MjM
Deity
Humble Opinion.
Alternate History Thread II...
- Thread starter Xen
- Start date
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Oruc
Reactionary
MjM said:
Still wrong though
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Hmm, you may have it a tiny bit mixed, das. Thebes was containable, but no friend to Athens. In my timeline, Athenian raiders from Euboea keep them busy, along with skirmishes with Delphi.
Also, the Asia Minor cities were quite pro-Athens. It's just a matter of course, seeing as how there was no way Sparta could contact them with little to no navy. Athenians/Atticans had the most influence there. They were the Athenian League/Delos League members, but may have became pro-Sparta later in the war OTL.
There's a good chart of which cities supported whom on the wikipedia article on it...with the exception that Argos was more pro-Athens than neutral.
Also, the Asia Minor cities were quite pro-Athens. It's just a matter of course, seeing as how there was no way Sparta could contact them with little to no navy. Athenians/Atticans had the most influence there. They were the Athenian League/Delos League members, but may have became pro-Sparta later in the war OTL.
There's a good chart of which cities supported whom on the wikipedia article on it...with the exception that Argos was more pro-Athens than neutral.
das
Regeneration In Process
After Athens defeats Sparta, all the Greek cities will be Athens' friends.
Those who persist in unfriendliness will be, um, forcefully befriended 
by the Athenian fleet that will cut off all trade and the Athenian army that will burn all the property outside of the city itself.Hmm. Still, with Athens distracted and the best warriors of those cities hired as mercenaries, the Persians are quite likely to walk in and take over.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
That is indeed likely. I would love for you to do a "Death of Lacedaimon" timeline, das. It has a catchy title. You could take it as far as the end of the Classical Age.
You could take it as far as the end of the Classical Age.
das
Regeneration In Process
OOC: Got one thing wrong in the previous post (which appeared long, long ago...). Its supposed to be Tsar Basil V, not II, as there actually was a "Basil IV" during the Time of Troubles.
IC:
1720-1747.
The second stage of the Age of Reaction was often called the "Thaw". The reaction was somewhat relaxed; many liberal reforms were enacted in most countries; science advanced rapidly. This wasn't, however, an entirely pleasant time - for it was also a time of war, war all over the world. Also, it was a time of preparation for the darkest days that were yet to come, days of revolutionary and reactionary terror, days when passions would run high and which were definitely a good time for future historians, but nearly unbearable for those who lived and died during it, days when the Reaction made one last grasp for power.
All that was yet to come, but it gave this time period a tragic feeling when one looks back at it now.
At the time, the new-found dominance of the UK was challenged by the resurgent might of Spain. It was not yet a direct challenge, but clearly, the two greatest maritime empires in the world were fated to clash. A few naval incidents that are usually called the "War of 1725" (although they occured in such a comparatively-wide timeframe as 1723-1730) only made it even more clear to those in charge of both empires that they will soon have to fight. And so, money was thrown into the development of New Amsterdam and Havanna, Batavia and Manila, and many other ports beside that; both sides were preparing for a globe-spanning war. Ironically, all their preparations were first proven to have been completely irrelevant and useless, and then, after a while, to be quite useful after all. For before the widely-anticipated Anglo-Spanish War, came a series of European wars, beginning with the War of French Succession in 1737.
France, in spite of its immense potential, was only getting worse at the time. After Phillip VII (the Orleanist candidate who came to power after the downfall of Conde and the end of the Commune) died in 1701, his successors proved to be even less competent. Under Louis XVI (r. 1717-1719), there was a very brief resurgence, but, alas, he died very young all of the sudden. As of 1736, France was ruled by a fatally ill, though young king - Louis XVII. He was considered an idiot by some, a promising ruler who was held back by incompetent ministers by others, and, most realistically, a very capable man who nonetheless felt himself to be unable to improve anything in France, as no reforms could drag it out of its predicament. Only a revolution could save France, he thought (according to this latter point of view, ofcourse; he never explicitly stated this). No-no, not a republican revolution. What was needed was a revolution from above, a whole new ruling elite, and also, an experienced one. Which was perhaps why he, against convention, arranged for his successor to be a rather distant relative - Charles III of Burgundy. Louis XVII, indeed, seems to have hoped for an union of Burgundy and France, a most powerful combination indeed, in which power would still eventually fall to the French, who would be an ethnic majority. Not to mention that the Burgundian Wittelsbachs themselves have often intermarrried with formerly-French gentry.
Ofcourse, the document by which France was to be inherited by Charles III was immediately challenged - and not just because Charles was, as said before, quite far away in the line of succession. Louis XVII died too early as well; had he lived longer, he might have had time to win more support for this document, perhaps revising some French laws in the process. Thankfully (for Charles III), the post-Condean French laws of succession were quite ambigous, so regardless, the Burgundian monarch managed to press his claim and, when the Parisian parlement defied him and declared Louis' cousin Phillip king (as Louis-Phillip I), sent forces to "overthrow the usurper Louis-Phillip".
The prospects of an united Burgundy-France weren't much liked in neither UK nor Spain. In fact, as the Burgundian armies routed the French one at Reims, both countries decided to put their rivalry aside for now and to back up Louis-Phillip. The joint Anglo-Franco-Spanish forces were to rally at Paris, but ofcourse not all went according to the plan. Before the Spanish forces could join up with them, the Anglo-French ones were already engaged in battle with Burgundians. Their delaying action on the Marne succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the UK commander, Charles Oglethorpe - the Burgundians weren't slowed down, they pulled back altogether.
And then they appeared just to the south of Paris, isolated Oglethorpe's forces and crushed them, proceeding to besiege the rest of the Anglo-French force in Paris.
This spectacular success, unfortunately, wasn't properly used. Awed by the awesome fortifications of Paris, Charles III settled down for a long siege, swayed by his advisors. Alas, this put his besieging army between the hammer of the Parisian garrison and the anvil of Don Castigliar's Spanish army. What has finally doomed this venture was an accident when a Burgundian scout, who saw the advancing Spaniards, was hit by a bullet of one the Spanish vanguard infantrymen.
Time went by, victories and defeats passed, allies became enemies and enemies friends, monarchs were born and died, ministers rose to power and fell from grace... but a Spanish soldier remained a Spanish soldier. And like in the good old days, a lot of battle-hardened, patriotic and furious Spanish soldiers charged at the Burgundian army, overwhelmed its lines and routed it, with Charles III only barely escaping east.
But the war went on - Charles III raised another army, groupped it up with his reserves and, in 1738, sent a diversionary force into France while himself attacking Netherlands. Having gained experience from his last campaign, he quickly defeated the Dutch forces and seized Arnhem, threatening the Hague and Amsterdam. The army sent to France, for its part, won a spectacular victory over a medium-sized Franco-Spanish force at Troyes. Not everything went well, though - the British, with some Spanish and French contingents, have invaded Burgundian Flanders and captured Ghent, threatening Brussels as well...
In the meantime, decisive events were taking place further east. Sweden's Charles XII has decided to make one more bid for supremacy, only this time not in Germany but rather in the Baltic. A casus belli was being manufactured in Erfurt in 1739, where the Swedes proposed another project for a German Empire, a one that excluded Schlewsig-Holstein, Bremen-Verden and Swedish Pommerania, thus drastically reducing potential Swedish influence within it. This one has gained much more support, including, surprisingly enough, Georg August of Brunswick, the son of Charles XII's archenemy. However, Bavaria bitterly opposed it, and so did the newly-independent Saxony. Poland also made its dissatisfaction clear... falling into Charles XII's trap. He protested Polish interference in German affairs, and tried to organize a joint German diplomatic demarche, which was sabotaged by Maximilian III of Bavaria as well; Charles XII responded by declaring him a Polish puppet. Maximilian's supposed "puppet master", Jakub Ludwig Sobieski, the king of Poland, was by then already preparing for war. He negotiated a renewed alliance with Russia and forced Brandenburg to ally with Poland as well, while pushing for UK to also involve itself in the coming war with Sweden. Theoretically, the UK didn't mind the idea, but the war with Burgundy distracted its attention. Clearly, some sort of a solution needed to be found...
But before said solution could be found, the Second German War already begun: a mob of German rebels killed a Swedish soldier in Pommerania and the Swedes blamed Bavaria, declaring war. Reingold Wrangel led a Swedish expeditionary corps to Brandenburg, with the help of some defecting forces, and defeated the Poles at Berlin. Brandenburg immediately defected again, rejoining the Swedish coalition, and soon Wrangel's greatly-enhanced army met up with that of Brunswick at Eichsfeld. Hesse-Kassel, until then undecided, pledged its support for the second Erfurt Plan as well. And meanwhile, in what Charles XII alone knew to be the real main theatre, the Polish fleet was destroyed by the far superior (Charles has been building it up since the First German War's end) Swedish one, followed by that of Russia when Tsar Basil III declared war on Sweden as well. Polish troops reinforced Saxony and once more threatened Berlin, but failed to intercept Wrangel. Russians invaded Estonia and Finland, but in both cases were stopped by the formidable Swedish fortifications in the region. After the Russians were routed at Kohtla-Jarve, the spectre of Swedish supremacy in Northern and Central Europe appeared before the British and Burgundian politicians alike. Not wasting a moment, they begun persuading their respective kings that maybe they can resume ravaging each other's homelands after ravaging Sweden a bit for a change.
