade against the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
Henry IV of Lancaster, the son and heir of John of Gaunt, had embarked upon a successful conquest of the Scottish Lowlands and appointed his eldest son Henry of Monmouth as Duke of Aquitaine. This, and the marriage of King Edward II and Princess Isabella of France, substantially altered the contours of Anglo-French relations, intimating new possibilities for peace- but also new dangers. By 1414, Edward’s government had grudgingly accepted the alienation of Aquitaine under a cadet branch of the royal House of Plantagenet, in part due to the dynastic ties between the Lancastrians and the Visconti and Trastamara. France had proposed a peace treaty essentially restoring Aquitaine to nearly the apex of its Angevin borders, but insisted on suzerainty over the duchy; England had until now refused to consider dual sovereignty, owing to the mistrust and hostility engendered by nearly a century of conflict, but the Henrican fait accompli obviated further resistance. Nevertheless, Edward’s government could not formally relinquish their legal claim to Gascony nor the vestigial claim to the French throne without first securing substantive gains in return. So long as the English maintained their theoretical claims, they could pose the threat of an English invasion and legal interventions in French affairs; this threat alone was capable of extracting concessions from Paris. Edward made no secret of his demands: the repudiation of the “Auld Alliance” between Scotland and France and acceptance of his suzerainty over the whole of the British Isles, recognition of English sovereignty over the County of Flanders and Duchy of Brittany, renunciation of French claims to the Pale of Calais and the cession of the whole of the County of Artois, or at least Boulogne and a coastal strip to connect Calais with Flanders. Edward additionally insisted on payment of 1.2 million French ecus, the outstanding balance for the ransom of John II, and a further indemnity to compensate for the lost English territories in Gascony.
The Dauphin was by no means a political genius, but at least he had possession of his wits. Now nearly sixteen, he was determined to reassert the faltering prestige and power of the French monarchy. In a rare moment of lucidity, his father King Charles agreed to grant the Dauphin the Duchy of Normandy, belated compensation for the loss of the Dauphinate and Valentinois to Italy. John of Burgundy was at the time preoccupied with the governance of Flanders, but did not oppose the grant; “let the boy have his honors,” Burgundy reputedly remarked, “and learn the value of peace and good government.” Nevertheless, power was a zero-sum game, and as the Dauphin’s influence grew, John’s necessarily receded. It was unlikely, in these early years, that the Dauphin- and future King- had decided on the destruction of Burgundy, but the two men were clearly at odds- John had made himself a King in his own right, and the power behind the throne in Paris, and the interests of his state were not necessarily aligned with the interests of France. Nowhere was this clearer than the opposing views on peace with England- John himself refused to consider pledging fealty to England for any of his lands, wrapping himself in the cloak of French patriotism. The Dauphin, in contrast, saw conceding Flanders as the surest path to peace, and increasingly the path to liberating himself from the debilitating domination of the Duke of Burgundy.
France still maintained nominal suzerainty over Flanders, but the territory had acted autonomously since Edward II’s blockade overthrew the Count’s government. As early as 1402, while the Duke of Orleans had escalated a pirate war against the English, the French court tacitly allowed Philip of Burgundy, in his capacity as Count of Flanders, to negotiate a separate truce with England. The Dauphin therefore saw conceding the point of Flemish sovereignty a relatively cheap price to eliminate English interference in France itself.
To 15th century minds, religion and politics were two halves of the same coin; among the Emperor’s duties was to defend the Church; Azzone himself based his initial claim on a Papal coronation. Reconciliation of the Schism therefore became a paramount concern. Yet the Church itself was a political object, and the clergy- to their horror- found the assembled nobility determined to make their own arrangements without regard to clerical supremacy. First and foremost was the question of the Papacy, and the final dissolution of its territorial claims in Italy; this issue became pressing due to the demands of the Pope to be restored control over Latium and Umbria as a precondition of his presence, which caused the Emperor to convene the conference on his own initiative.
