[SS 6.4] CHRONIKON TON BASILEION - Byzantine, Early Era, AAR (Ended because of lost savegames)

[Roman Heritage]

Reading this makes me want to do another M2TW AAR. Good memories. I like how you're weaving the events of the game into your story. The Hungarian Civil War was a nice touch. With the new Hungarian King finally secured in power, the Byzantines make have a big problem on their hands. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Also great work making a list of characters and having a short description of their importance to the story. It's always great to have guides like these in the OP.

Thank you for the appreciation, Scottish King Yeah, I actually liked a lot writing about the Hungarian Civil War. I thought other factions needed some "characterization" as well. Also, it's really funny to me to write down the history of those factions, too. It's really amusing looking at the map, seeing how much have they grown/decayed and imagine a story to justify it all Also, I think it adds personality to an already really, really enjoyable game...I've never cared so much about a single campaign. I love it.

[Caesar of Rome]

Just refreshing!! The details and plot make it a fast-moving tale.

Keep it up - especially when I can't go on writing my AAR for force-majeure-like reasons.

[Roman Heritage]

Thank you for the appreciation, Caesar! Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't update yet - you seemed able to update pretty often. I did it too, in the beginning, yet, as the AAR grows, it becomes harder to find logical causes and storytelling to the game. Can't wait for your update, too - I'm curious to see where you'll be heading to. You left us right before the big target was hit

[Roman Heritage]

So, here's your usual update, guys! We've now reached our twentysecond chapter - I've never gone this far in an AAR (since my previous one was for Rome II, and the game had really, really made me sick, this should not be such a surprise ) and we could say things are getting serious. I'd like to thank you all for your feedback and attention, writing this down has been really, really sastifying. By the way, hope you enjoy this chapter, while I start thinking about the next one

Chapter XXII - The Winds of Winter (1197-1200 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The crowning of Bòkoni I of House Esterhàzi opened a third chapter - which would be the last - in the First Balkanic War, as the conflict would have been known to scholars and historians in the following centuries. From his capital of Esztergom, and his authority consolidated over the whole of Hungary's balkanic and germanic holdings, Bòkoni took wise decisions in order to save the Kingdom. To resolve the shortage of manpower due to both the defeats suffered by Efarestos, Heinrich VI and Dobrogost of Kiev, and the Civil War, the new King invited foreigners to settle in Hungary and recolonize depopulated areas such as Bessarabia, the Carpathian Basin and Croatia. His call got answered by men of nearly each neighbouring Country; christianized lithuanians, bohemians, what had remained of the Pecheneg hordes, and even refugees from the Kingdom of Poland - destroyed by the growing threat posed by the Lithuanian tribes - crossed Hungary's borders and resettled in strategical areas such as Bessarabia, Transylvania, Croatia and Austro-Bavaria. Thanks to the influx of colonists, civil war veterans and his Hungarian vassals, Bòkoni quickly re-established Hungary's military power, making plans for the defense of the three areas he thought prone to foreign threat: Bessarabia, Austria and Croatia.
Command of the Bessarabian strongholds and garrisons - over which the Kievan pressure had never been so strong since Bulcsù's early years of reign - got entrusted to Bòkoni's lieutenant Ladomer az Akùs, while the King himself led up to a third of his newly formed army West, to Tyrol and Austro-Bavaria, constantly under the threat posed by Emperor Heinrich VI. The remaining two thirds of the colonists and veterans camped in Croatia, under command of his father-in-law, the old and experienced Poszony a Bòr Nembòl. The King had wisely placed the great majority of the forces at his disposition in Croatia, well knowing that a Byzantine break-through in this region would have put in terrible danger the heartland of Hungary, thus cutting him out of supplies and reinforcements.



For invading Croatia was, indeed, Efarestos' next goal; before achieving this goal, however, the Emperor had to deal with the gaps that had opened in his Empire's government after the closely following deaths of the old-aged Corinth's Catapan Iustinos Vriennios, and his Megas Logothethes Heraklios Iagaris - who both had played a key role in his establishment as Basileus. The Basileus, after careful thinking, decided to assign the charge of Megas Logothethes to his Symbasileus Kekavmenos, whom had already shown his administrative skills by ruling over Cappadocia and Cilicia after Efarestos' anatolic campaigns; as for the Catapanate, Efarestos didn't decide yet, procrastinating the decision to the end of the war. Then, he turned his eyes on war matters by sending his son Zakarias north, at the head of a small vanguard with which he had the role of opening his father's the way to Zagreb.


Given the small trouble he had met in his advance north, Zakarias didn't stop after the first snow, which that year had came earlier, in October. The young prince brought his small host even norther, clearing the countryside from small hungarian raiding parties and reaching, within 22nd October 1197, the Sava river, crossing it and penetrating in Croatian territory as far as the small town of Petrinja without much trouble. In the following days, however, Zakarias received warnings from his scouts about the advance of a small magyar army, approaching from the north and composed of local nobles and their retinue.

ù

While Zakarias wisely drew back his forces to safer position, the young and inexperienced noble at the head of the magyar host, Dènes a Pèc Dènemb, didn't stop his march even after he had acknowledged the enemy's numerical superiority. In the plains of the Sava thus began a fierce fight between Zakarias' men, entrenched behind the cover of pointy wooden stakes, and the proud magyar feudal levy. The enemy's inexperience and lack of cohesion gave Zakarias the chance to repel their attacks, which each noble led almost alone and without co-organization. Demoralized, disorganizated and under the costant arrow shower of Zakarias' archers, the enemy's impetus began to decrease and fade with each passing charge they led. At the end of the day, Zakarias had gained an easy and clear victory.



Yet, Zagreb surely wasn't ripe for the taking. The experienced and skilled Poszony had in fact almost reached this large town, thus making byzantine conquest costful, if not impossible. Efarestos, who had joined his son nearby Petrinia with his far larger host, resolved to camp on the southern shore of the Sava, waiting for Poszont to make the first move, something the old commander refused to do, instead reinforcing his hold on Zagreb and calling in aid Bòkoni, who had in the meanwhile achieved great successes in Austria.


There, in fact, the King had succeeded in relieving the Imperial's siege to Salszburg, defeating then the combined hosts of Heinrich VI and the Italian League in the battle of Innsbruck. The death of the Holy Roman Emperor in this occasion, and the disorganization that spread among the improvised allies after the debacle, led, in the Austrian exchequer, to an empasse really similar to the one that had fallen in Croatia.



While an empasse fell on the other fronts of the war, the Bessarabian one distinguished itself for the mobility with which the war progressed in the area. Led by Targoviste's Strategos, Gerasimos Apionas, and Kievan general Radimir Trubetskoi, the allied forces penetrated deeply in Hungarian territory in a scissor-like manouvre. Against the enemies' overwhelming forces, Ladomer az Akus Nembòl got first forced to fall back to safer positions, and then to entrench himself in Bessarabia's main stronghold, Baia, on the crossroads of the trade routes from Lithuania, what had once been Novgorod, Kiev and Byzantium.


The greco-kievan forces surrounded Baia in the Spring of 1199 AD, starting a siege that would continue until the first months of Winter. Facing the threat on near annihilation against the rigours of the cold season, the besieging commanders decided to risk, and launch an assault, on 12th Nobember 1199 AD.



The assault, initially, didn't progress well for the Empire. On the sector which Gerasimos had chosen to launch his assault, in fact, Magyar defenders fought with incredible ardour, managing to set afire the Greeks' elepolis before it could even approach the walls, and sallying out in order to destroy the ram, too.



While Gerasimos' attack faced its difficulties, Radimir's men fought with more favourable odds. Distracted from the fightings occurring against the Romans on the southern sector of the walls, in fact, Ladomer's men failed to stop the enemy's advance, which, thanks to the support of catapults, rams and ladders, finally managed to open several gaps in the defenders' deployment. Among the first mounted regiments which entered the city, a unit of muntenian stratiotai distinguished itself from the cover it provided to the advance of the Russians after the collapse of the Hungarians' positions.



In the meanwhile, a similar situation developed in the zone of Roman pertinence. After a fierce fight, the sally got pushed back, and the ram got enabled to break through the enemy's gates. While the besiegers rushed in, Ladomer's pavise spearmen sold their lives dearly, blockading and clashing against several enemy regiments right beside the gatehouse. It was now, however, too late: the larger part of the Roman army, following the example of their Strategos, rushed into the city, slaughtering every defender fool enough to whitstand their attack. In a matter of a couple of hours, the greater majority of the stronghold had fallen in the besiegers' hands, while Ladomer and a few remaining defenders ran for their lives into Baia's inner castle, which the besiegers attacked around midday.



The soldiers who manned the ram under the castle's gatehouse, however, never reached their goal. Under a wild and desperate knights' charge, led by Ladomer, in fact, the already decimated scoutatoi regiment melted down and abandoned its position in shame, after large casualties. It took the intervention of Radimir's picked cavalrymen to repel the enemy sally out, and put an end to the castle's resistance. Under the swords and maces of the Kievans, in fact, found death Ladomer himself, whose death finally convinced the defenders to give up and surrender.



While the Kievans took possession of the region, the situation on the Croatian front seemed to get even worst for both contenders. Joined by Bòkoni, the Hungarians' forces reached a total of some 20.000 men, in front of Efarestos' mere 12.000. While the Hungarians' numbers and better position gave the King a certain confidence in a matter of defense, they didn't yet give him the much needed tactical advantage he needed in order to overcome the combined-arms Roman army, which boasted, along with the traditional heavy-armoured Tagmatas and thematas, a certain number of artilleries and light mercenaries. Bòkoni's forces, in fact, were composed in a significative portion of inexperienced levies and mercenaries, beside the bulk of veteran Pavise Spearmen and Hungarian Noblesmen; with such a considerable number of unreliable fighters, Bòkoni didn't feel confident enough to attack. In a similar way, neither Efarestos did, outnumbered and facing the strong risk of losing which accompanied a field battle. The Basileus, in fact, had grown a rather formidable reputation as an experienced commander, yet through the long series of sieges and assaults he had led throughout his reign, not in pitched battles such as the one which his lieutenants tirelelssly proposed him. Facing the rigours of winter, with his supplies decreasing, old and tired, suffering of pneumonia, Efarestos, after a couple of skirmishes which led to nothing but a general worsening of his soldiers' morale, resolved to meet the enemy King in a diplomatic confrontation.


