Kingdom, Power, Glory: Burgundy (Magna Mundi Platinum)

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Thanks for your support, everyone.

Winner: I'll do my best to be a bit more frequent in the future. Really . As for the HRE, well... we'll have to see if it ever manages to become more than a minor speed bump to Burgundy, or the other big powers that surround it. It's very much in disarray at this point, at more strange things are about to happen within it, which I believe I'll be covering in the next chapter.

Brandenburg starts out as as Margravate, if I remember correctly, so actually, County isn't a demotion (again, I think). The problem was, when I vassalized them back in 1460, they actually became a "Duchy" for some reason! So I edited the save to undo that, but I must have done it wrong, because now the game said "Count." But I figured, same difference.

Lord Strange: Thanks!

Kuipy: France is TOO calm. Sadly, I didn't discover the Ad Infinitum mod until after I played through the game, and without it, the AI in MMP tends to sit on its hands rather than aggressively go after its enemies. But the Burgundians are about to discover new ways to deal with the French threat.

gabor: Get used to lots and lots and lots of Charleses!

Baron Jukaga: Everything I've taken's been a core, so no problems in that regard. So far!

Assessment and Interlude: Europe at the Death of Charles the Great

Burgundy in 1484​

We have now come to the end of the reign of Charles the Great, last Duke and first King of Burgundy. It's fitting to examine the state of the realm he left behind for his son-in-law to govern, and ask whether he has earned the esteem that history has given him.



Burgundy's prestige following the Liège-Guelders War was unsurpassed in all of Europe. The war, particularly the English blockade of Dutch ports, temporarily depressed the kingdom's economy, but it was already beginning to recover by the time Charles the Wise ascended to the throne. Nonetheless, the golden days of the 1460s and 1470s, when Burgundy's wealth, driven by the textile industries in the Low Countries, surpassed that of England, Castile, the Ottoman Empire, and France, had given way to somewhat leaner times. By far the greatest strain on Burgundy's economy was the maintenance of its large army.



The standing army that was now charged with Burgundy's defense was one of the largest in the world, and certainly one of the best trained. Yet it was less than half the size of France's. Most of the garrisons were stationed in Picardy and Cambray, merely a few days march from Paris – this would remain Burgundy's great strategic advantage over France. Smaller forces were kept in the northern Netherlands and in Burgundy Proper. As at Charles the Great's ascension, so at his death, Burgundy had no navy worth speaking of.



The late king, in taking steps to integrate his divided realm, centralized power further than it had been in Philip the Good's time, but he hesitated to move too quickly to curtail the privileges of the rich cities of the Netherlands, upon whose support he depended (an attempt to impose a salt tax, for instance, was quickly abandoned during the last war due to the protests of Dutch burghers). He also continued to support the "new learning" that was sweeping across Europe, and was an early patron of the printing press, which first arrived in Brabant in 1468 and had spread to most major cities of the kingdom over the following decade. Burgundy, particularly the Low Countries, gained a reputation as one of the most innovative lands in Europe.

Assessment of Charles the Great​

Twentieth-century Irish historian Dermot Alexander once posed the question, "How great was Charles the Great?" and answered with skepticism.

In every aspect of statecraft, he was competent but never outstanding. He fought one brilliant military campaign at the outset of his reign, and won another spectacular battle towards the end (and in the latter, he had every advantage), but otherwise never proved himself anything like a genius on the battlefield. He did considerably less than his father to expand his domain, though perhaps that comparison is unfair. He was an able, even at times forward-thinking, administrator, but historians are hard-pressed to name any particularly great achievement of his on that end: he excelled in the day-to-day running of a kingdom, and knew how to appoint good men to important positions, but nothing in his record indicates the depth and breadth of vision we might expect from the title of 'the Great.' He has gained his reputation among posterity, not because of any quality of his own, but because it was upon his head that the inevitable crown first fell. When Burgundians began to speak of 'Charles the Great' – long after his death, for his grandson soon replaced him in the Burgundian consciousness – they were really applying the epithet to their country, not its founder.​

To be fair, though, Alexander enjoyed taking "Greats" down a peg, and thought little better of King Alfred, Pope Gregory, or a number of other figures who hold the title. At the very least, we must give Charles I credit for establishing a new kingdom, something few in history have managed to do, and which many would argue was not as "inevitable" as Alexander claimed. Much, however, was left undone. In particular, one would have hoped to see from Charles some realization that Burgundy's safety and future glory depended on a strong navy – but he left the fleet as small as he found it thirty years earlier, no match for that of Denmark or France, much less England's or Portugal's grand navies.