The Pope and the Visconti had been somewhat unwilling bedfellows- Azzone’s first instinct, after all, had been to seek Imperial endorsement, and he had only taken up the mantle of Emperor in reaction to Sigismund’s paranoid intransigent hostility. Now that he had the recognition of the German princes, he saw little use in restoring an independent Papal State; yet he could not totally abandon the principle that Papal coronation was necessary for an Imperial reign, at least not without recognition of his own sovereignty in Italy. This principle, at least, was readily conceded by the Germans. The Visconti secured hereditary control over the Imperial Vicariate of Italy and Burgundy together with formal enfeoffment as Kings of Lombardy and Provence; the privileges and rights associated with these offices, together with the Electoral dignity, sufficed to guarantee that the German Emperors, whoever they may be, would not unduly meddle in peninsular affairs. Azzone himself was acknowledged as the heir to the old Latin Empire of the east, further ensuring his dynasty would be able to negotiate with the Germans on an equal footing. Thus mollified, the Italians finally conceded the point, long asserted by the Germans, that election alone sufficed to create an Emperor, and that a Papal coronation was ultimately desirable but unnecessary.
The Council reiterated the point by formally denouncing the latent doctrine of Papal Infallibility, instead proclaiming that the Councils themselves wielded supreme authority over the Latin Church. Although Papal Infallibility was never formally articulated or endorsed, the Popes had typically acted as the supreme power in Christendom, with the ability to make and unmake kings and emperors. Within Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, the guelf-ghibelline conflict had destroyed the authority of both offices and engendered a corporatist solidarity among the leading German aristocrats, who demanded a more participatory form of governance. This policy was now formally endorsed, and concessions granted to the wayward English and Bohemian Churches, including the use of vernacular in masses and royal veto power over clerical appointments. The council- in a deeply reformist mood- went beyond this, generally denouncing a “corrupt and worldly” priesthood, which was retroactively blamed for the divisions within Europe; in practical terms, this position implied the mediatization of extensive church estates, most notably the Papal Patrimonium in Italy, but also the three Prince Bishoprics in Germany, and other territories such as Trent and Salzburg, which were annexed by Venice and Bavaria, respectively.
This ideology- clerical reformation through expropriation of church property- was political dynamite, which the assembled royalty of Europe recklessly wielded in the demolition of the landed church; after all, if a despotic Pope could be deposed and his estates seized, then the same fate could easily befall a king or emperor. In fact, within living memory of the Council, King Richard II of England and Emperor Wenceslaus of Bohemia were both overthrown by baronial revolts decrying their tyranny and incompetence. Ultimately the Council’s result was not to separate church from state but to subordinate the church to the state; time would tell what effects this might have on Europe, for such structural questions- along with other seemingly intractable dilemmas, like the question of a lasting Anglo-French peace- were deliberately shelved and left to simmer unanswered. Azzone Visconti was not content to rest on his laurels; he proclaimed a new Crusade for the Holy Land, a Crusade for Jerusalem. This, more than might be appreciated at first glance, demonstrated the Emperor’s keen political instincts, for Europe- war weary, plague-wracked Europe- longed for the idyllic fantasy of a bygone era, the panacea of a “just war” prosecuted for the faith against the infidels.
Henry of Aquitaine, who was present at the Council, knelt and on the spot took up the banner of the Cross; reputedly he had determined to do so because of the birth of twin sons in 1408- Henry and Edward- an omen taken to signify his connection with Romulus and Remus, and the clear possibility of establishing a new branch of the Plantagenet dynasty in the holy land. The elder Henry had died the following spring, but the birth of a new son Richard seemingly made up for this loss. John of Burgundy also pledged himself to Crusade; nearing forty, this paranoid and sensible politician felt the siren allure of his youthful excursion, a chance to escape the venomous infighting of the capital and the bitter regrets of a civil war.
On paper at least, the Crusaders would have more than 100,000 soldiers pledged to their cause, a grand international alliance encompassing most of the Catholic world. In the event less than half this number participated, but the Emperor had nevertheless accomplished a remarkable feat: he had rallied nearly the whole of Latin Europe to his cause. Of all the west, only Scotland, Scandinavia, and the Iberian Kingdoms were not pledged to the Crusade or bound to any formal alliance or homage with the Visconti Emperor. For better or worse, the Emperor could embark into the east knowing that his position in Europe was secure.
