Wlad Goes Home: A Poland Timeline
IV: Rise of Casimir the Great and the Early Conquests
In the September of 1475, only a few months after King Wladyslaw of Varna’s death, the new king Casimir IV has war declared on him. His namesake and uncle, Grand Duke Casimir of Lithuania had been jealous of his brother for many years. And knowing now that Casimir IV was not a particularly martially inclined ruler, he saw a fast and easy chance to claim his nephew’s crown. He also expected after the Polish-Hungarian Union’s rough beginning, that the Hungarians would quickly declare themselves independent of their Polish overlords. This was not the case however. Many Hungarians had been born under Polish rule, or had grown to accept the rulers through the Hunyadi’s support of them. The Grand Duke was not in the situation he believed he would be in.
Beginning in October of 1475, the combined Polish-Hungarian forces marched into Lithuania under the command of King Casimir, Grandmaster Ladislaus Hunyadi, and Prince John Jagiellon, the king’s youngest brother. After shattering the majority of the Grand Duke’s army in the Battle of Chelm’s Field, the King orders the army’s march south in order to avoid the winter as much as possible. During the spring of 1476, the King’s military incompetence begins to show. He begins to copy his father’s strategy of divide and conquer, an strategy that failed horribly in the Civil War two decades before. The King ignores Ladislaus and John’s advice and pushes his plan, telling each of the commanders to take a third of the army and plan to converge on Vilnius at the end of the summer. The generals have no option but to comply to the ill-guided order.
Luckily for Casimir, the plan goes well, as most of the Lithuanian army was destroyed in Chelm’s Field and Grand Duke Casimir was having trouble raising another army. The Polish-Hungarian armies converge on Vilnius at the end of August, 1476, only having to deal with minor scuffles along the way. Casimir orders the armies to bunker down and begin sieging the city. The siege goes on for months with little change, and knowing the full force of a harsh northern winter is soon coming, King Casimir orders the city to be assaulted on the first of November. And so it happens. The army destroys the city walls in hours, and rush in. Once the armies get inside the city the matter is different however. the Grand Duke was prepared with a small contingent inside the city walls. Prince John is slain in the ensuing conflict, as well as thousands of other Poles, Hungarians, and Lithuanians.
King Casimir manages to capture the city and his Uncle and cousins by early morning of November 2, 1476. The victory is pyrrhic though, Casimir throwing away countless lives to take the city, his brother’s included. He takes direct control of the Duchy for the time being, and in the spring of 1477, marches his back-stabbing family home to Krakow in chains. Casimir shows no mercy in their punishment. Grand Duke Casimir’s daughters are married off to distant lords, or shipped to nunneries. His sons are kept in Krakow’s dungeons indefinitely. As for the Grand Duke and his eldest son, Vladislaus, they are publicly executed in the town square, on charges of treason.
Once the matter of the Grand Duke is settled, Casimir turns his attention towards the Duchy of Lithuania. He declares his younger brother Wladyslaw to be Grand Duke, severely limiting their independence. He disallows all relations with nations other than Poland-Hungary, and makes them pay a considerable amount of income to him. This makes Lithuania a direct vassal in all but name.
Due to the conflict, King Casimir was still not married, two years into his reign. Going against all advice, King Casimir decides to betrothe himself to Ivan II of Muscovy’s newborn daughter, Helena (1). His advisors assumed a young princess who can produce heirs immediately was the answer, insuring that the succession, assuming something happened to Casimir, went smoothly to discourage anymore civil wars. King Casimir of the other hand wanted to solidify his relationship with Muscovy to get the powerful Duchy as an ally in case of a war with the Ottomans. The Kings stubbornness in all fields of ruling earned him the title, at least behind his back, King Casimir the Ass. Not that anyone would have called the headsman happy king that nickname to his face.
By the year 1480 King Casimir was growing bored. He had beaten the Lithuanians into submission three years earlier and had only sat in his castle since. He had visited his sister Dorothea in Portugal several times after her marriage to Prince John, son of King Afonso the African, in 1471, and had increased his visits since his victory, but was ready for something interesting to happen back home. So, in mid 1480, Casimir declared the Pole-Teuton War, for the full annexation of the Teutonic lands in the Baltic. He had no interest in leading himself though, knowing fully well that there were better suited men for the job. King Casimir was so sure of victory he didn’t even call the hungarian lords to arms, depriving him of roughly half of his army. He appointed Ladislaus Hunyadi to be commander of the army, and sent them in, simply telling them to “conquer”. And conquer they did, and within the year they had conquered the Teuton’s lands. The Peace of Danzig was signed on January first, 1481. Even still, King Casimir was not satisfied, and declared war on Moldavia, the small duchy trapped between Poland-Hungary, Lithuania, and the Ottoman Turks.
Again Casimir doesn’t call upon his full force, knowing he wouldn’t need it. He sends in Ladislaus and the army, and again, he has conquered within a year. He puts Voivode Mircea Drăculești of Wallachia in charge of the new land, partly to try and patch the gash that their fathers carved between the two families. These two minor wars, after the Polish-Lithuanian War, are known as ‘The Early Conquests’.
The Early Conquests weren’t all good though. Voivode Ladislaus Hunyadi, Grandmaster of the Knights of the White Cape, died on December fourth, 1481, just a few days before the peace with Moldavia was signed. This left King Casimir to care for his nephews, Kasmer and Corvin, age five and three respectively. Casimir accepted the two boys as if they were his own sons, as the now thirty-five year old King was still unmarried. He has military careers in mind for them, just like their father and grandfather. Casimir also plans for Kasmer to become the Grandmaster of the Knights of the White Cape, and for Corvin to take over the duties as voivode of Transylvania. Casimir’s reign so far has looked promising, the rise of Casimir the Great.
(1). Not the same as OTL Helena. Yes They are Ivan III’s daughter and have the same name, but OTL Helena was born in 1476, this Helena was born in ‘77 to a different mother.
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