The whole center-european world held its breath, waiting to whitness the result of the confrontation among two of the most fierce powers of their Age. The two Majesties met in open ground on February, 1200 AD, near the village of Petrinja which had whitnessed Zakarias' first victory as acting commander. Under the shadow of a tall three, the two leaders and their retinues insulted, menaced, faced with rage each other, before coming to a conclusion. Both Majesties put aside their differences and suspicion and, in an atmosphere of mutual respect, simbolically shook hands, stipulating a momentaneous ceasefire, in the wait for signing a former treaty; the two met again in Spring in Belgrade, forging a Peace treaty which took its name from the pale-walled city. In base to the terms of the treaty, the Empire acknowledged Bòkoni as King of Hungary, yet over a much more mutilated Kingdom confronted with the one which had started the war a decade before, under Bulcsù I.



The King was in fact forced to surrender Salszburg and its outskirts to the Holy Roman Empire - now ruled by recently elected Philip of Swabia - and acknowledge Bessarabia's loss to Dobrogost the Mercyless of Kiev, along with byzantine rule over Serbia, Raska and Dalmatia. Nothing was instead speicified about Hungary's standing with the Reich, Kiev or the Italian League - meaning that the Hungarian King was recognized the right of continuing the war, or signing peace treaties with his other enemies. Efarestos, after all, didn't feel like he had the duty of guaranteeing his allies' rights by signing the Peace of Belgrade; it had been his people's blood the one that had been spilled the most against Hungary, in a war started by his Kievan allies. In an act of open mockery of the reasons which had led to the beginning of the war, Efarestos asked Bòkoni to accomplish Kievan rule over Bessarabia, handing him over, in the meanwhile, Muntenia and Targoviste, thus depriving Kiev of the chance of cutting Hungary off of the Black Sea in short term.
It did not really matter, however, for the Empire: after ten years, it was peace. After countless bloodshed, four words spreaded throughout the Empire while its soldiers marched back home: the war had ended.

[waveman]

I haven't read much yet, but I like what I've seen so far and I love the ambiance of the screenshots. Nice!

[Roman Heritage]

I haven't read much yet, but I like what I've seen so far and I love the ambiance of the screenshots. Nice!

Oh, thank you, Waveman! I must say I was a actually reading your AAR while I noticed you commented, it seems you're doing a nice job, too. As a note, I'd like to think my style has improved since the first chapters, so I think (hope) you might continue liking it xD

[waveman]

Haha thanks! I just saw your comment and I was like heyyy wait a minute..... "Roman Heritage?" That name sounds familiar.....
But yes in my humble opinion the writing improves greatly, and I am enjoying it very much

[Roman Heritage]

There you go guys, here's the new update sorry for the wall of test. There's actually a lot of roleplay in this chapter, hope you like it

Chapter XXIII - The Dance of Kings (1202-1204 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Shortly after the signing of the treaty, Efarestos I, now dubbed as the Conqueror for his great deeds in expanding and defending the Empire both East and West, started leading his army back home through the themas of Serbia, Vardaska, and Makedonia, disbanding his regiments as soon as they reached their homelands. During this journey, however, his pneumonia and the related sickness he had contracted during the Croatian campaign suddenly worsened, leaving the Emperor, now aged 65, increasingly weaker with each passing day. On 15th February 1202 AD, near the small makedonian town of Polikastron, Basileus Efarestos I Komnenos exhaled his last breath. He had reigned for nearly thirty years.



With the death of Efarestos I, the Empire suddenly fell in chaos and confusion. Shortly after his father's momentaneous burial in Thessalonica, Zakarias got acclaimed as Emperor by the deceased Basileus' veterans, which were more than eager to support the claim of that young prince who had proudly shown his valour and skill by fighting besides them in the Balkanic War. Despite his leadership over such a small, yet experienced and fierce army, in which even Efarestos' Varangians had chosen to stay, Zakarias' claim seemed nonetheless weak, as it got in fact contested by at least two seemingly reliable pretenders.



Shortly after news of the Emperor's death reached Constantinople, in fact, his old friend and collaborator, Symbasileus and Megas Logothethes Kekavmenos Vriennios, resolved to seize power for himself. He had lived for thirty years in the shadow of the man he had helped establishing as Basileus, fighting beside him in Anatolia and taking care of civil matters while he was busy campaigning against Hungary, or preparing the next steps for the Empire's expansion. The truth was that Efarestos was a soldier, and as a soldier he had lived; the real weight of administration had fallen on his Symbasileus, who had nonetheless had the chance to enjoy the benefits of power. It is said that it has been this appetite for power that led to Kekavmenos' seizing of the throne in March 1202 AD, which he prosecuted with the full support of the Council of Dynatoi over which he had presided as Symbasileus and Megas Logothethes during his friend's reign. With the Empress and the Council in his hands, guaranteed by his titles and the power derived from them, and backed up by the anatolic dynatoi, Kekavmenos' claim couldn't have been stronger.



Yet, Kekavmenos and Zakarias surely weren't the only claimers, as in the far lands of the Black Sea coast a third pretender emerged. From the Principality of Adjara's capital, Heraklea, the exiled Greek prince Heraklios Komnenos claimed his birthrights, which he had been spoiled of by his bastard brother thirty years before. Backed up by the almost independent khwarezmian amirs and warlords of Georgia and Armenia, Heraklios of Adjara invaded Karadeniz at the head of a large and cosmopolite army of georgian and adjaran levies, supported by seljuqs and khwarezmian independent warbands.




In June, 1202 AD, Heraklios defeated in a pitched battle trapezuntine Strategos Ioannis Kaspax, seizing Trebisond and its famed dockyards. With the Black Sea military fleet under his control, and his ranks increasing in numbers thanks to both his private resources, Khwarezmian funding and piracy, Heraklios started to impose his authority on the nearby settlements on the coast. Within the end of Summer, important trade hubs such as Bafra and Sinop had fallen in his hands.


Thus the Empire suddenly found itself split in three, with several more minor political entities emerging. With Kekavmenos' hold consolidated over the capital and Anatolia, and his uncle Heraklios' power growing on the Black Sea shores, Zakarias took Thessalonica as his capital, from where he tried to both reorganize his forces and gain allies, for his position was indeed, among the three pretenders, the most fragile and instable.
To his south, the loyalty of the Catapanate of Corinth, which had been ruled over by now deceased Iustinos Vriennios for almost half a century, was questionable; the Strategate of Athens, held by Tarasios of House Iagaris, had not yet expressed its alledgiance to neither Kekavmenos nor Zakarias.
To the north, the themas of Serbia and Raska were held by one of the commanders under which Zakarias had served, Veniamin Vriennios, first born son of Kekavmenos, whom, despite his marriage to Zakarias' sister Anna Komnena, had to be surely thought as unreliable at least. In the meanwhile, on the Ionic shores of the Aegean, an independent pole had emerged in Smyrna under the dominion of House Iagaris, which, under the guide of Heraklios' sons Davatinos and Iakovos, carved its own sphere of influence, waiting for the events to develop before picking a side. The majority of the dynatoi of Anatolia, on the other hand, had declared alledgiance to the Emperor in Constantinople and were now battling against Heraklionas under the guide of Kekavmenos' bastard son, Aemilianos, arose to the rank of Strategos of Caesarea . The situation simply couldn't have been more chaotic, and risked to render vain all of the efforts that House Komnenos had untertook in the previous century to recover Byzantium's power.


In such a chaotic situation, Zakarias got forced to seek for allies in order to recover the birthrights which the Symbasileus had spoiled him of. Bordering Veniamin Vriennios' dominions, the Catapanate of Ragusa was held by Apionnas Murtzuphlous, former Merarches of the Scholarii and one of Zakarias' first mentors in military matters. By convincing Ragusa to support his claim, the young prince, thanks to his authority over Makedonia and Vardaska, and Murtzuphlous' hold over Dalmatia and the Adriatic Sea, would have been able to cut Veniamin Vriennios off from comunications and supplies from both sea and land, thus depriving him of the possibility to help his father's cause; furthermore, with Ragusa's and Makedonia's fleets united under his vessel, Zakarias would have been given the opportunity to overwhelm Kekavmenos' forces in the Aegean, thus weakening his rival's position and perhaps convincing more dynatoi to support his claim. In June 1202 AD, more or less in the same period of his uncle's seizing of Karadeniz, Zakarias' alliance with Murtzuphlous started gaining the first successes.


Nearby the Greek isle of Tasos, in fact, Zakarias' fleet gained a clear victory on the more numerous, yet undermanned and with unfavourable wind, vessels of the usurper. Following this debacle, Kekavmenos was forced to whitness, unable to react, to Zakarias' seizing of the isles of Tasos, Lesbos, Lemno, Gokçe and Samotracia, which allowed the Komnenian prince to raid undisturbed his rival's supply convoys and cutting the capital off from the Aegean. With the avance of Autumn, and the following cold season, and his trade and supply routes in the Black Sea harassed in a similar way by Heraklios of Adjara's fleets, too, the Emperor in Constantinople passed through a far unpleasant Winter.


With the re-opening of the military fitting season, in Spring 1203 AD, Kekavmenos decided to take countermeasures in order to relieve the pressure that had increased over both the eastern and western fringes of his dominion. In April, his forces, led by his son Aemilianos, gained a clear victory over Heraklios' invading host at Heraklea Pontica, driving it back to Sinop, momentaneously relieving Adjaran pressure over Bithinia and allowing the usurper to set his eyes over Zakarias, whom, in the meanwhile, had greatly strenghtened his position. His reputation quikly grew among a large part of the Strategoi of Epeiros, Albania and Achaia, which, led by Athens' Strategos Tarasios Iagaris, swore him alledgiance after Zakarias' victory over Kekavmenos' vassal Gerasimos Apionas, the victor of Baia, at Sofia. With the fall of Bulgaria in Zakarias' hands, almost the whole of byzantine Europe had now passed under its control, with the exception of Thracia and Marmara, Serbia - still held by Veniamin Vriennios -, the Catapanate of Corinth and the major Aegean isles, Rhodes and Crete, which chose the path of neutrality.