So after some more inconclusive skirmishes and battles, a peace treaty was signed between Burgundy and the UK. To the dismay of the French, Burgundy annexed Picardy (including modern OTL Nord Pas-de-Calais, apart from the city of Calais itself which remained British) and Champagne regions. On the other hand, Charles III renounced claims to the rest of France and withdrew his forces from Netherlands. UK was now free to prepare for an expedition against the Swedes, while Burgundy was negotiating with Bavaria, hoping to get the most in return for its intervention in this German War.
The Swedes, however, learned of it and sped up their plans. They also brought in another ally of their own - the Ottoman army, reformed and rebuilt, set out to reconquer the Danubean Principalities, Yedisan and Crimea. Attacks came from the Balkans, from the sea and even from the Caucasus. The pro-Turkish faction in Moldavia rose up in arms, and Crimean Tatars cut the Russian namestnik (governor) into little pieces, encouraged by the Turkish invasion. And back north, the Swedes have launched a counter-offensive in Russia, besieging Narvensk, whereas other Swedish forces have captured Danzig and Konigsberg, their new bases of operations. In Germany, at least, not all went according to the Swedish plan - the Burgundians finally reached a secret concensus with the Bavarians and soon Charles III led, or rather sent (as he no longer was as enthusiastic about commanding in the battlefield as he used to be), his armies in the opposite direction to their last theatre of action. If France was not to be Wittelsbach... maybe Germany could do instead?
To understand the nature of the secret protocol between Bavaria and Burgundy, one has to understand that, well, noone lives forever, not even dynasties. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs were dying out. Letting their lands fall to the Swedish "relatives" was out of question. There was only Burgundy left - Burgundy or a royal marriage with one of the significant houses, such as the Sobieskis, who will then provide a heir from a new, cadet branch. But that mattered no longer - elector Maximiliam III has made his choice and decided that the realms of Burgundy and Bavaria were to be united under a single Wittelsbach ruler after all, even if not him.
Although the Swedes were still winning, the sudden British and Burgundian intervention gave Charles XII a pause. At first he tried to negotiate separately, perhaps even to win over Burgundy to his side, but all of that failed. The UK only agreed to sign peace if Sweden pulls out of Germany. For a while, Charles XII considered signing a cease-fire with all of his enemies, lest Sweden be crushed in a multi-front war, but changed his mind after a two great victories - the fall of Narvensk and the annihilation of a Polish army at Elbing. That opened a window of opportunity before Charles XII and his best general, Johan Rejlander, who was the one who won at Elbing. Now, with new reinforcements and with the support of some discontent Polish nobles who disliked the growth of royal power and were ready to ally even with the Swedes to defend their priveleges, Rejlander pushed south, towards the big prize. Warsaw.
The Polish capital was, ofcourse, well-fortified and well-garrisoned; furthermore, the king himself resolved to remain there and "help" organize the defenses. But most Polish forces were distracted in German and Turkish theatres of warfare. The victory at Narvensk, on the other hand, allowed the Swedes to divert most troops from the Russian theatre to Poland, even though Rejlander knew that he had no time to wait for them. They will thus garrison his earlier gains, and support him when the Poles strike back.
Rarely do things happen in war just as intended by any man, but the beginning of Rejlander's Polish campaign in 1740 was definitely an exception. All resistance was swept aside, city after city surrendered, the gates of Warsaw were opened by traitors, and indeed the only thing that went wrong was that Jakub Ludwig and a few of his retainers fought their way out of the city and fled for the ancient capital - Krakow. A puppet king from the rigidly anti-Sobiesky house of Czartoryski was set up, and the Swedes immediately forced-marched towards Krakow, aware that, most probably, the Poles will try to rally their troops there and merge them with their forces in Germany and the eastern Polish territories.
The Swedes almost beat General Asnyk's army (heretofore deployed in the German theatre) to it, but for Adam de Biran. The French emigre engineer's steam-powered mechanical supply wagons and artillery movers, by then refined and developed to be quite useful rather than a burden, allowed Wlodzimierz Asnyk to speed up his advance across the relatively undifficult, well-roaded landscapes of eastern Germany and western Poland. In a fierce battle, Rejlander was stopped at the gates of Krakow and forced to retreat. Along the way, he was harrased by partisans and Polish light cavalry. Considering that by then, autumn has set in and the roads were being ruined by the rains, any lesser commander might have lost his army altogether. Rejlander didn't; he preserved it as a fighting force and managed to retreat to Warsaw with it, fighting back an overeager Polish assault. But not even a thousand victories could now change the fact that the campaign was lost - Poland was not to be knocked out. Rejlander's lucky star has gone out, and the sun was beginning to set over Sweden.
In the year of 1741, the latter if not the former fact became even more obvious. Sweden, Turkey and their lesser allies suffered a series of defeats on practically all fronts. The British fleet crushed the Swedish one at Kattegat, thus opening the way into the Baltic Sea and soon paralyzing the Swedish maritime supply and communication routes; meanwhile, HMM ("His Majesty's Maritimes", or "His Majesty's Maritime Infantry Corps") have secured several key coastal cities in Norway and Denmark, linking up with the local rebels. In Germany, Reingold Wrangel's army was finally trapped by the Bavaro-Burgundian armies at Fulda after several months of succesful outmaneuvering, and Reingold has surrendered, causing Brunswick to defect, turning on the Swedes once again. Brunswickian armies quickly occupied Bremen-Verden and Hamburg. Brandenburg tried to snatch Stralsund, but without Polish help, they were fought back by the better-trained Swedes; yet that, along with the succesful defense of Narvensk from the Russians, was just about the only good news they had heard, for at the same time Rejlander had to escape from the burning Warsaw, as its citizens rose up in arms and killed the Swedish-imposed king. Though Rejlander once more managed to save his army from total annihilation, and got reinforcements from the [East] Prussian junkers by promising their land independence, this still was a grand propaganda victory for Jakub Ludwig, who also reiceved the satisfaction of catching the Czartoryskis and indeed most of his opposition in the Sejm red-handed. He had most of them imprisoned, and that has become the true turning point in the political struggle between the king and his nobles; from now on, the Sejm would rapidly give up all of its powers and be reduced to a nominal representative council only, whereas the Sobiesky Dynasty was now firmly established as the rulers of Poland.
And in the meantime, the Holy Alliance (with the notable exception of Spain, which by then has turned to the Atlantic Ocean once more and was also busy consolidating its new North African empire) has once more declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Venetians crushed the Turkish fleet in a decisive battle at Naxos and quickly exploited its naval supremacy, securing Cyprus, Rhodes and several Aegean islands, and taking Athens in a concentrated assault from the land and the sea. Cut off from the Sublime Porte, the governor of Tripolitania launched a rebellion and founded a sultanate of his own, stretching all over Libya. Hungarian and Wallacho-Moldavian forces, backed up by a limited Polish contingent, defeated the Turkish offensive at Ploesti and then counter-attacked, taking Silistra and Constance; Myklos I of Hungary, son of Pal the Liberator, personally commanded another Hungarian army in the siege of Belgrade, though he was eventually forced to raise it due to logistical problems and a disease that broke out in his camp. Russians have stopped the Turko-Tartar advance in Crimea at the great new fortress of the Perekop, and later shoved their enemies back into the sea, albeit the new Russian Black Sea Fleet was quickly destroyed in an overambitious raid on the important Turkish port of Sinope.
IC:
1720-1747.
The second stage of the Age of Reaction was often called the "Thaw". The reaction was somewhat relaxed; many liberal reforms were enacted in most countries; science advanced rapidly. This wasn't, however, an entirely pleasant time - for it was also a time of war, war all over the world. Also, it was a time of preparation for the darkest days that were yet to come, days of revolutionary and reactionary terror, days when passions would run high and which were definitely a good time for future historians, but nearly unbearable for those who lived and died during it, days when the Reaction made one last grasp for power.
All that was yet to come, but it gave this time period a tragic feeling when one looks back at it now.
At the time, the new-found dominance of the UK was challenged by the resurgent might of Spain. It was not yet a direct challenge, but clearly, the two greatest maritime empires in the world were fated to clash. A few naval incidents that are usually called the "War of 1725" (although they occured in such a comparatively-wide timeframe as 1723-1730) only made it even more clear to those in charge of both empires that they will soon have to fight. And so, money was thrown into the development of New Amsterdam and Havanna, Batavia and Manila, and many other ports beside that; both sides were preparing for a globe-spanning war. Ironically, all their preparations were first proven to have been completely irrelevant and useless, and then, after a while, to be quite useful after all. For before the widely-anticipated Anglo-Spanish War, came a series of European wars, beginning with the War of French Succession in 1737.
