Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVII)
Again, nice one. Do you have some special targets, or simply do the victory conditions? :)
March 22, 2015, 11:26 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVII)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treaper
Again, nice one. Do you have some special targets, or simply do the victory conditions? :)
Of course I have my special conditions :tongue: As it stands now, Long campaign victory conditions and "house rules" ' victory conditions seem to coincide. I am required to hold Constantinople and other key settlements in the Empire (mainly in its chore, plus some I've already conquered) plus Jerusalem, in a total of 50 territories. As my house rules, these 50 territories should be territories which Constantinople actually ruled in the moment of its maximum extent, meaning Greece, part of the Balkans, Anatolia (which I already own), plus the Levantine coast, Armenia, Egypt, Cyrenaica, the Province of Africa, Sicilia and Southern Italy, Venice, Ancona and Rome, and perhaps the southern tip of Iberia, too. I also plan to take again control of Crimaea, but since it is now ruled by my good Kievan allies, which have expelled the Cumans from there, it is fine as it stands, for now.
As you can see, it's a lot of territories, thus meaning, at this pace, it will need a lot of time to complete it. Also, it is likely that Mongols and Khwarezmians will halt my expansions for long times, perhaps even forcing me to retreat to Europe (which is something I'd like, I quite enjoy the feeling my Empire is always at risk). Furthermore, Hungary and the West may take advantage of my troubles in the East to backstab me and so make the matters much worse. If anything of this happens, my expansion would be slowed down, thus meaning that, perhaps, I might end up using gunpowder, pikes, plate armour...it would be so cool, since I've never experienced such a late type of army with Byzantium, and SS late greek roster seems pretty solid, intriguing and varied. It seems I'll have a good fun throughout the campaign - or so I hope!
March 23, 2015, 04:57 PM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVII)
And there you go guys, with our 28th Chapter :) Updated a bit earlier than I foresaw, but I'm probably going to be away from the forums for quite a while, so I thought it'd be nice to give you one more bloody and heroic chapter. As usual, hope you enjoy it all, and I'd be glad to hear your feedback, it is really motivating and important to me :D That said, have a nice read and day, my proud fellow Citizens!
Chapter XVIII - Drowning in Blood (1216-1217 AD)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
News about the ill fate in which Hamid al-Fatimiyyun's host had incurred were received with mixed feelings in the halls and palaces of Baghdad.
Being the Fatimids a people of shi'ite heretics - furthermore, obeying to their own Caliph and thus rejecting the authority of Baghdad - the disaster of Issus, at least in Caliph an-Nasir al-Mustadi's eyes, was nothing other than good for the orthodoxy of Islam. Some, instead, argued that, in front of such a blaspheme and corrupted enemy such as the Romans, all of Islam should stand united, and put aside differences and quarrels for an higher cause. After all, didn't the Fatimids follow the same precepts Allah, through the hands of Mohammed, had given His people?
News about atabeg Tarkan Mohammed's death at Karaca, instead, threw Mesopotamia into grief, chaos and despair. Along with Tarkan, in fact, had died the flower of the aristocracy and military class, thus opening a gap of power which many lesser nobles tried to exploit in order to free themselves of the authority of the Atabegate of Mosul, now held by Tarkan's eleven years old son, Tigrit. It took the Caliph's intervention to stop the amirs from jumping at each other's throat, and organize a new expedition force.
This time, the authority of command was given to Selahaddin Rumi, amir of Qarisiya and of the Jazeera region, a man known for his piety, military skills and rivendications on Anatolia. As his last name suggests, in fact, Selahaddin had born as grand-nephew of that glorious Savci, Sultan of Rům and last sole ruler of the Seljuqs, whom had given much trouble to capable Emperors such as Ioannis II, Philippikos II and Efarestos I. Thanks to his skills and extraneity to power struggles in the Fertile Crescent, Selahaddin got accepted by large part of the mesopotamian and a fraction of the iranian mujaheddin amirs, let alone a consistent number of peasants and land-less mercenaries. Furthermore, encouraged by an-Nasir, Shah Abdullahmid himself lended him command over up to 2000 of his private ghulam guards, bringing his already formidable army to a total of almost 10.500 soldiers.
In June, 1216 AD, this multiform and proud army left Baghdad, where the meeting point had been set, in high spirits, greeted by chants and acclamations in every village, town or city near which they passed. So much hope had been put in Selahaddin's cause that even in the ravaged and depopulated lands of Armenia, where he chose to pass in order to avoid the strong Roman defenses in Cilicia, several amirs and warlords chose to join his ranks; a sincere display of hope and confidence, for Armenia had already suffered ignominiously during Tahsin's support to Heraklios Komnenos, his two invasions of Anatolia, the chaos which spreadd after his death and the Tarkan's passage.
Selahaddin's advance, anyway, reached undisturbed the source of the River Kelkit, at the feet of the Songali mountain chain, in August, and from there headed in the chore of Roman Anatolia following the river itself. Less than ten miles before the town of Karaca, site of Tarkan's disaster, anyway, the muslim commander ackowledged the presence of an enemy army, of a size arguably his scouts reported to be far lesser than his, being roughly made up of 10.000 men.
These 10.000 men, anyway, weren't led by a mere Strategos, nor a minor officer. Basileus Zakarias Komnenos himself rode at the head of the cappadocian and karadenian thematas, along with Aemilianos, whom after five years of service had turned into on of his most precious collaborators. With the tagmatas and the marmaran thematas returned home or busy in Cilicia, in fact, the Basileus had been forced to rely on the less experienced provincial regiments of Cappadocia in order to swiftly repel Salehaddin's host, which would anyway prove more than a challenge.
On 1st September, 1216 AD, under a cloudy grey sky, the two commanders deployed their forces for the imminent fight.
Well knowing that it could prove fundamental in order to deny his enemies' undisputed cavalry superiority, Zakarias had already occupied an higher position, atop of a gentle slope, as he had learned to do during the already numerous occasions in which he had fought Mohammedan armies. He took command of the right flank, along with his young protegč Isaias Iagaris, son of Davatinos; the left flank, instead, saw Aemilianos at the head of a cavalry wing made up of a small chore of cataphracts and a regiment of stratiotai.
Knowing that the enemy position weakened his own cavalry potential, Selahaddin, deploying his troops, put great emphasis on his footmen, which he assembled in a deep, long front, with the first lines occupied by his dismounted ghulams and heavy swordsmen, and the following by those with lighter armour, such as his urban militias and irregular troops. On their wings, however, he placed robust contingents of cavalry, with the Shah's ghulams on the right, in the place of honour, and the syrian and mesopotamic amirs and their retinues on the left. He then kept a small chore of picked horsemen as a reserve force, and put his meagre skirmishing forces in the vanguard, with the task of opening gaps in the tight Roman ranks.