With his son and heir trapped in Serbia, and his rival's reputation now consolidated among European Strategoi, Kekavmenos decided to launch a counterattack on Zakarias' holdings with two large columns of invasion. The first one, which was meant to be led by Gerasimos Apionnas and general Kalamodios Imerios, had the task of overwhelming Zakarias' weak and ill-consolidated Bulgarian positions, sweeping through the themas of Bulgaria and Vardaska, and relieve pressure on Serbia, opening a corridor between the Queen of Cities and Belgrade. The second one, instead, had to be led by the Emperor himself, who hoped to force his rival to fight against unfavourable odds and crush his rebellion in a single, well-planned pitched battle.


While his lieutenants' host quickly forced Bulgarian thematas to surrender and switch sides once again, before heading through Vardaska and getting stuck in the siege of Skopje, Kekavmenos' advance met troubles since its earlier stages. Continuously harassed by Zakarias' magyar auxiliaries, facing shortage of supplies and continuous desertion, Kekavmenos' army reached Chrysopolis, nearby the outlet of river Nestos, with only four fifths of its originary strenght, estimeed to be of at least 23.000 men.
Nearby the town, waited the less numerous, yet more experienced, hardened and galvanizeed army of Zakarias, which numbers shift, in historians' esteemes, between 12.000 and 15.000. Soon, the outskirts of this small and laborious city would become the theatre for the first relevant battle of the Civil War.



On 17th June, 1203 AD, the two armies clashed in a thunderous storm of blood, flesh, still and bones, as the fight lasted for the greater part of the day, from almost sunrise to twilight. At the end of the day, thanks to careful manouvring and by stimulating his soldiers to hold their ground by joining the fight in critical moments, Zakarias had managed to repel Kekavmenos' increasingly exhausted attacks, making his soldiers pay for each square inch of ground with their blood. Even clearer became the fact that the battle of Chrysopolis, despite both armies' efforts to overcome each other, had ended in a mere, violent and costful stalemate.
If Kekavmenos' goal was that of chrushing the young prince's ambitions and life, and Zakarias' one that of forcing the usurper to surrender the Crown by beating him badly on the field, both participants had failed that day, at an high cost in terms of human lives. Almost 7000 Romans found death that sunny Summer day.


However, among the two it was Zakarias whom had gained more, despite the dubious outcome of the battle. Shortly before the slaughter of Chrysopolis, in fact, Gerasimos and Aemilianos' siege of Skopje got interrupted by the arrival of a large relief force led by Apionnas Murtzuphlous and made up of dalmatian levies, Albanian thematas and bulgar auxiliars. When the two commanders' decision to whitdraw in Bulgaria reached Kekavmenos, the Emperor first retreated to safer positions, whitdrawing to the coastal town of Alexandropolis, and then recognized the overall failure of the campaign by leading his army to Adrianopolis, where he set up his headquarters waiting for his enemies' next moves.
The two half victories gained Zakarias the prestige needed to finally impose his authority on the whole of the European themas which had not declared for Kekavmenos. The Council of the City of Rhodes sent him gifts and proposal of alliance, while the Catapanate of Corinth fell in his hands after a brief campaign, and got assigned to one of his lieutenants, Sergios Akrotopolis. With Veniamin Vriennios now completely isolated in Serbia, and unable to assist his father 'cause of the ever threatening presence of Murtzuphlous' militias around his borders, Zakarias was given the chance to assemble at full strenght his forces and take the offensive, also thanks to his uncle Heraklios' behaviour in the East. There, after the debacle of Heraklea Pontica, in fact, Heraklios' had regrouped and filled his ranks with new levies and mercenaries, taking advantage of the absence of Aemilianos the Bastard to strike deeply in his enemy's territory. Within the end of the year, Heraklios' forces had annexed almost the whole of the anatolic Black Sea coast, going as far as to unsuccessfully siege Nicaea, before being pushed back once again by a desperate Vriennios' counterattack. With both fronts subjected once again to contemporaneous pressure, Kekavmenos' position started to stagger.


And so, year 1204 AD saw Zakarias finally pass on the offensive, after two years spent consolidating and defending his dominions. The young prince invaded Thracia at the head of a rather large army of up to 18.000 men, made up Efarestos' veterans, newly recruited thematas, bulgarian, magyar and croatian auxiliaries, and with a small chore of Varangians Guard which had survived both his father's Balkanic campaigns and the first two years of the Civil War. Kekavmenos, from his headquarters of Adrianopolis, rallied his forces and led them westward, meeting with his rival on May, 1202 AD, at the height of Xanthi, not far from the previous battle's site in Chrysopolis.




Under a leaden grey sky, the two commanders, whose effectives are reported to be almost equivalent in size, proved their best to outsmart and outmanouvre each other. Kekavmenos' placed his forces on a nearby hill, waiting for his enemies to strike at his strong defensive positions. Zakarias, wihout much persuading, accepted the challenge, ordering his men to march in close ranks at a slow pace, sending his missile troops forward to weaken the usurper's formation. Among his ranks, in fact, Zakarias disposed of fine archers such as the two battalions which constituted the Bulgarian Black Guard - which name is due to their peculiar habit of marching into battle with long, black robes -, some bosnian and slav irregulars and the renowned Mourtatoi, units of well armoure and trained archers, made up of citizens of turkoman and turkopole descent. After a prolonged exchange of missiles, not even the advantage of height allowed Kekavmenos' toxotai to offset the devastating volleys which the Bulgarians and Mourtatoi unleashed with their composite bows.
After the usurper's ranks had been disarranged, the young prince ordered his men to rush to the enemy's position, leading their advance at the head of his right cavalry wing. Zakarias' attack trampled the enemy's ranks, further disarranging them and exposing the enemies to a consistent javelin fire from his acritae. In the following meleè, the Varangians cut their way through the enemy's ranks with incredible ferociousness, actually splitting Kekavmenos' army in two and giving Zakarias the chance to put in action an enveloping manouvre on the enemy's left wing, thus isolating it from the rest of the army and causing the retreat of the other half, which started falling back, and escaped from the battle relatively intact. Kekavmenos' attempts to stop Zakarias' manouvres got vanified by the betrayal of his reserves, which fled from the field without supporting their comrades in their retreat. It turned to a slaughter, with at least 5000 deads among Kekavmenos' ranks, in front of a couple of thousand among deads and wounded in Zakarias' host. The self - proclaimed Emperor got forced to whitdraw, humiliated, after a battle lost because of his reserves' betrayal.


However, despite the clear outcome of the battle of Xanthi, Zakarias' strategical position didn't allow him to take advantage of it. With Kekavmenos entrenched in Constantinople, behind the world's most powerful and best built walls of the world, and Gerasimos Apionnas and Aemilianos approaching from the north and capable of cutting him off of supply lines, Zakarias decided to try to take advantage of his victory while it was still possible by entering negotiations with his rival. These negotiations led, in Summer 1204 AD, the signing of the Partition of Adrianopolis, a treaty in which both pretenders recognized each other's authority over half of the Empire, and allowed them both to rule as Symbasileus, co-Emperors. In base to the terms of the Partition, Zakarias renunced to his claims to Bulgaria, lending his rival the territories he had seized in Thracia and Vardaska, and allowing him to open a corridor with Serbia, where the stubborn defense of Veniamin Vriennios had humiliated Murtzuphlous' attempts to conquer Belgrade. In exchange to the cession of the northenmost European themas, however, Zakarias was recognized the right to rule over his European holdings - Makedonia, Epeiros, Albania, Achaia, Peloponnesos and Dalmatia - and was lended control over the Aegean archipelags, including the major islands of Rhodes and Crete. Furthermore, he got recognized a certain authority over Charia and Ionia - an actual mockery, since the region, firmly held by the Iagaris' brothers, had now reached an almost independent status -, while possess of the Queen of the Cities itself had to be divided, ideally at least, between both Symbasileus. In reality, Kekavmenos continued to rule independently over Constantinople, while Zakarias shifted his capital to the more centrally located city of Athens.
It became quickly clear,however, that the war had not even reached anything closer to its end. The most far sighted understood the real state of things, well knowing that diplomacy was only a last resource, a mean of gaining time. Rome simply couldn't be ruled by two masters.

[Treaper]

Nice as usual

[Roman Heritage]

Nice as usual

Thank you for the appreciation, Treaper it's always nice to see people get back here and comment. It must mean I'm not that bad at writing
Also, as a sidenote, I'd like to thank all those users who had not actually given their feedback, but have spent their time reading this AAR. Thank you guys, we're now at 3000 + views! That's a nice achievement, considering how I thought, in the first days, it would go unnoticed and it is surely encouraging me to write more. Better for me, and, I hope, better for you, too!

Chapter XXIV - *Se poion Theo thiathekhes ekei einai e Nike (1204-1207 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

* "To whom God wills, there be the victory".

The Partition of Adrianopolis didn't, in fact, really stop the fightings, as the treaty didn't mention neither Heraklios Komnenos nor his claims. More or less in the same period of Zakarias' victory ad Xanthi, the Prince of Adjara started a new series of raids at Kekavmenos' expense, destroying or seizing an uncountable number of enemy trade and military vessels, continuosly harassing his enemy's supply lines in the Black Sea. With control over the strongest and most numerous fleet in the whole Empire, Heraklios' naval superiority could, in the long run, simply determine his victory by starving to death Kekavmenos and his supporters. The renewed shortening of supplies convinced Kekavmenos to launch a strong counterattack to Heraklios' positions, which, thanks to his alliance with armeno-khwarezmian warlord Tahsin Saruhanoglu, had greatly strenghtened since the ceasefire with Zakarias.




The armeno-khwarezmian reinforcements led by Tahsin himself had in fact assured Heraklios renewed strenght in his quest for the throne. After the successes gained by the renewal of maritime raids, Heraklios and Tahsin had sieged and conquered together Nicea in May, 1205 AD, and then subsequently seized Abydos, basically splitting his enemy's dominions in two, making it difficult for Kekavmenos to establish contact with his Anatolian Strategoi. This wan't, however, a situation that Kekavmenos' anatolic supporter, led by his bastard son Aemilianos, would allow to last.
In Summer, 1205 AD, Aemilianos led in fact his forces in a furious attack to the enemy positions in Bithinia, recapturing Abydos and almost managing to seize Nicaea before being pushed back by Tahsin and Heraklios' lieutenant, Kalamodios Imerios, Strategos of Trebisond. Yet, this didn't stop Heraklios' admirals attacks to the Vriennios' positions: in September, a small adjaran fleet penetrated into the Golden Horn, Constantinople's port, burning a large number of enemy vassels before retreating. In a single move, what remained of Kekavmenos' naval power got literally reduced to ashes. Kekavmenos' answer was furious and successful: in a brilliant campaign, the Symbasileus reconquered Nicaea and Heraklea Pontica, inflicting Heraklios and Tahsin a bitter defeat at Kastamonu, the Komnenoi's ancestral seat of power. There he ackonwledged of the latest moves of Zakarias.



