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So, readAARs:

Being the sort of reader that prefers AAR:s with many pictures, I am now getting frustrated with the decrease of pictures in my own. In fact, I can't come up with any new ideas -- partly since I am incapable of doing anything advanced, as well -- and thus I ask for your help: through what I have made, you might have a hint of what capability I have. So does anyone have any special suggestions? Or anything you want to see more of, or more often? Or shall I just keep on popping out parchments now and then? ;)
 
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Interesting!

I have to agree with everyone, the maps are very classy.
 
Personally, I like your style the way it is. It reads very much like a book, which is what makes it so very interesting. For my part, I'm happy with the occasional map and journal entry. The story is what's most important to me, and I am enjoying the story very much. :)
 
I really like your AAR the way it is set up now with its journal entry pictures - but if you are really interested in more illustrations, go with the map idea. Playing with photo-editing in Photoshop to do something spectacular can be really time consuming (I've tried it, and ultimately gave it up, in my own AAR).
 
“With that amount of gold, I would forgive you for making my daughter pregnant and running away with my wife.” Bernard stated, eyes fixed at the content of the bag.
“You’re married?”
“Of course not, but it is the principle.”

That part had me laughing quite loudly.
As for more pictures, I'm reading this, and usually I just can't get interested in an AAR without a few shiny pictures
Subscribed, BTW.
 
Thanks for the answers, all, and welcome to all new readers! I'll take your advices into severe consideration, and I am thrilled to hear that you are that happy with the way I am writing. :D An update will reach you before the end of the week.
 
I now also want to announce, since I know that you in here read what I write, that I've from this evening on got another AAR going as well (don't worry -- it will not be competing with this one, it will rather be a more "light" alternative), namely "Chronicles of the Preuilly's". You'll find link in my signature.

And as earlier, I'll have you an update at latest on Sunday, unless something unforseen happens.
 
Tried a new way to deal with the map today. Here you get a small teaser for the next chapter, which I will, as promised, have up by evening. :D
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Chapter IX

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Holland, September16 1074

Thiedric felt a headache gripping him, a common reaction of his when facing a situation that he would rather not have encountered. This time it was in the form of three-thousand soldiers in a field camp by the Western bank of the river, flying hundreds of standards of either red and yellow or dark and light blue. He was usually excited before a fight – after all, it was the area in which he excelled. He had no great wits, nor was he wise or taught in arts of writing and reading. He seldom went to church since he did not understand Latin, and during the big feasts held at the courts of duchies and kingdoms he more than a few times had wished that he was naught but a squire without importance, so that he would be able to act, say and drink what he wanted and not have to consider the pesky rules of courtesy.

This fight however, was not something he would enjoy. All too much was at stake, and the army residing in the camp by the river was by far bigger than his. Nevertheless, he had to fight; if they did not fight, the road to his throne was clear. If they were victorious, they would be saved. And if they fought and were defeated, then at least they had tried.

All in all, the reason to all of his problems could be explained with one name; Godfried d’Ardennes.

---​
Zeeland, February 1074

Godfried saw more of the many negative parts about a campaign rather than the elements that bards sung and knights boasted about. The army of the duchy had only been engaged in a few small skirmishes, and was now stuck in a siege by a small town in the county of Zeeland. Zeeland was incorporated in the Flemish duke Thiedric Gerulfing’s, one of the three rebellious dukes, Duchy of Holland and after this siege, next step would be to take the very heartland of Gerulfing; Holland. However, the siege looked as if it would take quite a while before reinforcement from the Emperor would arrive.

Everything had gone like clockwork. Bohemia had declared independence, the spy mistress had been murdered, and the three dukes had all rebelled at the same day. The problem was that the assassination attempt on the Emperor had failed, and through that little mistake they dukes were now paying. Ludwig of Thuringia had been first to taste the whip of the Emperor, for his lands bordered to von Franken’s. To Ludwig’s bad luck, the tribe of the Obotrites by the Baltic Sea had decided to invade as well and thus he was stuck in a two-front-war that he could not win. His duchy was seized, and he was thrown in the Imperial dungeon in Franken.