The saracens' march was received by the Romans with a shower of arrows, javelins and stones, yet nonetheless they managed to reach the top of the hill in good order and with their ranks unscattered, despite having suffered heavy casualties in the process. The muslims' picked infantrymen assaulted the scoutatoi with eagerness and impetus, even going as far as opening few gaps in their ranks in a couple of sectors.
These gaps, anyway, went quickly filled by the ready intervention of Zakarias' reserves, which instilled new found stamina, strenght and confidence among their comrades' ranks. While both cavalry forces collided, with the Romans in a slight advantage given them by the higher momentum, the exhaustion of the dismounted ghulams' attack meant the entrance in the meleč of Salehaddin's urban militias and irregulars, recognizable by their highly decorated and colourful robes and shields, which proved their worth by setting up a fierce fight.
The collapse of the muslim positions originated on the left wing, where Zakarias and his Athanatoi finally emerged as victors against the mesopotamian amirs. The collapse of the sector forced Salehaddin himself to intervene at the head of his reserve forces in order to preserve the safety of his exposed infantry left flank, and to call back in aid some of the ghulam regiments dispatched on the right wing. The Shah's ghulams, which were badly beating Aemilianos' meagre cavalry forces, hesitated before deciding to continue the break-through they were carrying on, thus giving Zakarias the chance to fight on equal terms with the enemy commander. Selahaddin found a glorious death in meleč, killing several of the enemy officers before receiving a deadly mace hit to the head. His death proved fundamental in the whitdrawal of what remained of his cavalry force, and in the following charge which Zakarias put up at the footmen's disadvantage. The whitdrawal of the left wing provoked the collapse of the whole army, in a chaotic domino effect, thus confirming the muslims' defeat when they had been incredibly close to turning the battle to their advantage. The ghulams put up a futile, yet heroic attempt to turn the tide of battle, before acknowledging the defeat and whitdrawing.
Zakarias' men spent the following three days in digging the graves for the deads, which had reached a total of 7000 among Rumi's ranks and up to 1700 among his own men. Up to 3000 mujaheddin fell in his hands as captives, while 2300 saracens managed to escape the slaughter. After having completed the burials, Zakarias consented the prisoners to return their houses, well knowing that, without Selahaddin's guide, his army would have melted like snow under the sun. Their return home, and the news they brought, convinced Abdullahmid II of Persia that his own presence was needed in order to ensure victory to the only worthy children of Allah.
The Shah, however, would never be able to fulfill his plans. His death in May 1217 AD, less than a year after the second battle of Karaca, inflicted the Caliph's cause more damage than the whole of the previous defeats, depriving him of the support of the powerful Khwarezmian Empire and forcing him to rely on the already exhausted lands of Armenia, Syria and Mesopotamia.
Yet, right when it seemed everything was turning to the Empire's advantage, Zakarias was reached by worrying news. Abdullahmid's successor, as Salih III, was reported to be encouraging his vassals, from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf, to unite under the banner of the Jihad. In the russian steppes, the muslim tribes of the Aral Lake were in turmoil. At the same time, in Egypt, Hamid al-Fatimiyyun and Caliph Hamdun were said to be mustering new forces. Yet, none of this threats shocked the Emperor more than the one which struck at the very opposite fringes of his dominions.
In April, 1217 AD, foreign ships landed on the shores of Epeiros, led by Ayshun al-Andalusi, a pious and experienced Moorish warlord. An aged man - being now in the 79th year of his life - Ayshun was loosely related to the Almohad rulers of al-Andalus, in Spain, for which he held the title of Caliph of the semi-independent city of Marrakesh, in the fabled lands of Morocco. He had already shown his devotion and skills by fighting, in his youth, against the Christian kingdoms of Spain, campaigning against Lčon in 1167-1175 AD, and leading skirmishes and raids against the English fiefs in Iberia from there on. During this long time span, he had also warryed against the berber tribes of the Atlas Mountains, in Africa, and often raided and pillaged the much fabled african kingdoms which were said to lie beyond the sands of the Sahara. Before his death, Ayshun decided to embark in a glorious venture such as that of looting and pillaging the Empire's western holdings in what he meant to be the most impressive and profitable raid of the Islamic world's History. Behind him, marched an host 8400 pious and pillage-eager mujaheddin, made up of andalusian infantrymen, arab colonists, tribal warriors from Black Africa, berber, bedouin and turkoman tribesmen, tuaregs and moorish urban militias.
To counter his advance, an army was levied by Zakarias' Megas Domestikos, Ragusa's Catapan Apionnas Murtzuphlous, and the epeirote Strategoi, among which retinues served Veniamin Vriennios' oldest sons, Theodosios and Makarios.
The thematas' mobilitation had been efficient to the point of fielding an host 9000 men strong, which Mourtzuflous bolstered with an additional 400 latinikoi mercenaries he had hired with his private resources. In the field of Valona, on 12th May, 1217 AD, the latinikoi occupied the left wing of the army along with the albanian strategoi, while the Megas Domestikos himself took command of the right wing, at the head of the dalmatian and epeirote heavy cavalrymen. He deployed his footmen in a three lines formation, with the scoutatoi in the first rows, the mourtatoi in the third and several regiments of acritae in the middle.
As soon as his scouts reported him details of the enemy formation's layout, Ayshun himself deployed his own men, sending his turkoman horse archers forward, in an attempt to put under testing the Romans' ranks and cover his advance. The mounted riders engaged in a fierce skirmish against the byzantine archers, inflicting their enemies' a rispectable number of casualties before handing over the fight to the main host, which was advancing at a steady pace.
The second regiment to attack was that of Ayshun's bedouin raiders, which, used to the lightly armoured infantry formations of the berbers and spanyards, tried to break through the scoutatoi's ranks with a brave, yet ruinous fated charge. Their light armour, swift steeds and soft clothing couldn't shelter them from the deadly greeks' javelins, under which they fell like wheat under the scythe. The survivors impacted on the scoutatoi's ranks without the needed momentum and impetus, and barely managed to whitdraw after horrible casualties.
A few moments later, their foot comrades clashed with the Roman spearmen, their disorganization and lack of training highlighted by the scattered order in which their regiments reached the enemy's lines. All of a different performance was put up by Ayshun's arab and andalusian cavalrymen, which charged straight into both enemy wings with as much momentum and impetus as possible. Despite their undisputed armour and training superiority, the Empire's heavy cavalry, expecially on the left flank, suffered heavy casualties.
