Thunder from the Danube: A First Bulgarian Empire TL

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Entry No. 3: Christianization and Alliances



The Christianization of the Bulgarians, Serbs and Moravians began in 863 AD at the time when the Franks and the Byzantines were at the forefront of the great Catholic-Orthodox rivalry. Though Cyril and Methodius were busy at work with the development of the written script for the Slavonic language, they faced challenges from the Latin priests who did not tolerate the idea of the creation of a fourth alphabet for the Slavic peoples. Yet the idea of allowing the Latin priests to conduct their missionary work in Great Moravia only spurred the Byzantines to continue with their work, and at one point the Moravians will make an alliance with Boris's Bulgaria at Byzantine insistence. Though Boris was not comfortable with the idea of taking orders from Byzantium, he had no choice in the matter.

In Solin, Domagoj soon faced challenges from Croatian nobles who opposed his kowtow to the Franks who did not bother to hide their goal of Catholicizing the Croatian nation. Indeed, Duke Branimir also supported the Papacy against Byzantium until the Byzantines sent an envoy to Solin, threatening Domagoj with an outright conquest if he goes ahead with his plans to turn towards Rome. With the deaths of the entire members of the Trpimirovic dynasty, Domagoj could only rely on the fate of his son Iljko to lead the Croatian nation and he was sent to Constantinople as a diplomatic hostage to ensure Croatia's loyalty to Constantinople instead of Rome.

Civil war soon broke out within the Croatian realm at the start of April of 863 when Domagoj's forces waged their battle against Branimir's army, as Knin and Solin would fall under the latter's control while Domagoj occupied Biograd and Nin. As Domagoj had access to the Adriatic, he was able to build up the first Croat navy to control the seas as he ordered his ships to raid Venetian towns that supplied weapons and other resources to Branimir's army. However, Branimir would also build up his own navy with resources taken from Byzantine Dalmatia in his attempt to capture Biograd na Moru and Nin. While the Croatian Civil War was primarily a war on the seas, Domagoj would have the advantage over Branimir as his faction would receive aid from Moravia as well, in their attempt to influence Domagoj to side with Constantinople.

In the process, Branimir began to launch his attack on the entity called Nerentia, which was inhabited by a group of people called the Neretvani. His attempts to Catholicize the Neretvani was fiercely opposed, and his diversion into the Neretvani lands would prove to be a fatal mistake as Domagoj would launch his own land campaign to take Knin from Branimir's forces. However, Domagoj's siege of Knin would take three weeks to complete because of the hilly terrains that Branimir's forces used to defend their stronghold. Thus Domagoj was compelled to ask for aid from not only Mutimir, but Boris as well. In May of 863 AD, Boris would lead 7,000 Bulgarian soldiers alongside 3,000 of Mutimir's Serbian troops in the siege of Knin, which finally fell on May 29th. Domagoj thanked his allies for the help and changed his mind on the Christian faith he will take. Thus in June of 863 AD, Domagoj and his family officially converted to the Orthodox faith while Mutimir also made the Orthodox faith the official religion of Serbia.
 
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Grouchio

Holy crap the Croats are now Orthodox! But what about the White Croats up in the Carpathians that border Great Moravia? Will the Moravians convert to Orthodoxy as well?
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Grouchio said:
Holy crap the Croats are now Orthodox! But what about the White Croats up in the Carpathians that border Great Moravia? Will the Moravians convert to Orthodoxy as well?
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Most likely: we now have Boris who ended up converting to Orthodoxy at Byzantine insistence or they'd get screwed over. And we also have the Serbs converting at the same time.

No, this is not gonna be a Byzantine TL where Byzantium gains dominions over most of Central and Eastern Europe. However, the Byzantines will play a direct role in this TL though.

Next up, I'm hoping to introduce the Rus' plus some info on the Crimean Goths. Their alphabet will certainly be useful for both possible Orthodox Germanic states and even the Christian Turkic states:

gothicalphabet.png
 

Grouchio

Domagoj decided to execute the sons of Trpimir to (1) remove claimants/competition from his throne and (2) Religious Pressure, especially since the Trpmirovics are Catholic-centric...
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
abc123 said:
But what led to that? Why such change from OTL?
Click to expand...