In the meanwhile, in fact, Zakarias had not stood idle watching. Since the days of the Partition, in fact, the young prince had started plotting the Symbasileus' downfall, retraining his army and seeking for foreign support to his cause. In May 1205 AD, as a part of a series of secret agreements with foreign powers, Zakarias wed Nadezdha Jaroslavich, daughter of Kievan Veliky Knyaz Dobrogost the Merciless. Along with his daughter, Zakarias received a consistent body of Varangian mercenaries, too, with which he re-filled his Guard's depleted ranks, and a well-sized financial contribution. Later historians claimed this marriage to be an attempt, on Dobrogost's behalf, to establish an alliance with the only claimant to the throne who still had the military and naval power needed to win the civil war and clear the Black Sea of Heraklios' dangerous presence, thus restoring the Kievan-Byzantine monopoly over it, weakened with the death of Efarestos and disappeared thanks to Heraklios' continuous raids.


In 1206 AD, Zakarias felt confident enough to declare war to Kekavmenos, busy in Anatolia, and launch a combined offensive on his territories. With the support, on the western flank, of Murtzuphlous, in fact, Zakarias quickly overran Serbia's western and southern defenses after having passed unopposed through the thema of Vardaska. After a clear victory on Veniamin Vriennios, Zakarias finally penetrated in inner Serbia, leaving his lieutenant Murtzuphlous finally able to siege and capture Belgrade. With Belgrade lost, his soldiers demoralized and deserting, Veniamin chose to retreat into Bulgaria, in order to join his forces with Gerasimos Apionnas.


As soon as news of Zakarias' treacherous acts reached him, Kekavmenos immediately left the Anatolic scenario, lending command of the campaign against Heraklios to Aemilianos the Bastard, and returning back in haste to Europe, where in the meanwhile Gerasimos and Veniamin had raised an army to repell Zakarias' invasion, which had now almost reached Sofia's gates.



The decisive fight took place on 23rd July 1206 AD, nearby Sofia, and involved nearly 50.000 Romans among the two armies. Both Zakarias and Kekavmenos knew well that the outcome of this day had to be victory, or death.


While Kekavmenos and Veniamin's regiments started to slowly march against Zakarias' host, the young prince ordered his archers, now bolstered by the Bosnian and Croatian mercenary battalions that Murtzuphlous had sent him, to unleash volley upon volley on the enemies' ranks, trying to spread confusion and open gaps in their deployment. Behind the archers, Zakarias disposed the achaian and makedonian thematas, putting his Varangians at their back, to act as a reserve force.
Under a continuous arrow fire, the Vriennios' army started to close the gap between the two armies, leaving a trail of dead and wounded behind it, yet nonetheless continuing marching forward, their ranks serried, their spears pointed forward. The Saints' ichons that emerged among both armies' ranks gleamed under the sun that shone over the plain, accompanied by the soldiers' chants, cryes and prayers.



Than, as the two hosts collided, the clash of steel, flesh, maces and swords obliterated every other sound, as the Empire's soldiers exchanged deadly blows in a fratricidal fight. Not even the thunderous charge of both armies' cataphracts managed to overcome that noise, made up of screams and laughters, cryes and swears, death and life. Under a charge led by Kekavmenos himeself, the komnenian lines scattered, than reformed, than scattered once again, as Zakarias' ranks started being pushed back, and his stratiotai and magyar horsemen routed.


But then, a wild cry emerged above the chaos, as Zakarias' Varangians charged straight into the enemy's exposed flanks, hacking and slashing among their foes' ranks. Zakarias himself then led his Athanatoi to one more charge against the enemy's left wing, enveloping them and forcing them to flee before turning their attention to the usurper's guard, recognizable from its purple and golden vessels. Kekavmenos, in fact, had gone as far as completely destroying the komnenian centre's first lines, penetrating deeply in their ranks and hacking and slashing at their will.
On the wings, however, the battle seemed to slowly swing in Zakarias' favour. Encouraged by their leader's bravery, the achaian stratiotai returned the battle, and started harassing Veniamin's forces with continuous charges. Under overwhelming pressure, Veniamin ordered his regiments to slowly fall back, in the wait for his reserves to join the fight. The manouvre, however, got misunderstood by the common soldiers: more and more regiments turned their backs and fled, leaving Veniamin himself, now facing almost half the enemy army, with no other choice but that of following their example.



Not so did Kekavmenos. The Emperor in Constantinople had penetrated too deeply in the komnenian lines, and was now isolated among his enemies, unable to rally his own, fleeing men. In an attempt to break the envelopment, he rallied his guards and charged once again straight into the enemy's ranks, inflicting them serious casualties before falling from horseback and continuing the fight on foot. He slayed several more foes, before being reached by an enemy javelin and find a noble death on the battlefield. It is said that his last words, as reported by one of his guards, who had enjoyed the privilege of fighting beside him in his last moments of life, and had then gotten miracolously spared from death in battle, had been:


"No shroud is better than Imperial purple. If every man must die, let me die today, as an Emperor".


Kekavmenos' death marked the end of the battle. The remains of his army that had not retreated with Veniamin Vriennios either fell in Zakarias' hands as captives, or deserted passing under his command, according to the behaviour they showed in the regards of the victors. Gerasimos Apionnas and a dozen of Strategoi stood out from the others captives, which numbers reached a total of five thousand. Up to eight thousand of Kekavmenos' soldiers met death that day or in those which followed, and another 4000 men passed to the Komnenian side. Veniamin, ashamed, defeated, his heart full of grief for his father's death, brought back to Constantinople only a mere 8000 men, with which he started to assemble the resistance.
Zakarias', on the other hand, suffered relevant losses - the total tolls span from 3000 to 6000 - which were anyway offset by the regiments which deserted in his favour. With this 22.000 man strong host, Zakarias, after having allowed Kekavmenos' body to enjoy Christian sepulture on the site of battle, advanced East, sieging Constantinople on 7th August 1206 AD. It should be said, however, that the real siege actually began a week later, with the arrival of Zakarias' rhodian and cretese fleets, led by Tarasios Iagaris, Strategos of Athens and Zakarias' Megas Doux, as without control of the sea it would have been impossible to actually conquer the city.


In the meanwhile, news of the Vriennios' european positions' collapse reached Aemilianos, busy in campaigning against Heraklios in Pontus. As soon as he acknowledged the great peril in which his brother and the Capital had been put by the disaster of Sofia, Aemilianos immediately halted his advance, leaving a mere token force to continue the hostilities with Heraklios of Adjara and hastening his march towards Nicaea; there, he joined his forces with the thematas of Charia, Licia and Smyrna, led by Iakovos and Davatinos Iagaris. With the Iagaris' reinforcements, Aemilianos' host reached a total of 20.000 men, more than enough to relieve Zakarias' siege and, perhaps, defeat him in battle. His advance finally brought him on the Dardanelles, where he sieged and conquered Palaikastron, before passing in Europe through the Dardanelles, left unguarded by Zakarias' admirals. His advance could have taken Zakarias by surprise, perhaps even enabling him to defeat the young prince, if it had not been for the Iagaris' brothers.


On the night 24th August, 1206 AD, a ten miles from the capital, disaster struck. The smyrnan and charian thematas turned against their cappadocian fellows, while the Strategoi of Galatia and Bithinia, confused and uncertain on what to do, found themselves unable to take a choice, with their regiments fleeing in despair, fighting for both sides, or simply awaiting for the fight to develop in one sense or another. While his troops got massacred treacherously, Aemilianos got betrayed and imprisoned by Iakovos and Davatinos, while his army couldnt do nothing to stop them. A third of the camp took fire, while the Iagaris' seljuq and turkoman mercenaries slaughtered what remained of the cappadocian thematas. On the following morning, Aemilianos was brought in chains at Prince Zakarias' camp, for the coup on that night of August was nothing but the crowning of a detailed, cunning and brilliant plan Zakarias had started elaborating with the Iagaris immediately after the Partition.


With his brother in chains, the relieving regiments defeated or passed on Zakarias' side, Veniamin finally ackonwledged defeat, and consigned the city, posing as conditions for the surrender the sparing of his own and his brother's life. Zakarias willingly accepted, and his forces entered the city on 26th August, thus putting an end to all of the Vriennios' dreams of power. The two were kept as hostages in the Bukoleon Palace, and the duty of looking after them given to Davatinos Iagaris, now entitled as Zakarias' Megas Logothethes; decisions upon their fate got ultimately postponed to end of the war.




For the war had not yet ended. In Anatolia, Heraklios and Tahsin had quickly overrun what remained of the Vriennios' loyalists, expanding their influence sphere as west as to Heraclea Pontica, putting once again Nicea under siege.
Despite the decline of House Vriennios, to which it had pledged alledgiance, the nicaean garrison put up a fierce resistance to Heraklios, pinning his forces down for at least a couple of week, and calling Zakarias in aid.
And so Nicaea served as the theatre of one more episode of the Civil War, the first involving the two Komnenoi claimers. On 22nd September 1206 AD, before the cold season could seriously delay his campaign, Zakarias' forces desembarked on the anatolic shore, accepting the surrendering of Abydos, which Aemilianos had captured the previous years. From there, Zakarias led his host North-East, towards Nicaea, where, in the meanwhile, Heraklios had ackowledged his moves and prepared for battle, which took place on 29th September.



Heraklios' hordes - made up of large numbers of khwarezmian, seljuq, georgian, armenian, cuman, russian and kurdish mercenaries, supporting a small Roman chore - tried their best to offset the undeniable advantage Zakarias' men enjoyed in training and discipline, which ultimately gained them victory after bloody meleè, in which the Iagaris' regiments played a key role. The pitched battle, however, didn't determine significant changes in the immediate outcome of the war, as the arrival of the cold season deprived Zakarias of the chance to prosecute the campaign in pontic territory, thus only determining the definitive shifting of Nicea to his side; both claimers spent the following winter preparing for the renewal of hostilities.


