Military Events
Warfare in Pretannia is entirely a different beast than warfare in, say, Italy, Arabia, or the North China Plain. It is fought between armies with only the barest means of keeping themselves in the field, armies which halt in late summer to bring in the harvest, and armies comprised of men who often as not fight unclothed. (That last really only applies to the Cambrians. Nut jobs.) Aethelric, dryhten of the Rygi, was well aware of these preconditions when he began to make war in 615. The problem that bedeviled so many of his contemporaries in the Mediterranean, the problem of dispersion of force, was a virtue here, for in undeveloped Pretannia one cannot keep one’s army in the field for very long unless one disperses it. The problem of taking and holding territory was irrelevant: fighting a decentralized foe, a better course would simply to be to terrify the individual parts of the whole into abstention from fighting.
In 616 and 617 the aetheling Eadwin and Ammatas, the renegade Silenga leader, embarked on expeditions to the north, intent on overawing and terrorizing the locals. Elmet tried to put up resistance; in 616 the local warriors were crushed on the Trisentona River, and Elmet soon bowed out from the twin pressure of battlefield defeats and bribe money proffered by the Rygi. Eadwin and Ammatas wreaked havoc across the North during the early part of those years. By early 617, though, the Ceredigians had figured out what they were doing. The original plan, a major Celtic raid into Ronding territory, ended up failing to bring Aethelric and the local Rondings to battle, and the Cambrians that were still in the war were now quite aware that the main thrust of the Rygi military was aimed north, at pulling petty kingdoms out of the war and, by extension, at pulling their troops out of the Cambrian lineup. In 617 Ammatas’ army was surprised on the Derwent River in the territory of the Catuvellauni by a somewhat larger Cambrian force under the command of the king of Rheged, with the unsettling addition of Goidelic mercenaries. Though the army was somewhat mauled, Ammatas managed to extricate his troops and safely retreat. Eadwin’s army looked to be cut off from its base, but the aetheling managed to escape the Celtic net and flee south with his raiding force intact before the harvest ended operations.
It was 619 before Eadwin and Ammatas could contrive a trap for the northern Cambrian army, which had spent the interim bullying Elmet et al. back into fighting. Or rather, it was 619 before they managed to lure the Cambrians into such a trap, and successfully spring it; attacking the Goidelic mercenaries’ baggage at Lindon, they managed to split those fearsome (and heavily armed) warriors from the rest of the Cambrians’ northern army. The result, of course, was a significant defeat for the Cambrian northern army, leaving the northern kingdoms vulnerable once more. By the end of 620 several of these had been forced out of the war altogether; reportedly they are pondering reunification in a sort of regional league of Gododdin with the failing remnants of Strathclyde.
(+5,000 Rygi levy infantry)
(-1 Cambrian Prestige, +2 Rygi Prestige, -Elmet, -Rheged, +2 Dyfnaint Confidence, -1 Ceredigion Strength, -1 Rondinga Confidence, -1 Rondinga Strength, +1 Silenga Strength, -1,450 Cambrian infantry, -8,300 Cambrian levy infantry, -750 Rygi infantry, -4,950 Rygi levy infantry)
Gerold of Iberia sensibly decided that the Aorsi were the correct target on which to concentrate, and so diverted most of his army south, to try to fight the Aorsi on ground unsuitable for their horses. The horse-lords, who had planned on the Iberians doing more or less anything but concentrating against them, were therefore initially surprised by the large numbers that approached them, but elected to attack anyway. In 616 at Weri, the Iberians and Aorsi collided, and the Iranians were worsted, being forced to fall back significantly. The Iberians continued campaigning towards the east, and successfully drove the Aorsi back over the Rhodanos. Massalia was recaptured in 618. However, this concentration to the east permitted a Walhic advance. In 617 the Walhic army had captured Silakoufstat after a determined defense by its garrison. A large detachment of troops was sent to raid beyond the Pyrenees, but inconveniently the Iberians had seen to their defense: fortresses along the major passes prevented the Walhic troops from getting any further, and the advance was halted. Still, the main Walhic army was capturing other fortresses at a pretty good clip before the Iberians’ main army headed back north in late 619 and began an elaborate game of raid and counter-raid, with nobody really managing to make any headway after that. The Aorsi ended up raiding heavily west of the Rhodanos in 620, but the region was sufficiently devastated as to not provide enough fodder to keep their horse-armies in the field for very long.