It is unclear, at this juncture, as to whether Azzone Visconti himself envisioned limits on his objectives. His wife’s claims gave ample justification to strike east: in addition to the defunct Latin Empire of Romania and Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Neapolitan Anjou claimed suzerainty over Albania and the Greek Crusader States. The Italians had deep and ancient ties crossing the Adriatic; both Venice and Genoa held colonies in the Aegean and the latter also held dominance in the Black Sea, while the lords of Epirus, Corfu, Achaea, and Athens were largely of Latin stock and did homage to the Emperor; both cities had of course profited enormously from the Crusades, and for Genoa especially reclaiming their old commercial privileges in cities such as Acre and Tyre certainly held a strong appeal. Correspondence between Pavia and Venice frankly discussed competing spheres of influence; other records indicate that the Knights Hospitaller wished to reclaim Smyrna and the other Ionian territories lost to Tamerlane in 1402. Yet there were strong signs that the Emperor was already considering an invasion of the Levant. Italian agents were increasingly active in Syria from 1412 onward, appraising the political and military situation. From the perspective of a foreign conqueror, their reports were certainly encouraging: Southwest Asia was geopolitically decrepit and decidedly vulnerable.
Since the disastrous battle of Ankara in 1402, the Ottoman Sultanate had been ensnared in a fatal fratricidal civil war between competing branches of the ruling family. Tamerlane’s favored grandson and heir Muhummad Sultan Mirza was proclaimed heir. A valiant and successful commander, he had served alongside Timur since the tender age of fifteen, fighting against the Golden Horde, the Muzaffarids of northern Iran, and the Delhi Sultanate of India, before leading an independent Timurid army into Anatolia and successfully seizing the Ottoman treasury in Bursa.[1] Upon his return to Iran in 1403, Tamerlane convened his vassals and extracted an oath of loyalty for his twenty-eight-year-old grandson, who was formally acknowledged as heir. Upon Tamerlane’s death two years later Muhummad Sultan’s succession was comparatively smooth by tribal standards, although he did face an abortive uprising in Khorasan. By 1408 he was secure enough to intervene in the ongoing Ottoman Interregnum, annihilating the army of Mehmed and conquering his capital of Amasya. Timur had captured one of Bayezid’s sons, Musa Osman, and Muhammad Sultan likely intended to invade Thrace and install the captive prince as his vassal in European Turkey, but these plans were thwarted by the outbreak of war with the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in 1410.
Unlike the Ottomans, the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt had not been destroyed by Tamerlane, but its northern territories had been brutally treated by the self-proclaimed Sword of Islam: Aleppo was taken and massacred, along with Homs and Baalbek, while Damascus itself was roughly sacked despite capitulating voluntarily. A series of plagues and famines in the early 1400s crippled Mamluk power in the Nile Delta, while the succession of a thirteen-year-old Sultan in 1401 led to a series of short-lived rulers beholden to the Syrian emirs, one of whom, al-Mu’ayadd Shaykh, finally took the throne in 1412 and began clawing back central authority with harsh taxation and military expansion into Anatolia. A Mamluk army attacked the Bey of Dulkadir, a Turkish tribe nominally sworn to the Timurids; Muhummad Sultan responded by invading Syria, destroying an Egyptian army near Homs and then besieging Aleppo. Brusque threats alluding to Tamerlane’s brutal sack of the city a decade prior sufficed to win its peaceful submission; mercifully, Muhummad Sultan did not treat the city as his grandfather had treated Damascus, and it was spared further pillaging. The Timurids advanced swiftly through northern Syria, capturing Homs in 1413 and finally extracting tribute from Cairo in return for a temporary truce. The Emir then turned his attention east, conducting a new campaign pillaging the decrepit Delhi Sultanate, before finally returning to his capital of Samarkand in 1416 laden with loot and slaves. It was here that he was approached by the Lombards for a prospective alliance. Emperor Azzone Visconti had contemplated an invasion of Egypt together with the Syrian invasion, but European affairs had diverted his attention. His envoys nevertheless secured a treaty with the Timurid Emir, securing Genoese colonies in Crimea and Pontus in return for an annual tribute. Genoa was also allowed to reclaim Phokea in the Ionian coast, and the Lombards were assured that the Emir would not cross the Bosporus on behalf of the European Ottomans.
