[M2TW AAR] The Chronicles of Edessa

[Seleucos of Olympia]

The Chronicles of Edessa

I had written this AAR last year for another forum, but now that I've become more active here (and have started to read some of the wonderful stories and AARs here) I decided to post it in this forum as well. The story is already concluded, but I will gradually post all chapters here.

The objective of this game is to take Edessa and hold it throughout the span of M2TW as my sole region. Other regions can be briefly conquered to be exchanged in peace negotiations, but I can never hold more than one region for more than ten turns. I chose Sicily as the faction to relocate to Edessa for a variety of reasons: a) It's the closest catholic faction, b) its unit roster includes Byzantine-looking and Muslim troops, c) It won't be particularly missed in Italy, d) it gives me the opportunity to see what Italy will be like if I give my initial provinces to another faction of my choice. Campaign difficulty is H/VH. So, without further ado, let's begin.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 1 - Baldwin I . ~~<>~~<>~~<>

1080 AD. Fed up with a Europe that didn’t understand him, the young king Roger I decided to relocate his noble house to less happy pastures, more in tune with his emo mood. After hearing many stories about the mysterious Middle East, he decided to move there, along with his family and army. The Pope warned him that he could no longer be king of Sicily if he chose to abandon the place forever, but he didn’t care. The proud Sicilian navy was loaded up with provisions and troops, leaving behind only skeleton garrisons in Italy and Sicily, and set sail for Syria. Durazzo was taken along the way, but only because the nobles were nagging the king to do it.



By turn 7, the brave army made landfall south of Antioch, burning their ships as a sign that they would never return to Europe. Also, upkeep would have been a killer. Many strange lands surrounded the Sicilian army on its voyage east, ruled by independent lords who were only too happy to see that strange, sweaty army move out of their lands, going ever east.



Meanwhile, diplomatic contact was made with the Byzantines. There was some bad blood between them and the Norman lords of Sicily, what with the whole taking of Southern Italy from them, but once they had received Durazzo and Palermo as gifts, relations were back to outstanding! An alliance was made, sealed with the wedding of Princess Anna Comnena with the Sicilian heir, Prince Simon. A bit shabby for an imperial princess, but it beats getting stuck in a monastery writing history books.



Soon the Sicilian army had reached the town of Edessa. A long siege began, in which former king Roger spent months writing poetry and complaining about how the people of Edessa wouldn’t just surrender to him. Finally, on turn 18, the town’s provisions were exhausted and its garrison sallied out. It was a short fight, in which the Sicilian army beat the rag-tag garrison back to the town square and had a jolly time slaughtering them into submission.



With Edessa firmly under his control, former king Roger gifted his last Italian possessions to emperor Alexius Comnenus and gazed upon his brave new realm.



“You do realise we’re counts now, since we no longer hold land in Italy?” his son interrupted his gazing.
“Yes! But to be a count here, in this glorious land, beats all the fancy titles of European aristocracy! What say you, fair daughter?”
“This place blows! I wanna go back to daddy!” Anna was gazing upon the land as well, but with a markedly different expression.
“Nonsense! Alright, the place can use a little tidying up, maybe a few roads here and there, but this land is all potential! In a few months you’ll look back on Constantinople with disdain!”
“We had baths in Constantinople... with warm water... And servants – trained servants, not these leery peasants... And the food...”
“Don’t think about it! It will be great here! Son, we leave behind our troubled past. From now on we’re the Baldwins! Our line of counts shall establish a legend for all time to admire!”
“...Right...”
Crap. The old man expected him to remain in this god-forsaken land after he died. And it wasn’t like he had left him with any other options anyway, now that he had given away all the family land in Italy. Maybe he could find some way to move in with his in-laws in Constantinople... That was a thought that would keep him from going mad on those chilly Edessa nights...

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 2 - Baldwin II . ~~<>~~<>~~<>

Those chilly Edessa nights would prove to be much longer than prince Simon expected. It was only a few years after the founding of the County of Edessa that his father, count Baldwin I, died of old age. His dying wish was that his son would continue to build upon his legacy, making Edessa prosperous and glorious.
“Screw that!” he thought, looking sad and understanding by his father’s deathbed. “When I’m count, I’m getting out of here!”

The church bells of Edessa rang morbidly, signaling to all the indifferent people of that town the death of their count. The cardinal of Edessa, a lazy Sicilian who had been dragged along in the expedition by Baldwin I, proclaimed Simon Baldwin II, second count of Edessa. The ceremony was short, at Simon’s request, who bolted out of the church right after the formalities were concluded and rushed to write a letter to emperor Alexius, offering him Edessa in return for his acceptance into the court of Constantinople. Many weeks passed before he got his reply and all his hopes were crushed when that finally happened. Alexius wasn’t interested. He quite liked the idea of an allied Christian Edessa among all those Turks in the region, and thought Baldwin II would be just the chap to keep the place in order. His dreams destroyed, his beloved Sicily a distant memory, and his wife holding him in contempt, he did what any respectable count in his position would do. He turned to booze.

Many decades passed. Under the wise leadership of Baldwin II’s mayors, Edessa grew into a large city, with a respectable farming and tax income, although its position allowed for little profit out of trade. The Byzantine Empire engaged in a long war against the Seljuk Turks and, although it made some early conquests, including Iconium, both empires later contented themselves with parading large armies around, sometimes within the borders of Edessa, and looking at each other. This strange way of conducting war allowed the Turks to expand against the various independent provinces of the Middle East. The Pope called for a crusade to liberate Jerusalem from the Egyptians, and a Polish army made it there first, founding the kingdom of Jerusalem. Despite his best intentions, Baldwin could not get himself accepted as heir to that throne. His sister, Matilda, went and married a Portuguese prince and became queen. He was not happy for her.

The slow pace of development in Edessa was interrupted by news from Europe. The pope died on turn 46 and a new one was elected. That pope died the next turn, and another was elected, Same thing next turn. The fourth turn in a row that this happened, his trusty Sicilian cardinal was elected pope. Fortunately he lasted a bit longer than his predecessors, who were apparently having some squabbles with the Milanese. Sure enough, a few turns later a crusade was called on Rome. Two turns later there were papal elections...

As Edessa grew into a Catholic stronghold, deep into Muslim territory, the knights of St. John requested permission to establish a chapter house. “Sure, knock yourselves out” was the count’s response. Within a few decades, the Hospitallers had increased their presence in the city to the extent that they built the headquarters of their order there. Many citizens were impressed with those strange black-clad knights. Baldwin was more impressed with drinking his sorrows away and finding merriment in activities with curiously dressed men of another kind altogether, one that the knights of St. John would surely frown upon.

Anna had distractions of her own. She gave birth to two sons and two daughters. Baldwin was too drunk to see or care whether they looked anything like him. The firstborn son was named Gonzo and he was a silent, introverted type of guy. He also displayed at an early age some unbecoming tendencies towards other boys. His mother sought to rectify that as soon as possible, by arranging a marriage between him and a Byzantine princess, Zougla. The result of all that meddling was that prince Gonzo constantly found excuses to be out of the city, once actually finding the opportunity to chase some brigands all the way to Aleppo, engaging Edessan arms in battle for the first time since the county was founded. Little did he know then that events far from the world that he knew were bringing against that part of the world that he did know a wave of war unimaginable to his peaceful existence.



In 1238 (turn 80) count Baldwin II died peacefully of liver disease. Gonzo was proclaimed Count Baldwin III in the Abbey of Edessa. At the same time, the first Mongol hordes were moving west from Yerevan, shaking empires in their wake. The new count gathered the bulk of Edessa’s small army and rode north to lend assistance to his Byzantine allies...

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 3 - Baldwin III . ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o~~<>~ .Part 1. ~<>~~o~~<>~~<>~~<>

The Mongols had arrived in force in Yerevan. They must have heard great things about the County of Edessa, so beloved by all its neighbors and all across Europe, that they decided to declare war on it, before even approaching its borders. Count Baldwin III decided that it was better to act sooner than later, and gathered most of Edessa’s small army to the northern mountain passes, where a small Mongol force was scouting ahead dangerously close to Edessa, trailed by a small Byzantine army. It was crossing a ford in the river Tigris, when Baldwin found his chance to attack. The Byzantine army was on the other side of the river, so together they stood a good chance of defeating the Mongols.
The Byzantines joined in the battle, but for some strange reason most of their troops, especially their many mounted mercenaries, were on the south side of the river, along with the army of Edessa. The first attack was discouraging. Mongol archers butchered the advancing Edessan infantry. However, after much fighting the Mongols were surrounded and ultimately annihilated, though with great cost to the attackers.