The latinikoi, in fact, were deprived of the chance of countercharging by their enemies' swift movements, and were thus forced to engage in this meleč fight without the boost in momentum and weight for which their charges made them famous. They had just managed to repell the attackers, even though with heavy casualties, when wild cryes and taunts filled their ears, as a regiment of tuareg camel riders emerged from the thick woods at their left. The tuaregs caught them on the exposed flank, thus enjoying both the advantage of surprise along with that given them by their own mounts, which smell irritated the already nervous latinikoi's steeds. What remained of the byzantine left cavalry wing melted down, pressed by a combined attack of the tuaregs and of a regiment of lightly armoured tribal warriors. It took the heroic intervention of the Vriennoi brothers, Makarios and Theodosios, which rallied their fleeing comrades and charged straight into the back of the enemy riders, which were wreaking havoc among the byzantines' rearguard.
In the meanwhile, on the right flank, Ayshun himself had engaged in meleč with Murtzuphlous' cataphracts. His charge brought him to the point of being encircled by the Greek horsemen and the scoutatoi's spears, thus convincing him to whitdraw after a few losses. His whitdrawal was covered by a regiment of bedouins, which, in the attempt of slowing down the enemy's chasing troops, got slaughtered to the last man.
More or less in the same time, the moorish centre - made up of Ayshun's tribal levies and berber spearmen - collapsed after serious losses had been suffered, and enabled the byzantine scoutatoi to press hard on the muslim infantry wings. The saracens' light armour, lack of training and concern for their own life provoked a mass rout, which left Ayshun with no other option but that of announcing the whitdraw order.
At the end of the day, al-Andalusi's attack had been repelled, although with heavy losses. 3200 Romans died on the field, taking in the grave with them a double number of enemies. Sadly, the young Makarios Vriennios paid his audacity with his own life, dying on the field at the age of 16. His body was later on buried in the abbey of Valona as an axample of heroism and bravery, beside that of his father Veniamin, passed out shortly after having learnt of Makarios' heroic death.
As a thousand men fell in Murtzuphlous' hands as captives, Ayshun was left in command of less than a mere thousand raiders, which he tried to lead back to the ships, before dying of infarct less than three days after the battle. What remained of his army dissolved, joining local bands of brigands or simply disappearing from History. Scholars report the presence, a decade later, of a small group of mercenaries serving in Hungary, which referred as themselves as "Irjal al-Andalusi", roughly translated in "those (coming from) al-Andalus". It seems probable that this small group of mercenaries originated from the survivors of Ayshun's ill-fated expedition, or, perhaps, from the memory of those who escaped death that day to disappear into the Mists of Time.
March 23, 2015, 08:30 PM
mystang89
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVIII)
Great AAR so far. I just finished reading through all of it as part of my night reading and I'm sad I might not have 1 to read tomorrow. Looking forward to the next update!
March 27, 2015, 03:46 AM
Caillagh de Bodemloze
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVIII)
I've been enjoying this - there's a great deal (of history, of drama, and most of all, of exciting story) packed into these five pages. I'll be looking forward to your return, Roman Heritage!
March 28, 2015, 10:07 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVIII)
Hy all guys, here's an update :) Hope you enjoy it, as much as you seemed to enjoy the previous :P I'd like to thank y'all for your supports, both loyal readers and new ones. As a side note, Caillaigh, I'd like to congrats with you for your brilliant third place in the previous MAARC :thumbsup2 Do you plan joining the current one, too?
Edit: checking between my latest notifications, it seems that this AAR's title suffers a bit from my ignorance in matter of Greek (to my dismail, being my family roots of Greek origins). It seems the correct term should be "Chronikon" instead of "Kronikon", shame on me :P I'd like to correct that but I've got a feeling it would confuse people, so I don't know if I should correct or not. Anyway, thank you for the correction and appreciation, unknown rider :laughter: Anyway, let's go ahead and see what this update is about. And it is about...
Chapter XXIX - The Mujaheddin Prince (1218 AD)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
While Ayshun's dreams of pillage and looting turned into disaster, and the bones of Selahaddin Rumi and his soldiers' bones grew pale under the implacable anatolic sun, words of war began to echoe once again into the rich and fabled halls of Fustat Misr, the Fatimids' citadel in al-Qahira, the Cairo.
The young and proud prince Hamid al-Fatimiyyun, in fact, had not yet forgotten the humiliation Zakarias had inflicted him in the field of Issus, in a night battle that had costed him his army and his pride. Wounded, harassed by the Frankish lords of Outremer, bitterly weeping, Hamid had barely made it to Kerak, the northernmost outpost of the Caliphate. Since the day he returned to Fustat Misr, Hamid had began plotting his revenge, harassing his father and his vizirs looking for fundings, travelling the whole of the Country in order to gain new allies, proclaiming speeches in the capital's madrasas and mosques, aroused the spirit of amirs and commoners. His tireless efforts to muster a new army, however, seemed to shatter against the wall of cold courtesy with which Caliph Hamdun welcomed his son's proposals.
In late 1217 AD, however, a gleam of hope seemed to have appeared, as the Levant got shocked by news upon the death of Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem. The Barons of Outremer were divided, quarrelsome, disorganized, with the new King, Philip I, unable to put off the riots of the Counts of Tripoli and Acre, which tried to get rid of his authority by rising in arms against him. In order to impose his birthrights, Philip called in aid Zakarias, whom started mustering troops for a syrian campaign; as the Royaume de Jerusalem fell into chaos, Hamid understood the time was ripe to strike again.
Hamid begged his father to lend him command over a new army, which he meant to use to open Hamdun the way to the Liberation of the Dome of the Rock. His strategy implied a devastating incursion into the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which would have brought him north, preventing Zakarias to act in support of Philip and thus allowing Hamdun to strike at an undefended and weakened Jerusalem. After much work of persuasion, the Caliph agreed, and thousand of men put their arms in service of the Mujaheddin Prince, as many called him, and his Holy Cause. In May, 1218, Hamid crossed the borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the head of a blood-thirsty, pious and high spirited host of 10.000 men, which he led to the conquest and sack of Ascalon, Jaffa, Tiberiad and Caesarea, from where he headed northwards. In April, 1218, Hamdun sieged Jerusalem at the head of an even larger army.
Things wouldn't, however, go as planned by the Mujaheddin Prince. The brutalities undertaken by his troops, the threat posed by his father to the Holy City herself and Zakarias' naval support to Philip unified even the most stubborn Lords under the King's banner. On 26th April 1218 AD, as the Bishop of Acre crowned him, 15.000 men acclaimed Philip I of House de Bourcq, King of Jerusalem and Defender of Outremer. Five days later, in the outskirts of Jerusalem, Hamdun suffered a devastating defeat: up to 10.000 saracens lied dead on the ground, most notably Taj Amir Thuwra and the Caliph's youngest son, Salih.
Hamid's advance, in the meanwhile, had been steady and surprisingly fast, and had allowed him to almost reach Antioch, which he meant to siege before invading Cilicia. To his great dismail, Prince Behemund V had already called at arms his vassals, and the city's defenses couldn't have been stronger. To make things worse, with his father's defeat at Jerusalem Hamid suddenly found himself isolated, trapped between Antioch and the Levantine Sea to the west, an assembling Frankish host in Aleppo, and, worse of it all, Zakarias Komnenos' army guarding the northern crossings of the river Orontes. It was the rendering of accounts.