Bayezid’s eldest son Suleyman ruled most of Thrace, part of Macedonia, and all of Bulgaria; unable to exploit his brother’s destruction, he fell victim in 1414 to an overwhelming Italo-Hungarian invasion, which destroyed him and his army at the Battle of Skopje in Macedonia; according to prior agreements, the Hungarians asserted suzerainty over Serbia and the Romanian Principalities, while Lombardy claimed Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Thrace, which were parceled out by the Emperor as prizes for his supporters in Italy and Germany.
Since the First Lombard-Turkish War, the Byzantine Empire had slipped the Ottoman leash and reclaimed some of its lost territory; Tamerlane’s destruction of Sultan Bayezid and his army seemingly promised Byzantium a renewed opportunity to reinvigorate itself and reconstitute itself as a centralized Greek state. Yet the so-called “Empire of the Romans” was ultimately in no position to profit from Ottoman decline- little more than a glorified city state, the Byzantines lacked the means to free themselves from Latin domination or finance an army capable of conquering and holding extensive territory. When Thrace was conquered by the Latins in 1415, the Byzantine Emperor was unable to press territorial claims save at the sufferance of the hated Catholics; he was allowed by the Latins to reclaim Adrianople, but forced to surrender Gallipoli to the Genoese, and western Thrace was quickly incorporated into the Latin Kingdom of Macedonia over Byzantine objections.
Byzantium’s short-lived resurgence in the Morea ironically proved its ultimate undoing. Although Achaea had proven one of the more successful Crusader States, by the late 13th century it had been forced, by the Byzantine conquests in the south, to seek the protection of the Kingdom of Naples. The Despotate of the Morea- nominally a vassal of Byzantium, but in practice closer to an ally at times- continually eroded the Principality’s territory, looking for any opportunity to expand at the expense of the Franks. Yet it was clear that a lasting Byzantine reconquest of southern Greece could only occur with the tacit acceptance of the Visconti Emperor. Azzone Visconti had received the homage of the Prince of Achaea and took his role as Latin Emperor seriously; he likely was also influenced by the Venetians, who desired to prevent Byzantine encroachment in a strategically sensitive region. The Western Emperor interceded on his vassal’s behalf, dispatching his youngest and most ambitious son, the teenaged Ladislao of Achaea and charging him with taking possession of the old Angevin territories in Epirus and the Morea. Ladislao entered Greece in 1416 with a sizeable Neapolitan army, defeating the Moreans near the city of Argos in September of that year and thereby forcing Emperor Manuel to sue for peace.
From the beginning, the Lombards had scant regard for Greek pretensions. Like Constantinople itself, the Byzantine Empire was a decrepit corpse inhabiting the shell of its former glory. The Visconti nevertheless tolerated Byzantine delusions for a time, because Azzone- the son of a kinslaying usurper- could not turn away from even a tattered cloak of legitimacy, and was prepared to tolerate Byzantium as a client king if they were prepared to acknowledge him as a theoretical equal and make no trouble for Lombard interests in the Aegean littoral.
By the Treaty of Thessalonika in 1416, the Byzantines resumed negotiations for a Church Union with the West, and promised to relinquish territorial claims over Epirus, Albania, Achaea, and Athens in return for vague promises of support in Asia Minor; this treaty, while arguably strategically necessary, was an immediate nonstarter among the Greek citizens, and news of the terms prompted serious unrest in the capital city. Most insulting was the demand that Azzone Visconti be formally acknowledged as Roman Emperor in the west, a concession never granted by the Byzantines, who viewed themselves as the sole heirs of the Romans.
The Emperor was overthrown by his onetime vassal, the Despot of the Morea, whose supporters invited him to take control over Constantinople and proclaim himself emperor. In the imperial capital, hostility to the domineering Latins sparked a massacre of Italian merchants within the city, including an attack on the Genoese quarter of Galata across the Bosporus. It should be remembered that a similar attack on Galata- along with massacres of Latin merchants- had contributed to the Sack of the 4th Crusade; Genoa, until this point broadly supportive of Byzantium, now joined the Venetians in pressing the Emperor to intervene and “restore order” in the region. Venice herself was leery of Visconti expansion in Greece, not least since Azzone Visconti was now styling himself as Imperator Totus Italiae, but his son Ladislao was more personally amenable to them, offering to grant the Republic Corinth and the Argolid, Bodonitsa in Thessaly, and Thessalonika proper; to the Genoese he offered Gallipoli and certain concessions regarding the Dardanelles.