Concerned with this outcome, and in need of new soldiers, Baldwin returned to Edessa. His two sisters had come of age, and he sent them to Europe, to escape the coming wars. Within a few years they were both queens in Hungary and Denmark.

After a few years, with the main bulk of the Mongol army approaching, Baldwin moved his new army to the same ford in which he had fought the Mongols for the first time, having seen its great defensive potential. His small army was now bolstered by a unit of ballistas and two units of Hospitaller knights. From that position his army could block any Mongol attempts to cross into the lands of Edessa from the north.



Soon the Mongols attacked, and their numbers were overwhelming. Their first army hit the Edessan defenders like a wave splattering on a rock. The Mongol general was killed and his soldiers, some of the finest in the world, were all ultimately captured or killed. The Edessan army was victorious, but at a cost of a third of its fighting strength. So, the celebrations would prove to be short lived. A second Mongol army attacked soon thereafter and this time it proved to be too much for Edessa’s depleted defenders. The Mongol general was once again killed, but his vengeful warriors pushed on, routing the tired Edessan infantry. In the end, only a brave charge of Hospitaller knights contained the mad rush of the Mongol horde.



Count Baldwin, seeing the battle progress that way from a nearby hill, decided that the battle was unwinable. He signaled for an orderly retreat, and his archers and engineers run from the battlefield, while his personal cavalry gave them cover. The Hospitallers finally broke, after all but one fell on that field to join the saints and martyrs in heaven. Or at least that’s how they put it afterwards. The Mongols pursued from a distance, refraining from charging down the Edessan archers while Baldwin’s knights were accompanying them in the field. At the end of the day the Edessan army had 411 casualties, for 302 of the finest warriors in the world. But there were thousands more of those finest warriors in the world, while Edessa could only spare as many new soldiers as its dwindling funds allowed.

The next two years were a time for regrouping for Edessa. The Mongol horde moved slowly to the west, but one of its armies moved south to besiege one of Edessa’s two forts, guarding the passage to Armenia.



Baldwin had trained new troops and was prepared for battle, although he was not confident that his men would be victorious in open battle. Therefore, a stratagem was employed. The twenty crossbowmen in the fort’s garrison were ordered to lift the siege. The fort was taken by the Mongols, but that provided an opportunity for Baldwin’s army to surround them and place them under siege. They had food for three turns, but after that they’d have to sally and his army, with ballistas and catapults, would be ready to cut them down.



Miraculously, the Mongol general decided not to sally, so when he ran out of food his army was neutralized without effort! So far two and a half Mongol stacks had been destroyed by Baldwin’s cunning and perseverance. But the rest of the horde was moving back east, where Edessan spies made an ominous discovery: Four new stacks of Mongols freshly arrived from their distant homelands.



Many years passed, while the Mongols joined their disparate armies and Count Baldwin reestablished his defensive position of the Tigris River. He was joined by his younger brother, Maccio, 90 Muslim archers, eager to help in the common struggle against the Horde, and 60 Hospitaller knights, eager to avenge their fallen brothers.



Ten Mongol stacks assembled north if the Tigris, and the first one struck.



It was the army that had routed the Edessans in their previous ford defense, attacking now without a general. They were repelled with moderate Edessan casualties. However, among the dead was Maccio, a young nobleman of great promise. The majority of the Mongols were killed and the survivors were executed by the furious Edessans. Their fury would have to become their weapon, as the next Mongol army rapidly approached the ford.

The Edessans took defensive positions south of the river and anticipated the familiar splattering of Mongol horses on the shallow water. Instead they were treated to something they were utterly unprepared for. Huge, burning projectiles flew over the river, launched by trebuchets more powerful than anything the Edessan engineers could design, while dozens of fire spitting arrows screamed as they impacted on their lines, ending their mad trajectories. Panicking, Baldwin ordered his troops to pull back to the hills. The bombardment continued, killing a few soldiers every few minutes, whenever the Mongols got lucky. By the time their ammunition was expended, the Edessans had lost a tenth of their soldiers. However, true to their duty, they reestablished their defensive lines south of the ford and awaited the Mongol charge. The battle was fierce, but Edessan stubbornness prevailed, and the bulk of the Mongol army was captured or killed. Only their artillery were left, on the other side of the river, guarded by some heavy archers. Feeling a thirst for revenge, Baldwin ordered his catapults and ballistas to move closer to the ford and commence bombardment of the enemy lines.



Many Mongols were killed by that continuous barrage, but when the sun approached the horizon, Baldwin ordered his cavalry to charge their remaining troops, out of fear that they would escape during the night. Many Hospitallers were killed by the skillful shots of the remaining Mongol archers, but they were all exterminated when the count joined in the battle with his personal knights. Celebrations followed, but they would be short lived. A third Mongol army approached, and the Edessans would have to face a third battle or retreat. Baldwin decided to retreat.

A couple of Mongol armies seemed to give chase, as Baldwin’s tired troops marched back to Edessa, but they eventually turned back north, and joined the rest of the horde in its march west, towards Cilicia. The Mongol threat seemed to subside for the near future, and Edessa was joyous at the prospect. The tiny County of Edessa had stood up to the mightiest military on Earth, and destroyed over a third of its fighting force – four full stacks plus a powerful scouting force, and had killed a khan, two heirs and two other highly experienced generals. After all that, Edessa still stood, and it prospered, growing into a huge city, a bastion of Christendom in the dangerous East.

[Commander5xl]

great work!

[Doctor]

Very well done, colonization AAR's are amoung my favorites. I want to see one stack of Sicilians destroy the Mongol Horde by themselves. Keep up the great work.

[Biggles]

Very well done. I like it alot.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 4 - Baldwin III . ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o~~<>~ .Part 2. ~<>~~o~~<>~~<>~~<>

As the Mongol horde moved to the west, Baldwin’s spies trailed it, to keep an eye on its conquests. The Turkish castle at Adana was destroyed, the region devastated by the rampaging horde. Then it slowly moved west, sacking the Byzantine city of Iconium. Finally, it reached the Bosphorus, where it vainly searched for a way to cross over into Europe, with Byzantine armies guarding the passes. The Byzantine city of Nicaea was strangely spared, as the Mongols wasted away years in pillaging the countryside, continuously approaching the shores from where they could see Europe in the distance, but never actually crossing over.

But the County of Edessa was only too glad to be rid of them, one way or another. The army was made smaller, and so the economy thrived and Edessa was adorned with many new buildings, including an artist’s studio. In the year 1290 gunpowder was introduced, and Edessan engineers were quick to develop its use. The city’s new walls were eventually bolstered with cannon towers, while cannon founders experimented with mortars, a new and potentially deadly technology.

However, the greatest event for Edessa was the birth of count Baldwin III’s only daughter, Lippa, in 1302 (turn 112). Baldwin’s cousins had no children, his brother had died fighting the Mongols and his sisters were queens in distant lands, so Lippa represented the only future of the House of Baldwin in Edessa!

The following years passed quietly, with only a small army of brigands to test Edessan arms, and that was subdued by Baldwin’s cousin and heir, Lorenzo. All seemed peaceful, when the Great Mortality swept across Europe and the Middle East. In 1350 the plague spread to Edessa, and thousands of its people had died until it subsided in 1358. As Edessa’s economy didn’t rely much on trade, it was not hit considerably by the plague, but the sad realization was that it was responsible for more Edessan deaths than the whole Mongol War.

On turn 144 Lippa turned 16, and revealed her true qualities.



Baldwin was exceedingly proud and loving of her. She was like the girl he had always wanted to be... In his old age, he had taken to excessive grooming and beautifying himself. Why should he care what his people and courtiers thought? He had beaten back the Mongols! He deserved to look pretty, even if he was closing on 60...

Two years later, Lippa’s hand was won by a young nobleman named Migianino Scotti. Baldwin hated him immediately, but Lippa was absolutely crazy about him and wouldn’t calm down until her father consented to their marriage. The wedding was a pompous ceremony in the abbey of Edessa. As well it should be. The couple getting married would be the future count and countess of that city.

Baldwin left the newlyweds and went up to the walls by his palace, from where he could see the rocky hills in the distance, hiding the glistening waters of the Euphrates. He was an old man now. It had been possible to hide it from himself before, but now that there were young people in his family, now that his daughter was all grown up, it crept up on him like the dew on those hills. How many long years had he spent campaigning beyond those hills, up in Armenia, as far as the Tigris River... All those youthful struggles to retain... what? Land? Honour? His own adventurous spirit? They were all slipping away from him day by day, as his mortal body approached the inevitable. Only Lippa would remain. The most beautiful, clever, wonderful daughter he could wish for! And now she was married. Baldwin despised drinking, after seeing its effects on his father. He needed something else to draw his mind away from such melancholic thoughts. And reports from the east seemed likely to provide just that thing...