On Spring, 1207 AD, Zakarias' armies crossed once again the Bosphorus, marching on the coastline in order to be supplied by the Symbasileus' fleet. Zakarias' advance took by surprise Heraklios' lieutenant Kalamodios Imerios, whose defeat at Kastamonu opened Zakarias' the way to Sinop. In order to save this important coastal stronghold, Heraklios rallied his forces and started marching westward, sending his fleet forward to deprive Zakarias of his own.
The decisive naval clash took place nearby the coastal city of Amasya, in Pontus, on 21st May 1207 AD, and ended up as a decisive victory for Zakarias' Megas Doux, Tarasios Iagaris.


Deprived of the protection of the fleet, with Zakarias' host quickly approaching and tired of Heraklios' mercenary garrison's excesses, the population of Sinop uprose against their adjaran masters and butchered them, surrendering, on 1st May 1207, to Zakarias' vanguards.
As soon as news of Sinop's fall reached Heraklios, the Adjaran Prince stopped his march and took control of the strategically relevant outlet of the Kelkit, where, seventy years before, a young and unexperienced Philippikos II had suffered his first defeat at the hands of seljuq Amir Ozan Gazi.



The battle for the Kelkit, on 1st July 1207 AD, was the last act of the Civil War. Heraklios' adjaran forces, which he had put on the first line, cowardly fled in front of the impetuous assault of Zakarias' Varangians, and exposed their khwarezmian, armenian and georgian comrades to the Byzantines' advance. Heraklios' furious attempts of destroying the bridge-head seized by the Varangians led to nothing but to a further demoralization and weakening of his own army, for the Varangians, backed up by a small regiment of acritae, not only managed to hold the adjaran assaults, but even allowed Zakarias' cataphracts to safely reach the other bank of the river. In front of the thundering charge of the Scholae, Heraklios' cosmopolite host melt like snow under the sun, thus putting an end to the battle, and the war. Heraklios and Tahsin, in fact, barely escaped from death, recovering to Trebizond at the had of the skeleton of what had been their impressive host.
There, the remains of their army got reinforced by Kalamodios Imerios, whom had escaped capture from Zakarias by seeking refuge in the difficult exchequer of the Pontic Alps. Bolstered by Imerios' regiments, the Adjaran armies managed at least to push back Zakarias' attempts of expelling his uncle from the thema of Karadeniz, and thus allowed Heraklios to achieve peace with an Empire he had long struggled to take control of. Shortly after the signing of the ceasefire, Tahsin abandoned Heraklios to his fate, embarking in an attempt to unify the armenian amirs under his control; in less than a year, Heraklios' dominions, which once stretched from the Bosphorus to the Caucasus, were reduced to the mere Principalily of Adjara, and Trebizond and its outskirts, where Imerios, anyway, started an ambiguous policy trying to satisfy both his rightful master, and his powerful Roman neighbour.



Anyway, the Komnenian prince's victorious return to Constantinople opened a week of feasts, which culminated, on 24th December, with a postumous Triumph he dedicated to his father's memory, and his new burial in the Pantokrator Monastery. A new reign began then on the night of Christmas, 1207 AD, when Zakarias let the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergios Axuchion, crown him as sole Basileus ton Romaion in Hagia Sophia, at the presence of embassies and rapresentants of the known wolrd's greatest monarchs. It didn't really matter if the Civil War alone had costed the Empire, in terms of manpower and riches, more than the whole of Efarestos' conflicts; neither the people cared about the presence of an adjaran garrison in Trebisond. After five years of violence and chaos, the Civil War had ended, and the Empire was once again reunited under a sole, strong and powerful ruler, a Pantokrator. Something it would soon, perhaps, desperately need...

[Roman Heritage]

Hey all, guys! I found some spare time so I thought it would have been nice to update.
As a disclaimer, the following updates have a possibility of being...controversial, as a Jihad is involved. We live in times where phanatism and religious tensions seem to have - sadly, indeed - awoken, and, as such, I'd like to say I do actually respect every human being, regardless what his faith, ethnicity, age, gender or nationality may be. I'd like to avoid people being offended by things I might - or might not - say in the following chapters about religion, religious leaders, and the like. This said...have a good read, Total War fellows


Chapter XXV - The Obsessive Devotion (1207-1210 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In 1208 AD, shortly after Zakarias' crowning as Basileus ton Romaion, words of war spread throughout Islam like fire among dry grass. War against the ungodly foes of Islam, and their jewel, Constantinople, the City of the Straits.


It is told that these words got first spoken by a nameless muezzin, in a similarly nameless Syrian village, where his cries for war got unheard by his community, which main concerns were farming a good harvest to survive one more year on this ruined and shameful Earth. What could Constantinople ever mean to them, a city most of them had never heard of, and of the blasphemous faithless which inhabited it? What did they care about the Golden Horn, and the Bukoleon Palace, while all the luxury they had ever seen was that handful of seeds they hoped to plant, and grow? How could Constantinople save their souls, if they had always been thought that safety lied right at the other side of their World, in the far and faboulous Qa-ba in Meqqa, or in al-Quds, the Holy One, Jerusalem?



Yet, words fly on the wings of the wind. Soon, that unknown imam's claims resounded in every corner of the Muslim word, repeated in all the madrasas and mosques of far away lands such as al-Andalus and Khwarezm, arousing farmers and nobles, scholars and smugglers, phanatics and pious men. Soon, the words of a single man changed forever the lives of thousand of thousand of others. And with their lives, perhaps also the Story of the Empire would change forever, as it would soon have to face the rage of the whole of Islam.


In this atmosphere of hate and phanatism, the first State to suffer the consequences of the awakening of Islam was the Byzantine Principality of Adjara.
Deprived of the guide of Heraklios - died in 1208 AD as a conseguence of a series of infarcts - the young Principality met its doom in 1209 AD, as the armies of Georgia and Armenia, now unified under Islam's banner, invaded its small holdings.



At the head of this variegate and cosmopolite army rode that same Tahsin Sarunahoglu whom had, until two years later, fought beside Heraklios in his claim to Constantinople. After a failed attempt of unifying the armenian emirates under his yoke, Tahsin had istantly taken the chance to strumentalize the muezzins' calls to his advantage, gaining a position of leadership among those same amirs in virtue of his undisputed experience in fighting the byzantines, and his deep knowledge of the adjaran warfare. On 21st May 1209 AD, he launched the assault on Heraclea's walls.



Not even the bravery and determination showed by the garrison, commanded by a man called Livanios, could stop the muslim's impetus, numbers and phanatism. Despite their heroic behaviour on the walls and at the gate, in fact, the defenders were soon pushed back by Tahsin's sheer numbers, and forced to defend the town and their families in a brutal fight for every house, street, chokepoint. In an irreal cloud of ashes, smoke and blood, the last defenders got trapped and slaughtered in the city square, after two days of bitter fights. Almost 4500 of the defenders fell with an axe, a sword or a spear in his hands, their cloths soaked with the blood of friends and foes alike. The 850 captives got impaled by the muttawy'ya, the most phanatics among the islamic host's ranks, as a revenge for the 5000 dead it had suffered in the prolonged fights. The city got razed, its church burned to the gound, the Christian population killed, tortured or enslaved for the greater part.


As soon as news of the fall of Heraclea reached the Bukoleon, panic spread throughout the capital. Yet, Zakarias didn't allow panic to weaken his soul, too.
Following the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather, Alexios I, Zakarias set his eyes West, searching for aid among the Empire's Catholic fellows. We can only imagine how full of desolation his heart might have been when his envoyees returned home with nothing but the acknowledgement that, simply, the West had its own wars to fight.



The whole European continent was in fact ablazed by the fire of war. In the far away lands of Iberia, the spanish kingdoms were having and had always had their own wars to fight against al-Andalus and among themselves; the English Crown was busy in its efforts of consolidating its hold over Western France, and set a foothold in Spain. Not even the Empire's most trusted european allies could help it: the Holy Roman Empire, already busy in war against Bòkoni of Hungary and its scandinavian neighbours, had in fact gotten suddenly attacked on both fronts by the Kingdom of France and the pagan tribes of Lithuania, which had overrun the Kingdom of Poland. Nonetheless, not even the Kievan Grand Ducate, already facing Bòkoni's armies in Bessarabia and the attack of the westernmost fringes of the Khwarezmian Shahdom, could intervene. Obviously, no help would have ever came from Bòkoni of Hungary, whose meagre resources were already fully spent in fighting a three fronts war with Kiev, the Holy Roman Empire and the Italian League, and who was, probably, amused by the perspective of seeing the hated Byzantines bleed at the hands of the easterners. As crowning of an already desolating panorama, Pope Innocent III clearly shown his concerns were of a totally different matter when, instead of trying to settle peace among Europe's Christian powers, embarked in an attempt of unifying the Italian peninsula under his dominion with brute force. Instead, all the Emperor got from his efforts in the West was a crusade...of children.



And not even could Zakarias seek for aid among his Crusader allies, as Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was in a similarly rough position, with Caliph Hamdun's armies at his doorstep, threatening the Holy City herself. It seemed that Jerusalem and Constantinoples stood alone in front of the growing muslim onslaught.


After the acnowledgment of this, Zakarias then chose to leave the administration of the capital to his Megas Logothethes Davatinos Iagaris, and embarked in a series of reforms and decisions in order to better resist to the deadly peril in which the Empire was. In September he forgave Veniamin and Aemilianos Vriennios in order to have the latter occupy a senior role in the defense of Anatolia, in which his experience in fighting Tahsin's armies in the Civil War would definitively come of help; in October, he proclaimed the Thematoi Eidikion, an edict in which he set up the basis for the founding of military colonies throughout the Empire's eastern anatolic border. Finally, in January 1210 AD he ordered an emergency tax to be raised in order to bring the anatolic thematas to full efficience, given the great losses in terms of manpower and resources they had suffered during the Civil War, and in February 1210 AD he moved his own seat in Ankara, Anatolia, in order to intervene as swiftly as possible where it was most needed. He didn't have, however, have to wait too long.