Still, the reign of Charles broke the thousand-year cycle of intermittent division and conquest that had plagued Burgundy since its earliest days. For better or for worse, Burgundy was now securely a major power in Europe, and would remain so for centuries.

Europe at the Ascension of Charles the Wise​

Charles II, meanwhile, had risen from a lowly count to one of the great men of Europe. We had better take a look, before we continue, at the world he faced upon his coronation. It's helpful to realize that the rise of Burgundy occurred in a time when, from Portugal to Russia, many new empires were being born.

England, at the time Burgundy's great enemy, was becoming a major power in its own right, despite the feud between James I and Edward IV, her kings' failure to make good on their claims to the French throne, and the loss of all her continental possessions. Its massive navy ensured that no enemy could set foot on English soil; this gave England free reign to deal with its immediate neighbors, Scotland and the petty kings of Ireland. An early nationalist rebellion in southeastern Ireland (1470-73), opposing both the English and Breton masters in the region, ended with England subduing the whole region to itself (as Brittany was forced to look on, too fearful to turn its back on France for even a moment). We have already seen that, shortly after the humiliating defeat of the Hundred Years' War, England miraculously fought off a Scottish invasion and, as it turned out, forever eliminated her northern neighbor as a serious threat. Within another quarter of a century, Scotland would cease to exist as an independent kingdom altogether. The transition from England to Great Britain to, in our own day, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Southern Ireland, was already in progress.


The final defeat of the Irish rebels, 1473.

In Italy, the ambitions of Burgundy's neighbor, the Duchy of Savoy, had cost it its port city of Nice, which was now in the hands of Genoa. Genoa had already lost its control over Corsica, which was now a puppet of Florence, and its trading posts in Azov, now in the hands of the Khanate of Crimea since 1462. Its lone black sea holdout was Kaffa (modern-day Theodosia, Russia), which the Italian republic had clung to despite invasions by Crimea and a resurgent Georgia (which had annexed the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Trebizond, and also the Kingdom of Cyprus, despite its alliance with France).

Genoese Kaffa is a story unto itself. Under Italian control since the Middle Ages, and a Genoese possession since 1266, Kaffa was the likely source of the Black Death that decimated medieval Europe. In 1477, the Doge of Genoa invited the Dominican order to the city, and they immediately set about converting the populace using all means at their disposal. They soon convinced the authorities to issue an order to the Sunni Tartar majority: convert, leave, or die. An Inquisition was brought in to ruthlessly root out any recalcitrants, and it soon gained a reputation for cruelty even in those days. Even the future Pope Innocent VIII, then Cardinal-Archbishop of Genoa, expressed dismay at their violent methods, writing to the Doge in 1483, "Did Saint Paul slay the Greeks, or Peter the Romans? Is it not preferable to bring the true faith to the heathen by argument and example, and use the sword only in defense of Christendom?" Such moderation seems admirable to modern ears, but the Dominicans might have replied that you can't argue with success. When Crimea succeeded in driving the Italians out in 1509, it took a far more tolerant approach, and today Theodosia is the only majority-Catholic city in Russia.


The Kaffan Inquisition at work.

Meanwhile, Venice was temporarily ascendant in Greece, following the conquests of Athens and the Morea in 1475.

To the west of Burgundy, France under Charles VIII and Henry IV had turned inward, and the kings were consolidating their power over their many stubborn vassals, determined not to let another slip away as their predecessors had done with Burgundy. The process was successful, but slow, which helps explains France's inaction against Burgundy, even while the balance of power was still in the former's favor.

When Charles the Wise came to power, Castile and Aragon were still separate kingdoms under the joint rule of John III of Castile and his wife Isabella of Aragon. But Isabella would die in just a few more months, and John would name himself "King of all the Spains" – giving birth to Burgundy's oldest ally.


The birth of Spain in 1484. John dreamed of ruling all of Iberia, but Navarre and the Muslim kingdom of Granada would remain independent for a long time yet.

Spain's neighbor Portugal, meanwhile, continued its explorations, reaching the Indian Ocean in 1483. A year later, a strange man came to the court of the visionary King Theodosius I, insisting that he could find a shorter route to India by travelling west. His name, of course, was Christopher Columbus. Many in the Portuguese court urged the king to dismiss this madman, but Theodosius instead gave him three ships and the provisions needed to test his theory. It's another interesting "what-if" to imagine what might have happened if the king had listened to his advisors and turned Columbus away. Where would he have gone next? Spain? England? France? Perhaps even Burgundy? We'll never know, because thanks to Theodosius, Portugal maintained its monopoly on exploration and colonization in this era.


Columbus sets out on his second voyage as the Portuguese Empire continues to grow.