On turn 147 the armies of Timur the lame crossed the borders of Mosul, heading westwards, on an ominous path of conquest and destruction. Travelers claimed that his armies made the Mongol Horde pale by comparison; that he built towers out of human skulls wherever he passed; that the lands from where his armies passed became lifeless deserts. And, to make things perfect in their dread, it was known that Timur had declared war on the County of Edessa, even upon hearing of its existence, while in the east of Mosul.

The Edessan army was reformed. New knights were trained, this time supported by Edessa’s new pikemen units. Mortars were added to the army’s traditional ballista and catapult artillery. Baldwin III, along with Lorenzo inspected the new army and gathered it east of Edessa, where it would be decided how best to deploy it in defense of the county. The count had this one last moment of martial happiness. But the enemy that can never be defeated, Old Age, caught up with him before Timur did. Lying in his bed within his command tent, and sensing the inevitable, he called for Lorenzo.

“Old friend!” he said when he arrived.
“My count” replied Lorenzo.
“I think this will be my last campaign, old friend. Remember, all those years ago, when we were marching all the way up to Armenia to fight the Horde? All those battles, all those maneuvers...”
“All of them your masterpieces. I had a secondary role in that war, guarding Edessa and keeping the forts manned and your supply lines intact. It was you and your brother...”
Lorenzo stopped. Bringing up Maccio would only sadden his count.
“Yes... me and Maccio. We were young men back then. So young... Especially Maccio...”
The count’s thoughts seemed to trail off and he was silent for a few minutes. Finally, his eyes met Lorenzo’s again, and he continued talking.
“This Migianino has no experience in battle. And now that this threat is upon us... I never should have let him marry Lippa. No. But she was stubborn. So stubborn...”
“But they have a son now. Your grandson, the heir to the county of Edessa.”
“Yes. Little Fenso. He must be protected. They all must be protected. I need to ask something of you, old friend. I need you to give me your word that you will look after them when I am gone. Migianino will be count by marriage, but he is not ready for the responsibilities of that position, not now with this war coming. And I will not allow Lippa to become a widow and Fenso an orphan so soon in their lives. I want you to rule as regent during the war with Timur the Lame. You were already my heir before Lippa came of age, so it should be easy to bend the rules of succession, considering that you have no children of your own.”
Lorenzo nodded stoically. He was in his fifties himself, and he knew his regency would not last long. But he would have to do his best. His count needed him now more than ever, as did Edessa, and he would not let them down.

In 1382 Count Baldwin III died peacefully in his sleep. Lorenzo succeeded him as regent, taking the name Tancred. To the east, Timur’s armies had already reached Mosul.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 5 - Tancred . ~~<>~~<>~~<>



Tancred was 57 years old when he was proclaimed regent of Edessa, and he was the last of his line, having produced no children. He was a quizzical man, both utterly stoic and shamelessly lewd. But he had lived through times that required both emotional detachment and profane outbursts; all those years of the Mongol threat and then all those years of Baldwin III’s extravagant peace. Now he was marching eastwards, in command of the largest army the county had ever mustered. Timur’s path to the west had produced ripples that carried news, refugees and mercenaries ahead of him. It was the latter that Tancred was interested in. After a long march, the Edessan army reached the outskirts of Mosul, in friendly Turkish territory. The Timurid armies were close by, but Tancred’s scouts diligently searched for the mercenaries he had been looking for, and no expenses were spared to ensure their cooperation. The army of Edessa would now be bolstered by elephants - huge, lumbering beats, some supporting arquebusiers of deadly precision while others supporting small cannons – devastating against dense concentrations of enemy forces.

With the new army ready for battle, Tancred traveled back west, to await the Timurids on Edessan soil. And the Timurids, slowly so as to keep their armies within reinforcing distance from each other, were coming.



Soon the first attack came. Two Timurid stacks, with their artillery mounted on elephants for extra mobility, rushed ahead of the main force and overran the two Edessan forts. Seeing this opportunity, Tancred rushed to trap the Timurids within those forts. All reserves were called to achieve this maneuver, including the city guards of Edessa, led by a reluctant Migiannino.



Faced with such a turn of events, and without aid from the main Timurid armies, the two besieged armies were forced to surrender. Great cheers went up from the Edessan armies, and the bells of Edessa tolled cheerfully to celebrate that first victory. But the war was only beginning.

Migianinno went back to Edessa, along with the city guards. The long years of campaigning, along with the expensive mercenaries, were taking a serious toll on the treasury. Edessa was losing money fast, and only its considerable reserves and some sporadic grants from the Pope for spreading the faith to neighboring provinces staved off bankruptcy. Tancred knew that and he knew that a confrontation should be sought while there were still funds in the treasury to retrain his losses, but it was imperative that the battle should be on winnable terms.

After many months of trying to lure the Timurids to the ford on the Tigris where Baldwin III had so gloriously fended off the Mongol onslaught, he had to turn his army back south, towards Edessa, to prevent being cut off from a possible siege of the city. As fate had it, it was on a misty morning during that march south that the first Timurid army approached, and Tancred took care to deploy his army for battle.



The enemy army was led by Nayaga the Pious, a general of great renown for his skill and even greater renown for his dread. Tancred watched his men line up according to the battle plans formulated by the council of nobles and he felt a knot forming in his stomach as he got on his horse. Baldwin may have trusted his command abilities, but the fact was that he had only ever fought against brigands. He had no deep knowledge of the art of war and that could manifest itself horribly when the battlefield became fluid and deadle. However, the battle plan was sound. If all went well, a minimum of dangerous maneuvers would have to be undertaken – except one. The enemy army was equipped with grand bombards, and they could be disastrous for the whole army if they caused the elephants to panic. Therefore, one unit of Hospitaller knights would have to punch through an enemy flank and charge the guns.

The battle started with Tancred’s elephant artillery barraging the enemy horse archers. Soon, the Edessan defense position was peppered with arrows from across the front, while the main Timurid forces advanced forward. It was then that a gap in the enemy cavalry was spotted on the left. 60 Hospitallers galloped as fast as they could, under a hail of arrows from the regrouping enemy horse archers, until they made it to the enemy cannon emplacements. More than half were wounded by arrows during that mad charge, but the rest fell with full force upon the cannons, slaughtering their handlers.



Tancred could not see the progress of the knights through the mist, but the silencing of the enemy guns assured him that the charge was successful. Little did he know that his relief was premature. The enemy general himself, along with his numerous bodyguards, turned back and fell upon the tired knights, routing them before they had a chance to neutralize the enemy gun crews. As a result, a group of Timurid gunners regrouped, and resumed the bombardment of Edessan lines.



There was no longer a window of opportunity to send the second unit of knights against the enemy guns, so the Edessan pikemen braced for contact with the enemy under heavy bombardment. Five elephants were lost to the enemy grand bombards, but the Timurid attack was repelled, and the remaining cavalry and elephants counterattacked, routing the enemy infantry, and scattering the cavalry. Nayaga fell in battle, and his army eventually routed, chased out of the field by a triumphant, but badly bruised Edessan army. The enemy army lost 983 men out of a total of 1261. But the Edessans mourned 612 casualties, out of a total of 1497.

There was a small respite to tend to the wounded and bury some of the dead, but a second Timurid army appeared not days after the previous battle, and the Edessan army had to prepare its defense again. This time there were 1261 Timurids, under the command of Umar Shaykh the Pious, against just 899 Edessans. However, an excellent defensive position was found, that provided perfect protection to the Edessan left.



As before, the artillery and elephants were placed at the top of the hill, while pikemen and crossbowmen guarded the center and spearmen and archers were placed in the flanks. The battle started with an artillery exchange again. The larger unit of knights, on the right, could not establish a good window between the Timurid lines, but an opportunity opened up on the left, where only eleven knights were available to go for the enemy guns. After a mad charge, only four knights made it to the enemy cannons, but they were enough to disrupt the enemy barrage and fight off the handlers of both enemy units.



After that point, the center and right were hit hard by hordes of well experienced Timurid horsemen, and the few pikemen and spearmen seemed to be overwhelmed, as enemy halberdiers advanced quickly to take advantage of the breaking of Edessan lines. It was at that point that Tnacred made a fateful decision. Leading the remaining Hospitaller knights, he attacked the enemy cavalry on the right, to attempt to relieve pressure of that side of the battlefield, so the infantry could be free to help the center.