In April, 1210 AD, in fact, Tahsin Sarunahoglu easily avoided Kalamodios Imerios' trapezuntine host, stationed at the height of Artvin - a town in the easternmost fringes of the Songali mountain chain, a forced path to and from Adjara - and penetrated in proper Anatolia without meeting any serious opposition from the border themas, which still suffered from the conseguences of the Civil War. Between April and June his host assaulted and sacked prominent cities such as Erzerum, Askane and Sivas before entering the mid anatolic plateau. From Sivas he then led his armeno-georgian army south, in a failed attempt to conquer Caesarea by siege, and from there headed south-west, towards Iconium, which he hoped to relieve and sack. To his dismail, his slow march gave Zakarias the time needed to muster at least the thematas of Galatia, Charia and Licia, which, bolstered by the tagmatas the Basileus had brought with him in Asia, he soon had to face in the plain of Nigde, some 50 miles from the old capital of the long-lost Sultanate of Rùm.



Among the two armies, arguably the Roman one boasted the more advantages, as it enjoyed both numerical - 10.000 men against Tahsin's mere 7000 - and tactical superiority, the latter given them from their seizing of a gentle slope in the middle of the plain. This proved to be a key factor later on, as during the initial phases of the battle what seemed to be a mere spring light rain turned into a heavy shower. The slightly higher ground allowed the byzantines, whose bows suffered from the wet weather as much as their enemies', to offset this disadvantage by shooting with better line of sight, and cover.



As a response to the almost uselessness of his archers' bows in such disadvantageous conditions, Tahsin sent forward his kurdish and georgian auxiliaries, which, favoured by their high mobility, were able to march in the increasingly muddy ground and hurl their javelins against their foes, dealing much more damage than that their bow-armed comrades could ever hope to deal under such a heavy rain. After a couple of volleys, however, Zakarias' acritae started to throw their own javelins at the enemy, inflicting them serious casualties thanks to the combination of height and enemy's lighter armour.


It was then that Tahsin ordered his infantrymen to march forward under the cover of their comrades' increasingly futile arrow volleys. To the vanguard of his host, Tahsin deployed his muttawy'ya, which he thought could put in serious trouble the thematas due to their impetus, phanaticism, disregard for death and unquestionable devotion.



Yet, even the most religious man's piety is put under an hard test under the menace of fire. Zakarias' siphonatores unleashed Greek Fire over their foes' ranks, torching many and inflicting deadly burns to many more. Only an handful of muttawy'ya stood their ground against the scoutatoi's spears, martyrized in a surreal atmosphere in which the flames' reflections made it seem to many that the rain herself had been ablazed. Yet this didn't stop the advance of Tahsin's armenian and georgian footmen, which, pressed by the comrades who marched behind them, were forced to assault without much thinking.

In the same moment, Zakarias' genius immediately strenghtened his army's tactical advantage. He rode down the hill at the head of his Athanatoi, pinning down the enemy's heavy cavalrymen and routing them, before engaging in a fight against Tahsin's own bodyguard, marked by the richly decorated standards they brought with them. Behind them, marched a regiment of heavy armoured swordsmen, which outflanked the khwarezmian infantry and slaughtered them regiment by regiment in a sweeping-through manouvre.



Soon, the muslimuna's ranks broke, giving birth to a chaotic rout in which only Tahsin and a handful of horsemen escaped death or capture by Zakarias. Almost the whole of the muslim army fell that day or in the following to Zakarias' rakings, while Tahsin himself fled home, weeping, enraged and humiliated, and immmediately started plotting his revenge.
As for Zakarias, he let his own men feast upon the riches and supplies found in the armenians' camp, well knowing that, although he had won a battle, he had not yet won the war. With all of Islam mobilizing, it soon became clear that it was just the beginning, a mere assay, of the darker times which lied ahead.

[Treaper]

Nice update, I hope you will survive Jihad without losing Constantinople And about your note, I think that nobody thinks you are anti-religous minded, in story it is something that is making it more realistic. Medieval was not a loveful time

[Caesar of Rome]

Man, seriously? Why bother doing all that explanation in the beginning! As Treaper says there was no love lost between the empires of medieval era.

As for the Jihad, I believe you may end up losing some burdenous eastern cities of Anatolia but I'd be massively surprised if the jihadist armies even made it to Konya. Your Roman generals are far smarter than my enemies' generals. It's 1094 and -- well, I'll tell you what happens probably tomorrow in the new chapter.


Nice update!

[Roman Heritage]

Oh, indeed it wasn't a loveful era - man, those were days worthy of being lived Pillage, looting, occasional bath, and Crusade to spend free time. What else would one need?

Back to the "intolerance" topic...well, I don't really know, I just felt the need to express my opinion, just in case someone gets offended. Obviously no real Middle Age addicted would care about it, yet it is better to prevent than to heal, isn't it?

As for the Jihad, I believe you may end up losing some burdenous eastern cities of Anatolia but I'd be massively surprised if the jihadist armies even made it to Konya. Your Roman generals are far smarter than my enemies' generals. It's 1094 and -- well, I'll tell you what happens probably tomorrow in the new chapter.


Nice update!

Oh, yeah, I read it, it was such a nice update! Pity I've had rare occasions to connect, otherwise I'd have probably commented. At first I was like "How dare you touch the memory of the beloved Father of Our Empire Basileus Alexios of House Komnenos, First of His Name, repeller of the blasphemous Westerners and of the barbaric Seljuq hordes" but then I chilled out xD just kidding, it was interesting for once to see a character I really cared about portrayed in such a different light. Pity - for me, Roman addicted - that Constantinople fell so easily, one would expect it to fall after an epic scale bloody siege, but, hey, perhaps it is better for the Empire to be ruled by the wise and powerful Kayzer-i-Rùm, Malik Shah I, - blessed be His name - ?

As for the Jihad...I don't think I'll be able to post each battle. Anatolia has turned into a huge, bloody fighting ground, and holy crap, those Khwarezmian Noblemen are among the toughest guys I've ever met! I must say this is actually showing more than a challenge, even if one just considers the logistic problem of sending troops where needed etc. Plus, there's an insane quantity of stacks coming at you - well, more glory for the Empire, I'd guess

[Alwyn]

Great chapter and story-telling! I like the way that you begin with the cries of the unknown imam and tell the story of the brave defeat at Heraclea before moving on to the dramatic scenes of the battle on the plan of Nigde.

I found your initial comments about intolerance helpful. If we write authentic historical AARs, AAR writers will sometimes have our characters speak and act in intolerant ways. You are not the only AAR writer to feel concerned that some readers might misunderstand and think that we agree with the things our characters say and do.

[Roman Heritage]

Thank you for appreciation and comment, Alwyn I must say I've finally ended reading you own AAR, impressive stuff indeed. Really atmospheric What would your next projects be focused about? Just curious.

As for updating - hopefully I might be aple to post new chapter tomorrow. I'm tying to update at a good pace, whenever I've got some spare time. There's loads of really, really good AARs in this sub-forum, yet I'd like to see them updated more often So, I try to do my best to "offset" with my own

[Roman Heritage]

Alright, here's the update The AI has thrown in some good stuff for writing. Let me know what you think about it!

Chapter XXVI - Bloody Stones and Crimson Waves (1210-1213 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Zakarias' victory at Nigde and the subsequent Tahsin's return to his seat in Yerevan earned Zakarias some precious time before the renewal of hostilities, which for a period of two years downgraded to small scale raids and a continuous guerrilla on the cappadocian border. These continuous and annoying infiltrations, if nothing else, at least played to Aemilianos Vriennios' advantage. His military virtues - which he had shown during the Civil War and which had already convinced Zakarias to spare his life, and later on forgive him - allowed him to embark in a troubled, yet successful path to return into the Emperor's favour and be reintegrated in some of his former titles. Promoted as Merarches right before the battle of Nigde, after the victory he and his regiments had been sent in Cappadocia to establish bolster local thematas and lead the defense of the border zones subjected to enemy infiltrations. In this role, he highlighted himself so much for his administrative and military skills, that he was first allowed to coordinate the defense of the whole border, and later on, in 1212 AD, reintegrated in his former seat of Caesarea, although with momentaneously limited powers and resources.



These relatively peaceful years, anyway, also saw an intense bureaucratic and diplomatic activity on behalf of Zakarias I. He, in fact, promoted several military reforms in order to make the best use out of the Empire's diminished manpower, raising new taxes in order to improve the thematas' armour and training, instituting the hetairiae - meaning foreign, mercenary - companies of the Latikinoi and the Skythinkoi. Although both were made up of mounted troops, their role and ethnic composition varied greatly.
The Skythinkoi - literally, "those of the steppes" - were made up of russian, magyar, pecheneg and turkish cavalrymen, armed with bow, swords and, often, light byzantine mail. The Latinikoi, on the other hand, were far heavier armoured, and were hired in the Catholic West. With Innocent III's wars for control of Italy, the italian paeninsula turned into a forge of experienced mercenaries; in particular, most of the Norman lesser knights and noblemen, fallen in poverty after Innocent III's conquest of Southern Italy, sought glory and riches in the East by serving in the Empire's armies, even though also Germans, Lombards and French served among the Latinikon Hetairia's ranks.


On the diplomatic side, Zakarias tried to convince Innocent III of the necessity of proclaiming a Crusade - which would have been the fourth - in order to relieve pressure upon the Empire, and, most significantly, upon the Crusader States, who struggled to survive in front of the growing Fatimid onslaught. His and Baldwin IV's expectations were, however, solemnly disappointed by Innocent III's following acts.



Perhaps the Warmonger Pope thought the byzantines' requests to be a product of exaggeration, of perhaps his rather italo-centric view helped him to turn a deaf ear, for he shortly thereafter declared a Crusade onto Tunis, which Gregory I of Sicily held in collaboration with local muslim emirates and tribes. Zakarias' envoyees left Rome soon after the Pope's declarations, disgusted by his stubborness, lust for power and selfishness.


And so no help came from the West - apart for that the Emperor paid in gold and lands to the Latinikoi - when Tahsin renewed his attacks, at the head of a far larger host. During these years, in fact, the Emperor had not been the only one to consolidate his position and review his plans.
Shortly after Nigde's defeat, in fact, Tahsin Sarunahoglu had started to plot his own revenge. He married off his brothers and lieutenants' daughters to some of the other independent armenian and georgian amirs, gaining their support in view of a second, larger scaled invasion of Anatolia. In 1212 AD he struck an alliance with the other major armenian warlord, Cahid Ersoy, atabeg of Diyarbakir and master of Mardin and of the Upper Euphrates, thus unifying all of Armenia's muslim emirates under the Holy Cause.