A gleam of hope, however, seemed to appear in the prince's favour. In an attempt to field an army, and contemporaneously avoid to weaken the border defenses, Zakarias had brought with him an host of contained dimensions - up to 8500 men, mainly contributed by the thematas of Cilicia, western Cappadocia and Charia - over which Hamid still boasted a slight numerical advantage. The terrain around river Orontes was mainly flat, an open plain which could only play at the advantage of his bedouin and arab riders. Surrounded on almost all sides, with his supply lines cut off by the suddenly unified Crusaders, Hamid's best hopes lied in a field battle.
And so battle would be. On 3d June, 1218 AD, the Mujaheddin prince lined up his men and pronounced an inspiring and proud speech, addressing them as ghazis, as the true heirs of Alě, Mohammad's son-in-law, the Sword of Islam. He rode up and down their front rows, arousing their spirits with tales about the great achievement of his ancestors, yelling encouragements, promising them redemption and fame. And then he pointed his scimitar at the blasphemous pagan army, visible not far away, addressing it as the only thing that stood between Allah's children and the eternal glory. Then, his host started marching toward victory or death.
To open his forces' advance, Hamid sent forward his turkoman, bedouin and arabian light skirmishers, hoping to open gaps into the enemy formations before actual meleč began. Despite them trying their best, however, the combination of Roman serried ranks and the renowned skills of Zakarias' mourtatoi and armenian archers proved too much to overcome. The Fatimid skirmishers were eventually decimated and forced to whitdraw after a brief missile exchange, in which they happened to take the lower hand.
They rejoined Hamid's ranks, covering their foot comrades' advance towards the byzantines.
In the ensuing meleč, the Varangians in particular highly highlighted themselves as the most reckless regiment of the Imperial army. They charged straight into the saracens' centre, carving a way through its ranks with their double handed axes and swords. The impetus and brute force of the Varangians eventually opened a gap in the middle of the Fatimid ranks, thus allowing them to turn their attention to the nearby enemy regiments. Shortly thereafter, knowing that it would be a key moment for the outcome of the battle, Zakarias himself led a well timed charge of cataphracts, among which fought his recently came of age firstborn and heir Iosif Komnenos, to crush into the Fatimid light cavalry. Overwhelmed on all fronts, the muslim ranks started to scatter.
In an attempt to turn the tide of battle and recover his men's morale, Hamid himself led a charge of his picked heavy cavalrymen to join the fight. Encouraged by their leader's bravery, the muslims took up arms again with renewed strenght and ardour, fighting like men possessed, pushing back the enemy ranks and perhaps revitalizing their dreams of victory. But then disaster struck.
Hamid's chest armour got pierced by the blow of a Varangian axe; the blow eventually led to him falling from horse, and losing the scimitar. The last thing he saw was that same Varangian, his cloths and mail armour soaked with blood, delivering the final blow.
His death led to the complete collapse of the Fatimid army. The ensuing rout turned into a carnage, as 7000 saracens found death and a thousand more fell as prisoners in the victors' hands. A mere thousand made it to their camp, where they assembled all the riches they could gather before scattering at the four corners of the world and disappear from the pages of chronicles and annals. A disaster, made even more resounding by the little number of losses suffered by the Greeks: around 500 men, which the Basileus decided to bury on the site of battle, their grave marked by a trophy made up of the fallen enemies' weapons and armours, like the Greeks of old.
When news about his son's death in Syria reached him, Hamdun fell into despair. The false previsions of victory had costed Egypt almost 20.000 men in less than five months, and had deprived him of two sons, brutally killed in pitched battles. With both Thuwra and Hamid dead, the crown of Taj Amir got lended to Hamdun's third born son, Salh. Only time would heal the wounds the Country and the ruling dinasty had suffered in 1218 AD.
And while grief filled the hearts of the Caliph, great feasts were held in the Queen of Cities. After eight years of absence, Basileus Zakarias Komnenos returned the capital at the head of a parading army. Soon, he would return into Anatolia, to take care of the defense of the Empire, yet for a couple months he stood in Constantinople and attended civic affairs. A marriage was arranged between Iosif, whom had gave proof of great valour in the battle of the Orontes' plains, and Kunigunde von Saxony, daughter of recently crowned Erasmus I, Holy Roman Emperor, in order to strengten the ties between the two powers. For a while, Zakarias of House Komnenos enjoyed a bit of that peace he was so stubbornly trying to build.
March 28, 2015, 03:28 PM
Caesar of Rome
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Great piece! Enjoyed it with great pics, too.
Just a footnote; have I completely misunderstood the bit about Caliph's son, Salih? Initially, I thought you wrote that he was killed during his father's mission to al-Quds, but towards the end you stated he was the only heir left to the Caliph's throne as his elder sons died in battles. Is it just me after a day's hard work? A bit confused here.
But, never mind, fantastic work here -writing and game performance-!! :thumbsup2
March 28, 2015, 06:33 PM
Treaper
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Once again, nice update. I hope you will defeat Jihad armies soon, so you can start your conquest :P
March 29, 2015, 10:50 AM
Caillagh de Bodemloze
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXVIII)
I certainly did enjoy the update! :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roman Heritage
As a side note, Caillaigh, I'd like to congrats with you for your brilliant third place in the previous MAARC :thumbsup2 Do you plan joining the current one, too?
Thank you! Congratulations on your well-deserved second place! :clap: I'm still deciding whether to enter the current one. (Leaving everything to the last minute, as usual. :tongue:) Regardless of whether or not I enter, it looks as if I'm going to have a hard time choosing who to vote for - all the nominations so far are excellent.
March 30, 2015, 06:24 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caesar of Rome
Just a footnote; have I completely misunderstood the bit about Caliph's son, Salih? Initially, I thought you wrote that he was killed during his father's mission to al-Quds, but towards the end you stated he was the only heir left to the Caliph's throne as his elder sons died in battles. Is it just me after a day's hard work? A bit confused here.