Grouchio said:
Domagoj decided to execute the sons of Trpimir to (1) remove claimants/competition from his throne and (2) Religious Pressure, especially since the Trpmirovics are Catholic-centric...
Click to expand...

This is exactly the answer. As Domagoj also wanted to emulate Boris and play off Rome and Constantinople against each other, but Croatia's scenario is way different from that of Bulgaria: they're just across the sea from the Italian Peninsula while Bulgaria was awfully close to Byzantium.

Had the Trpimirovic dynasty remained on the throne, they would have spoiled Moravia's chances of sticking to Constantinople because of the Frankish menace.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Soverihn said:
I want this.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, definitely.

Grouchio said:
Look up the names of the rulers of the Liao dynasty as well as the Kara Khitai. Also get F.W Mote's Imperial China: 900-1800 novel.
Click to expand...

I'll borrow that when I get a chance.

And now without a further ado, the next update.

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Entry No. 4: The Rus’ Chronicles and the Crimean Gothic Saga




It has become a common knowledge in modern day Slavic states that Rurik and two of his subordinates had arrived in the land of the East Slavs after those tribes had rebelled against their Varangian rulers but soon began to fight amongst themselves. Only when the situation had gotten out of control did Rurik arrive to restore order, establishing the Rurikid Dynasty in the Rus’ territories. Even before his presence began, there was the Rus’ Khaganate that existed for a while, but only as a collection of settlements used by Varangian traders. As soon as he consolidated control of the territories formerly ruled by Sineus and Truvor, he made Novgorod the first permanent settlement in his own state.

While the Rus’ state began to evolve around Rurik’s time, the situation in the east became stable with the Hungarian arrival in the Kimek Khanate. Almost immediately, the Kimeks realized that in terms of population numbers, the Hungarians outnumber the Kimeks but they could not expel them openly because of fears that they might lose their only ally against the Khazars. Thus the Kimeks slowly and begrudgingly accepted their Hungarian guests into their homeland, a decision that turned out to be a surprising success as the Hungarian tribes were more than willing to defend their new home against their Khazar enemies. The arrival of the Rus’ did not yet affect the regions inhabited by the Volga Bulgars and the Kimeks but the Khazars certainly saw the Rus’ as a future interloper whose greater strength could even destroy the Khazar-controlled trade routes going into the Middle East, Central Asia, and even the Byzantine Empire.

rurik.jpg

The founder of the Rurikid dynasty in the Rus' entity: Prince Rurik. He laid down the foundation for the enduring Russian state that served as the Slavic world's most important ally.

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The fate of the Crimean Goths after the Hungarian war against the Khazars was that of mixed curiosity and tragedy, as they were initially neutral during the conflict until July of 861 AD when the Khazars suspected the Crimean Goths of collaborating with the Hungarians in their attempt to wrest control of the vital Black Sea trade, though it turns out that the Khazars wanted control of the Crimea for themselves and that the Crimean Goths were the ones stopping them from acquiring this important territory. As the Khazars slowly took over the Crimea for six months, they managed to harass the Crimean Goths to the point where they enslaved Crimean Gothic women and children while Crimean Gothic men were being forced to join the Khazar Army.

Michael III was outraged when he heard the news of the Khazar atrocity against the Crimean Goths and threatened to mobilize his army for war. Khagan Benjamin saw through his bluff and threatened to bribe Boris of Bulgaria into attacking the Byzantines from the rear (this was before Boris’s about-turn from the alliance with the Franks to the Byzantines). To settle the dispute before it goes out of hand, the Kimek Khanate threatened to invade Khazaria once again if the Khazars would wage war against the Byzantines, even though the Kimeks were too far from Byzantium. However, a strong Khazar state did have the unintentional effect of involving the Kimeks into the affairs of the European world. Thus on February of 862 AD, the Kimek Khan offered sanctuary for the Crimean Goths escaping from Khazar oppression in a letter sent to Michael III through a Magyar envoy. The letter did take around five months to arrive, largely due to the longer route the envoy had to take to avoid traveling through Khazar territory. The envoy traveled through Slavic lands inhabited by tribes that were not yet subjugated by the Rus’, and into the Bulgarian lands before reaching Constantinople.