France, in spite of its immense potential, was only getting worse at the time. After Phillip VII (the Orleanist candidate who came to power after the downfall of Conde and the end of the Commune) died in 1701, his successors proved to be even less competent. Under Louis XVI (r. 1717-1719), there was a very brief resurgence, but, alas, he died very young all of the sudden. As of 1736, France was ruled by a fatally ill, though young king - Louis XVII. He was considered an idiot by some, a promising ruler who was held back by incompetent ministers by others, and, most realistically, a very capable man who nonetheless felt himself to be unable to improve anything in France, as no reforms could drag it out of its predicament. Only a revolution could save France, he thought (according to this latter point of view, ofcourse; he never explicitly stated this). No-no, not a republican revolution. What was needed was a revolution from above, a whole new ruling elite, and also, an experienced one. Which was perhaps why he, against convention, arranged for his successor to be a rather distant relative - Charles III of Burgundy. Louis XVII, indeed, seems to have hoped for an union of Burgundy and France, a most powerful combination indeed, in which power would still eventually fall to the French, who would be an ethnic majority. Not to mention that the Burgundian Wittelsbachs themselves have often intermarrried with formerly-French gentry.
Ofcourse, the document by which France was to be inherited by Charles III was immediately challenged - and not just because Charles was, as said before, quite far away in the line of succession. Louis XVII died too early as well; had he lived longer, he might have had time to win more support for this document, perhaps revising some French laws in the process. Thankfully (for Charles III), the post-Condean French laws of succession were quite ambigous, so regardless, the Burgundian monarch managed to press his claim and, when the Parisian parlement defied him and declared Louis' cousin Phillip king (as Louis-Phillip I), sent forces to "overthrow the usurper Louis-Phillip".
The prospects of an united Burgundy-France weren't much liked in neither UK nor Spain. In fact, as the Burgundian armies routed the French one at Reims, both countries decided to put their rivalry aside for now and to back up Louis-Phillip. The joint Anglo-Franco-Spanish forces were to rally at Paris, but ofcourse not all went according to the plan. Before the Spanish forces could join up with them, the Anglo-French ones were already engaged in battle with Burgundians. Their delaying action on the Marne succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the UK commander, Charles Oglethorpe - the Burgundians weren't slowed down, they pulled back altogether.
And then they appeared just to the south of Paris, isolated Oglethorpe's forces and crushed them, proceeding to besiege the rest of the Anglo-French force in Paris.
This spectacular success, unfortunately, wasn't properly used. Awed by the awesome fortifications of Paris, Charles III settled down for a long siege, swayed by his advisors. Alas, this put his besieging army between the hammer of the Parisian garrison and the anvil of Don Castigliar's Spanish army. What has finally doomed this venture was an accident when a Burgundian scout, who saw the advancing Spaniards, was hit by a bullet of one the Spanish vanguard infantrymen.
Time went by, victories and defeats passed, allies became enemies and enemies friends, monarchs were born and died, ministers rose to power and fell from grace... but a Spanish soldier remained a Spanish soldier. And like in the good old days, a lot of battle-hardened, patriotic and furious Spanish soldiers charged at the Burgundian army, overwhelmed its lines and routed it, with Charles III only barely escaping east.
But the war went on - Charles III raised another army, groupped it up with his reserves and, in 1738, sent a diversionary force into France while himself attacking Netherlands. Having gained experience from his last campaign, he quickly defeated the Dutch forces and seized Arnhem, threatening the Hague and Amsterdam. The army sent to France, for its part, won a spectacular victory over a medium-sized Franco-Spanish force at Troyes. Not everything went well, though - the British, with some Spanish and French contingents, have invaded Burgundian Flanders and captured Ghent, threatening Brussels as well...
In the meantime, decisive events were taking place further east. Sweden's Charles XII has decided to make one more bid for supremacy, only this time not in Germany but rather in the Baltic. A casus belli was being manufactured in Erfurt in 1739, where the Swedes proposed another project for a German Empire, a one that excluded Schlewsig-Holstein, Bremen-Verden and Swedish Pommerania, thus drastically reducing potential Swedish influence within it. This one has gained much more support, including, surprisingly enough, Georg August of Brunswick, the son of Charles XII's archenemy. However, Bavaria bitterly opposed it, and so did the newly-independent Saxony. Poland also made its dissatisfaction clear... falling into Charles XII's trap. He protested Polish interference in German affairs, and tried to organize a joint German diplomatic demarche, which was sabotaged by Maximilian III of Bavaria as well; Charles XII responded by declaring him a Polish puppet. Maximilian's supposed "puppet master", Jakub Ludwig Sobieski, the king of Poland, was by then already preparing for war. He negotiated a renewed alliance with Russia and forced Brandenburg to ally with Poland as well, while pushing for UK to also involve itself in the coming war with Sweden. Theoretically, the UK didn't mind the idea, but the war with Burgundy distracted its attention. Clearly, some sort of a solution needed to be found...
But before said solution could be found, the Second German War already begun: a mob of German rebels killed a Swedish soldier in Pommerania and the Swedes blamed Bavaria, declaring war. Reingold Wrangel led a Swedish expeditionary corps to Brandenburg, with the help of some defecting forces, and defeated the Poles at Berlin. Brandenburg immediately defected again, rejoining the Swedish coalition, and soon Wrangel's greatly-enhanced army met up with that of Brunswick at Eichsfeld. Hesse-Kassel, until then undecided, pledged its support for the second Erfurt Plan as well. And meanwhile, in what Charles XII alone knew to be the real main theatre, the Polish fleet was destroyed by the far superior (Charles has been building it up since the First German War's end) Swedish one, followed by that of Russia when Tsar Basil III declared war on Sweden as well. Polish troops reinforced Saxony and once more threatened Berlin, but failed to intercept Wrangel. Russians invaded Estonia and Finland, but in both cases were stopped by the formidable Swedish fortifications in the region. After the Russians were routed at Kohtla-Jarve, the spectre of Swedish supremacy in Northern and Central Europe appeared before the British and Burgundian politicians alike. Not wasting a moment, they begun persuading their respective kings that maybe they can resume ravaging each other's homelands after ravaging Sweden a bit for a change.
So after some more inconclusive skirmishes and battles, a peace treaty was signed between Burgundy and the UK. To the dismay of the French, Burgundy annexed Picardy (including modern OTL Nord Pas-de-Calais, apart from the city of Calais itself which remained British) and Champagne regions. On the other hand, Charles III renounced claims to the rest of France and withdrew his forces from Netherlands. UK was now free to prepare for an expedition against the Swedes, while Burgundy was negotiating with Bavaria, hoping to get the most in return for its intervention in this German War.
The Swedes, however, learned of it and sped up their plans. They also brought in another ally of their own - the Ottoman army, reformed and rebuilt, set out to reconquer the Danubean Principalities, Yedisan and Crimea. Attacks came from the Balkans, from the sea and even from the Caucasus. The pro-Turkish faction in Moldavia rose up in arms, and Crimean Tatars cut the Russian namestnik (governor) into little pieces, encouraged by the Turkish invasion. And back north, the Swedes have launched a counter-offensive in Russia, besieging Narvensk, whereas other Swedish forces have captured Danzig and Konigsberg, their new bases of operations. In Germany, at least, not all went according to the Swedish plan - the Burgundians finally reached a secret concensus with the Bavarians and soon Charles III led, or rather sent (as he no longer was as enthusiastic about commanding in the battlefield as he used to be), his armies in the opposite direction to their last theatre of action. If France was not to be Wittelsbach... maybe Germany could do instead?
To understand the nature of the secret protocol between Bavaria and Burgundy, one has to understand that, well, noone lives forever, not even dynasties. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs were dying out. Letting their lands fall to the Swedish "relatives" was out of question. There was only Burgundy left - Burgundy or a royal marriage with one of the significant houses, such as the Sobieskis, who will then provide a heir from a new, cadet branch. But that mattered no longer - elector Maximiliam III has made his choice and decided that the realms of Burgundy and Bavaria were to be united under a single Wittelsbach ruler after all, even if not him.
Although the Swedes were still winning, the sudden British and Burgundian intervention gave Charles XII a pause. At first he tried to negotiate separately, perhaps even to win over Burgundy to his side, but all of that failed. The UK only agreed to sign peace if Sweden pulls out of Germany. For a while, Charles XII considered signing a cease-fire with all of his enemies, lest Sweden be crushed in a multi-front war, but changed his mind after a two great victories - the fall of Narvensk and the annihilation of a Polish army at Elbing. That opened a window of opportunity before Charles XII and his best general, Johan Rejlander, who was the one who won at Elbing. Now, with new reinforcements and with the support of some discontent Polish nobles who disliked the growth of royal power and were ready to ally even with the Swedes to defend their priveleges, Rejlander pushed south, towards the big prize. Warsaw.
The Polish capital was, ofcourse, well-fortified and well-garrisoned; furthermore, the king himself resolved to remain there and "help" organize the defenses. But most Polish forces were distracted in German and Turkish theatres of warfare. The victory at Narvensk, on the other hand, allowed the Swedes to divert most troops from the Russian theatre to Poland, even though Rejlander knew that he had no time to wait for them. They will thus garrison his earlier gains, and support him when the Poles strike back.