I must admit I double checked both text and game files to answer you xD the youngest, Salhi, died under the walls of Jerusalem. The remaining one, which will inherit the throne, is named Sahl, and is now Taj Amir. So yeah, it was pretty easy to misunderstand, my fault I'd guess :P
April 01, 2015, 06:46 PM
waveman
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Wow, I didn't have time to read any of this for a while, and a lot has happened! Great updates
April 03, 2015, 10:03 AM
McScottish
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Pretty much my only response to this is a Citizen Kane clap, so enjoy imagining that. :)
April 03, 2015, 01:16 PM
Treaper
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
When will be the next chapter? :)
April 03, 2015, 04:17 PM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXIX)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treaper
When will be the next chapter? :)
Right now! :laughter:
Thank you all guys for your support, it's being a really, really enjoyable writing experience, expecially thanks to your constant comments :) I didn't think it would eventually become such a successful AAR (at least, for being just my second one), expecially given the huge number of ERE AARs out here. This must mean something :D
As a footnote, I just want to say that the campaign is always some turns further than the AAR in order to leave a certain margin of security when talking about outcomes etc. Things are getting even more interesting, and I must say Zakarias has indeed turned into one of my in-game favourite characters, along with Ioannis II. Among my generals, I also grown really attached to Theodosios Opsaras (good old Strategos of Athens during Alexios' reign) and Aemilianos the Bastard :P I also feel really attached to Bňkoni, King of Hungary, even though I never had the chance to meet him, the story I built upon him added to his stats and successful recovery of the Country made him a much respected foe! What about you, is there something/someone you felt impressed or attached to so far? I'm curious.
Anyway, here's your usual ration of glorious deeds, blood and steel!
Chapter XXX - Kirye Eleison (1218-1220 AD)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Less than a year after Iosif's marriage with Kunigunde von Saxony, news from Africa echoed through the Bukoleon Palace's halls. After five years of attempts, and countless bloodhsed, Tunis' walls had been finally breached by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade.
After five years, in fact, Tunis had finally fallen in the hands of Eric Lancaster, Earl of Lancaster, and Philip Mooton, english lord of Valencia. In front of their combined attack, the starving and demoralized norman-arabic forces, led by King Gregory I himself, simply couldn't resist. The massacre perpretrated by the Anglo-Spanish crusaders among Tunis' population shocked the whole of Christendom, as this renowned stronghold on the Mediterraneum's cristalline waters had been known, since Roger III of Sicily's conquest in 1170, as a site where Christians and Muslims could live, and lived, together. While Christ's soldiers triumphed where their efforts weren't needed, the Empire and Outremer stood alone in front of the umpteenth threat.
In 1219 AD, in fact, a new commander had emerged as undisputed leader of the khwarezmians mujaheddin. With Caliph an-Nasir al-Mustadi's blessing, in fact, the warmongering and unruly turkoman clans of the Lake Aral got unified under the guide of Yasin Sivasi, a man whose bloodline was said to go as back as the old iranian nobles which ruled the region at the downfall of the Sassanid Empire and the dawn of the Caliphate itself. Through the centuries, the Aral turkoman clans had managed to emerge as one of the most fierce powers of the area, controlling the trade route to and from the Russian steppes and the Iranian plateau, and surviving the threat posed by its more powerful muslim neighbours such as the Ghaznavids, the Safavids and, in more recent times, the Khwarezmian Shahdom itself. Despite the downfall of his dinasty following the khwarezmian annexation of the Aral clans, at Yasin's times the Sivasi were still among the most powerful of the local emirates, and perhaps the most turkicized. When, in July 1219 AD, Yasin camped his army under the shadow of Baghdad's walls, 4000 cavalrymen, among turkish ghulams, steppe noblemens and turkoman clansmen rode behind him.
Just outside Baghdad's walls, Yasin met the forces of who would be his ally for the upcoming campaign, Kursad Erbili, amir of Kermanshah and one of as Salih's most powerful vassals. Beside him marched up to 8000 footmen, provided by kurdish and beni hillal tribes, iranic clans of the Elburz mountains and arab urban militias from the rich cities of the Persian Gulf. Their gathering was said to be just the first step of a far larger scaled invasion, meant this time to be led by Islam's most powerful monarch, as Salih III of Khwarezm himself.
And so the two commanders joined their forces and started their march westward, ravaging the countryside of Antioch and Aleppo before passing the Empire's bordes, without giving any time for Bohemund V of Antioch and Philip I of Jerusalem to lead their forces in a joined counterattack. Their advance in Cilicia, however, would be made a far harder affair by Theodoros Kantakouzinos, the victor of the Cilician Doors, who received words of the upcoming invasion for the Prince of Antioch's envoyečs. From his base of Adana, in fact, Kantakouzinos organized a fierce resistance, hampering down the saracens' advance by continuously harassing their supply lines and isolated regiments. When, after two weeks of tormented march, Kursad and Yasin finally reached Adana's outskirts, they found nothing more than desolation and scorched earth, and the fortress' ramparts manned by a well supplied, well trained and determined Roman garrison. After some bland attempts of assault, the muslim commanders decided to continue their march west. Thanks to Kantakouzenos' competent reaction, not only had the invading host already lost up to a couple thousand men to desertion, famine, minor skirmishes and diseases, but Zakarias I had been given time to muster an host which he then led south, crossing the Cilician Doors in August, 1219 AD.
The two armies met on 13th August, near the small town of Tarsus, a 25 miles west of Adana. Zakarias' army was mainly made up of pamphilian, cappadocian and galatian thematas, bolstered by a single tagma of Scholarii, which command he lended to Iosif, recently entitled as Symbasileus, and the Emperor's Varangian Guards. Even with their support, however, the byzantine army barely reached 8.500 effectives, in a slight numerical disadvantage against Yasin's 10.000 remaining men.
Given these factors, Zakarias chose to act defensively. He seized the higher ground, ordering his mourtatoi to deploy stakes in a loose order for the whole lenght of the slope, in order to force the enemies' advance to split and divide during the ascent, and thus offset their superior numbers and cavalry forces. Despite first contacts between both armies being made in the first hours of morning, a whole day passed without even a single sword was drawn out, or an arrow shooted, as Zakarias' men impatiently waited for the saracens' to attack.
Yasin and Kursad's attack came only at sunset. In the poetic scenario of lights of an anatolic twilight, Yasin's ghulams' attack was foreshadowed only by the thunderous noise of their charge, and their cries of war. Zakarias' regiments hastened their pace to reform the battle lines, as the thematas' mourtatoi and seljuq auxiliaries tried to hamper down the ghulams' impetus with furious volleys of fire arrows, which trails painted deadly parables of light and death.
The ghulams' charge run over the scoutatoi's first ranks, penetrating deeply before the Greek spearmen could reorganize their ranks and counterattack. Their charge had barely been repelled when the Romans ackonwledged how close the saracens were.
Kursad's footmen, in fact, had been skillful in taking advantage of the chaos provoked by their mounted comrades to ascend the slope, with the Greeks' sharpened stackes being the only obstacle they met on their path. Zakarias' decision proved at least to have been wise, as in some sectors the footmen found so much trouble in getting over them under the enemy arrow fire that the scoutatoi were in effect able of dealing with scarcely coordinated saracen attacks.