(+5,000 Iberian levy infantry)
(+1 Walhic Prestige, +/-1 Iberian Prestige, -1 Aorsi Prestige, +1 Atmona Bastarna Strength, -1 Hatta Marcher-Lords Confidence, -1 Hatta Marcher-Lords Strength, -1 Sannic Aursa Strength, +10 talents to Walhic treasury, -1,356 Walhic infantry, -4,700 Walhic levy infantry, -130 Walhic cavalry, -1,500 Iberian infantry, -5,150 Iberian levy infantry, -650 Iberian cavalry, -2,300 Aorsi cavalry, -4,450 Aorsi levy cavalry)
After rejecting peace terms from the Perseids and Chaonians and viciously attacking his political opponents, Archelaos III of Makedonia decided to go for a hat trick of foolishness by ordering the implementation of a scorched-earth policy in Thessalia. Patroklos Bardanes and several other generals, finally beyond the limits of their patience and loyalty, withdrew with the army to convene an assembly in the ancient manner and elect a real king. The summer of 616 was rife with tension and mutual suspicion, but the army commanders were deadlocked, none supporting the royal pretensions of the others, and all unsure about what to do with Archelaos III.
The Ruxsalannoi cut their Gordian knot. The Kalarauka, having been enticed with significant monies from interested parties, had planned a colossal raid into Makedonia and Chaonia. Brushing aside the small garrisons of Amphaxitis, the Ruxsalannoi smashed the ill-guarded fortifications of Pella and sacked the city, killing Archelaos and much of his family in the process. They then headed west to attack Chaonia. Neoptolemos Dodonaios, the general in charge of the main Chaonian army, was at the time besieging the Makedonian fort of Keletron. His men were outnumbered, tired, and ill-paid. The Ruxsalannoi made short work of them, dispersing the army and pushing on to Antipatreia, bypassing many of the Chaonian fortifications. Ruxsalannoi troops, faced with little resistance, stormed the defenses of Apollonia and Seleukeia-Epidamnia, looted the remains, and retreated the way they came.
Perhaps the shell-shocked Chaonian army, which Neoptolemos Dodonaios was still attempting to pull together, would not have provided much opposition; the vengeful and still very much intact Makedonian army of Patroklos Bardanes, however, was. Makedonian troops trapped the returning Ruxsalannoi horde in a valley near Herakleia in Lynkos and annihilated it. The army recovered much of the loot seized from the sack of Pella and from the raids in Chaonia, refilling the Makedonian war chest. Patroklos Bardanes and his subordinates no longer had to bicker over the top job, either: a compromise solution was reached, whereby Archelaos’ young cousin Anastasia (who had been at the great temple to Sophia at Stratonikeia at the time of the sack of Pella) was made basilissa, with Patroklos Bardanes gaining the powers of regency and the office of strategos autokrator. Anastasia was crowned on a sour note, though: two days before, the Perseids captured Demetrias, the great port of Thessalia.
Still, an expanded war chest (much of which went to hiring mercenaries, many of whom were formerly Chaonian soldiers dispersed in the wake of the Battle of Keletron), a central position, and unified leadership were excellent advantages for the new Makedonian regime. Patroklos Bardanes made the most of them. His forces outnumbered the Perseid army in Thessalia, and with the Chaonians dispersed, he made the most of his newfound advantage. At Meliboia in Magnesia in the spring of 617, the Makedonians managed to give the Perseids a bloody nose, but the Perseid commander, the able Nikephoros Anaktorios, withdrew before his army was too badly mauled. After storming the defenses of Demetrias and pushing the Perseids back into Phthiotis, the Makedonian army force-marched north to beat up a Chaonian army at Pelion – then back to Thessalia to relieve Demetrias, which was once again under siege. By the end of the year, the Maks had managed to recover Phthiotis and push Anaktorios back into the fortress of Lamia. In the north, the Chaonian army mutinied in fall 617 and joined up with Amphilochian and Aitolian rebels to cause general havoc in the south of the country. But in the east, Mysia had finally dragged itself into the conflict, with Alexandros Byzantios supervising the conquest of Perinthos before winter ended operations.