Rarely do things happen in war just as intended by any man, but the beginning of Rejlander's Polish campaign in 1740 was definitely an exception. All resistance was swept aside, city after city surrendered, the gates of Warsaw were opened by traitors, and indeed the only thing that went wrong was that Jakub Ludwig and a few of his retainers fought their way out of the city and fled for the ancient capital - Krakow. A puppet king from the rigidly anti-Sobiesky house of Czartoryski was set up, and the Swedes immediately forced-marched towards Krakow, aware that, most probably, the Poles will try to rally their troops there and merge them with their forces in Germany and the eastern Polish territories.
The Swedes almost beat General Asnyk's army (heretofore deployed in the German theatre) to it, but for Adam de Biran. The French emigre engineer's steam-powered mechanical supply wagons and artillery movers, by then refined and developed to be quite useful rather than a burden, allowed Wlodzimierz Asnyk to speed up his advance across the relatively undifficult, well-roaded landscapes of eastern Germany and western Poland. In a fierce battle, Rejlander was stopped at the gates of Krakow and forced to retreat. Along the way, he was harrased by partisans and Polish light cavalry. Considering that by then, autumn has set in and the roads were being ruined by the rains, any lesser commander might have lost his army altogether. Rejlander didn't; he preserved it as a fighting force and managed to retreat to Warsaw with it, fighting back an overeager Polish assault. But not even a thousand victories could now change the fact that the campaign was lost - Poland was not to be knocked out. Rejlander's lucky star has gone out, and the sun was beginning to set over Sweden.
In the year of 1741, the latter if not the former fact became even more obvious. Sweden, Turkey and their lesser allies suffered a series of defeats on practically all fronts. The British fleet crushed the Swedish one at Kattegat, thus opening the way into the Baltic Sea and soon paralyzing the Swedish maritime supply and communication routes; meanwhile, HMM ("His Majesty's Maritimes", or "His Majesty's Maritime Infantry Corps") have secured several key coastal cities in Norway and Denmark, linking up with the local rebels. In Germany, Reingold Wrangel's army was finally trapped by the Bavaro-Burgundian armies at Fulda after several months of succesful outmaneuvering, and Reingold has surrendered, causing Brunswick to defect, turning on the Swedes once again. Brunswickian armies quickly occupied Bremen-Verden and Hamburg. Brandenburg tried to snatch Stralsund, but without Polish help, they were fought back by the better-trained Swedes; yet that, along with the succesful defense of Narvensk from the Russians, was just about the only good news they had heard, for at the same time Rejlander had to escape from the burning Warsaw, as its citizens rose up in arms and killed the Swedish-imposed king. Though Rejlander once more managed to save his army from total annihilation, and got reinforcements from the [East] Prussian junkers by promising their land independence, this still was a grand propaganda victory for Jakub Ludwig, who also reiceved the satisfaction of catching the Czartoryskis and indeed most of his opposition in the Sejm red-handed. He had most of them imprisoned, and that has become the true turning point in the political struggle between the king and his nobles; from now on, the Sejm would rapidly give up all of its powers and be reduced to a nominal representative council only, whereas the Sobiesky Dynasty was now firmly established as the rulers of Poland.
And in the meantime, the Holy Alliance (with the notable exception of Spain, which by then has turned to the Atlantic Ocean once more and was also busy consolidating its new North African empire) has once more declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Venetians crushed the Turkish fleet in a decisive battle at Naxos and quickly exploited its naval supremacy, securing Cyprus, Rhodes and several Aegean islands, and taking Athens in a concentrated assault from the land and the sea. Cut off from the Sublime Porte, the governor of Tripolitania launched a rebellion and founded a sultanate of his own, stretching all over Libya. Hungarian and Wallacho-Moldavian forces, backed up by a limited Polish contingent, defeated the Turkish offensive at Ploesti and then counter-attacked, taking Silistra and Constance; Myklos I of Hungary, son of Pal the Liberator, personally commanded another Hungarian army in the siege of Belgrade, though he was eventually forced to raise it due to logistical problems and a disease that broke out in his camp. Russians have stopped the Turko-Tartar advance in Crimea at the great new fortress of the Perekop, and later shoved their enemies back into the sea, albeit the new Russian Black Sea Fleet was quickly destroyed in an overambitious raid on the important Turkish port of Sinope.
das
Regeneration In Process
At that point, Charles XII tried to negotiate a peace treaty in Erfurt, but was confronted with the demands to practically give away all the Swedish territories outside of Sweden and Finland themselves, and even those will lose some more territories after that. He decided to fight on, as to exhaust his enemies into signing a less drastic peace treaty. With a newfound aim and somewhat restored resolve, the Swedish soldiers fared much better in 1742. New troops were being raised: Swedes to fight the British invaders in Scandinavia, Finns and Estonians - to relieve the Swedish garrison at Narvensk, Prussians - to harass the Polish troops and prevent them from entering East Prussia. Mecklenburg was lost to the Brandenburgians, but Rostock, Stralsund and Lubeck held out against all the troops the various German nations brought against the Swedes there. Poles were kept out of Danzig and Konigsberg. The Russians continued besieging Narvensk, but still with not much success and many losses due to Finnish harrasment.
The Turks, too, fared quite well at first. They withdrew back across the Danube from Wallachia-Moldavia, but restook Constance and prevented a Russian invasion of Turkish Georgia across the Caucasus. Finally, as the year was drawing to an end, they invaded Hungary once more, seized Zagreb and routed the Hungarians and the Bavarian, Polish and Wallachian-Moldavian forces sent to help them at Sombor in Voivodina. Sure, the Hungarians regroupped, the Poles and the Bavarians sent more men to help them out, Asnyk himself was sent to take command of the Polish expeditionary corps, but it seemed as if the Turks might once more subjugate Hungary and the Danubian Principalities, as more and more troops came in and as town after town surrendered.
Then suddenly, dire news came from the Middle East. A bloodied, tired messanger arrived in Constantinople, near the end of the year, to report an awful, unprecedented defeat. A complete rout. All the forces in the region were eliminated by cunning, fierce, ruthless enemy. One of the worst military catastrophes in the uneven military history of the Ottoman Empire. Now, practically all of it lay open for conquest, unless something is done quickly.
Before I say what has actually happened, we should go a decade and a half into the past.
As of 1727, Persia was still ruled by several Afghan warlords in a very loose confederation. They have killed the last Safavid ruler, Shah Soltan Hoseyn, and imposed their barbaric rule on this ancient land. Turks, Russians and Uzbeks all used it to add to the devastation - Turkish forces have occupied Persian Aizerbadjan, Cossacks raided the Caspian Sea and Uzbeks took over the old disputed territories in Khorasan. It seemed that Persia will never get back up; certainly it would take a miracle for it to even survive.
Or a genial leader. That one came. Just in 1726, Nadr Qoli Beg, a mere member of a Turkic tribe, the Afshar Tribe, that was a traditional subject of the Safavids, was but a member of a fairly small group of bandits. It was in that year that his fate has changed forever - in the small, provincial region of Khorasan, a Safavid heir (Tahmasp II) was found and Nadr Qoli Beg pledged to support him. Gradually, their ranks swelled, and by 1727, the new Safavid army secured much of Khorasan. By 1730, Nadr Qoli Beg, the supreme commander of the Safavid armies, has led Tahmasp to the throne. Next, he begun imposing order in the outreaches of the empire, defeating Turks, Russians and Uzbeks alike, as well as those Afghans who still resisted the Safavids. But then, Tahmasp launched a military adventure of his own, invading Turkish Mesopatamia. He was defeated and signed an ignominous peace treaty. Enraged, Nadr Qoli Beg deposed Tahmasp and put his young son on the throne and himself became regent. In 1736, Tahmasp's son died, and Nadr Qoli Beg decided that the Safavid Persia was not to be restored after all. No, instead there would be a new shah for Persia. Nadir Shah, as Nadr Qoli Beg now styled himself.
Long story cut short, he won big in the years that passed between 1736 and 1742. Although his invasion of Turkish Mesopatamia failed as well, he managed to regain Persian Aizerbadjan. In the east, Afghans and Uzbeks alike were subdued. And in India, which since 1707 was in complete anarchy, he succeeded the most. Punjab, Sind and even Rajputana were forced to pay tribute, and the former two also acknowledged the supreme Persian rule. The last Mughals that were trying at the time to rebuild their empire with some early successes were crushed by the former robber as well, Delhi was looted and the Peacock Throne was moved to Tehran. That wasn't the only trophey; he also brought with himself the Koh-i-noor, and, more importantly, elephants. Indians used them in battle, and Nadir Shah was said to be impressed. As impressed as to test them out in 1742 at Baghdad, when the time has come for a final clash with the Ottoman Empire. He wasn't disappointed in his new beasts of war, although ofcourse his skillful use of more conventional forces probably had more to do with the victory.