On the other side of Europe, the Grand Duchy of Moscow, under its new ruler Yuri the Terrible, subjugated the once-great republic of Novgorod in March 1484, just before Charles the Great's death. Basil wasted no time in fulfilling his ambitions – he immediately marched his armies straight from Novgorod across his realm and invaded Crimea. It would be a century and a half before all of Russia was united, but in reality, its rise had begun.

The Ottoman Empire, after the scare it had given the Christian world in conquering Constantinople, was fairly quiet during this period, though a brief war with the Mamluk Sultanate netted it a part of Syria, and the annexation of Candar solidified its control of Asia Minor. The conquest of Greece was still some way off.

The Turks' Christian allies in Croatia experienced a stunning rise in those days. Established in 1461 as a Turkish puppet at the expense of Hungary, it began to flex its muscles in the region after a few years of consolidating its power under its first and greatest king, Joseph I, conquering lawless Dalmatia from a distracted Venice in 1477. It then took advantage of the divided regency council ruling Bosnia, invading that country, and in 1478 annexing its southern half and forcing the underage Bosnian prince to do homage to Joseph. In 1483 it conquered the city-state of Ragusa. When Joseph died in 1489 in the middle of a war with the resurgent Hungary, it marked the end of the great period of expansion, and much of Slovenia was soon lost, but Croatia remained the dominant force in the region for generations – aided by its mighty heathen ally.


Croatia in the time of Joseph I. Bosnia would soon be definitively annexed, but Hungary was already preparing for a new war.

Following the Battle of Reszel in 1470, the Teutonic Order was defeated decisively, and Poland-Lithuania was on the rise. Combined, these two countries formed a massive empire. Moscow defeated them in a war in the late 1470s, but won minimal gains. By all appearances, it was an up-and-coming great power. None could have imagined the ruination it would soon suffer, earning it the nickname "the Great Battleground of the Reformation." Certainly no one would have suspected in 1484 that, within a lifetime, Poland would be locked in a deadly struggle with Burgundy.


The glory days of Poland.

There remain only two other developments to discuss. The first, the controversies in the Church, we will touch upon in due time. The other is the strangest and most unexpected event all, and one that would have great consequences for Burgundy, for the Empire, for Europe, and for the whole Christian faith. So important is the Austrian Revolution that it merits a chapter of its own, so we will save those events for next time.

Thanks everybody who commented.

Enewald: Well, poor Spain will still figure out about the Americas eventually. And from the looks of it, Ming was in a war, or had just finished one, and hadn't recovered yet, but I didn't really bother to check. That is indeed low for it.

gabor: I removed that unmentionable modifier as soon as I found out about it. But Poland hasn't inherited Lithuania yet. That's about 75-100 years off, as my memory serves. On the other hand, I also removed some of Scotland's negative modifiers, and half-dead England still thrashed them....

Thanks Coz1 and thanks everybody for your continued interest.

Winner: That does pretty much sum it up. I would give my right arm to be able to go back in time and include Helius's AI work to this game. Oh, well. My solution to the idle AI was to occasionally switch tags really quick and declare war on any neighbor they had a CB on, or that looked vulnerable, from time to time. I would like to see Corsica, not totally removed from the game, but to lose its core, so that it can only pop up in certain situations and not as a result of a peace deal (much like Wales is now). And don't worry too much about Poland -- it has an unhappy history in this alternate time line too, but not due to any unfair modifiers.

thechallenger: It's about 1% creativity and 99% patience .

Avarri: Yep!

LAF1994: Yes, still still going . I type all the chapters up in Word, so that's already done. I only add the pictures when I post, though. We'll see what happens when it's all over... which will be a while!

Working on the next update now (I had to take some time to do a little research on pre-1453 Austrian history, which slowed me down). Not sure if it will be up today or not, but definitely soon.

The Austrian Revolution was not a single event so much as a violent, chaotic ten-year process in which one of many factions finally emerged victorious. It was not merely a political change, but had social and religious aspects as well, and its effects reached far beyond the borders of Austria. Obviously, whole books have been written about single individuals, groups, or moments of the Revolution, and we can in no way do justice to them all here. But the greater mistake would be to omit it entirely.

Early History of Austria​

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Austria became a battleground between Bavarian and Slav, and then between Frank and Avar. Toward the end of the eighth century, Charlemagne conquered Bavaria and then proceeded to extend his territory further east, bringing Austria into his empire. The country was gradually Germanized and Christianized over the next century until a new threat arose in the form of the Magyars, whom it took the emperors decades to overcome.