The plan seemed to work at first, but the enemy horsemen and halberdiers just kept on coming, steadily overwhelming both the infantry and Tancred and his knights. The elephants were ordered to charge headlong into the advancing enemy formations, in an attempt to scare the enemy cavalry. But it was of no avail. With his knights falling around him, Tancred was soon left helpless against superior enemies. He got knocked off his horse and was taken prisoner. After that everything turned for the worse. The elephants failed to have the same effect on the enemy general and his bodyguards, who managed to rout the opposing pikemen. Soon, the elephants had ran amok, and the whole infantry line was on the verge of collapse. The battle was no longer salvageable. The horn of retreat was blown, and the elephant artillery, that had suffered no casualties, along with all other unengaged units retreated. That retreat turned into a rout when the enemy cavalry caught up with them.

Of the 899 Edessan soldiers, 724 fell on that dark day. The enemy had 535 casualties, but they had many more reinforcements in the east. Edessa had only its garrison and the surviving remnants of Tancred’s army. The citizens of Edessa gathered their gold to ransom back their regent. But it was not to be. The barbarous Timurids executed Tancred in a hideous way, along with all the other prisoners of war. From behind Edessa’s city walls, a dark and dangerous world loomed with the promise of dread and doom. There were mournful litanies in the abbey and there was widespread fear on the streets.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 6 – Joscelin I . ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o~~<>~ .Part 1. ~<>~~o~~<>~~<>~~<>


When Migiannino was proclaimed Count of Edessa in the city’s historic abbey, there were forced cheers from the small, unenthusiastic crowd. Migiannino had decided against taking the name Baldwin, since he had only married into the family. Instead he chose the name Joscelin, which would mark a change in dynasty for the county of Edessa. His wife, Lippa, was very excited about his new name, and she made up silly little songs about it, that soon became widely parodied throughout the city. But it was the nobles that Joscelin was most worried about, looking over the assembled crowd in the abbey.

During Tancred’s regency, it was the council of nobles that made most of the real decisions, and it was their financial contributions, along with those of the Pope, that kept the Edessan treasury in the green. The nobles felt increasingly entitled to the government of the county, and they had little respect for their new, and much derided count. He could still expect their support in the first months of his reign, but if steps weren’t taken to strengthen his authority, his reign could very well come to an abrupt and humiliating end. On his first night as count he couldn’t sleep. He could feel the sword of Damocles hanging over his bed and he couldn’t stop thinking about how to point it elsewhere. By dawn he had realised exactly where he could point it.

“Lords of Edessa!”
The assembly looked at him in the way one looks at an ant trying to push a spore too heavy for it back into its nest.

“This is a time of crisis for our county. Less than a week ago, our army suffered its worst defeat in our history. Our former regent, Tancred, was captured by the heathen Timurids, and suffered a fate unbecoming a Christian lord – a fate never before inflicted upon a lord of Edessa. Our scouts tell us that the devil Umar Shaykh, the so called “Pious”, had him skinned alive, and is intending to present his skin to his godless khan as a trophy. It pains and humiliates me, as it should all of you, that something so vile is happening within the lands of Edessa. How can we hide behind our walls and let such an atrocity occur? Did Tancred mean nothing to us? Are the supreme lords of our land so meaningless that we are to sit back and watch, as they are turned into leather footwear for the khan?”

The lords were momentarily speechless. That was not what they expected for an opening statement by a newly proclaimed count. Joscelin continued.

“Our scouts report that the main Timurid Horde has not followed Umar Shaykh to the west; they are likely waiting to join forces with their two armies that have been spotted north of the Tigris. Umar’s army is severely weakened by the last battle. An attack by the garrison of Edessa, along with the surviving elephants and cavalry, should be enough to overwhelm him and retrieve Tancred’s skin, so we may bury it in the city abbey with full honours.”

The lords were still speechless. Finally, one of the older ones turned to the count and said what everyone was thinking.
“Are you completely insane?”

“No, I’d like to think not.”

“We’ve just lost over half our army! We are struggling to retrain our depleted units of pikemen and crossbowmen before the inevitable Timurid siege, and you are proposing that we throw away our last remaining men to try and take back a piece of skin!”

The other lords faced him as he spoke, and they all turned and faced Joscelin when he ended. Joscelin was not daunted.

“A piece of skin! A piece of skin! Are you telling me that the venerated mole of saint Chromius of Antioch, perfectly preserved and sweet-smelling in our abbey vaults, is just a piece of skin? Or that the cheekbones of Saint Prokopious of Apamea, or the jawbone of Saint Pulcheria of Arvadus, are simple pieces of bone? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well... erh... these are all holy relics of course...”

“Indeed they are. Bring them in!”

At that call, a servant went out of the room and the lords shifted uneasily in their chairs. Soon, a couple of chanting monks entered the room, with another following behind waving a smoking censer, while the servant followed with a wheelbarrow filled to the brim with bones and assorted pieces of dried up skins and body parts.

“Ever since our county was founded by the glorious crusader Baldwin I, our men of the cloth have been diligent in finding and retrieving the holy relics of the countless saints of the Levant. These are all here, in this wheelbarrow!”

At that word he placed his hand on the bones and the lords eyed each other incredulously.

“I vow that I shall not rest before the skin of Tancred is rescued from the hands of the heathen Timurids, and returned to the holy abbey of Edessa. God wills it!”

By the end of the session the lords had unanimously agreed to let Joscelin lead the Edessan army against Umar Shaykh. They also agreed between themselves that if Joscelin’s skin were to likewise go missing as a result of that battle, they would seal off the vaults of the abbey, along with any monks that refused to come out, and never speak of holy relics again.


Joscelin set out for battle as soon as his army had gathered. He could rely on a respectable amount of infantry, from the city’s garrison, as well as a few elephants and Hospitaller knights. It was a competent force to go up against Umar Shayhk’s veterans, but Joscelin knew he was missing something, something that was missing in all previous engagements with the Timurids. That was light cavalry archers. The nobles and people of Edessa mistrusted him, but the native Turkish population of the county had no such preconceptions against him, and was just as worried about the Timurid avalanche. Two units of Turkopoles were added to his army, and he was finally confident to attack Umar.



Umar himself was confident, so much so that he had left the high hills to the south of his army unguarded. Joscelin did not let that opportunity go to waste, and he used the cover of night to position his army on higher ground. When the Timurids became aware of their predicament, they were at a disadvantage. Joscelin’s Elephant artillery pounded the enemy positions, while their efforts to bring their remaining cannons forward to retaliate were thwarted by the lithe Turkopoles. A steady advance of the Edessan army, under heavy cover fire, made the Timurids lose heart and retreat. At that point the Edessan cavalry fell upon the Timurid infantry like hungry wolves, annihilating their ranks. At the end of the day, Joscelin’s army had won a victory unparalleled in the history of the wars against the eastern hordes! Only 22 men were lost, while three quarters of the enemy army were completely obliterated.



Joscelin rode back from pursuing the enemy routers and joyfully jumped his horse around the pools of Timurid blood, until his bodyguards convinced him of the dangers of carelessly prancing around slippery slopes.

“An astounding victory! God, I’m brilliant! Now, when I go back to Edessa, I’ll be an undisputed hero! Those ‘nobles’ will fear whenever they hear me so much as blow my nose!”

“My lord?”
A knight of his bodyguards feebly interjected at length.

“Yes, what is it now? Can’t you see I’m rejoicing?!”

“My most glorious lord, there is the small matter of our regent Tancred’s skin...”

“The what now?”

“The heathen Umar Shayk escaped, along with much of his cavalry, and he took the holy skin with him. I fear that he still wishes to present it to his khan.”

Joscelin stared at him for a minute. The skin. The bloody skin! He had vowed before all the lords of Edessa, on the bones of all the saints of Edessa, that he would not return to the city without it. He felt a stroke coming on. He dismounted and sat in the shade of a palm tree with his face in his hands.

“My lord... What do we do now?”

“What do we do now...”
Joscelin lifted his face from his hands and stared at the knight again.
“I’ll tell you what we do now. What we do now is find the coward Umar Shaykh and get the bloody skin back!”


A month had passed. A month of riding in the sweltering desert, with stinky elephants in tow, while the infantry had been ordered back to Edessa, as the Turkopole scouts detected Umar’s journey to the south. An extra unit of Hospitaller knights had joined the expedition from Edessa, giddy over the prospect of fighting over a holy relic, and that gave his small cavalry army an edge over Umar’s survivors. At length, his army caught up with him southeast of Edessa, and battle was joined.



The elephants pummeled the enemy in the hills with their small cannons, but Joscelin wasn’t interested in just bombarding them from a distance. He had to make sure that Umar Shaykh was captured or killed and that the skin was retrieved. The Hospitaller knights made a double envelopment, while the Turkopoles were exchanging volleys with the enemy horse archers, and Joscelin charged his knights, along with the elephants from the front. Umar’s bodyguard was encircled and after a stubborn fight he was at last unhorsed.