Anyway, the Ottoman army in Iraq was routed, Baghdad and Basrah surrendered without any more fighting, and Nadir Shah was leading his troops further and further west. Armenians pledged loyalty to him out of dislike for the Ottomans, as did the Georgians though the latter were quickly defeated by the Turks. Something had to be done, and the Ottomans knew what. Peace with the Holy Alliance. Alas, as with Sweden, the enemies asked for too much (having learned of the Porte's predicament), and so the 1743 saw a desperate Turkish offensive in the Danubean Theatre. It started out fine. Silistra was retaken, soon after Bucharest also fell to Hamid Pasha, and the brilliant Turkish general proceeded to invade Transylvania, cutting Asnyk's forces off from their supplies and trapping them between the two Turkish armies (the other one being the army that secured western Hungary in 1742) that now linked up. The Hungaro-Polono-Bavaro-Wallacho-Moldavian armies were crushed. Yet the Hungarians fought on. Budapest was garrisoned with all the troops they had left; haiduks once more took to the roads, attacking the overstretched Turkish supply routes; volunteers prepared the defenses of the lesser towns and cities throughout the realm; and finally, Venetians, Bavarians, Saxons and some others sent their own forces to help the beleaugarded Hungarians out. Even the Poles, in spite of continued problems in their north, found some more troops to spare. Venetians, in the meantime, tried to create a diversion by landing in Epirus and invading Central Greece from there and from Athens. They even tried to force the Straits of Bosporus to bombard Constantinople itself as to force the Sublime Porte to the peace table, but were defeated badly at Galipoli.
It wasn't enough in the end, and the Turks soon were besieging Bucharest and Jassy. But their position there was increasingly tenuous, and they had to divert forces southwards to stop the Venetians and subdue the rising tide of a great South Slav rebellion. To make things worse, Nadir Shah has by then secured Eastern Armenia, the entirety of Iraq and even the semi-vassal state of al-Hasa (Dubai) which surrendered without a shot being fired. The fearsome Persian warlord defeated another Turkish army at Gaziantep. The Mamelukes from Egypt were thrown to stop him, but were crushed humiliatingly at Aleppo.
In 1744, the inevitable has happened. The Ottomans, overstretched, exhausted and continuously harrassed, had begun retreating from Hungary. Hamid Pasha had famously argued against it, saying that "our invasion was foolish, but to end it now would be even more foolish", but the sultan's orders are the sultan's orders. Pasha was no Rejlander to save the Turkish army in this one case, but not even Rejlander could have saved it now, with all due respect. The Turkish soldiers by now were also awfully demoralized, and the retreat soon turned into a panicked flight, which isn't a good thing for one to partake in when fighting Poles and Hungarians. Hussars and lancers easily chased down the fleeing heathens and cut them into pieces, Hamid Pasha himself was captured and the Sublime Porte had to declare peace lest it collapse altogether. It cost it much - much of Greece, half of the Aegean Sea, all of Cyprus, Rhodos, and Epirus were taken by Venice (which also established a protectorate over the Sultanate of Tripolitania after its sultan unwisely attempted to prey on the Venetian commerce), Hungary seized Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wallachia-Moldavia gained Dobruja and all the lands north of the Caucasus were recognized as Russian sphere of influence. A large reparation had to paid out as soon as possible to Hungary and Poland. Limits were put on the Turkish fleet. Those weren't the terms any sultan would have accepted, if not for the extraordinary circumstance of being almost doomed.
For indeed, Sultan Selim III who ruled the Ottoman Empire at the time was almost doomed when the Persians, after smashing through all the the hastily-assembled Turkish fortifications, entered Konya. All the forces that could be found in the ruined empire were being thrown at the Persians, but they only delayed Nadir Shah's advance. All the bribes were rejected as insufficient. At Eskisehir, Selim III personally led almost the entire Ottoman army and all the levies that could be raised in Anatolia and Rumelia to a final battle. Turks held bravely, repulsed attacks, slaughtered many elephants and Persians, but eventually had to retreat.
As March 1745 begun, Selim III let out a sigh of relief. Surprisingly, completely unexpectedly and unexplainedly, Nadir Shah accepted the final peace overture. Practically all of the Ottoman treasury and many rich gifts had to be sent to him, Iraq, al-Hasa, West Armenia and Aizerbadjan were annexed by Persia, but at least, Ottoman Empire survived. Shrunken, devastated... but alive. Now, it could rebuild.
The reason behind Nadir Shah's sudden agreement was that his vastly-overstretched empire was in trouble. Many rebellions begun, Bedouins and Uzbeks raided the periphereal territories, and the Sikhs of Punjab were seriously considering independence. Reluctantly, Nadir Shah decided to let his prey go for now - these rebellions were a personal insult, not somethink the Shah could ever forgive.
Back in Northern Europe, as of 1745 Sweden was doomed. Its armies were still trying to defend their increasingly-scattered outposts, and the Council of Regency (Charles XII died in 1743, and his eldest son, also named Charles, was taken prisoner while defending Stralsund from the fifth major assault on it, which also was the succesful one) was losing control over the country. Russians retook Narvensky and also captured Talinn and Viborg. The Poles had a hard time of it, but by 1743 they have reconquered Prussia and captured Rejlander when he and a few companions were trying to hide in a Lithuanian village. Germany was lost for the Swedes altogether. The British were occupying much of Norway and Denmark, and also shelled all the coastal Swedish cities of importance.
In 1746, the Second German War ended with the Treaty of Riga, and so did the "Age of Greatness" in Swedish history. Denmark-Norway was restored fully as an independent state under a native dynasty, and signed an alliance with the UK; it also took the provinces of Schlewsig-Holstein and Skane from Sweden. In Germany, a few tiny pro-Swedish states were gobbled up by the anti-Swedish ones (most notably, Brunswick and Burgundy now had a fairly long border) and the Swedish possessions were partitioned; Brunswick took Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg took Mecklenburg and Swedish Pommerania. Swedish Livonia went to Poland, as did the island of Gotland that the Poles considered, quite reasonably, to be a vital part of a hypothetic (and not so hypothetic) supply route from Sweden to Poland, or vice versa. Not to mention a jolly good base for raiders. Russia annexed Estonia and Swedish Karelia.
Peace has come to Europe, but not to the world. Indeed, the rest of the world wasn't much more peaceful than Europe at the time. Spaniards continued fighting down rebels in South America, while expanding across the Mississippi and fighting the Natchez Amerinds. The British, increasingly alarmed by the Spanish strenghthening, were increasing their presence in the colonies as well, even though it brought them into conflict with the Iroquois and their Metis allies. The Metis, indeed, were becoming increasingly organized; rumours came of them building a state of their own somewhere to the west (or north? or northwest?) from the Great Lakes, exaggerated rumours to be true, but not entirely unfounded ones neither. Rumours that the Metis and the Iroquois were getting help from the Spanish weren't unfounded, not even exaggerated in fact. With the fall of Sweden, the British snatched the Swedish colonies in Africa, and continued to increase their grasp over West and South Africas in particular; in response, the Spanish used the fall of Oman (in 1747, Nadir Shah led the captured Turkish fleet of the Persian Gulf to the rich city of Muscat and added it to his exotic collection of subjugated realms) to sign alliances with the rising Swahili city-states of East Africa. Spain also signed an alliance with Abyssinia, but the British were actively trying to win it over to their side. Central Asia saw the nomadic peoples and local states alike trapped between Russia, China and Persia, and three powers were steadily partitioning the region. China was also strenghthening its influence in Indochina, though not completely succesfully - the 1726 invasion of Vietnam was succesful, but all attacks on Siam were fought back by the vigorous modernizing kingdom which however had too many enemies - Britain, Myanmar and China. Japan at the time was ruled by Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune; he was leading a policy of moderate reform, allowing the importation of non-religious European books, reinvigorating the government and starting ambitious educational and economic programs. But so far, they didn't come to much.
Finally, in India, wars raged, with the Maratha Confederacy briefly supreme until 1740. Four years before that, a civil war started between pro-British and pro-Spanish pretendenrs. The confederated principalities had to choose sides, both colonial powers provided advisors, funds and weapons to their supporters, and eventually, the pro-British pretender, Ramaji, has triumphed; the Spanish have responded by invading the vital western region of Peshwa, the very homeland of the Marathas, and by 1743 have crushed most resistance there. The rest of the Maratha Confederacy had then fragmented, British and Spanish agents, merchants and soldiers alike moved in to pick up the pieces, and thus eventually the Anglo-Spanish War begun over the spheres of influence in India, in 1747.
This war, also known as the First Oceanic War, was to be a war of a new kind. For the Industrial Revolution was already happening by then - steam-powered vehicles and devices were widely used, first steam-powered ships were also being tested, factories to produce them - and other goods, while we're at it - were sprouting up, inginious mechanisms to increase the output of said factories appeared, and the commercial elite of Britain and Spain, along with the political elite, was only too eager to invest into these new developments. Trully, the world was changing.