Once in Constantinople, the Hungarian envoy presented his letter to Michael III, and he had to wait for six days before the Byzantine Emperor could formally give his answer. Not only did Michael III agree to the overseeing of Crimean Gothic migrants leaving the Crimea, but he also proposed an alliance between the Byzantine Empire and the Kimek Khanate. The Hungarian envoy brought back the Byzantine proposal to the Kimek Khan five months later, with the Kimek Khan ecstatic about the possible agreement with the Byzantine Emperor. As a part of the agreement that wasn’t signed yet, the Kimek Khan has accepted the Crimean Gothic refugees. The relocation into the Kimek homelands would also prove beneficial when the Crimean Goths also brought with them their own Gothic alphabet, which is a variant of the Greek alphabet. The Kimeks and their Hungarian allies had no written script of their own, and it is unsure if the Old Turkic script was used by the Kimeks themselves.

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The Frankish Empire was not without its own problems though, as Louis the German soon faced revolts from among his own sons. Carloman, one of Louis the German’s sons, revolted against his father in an attempt to expand the lands he ruled, namely the region of Carantania (in modern day Bavaria). Unfortunately, his rebellion was crushed swiftly but no recorded history of what happened soon after Carloman was defeated. Yet the internal strife within the Franks allowed Rastislav of Moravia to expand Great Moravia northwards, to the untamed Slavic lands where the predominantly Lechitic tribes resided. Rastislav had to proceed carefully, as the Franks could easily turn their attention towards them if he was careless. The Krkonose Mountains (1) was a natural barrier that protected the Moravian homeland, but the Franks could easily go around the mountain ranges. The threat posed by the Franks was one of the main reasons why the Moravians and the Byzantines wanted to bring Croatia into the Orthodox sphere: to prevent the Franks from invading Great Moravia from the south.

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(1) Krkonose Mountains is TTL's term for the former Sudeten Mountains and is also used as the OTL name for the mountain range in the Czech Republic.

 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Entry No. 5: The Shaping of a Nation




The Christianization of the Bulgarian state proceeded rather slowly, as some Bulgar elite members opposed Boris’s decision to adopt Christianity instead of sticking to the old Turkic god of Tangra (Tengrii) that the Bulgars of old had believed in since the days of Khan Asparukh. Modern day historians still argue as to whether or not Boris’s decision to execute the rebellious Bulgar nobility was correct and there were still no answers to such a question. What is known today is that by purging the Bulgar nobility of rebellious elements, Boris had in effect created an opportunity for native Slavic nobles to ascend into the Bulgar ranks, thus creating a genuine, true Bulgarian state founded on Christianity. Though Gavrail too, opposed his father’s enthusiasm for the Christian faith, he chose to keep his opinions to himself, lest he be forced to convert and sent into a monastery as a monk.

Though Boris at first knew too well that Constantinople would never grant him the desired wish for an independent Bulgarian Church, he first turned towards Rome for help in getting what he wanted. His decision to ask Pope Nicholas for help in answering 115 questions which focused on how he should live as a Christian did not result in the independent status of the Bulgarian Church he craved for, as the Papacy also demanded that he adhere to the Latin Catholic dogma teachings that the Franks are being immersed in. Boris’s flirtation with the Catholic Church provoked a hostile response from Rastislav of Moravia, threatening to invade Bulgaria and annexing the two states of Serbia and Croatia should he proceed. What Rastislav did not know was that Boris is engaged in playing off the Papacy and the Byzantine Empire against each other in order for them to acknowledge his demands for independent status of his church. Four years later, the Fourth Council in Constantinople recognized the Bulgarian Church as an autocephalous church, with the Patriarchate of Constantinople acting as its “guardian”.