The Babenbergs were the first recorded local rulers in Austria. The Babenberg margrave Leopold III (1095-1136) (Saint Leopold, canonized in the midst of the revolution) sided with Emperor Henry V in his rebellion against his father and was rewarded richly for it. Under Frederick I Barbarossa, Austria was proclaimed a duchy and given certain special privileges within the empire. In 1192, the Babenbergs acquired Styria (or Steiermark), among other territorial expansions in this period; also, the era saw the extensive colonization of unpopulated areas, turning the countryside into a thoroughly German region. In the thirteenth century, an unknown Austrian poet composed the great Nibelung saga.

The death in battle of Frederick II (appropriately called "the Warlike"), last of the Babenbergs, precipitated a political crisis. In 1254, Otakar II of Bohemia and Béla IV of Hungary divided the old Babenberg domains between them: Otakar took Austria and Béla took Styria. But Otakar used the excuse of a noble uprising in Styria to annex that country as well a few years later. Now the master of a vast realm, he only met his downfall when a new force arose in the Empire.

Hapsburg Rule in Austria though 1463​

The house of Hapsburg first gained power in northern Switzerland. The first known ancestor of the line was Guntram "the Rich," a German warlord who died around the year 950. His grandson, Radbot of Klettgau (c. 985-1045), built the Hapsburg Castle which became the seat of the family's power until its move to Austria. Hapsburg power grew throughout the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, culminating in the ascension of the first Hapsburg emperor (technically only King of the Germans rather than Holy Roman Emperor), Rudolph I in 1273.

Realizing the threat that Otakar posed, Rudolph moved against him, and in 1278, the Bohemian king was killed in battle. Following this, Rudolph launched a campaign to add Austria and Styria to his demesne. Thus did Austria become the center of Hapsburg power, which it remained until the family was wiped out in the revolution. Under Hapsburg rule, Austria expanded further, absorbing Carinthia, Carniola, and Tyrol.

In 1365 Rudolph IV, who had given himself the new title of archduke, died. His sons, Albert III and Leopold III, experimented with joint rule, but finally decided to split the Austrian domains between them. Albert received the wealthiest territories, along the Danube, while Leopold received the rest. These were further divided in the ensuing years, so that by the time of the last Hapsburg emperor Frederick III (Fredrick V of Styria), the once-united lands were a patchwork of divided territories, all ruled by members of the same family. Frederick, as we saw earlier, attempted to reunite Austria but died before he could accomplish this, and as a result he lost the Imperial crown for his family. The electors chose to pass over his son Ladislav in 1455.

Austria as it was around the death of Burgundy's Duke Philip the Good, shortly before it was reunited under Ladislav.​

Ladislav was the last effective Hapsburg ruler of Austria. Despite failing to be elected Emperor, he succeeded in consolidating his power over his relatives, through both war and diplomacy (mainly diplomacy). Ladislav, distrustful of the system that had shattered his ancestors' realm, attempted to curtail the power of the aristocracy to the benefit of the burghers and merchants. He granted certain privileges to them, and improved relations with neighboring Venice, the greatest trading center in the region, so that through the late 1450s and early 1460s, the Austrian economy began to grow remarkably – and power of the middle class with it. Along with exotic trade goods, new ideas began to penetrate Austria's borders.

Storm Clouds on the Horizon​

Ladislav's untimely death, without issue, in early April 1463, hastened by a wound he had received years before while warring against his cousins, marked the beginning of the end of the house of Hapsburg. His sickly and henpecked brother Frederick VI replaced him but reigned for only about a year and a half before he succumbed to pneumonia in late 1464. His eleven-year-old son Maximilian I was named archduke and a council of regents was established to govern Austria in his minority. This council was troubled by deep divisions between the "old guard," led by the young archduke's mother Maria and her lover, his uncle Franz, (the youngest son of Frederick V, who was second in line to the throne after Maximilian's younger brother Frederick) on the one hand, and on the other a party sympathetic to the burghers, led by Wolfgang Frantsits, a statesman who had served as chancellor under Ladislav and Frederick VI and spearheaded Ladislav's reforms.

The reign of Maximilian I – the beginning of the instability that led to the revolution.​

Throughout this first regency, tensions remained near the boiling point. Maximilian turned fifteen in 1468 and began to take more power into his own hands. He was intelligent, but not nearly skillful enough at his young age to effectively keep the balance between the two parties. He fell more and more under the influence of Frantsits, who achieved total control over access to the archduke, so that even his mother was unable to visit him without his chief minister's consent. Frantsits attempted to placate the nobles by launching a disastrous invasion of Croatia in 1469, but this attempt at conquest ended in failure, and the nobles despised him all the more. So matters remained until 1473, just shy of the young archduke's twentieth birthday.