In 1213 AD Tahsin and Cahid approached the Empire's borders at the head of a host said to be of 30.000 men, although more reasonable estimees tend to lead to the respectable size of 18.000, splitting their forces at the height of Malatya, as foraging such a large and unruly host would have required resources which the already devastated border zones simply couldn't supply. So, in April 1213 Tahsin entered Anatolia north of the Taurus chains, marching through Cappadocia with no resistance at all, since Aemilianos' limits on manpower and resources didn't allow him to create a resistance worthy of such a name without facing sure defeat.
Cahid Ersoy, on the other hand, invaded Franks possessions in Syria, sacking Aleppo and Latakiah before turning northwards and entering into the plain of Cilicia. From there, after a brief soujourn in Adana - which local Strategos Theodoros Kantakouzenos' forces' had abandoned in great haste - he led his 8000 men strong host into the Taurus Mountains, toward the mountain pass known as the Cilician Doors. These, along with the high peaks of the Taurus, had always been Cilicia's most valuable defensive outpost since the old days of the Achaemenid Empire.



Adana's Strategos, Theodoros Kantokouzenos, knew it well. He, despite his relatively meagre military skills, had a deep knowledge of the Taurus Mountains, which had been his birthplace; following the whitdrawal from Adana, he and his army had started to establish a solid defensive position on these ancient and steep rocky formations.



When Cahid's scouts approached, the muslim commander was told of the impressively well-conceived infidel defensive position. The Romans, in fact, had set their camp on a relatively flat, yet large and high positioned zone, and established a series of defensive measures such as sharpened stakes, trenchs and barricades.
Nonetheless, Cahid ordered the attack to be carried out two days after the discovery of such position, under the menace of the shortening of supplies. Without control of such an important pass, Cahid's men would have been starved to death, or forced to whitdraw into the crusader Principality of Antioch, where Prince Bohemund V was mustering troops.



And so the Armenians' attacks started on the sunrise of 20th April, 1213 AD. Cahid's elite infantry troops - his ghulams slave, armoured in heavy mail and scale armour - marched at the vanguard of the long and slowly advancing snake made up of Cahid's infantrymen and faris'. Under a deadly arrow barrage, only a few of the dismounted ghulams reached the Roman position, engaging in a meleè which outcome had been spoiled by their eagerness for the fight, which had opened a considerable gap between them and the main host. When their comrades entered the fight, their corpses were already cold.



Nonetheless, Cahid wasn't the kind of commander who attacks blindly and head on a solid enemy position. He had sent half of his elite cavalry regiments - mainly heavily armoured ghulams, armenian knights and khwarezmian-blooded noblemen - up the mountain sheppherd track in an ambitiously conceived flanking manouvre. Their cries for "Allahu Akbar!" resounded throughout the vally as they charged down the steep slope which separated them from the enemy backs.


Theodoros' answer was, however, well timed and decisive for the outcome of the battle. He pinned the enemy cavalrymen down with the help of a couple of scoutatoi regiments, starting a cycle of charge and whitdraws on their exposed flanks, rotating his latinikoi and cataphracts in putting in action the charges. Pressed by their comrades' arrival, more and more muslim horsemen found death at the end of that slope, unhorsed, impaled or killed by the Romans' swords. Ultimately, a small regiment of picked troops, led by Cahid's brother-in-law, managed to break through the scoutatoi's ranks, charging the enemy archers at their back and inflicting them only small casualties before the support of a battalion of stratiotai relieved the bowmen from such a peril. Nine out of ten armenian horsemen found death in this unlucky flanking manouvre, while, on the main theatre, the fight prosecuted and lasted for the greater part of the day, with wave upon wave of muslims alternating in the attempt of overcoming the Romans' positions.



At the end of the day, Cahid's host had been vanquished, the commander itself killed by a lucky arrow shot. The ground was covered by thousand of bodies and arrows when the sun finally set down on the Cilician Doors.



Despite his relative military inexperience, Theodoros' deep knowledge of terrain had gained the Empire a clear, almost costless and decisive victory over half the invading forces. 7000 khwarezmians lied dead on the ground, against the mere 800 casualties which Kantakouzenos' host had suffered.


In the meanwhile, anyway, Tahsin's host had made great progresses. By marching through Cappadocia unharmed, in fact, the armenian commander had been able to reach inner Anatolia in a surprisingly short span of time. On 1st May 1213 AD he led his army to the symbolic sack of the small town of Nigde, site, three years before, of his bitter defeat. From there, between May 5th and 16th, he sacked Afsaray and Nevsehir in his march towards Kirsehir, where he planned to incite the consistent muslim community to join his cause and turn against their former masters. At the height of the small town of Serefliikochisar, on the shores of Lake Tun, anyway, his scouts reported news about the presence of an enemy army, camped less than 10 miles away.



The army in question was the best that Zakarias could muster, a solid host made up of the makedonian and achaian thematas he had moved into Galatia, the capital's tagmatas, a solid contingent of Varangians and Bulgarians, and at least a bandon - regiment - of Latikinoi. In addition, his forces had been bolstered by a couple of regiments Nicaean mourtatoi and castrophylakae, heavily armoured Roman assault troops, thus bringing his small, yet outstandingly trained and armoured army to a total of 11.600 men, a slight numerical advantage over Tahsin's forces, which numbered up to 10.500; the real advantage that the Romans fielded that day was, anyway, that of training and armour. These would give them the edge in the following battle.



In order to properly deploy his troops, on the morning of 20th May, 1213 AD, Tahsin Sarunahoglu sent forward his turkoman, seljuq and iranian horse archers, which started harassing the Roman ranks with deadly arrow volleys which, even though failing in disrupting their ranks, inflicted the infidel considerable losses. Zakarias' men tried their best to counter the enemies' mobility and archery skills with their own javelins and arrows, inflicting them some damage before they were repelled by an audacious manouvre of the latinikoi, which, irritated by the terribly hot anatolic sun and the enemies' harassing manouvres, went as far as chasing them until they met the enemy's footmen vanguards. After a couple of attempts of breaking through the enemy's ranks, the regiment of latinikoi returned to its home position, now it itself pressed by the enemy cavalrymen. It took Zakarias' quick reaction to let them return to safer position undamaged by the enemies' charge.



Shortly thereafter, the two hosts' infantries charged. The Empire's footmen, following the example of the Varangians, which easily broke through the enemy's centre, proved their own worth with spears, maces and swords, carving their way through the enemy ranks with steel and brute force. As the muslim infantry's vessels, richly decorated with sures from the Qhuran, started to falter and fall, Tahsin led a wedge of armenian alite knights to charge the Varangians, clashing with them in a storm of axes, maces and cataphract steeds.



In the meanwhile, Zakarias, returning from the slaughtering of a couple of battalions of enemy skirmishers, outflanked the enemy formation and charged straight into its back, leading to the enemies' chaotic rout and to the complete encirclement of Tahsin among the Empire's footmen and the Emperor himself.



The enemies' lack of training turned their whitdraw into a complete slaughter. Tahsin got unhorsed and killed, his skull smashed by a Varangian's axe blow. What remained of his host died fighting or trying to retreat, as almost the whole of the muslim army fell on the field along with its commander; only a tiny portion of its members survived the battle, and even less returned safely into Armenia, where the power vacuum left by the deaths of Cahid Ersoy and Tahsin Sarunahoglu led to the outbreak of a long period of turmoil and internal strife.
As the threat posed by a unified muslim Armenia vanished, however, new menaces lurked beyond the Empire's borders. As the Jihad had involved only a tiny portion of Islam's forces, new commanders embraced the Holy Cause, aroused by the inflamed speeches of muezzins' and imams', in which Cahid and Tahsin's names were set as examples of glorious martyrization in Allah's name.



And words from even further East reached the Empire. Words of a feared warlord named Tengiz, or Gengis Khan, whose same name, in his unknown and barbaric tongue, meant "ocean", as to represent the quantity of land he and his savage horsemen ruled over. Soon, the world would have changed forever.

[Treaper]

One of the most exciting AAR I've ever read You are really writing it good. One little question, how did Basileos Zakarias get that 'Silver-Tongued' surname? I never got it...

[Roman Heritage]

One of the most exciting AAR I've ever read You are really writing it good. One little question, how did Basileos Zakarias get that 'Silver-Tongued' surname? I never got it...

Thank you for your appreciation, Treaper, it's really nice to hear you say that To answer your question, I don't know what the exact triggers are, but I'd say it's tied to the "speaker" line of traits, perhaps when you reach the last tier of the line you get the "Silver-Tongued" nickname. I noticed each of the three generals I've seen in this campaign with such a nickname shared the "good speaker" traits line

[Roman Heritage]

And here comes the twentyseventh update I must say I found this one to be particularly exciting, I've greatly enjoyed playing through it and writing it down. As a disclaimer, be wary that this is going to be particularly picture heavy - I found it really hard to decide which pictures hould I, or shouldn't, delete Hope you like it, citizens and foreigners!

Chapter XXVII - Swordplay (1214-1215 AD)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With Armenia politically disintegrating after Cahid and Tahsin's deaths, the leading role in the conduction of the Jihad shifted - in a certain measure - from regional powers to better consolidated and powerful islamic States such as the Fatimid Caliphate and the Khwarezmian Shahdom.


The former had experienced, during Caliph Hamdun I's reign, a surprising recovery, in military, economic and prestige terms, from the wounds inflicted from the first Three Crusades. During his early years of reign, the Caliph's armies had even gone as far as reconquering the Holy City herself, albeit only for a short time span (1187-1194 AD). Following to Baldwin IV's reconquest of the Holy Sepulchre - which had featured a young Aemilianos Vriennios at the head of byzantine reinforcements - Hamdun had changed his strategy, which now implied a gradual crippling of the Crusaders' strenght before attacking in forces al-Quds, as the muslims called Jerusalem. Despite the growing pressure posed at his western borders by the Normans - which from their bases on the coast of Cyrenaica , and often led by the Norman Baron of Beghazi, Federico il Malo, led continuous attacks to the Nile Delta in an attempt of seizing Alexandria - Hamdun's armies had slowly carved their way through the Kingdom of Jerusalem's southern defenses, seizing al-Aqaba, the Sinai, Kerak, Outerjordaine and the Moab between 1200 and 1210 AD; the Holy City herself, however, reimained in Christian hands. In fact, as devastating as they had been, his campaigns didn't lead to a definitive crippling of the Crusader States' resources, as, even though unsuccessful in convincing the Pope to redirect Europe's armies to the Levant, Baldwin IV had at least managed to achieve a certain spirit of collaboration between Outremer's fiefdoms. With the help of the Joscelin II of Tripoli and Prince Bohemund V of Antioch, and constant byzantine foundings, Baldwin had in fact managed to defeat the Caliph's armies, led by his son and heir Thuwra, at Acre, and then to crush the Caliph's attempts of seizing Damascus. With Jerusalem's strenght so heavily dependant on byzantine funds and trade, in 1214 AD Hamdun resolved to authorize his younger son, 28 years old Hamid al-Fatimiyyun, to assemble a host of volunteers and ghazis in order to join the Holy Cause - and perhaps conquer the byzantine bases in Cilicia, thus separating the Crusaders from their orthodox allies.