Serbia and Croatia’s response to Bulgaria’s new status of its church was mixed. On one hand, they too, desired autonomy for their own churches as they also feared being absorbed directly into the Byzantine sphere of influence or even that of Rome. Boris would also convene on the first meeting between the three Balkan Slavic states over their fate. However, he was not to play the role of matchmaker in terms of arranging marriages between the Bulgarian nobility and that of the Serbian and Croatian ruling class, or even matching Bulgarian princes and princesses with Moravian ones. At the same time, Cyril and Methodius continued on with their work of compiling the Glagolithic alphabet for the Slavonic languages in Great Moravia while Rastislav pondered on his next move in expanding his realm towards the Lechitic-speaking Slavic tribes. At the same time though, he watched nervously as the Frankish realms were being divided between Carloman (who received Bavaria), Louis the Younger (who received Franconia, Thuringia and Saxony) and Charles the Fat (who received Swabia and Raetia).


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Although events in Bulgaria were as quiet as it can be, the Byzantines were not idle in their missionary works within the steppes. Aside from the failed conversion of the Khazars to Christianity (they opted to choose Judaism as to avoid getting entangled with the Christian and Muslim powers), the Kimek Khanate was the scene of a very intense attempt at Christianization. Chalcedonian Christian Georgians were at work, as well as some Armenian Christians who seek refuge in the Kimek lands after fleeing from their homeland occupied by the Arabs and Byzantine Greek Orthodox Christians who also hoped to insert some Hellenic influence into what is basically a mix match of Turkic and Hungarian cultures in the steppes. It’s not just because the Byzantines were concerned about the growing influence of Nestorianism among the Turkic tribes of Central Asia: they were also concerned that the heretical Nestorian Church would gain influence in the eastern end of the Silk Road and the richest empire in the known world besides Byzantium: China.

Crimean Gothic refugees brought with them their own Gothic script once they settled in the Kimek lands, and even as late as 868 AD, the Crimean Goths were becoming assimilated into the larger Hungarian population within the Kimek Khanate. Unfortunately, the Gothic alphabet was hard to learn and there were calls for a new writing script to be used for the Turkic languages. Although the Turkic tribes of Central Asia also had their own written script (namely Old Turkic), only a few people within those tribes were literate, and as they lived a nomadic lifestyle, literacy was the least of their problems. Thus it was more urgent for the Kimeks and their Hungarian allies to search for a written script that they can all understand and learn quickly that everyone could take pride in writing and reading at the same time. Whether it was going to be the Greek alphabet or the Armenian script that Armenian missionaries in the Kimek Khanate would introduce.

The Kimek Khanate suffered a succession crisis when an unnamed ruler died in April of 869 AD without any heirs to the throne. A conflict broke out from within the Kimeks, the Kipchaks and the Hungarian tribes but the Khazars were too nervous to intervene, due to the Kimeks’ alliance with Byzantium. It was at the heart of the conflict that an ambitious ruler named Arpad arose as the unlikely leader of the Hungarian tribes stuck in Central Asia who waged war against the Kimeks, effectively turning against their former allies. To expand the existing Kimek realm, Arpad traveled to the lands where the Karluk tribe resided for an alliance. Arpad may not have known the strength of the Karluks, but he was a pragmatic man who realized that steppe politics require finesse and pragmatism. He offered a place for the Karluks in his new state, which now consisted of the seven Hungarian tribes of Tarjan, Jeno, Ker, Keszi, Kurt-Gyarmat, Nyek, and Magyar and three Turkic tribes: Karluks, Kimeks and Kipchaks, with the assimilated Goths being subsumed into the larger Hungarian entity.

arpad-igazimagyaroknak-network-hu.jpg

Arpad was the founder of the Hungarian Khaganate in Central Asia, which bound together the Hungarian and Turkic tribes living within his realm. As the Pontic steppe was terrible for agriculture, his decision to wage war against Khazaria would also be motivated by the need to search for good grazing grounds and good land for agriculture.