Unable to come to grips with the Perseids, Patroklos Bardanes moved to attack the Mysians, despite the fact that this would leave Thessalia wide open to invasion. He reasoned that he would retain numerical superiority over the Perseids when he got back and would be able to reverse their gains later, after a decisive victory over the Mysians was gained. It seemed as though there was scope for such a victory. After Perinthos was sacked, much of the levy infantry that the Mysians brought along mutinied. Funny how people who’ve been away from their homes for a decade to fight against an ancestral enemy get pissed when they get thrown into an entirely new war in which they have precisely no interest whatsoever. That particular mutiny was put down, but unit cohesion was at best low when the Mysians met the Maks in battle at Kypsela in the early summer of 618. The Mysian army’s major discipline problems merely made their stand against a much larger army even more unwinnable; Patroklos Bardanes won a signal victory and dispersed most of the Mysian army. The remainder was easily trapped in Byzantion and monitored by an observation force. Bardanes then dashed back west, where the Perseids were held up in the siege of Pydna. They retreated upon the Mak arrival, and their enemies were too exhausted to pursue.
In 619 Patroklos Bardanes scored some of his greatest victories. First, he moved south and forced the Perseids to retreat from Thessalia yet again or face annihilation. In Malis, he made contact with scattered Makedonian loyalists in Boiotia and Phokis, who surprised Anaktorios’ army at Trachis and mauled it yet again. Even Thermopylai was untenable – though in the face of fellow Greeks who used to control that territory, it would never have been held for long. At Tanagra in the early summer, the Makedonians managed to trap much of the Perseid army against the Asopos River and overwhelm it. Anaktorios did not survive, and was replaced by Hipparchos Helioupolites, who mustered troops to defend Athens. Patroklos Bardanes knew that he lacked the men and the time and the supplies and the popular support to besiege Athens; instead, he moved west. Aitolians and Amphilochians may have been revolting against Chaonian rule, but Akarnania remained loyal – intolerable! Makedonian regulars remedied that by breaking the back of Akarnanian resistance at Thyrreion. Having effectively rounded out Makedonia’s position in Greece, Patroklos Bardanes moved north and returned to Pella in the fall of 619.
Yet all was not well within the higher Makedonian leadership. Though many levies had been demobilized in favor of professional troops, an increasingly fiscally conscious Bardanes was keeping many levies on, and gave them work to do in the winter at Pella, rebuilding and refortifying the city. Discontent was spreading in the officer corps as well. Anastasia I, as well, wanted to bring the government more fully under her control. So it was suspiciously serendipitous that Patroklos Bardanes, while out inspecting the Pella fortifications, was murdered by several disgruntled soldiers. Anastasia ordered that they be executed and Bardanes be given a state funeral, but that, of course, did not stop scurrilous rumor from claiming she only shed crocodile tears. Predictably, the Maks’ only real enemies by this point, the Perseids, saw an opening with the death of the most effective Mak general. In the spring and summer of 620 Hipparchos Helioupolites managed to relieve the besieged citadel of Thebai, recovering half of Boiotia in the process. But Anastasia’s general Epidateos Akropolites warded the Perseids off from the citadels of Koroneia and Kopai, and in the north Aristodemos Thraikikos conclusively defeated a halfhearted Ruxsalannoi raid and conquered much of Parauaia from the Chaonians.
The naval theater was more decisively successful for the Perseids, since they faced little opposition by now; the nesiarchos, Theophylaktos Epiphaneus, busied himself by overwhelming the garrisons of the various islands remaining under Mak control. This mattered little to the Makedonians’ admiral, Bessas, who sensibly stayed put in the Thermaic Gulf where he could be at least moderately dangerous and very safe. He may have been powerless to prevent the conquest of most of the islands, but they didn’t seem to matter very much anyway.
It seems apparent that this is about as far as anybody can go in Greece. The costs of offensive warfare are now unsustainable for all parties. Anastasia I, for one, is certainly open to peace feelers.