Charged by his father with subduing the wayward Greeks, Ladislao- now styling himself as King of Thrace and Macedonia- determined to conquer Constantinople and put an end to Byzantium once and for all. Besieged by both land and sea, and contemptuous of demands for his abdication, the last Byzantine Emperor vanished with the remnants of his soldiers when the city was stormed and sacked; despite Ladislao’s admonitions, he was unable to prevent his army from despoiling the city. He was thereafter crowned King of Greece in the Hagia Sophia on September 14, 1418, eventually gaining a Komnenoi bride from Trebizond.
Ladislao’s conquest of Byzantium opened the door to greater Latin involvement in Asia Minor. He quickly occupied the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles, seizing Nikaea in October and defeating the Bey of Aydin in November. Genoa was by this point determined both to control Phocea, a vital source of Alum dye, but also to gain control over the Ionian coast, in effect mirroring Venetian imperialism. These actions in turn aroused the ire of the Timurids, who had received envoys from the Greek Emperor offering submission in return for support against the Latins.
On paper at least the two powers might conceivably have secured an arrangement partitioning the defunct Ottoman territory. The Emperor was prepared to recognize Timurid sovereignty over Asia Minor- save for the existing Genoese possessions, and possibly Smyrnia, Phokea, and Bythinia- in return for mutual assistance in invading and destroying the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Specifically, Syria was to become part of the Timurid Empire, while the Latins would reclaim Jerusalem and possibly also subjugate Egypt itself; to accomplish this, the Emperor was prepared to take the field personally, with a combined coalition army of 40,000 soldiers assembling at Genoa and departing by sea with an immense warfleet of over 1000 warships and assorted transports. Such an immense enterprise would be financed by a special “Crusader Tax” levied by the Church in cooperation with the Emperor, and in addition to the usual crusader indulgences the Emperor sought to attract supporters through the promise of estates in the Holy Land, particularly the rich Nile Delta, which would in turn serve as the bulwark anchoring Latin power in the Levant. This scheme, like his earlier attempts to negotiate with Sigismund, ignored the political outlook of the Timurid state. Like his infamous grandfather, Jahangir styled himself as the Sword of Islam, a ghazi who defended and expanded the faith through conquest and patronage. Moreover, Muhummad Sultan was already at war with Egypt, having invaded Syria due to the deposition of his client Mu’yaidd Shaykh, vowing before his troops to water their horses on the Nile. None in Italy desired a new Achaemenid Empire, certainly not one ruled by a bellicose warlord; moreover, in addition to Shaykh’s deposition, Muhummad Sultan had justified his invasion in part because the Mamluks were themselves allegedly appealing to the west for an anti-Timurid alliance. Ladislao was already clashing with Timurid forces in Anatolia, occupying Bursa and Nikomedia and supporting the conquest of Ionia by a detachment of Burgundian knights in conjunction with the Genoese and Knights Hospitaller; Muhummad Sultan was greatly angered by these attacks, which targeted his nominal vassals in Ionia and directly threatened his standing as the premier defender of both the Turks and of Islam generally; his grandfather, it should not be forgotten, had made much hay of his destruction of Smyrna, occupied by the Knights Hospitaller and now once again in Christian hands. As the second decade of the 15th century closed, the two great empires of the eastern Mediterranean moved inexorably towards war.
[1] Muhummad Sultan historically didn’t quite make it to Bursa in time and ended up dying of disease in Anatolia. Here, he succeeds in capturing the city and avoids his death.
Muhammad Mirza, whose OTL death impacted Timur greatly, might just keep the Timurid empire together a bit longer yet
And the Byzantines have been vanquished a few decades ahead of schedule, despite their OTL conquerors getting destroyed…
And the Byzantines have been vanquished a few decades ahead of schedule, despite their OTL conquerors getting destroyed…