Feeling confident enough to take on the weakening Kimek Khanate, Arpad launched the attack on the Kimek capital and proceeded to raze it on the ground. Once the old capital was sacked, he issued a decree on the creation of a new city to replace the old capital, though the new city itself needed to have new roads built to link up the existing Silk Road route. The new city would start out as a fortress that housed the entire population of the new capital, now named Arpadbaliq (Arpad’s city) in the banks of the Irtysh River (1). To make sure that the new Magna Hungarian state is well protected from both sides, Arpad would make a fateful decision that will shape the fate of the steppes: he decided to wage war against Khazaria in order to expand his realm and to gain control of its territories for the purpose of extending his control of the trade routes.


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(1) IOTL, it would be on the spot of present day Omsk, Russia.

Below is the world circa 869 AD


So now that "Hungary" is established in Central Asia, they could either go Miaphysite or Nestorian. As I am thinking either the Rus' or the Hungarians would be a natural rival to the Bulgarians, either one of those guys would be a danger.

And here is the site for the Hungarian Cyrillic if anyone is interested.

http://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/hungariancyrillic.htm

And the Armenian script:

http://images.lingvozone.com/languages/Language%20Information19_files/image001.gif

ThunderFromTheDanube1.PNG
 
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MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Apologies for a triple post.

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Entry No. 6: One Who Unites an Empire




In the midst of the wars that broke out in Europe, nothing was as menacing and deadly as the Arab raids on the Mediterranean coasts. It was at this time that the Byzantine Empire was forced to make concessions to the Bulgarians since their fleet was not strong or large enough to take on the Saracen pirates. To enlist Bulgaria and her allies into the war against the Saracens, the new Byzantine Emperor, Basil I (often called the Macedonian due to his birth place being in Macedonia) invited Boris to a meeting in Ohrid back in 867 AD, three years before the Bulgarians would expand their presence north of the Danube. To lure the Bulgarian Empire in, Basil I proposed to cede Byzantine Epirus to Boris as token of goodwill in exchange for Bulgarian participation in the war against the Arabs. Medieval Bulgarian naval ships were rather small, as they were only used in river crossings and coast defenses, so Basil I’s offer to cede Epirus to Bulgaria was a crucial decision as he would grant Bulgaria the access to naval technology needed to fight the Saracens.

Three years were needed for Bulgaria to build its first navy, but their only shipyard was on the Black Sea coast. Kamchia River before the Bulgarian acquisition of Epirus was the only place where Bulgaria has an abundance of lumber needed to build their fleet. To Basil I, the Kamchia River shipyard was not enough, but the ships that were built there could join the main Byzantine fleet in the planned attack on Crete. Thus the attack on Saracen-controlled Crete was scheduled for the summer of 867 AD, but unfortunately the Byzantines will have to wait for the invasion of Crete because the city of Ragusa had recently been attacked by the Saracens and Basil was compelled to send help to rescue the Ragusan residents from the Saracens. Basil’s decision to ally with Louis II of Italy in order to attack the Saracens on other parts of the Adriatic did not affect his proposal of a military alliance with Boris.

At the same time, the Neretvani tribe used the Byzantine intervention in Ragusa to carry out their own raids on nearby settlements, often razing Christian churches to the ground and looting monasteries for their treasure. It became worse when Strojimir, one of Mutimir’s brothers, decided to ally himself with the Neretvani in his attempt to launch a war against Mutimir. Thus Strojimir and the Neretvani attempted to attack Stara Ras back in August of 867 AD before Mutimir would send Pribislav and 26,000 of his soldiers to subdue Strojimir and the Neretvani, as well as to conquer the region of Chelmia. The campaign was rough; half of Pribislav’s forces suffered casualties while Strojimir only suffered a quarter of his 23,000 troops in casualties. Chelmian tribes were compelled to side with Pribislav once he amassed the remaining of his troops near the Chelmian camp.