The rest of his small army was destroyed or scattered. They would no longer be of any interest to the count. He rummaged through Umar’s belongings until he found Tancred’s skin and he lifted it up into the sky, to the wild cheers of men. Finally, he could return to Edessa! And not a moment too soon. The khan’s armies were regrouping within Edessan soil. He would have to face them with the full support of his city, and he would face them the way he knew best. Cunningly.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

Thanks! I'll post the next chapters shortly. The Mongols were a nuisance but, as you will soon see, this game turned into a vendetta with the Timurids...

[ReD_OcToBeR]

I just caught onto this AAR. I love it.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 7 – Joscelin I . ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o~~<>~ .Part 2. ~<>~~o~~<>~~<>~~<>


Ubaldo Crescentius was the first Edessan career diplomat in over a century. Handpicked by count Joscelin himself, he was given the authority to negotiate with foreign leaders in matters of state, representing his county. It was a great honour, and he was puzzled as to how he got the position, when there were obviously so many more influential nobles who must have been more suited for it. When he got his first assignment, his puzzlement disappeared.


“A cease-fire?!”

Timur the Lame’s voice thundered with incredulous rage when he heard Ubaldo’s message. Ubaldo barely avoided wetting himself.

“The county of Edessa has always desired peace...”

“You annihilated almost half my army! Killed four of my best generals! That impudence can only be repaid by the utter destruction of Edessa! I’ll rebuild it using the bones of every man, woman, child and house pet there!”

“Ah, but you underestimate the hidden strength of count Joscelin. We have had some sad skirmishes in the past – the result of miscommunication, no doubt. But Edessa is but the outpost of a vast Sicilian Empire in the West. We have held back the full strength of our armies, as have you.”

“That’s a lie! If you were part of such an empire, you wouldn’t be suing for peace right now. Besides, tales of the lone County of Edessa are well known in the East. You are nothing but a puny crusader state. One that should be extinguished from history, if I have any sense left in me, and I do!”

“Even if that were true, great khan, you are far from your empire, surrounded by people who fear you less than they hate you. Engaging your armies in a futile war against Edessa will only weaken you against them, and you may find yourself outnumbered and without supplies, should such a war drag on. Edessa is a peaceful land. We only desire good relations with our neighbours, whoever they may be. That is why my count has authorized me to give you free passage through his lands, in exchange for a cease-fire. Edessa may be more than prepared to defend itself, but our count cares too much for his citizens to waste so much of his treasury on defence, when it could be used for the prosperity of all Edessans.”

Timur eyed Ubaldo suspiciously.
“And am I to believe that your count doesn’t care where we may go, or what nations we may wage war on? That he would be unperturbed if we were to march against the Principality of Antioch, for instance?”

“My count is a man of peace, but he is also a man of honour. If the Prince of Antioch is given a chance to prove his mastery of arms against such a worthy opponent as yourself, this will be a source of joy for my count, not of sorrow. However, if you refuse our offer of peace, that prince, as well as the princes of many lands friendly to Antioch, Christian and Muslim alike, may choose to unite in this common battleground against you. It would not be right for us, then, to deny them. We only wish to spare ourselves, and you, of the inconvenience.”

Timur was thoughtful for a few minutes. At last he said
“You will have your answer tomorrow. I will rest now.”

Ubaldo bowed deeply, almost touching the floor, and was escorted to his tent. Once he was inside and the guards couldn’t see him, he proceeded to vomit and then shake for an hour in a corner, clutching a blanket. Why, oh why was he tricked into taking this job?


In the year 1422 (turn 172) the bells throughout Edessa sounded joyously over the news of peace with the Timurid Empire! Count Joscelin ordered a three day celebration, while Ubaldo was honoured by being given a medal and an assignment to go find the Mongols and negotiate trade rights with them. Ubaldo left the city cursing.

Meanwhile, the Timurid hordes marched south of the city, in their slow westward movement. The walls of Edessa were always densely manned, with hundreds of banners gleaming atop the ramparts, to dissuade the Timurids from doing anything impetuous.



The next years were a time of peace, at least for Edessa. Timur declared war on the Turks at Aleppo, and repeatedly besieged Antioch with his smallest army, until he finally spared a proper force for the job and the defenders were outnumbered and outclassed. Young Fenso, Joscelin’s firstborn son, came of age on turn 181. As per the Edessan custom, he married a Byzantine princess, Ioanna, a couple of years later, and they made Joscelin a grandparent shortly thereafter. On turn 186 Antioch finally fell to the Timurids, who initially seemed content to contain themselves in their new province, until they decided to expand by taking Aleppo from the Turks on turn 192.



On turn 193 a crusade was declared on Constantinople, the new capital of the Mongols. The Timurids also turned on the Egyptians, besieging Damascus. On the next turn, a jihad was declared on Jerusalem, the only remaining Crusader kingdom besides Edessa, and all Muslim states answered the call to arms, including the Mongols and the Timurids. Amid this state of confusion, diverging armies and half the nearby world at war, Joscelin plotted and awaited his chance to strike before Edessa became completely surrounded by unfriendly empires. That chance appeared on turn 195 (the year 1468).



The Timurid armies were scattered, at least one of them on a jihad to Jerusalem, and another trapped northeast of Edessa by a neutral Mongol army. What’s more, Aleppo had been momentarily left without a garrison, save for Timur himself and his bodyguard. On the Edessan side, Fenso guarded the bridge on the Euphrates with an army worthy of Tancred’s legendary defenders. In fact, new elephant mercenaries had been found, and were bolstering that army with their tower-like stature and their highly trained arquebusiers. Edessa’s own arquebusiers had been incorporated into the army, that also contained more traditional elements.

Fenso was ordered to lead a small contingent of his army, including a ballista unit, directly to Aleppo, and assault. Meanwhile, the rest of his army would march north to the ford of the Euphrates northwest of Edessa, where Joscelin himself would assume command, to defend against retaliation by the nearby Timurid army. There was to be no warning, no declaration of war.

A few days later, Fenso’s small army had broken into the fortress of Aleppo, defenseless but for its easily breachable gates. Timur was taken completely by surprise. He hurried to meet his foes, in charge of his elite bodyguards, and Fenso’s own came face to face with them in a deadly fight, until his spearmen swarmed around the Timurid horsemen, thus sealing the outcome. Timur was slain and the flag of Edessa flew over the walls of Aleppo. Immediately afterwards, Ubaldo was in Damascus, signing an alliance with the Egyptians.



Fenso hurried back to Edessa, at his father’s request, while his brother, Censius, arrived to administer the area. He was just in time to join in the battle of the ford, as the Timurid army, led by Miran the Pious, attacked Joscelin’s position with all its vengeful fury.



The Edessan cannons and arquebusiers took a heavy toll on the enemy, as well as in their morale, although they responded with rockets, dreadful and exotic weapons. Edessa’s pikemen and spearmen held the enemy advance back at the ford, but when the Timurid heavy cavalry charged through, their nerves failed them, and the line was breached. In that critical moment, it was up to the Edessan knights to prove their honour and drive back the enemy. Two units of Hospitallers, as well as the bodyguard of Joscelin himself, and his two sons, Fenso and Deo, charged at the ford and fought in bloody melee. The fight was fierce on both sides, but the balance was against the Timurids. However, in the heat of battle, Fenso saw his tired bodyguards die around him and panicked, running away from the battlefield.



The battle was won, with 489 Edessan casualties for over 1200 Timurid ones, their whole army being scattered. Joscelin never reprimanded Fenso for his retreat, but for most of the rest of the war took care to position him in Edessa, or far from where the actual fighting was conducted.


As soon as a decent amount of the casualties had been replenished, Joscelin marched his army southwards, with a plan to advance to Antioch before the Timurids could react. However, his designs were thwarted from an unexpected direction. The Mongol army, just west of the Euphrates, marched against Edessa, besieging the city. Joscelin had no choice but to turn his army back and attack them. The Mongols were without artillery, and had to react to Joscelins army and the city’s garrison attacking them from the rear. Their army, comprising over 1000 men, was obliterated, with only 43 Edessan casualties. Soon, Ubaldo was negotiating with the local Mongol commander.

“You are waking a sleeping dragon, your eminence. A dragon that breathes fire and devoures armies whole”

“There was no order from the khan for captain Jeba’s attack! Surely calmer heads can prevail. The Mongol Empire has no desire to interfere with such minor issues as the County of Edessa.”

“Of course. The Mongol Empire is too busy trying to fight off the European armies besieging Constantinople. It is not to its best interests to have a war in the southeast. But the county of Edessa has no such problems. Its enemies are scattered and isolated, its armies victorious...”