In February of that year, a collection of nobles issued a stern demand disguised as a humble petition: Maximilian must undo Ladislav's reforms or face the consequences. They were ignored, but their veiled threats were not idle ones.

On Sunday, October 3, as Maximilian was leaving church, a scuffle broke out in the street. The event distracted the archduke's guards (or perhaps provided them with the excuse of a distraction) long enough for an assassin to rush up to the king and stab him. The murderer was killed instantly; Maximilian was not so lucky, lingering on in agony for days before finally dying from an infection. During that awful week, Wolfgang Frantsits was smothered to death in his sleep by agents of Franz.

Once again Austria was ruled by a child, Frederick VII, who, unlike his elder brother, had inherited his father's frail constitution. For the entirety of his reign (1473-1478), another regency council governed Austria – this time with Franz acting as regent. The liberties of the merchants were severely curtailed as the conservative party enacted its revenge for the slights of the past two decades. Nonetheless Franz found governing more difficult than he expected, and the merchants waited for the opportunity to strike.

The First Phase of the Revolution (1478): The First Triumvirate; the Battle of Lienz​

The outbreak of open hostilities.​

In the spring of 1478, Franz attempted to deliver another blow to his enemies by raising a number of taxes (the most well-known of which was on the importation of beer) under the pretext of raising funds for a crusade against the Turks. By June, the burghers, fed up at long last, began recruiting an army of Italian mercenaries. It was the beginning of over ten years of anarchy in Austria.

The first battles occurred before the month was out. The revolutionaries' strongholds were in the far western part of the country, closest to Venice, which lent significant support to them – less for ideological reasons than out of a desire to weaken a powerful and aggressive neighbor. Franz's base of power was in the north, around the capital of Graz, in Styria.

The rebels were commanded by the "First Triumvirate" of Jacob Casper, Victor Heinrich, and Oscar Haemrich, three wealthy merchants who also had some skill in combat. In July they issued a proclamation accusing Franz of murdering the previous archduke (reasonably enough) and insisting that they were loyal subjects of Frederick VII who sought only to free him from the grip of "the most tyrannical and unjust courtier who has led him astray." The rebels won several victories against local loyalist garrisons in July and August. Franz, determined to crush them before winter set in and gave them the opportunity to consolidate their positions, levied a massive force and personally led it (with the young Fredrick VII by his side) against them in a great battle at Lienz, in Tyrol. There the rebel army was defeated and scattered. The Triumvirate fled for their lives, but were hunted down over the ensuing weeks. They were carried back to Graz and executed in particularly grisly fashions. Their corpses were divided and prominently displayed in various towns throughout the west.

They were not the only casualties, however. During the Battle of Lienz, the teenaged Frederick VII was mortally wounded – though likely not by the enemy. Thus did the merciless and reactionary third son of Frederick V cease to be regent and become archduke in his own right.

The Second Phase of the Revolution (1479-1481): New Factions Emerge; The Downfall of Franz​

Had anybody other than Franz himself taken power at this juncture, the matter might have come to an end. But Franz, owing to his personality, had many enemies besides those he had vanquished at Lienz. His former ally Maria abandoned him for uncertain reasons (recently, historians have begun to debate whether she was complicit in the murder of her two sons – earlier Austrian sources unanimously condemn her) and gave her support (among other things) to Philip of Hapsburg, a cousin of Ladislav who was presenting himself as a more moderate alternative.

Nor was the merchant party by any means defeated, despite military defeat and the loss of their leaders. At the moment they had no direction, but their resentment against Franz naturally only grew after Lienz, and they waited eagerly for the moment when they could have their revenge.

Meanwhile, in the far north, a famine devastated the region in the winter of 1479-80, and, as was usual in those times, the hardship gave rise to a wave of fanatical, heretical, and apocalyptic religiosity. In this atmosphere emerged one of the remarkable figures of the religious history of the pre-Reformation era: Gerhard Zwerger. Zwerger, the son of a middle-class man of some small local significance, had been ordained a priest sometime in the 1460s and had already earned a reputation as a great preacher. People had for years travelled from nearby towns to listen to his sermons, in which he emphasized God's righteous judgment and the vanity of worldly goods. But now, with Austria fast descending into chaos, he truly found his element. The famine and rebellion, he announced, were God's curse on the land for its corrupt rulers. They also signified the start of the End of Days, and Zwerger himself was the modern John the Baptist, heralding the return of Christ. Certainly he looked the part: ragged and emaciated, he fed himself on nothing but grass and insects, wore only sackcloth, and covered himself in dust and ashes.