Croatia was not idle during Pribislav’s campaign against Strojimir and his Neretvani allies when Branimir was sent to secure the Neretva lands before Pribislav does. To prevent a conflict between the Serbs and Croats from happening, Pribislav had to call for his father to meet with Domagoj and his representatives in the Neretva River. In the Peace of the Neretva signed on September 18th, 867 AD, the Neretvani tribes would fall under the control of the Croatian Kingdom. At the same time, the Serb Principality will take control of Chelmia and another strip of land that has eluded both Serb and Bulgarian control called Duklja. It was a peace that should cement the everlasting friendship between Serbia and Croatia, and this was actually done without the initiatives of either the Bulgarians or the Byzantines.

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Basil I’s efforts to bring the Bulgarians into the Byzantine war against the Arabs may have been successful, but he still had to pay attention to the events that unraveled in the east, most especially within the steppes. The Hungarian war against the Khazars was well underway, and in the winter of 867 AD to early January of 868 AD, the Hungarians launched an invasion of Volga Bulgaria, overrunning the capital of Bolgar within just three weeks. The Volga Bulgars were the vassals of the Khazars, and their defeat at the hands of Arpad’s Hungarian hordes had forced Benjamin to appeal to the Byzantines for help in stemming the Hungarian tide. As for the Hungarians themselves, they were still at a loss as to which religion they would adopt. There were a good number of Turkic tribes who were Nestorian Christians, and Arpad himself was on the verge of converting to Nestorianism when his Armenian advisors (the same ones who fled from their homeland under Arab control) advised against such a thing.

Under the advice and influence of the Armenian refugees, Arpad agreed to investigate into the Armenian Christian Rite to see if it was worth converting to, mainly because he also needed a new, written script that most of his Turkic and Hungarian tribal subjects would learn rather quickly. However, it was not only the Armenians who were vying for the right to convert the Hungarian Khaganate to their brand of Christianity. Even before Basil I’s ascension, there were talks between Arpad and the Byzantines on his domain’s conversion to Christianity of the Greek Byzantine Rite, as well as the adoption of the Greek alphabet for the Hungarian and Turkic languages. That negotiation almost fell out of the window when Arpad’s army attacked both the Khazar lands and the city of Kiev by January 27th.

arpad2.jpg

Arpad's campaigns into Volga Bulgaria enlarged his own Hungarian state, but the war against Khazaria would make Byzantium and the Arabs nervous because if Khazaria was to be conquered by Arpad's forces, the Hungarians would not only control the trade routes, but they could even project power into Europe proper through their Rus' vassals. However, their conquest may not be permanent, as steppe based empires often collapse within a century.


Once the site of their earlier failures, Kiev soon became the site of Arpad’s redemption when he stormed the city and took it from the two Varangian princes, Askold and Dir, and will occupy the city for twenty years, the same amount of time as the Hungarian subjugation of the Rus’ Khaganate (though Arpad agreed to let Rurik and his descendants rule the remaining Rus’ lands, he was forced to acknowledge the Hungarian annexation of Kiev). With both Kiev and the Volga Bulgar capital of Bolghar under Arpad’s control, he quickly moved to integrate the Volga Bulgars into his growing army while the Rus’ would supply them with weapons and food. Bolghar would eventually be renamed Karasaray (1) due to a black tower constructed by the Volga Bulgars under Hungarian supervision from 868 AD onwards.

The fate of Askold and Dir was not really dire, as they successfully managed to escape back to their homeland in Scandinavia. In the spring of 868 AD, the two brothers would be placed in charge of yet another Varangian expedition. This time, their target was the Baltic coastline, where new discoveries were to be made. The journey into the unknown Baltic territory began in April 14th, at a time when the Varangians were closer to the height of their power. By April 26th, Askold and Dir would divide their forces and assign for themselves a landing spot. Dir headed north, towards the lands inhabited by a Baltic tribe called the Curonians, while Askold would land in the land inhabited by the Baltic Prussians. Yet the planned invasion of the Baltic lands had gone wrong, as Dir himself fell ill from an unnamed illness, and his invasion of the Curonian lands would end in failure, as he became too weak to lead the attack on the Curonians, who managed to defend their lands from Varangian invasion by April 30th.

