[ETW AAR] Courland - The dream of an indepedent baltic state
Welcome to my second AAR about Courland, I hope you'll like it. Shortlinks to the different chapters:
Chapter 1: Taking Estonia & Livionia
Chapter 2: A great diplomatic victory!
My maingoal in the beginning will be to secure the homelands of Courland, almost everybody hates me, so I think that will be a challenge. After that I'm intended to start colonies in the other theatres. It's not my goal to conquer entire Europe or even the Baltic, so my focus there will be to find diplomatic solutions and the main goal shall be to support my allies and help them getting a greater influence into Europe.
Chapter 1: Taking Estonia & Livionia
It is the year 1700, summertime, Courland is an independent nation, after years of war they aren’t really accepted yet, through the years Sweden, Prussia, Poland-Lithuania and Russia have tried to claim the land and they still don’t really accept Courland as an independent nation. There is a lot of historical grievances with every nation, but since the last war peace has been made with Poland-Lithuania. Courland became in exchange for half of their income a protectorate from Poland-Lithuania. Not ideal, but there wasn’t really another option because otherwise they would have been taken by force, if not by Poland-Lithuania then by one of the other enemy’s of Courland.
But all that is about to change, Courland has a new king now, king Friedrich the first, he’s a man that knows what he wants and with a vision. He was the one that had made the alliance with Poland-Lithuania possible and with the south secured Courland can now concetrate on the North, where Swedish are gathering. King Friedrich has a vision of an independent Baltic state, however the swedish have lots of influence in the North in Estonia & Livonia, lands that should be Courlands. War is about to come, but first preparation had to be made. Courlands economy is still weak and the first priority king Friedrich I sets is to stimulate the economy by improving the crafts workshop and the roads, also instructions are given to improve the military barracks. Taxes are lowered to stimulate the population growth. The only trade partner Courland has at the moment is Poland-Lithuania an important point on the agenda is stimulating population growth and emigration to Liepaja, a small fishertown at the baltic coast. Preperations are made to expand the port into a great trading port. In the summer of 1700 king Friedrich the first also fired many ministers in his cabinet and replaced them with people better suited for the job.
A month later time has come to scout Riga, the capital of Estonia & Livonia, there was stationed a Swedish army with much more strenght then Friedrich expected, but without their general their morale would drop and with no Swedish reinforcements nearby there would be no way out. Word is given to our rake to eliminate the Swedish general.
After the succesfull assisination king Friedrich officially declared war on Sweden and our troops marched from Jelgava to Riga.
The Swedish where in advantage on every front, their numbers where greater, the city was surrounded by great walls and they also had better troops stationed, where general Eberhard had only militia. So general Eberhard laid siege to the city, storming the fort would be suicide, they would have to be patient.
In the Fall Polish troops arrived at Riga, they where send to help in the battle.
‘Polish troops have arrived, general’ said an officer. General Eberhard looked up ‘Polish troops, ah that’s good I expected that we would have to win this battle on our own, send their general in please.’ ’Sir there is no general, but I could send in the officer?’ ‘well ok, send him in then’. The general frowned his eyebrows and waited. The Polish officer came in ‘Sir, we are send by the Polish minister of war and have orders to take Riga right now’ General Eberhard was confused ‘you want to take Riga right now? You should better wait we’ve laid siege to Riga and the Swedish army can’t escape, we’ve assassinated their general and still have a man on the inside, we should better wait, their moral is already low, but they are still strong enough to put up quite a fight, it would cost to many lives if we’d storm the fort now.’ The Polish officer answered angry. ‘We should attack now, you’re wasting time, if you aren’t coming with us we’ll march on our own, but when we return and our government hears how you refused to fight with us, you’ll have a problem’ Eberhard was getting angry ‘Wait a minute, you’re here to assist us, I’m the general here and I say we’ll wait’ the officer answered ‘We are not here to assist you, we are here to take Riga for Poland and Poland is asking for your help’ General Eberhard smiled ‘Well well if that’s so, go ahead, take Riga for Poland, but don’t expect our help, we have laid siege to this city for a half year now and you want to claim it for Poland? Haha and you seriously expected that I’m stupid? Go ahead, attack the fort, but you’ll find nothing but your own dead.’ The officer was getting red ‘ok, we will attack and we’ll show you how great the soldiers of Poland are and wait till my superior hears of this treasury’ The officer went outside and general Eberhard called his officer with him and said ‘kill any messenger he might send back to Poland and if anyone survives the attack on that fort and returns, kill them, if word gets out to Poland we might lose them as an ally, but we sure aren’t going to help them to steal this victory from us.’
And so it happened, Polish troops stormed the fort but didn’t stand a change, the sixteen men that survived where executed by the troops of Eberhard. To sad it had to go this way, but letting them live was just too risky.