And, as the ancient Chinese curse says according to some, "may you live in the Time of Change!" According to others, it was "may you live in interesting times", which is practically the same and just as harmful for health as well.
To be continued.
The Turks, too, fared quite well at first. They withdrew back across the Danube from Wallachia-Moldavia, but restook Constance and prevented a Russian invasion of Turkish Georgia across the Caucasus. Finally, as the year was drawing to an end, they invaded Hungary once more, seized Zagreb and routed the Hungarians and the Bavarian, Polish and Wallachian-Moldavian forces sent to help them at Sombor in Voivodina. Sure, the Hungarians regroupped, the Poles and the Bavarians sent more men to help them out, Asnyk himself was sent to take command of the Polish expeditionary corps, but it seemed as if the Turks might once more subjugate Hungary and the Danubian Principalities, as more and more troops came in and as town after town surrendered.
Then suddenly, dire news came from the Middle East. A bloodied, tired messanger arrived in Constantinople, near the end of the year, to report an awful, unprecedented defeat. A complete rout. All the forces in the region were eliminated by cunning, fierce, ruthless enemy. One of the worst military catastrophes in the uneven military history of the Ottoman Empire. Now, practically all of it lay open for conquest, unless something is done quickly.
Before I say what has actually happened, we should go a decade and a half into the past.
As of 1727, Persia was still ruled by several Afghan warlords in a very loose confederation. They have killed the last Safavid ruler, Shah Soltan Hoseyn, and imposed their barbaric rule on this ancient land. Turks, Russians and Uzbeks all used it to add to the devastation - Turkish forces have occupied Persian Aizerbadjan, Cossacks raided the Caspian Sea and Uzbeks took over the old disputed territories in Khorasan. It seemed that Persia will never get back up; certainly it would take a miracle for it to even survive.
Or a genial leader. That one came. Just in 1726, Nadr Qoli Beg, a mere member of a Turkic tribe, the Afshar Tribe, that was a traditional subject of the Safavids, was but a member of a fairly small group of bandits. It was in that year that his fate has changed forever - in the small, provincial region of Khorasan, a Safavid heir (Tahmasp II) was found and Nadr Qoli Beg pledged to support him. Gradually, their ranks swelled, and by 1727, the new Safavid army secured much of Khorasan. By 1730, Nadr Qoli Beg, the supreme commander of the Safavid armies, has led Tahmasp to the throne. Next, he begun imposing order in the outreaches of the empire, defeating Turks, Russians and Uzbeks alike, as well as those Afghans who still resisted the Safavids. But then, Tahmasp launched a military adventure of his own, invading Turkish Mesopatamia. He was defeated and signed an ignominous peace treaty. Enraged, Nadr Qoli Beg deposed Tahmasp and put his young son on the throne and himself became regent. In 1736, Tahmasp's son died, and Nadr Qoli Beg decided that the Safavid Persia was not to be restored after all. No, instead there would be a new shah for Persia. Nadir Shah, as Nadr Qoli Beg now styled himself.
Long story cut short, he won big in the years that passed between 1736 and 1742. Although his invasion of Turkish Mesopatamia failed as well, he managed to regain Persian Aizerbadjan. In the east, Afghans and Uzbeks alike were subdued. And in India, which since 1707 was in complete anarchy, he succeeded the most. Punjab, Sind and even Rajputana were forced to pay tribute, and the former two also acknowledged the supreme Persian rule. The last Mughals that were trying at the time to rebuild their empire with some early successes were crushed by the former robber as well, Delhi was looted and the Peacock Throne was moved to Tehran. That wasn't the only trophey; he also brought with himself the Koh-i-noor, and, more importantly, elephants. Indians used them in battle, and Nadir Shah was said to be impressed. As impressed as to test them out in 1742 at Baghdad, when the time has come for a final clash with the Ottoman Empire. He wasn't disappointed in his new beasts of war, although ofcourse his skillful use of more conventional forces probably had more to do with the victory.
Anyway, the Ottoman army in Iraq was routed, Baghdad and Basrah surrendered without any more fighting, and Nadir Shah was leading his troops further and further west. Armenians pledged loyalty to him out of dislike for the Ottomans, as did the Georgians though the latter were quickly defeated by the Turks. Something had to be done, and the Ottomans knew what. Peace with the Holy Alliance. Alas, as with Sweden, the enemies asked for too much (having learned of the Porte's predicament), and so the 1743 saw a desperate Turkish offensive in the Danubean Theatre. It started out fine. Silistra was retaken, soon after Bucharest also fell to Hamid Pasha, and the brilliant Turkish general proceeded to invade Transylvania, cutting Asnyk's forces off from their supplies and trapping them between the two Turkish armies (the other one being the army that secured western Hungary in 1742) that now linked up. The Hungaro-Polono-Bavaro-Wallacho-Moldavian armies were crushed. Yet the Hungarians fought on. Budapest was garrisoned with all the troops they had left; haiduks once more took to the roads, attacking the overstretched Turkish supply routes; volunteers prepared the defenses of the lesser towns and cities throughout the realm; and finally, Venetians, Bavarians, Saxons and some others sent their own forces to help the beleaugarded Hungarians out. Even the Poles, in spite of continued problems in their north, found some more troops to spare. Venetians, in the meantime, tried to create a diversion by landing in Epirus and invading Central Greece from there and from Athens. They even tried to force the Straits of Bosporus to bombard Constantinople itself as to force the Sublime Porte to the peace table, but were defeated badly at Galipoli.
It wasn't enough in the end, and the Turks soon were besieging Bucharest and Jassy. But their position there was increasingly tenuous, and they had to divert forces southwards to stop the Venetians and subdue the rising tide of a great South Slav rebellion. To make things worse, Nadir Shah has by then secured Eastern Armenia, the entirety of Iraq and even the semi-vassal state of al-Hasa (Dubai) which surrendered without a shot being fired. The fearsome Persian warlord defeated another Turkish army at Gaziantep. The Mamelukes from Egypt were thrown to stop him, but were crushed humiliatingly at Aleppo.
In 1744, the inevitable has happened. The Ottomans, overstretched, exhausted and continuously harrassed, had begun retreating from Hungary. Hamid Pasha had famously argued against it, saying that "our invasion was foolish, but to end it now would be even more foolish", but the sultan's orders are the sultan's orders. Pasha was no Rejlander to save the Turkish army in this one case, but not even Rejlander could have saved it now, with all due respect. The Turkish soldiers by now were also awfully demoralized, and the retreat soon turned into a panicked flight, which isn't a good thing for one to partake in when fighting Poles and Hungarians. Hussars and lancers easily chased down the fleeing heathens and cut them into pieces, Hamid Pasha himself was captured and the Sublime Porte had to declare peace lest it collapse altogether. It cost it much - much of Greece, half of the Aegean Sea, all of Cyprus, Rhodos, and Epirus were taken by Venice (which also established a protectorate over the Sultanate of Tripolitania after its sultan unwisely attempted to prey on the Venetian commerce), Hungary seized Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wallachia-Moldavia gained Dobruja and all the lands north of the Caucasus were recognized as Russian sphere of influence. A large reparation had to paid out as soon as possible to Hungary and Poland. Limits were put on the Turkish fleet. Those weren't the terms any sultan would have accepted, if not for the extraordinary circumstance of being almost doomed.
For indeed, Sultan Selim III who ruled the Ottoman Empire at the time was almost doomed when the Persians, after smashing through all the the hastily-assembled Turkish fortifications, entered Konya. All the forces that could be found in the ruined empire were being thrown at the Persians, but they only delayed Nadir Shah's advance. All the bribes were rejected as insufficient. At Eskisehir, Selim III personally led almost the entire Ottoman army and all the levies that could be raised in Anatolia and Rumelia to a final battle. Turks held bravely, repulsed attacks, slaughtered many elephants and Persians, but eventually had to retreat.
As March 1745 begun, Selim III let out a sigh of relief. Surprisingly, completely unexpectedly and unexplainedly, Nadir Shah accepted the final peace overture. Practically all of the Ottoman treasury and many rich gifts had to be sent to him, Iraq, al-Hasa, West Armenia and Aizerbadjan were annexed by Persia, but at least, Ottoman Empire survived. Shrunken, devastated... but alive. Now, it could rebuild.
The reason behind Nadir Shah's sudden agreement was that his vastly-overstretched empire was in trouble. Many rebellions begun, Bedouins and Uzbeks raided the periphereal territories, and the Sikhs of Punjab were seriously considering independence. Reluctantly, Nadir Shah decided to let his prey go for now - these rebellions were a personal insult, not somethink the Shah could ever forgive.
Back in Northern Europe, as of 1745 Sweden was doomed. Its armies were still trying to defend their increasingly-scattered outposts, and the Council of Regency (Charles XII died in 1743, and his eldest son, also named Charles, was taken prisoner while defending Stralsund from the fifth major assault on it, which also was the succesful one) was losing control over the country. Russians retook Narvensky and also captured Talinn and Viborg. The Poles had a hard time of it, but by 1743 they have reconquered Prussia and captured Rejlander when he and a few companions were trying to hide in a Lithuanian village. Germany was lost for the Swedes altogether. The British were occupying much of Norway and Denmark, and also shelled all the coastal Swedish cities of importance.