“What will it take for a peace treaty?”

“I think a symbolic tribute of a thousand gold florins per year would be enough to satisfy the honour of the Edessan lords.”

“One thousand florins per year! That’s...”

“A trifle compared to your boundless treasury. Did I mention we have hired more elephants?”

“Alright! But only because we are men of peace!”


Joscelin was happy. Ubaldo was given another medal, and was told to go live with the Mongols in Adana for a few years, to learn their customs and intimidate them with stories of Edessan victories. Ubaldo left grumbling.


There was no need to train new troops, so Joscelin turned southwards again, but the Timurids had had time to send out a new army, commanded by their faction heir, Khanzada Chagurkhai.



His army was not particularly big, nor did it contain as well experienced troops as the previous armies. It was defeated with moderate Edessan casualties. Chagurkhai himself escaped, but was then assassinated by an Egyptian agent. This alliance was working out splendidly!

By turn 198, Joscelin, along with Censius and a competent, though not huge, army, had reached the walls of Antioch.



After a short siege, the city was assaulted, and the Edessan troops swarmed through the narrow streets, to fight the enemy infantry in the central plaza. The Timurids were pushed back at every engagement, but the enemy general, Ghunam of Ghazna, ambushed Censius in a street corner, along with his few bodyguards. Before the spearmen had time to react, Censius had fallen, struck down by a Timurid mace.

Antioch was taken that day, and news soon reached Joscelin that Constantinople had likewise been liberated by the Hungarians. Jerusalem too had fallen, but to the Turks, which, given that it was the target of also the Mongols, the Timurids and the Egyptians, was the lesser of all possible evils. On balance, 1476 was a good year for Christendom, but it had cost Joscelin a son, his youngest of three sons. There was only one day of celebrations, as he pondered over the cost of war.

The Timurids had been dealt crushing blows, but they were still formidable. They still retained at least three of their elite armies, some of them with elephants, and their new capital in Acre was too far away and too well defended for a surprise assault. But Edessa was now richer, greater and more prepared for a long war than at anytime in its history. The gains in the west might not be permanent, but they gave a whole new status to the Baldwins’ old crusader county, doubling its area, income and strategic depth. The final act of the war against the Timurids was about to play out, and Joscelin had no delusions about it. It would be brutal, and it would be costly.

[Doctor]

I am definitely liking the direction you are taking this AAR in. Keep up the great work.

[Exarch]

i like it
MOAR!!!!!

[Die_and_Walk]

Great aar.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 8 – Joscelin I . ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o~~<>~ .Part 3. ~<>~~o~~<>~~<>~~<>


Count Joscelin I was faced with a dilemma. The royal house of Poland still retained the official title of the Principality of Antioch, even thought their armies had been expelled from the Middle East. Usurping that title would take a lot of diplomatic skill and a lot of time. Furthermore, the Byzantines had a long standing claim to Antioch, and even the previous Principality was considered by them as a kind of vassal state, rather than an independent entity. The Turks, finally, had controlled Antioch for many years prior to the Polish crusade and were not indifferent to its changing status. Joscelin would have to tread carefully to avoid alienating his allies, so he took on the title of “Lord Protector of Antioch”, implying that he was to be the city’s caretaker until it could be returned to its rightful masters. By not going into the trouble of stating who those ‘rightful masters’ were, he could expect to capitalize on the optimistic expectations of all interested parties.

On turn 200 the remnants of Khanzada Chagurkhai’s army besieged Antioch. It was a desperate measure on their behalf, an attempt to frighten the Edessan army into the defensive, while the Timurids assembled their main armies to counterattack. Joscelin sallied and scattered the enemy. Leaving a small garrison to protect Edessa he took his army to the field, to face the inevitable Timurid onslaught from a position where he could maneuver into battlefields of his choice. His first chance to prove his aggressive strategy was when a well experienced Timurid army, equipped with rocket launchers, according to scouts, approached Aleppo.



Joscelin attacked from higher ground, sending his cavalry to neutralize the rocket launchers before the enemy, a certain captain Yedi, had time to move them behind the protective wall of his halberdiers. 778 Timurids, out of a total of 832, were cut down, as their army was destroyed in detail, while the Edessans mourned 248 out of 1389 men. Joscelin was steadily gaining reputation as a great commander, and this battle helped to solidify that perception among friend and foe alike.

The next year was spent in preparations, as the Timurids planned their next move. But the next move came, once again, from another direction. Mongol armies were crossing the territory of Antioch on their return north, with Edessan guards keeping an uneasy eye on their progress when one of them, sparked by an unknown incident, camped around the city’s walls, while its captain expressed his determination to sack the city. Ubaldo was woken up to those news in his chambers in Adana, so he put on his diplomat’s clothes and paid a visit to the local commander.

“I thought we had cleared this up the last time, your eminence...”

“That man is mad! Either that or he was provoked! The great Khan has no interest in wasting his time and his armies besieging insignificant cities in the south!”

“Be that as it may, my count will not let this slide so easily. His army is on its way to lift the siege, and he does not take kindly to people who abuse his rights of passage. But I suppose one less army will be of little concern to the great Mongol Empire...”

“A messenger has already been dispatched to order our army to lift the siege! This is a pointless situation”

“Ah, but I’m afraid your captain’s reckless army has already put us in a state of war. And considering the lost revenue from the siege and the devastation inflicted upon Antioch’s countryside, my count will have a hard time forgiving this transgression. It is a matter of honour, you see...”

“What will it take to make this situation go away?”

“A single payment of 12,000 gold florins should be enough to appease my lord...”

“12,000 gold florins!? Are you out of your mind?”

“Honour, your eminence; honour. You can hardly put a price on that.”

“I’ll notify the great khan...”

A few weeks later, a caravan loaded with gold made its way to Edessa. One of the caravan servants looked particularly despondent as the gold was deposited into the Edessan treasury. Only weeks ago he was the proud commander of a Jihadist Mongol army...


Joscelin was pleased to learn of this turn of events, but matters of greater importance monopolized his attention. On turn 203 a small Timurid army besieged Antioch, at the same time, a large army moved east to engage Joscelin’s forces, while a third army, the most formidable of all and commanded by Khan Shahrukh the Pious, followed in reserve.



Joscelin prepared his defences on a ford of the river Orontes, flowing between Antioch and Aleppo. His army was well equipped with elephants, horse archers, and a balanced mix of spearmen, swordsmen and knights. Since the conquest of Antioch, a large number of Norman knights were drawn into his army, impressed with the tales of his accomplishments, and eager to partake in future acts of valour. They served both as mounted and as dismounted knights. Also, fresh units of Muslim archers were incorporated into the army, as Joscelin was seen as a liberator of peoples and the arch-enemy of the dreaded Timurids. The enemy army was commanded by captain Usun, and it was a well experienced and battle-hardened force, including dozens of elephants, who would prove devastating in the course of the battle.

The battle began with an exchange of artillery barrages, as elephant-mounted cannons on both sides punished the infantry and cavalry formations across the ford. The Timurids charged across the river with fury, elephants first, creating an almost unstoppable moving wall, as cannon balls bounced around the bloody mud, goring men of both sides indiscriminately. Joscelin’s elephants suffered from that artillery exchange, as they sustained many casualties from the enemy cannons that were in a higher elevation.



After much fighting, desperate stands and cavalry counterattacks, the attacking Timurids were spent, and they were butchered mercilessly. Their elephants on the other side of the river had run out of cannon balls, so Joscelin lifted up his sword and shouted to his regrouping arquebusiers and elephants in the distance. “We’re going elephant hunting, men!” The excited, and still untired, arquebusiers rushed across the river and started firing at the hapless enemy elephants. It was a tricky business, as the beasts were heavily armoured and fast, and could still trample a man if they got enraged, but after some time they had all been taken down. The most skillful arquebusiers received the husks of the elephants as trophies.



It was a great victory, but the threat of Khan Shahrukh’s army was now looming too close for comfort, so Joscelin reinforced his army with any reserves that could be mustered in the region, and waited in defence. Fortunately, the Egyptian alliance once again paid dividends, as an advancing Egyptian army in the south caused Shahrukh to turn his attention in that direction. Reports from the south recounted how he won every battle against the Egyptians, advancing towards Damascus, but his army of elite, irreplaceable warriors dwindled with each victory. The Khan was winning himself a defeat, and Joscelin resolved to take advantage of that before Damascus fell to the Khan. Antioch was left to its own devices, and the count led his army south, where armies were converging for the battle that would likely judge the war.

Antioch was not left defenceless. It militia formed over 500 spearmen, most of them heavily armoured and well skilled, and almost 200 pavise crossbowmen. On turn 204 the Timurid army assaulted the city, but its defenders pushed them back with relative ease, and the city was once again safe.