(+15,000 Ruxsalannoi levy cavalry, +6,000 Makedonian infantry, +2,000 Makedonian cavalry)
(+various insanely confusing amounts of governmental reshuffling for Makedonia)
(-2 Chaonian Prestige, +1 Ruxsalannoi Prestige, +3 Makedonian Prestige, -1 Perseid Prestige, -1 Mysian Prestige, +Aitolia, +Amphilochia, -Ambrakia (Chaonia), -2 Epeirotai Confidence, -1 Thraikian Poleis Confidence, -2 Byzantine Confidence, -3 Peloponnesian Confidence, -2,950 talents from Chaonian income, -570 talents from Makedonian income, -75 talents from Mysian income, -400 talents from Chaonian treasury, +450 talents to Makedonian treasury, +35 talents to Mysian treasury, +50 talents to Perseid treasury, -9,650 Chaonian infantry, -12,300 Chaonian levy infantry, -750 Chaonian cavalry, -750 Ruxsalannoi cavalry, -7,900 Ruxsalannoi levy cavalry, -5,500 Makedonian infantry, -8,250 Makedonian levy infantry, -1,450 Makedonian cavalry, -1,900 Makedonian levy cavalry, -3,350 Mysian infantry, -9,800 Mysian levy infantry, -3,550 Mysian cavalry, -6,750 Perseid infantry, -4,600 Perseid levy infantry, -3,850 Perseid cavalry)
Ariaric thiudans seems to have been somewhat indisposed these past few years, handing much of the fighting off to subordinates with rather vague instructions. A somewhat halfhearted attempt to bribe some of the Prusai and Nadruvai into joining up failed, and was followed up by military force, somewhat inexplicably as the Goths were faced with a rather more important fight further south. Beginning in late 616, the Goths were pushed back from their previously-strong position; Eupator himself led an army to relieve Olbia from a Gothic siege, and the other captured poleis were reconquered and refortified. By 618 Bosporan land was cleared, and the Goths soon were faced with the realization that they would have to go elsewhere to secure their booty.
(-1 Gothic Prestige, +1 Bosporan Prestige, -1 Maiza Gutans Strength, -1 Minniza Gutans Confidence, +2 Olbia Confidence, -1,150 Gothic infantry, -1,900 Gothic cavalry, -850 Bosporan infantry, -100 Bosporan levy infantry, -700 Bosporan cavalry, -150 Bosporan levy cavalry)
The 616 defeats suffered by the forces of the Quraysh (see below) have seriously weakened their power in Makkah, and their opponents were quick to answer. An alliance of Jewish and Ghassanid tribes, led by ‘Ali ibn Hasan of the banu Makhzum and basing their power in Yathrib, attacked Abu Sufyan in Makkah in 617. The first assault was repulsed at the Battle of Yanbu, but the second, a siege which lasted most of the year of 618, succeeded. Many of the Quraysh were killed or scattered, and Abu Sufyan himself fled the only way he could – to the Perseid satrap of Nabataia, Demetrios. Andronikos I has yet to determine whether action should be taken against the banu Makhzum; Aksum appears to lack the resources to do anything.
(-1 Aksumite Prestige, +Banu Makhzum, -Quraysh (Aksum), -1 Nabataian Confidence, -560 talents from Aksumite income, -1,550 Aksumite levy infantry, -800 Aksumite cavalry)
Deciding to avoid compromise for fear of looking weak, Gersem of Aksum embarked on a campaign to totally destroy the power of the governor-cum-rebel in Qataban, Abraha. Having concluded peace with the shaky Sophidosian government in Alexandreia, Gersem ordered a massive levy, so large that it was difficult to lay hands on enough troops to make up the quota. These were dispatched to the north, to Abu Sufyan of the Quraysh, who would invade Qataban and attract the attention of Abraha’s army. Attempting a land offensive along the projected route, unfortunately for the Aksumites, was difficult in the extreme, due to the harsh desert of Ma’in being inconveniently in the way. Upon arrival, the weakened Qurayshi army, commanded by Imran ibn ‘Abd al Muttalib, was set upon by the full force of Abraha’s army near al Ukhdud and nearly destroyed.
Along the coast, an already tiny force of Aksumite regulars was split into even more tiny groups by Gersem, who insisted that all of the beleaguered Aksumite ports needed to be relieved and that the enemy would be forced to divide his army to meet all of these pinpricks. Abraha, well aware of the foolishness of meeting strength with weakness and aware that none of these invading forces could do any harm on its own anyway, correctly opted to defeat each of these raiding forces in detail by concentrating his army in space. Qatabani forces annihilated two of these detachments outright, and nearly caught a third, commanded by the adept Wazeba; the Aksumite navy managed to extricate Wazeba’s army in 618, albeit with heavy casualties. After Wazeba’s defeat, Abraha led his army in besieging the remaining ports in Himyar loyal to Gersem; by 620 he had conquered them.
(+10,000 Aksumite levy infantry, +7,000 Qatabani levy infantry)
(-2 Aksumite Prestige, +1 Qatabani Prestige, +1 Qatabani Army Quality, -1 Qurayshi Strength, -1 Troglodytic Hellenes Confidence, -4,350 Aksumite infantry, -5,800 Aksumite levy infantry, -650 Aksumite cavalry, +300 Qatabani infantry, -2,250 Qatabani levy infantry, -1,100 Qatabani levy cavalry)