In 1746, the Second German War ended with the Treaty of Riga, and so did the "Age of Greatness" in Swedish history. Denmark-Norway was restored fully as an independent state under a native dynasty, and signed an alliance with the UK; it also took the provinces of Schlewsig-Holstein and Skane from Sweden. In Germany, a few tiny pro-Swedish states were gobbled up by the anti-Swedish ones (most notably, Brunswick and Burgundy now had a fairly long border) and the Swedish possessions were partitioned; Brunswick took Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg took Mecklenburg and Swedish Pommerania. Swedish Livonia went to Poland, as did the island of Gotland that the Poles considered, quite reasonably, to be a vital part of a hypothetic (and not so hypothetic) supply route from Sweden to Poland, or vice versa. Not to mention a jolly good base for raiders. Russia annexed Estonia and Swedish Karelia.
Peace has come to Europe, but not to the world. Indeed, the rest of the world wasn't much more peaceful than Europe at the time. Spaniards continued fighting down rebels in South America, while expanding across the Mississippi and fighting the Natchez Amerinds. The British, increasingly alarmed by the Spanish strenghthening, were increasing their presence in the colonies as well, even though it brought them into conflict with the Iroquois and their Metis allies. The Metis, indeed, were becoming increasingly organized; rumours came of them building a state of their own somewhere to the west (or north? or northwest?) from the Great Lakes, exaggerated rumours to be true, but not entirely unfounded ones neither. Rumours that the Metis and the Iroquois were getting help from the Spanish weren't unfounded, not even exaggerated in fact. With the fall of Sweden, the British snatched the Swedish colonies in Africa, and continued to increase their grasp over West and South Africas in particular; in response, the Spanish used the fall of Oman (in 1747, Nadir Shah led the captured Turkish fleet of the Persian Gulf to the rich city of Muscat and added it to his exotic collection of subjugated realms) to sign alliances with the rising Swahili city-states of East Africa. Spain also signed an alliance with Abyssinia, but the British were actively trying to win it over to their side. Central Asia saw the nomadic peoples and local states alike trapped between Russia, China and Persia, and three powers were steadily partitioning the region. China was also strenghthening its influence in Indochina, though not completely succesfully - the 1726 invasion of Vietnam was succesful, but all attacks on Siam were fought back by the vigorous modernizing kingdom which however had too many enemies - Britain, Myanmar and China. Japan at the time was ruled by Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune; he was leading a policy of moderate reform, allowing the importation of non-religious European books, reinvigorating the government and starting ambitious educational and economic programs. But so far, they didn't come to much.
Finally, in India, wars raged, with the Maratha Confederacy briefly supreme until 1740. Four years before that, a civil war started between pro-British and pro-Spanish pretendenrs. The confederated principalities had to choose sides, both colonial powers provided advisors, funds and weapons to their supporters, and eventually, the pro-British pretender, Ramaji, has triumphed; the Spanish have responded by invading the vital western region of Peshwa, the very homeland of the Marathas, and by 1743 have crushed most resistance there. The rest of the Maratha Confederacy had then fragmented, British and Spanish agents, merchants and soldiers alike moved in to pick up the pieces, and thus eventually the Anglo-Spanish War begun over the spheres of influence in India, in 1747.
This war, also known as the First Oceanic War, was to be a war of a new kind. For the Industrial Revolution was already happening by then - steam-powered vehicles and devices were widely used, first steam-powered ships were also being tested, factories to produce them - and other goods, while we're at it - were sprouting up, inginious mechanisms to increase the output of said factories appeared, and the commercial elite of Britain and Spain, along with the political elite, was only too eager to invest into these new developments. Trully, the world was changing.
And, as the ancient Chinese curse says according to some, "may you live in the Time of Change!" According to others, it was "may you live in interesting times", which is practically the same and just as harmful for health as well.
To be continued.
das
Regeneration In Process
Comments? Especially you, Kal'thzar.
Very good Das.
EDIT: oh i just saw, I'm more than happy with where this is going. Its a nice alt his, possibly your best. (Of course I would say that).
My more immediate concern is wether others would be intrested as playing in this (in the near future).
EDIT: oh i just saw, I'm more than happy with where this is going. Its a nice alt his, possibly your best. (Of course I would say that
).My more immediate concern is wether others would be intrested as playing in this (in the near future).
das
Regeneration In Process
Well, why not? I'll make sure that there will be lots of tensions at the start date. Already have some plans for Western Europe in that regard...
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Beautiful. There were a scary amount of parallels between this alt hist and NES2 V, I noticed.
das
Regeneration In Process
Not all that many. Apart from a powerful Poland and an union of Britain and Netherlands.
das
Regeneration In Process
das
Regeneration In Process
What is it with those thumbnails everywhere?
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
I dunno...Safavid (sort of) revivalist Persia makes gains in Central Asia, with Turkmenistan being partitioned between Russia, China, and Persia, Sweden invades Germany, etc, etc.
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
The life of a giant among men flowed out in pulses from his heart, red slowly staining the sheets of the bed which he had slept in. A few twitches of those immensely long legs, and that was all. How little it took to kill a man. Edward I, Longshanks, of England, was dead, assassinated, some said by that secret guild of Muslims, Hashashin. No matter who had done the deed, he was dead, and with him, the leader that had driven back the Muslim tide at Acre, for only a moment; within a year, the Muslims were back at the gates of the city. Alas, these were not the only repercussions for the Christian world.
Back in England, Edward was left without a reigning heir to the thronehis daughter Eleanor was the oldest surviving child he had begotten; she was married to Alfonso III of Aragon. His son Henry was his only male heir that had survived to nowthree years old and sickly as well. All the rest of his children, dead.
His brother, Edmund, 28, raced back to England to try to gain his brothers crown (he was nicknamed Bentback for his flight from the Holy Land). However, already there was another contenderRichard, first Earl of Cornwall. Richard was already sixty two, and ageing fast (years in captivity of rebels had done that for him), but he roused himself from his castle to claim the title King of England, out of both desire for the throne and disgust at the thought of barons ruling the land. He led several campaigns against the barons of northern England, culminating in the Battle of Oxford, which led to a large scale baronial defeat in 1271. However, by this time, Edmund Bentback had arrived in London, and organized a force of over a thousand knights and ten times as many other soldiers.
Edmund claimed possession of both Edwards son Henry, crowning him Henry IV in a hurried ceremony, and Joan of Acre; he had possession of two thirds of Edwards surviving children. The two brothers fought at a little-known town called Uxbridge.
Edmund charged straight across the little creek, frozen over in an especially cold winter, and his knights plowed into the Cornish forces. In little more than half an hour, the battle was over, as Edmund went down under his horse and was silenced by a Cornish dagger. Richards caution had paid off, and he now advanced on London, where he took possession of Henry IV and named himself Regent.
So ended the brief little violent period in English history which was thereafter simply known as Henry IVs Troubles; the nation went into a period of solidification under an increasingly forcible regime, which had to deal with challenges from the Welsh and Scots on their frontiers. Meanwhile, the French kings began to feud with the English, taking control of many of their colonies in the north of France. By 1300, a war had started.
Weak, sickly Henry IV was succeeded in 1301 by Edward II, an even weaker, feebleminded king controlled by his strong nobles, who soon lost his remaining continental possessions to the French. The French King Philip IV the Fair, having taken advantage of English and German weakness to campaign into Belgium and extending his domain to the Rheine, now extended it past the River Thames by invading and conquering England.
England was not unused to French dominion, and they accepted it, with a few rebellions. The Scots and Welsh took significant portions of the old English kingdom for an alliance with the French, and the Capetian dynasty of France now ruled a far larger demesne, though the problems of keeping down a somewhat upstart England extended their resources to the point where the southern, Occitanian possessions, began to slowly go their own, more independent ways.
This trend continued in France, even as the Scottish kings managed a dynastic union with the Welsh and campaigned into Ireland, subduing the island largely by 1350. Meanwhile, the Papacy moved to Avignon, with the French having a large influence on their decisions. The Kingdom of Germany began to solidify again into a fairly unified kingdom by 1350, though without much influence in the Hanseatic League, Bohemia, Austria, etc.; they were a rather minor power compared with Capetian France. Italy was a fairly united kingdom under the alliance of Genua and Milano. Rome remained a powerful entity, nominally the Popes territory, but with the Avignon Papacy, ruled increasingly by a council of Archbishops. The Kingdom of the Sicilies continued to rule Southern Italy.
In the Balkans, the Ottomans began to flourish (due to the fairly early end of the Crusades), though they were not able to take Constantinople, or most of Greece, which remained under Italian domination. The Serbs were propped up by Venetians to counter the Ottoman expansion, and something of a united Serb state began to unify the ehtnicities in that region in something more homogeneous.