Askold’s invasion of Old Prussia on the other hand, became successful not only because he had a concrete plan to establish a trading post, but because most of the soldiers that were under Dir’s command had rejoined him after Dir had died. By May 7th, Askold’s troops landed in the site where he will eventually build the first permanent Varangian settlement in the Baltic, Ekslaktetsgard (Oak Town). Ekslaktetsgard (2) was chosen as a name primarily because its location is close to the oak forests. The port of Lipnik (3) also fell under Askold’s control and it became an important port from which Ekslaktetsgard can maintain a link between the Baltic and Great Moravia. The large amount of Varangian soldiers under Askold’s control and their decision to permanently settle in the Old Prussian territories became the deciding factor in the Nordicization of the Old Prussians; in other words, the Varangian soldier-settlers were responsible for assimilating the Old Prussians into the Varangian way of life.

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The Frankish Empire at the time of the conversion of the Slavs to Orthodox Christianity had its own problems to sort out when Louis the German launched a campaign to seize the town of Bari from Saracen control. Yet as his army landed on the southern region of the Italian Peninsula on that very same day, he found himself facing off against a large number of Saracen soldiers who fiercely defended the port. It was not known when the actual attack took place, but historians often understood the year when Bari was conquered: 871 AD. It was also during that same year that Louis the German would be killed by the Saracens while storming into the heart of Bari, causing a power struggle within his own empire.

His sons, Carloman, Louis the Younger and Charles the Fat, did not agree on supporting each other’s claims on the Carolingian throne as they prepared to wage a fratricidal war for the throne. In July of 871 AD, Carloman would assemble his army on the border with Charles the Fat’s Swabian kingdom and lead an invasion in his attempt to not only capture Swabia and Raetia, but to kill his rival and brother in order to increase his chances of obtaining the Carolingian throne. Augsberg was Carloman’s first target during the opening stage of his campaign against Charles the Fat. Unfortunately, the siege had gone wrong from the beginning as Carloman came unprepared for the siege, with half of his army lacking even the basic training they need to fight (it was rumored that Carloman had just recruited men that are fit for combat and only gave them weapons).

So it was not surprising when Carloman’s siege of Augsberg had ended in July 17th with a bloody defeat that allowed Charles the Fat to pursue Carloman across the border and into Bavaria. Charles the Fat then proceeded to take several cities in Bavaria within the month of August of 871 AD before meeting with Carloman’s army in the Battle of the Regnitz River, near modern day Karlmannstadt. By this time, Carloman was busy giving directions for his men to build a fortress on the site that will later be called Karlmannstadt, but it was not complete when Charles the Fat’s forces launched their attack on August 9th, 871 AD. As most of Carloman’s soldiers were still working on the fortress’s completion, soldiers loyal to Charles the Fat managed to capture them, along with Carloman himself before he was executed on his younger brother’s orders.

1348193715-2.jpg

Charles the Fat may have been successful in his slaying of Carloman, but he is oblivious to the danger posed by Louis II of Italy and Charles the Bald. The latter has viewed the fratricidal civil war as a danger to the entire Frankish Carolingian realm and is in favor of intervention against the sons of the dead Louis the German.


With Carloman slain, Charles the Fat finally consolidated control of Bavaria and annexed it to his growing kingdom that now contained Swabia, Raetia and his latest Bavarian acquisition. Once he consolidated control of those territories, Charles the Fat now turned his gaze southward to Italy where he could depose Louis II of Italy and claim the throne for himself, gaining yet another domain for himself. However, when Charles the Bald and Louis II learned of the brothers’ feud over their father’s domains, the Bald would send his own army to stop the fighting before they end up splitting the Carolingian Empire into multiple pieces. Even more, Charles the Bald was presented an opportunity to retake the lands belonging to Louis the German’s rulership. To make sure that he had enough support for his own claims on the remaining lands (even though he was the Holy Roman Emperor), Charles the Bald would form an alliance with Louis the Younger against Charles the Fat, which was made official on August 31st, 871 AD. Yet this alliance would not last for long, as Louis the Younger will also suffer from his conflict with Charles the Fat when against the advice of his own officers, he launched an attack on Swabia on September of 871 AD.