Nonetheless, soon the meleč developed fiercely and violently. Among the regiments which reached the top of the hill, in fact, were Kursad's own ghulams, fighting dismounted with maces and axes. Their heavy armour and piercing weapons put the byzantine footmen's ranks under a severe testing, which ultimately took a heavy toll from the ensuing fight. Only the Varangians' well-timed intervention saved the regiments under pressure from complete collapse, thus restabilizing the balance of the battle.
In the meanwhile, on the wings, the two cavalry forces had clashed. Despite the advantage given them from charging from an higher position and on heavier mounts, the byzantine right wing, commanded by Zakarias himself, soon found itself in a perilous situation, heavily outnumbered by Yasin's heavy and light riders. The latter, in particular, proved to be a threat to be reckoned with, constantly harassing the Romans' flanks.
As the two forces melted one into each other, and the meleč got increasingly closer, anyway, the Romans found themselves isolated and increasingly outnumbered and outmaneuvred. Zakarias himself received several wounds, yet nonetheless continued fighting, carrying, after the death of his flag-bearer, the Imperial standard in his left and the sword in his right. It could have ended in disaster, if it had not been for something which later hagiographs claim to be divine intervention.
On the left wing, in fact, Iosif' Scholarii seemed to fare much better against the saracen riders, something perhaps due to the fact that the greater part of Yasin's ghulams was fighting on the other side of the battlefield. A regiment of stratiotae, anyway, made it through the enemy ranks, and the threat of an envelopment forced the muslims to pull back their positions. The tactical whitdraw of the muslim right wing got, however, misunderstood by the nearby footmen, which, already exhausted and decimated by the meleč, saw it as a sign of defeat, and whitdrew themselves, thus relieving half the byzantine forces of pressure and enabling them to intervene in the most threatened sectors.
The real turning point of the battle, however, lies in Yasin Sivasi's death. The muslim commander, seeing his right wing scattered and whitdrawing, chose to intervene with his picked horsemen. Some of the fleeing regiments turned again their back in order to return the fight, yet it was now too late. The Scholarii's charge trampled over their ranks, definitively breaking their already staggering morale, thus exposing Yasin himself, whose advance brought him right in the cataphracts' range of action. In the ensuing confusion, and the following, unexpected meleč, the noble warlord found an honourable, yet senseless death, which ultimately provoked the collapse of his army.
Free of the threat posed by the enemy right wing, in fact, Iosif immediately rode behind the enemy lines in order to rescue his father, whose situation couldn't be more dangerous. Wounded, weakened and outnumbered, in fact, Zakarias' guards had been almost slaughtered, when Iosif's charge caught the ghulams in the sides and rear. The unexpected attack snatched victory from the saracens right when they had almost gained it. Relieved of enemy pressure, Zakarias could finally be brought in the camp, where doctors and surgeons were already at work. Doubts persisted on whether Zakarias would or wouldn't have survived, while Iosif himself led the pursuit to the whitdrawing enemy. At the end of the day, the Romans losses reached a total of 3700 men, up to a third of the army, in front of 5800 deads and 1800 captives among the saracens. Kursad Erbili escaped, along with a couple thousand of the mujaheddin, which he led in a perilous retreat to Edessa, in Armenia.
After a week of uncertainties, Zakarias finally left his bed and rode in front of his army. Despite his traditional habit of releasing his enemies, the 1800 captives were all executed, thus earning him, beside several others, the nickname of "the Malevolent".
Zakarias had, indeed, grown into an impatient and cynical man. Fifteen years of continuous warfare, countless blooshed, his near death at Tarsus, all of these factors took a great toll over his soul. In the following months, surrounded by his relatives and friends, the Basileus would recover from these stresses, yet perhaps he never returned to being that young men of fortune he had been during his father's reign. When, in the following months, news reached Constantinople that Kursad Erbili was trying to muster a new army among the cities of the Persian Gulf, perhaps a plot was developed in the halls of the Bukoleon Palace.
In April, 1220 AD, Kursad got assassinated during one of his travels to Baghdad, where his new host would receive the blessing of Caliph an-Nasir. Without his charismatic guide, the mujaheddin host dissolved after an inglorious, costful attempt of seizing Aleppo, in Christian Syria. Doubts persisted on the nature of his death, as some thought his assassins' principal could be Zakarias, or someone close to him, perhaps one of his Strategoi.
Sometimes, a man of power is called to take difficult decisions, decision which often force him to choose between his honour and the well-being of his people. In this case, perhaps Zakarias I of House Komnenos sacrificed a part of his honour, sending spies and assassins to do the dirty job for him. Yet, even though we don't know how much trust we could put in these theories, an interesting debate could arise from the theories themselves. For why would it be, after all, more glorious and right to kill a thousand men in battle, than a single one in a night ambush? How is it that spilling the blood of thousand people is more honourable than that of a just, yet threatening man? We, as scholars, students and chronists, have a duty of knowing, and understanding, History. History is not ours to judge.
April 04, 2015, 12:01 AM
Treaper
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXX)
Simply briliant. I also like Zakarias, he s winne of great civil war :P Hope he will live many years with glory and fame :)
April 10, 2015, 06:20 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXX)
Hello all guys! Expected a little bit more comments on here, I basically asked your opinion about what you liked/disliked the most about the AAR...only got Treaper's and hundreds of ghost readers around here. A bit disappointing, since I'm dedicating much of my spare time to this I expected a somewhat...warmer behaviour from people. Oh, nevermind.
Just to let you know, I'm already a couple chapters ahead, yet the AAR is a bit at risque. I'm experiencing a really annoying CTD in a particularly important step of the campaign, don't want to spoiler you but it's perhaps one of the most important steps up to now.
As a footnote, this AAR has joined to the MAARC. I've noticed few people ever vote in this competitions, I'd like to do my part and remember you to do so, when you've got some spare time. There's lots of good writers hanging around here, check them out and vote for WHOEVER YOU LIKE. Here's the link to the MAARC vote thread, let us try to revamp things a bit on here, ok? :laughter:
Now, let's see if I can update :P
Chapter XXXI - I Synkrousi ton Vasileion* (1220-1123 AD)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
* "A Clash of Emperors"
Whoever its principal was, Kursad Erbili's death gained Zakarias and the Empire a couple years of peace, which the Basileus took advantage of to risananate the Empire's finances and reorganize its border defenses.
Thirty years of continuous warfare, among Efarestos' balkanic campaigns, the Civil War and the struggle against islamic forces, had taken a heavy toll over the Empire's finances, expecially in the anatolic regions, where the continuous state of war had depopulated part of the themas and greatly damaged the Empire manpower base, made up of settled farmer-soldiers. Cappadocia and Cilicia's small landowners, in particular, had seen their lands invaded, burned and ravaged uncountable times by the mujaheddins, and were now almost in ruin.