To Zakarias' dismail, several other relevant characters plotted to the Empire's disadvantage, the most relevant of them being the Abbasid Caliph an-Nasir ibn al-Mustadi'.


Following the downfall of the Great Seljuq Empire during the last two decades of the previous century, the Caliphate had merely shifted the role of its protector from one sunni' power to another, basically becoming a mere ramification of the mighty Khwarezmian Shahdom. Yet, Caliph an-Nasir was determined to change this all, perhaps taking advantage of his protectors' strenght in order to recover the Caliphate's long lost power.


In Khwarezm, in fact, reigned in those days Shah Abdullahmid II, a pious and God-fearing monarch, which, in 1214 AD, finally agreed to satisfy Abbasid Caliph an-Nasir ibn al-Mustadi's continuous attempts to involve him in the Jihad. It is said that the iranian monarch, who was already approaching the winter of his life, desired, before death could catch him, to tie his name and legacy to the Jihad, thus sealing his already glorious and impressive lifework with one last act of bravery and heroism for Islam's cause. As he himself and his lieutenants started to muster troops and prepare plans for the upcoming campaign, Abdullahmid resolved to authorize his mesopotamian subjects to join the Holy Cause, in order to have them act as his vanguards and outriders.


Mesopotamia, in fact, was a forge of experienced warriors and commanders. Since the days of Evrenos Casgarli's campaigns in Middle East, in the last decades of the previous century, several khwarezmian emirates had born on the ashes of the Great Seljuq Empire. These local powers, even though nominally under Urgench's yoke, were in reality a mere collection of independent and warrying tribes and emirates, which, in the first decade of the XIIIth century, fell one after another under the power of the new Atabegate of Mosul, now held by the khwarezmo-seljuq clan of the Mohammads. Following the arrival of Abdullahmid III and al-Mustadi's envoyeès, the current ruler, atabeg Tarkan Mohammed II, took the occasion to unify the whole of Mesopotamia under his own banner - and that of Allah's will, of course. The atabeg raised a total of 10.000 men, made up of bedouins, arabians, seljuqs, khwarezmians, armenian refugeès and ghulam slaves, which he then led towards the eastern borders of the Basileia ton Romaion, ravaging the already devastated country of Armenia.



Tarkan's advance was stopped, on 23d April 1214 AD, nearby the important armenian centre of Erzerum. There, Trebisond's Strategos Kalamodios Imerios - once Heraklios Komnenos' lieutenant, now turned into a loyal vassal of the Empire - had assembled and camped an army of a size reported to be around 9000/10.000 men. The fight which developed under a heavy Spring rain turned into an utter catastrophe: Tarkan's ghulams trampled Kalamodios' stratiotai and alan mercenaries, killing him in the process and depriving his infantry troops of the much needed cavalry support.



Only the latinikoi, on the other wing of the Roman army, proved a certain valour. Throughout the battle, despite heavily outnumbered, the Latin knights, in fact, performed into a series of devastating charges into the ghulams' ranks, killing many and wounding several more; however, they too were forced to retreat by the growing number of byzantine regiments which routed or simply whitdrew during the fight.



4000 Romans lied dead on the ground, and another 1500 was later on executed by the victors, while Tarkan, on the other hand, suffered up to 4000 casualties. Despite the heavy toll which the battle had taken on his ranks, anyway, Erzerum's victory opened him the way to the Anatolic plateau, where his armies rushed shortly straight after the fight.


In the thema of Cappadocia, Aemilianos Vriennios found himself once again unable to react to the invading forces. In order to stop the infidels' advance, he got forced to come at agreements with one of his arch-enemies, Iakovos Iagaris, Catapan of Smyrna and currently dispatched into Kirsehir at the head of a small army. After a strained and rageful encounter, the two agreed to collaborate for the defense of Cappadocia, and assembled together an army which they then led northeast, where, at the height of the small town of Karaca, they camped in the await for Tarkan.



The muslim army reached Karaca on 15th May, 1214 AD, and actual fights began the following day. To gain time to deploy their own troops on a nearby hill, and slow down the enemy advance, Iakovos and Aemilianos sent forward two regiments of cavalarii, which started to harass and pepper the enemy ghulams, which armour slowed them down to the point of leaving them unable to counter the enemies' tactics. A considerable number of muslims fell under the Romans' arrows before the fight could even begin, and thousand more fell later on under the arrows shooted by the mourtatoi and Aemilianos' turkish auxiliaries.



And so Tarkan's infantry forces arrived at the feet of the Roman occupied hill already demoralized, tired and scattered. The advantage in armour, training, morale and position enabled the byzantine scoutatoi to deal easily with the threat posed by the muslim footmen, repelling their attacks without much trouble. Not even Tarkan's ghulams managed to break their ranks, wasting their forces in useless attempts to charge up the hill. In the end, Iakovos and Aemilianos charged down the hill at the head of their cataphracts and stratiotai, vanquishing the enemy resistance and giving start to the muslim army's collapse.



Up 5800 saracens - and Tarkan Mohammed among them - were later on found dead, killed by the Romans' spears, swords and arrows. A further 800 fell easily in the victors' hands as captives, in front of less than a thousand Christian casualties. An easy victory, which ultimately proved fundamental in allowing Zakarias to deal with the situation in Cilicia, which was quickly degenerating.


Hamid al-Fatimiyyun, in fact, had advanced quickly through the Kingdom of Jerusalem's dominions, defeating and killing Count Joscelin II of Tripoli nearby Tortosa, and from there pillaging and looting all the way north. His army, which initially consisted of a bulk of a mere 3000 ghulams and bedouin horsemen, was bolstered by Syria's muslims to the point of reaching a total of 9800 mujaheddin. Furthermore, following the siege of Lattakiah - perhaps the most important drydock of the Principality of Antioch and the Crusader States - the Fatimid prince disposed of a siege baggage train of relevant proportions, which, despite the undoubted slowing effect it would have had on his army's advance, he nonetheless resolved to carry in Cilicia, in order to easily breach through the walls of Adana, which fall would have been fundamental for the isolation of the Crusader States from their Roman neighbours and allies. On May, 1215 AD, the Fatimid army finally crossed the borders of Cilicia.


The region wasn't, however, ripe for the taking. Zakarias had in fact already established his army's camp outside the fortress of Ankara, and immediately decided to march East as soon as his scouts reported him news on the saracens' positions. Along with Davatinos Iagaris' son, Isaias, and Adana's Strategos, Theodoros Kantakouzenos, in fact, the Basileus outlined a plan to take the muslims by surprise and repel their invasion in the shortest term possibile. He led his army eastward at an astounishingly quick pace, reaching the border town of Issus - where Megas Alexandròs of Makedonia had defeated the hordes of Darius III of Persia fifteen centuries before - within 27th May.



The Basileus' plan provided the attack to start on the same night, in the hopes of taking the Fatimid commander by surprise and thus achieving an easy victory. The surprise, however, failed when Zakarias' skythinkoi inadvertently ran into a small enemy scouting party, which, after a brief meleè, sounded the alarm in the army's main camp.



The failure of the manouvre not only prevented Zakarias' plan to be put in action, but also prompted both commanders to start sending more and more cavalry regiments in the fight which later on developed. Ultimately, this skirmish ended in Zakarias' favour when his stratiotai routed Hamdun's arab cavalrymen, which they then started chasing down.



The growing influx of forces in this skirmish, anyway, led paradoxally to the complete deployment of both forces, as numerous and brightful flaming arrows began to paint fire across the sky's blue canvas. Thanks to their higher position, anyway, Zakarias' archers not only shoot with greater accuracy and line of sight, but also inflicted the enemy commander such considerable casualties as to prompt him into entering the meleè in the shortest term possible.



The fight which developed was fierce and bloody. Hamdun's ghulam footmen, in particular, inflicted the Christians' right wing considerable casualties, to the point of convincing Zakarias to send in the fight his Scholarii. The Empire's finest trampled the ghulams' ranks from the right side, sweeping through them like an avalanche of steeds, armour and maces, putting them under such an unbearable pressure that many of them turned their backs and fled, their bravery and determination overwhelmed by the confusion which had spread.



Seeing his own left wing vanquishing under his eyes, Hamid then resolved to send in his own reserves, his own picked regiments of chosen ghulams and noblemen, but was prevented in this, to his great dismail, by the Basileus himself. Zakarias mounted on his horse and rode down the hill at the head of his Athanatoi, crushing into the ghulams' ranks and preventing them from aiding their foot comrades. Heavy casualties, darkness, confusion and the threat of an envelopment by the byzantine right wing played a key role in the Fatimids' decision to whitdraw. As soon as news upon Hamid's death spreaded through the ranks, anyway, the whitdraw turned into a complete, messy and humiliating rout.



Scholars talk of less than a thousand casualties among the Emperor's ranks, in contrapposition to at least 5000 muslim losses. These numbers might, however, not reflect the whole of both armies' losses, as it is common thought that at least a couple thousand more saracens fell in Zakarias' hands as captives. Still no news came about the Fatimid prince effective fate until the following week, when it could be claimed with a certain safety margin that Hamid al-Fatimiyyun, helped by the darkness and by the chaos ensued during the rout, had escaped death in battle, and was now heading South at the head of what remained of his army, his heart and pride seeking for vengeance. Few doubts remained whether he would come at the Empire's doorstep again, or not. What appeared sure was that the struggle wasn't even close to its end.