The local bishop, Wolfgang von Schönburg, ordered him to stop preaching. Zwerger responded by declaring that the bishop was "the devil and the son of devils," denouncing him for his wealth and his mistresses. Some time in 1480 Zwerger's views radicalized even further, and he authored a pamphlet entitled "Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John," in which he unambiguously indentified Pope Leo X as the Antichrist. Von Schönburg attempted to have him hunted down, but he escaped all attempts at capture– aided by the locals, who used various devices to hide him from the authorities. "Commentary" was published by an unlicensed printing press and quickly spread throughout Germany, and eventually beyond, despite its being banned everywhere in Europe. The Zwergerite movement rapidly grew in northern Austria, supported by both peasants who were drawn to its apocalyptic aspects and the middle classes who saw it as a banner to be raised against the oppression of their rulers.

The peasantry in the south also began to stir. Their reasoning was less religious and more economical, however: Franz had redoubled his efforts to squeeze as much money as he could from his subjects. In the summer 1481, a large rebellion erupted among the peasantry in the south, demanding the repeal of the new taxes. Franz once again marched out an army to deal with the crisis, and once again defeated and slaughtered his enemies.

While he was gone, however, Philip, urged on by Maria, raised an army of his own and declared himself the rightful archduke. Franz turned his forces northward and met Philip in battle in Styria on August 18, 1481, but his luck had run out. He fell in battle and Philip assumed the throne.

The Third Phase of the Revolution (1481-1484): The Reign of Archduke Philip; the Second Triumvirate; the Rebellion of Maximilian​

Philip married Maria shortly after taking power. Many were surprised at this, as Maria, now in her forties, seemed unlikely to bear him an heir. But in fact, she was already pregnant with his child and knew it. At any other time, Philip's intelligence and moderation might have saved the day, but the situation was probably now too far gone for anyone to reverse it. Philip promised to alleviate the tax burden on the commoners, but failed to deliver – the government's coffers were empty. North African pirates frequently raided Trieste, Austria's only port, urged on by their Turkish masters. The archduke's failure to respond triggered another rebellion in 1482, which was put down with some difficulty.

Many nobles opposed Philip as well, some because they had shared Franz's agenda, some because he was clearly not a legitimate claimant to the throne. These men rallied around Maximilian, the son of the last independent Hapsburg duke of Lower Austria, the area around Vienna.

Meanwhile, Zwerger's followers continued to grow, exacerbating the economic collapse of Austria as they threw down their ploughs and headed out into the wilderness by the hundreds to emulate their master's way of life. The new Pope, Paul II, gave the Archbishop of Salzburg free reign to combat the Zwergerites (they were not inactive in the Archbishop's territories, either), and an inquisition was established, but, faced with ferocious hostility from the locals, it accomplished little besides burning Zwerger's pamphlets, which were easily replaced. In 1482, a riot broke out against the inquisition in Vienna (so far had the movement spread) which resulted in much bloodshed. This event, when he heard of it, is likely what gave impetus to Zwerger's later actions.

Then in 1483, the deluge. Maria delivered a stillborn child. This was to be expected at her age, but the times did not give welcome reception to reason or logic. Rumor spread that the baby had been born with two heads, or a hunchback, or a tail, or that it had not been a human at all, but a snake – the stories differed. But they were almost universally believed. Zwerger's reaction was obvious, but it was not only his radical followers who feared that the child had been a curse due to Philip's usurpation of the throne. The whole world suddenly turned on the archduke and archduchess. The merchants, already disillusioned in their earlier hopes that Philip would restore their old rights, had found a new set of leaders, the "Second Triumvirate," consisting of Christopher Alvintzky, Bruno Tegethoff, and Albert Haemrich, the son of Oscar of the First Triumvirate.

But the nobles beat them to the punch. More and more now joined Maximilian, who had raised an army and was marching south. He and Philip finally met at the Battle of Graz in June of 1484. The outcome was the worst of all possible results: Maximilian's army proved triumphant, but both Philip and Maximilian were killed. Thus the succession fell to Maximilian's ten-year-old son, also named Maximilian. He would be the last Archduke of Austria.

Maximilian II was the sixth ruler of Austria in a twenty-year period, and the third to be a minor.​

The Fourth Phase of the Revolution (1484-1488): The Rebellion of the Second Triumvirate; the Peasants' War;
the Army of God; the Proclamation of the Republic​

Maximilian's regent was his cousin, Frederick, a man firmly in the pro-nobility camp. He locked the ruined Maria up in a convent, signifying that he was now the power in Austria. The burghers were unwilling to tolerate such an ultraconservative, and one of dubious legitimacy at that. Furthermore, there was no need for them to do so – Frederick's grip on power was tenuous and his armies exhausted. They soon recruited another army and, beginning in 1485, began to seize towns and citadels throughout the west and south – many of which welcomed them.