In order to relieve tax pressure upon the themas of Cappadocia and Cilicia, and avoid a further raising of taxes over the rest of the Empire's population, Zakarias was forced to come to an agreement with the dynatoi class, restoring part of their privileges, previously abolished under Alexios I's reign, in exchange for higher economic and military contributions. While this seemed to weaken the Throne's power, it also led to a further consolidation of the already established ties between the Komnenoi and the farmer-soldiers, which rights the dinasty acted as protector.
This didn't change, however, the fact that the dynatoi's ambitions could have been awakened by the Basileus' concessions. Too many times an Emperor had been overthrown by a member of the dynatoi, and in the greater majority of the cases this had played to the Empire's disadvantage, Zakarias knew it well, as his own House, that of Komnenos, had arisen to the throne following the turmoil of the later half of the XIth Century. In an attempt to secure the loyalty of at least a part of the noble families, Zakarias wed his daughter, Ioulia Komnena, to Adana's Strategos, Theodoros Kantakouzenos.
Kantakouzenos' military successes and brilliant bahaviour had in fact earned him a certain leadership over part of the anatolic Strategoi and dynatoi, thus making his support useful for the Basileus. With Theodoros' marriage to Ioulia in 1221 AD, and his following entitlement as Protoseacres, House Kantakouzenos arose to the rank of major, well established Houses such as that of Iagaris and Vriennios.
This period of peace was, however, broken by as Salih III of Khwarezm's actions.
Despite Yasin and Kursad's defeat at Adana, and the latter's mysterious death in 1220 AD, in fact, the Shah, renowned throughout the islamic world for his authority, command skills and piety, still meant to proceed with an attack to the Empire's disadvantage. Encouraged in this by an-Nasir al-Mustali', as Salih left his capital, Urgench, at the head of an army said to be up to 20.000 men strong, bolstered throughout his march East by his vassals, independent amirs or simple pious warriors. When his vanguards reached Baghdad, his army had almost doubled its strenght, and included forces as varied as turkoman, seljuq, afghan and alan contingents, iranian warlords and independent amirs, iraqi amirs' forces, urban arab militiamen of the Gulf, parsi, bedouin and kurdish irregulars, alongside a chore of heavily armoured khwarezmian cavalrymen and footmen.
This enormous host finally left Baghdad in a triumph of banners, standards and decorated robes in March, 1223 AD, after two weeks of permanence within the huge city's walls. as Salih, whose interest in the West were also tied to the submission of all those independent emirates which had arisen as a conseguence of the downfall of the Seljuq Sultanates and the campaigns of Evrenos Casgarli and Tutush I of Khwarezm, led his army north, in a brilliantly led and successful campaign against the independent powers of the area. In Mosul, he restored the power of the Mohammed clan, declined after Tarkan Mohammed's death in the second battle of Karaca, by supporting Burhanuddin Mohammed's claim to the atabegate; later on, with Burhanuddin's help, he subjugated the amirs which had divided Armenia among themselves after Tahsin and Cahid Ersoy's deaths, defeating them at Yerevan. From there, he headed further north, bending the kingdoms and emirates of Georgia under his will, before finally trespassing the Empire's border in the thema of Karadeniz and laying siege to Trebizond, on 23d July, 1223 AD. To his dismail, however, Trebizond's Strategos Velisarios Kodinos had already alerted the Emperor since the first news of the Shah's advance in Armenia had reached him, and, according to contemporaneous scholars and chronicles, this would explain the Basileus' swiftness in reacting, which allowed him to move in support of Trebizond at the head of a host of 8000 men, mobilized thanks to the contribution of Marmara and Bithinia's thematas, the latinikoi hetairiae, his Varangians and at least a part of the tagmata. His fast reaction was helped, too, by his decision of moving into the exchequer by sea, which enabled him to avoid the slow and difficult march along the pontic coastline and surprise as Salih with only a fraction of his forces.
During the re-estavlishment of khwarezmian yoke over Armenia, Mesopotamia and Georgia, in fact, as Salih had lost a great number of men - some sources bring the toll to as high as 8.000 losses - and forced him to dispatch another 5.000-10.000 men throughout the newly recovered territories in order to prevent local authorities from uprising and cutting him off of supply sources. This means that, on his trespassing of Karadeniz's borders, as Salih would have disposed of 20.000 men in the best of the cases, a force which he, anyway, further diluted by authorizing his new vassal, Barhunaddin Mohammed, to lead up to 7000 men against the Georgian kingdoms, which had uprisen against khwarezmian garrisons and rebelled. Another 2000 men strong force was dispatched West, in order to ravage the countryside and open the Shah the way to Pontus after the eventual fall of Trebizond.
The Shah acnowledged his mistake only when he received news of the presence of Zakarias' fleet around Trebizond, and did what the could in order to reconstitute his forces. The messengers which he sent to his lieutenants at least reached Barhunaddin, which immediately halted his advance East and hastened his way towards the besieged stronghold, marching on the thin strip of land between the coastline and the Songali mountains, camping on the sunset of 15th August, 1223, at the height of Rize. There, his men got brutally awaken by the cries and shouts of a regiment of turkopoles, which killed the sentinels, burned down several tents and started fighting against their own comrades. After a few moments of shock, Barhunaddin himself intervened at the head of a hastily organized cavalry force, which he led against the betrayers, forcing them to retreat towards the thickly forested slopes of the Songali chain. It would be his last mistake.
At the cry of "Kyrie Eleison" and "Deus Vult" a large host of 3000 knights emerged from the forest, crushing into the muslim ranks like an avalanche of steeds, chain mail, spears and lances. Barhunaddin died in the first fights, his cavalrymen melted down and fled, exposing his camp to enemy aggression. The iron-clad demons which had emerged from the trees run amok the tents and pavillions, bringing fire and steel with them. Within an hour from the beginning of the attack, it had all ended. In front of Iosif Komnenos' steed, no muslim stood alive within the burned encampment.
This treacherous and cunning attack had in fact been planned by the Basileus and his son together, and had been put in action with extreme effectiveness by the young Symbasileus. While the majority of his father's fleet crossed the sea around Trebizond, a small flotilla had desembarked Iosif and 3000 horsemen among cataphracts and latinikoi a couple days before the muslim commander arrived, and had then set sail again. By infiltrating a regiment of his turkopoles among the last regiments which encamped that very evening, Iosif had created the perfect chance to unleash chaos among the enemy army, and annihilate it with the minimum effort. It was, indeed, an heroic victory, despite the means used to achieve it.
Only a handful of survivors - up to four thousand - reached the Shah's camp under Trebizond's walls, where chaos immediately spread as soon as scouts reported news about the Basileus' forces, which had desembarked less than ten miles East from the saracen camp. as Salih himself started considering retreat, before a more detailed report from his scouts relieved his worries, and convinced him to give battle. The fight, in fact, would be evenly matched, as both armies were more or less of equal strenght, around 7000 soldiers each. Furthermore, the Shah had the advantage of acting on the defense, something which would enable him to take full advantage of his archers to scatter the enemy ranks' proverbial compactness and open gaps among them, gaps which his famed ghulams and cataphract vassals would be able to exploit.