It was at the end of the winter of 1701 when the situation escalated, cavalry from St. Petersburg had arrived to support the troops in Riga, the lead the attack on general Eberhards army.
The men prepared for battle.
Canons are ready to fire and the militia have taken a stand in the trenches.
After a crushing volley from the cannons and after that running into a full line of fire from our militia the cavalry quickly routed, without even reaching our lines.
But while we were occupied by them Riga has emptied and Swedish armies are attacking us from the left flank. Quickly general Eberhard sends his pikemen to keep the Swedish line infantry occupied, while militia are forming a new line to open fire on the Swedish. The second regime of militia is send towards the left flank to, while the cannons keep firing on the routing cavalry.
The militia men gave a crushing salvo on the Swedish line infantery and the pikemen that are storming our line. Then general Eberhard does something very brave, he and his cavalry took the left flank and then made a sharp maneuver to the middle, behind our pikemen and they charged through a small gap between the Swedish pikemen and our own pikemen. Behind the enemy lines the Swedish militia weren’t prepared for such heroic action and general Eberhard and his bodyguards charged right through their lines. Meanwhile the 2nd militia regiment was in place and opened fire on the pikemen on their left flank. They didn’t knew where to go, when they charged on the 1st regiment of militia they were surprised by the flanking maneuver of general Eberhard, when they tried to stop him the 2nd regiment of militia was just in place to open fire on them, after that 1st regiment opened fire on them again. General Eberhard repeatedly charged from the back and the civilians that had volunteered to help defend Riga quickly routed in panic, not long behind that the pikemen where slaughtered and the militia where send routing to. Without a general giving clear orders the Swedish didn’t knew how to react. With all their friends routing the Swedish line infantery finally broke and fled back into Riga with the rest of the Swedish army. A great victory had been won by Courland.
After this great battle the siege continued, the Swedish had stayed close to their fortress and when they routed back to the fortress general Eberhard decided not to follow them, because it with still be a great risk to storm the fort and when the Swedish had regained their faith it would have been hard to take Riga, even though we had won this victory, they had to be patient and not storm the fort without thinking.
They kept siege till the next fall, after more than a year they had laid siege to Riga, Swedish troops realized they couldn’t get through the winter and in the fall of 1701 they tried to break out.
General Eberhard had his troops already ready and the militia and pikemen took place behind the trenches.
As soon as the Swedish army became within range the militia opened fire along the line.
(I really don't know what that dude is doing in the front line, guess he's a badass ninja pikemen or something :p)
After the first volley the pikemen climbed out of the trenches and charged on their right flank, covered by the artillery. The entire right flank was covered by civilian troops, they didn’t stand a chance against our pikemen and quickly routed, while our pikemen moved along their right flank attacking their militia and pikemen in the back at the same time, general Eberhard charged on their left flank and surprised their line infantry. Unfortunately they charged right into Swedish pikemen after they had cut the Swedish line infantry, General Eberhard was hit in his chest and died on the battlefield.
After that our militia fired a volley on the Swedish breaking the morale of the Swedish militia, the generals bodyguard directly followed them and slaughtered them. Soon after that the Swedish pikemen and their line infantry also routed, their pikemen were chased right into our lines by our pikemen, where they got slaughtered by our militia. The Swedish line infantry routed into the woods while they were being chased by the last bodyguards of general Eberhard, nobody saw or heard anything from them again.
The battle was won, but at a high price, general Eberhard died a great lost for Courland. When King Friedrich the first heard of his heroic dead he proclaimed a day of mourning.
But Riga was taken and the entire country of Estonia & Livonia was under Courlands control. Quickly king Friedrich gave orders to rebuild Riga and reinforce the armies, also a new general had to be promoted. But that could wait. That winter of 1701 a new general was appointed.
Rüdiger Gerdes was now responsible for leading the armies. Riga was further restored and also the weavers cottage and roads where being upgraded.
After this great victory on Sweden there is still much unsure about the future of Courland, but they had proven that even with smaller numbers they were able to hold their grounds and take Riga in the end. Let’s hope they hadn’t wakened a sleeping giant. Sweden wouldn’t be happy with this act of war and they should prepare on a counter attack. King Friedrich had send diplomats to Russia to discuss a trade agreement and maybe an alliance against the Swedish, if they could get an Alliance with Russia they would have a strong ally in their war against Sweden, but will the Russians agree with King Friedrich’s terms?
More the next update, please let me know what you think about it, I’d tried to take screenshots with another program and hope my story telling is getting betterDecided to started again with this AAR because the other one was written 3 weeks ago and it wasn't such a good start
Please give me feedback, it's my second AAR so I still have a lot to learn
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I couldn't afford to get into war with Russia, so this chapter was mainly concentraded on getting those stubborn Russians to sign an alliance 