In May of 1485, the rebels issued a proclamation, known to history as "The Declaration of Görz." It was far more radical than the one composed by the First Triumvirate six years before. It declared, much like its earlier counterpart, that the regent was "no regent but indeed a tyrant," but it also went on to claim that "the blessings of God have manifestly been withheld" from the Hapsburg line, who had "tormented this land and its people for many centuries, excepting only the good King Ladislav of blessed memory, with division, taxation, and violence." It also condemned the regent and the rest of his family for "failing to provide protection against the mercenary forces of the heathen Turk, who daily raid our shores, carrying off with them our fortunes, our children, and our wives." In its conclusion, it declared that "since, as we have so plainly shown, Maximilian the self-styled Archduke of Austria holds this office unlawfully and without competence, it is the right of the governed to cast him off and establish a new republic, governed by representatives of the people and charged with protecting the interests thereof."

The loyalist faction was in such poor shape that Frederick did not immediately respond to the loss of the south. Ironically, the greatest threat the Triumvirate faced in the first year or so were the widespread peasant revolts. Unlike the great rebellion that would soon rise in the north, these were mere lawless bands without leadership or common cause, but they were powerful enough to terrorize the countryside. The Triumvirate had to take up the task of governing these areas and promoting law and order. They issued a pardon to those peasants who would lay down their arms, and promised to reduce taxes. They quickly won the south to their cause, for the most part.

There emerged, however, a recalcitrant peasant movement under an enigmatic man named Michael Poll. Poll refused to accept that the Triumvirs were any better than the Hapsburgs, and swayed hundreds and eventually thousands to his cause. They demanded, not only the removal of the Hapsburgs, but an end to all earthly government, declaring that they had "no ruler save God alone." Poll sought the confiscation of all property from the nobles and gentry, to be evenly divided up among the peasants.

At Trieste they defeated a force led by Alvintzky, who died from his wounds during the withdrawal. Poll occupied the port for months, to the dismay of its inhabitants, but that was his high tide; a second battle in the spring of 1486 saw a larger force under Haemrich best him, and by the end of the summer his army had by and large deserted him. Haemrich ordered him beheaded, but offered lenient terms to his followers.

Things were just as bad in the north. Zwerger, no longer content merely to preach and evade the authorities, apparently decided to take action. On Christmas Day 1485, surrounded by a multitude of followers, he came to Krems, where he and his supporters stormed the cathedral; the local clergy were powerless to resist. The population greeted him with great enthusiasm, and there he preached his most famous sermon, on the Book of Joel (Zwerger always showed particular interest in the Old Testament prophets), in which he proclaimed that the end of days was at hand and all present were invited to join his "Army of God," which would first overthrow the archduke and the Archbishop of Salzburg, then march to Rome, "where sits the Antichrist in all his worldly splendor," which would be the site of the final battle between the forces of good and evil. "For Christ told Simon Peter," he preached, "that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword. And it is no shame, but a glory, to die by the sword in the name of God, and he who does so is assured a place in Paradise, whatsoever his sins may have been." The crowd as one took up his cause, stitching red crosses onto their clothes as a symbol of their willingness to spill and shed blood for Christ. They then began to march.

The banner of the Army of God.​

Thousands more joined them as they moved. They marched day and night, urged on by a zeal that is perhaps impossible for modern man to understand. All whom they met either joined them or risked their lives. They stopped for nothing, except to massacre the Jews they encountered on their way; for sustenance they pillaged the countryside to the bone. They faced no resistance until they reached the gates of Vienna. There they routed a small army of the archduke's; to Zwerger, this proved once and for all the legitimacy of their cause.

Knowing his situation was probably hopeless, Frederick nonetheless could no longer sit still. He sought help from Emperor John, but the empire, still reeling from its defeat by Burgundy and occupied by the war against the Palatinate and the Archbishop of Cologne, had no troops to give. So Frederick managed to piece together a sizeable force of his own and marched up to crush the Zwergerites. His army was twice their size, and included large numbers of heavy cavalry. Nonetheless, Zwerger faced the situation with absolute confidence. Upon hearing of their approach, he fell into a mad ecstasy and declared that the saints and angels themselves would soon appear and fight alongside them.