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Events in the Frankish realm had given Boris an opportunity to increase contact between Byzantium and Great Moravia as his Christianization efforts on the Byzantine rite had also influenced the Moravians to import more Greek-speaking priests to teach the Moravian population how to read and write. The Frankish interregnum also provided Domagoj the opportunity to expand his Croatian realm northwards, as seen in his attempts to form an alliance with Svetimir of Pannonian Croatia. Unfortunately, Svetimir opposed the alliance with Domagoj’s Orthodox Croat realm and was actually furious at him for eliminating the Catholic Trpimirovici family. Thus Domagoj appealed to Boris for help in removing Svetimir from the throne and for the Bulgarian ruler to grant permission for Croatia to annex the Duchy of Pannonia.

What was supposed to be a bloodless coup against Svetimir did turn bloody when Svetimir’s forces stationed at their border with Dalmatian Croatia noticed Domagoj’s soldiers crossing the border and immediately began to fire their arrows at them. Domagoj himself launched the attack on the border troops as they were forced to retreat back towards Sisak, allowing him to continue leading his army towards the Pannonian capital. At the same time, Boris dispatched a Bulgarian force to aid Domagoj as they invaded from Bulgarian Pannonia and surrounded the Pannonian duchy. However, the campaign to unseat Svetimir would take six weeks to complete due to constant ambushes endured by Domagoj’s forces and because Svetimir established defensive positions within the mountain ranges that covered the Croatian countryside.

Although Svetimir has managed to retreat into his stronghold in Sisak by September 14th, Domagoj’s Croatian forces and the Bulgarian Army continued their campaign, and he also learned that Rastislav viewed the Frankish interregnum as a golden opportunity to launch his expansion outside the Lechitic-speaking territories into the territory of Branibor. September 21st would forever be known in the Slavic Epic as the Day of the Expansion because Moravia officially began its campaign to expand northward and Bulgaria also started to expand its borders, but towards the northeast where the Khazars were engaged in a conflict with the Hungarian Khaganate. Boris himself was careful not to extend his forces too much lest he invite the Byzantines into another conflict that would have devastating consequences on his overall goals. Thus he once again turned to Mutimir for a request in helping Domagoj with the subjugation of Pannonian Croatia.

Mutimir sent his son Pribislav to command around 35,000 Serbian troops by September 27th in helping Domagoj’s imminent siege of Sisak. Logistics were meager but the Bulgarians also allowed Mutimir to use their territory to requisition resources needed to help sustain the siege. By the time both Mutimir of Serbia and Domagoj arrived in Sisak, Svetimir began to direct the defense. Sisak would prove to be the most difficult sieges that Domagoj would attempt, and it was because of this siege that Boris would eventually excerpt direct control over Bulgarian controlled Pannonia. The siege did begin on October of 871 AD with the defenders having the upper hand due to an abundance of shelters built inside Sisak, yet the invaders would also set up camp on the outskirts of Sisak, near the town of Petrinya.

Domagoj grew frustrated that the siege was not going as he predicted mainly because the supply routes to the northwest still lay open, even though Louis II of Italy could not spare any troops to help Svetimir sustain his siege. So he and Mutimir changed tactics and decided to close all the roads that led into and out of Sisak in order to starve everyone inside. In addition, they also looted the countryside of any farmsteads that might hold foodstuffs that would have been consumed by local inhabitants and also burned down some crops so that Svetimir could not get access to the farmsteads. Yet this tactic backfired because Mutimir and Domagoj now had no means of getting the food for their soldiers.

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(1) Karasaray is TTL’s name for Kazan until the 10th century when it will be renamed to Chernograd.

(2) Ekslaktetsgard is TTL’s name for Konigsberg.

(3) Lipnik sounds like the OTL name for the Old Prussian fishing village of Lipnick before it was conquered by the Teutonic Knights.
 
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