News of that outcome came as a comfort, though not as a surprise to Joscelin. By turn 205 Khan Shahrukh had placed Damascus under siege, and Joscelin’s army moved to position itself behind the khan. The Egyptian army of Damascus was led by general Habachi the Pious, a 62 year old cold and mechanical genius, who always took care to surround himself with learned people. He was the mastermind of the attritional war against Shahrukh, and had followed Edessa’s example by finding and hiring elephant mercenaries for his army. Joscelin was pleased to have such a competent ally for the upcoming battle. For himself, he had decided to allow his son, Fenso, to participate in the battle. Ever since Fenso’s embarrassing conduct in the battle on the Euphrates and the death of his youngest son, Censius, he had been reluctant to let his children fight alongside him. But he realised that he was growing old, and Fenso needed to establish himself on the world stage, as a leader of consequence.

The odds were good. 1322 Edessans and 799 Egyptians against 708 Timurids – even though those Timurids were arguably the toughest soldiers in the world.



The Timurid army found itself between two fronts. As the Egyptians were fewer an number and attacked from lower ground, Shahrukh wisely decided to direct his first attack against them. The Timurid elephants spread panic among the Egyptian lines, even as their own, fewer in number, elephants attempted to counter them.



Fenso, along with a contingent of Hospitaller knights, was dispatched to assist the allies, under cover fire from the county’s Turkopoles. Meanwhile, Joscelin’s main army descended upon the Timurid lines like a slow but unstoppable avalanche. As his brave men fought against increasingly desperate odds, the khan was beset by Edessan and Egyptian knights. Alone against multitudes, after all his bodyguards had been killed, he was finally struck down, by the sword of a knight of St. John.



After that, the Timurid army disintegrated. Joscelin lost 235 men and Habachi lost 371 of his own. But of the enemy host, it would have been a wonder if as many as a dozen men made it away from that bloody battleground, to try their solitary luck across a strange and hostile land.


A great celebration was held in Damascus at the end of the battle, to which Joscelin and his son were the honoured guests. The Timurids were now reduced to a few small armies around Acre, and were no direct threat to Edessa or Egypt. So, almost immediately after the celebrations subsided, the question of the ownership of Antioch arose in diplomatic circles. Joscelin knew he had avoided that issue for long enough. He had been hoping for a change in international relations that would allow him to take the title of prince. However, that was not the case. The Poles argued for their hereditary right, and their good relations with the Pope ensured his support on the matter. Faced with an unstable Polish Principality in a region that had grown quite hateful of the Poles, Joscelin decided to uphold the Byzantine claims and transfer authority of Antioch and Aleppo to the Roman Empire. The Byzantines, after the Mongol invasion of Asia Minor, had been reduced to the area around Trebizond, Peloponnesus in southern Greece and the island of Cyprus. With the granting of Antioch to them, they became eternally grateful to Edessa, further cementing the perfect relations the two states had enjoyed for the past four centuries.


On turn 206, the cathedral of Edessa was completed, a testimony to the grandeur of Edessa under Joscelin I’s reign. But Joscelin himself wasn’t in Edessa to see it completed. Soon after he had provisioned his army in Damascus, he once again took to the field. The war against the Timurids had become an obsession for him, and Fenso could not help but worry for his father whenever he saw the mad excitement that grasped him when he was making his campaign plans. The Edessan soldiers were tired and many of them were homesick, but their count was determined to put an end to the Timurid horde once and for all time.

A medium sized army was spotted on the border between Timurid lands and the province of Antioch. Joscelin’s army was twice as large as the Timurid one, and it was defeated at a cost of a third of its men, for only minimal Edessan casualties.

It was the year 1492 and as the county’s army continued south, the citadel of Acre appeared in the distance and Joscelin ordered his men to make preparations for a siege. Just then, a Timurid scouting force was spotted, and Edessan Turkopoles were dispatched to repel it. Timurid horsemen arrived from Acre to help their fellow warriors, and a part of Joscelin’s army took arms to join in the fight. As the incident culminated, the entire Timurid garrison came face to face with the whole of Joscelin’s army. The balance of power was equal, with 1482 men on the Edessan side up against 1359 enemies, mostly heavy lancers and mounted archers. The two armies began their maneuvers with their horse archers, the Edessans having a slight elevation advantage.



Soon the Timurid horsemen were pressing on all sides, while Edessan spearmen and pikemen marched forward to engage the enemy away from the vulnerable archers and elephants. Joscelin soon found himself engaged in melee against enemy heavy lancers in the left of his army, while Fenso was in a similar situation on the right. In the center, the spearmen received the thunderous charge of the lancers.



The battle was ambivalent for a long time. The spearmen barely held the line in the center, while the enemy horse archers were chased away from the flanks by Edessa’s cavalry. But then the elephants attacked at a gap in the center, causing panic among the Timurid horsemen. With the Timurid left offensive routed, the spearmen and elephants were free to turn their attention to other parts of the front, and Timurid pressure was soon relieved from everywhere. Their only small victory came when a group of javelin men closed in on Joscelin’s elephants, and pelted them with javelins. The elephants tried to charge them down, but the attempt caused over ten elephants to be killed.

At the end of the day, the Edessan army had lost 607 men, but the Timurid army was no more. Acre was alone in the distance, without a garrison, just waiting to be taken.

“This is it” said Fenso, wiping the blood off his helmet. “The last Timurid stronghold. Our war is over!”

Joscelin was breathing heavily under his armour, and his eyes were gleaming maniacally at the citadel in the distance. But then his expression changed. His face became strained and he called for all horsemen to assemble by his side.

“It’s not over. There is still one Timurid general, one called Oldaghar. I have heard his name spoken, but he was not among the leaders of the army we destroyed. No doubt, he will try to lead the remainder of his people to freedom. He will try to resurrect the horde. I cannot allow this!”

Fenso stared at him in confusion.

“Father, we have won! Even of some of those barbarians escape, they will never again be a threat to us. The Egyptians rule all the lands to the south, save Jerusalem, and their power is sufficient to deal with any Timurid remnants. Let us go home and celebrate our victory! We haven’t even seen our new cathedral completed.”

“I know what the cathedral looks like! I’ve seen the diagrams! If you are so tired of fighting stay here with the infantry! I have enough knights around me, I don’t need any more! When the army reorganizes, march it against Acre. There should be no resistance – just the kind of battle that would suit you!”

With that he left to go shout at the Turkopoles to stop looting the corpses and assemble for a long march. Fenso watched him from a distance. There was nothing he could say to change the old man’s mind.

As night fell slowly upon the hills of Lebanon, Joscelin’s Turkopoles spotted a small army in the distance. It might have been trying to stay inconspicuous, but its ten elephants made that a hard feat to accomplish. Joscelin cursed under his helmet when he was informed of that. He should have brought elephants of his own, or archers with fire arrows, but there was no time. The enemy army was small, but each of its men seemed like a veteran of every war there had been in the region in the last twenty years.



True to his tactics, Joscelin led his horsemen to higher ground before engaging the enemy. With all his men assembled, the fires of unsuspecting Timurids down below flickering like fireflies in the distance, their light swallowed up by the void of air, Joscelin lifted his sword and gave the order to attack. Less audibly, after the first hooves hammered on the hillside’s rocks, he said: “here, it ends”.



The enemy was taken by surprise and many of them were killed by the showers of arrows before they could organize a defence. But when the horsemen of Oldaghar, now Khan Oldaghar, charged up the slope towards the Turkopoles, Joscelin and his bodyguards charged back at him. The impact of the two groups of horsemen was terrifying, but few were unhorsed, due to their carefully crafted armour and their great skill. The Hospitallers and a few remaining Norman knights joined in the fight. But Oldaghar had one last card to play. His elephants swarmed the Edessan knights, while he made his escape. He then charged the overwhelmed knights from a distance, even as his bodyguard was being pelted with arrows.



At length, the elephants started dropping, like little mountains in the falling night. Joscelin’s knights were being wounded or killed, but so were Oldaghars’. Finally, the few remaining men from both sides exchanged strokes, in the dancing shadows of three panicked elephants. The Turkopoles attempted to intervene, but the wild elephants held them back in caution. When the two remaining elephants ran away, bleeding from the multiple arrows lodged on their skins, the Turkopoles faced an unforgettable sight. A single Norman knight lay standing on his horse in the battlefield, while another Hospitaller knight had pulled his horse some distance away, too wounded to fight. And at the center, Count Joscelin I and Khan Oldaghar lay dead, the multiple sword and mace strikes having finally brought them to the end of their strengths, and the end of their lives.