Fate, however, played a bad trick on the Shah's plans, as the Greeks' attack took place on a particularly rainy day, almost near evening. As the setting sun painted fire across the skyline, Zakarias carefully lined his troops for battle, deploying Iosif and his latinikoi on the left wing, taking command in first person of the right wing, composed of Athanatoi and the Scholae, and finally deploying his meagre infantry forces in the centre, alternating regiments of scoutatoi to picked groups of Varangians. A heavy rain greeted the Romans' advance, as the last rays of the dying sun dyed the dark sea in hundred shades of red and gold.
Thunders and bolts lightened the sky along with the Romans' flaming arrows, which Zakarias ordered to unleash as a mere psychological weapon, well knowing that, under such a bad weather, they wouldn't have caused any real damage. The golden decorated Saints' ichons which adorned the Romans' vessils sparkled under the reflex of the soldiers' torches and the terrifying thunderbolts which teared up the sky, as the trumpets and horns sounded, marking the definitive, brutal clash between the two armies.
Zakarias' charge utterly crushed the saracens' cavalry, tearing their left wing to pieces and quickly gaining the Empire the local advantage. As more and more gaps among the enemy footmen got opened by the Varangians' axes and swords, Iosif's latinikoi swept through their opponents, closing in as Zakarias' Athanatoi entered in meleč with as Salih's picked 400 bodyguards, which fiercely fought to preserve the life of their Shah.
They could do nothing, however, under the combined pressure of the tagmatas and the hetairiae. The Shah's Royal Guards proved to be true to their vows, even after as Salih himself had been struck by a latinkon's lance and been killed. Not even one of them turned his back and fled, all of them stood their ground, and fought to the last gasp.
This wouldn't, however, turn the tide of battle: the Varangians' heavier armour and recklessness had already torn to pieces the Khwarezmians' infantry lines, and the Shah's death couldn't do anything but make the situation worse. Encircled, deprived of their leader, scared and exhausted, the saracens surrendered, or died fighting.
Out of as Salih's 7000 men, up to 4700 found a proud death on the field of battle. Less than 400 escaped, while up to 1900 men chose to surrender to the Greeks, which, on the other hand, had suffered less than 800 casualties.
It soon became clear that the Basileus had achieved a key victory, further improved by the setback which the khwarezmian expansion suffered after the Shah's death. As soon as news of as Salih's death reached Armenia, in fact, almost each community immediately arose against their new overlords, slaughtering their garrisons and beheading the men which the Shah had put in administrative roles. In Georgia, where rebellions had begun even before the battle of Trebizond, the local elite forged a little, but fiercely independent kingdom, while in Mosul the atabegate of the Mohammed was finally overthrown by their political rivals, and forced to seek for shelter in Baghdad, at the court of an-Nasir al-Mustali'. But the worst, for the Khwarezmian Shahdom, was yet to come.
To the easternmost fringes of the Empire, in Transoxiana and Afghanistan, finally emerged a threat which merchants and travellers whispered in fear already from a decade. Led by their cruel, skillful and ambitious Kaghan, Gengiz, the Mongol tumens crossed the Altai, razing Bukhara and Samarcanda before heading towards Urgench, the capital of the Shahdom. After the Kaghan's soldiers breached the walls, the city itself got burned to the ground and sacked, its population slaughtered: it is said that no eye was left to cry for the deads.
Several other times had the Empires arisen on the sands of Persia been forced to deal with riders from the steppe, sometimes even defeated and humiliated. It had happened to the Achaemenids, whose founder, Cyrus the Great, had been killed in battle by the Massagetae; it had happened to the heirs of Megas Alexandrňs, the Seleucids, which had been overthrown by the Parthians and the Saka. It had happened to the Sassanids, which, before being overwhelmed by the glorious armies of the Caliphate, had had much to deal with the White Huns; since then, the threat from the steppe had always given much trouble to the rulers of Persia, yet no attack had been more successful than than of Gengiz Khan. Often Persia had been invaded, pillaged and forced to bend its knee, yet no attack would prove more devastating than that of Gengiz Khan. And things could only get worse, as it became clear that these riders from the East, this time, wouldn't stop there.
April 10, 2015, 06:56 AM
Treaper
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXXI)
First of all, again I have no words to describe... :) I really love your style of writing :) Few lines under Shahs' picture, you have a typing mistake I think, you wrote there misterious instead of mysterious, if you meant like unknown :) About reactions, don't be disappointed. I believe that more and more people will comment :) I thought Jihad has ended, am I wrong? Too much armies of Shahdom and I don't know now..
P.S. Voted for you :thumbsup2
April 10, 2015, 08:36 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXXI)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treaper
First of all, again I have no words to describe... :) I really love your style of writing :) Few lines under Shahs' picture, you have a typing mistake I think, you wrote there misterious instead of mysterious, if you meant like unknown :) About reactions, don't be disappointed. I believe that more and more people will comment :) I thought Jihad has ended, am I wrong? Too much armies of Shahdom and I don't know now..
P.S. Voted for you :thumbsup2
Thanks for your support, Treaper, also got that typo corrected :whistling Oh, it wasn't really disappointing, just that I expected people to tell me about what did they really like, or disliked, what impressed them most etc. I'd like to know such things in order to improve the quality of this AAR and the following (I've started to ponder about which faction could I play next, even though this campaign has not yet bored me, it has instead interested me more and more :laughter: ) so...yeah, I expected a little bit reactions out here. One can't have it all, I'd guess.
Don't you ever reveal who you voted for :laughter: You'll doom us all, the cursing of the Writers' Study will lead us to death and despair!
Jihŕd has pretty much ended, yeah :whistling It took me an incredible amount of efforts, manpower and money to stop. The battles depicted are actually half those I really fought, I just could not implement them all! I must also say it really forced me to fight with teeth and nails, I bribed, assassinated, executed, attacked at night and divided enemy forces like it was the last thing I did xD As a spoiler...soon will come time to pay back!
If only SS stop crashing, of course.
April 10, 2015, 11:32 AM
Treaper
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXXI)
About the next faction to play, it is long time since I read Poland AAR, or maybe Scotland can be challenging :)
April 10, 2015, 11:43 AM
Roman Heritage
Re: [SS 6.4] KRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (UPDATED CHAPTER XXXI)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treaper
About the next faction to play, it is long time since I read Poland AAR, or maybe Scotland can be challenging :)
It's early to say so, but I was thinking something more...paganesque haha Perhaps the Cumans. They definitively need some love, I might think of turning my attention upon them sooner or later :whistling Poland seems interesting, too.