The Seljuk Emirate became the Seljuk Caliphate in the Middle East, taking the last of the Crusader States and in a few campaigns taking back Mesopotamia from the Ilkhanate. By 1350, they were quite certainly the greatest power in the Middle East, and only the Fatamid Caliphate in Egypt could rival them in size at all.
As Islams heartlands regained strength, though, their outer lands lost itthe Maghreb states in Northern Africa were eaten away by Christian powers, especially the Kingdom of Italy, while Granada was ground down by the Iberian states. Morocco remained the only significant Muslim power in the region as it extended into Algeria and Mauritania.
The latter half of the 14th century saw the decline of French hold on the Occitanian duchies as a succession of weaker kings took power, while England, too, tried to distance itself. Meanwhile, the Bohemian monarchs took more power for themselves as they managed to unite the dynasties of Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia into one greater power. About this time, the title of Holy Roman Emperor became a mere decoration, a gift given out by the Kingdom of Germany to anyone they wished to retain good faith with. Wallachia, meanwhile, united a few duchies into the Kingdom of the Danube.
Tensions in Italy rose in the 1390s, as minor wars were fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Sicily, both claiming the Papal lands of Rome. The infringement on the Papal authority in the region aroused the anger of the pope of Avignon, who implored the king of France to intervene. However, repeated campaigns were insufficient to reduce the Kingdom of Italy, who grew to retain the old Papal holdings; the Papacy was reduced to Avignon, no more.
To counter the threat of a united Kingdom of Italy, Venice and Sicily united themselves, into the Kingdom of Veneto, Napoli, and Sicily. This was far from unified, however, and they remained essentially separate powers, with one diplomatic policy. The Danish kings began to unite their realm with Norway and Sweden into the Kalmar Union.
As if to counter this trend of union, the Occitanian duchies of Southern France began to grow into further unrest due to some religious persecutions, and by the year 1400 AD grew into open rebellion...
Back in England, Edward was left without a reigning heir to the thronehis daughter Eleanor was the oldest surviving child he had begotten; she was married to Alfonso III of Aragon. His son Henry was his only male heir that had survived to nowthree years old and sickly as well. All the rest of his children, dead.
His brother, Edmund, 28, raced back to England to try to gain his brothers crown (he was nicknamed Bentback for his flight from the Holy Land). However, already there was another contenderRichard, first Earl of Cornwall. Richard was already sixty two, and ageing fast (years in captivity of rebels had done that for him), but he roused himself from his castle to claim the title King of England, out of both desire for the throne and disgust at the thought of barons ruling the land. He led several campaigns against the barons of northern England, culminating in the Battle of Oxford, which led to a large scale baronial defeat in 1271. However, by this time, Edmund Bentback had arrived in London, and organized a force of over a thousand knights and ten times as many other soldiers.
Edmund claimed possession of both Edwards son Henry, crowning him Henry IV in a hurried ceremony, and Joan of Acre; he had possession of two thirds of Edwards surviving children. The two brothers fought at a little-known town called Uxbridge.
Edmund charged straight across the little creek, frozen over in an especially cold winter, and his knights plowed into the Cornish forces. In little more than half an hour, the battle was over, as Edmund went down under his horse and was silenced by a Cornish dagger. Richards caution had paid off, and he now advanced on London, where he took possession of Henry IV and named himself Regent.
So ended the brief little violent period in English history which was thereafter simply known as Henry IVs Troubles; the nation went into a period of solidification under an increasingly forcible regime, which had to deal with challenges from the Welsh and Scots on their frontiers. Meanwhile, the French kings began to feud with the English, taking control of many of their colonies in the north of France. By 1300, a war had started.
Weak, sickly Henry IV was succeeded in 1301 by Edward II, an even weaker, feebleminded king controlled by his strong nobles, who soon lost his remaining continental possessions to the French. The French King Philip IV the Fair, having taken advantage of English and German weakness to campaign into Belgium and extending his domain to the Rheine, now extended it past the River Thames by invading and conquering England.
England was not unused to French dominion, and they accepted it, with a few rebellions. The Scots and Welsh took significant portions of the old English kingdom for an alliance with the French, and the Capetian dynasty of France now ruled a far larger demesne, though the problems of keeping down a somewhat upstart England extended their resources to the point where the southern, Occitanian possessions, began to slowly go their own, more independent ways.
This trend continued in France, even as the Scottish kings managed a dynastic union with the Welsh and campaigned into Ireland, subduing the island largely by 1350. Meanwhile, the Papacy moved to Avignon, with the French having a large influence on their decisions. The Kingdom of Germany began to solidify again into a fairly unified kingdom by 1350, though without much influence in the Hanseatic League, Bohemia, Austria, etc.; they were a rather minor power compared with Capetian France. Italy was a fairly united kingdom under the alliance of Genua and Milano. Rome remained a powerful entity, nominally the Popes territory, but with the Avignon Papacy, ruled increasingly by a council of Archbishops. The Kingdom of the Sicilies continued to rule Southern Italy.
In the Balkans, the Ottomans began to flourish (due to the fairly early end of the Crusades), though they were not able to take Constantinople, or most of Greece, which remained under Italian domination. The Serbs were propped up by Venetians to counter the Ottoman expansion, and something of a united Serb state began to unify the ehtnicities in that region in something more homogeneous.
The Seljuk Emirate became the Seljuk Caliphate in the Middle East, taking the last of the Crusader States and in a few campaigns taking back Mesopotamia from the Ilkhanate. By 1350, they were quite certainly the greatest power in the Middle East, and only the Fatamid Caliphate in Egypt could rival them in size at all.
As Islams heartlands regained strength, though, their outer lands lost itthe Maghreb states in Northern Africa were eaten away by Christian powers, especially the Kingdom of Italy, while Granada was ground down by the Iberian states. Morocco remained the only significant Muslim power in the region as it extended into Algeria and Mauritania.
The latter half of the 14th century saw the decline of French hold on the Occitanian duchies as a succession of weaker kings took power, while England, too, tried to distance itself. Meanwhile, the Bohemian monarchs took more power for themselves as they managed to unite the dynasties of Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia into one greater power. About this time, the title of Holy Roman Emperor became a mere decoration, a gift given out by the Kingdom of Germany to anyone they wished to retain good faith with. Wallachia, meanwhile, united a few duchies into the Kingdom of the Danube.
Tensions in Italy rose in the 1390s, as minor wars were fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Sicily, both claiming the Papal lands of Rome. The infringement on the Papal authority in the region aroused the anger of the pope of Avignon, who implored the king of France to intervene. However, repeated campaigns were insufficient to reduce the Kingdom of Italy, who grew to retain the old Papal holdings; the Papacy was reduced to Avignon, no more.
To counter the threat of a united Kingdom of Italy, Venice and Sicily united themselves, into the Kingdom of Veneto, Napoli, and Sicily. This was far from unified, however, and they remained essentially separate powers, with one diplomatic policy. The Danish kings began to unite their realm with Norway and Sweden into the Kalmar Union.
As if to counter this trend of union, the Occitanian duchies of Southern France began to grow into further unrest due to some religious persecutions, and by the year 1400 AD grew into open rebellion...
das
Regeneration In Process
That's good, but where is the Council of Constance TL?! Also, IMHO its alittle too early for the Ottomans as a major power - especially in the Balkans. I suspect that any Turkish power in Anatolia might possibly unite it at the time, but is unlikely to conquer much of anything else, yet.
That's OTL, actually, though to a larger extent. Ardashir IV doesn't seem to be particularily similar to Nadir Shah, anyway (Karamurad, on the other hand...).
Turkmens are quite weak in this world; what I mean is a general strenghthening of Russian, Chinese and Persian influence in Central Asia. Several states and triebs there already pledged allegience to one of the three empires. There might actually be a little war there soon...
Well, one thing is invading a powerful monolithic Germany, and another thing entirely is invading the post-Condean Germany of this world, which, as you might have realized, is even worse off than the OTL one after the Thirty Years War.
Just be happy that I'm not merging Denmark-Norway with UK this time. Probably.
Britain is more overstretched than in OTL - there's an even more hostile France, and somewhat further along the line there is also Pavel I holding on to power in Russia and threatening British possessions in India. So in the War of 1809, the Americans overran Canada...
That's OTL, actually, though to a larger extent. Ardashir IV doesn't seem to be particularily similar to Nadir Shah, anyway (Karamurad, on the other hand...).
Turkmens are quite weak in this world; what I mean is a general strenghthening of Russian, Chinese and Persian influence in Central Asia. Several states and triebs there already pledged allegience to one of the three empires. There might actually be a little war there soon...
Well, one thing is invading a powerful monolithic Germany, and another thing entirely is invading the post-Condean Germany of this world, which, as you might have realized, is even worse off than the OTL one after the Thirty Years War.
Just be happy that I'm not merging Denmark-Norway with UK this time. Probably.
Britain is more overstretched than in OTL - there's an even more hostile France, and somewhat further along the line there is also Pavel I holding on to power in Russia and threatening British possessions in India. So in the War of 1809, the Americans overran Canada...
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