The body of Count Joscelin was brought back to his son, who viewed the two remaining knights with horror. Acre still stood in the distance, but it was rumored that a local militia had barricaded it in the night. Locals. The Horde was no more.

“Do we continue with the siege, my lord?” one of his officers asked reluctantly. Fenso stared at the citadel for a minute, its ramparts barely reflecting the light of the rising sun.

“No. Tell the men we are returning home.” He looked at the body of his father; a tear momentarily reflecting the light of the sun falling on his cheek. “All of us.”

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~ . Chapter 9 – Joscelin II . ~~<>~~<>~~<>


Fenso led his father’s army back to Edessa taking the shortest route possible. The grief in the expressions of both his soldiers and his citizens over the death of their count could not mask the general happiness from the homecoming of the army and the end of the Timurid Wars. Fenso entered the city gate to a spectacle of funereal triumph. The main road was lined with people cheering, as purple petals were scattered ahead of the army from the rooftops, and from the immense height of the new Cathedral bronze bells sounded to a tune of more than earthly victory. Count Joscelin’s funeral was an event of much pomp that lasted for several days, only to be surpassed by Fenso’s coronation as Count Joscelin II.

Joscelin II’s rule began under the most peaceful circumstances since the reign of Baldwin II, at least for Edessa. In the west the Mongols, now bankrupt, were fighting a losing war against the mighty Hungarian Empire. Further to the west, another friendly empire, that of Portugal, was completing the unification of Iberia, much to the discomfort of the Papal States. In the year 1496 the last territories of the kingdom of Castile were conquered, and Portugal was left as the undisputed ruler of Iberia. But in the area around Edessa peace reigned, and prosperity was once again becoming something everybody could hope for in his lifetime. Towards that end, a new trade agreement was made with the Mongols, whose center of power was continuously being compressed to the east, but not enough to threaten Roman-ruled Antioch. Edessans profited from that situation, and the turn of the century found the city in the peak of its optimism.

Joscelin II was only too happy to steer the fortunes of his county towards peaceful avenues. He had come to hate war and the mentality it reinforced. He was a man of the arts, always had been, and would not risk another Edessan life in battle if he could avoid it. As the sixteenth century dawned on Edessa, he resolved to make the city a model for the civilized world. It was already a center of art and culture, but it needed something more, a monument to that age that would last until Judgement Day. The cathedral had seemed to him like an ambitious project when it was first began, but now it looked small and plain. Nothing like his visions and those of the artists he surrounded himself with. So, a new one was planned. The finest architects in the land were employed to design an ingenious projection of space, while dozens of sculptors and painters, from the famous art schools of Edessa and from all over Europe, set to work adorning the greatest cathedral ever constructed east of Constantinople.

Work had scarcely begun, when news of a most disturbing nature reached Joscelin’s court. The Turks of Jerusalem, having taken Acre, were now besieging Antioch (turn 212). Once again, war reared its ugly head in the Middle East. Joscelin would have none of that. Ubaldo Crescentius was dispatched immediately to the Turkish camp with an offer the Turks couldn’t refuse: an alliance with Edessa in exchange for peace with the Byzantines. The Turks agreed to that most generous offer, and the siege was lifted, ending four centuries of Roman-Turkish conflicts. Edessa was now allied to the Turks, the Egyptians, the Byzantine Empire and the vast Hungarian Empire, keeping all those realms at peace by virtue of their alliances with it. Harmonious relations were further solidified with the marriage of Joscelin’s sister Issabeta Scotti to the Byzantine prince and heir Myristikos, on that same year.

Six years later (turn 215), news came that the Mongols were soundly defeated by the armies of the Hungarian Empire east of Nicaea, and they had agreed to become Hungary’s vassals. That automatically triggered peace with Hungary’s allies, the Byzantines, and peace spread to all the lands south of the Black Sea.

Four years later (turn 217), Joscelin’s brother, and mayor of the city, Deo was wedded to the Byzantine princess Tobranna, while Joscelin’s son, Gano Scotti came of age. He was a rational young man, very much impressed by technology, although he shared his father’s extravagance. He too took pleasure in the artistic schools of Edessa, but he was even more interested in the strange inventions proposed by the city’s more technically minded artists. His father took pleasure in watching his son develop an interest in matters befitting men of wisdom, although he didn’t always understand the principles of natural philosophy and engineering he frequently tried to explain to him.

In the year 1516 the huge cathedral of Edessa was completed, after Papal approval. It was easily the largest Catholic cathedral ever constructed, and it filled the artists and people of Edessa with pride, not only for their accomplishment, but also for the short amount of time in which it was completed.



For four more years, peace reigned. Then it ended. The Turks, already of a most untrustworthy reputation, declared war on Egypt, while a great part of Egypt’s army was campaigning west against Venetian holdings in Libya. The result of that action was that Edessa had to cancel its alliance with the Turks. Damascus soon came under siege, and the nobles started pressing Joscelin to take action, since the Egyptian garrisons were too small to withstand the Turkish army. Joscelin had to agree with them on principle, but he deferred decisions to future meetings after the Edessan army was reorganised and new information came up about the balance of power in Damascus. A decision was never reached, until Damascus fell to the Turks and Joscelin argued that it would be senseless to get involved in a war of choice without an allied city close to the Turkish territories. The nobles argued back that he was a coward and a disgrace to his father’s name, but they were careful not to say that in public, since the people of Edessa still adored their count.

On turn 223 Hungary’s war with Denmark led to its being excommunicated and a crusade called on Constantinople by the Pope. The Pope also specifically requested that Edessa call off its alliance with Hungary and join the crusade. Joscelin was appalled at the thought. All his work, spreading an intricate web of alliances to ensure lasting peace, was being dissolved, first by the Turks, then by the Pope. The nations of Europe were marshalling their armies against the most powerful Christian empire, and Edessa was called to change its allegiance and join them.

“No way!” Joscelin exclaimed to no one in particular.

“What reply shall we give to his Holliness the Pope?” asked a prominent noble.

“Nothing. We give no answer. Let them think we are making preparations until, God willing, some miracle happens and the crusade is called off or the war ends.”

“This does not sound like a very respectable course of action. If your father were still alive...”

“If my father were still alive, he’d do the same! Only he would then land fifty men in Latium, attack Rome during the night and slay the Pope! That’s what kind of a man my father was! Now, I have made up my mind, and my answer is clear: we wait it out.”

The next years continued to be a peaceful time for Edessa, but it was an uneasy peace. The promise of lasting harmony seemed like a rude farce, as the rest of the world sunk deeper and deeper into the murk of war. In the year 1530 a census of the population of Edessa was conducted. Edessa’s citizen population was established at 50248 souls, not counting foreigners, servants and slaves.




Joscelin II stared out of his palace window at his populous city, with his brother, Deo, at his side.

“It really is something, isn’t it Deo?”

Deo smiled almost sadly before answering. “Yes. Something indeed.”

“The world didn’t turn out quite the way we planned, did it? Our quest for a world without war, a world of art and science...”

“A world for people like Gano.”

Joscelin smiled. “Yes. A world for people like Gano. Did we let those people down, Deo?”

“Let them down? I don’t think any other count has done more to promote peace and the arts than you have in your lifetime. No. We did all we could. All we could so far, at least. But the world is a large place, and Edessa’s influence only goes so far.”

Joscelin was silent for a few minutes. His stare was lost on the arabesque patterns on the various buildings along his line of sight, leading up to the many-coloured majesty of the cathedral.

“Most of Europe is at war. Egypt is hurrying back its armies from Libya to counterattack the Turks in Gaza. Where do you think we fit in, among all that?”

Deo thought about it for a few seconds and then replied “We fit in where we always did. In our little spot of the world, far away from it all, never yielding to the threats of others, be they Popes or Emperors, or the Great Khans of Asia!”

Joscelin smirked and looked at his brother. Then he turned back towards his city, as a flock of birds flew up like a cloud from the cathedral’s bells that sounded the time of day.

“You know what, Deo? I think we’re going to be alright.”

The End

[Seleucos of Olympia]

<>~~<>~~<>~~ The Chronicles of Edessa ~~<>~~<>~~<>
<>~~<>~~<>~~o . Maps, Cast & Extras . o~~<>~~<>~~<>

"We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence
And are folded in a single party.
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching. "

-T.S.Eliot, "Little Gidding" (Four Quartets)

The World of 1530 A.D.





The House of Baldwin







Official portraits of the Counts of Edessa





Deleted scenes:


















ORIENS EST DEMENTIAM

[Exarch]

truly
one of the most AWESOME AARS i've ever read
you have a gift of telling stories, are you into making films as well?

i think it's interesting thta you only stuck with edessa and didnt really try to expand