But Zwerger's gift of prophecy had failed. Frederick's army made short work of the ragtag horde of lightly-armed (and in some cases, completely unarmed) rebels. A great many escaped, however, and lived to carry on his legacy – for the next few centuries, whenever rebellion broke out in central Europe, the rebels were likely enough adorned with red crosses. Zwerger himself was captured and sent to Salzburg, where he was tortured, forced to sign a confession of heresy, and burned at the stake. The whole affair had so ruined the land that it would take decades for the economy to recover.

The threat in the north was over, but the greater foe in the south remained. Their numbers had swelled and they now controlled the whole country south of Carinthia. It is a testament Frederick's determination and skill that the civil war dragged on for as long as it did: over two more years, which saw two major archducal victories around Wolfsberg, in the latter of which Tegethoff was killed. That left Haemrich, who had originally only been included in the Triumvirate due to his name, as the undisputed leader of the rebellion – and possibly preventing yet more civil strife among the Triumvirs after the revolution. Finally, however, Frederick was decisively beaten in July 1488 at the Battle of Zellbach, opening a path into the north. The capital of Graz fell and the now eighteen-year-old Archduke and his old regent were both captured trying to escape. After some debate as to what was to be done with them, they were both executed for treason against the Austrian state. For good measure, as many Hapsburgs as could be found in the country met similar fates. Maria was dragged from the convent and beheaded to general rejoicing.

Haemrich, now named Consul, along with the lesser leaders of the rebellion, established a government based on that of Venice, which still stands today, despite many changes and many trials, as Europe's oldest large republic.

The Republic of Austria is born.​

Effects of the Austrian Revolution​

All of this did not take place in a vacuum. The progress of events in Austria was monitored throughout Europe. Just as Venice had lent aid to the rebels, the short-lived Pope Leo X and his successor Innocent VIII, who feared Venice, condemned them in no uncertain terms as "parricides" and "brigands," and placed the whole of Austria under an ineffectual interdict for years before finally resigning himself the situation. As a result, Catholicism became associated with the hated old regime. Is it any surprise then that Austria was the first major power to take up the banner of the Beckerites a few years later?

However, after the initial shock had passed, the rest of the world grew accustomed to the new order. The French Revolution of the nineteenth century wholly remade the world, but the Austrian Revolution was content with humbler achievements. Ideology did not yet rule the day, and it no doubt never occurred to Haemrich or any of his supporters to spread the revolution beyond Austria's own borders. The twin republics of Venice and Austria soon fell out of favor with each other, while the rulers of Hungary and Poland allied with Austria against the Ottoman Empire. The whole affair soon receded into the background in the consciousness of western Europe, except as a prelude to the great religious controversies that were coming.

Albert Becker often spoke of the Zwergerites as forerunners of his own Protestant movement, and historians have frequently accepted that statement without question. But in fact they shared little but a hatred of the papacy – Zwerger, for instance was a jealous hoarder of relics and a devotee of the cult of the saints, and also believed without question in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Becker also praised Austria's constitution in glowing terms, but then, he did the same for any country that embraced his doctrines.

One other important figure's reaction is worth noting. A few years after the revolution, as a teenager being groomed for high rank in the Church, Philip, Count of Flanders and youngest son of King Charles the Wise of Burgundy, admitted in a letter to his friend, the future pope Sixtus IV:

I believe the negative attitude of the fathers in Rome to the republicans in Austria is unwise, and a symptom of the failings so evident everywhere in these days. Do not all the masters of antiquity praise the virtues of a balanced republic and warn against the power of tyrants? I fear that Christendom is traveling down the wrong road in the west, but I hope that the Austrians will provide an example of a better way. There is time yet for both Church and State to reform themselves, and I dare hope that some wise humanistic king will take up the great task. He would ensure for himself nothing but the love of his subjects and the blessings of God in all his endeavors, and would avert another fearful tempest in his own land. Let us both pray we never see such violence again! When I think of the poor faithful Christians there who suffered at the hands of their brethren during the late troubles, my heart weeps for that land, and I feel that I would do whatever was in my meager power to lend it comfort.​

It was, of course, this same Philip who would one day lay waste to Austria.

Hi Truth -- while I obviously took some liberties in the story, for the most part, what's in the AAR is in broad brushes pretty close to what actually happened, believe it or not: three regency councils and two regency wars in such a short period were what really did the trick, but the problem was exacerbated by repeated Barbary Pirate raids on Trieste (they were technically at war with the Ottomans for much of this period, as the Turks had guaranteed Croatia; but I don't think there was any action on land between them) which led to a lot of peasant revolts in the south, and heretic or anti-Judaic rebels in the north (can't really remember which). It was just total chaos over there.

And yeah, they became a merchant republic with an Albrecht Haemrich as their leader -- he had pretty lousy stats, something like 3/5/3. Sadly, I didn't get a screenshot them breaking.