Meanwhile, the Emperor’s troops had gone for both Bohemia and Saxony. Magnus Billung’s troops fought bravely and effectively, but were ultimately too few. The only reason the duchy fell so late was its size, and the Emperor’s troops were still engaged in sieges.

The only one of the rebels that seemed at least moderately successful was the Bohemian king, Vratislav. The mountains of Bohemia were a good defence to start with, and the ferocity of the Bohemians was superior to that of the Germans. The battle there seemed to be on its way to a status quo.

The last one of the rebels was the duke of Holland, Thiedric. After proclaiming his decision to support the Emperor, Godfried had immediately gotten a declaration of war from Thiedric as well as Saxony, both which neighboured Lower Lorraine. As it was now, Thiedric was the indisputably best strategist of the rebels, and thus he was supposed to lead a united army. Now, however, Godfried stood in between Thiedric and his allies, and he thence did not have any choice.

It started to get evident that the rebellion had failed. Ludwig was imprisoned, Magnus Billung had fled the country and Thiedric was land-locked in between the troops of Lower Lorraine and the ones of the Emperor. Likewise, save the Bohemians, Thiedric was the only leader that still had the majority of his army left.

Zeeland fell in March, when the combined Imperial and Lotharingian – as Godfried now always mentioned them – army stormed the fortress. The soldiers had been order, on pain of death, not to plunder nor pillage and not to kill anyone that did not resist by arms. Godfried had given these orders himself, partially since he was still haunted by dreams of the blood spill the army had already seen, and partially since he knew that it would be easier to incorporate Zeeland into the duchy if the inhabitants did not have memories of bloodbaths and dreams of divine revenge on the bastard that had killed their family.

The news from East had been merry; Saxony was about to fall, and the Bohemians were being pushed back. In reality, not even the Emperor thought that it would be possible to reconquer Bohemia in this war, but he hoped to grab a few of the bordering counties and thus seize the strategically important mountains. Seeing as the Emperor was busy fighting the Bohemians, Godfried had the supreme command of the army in Holland as the most high-ranking noble. This meant that the real command was with Eckhard, whom after all was Godfried’s marshal and responsible for all the duchy’s military matters.

Godfried had grown to respect and like Eckhard more and more during the campaign as they got to know each other better. Behind the mask of indolence and relaxation he was a thinking character, interested in theological matters and – to Godfried’s surprise – was fully capable of reading and writing in both French and German. Most of all, Godfried felt happy that he finally had someone in his council apart from his wife that he felt he could trust fully.

---​

Holland, September 16 1074

When Eckhard left his tent the sun was shining clearly over the encampment and the surroundings. He stretched as if to reach closer to Heaven, and went for a short, energetic walk around the awakening camp.

He had had the command for a year now, and was happy with a position of power. In a duchy like Lower Lorraine, soldiers and commanders seldom had much to do more than tourney and feasts, except by civil war and war with France or England. By war with any of the Eastern neighbours Lorraine was too far away to rely on for supplement, and was kept as reserves. Now was his moment to shine, and he was well aware that he might never see the opportunity again. He was 47 already, and another civil war was not likely to spark under the remainder of his lifetime after this holy mess.

The soldiers of the army were mainly from the duchy, the majority being from Andernach and Breda with surroundings. The rest of the duchy’s soldiers were from Friesland and had joined the army after invading Oldenburg in northern Saxony under the command of Eckbert von Braunschweig, the count of Ostfriesland. All other soldiers in the army were formally under the command of the Emperor himself and were generally gathered from northern Schwabia and Upper Lorraine. The encampment was a symphony of dialects and traditions, and Eckhard was amazed at how different two men could be; living in the same kingdom, but in different duchies, and barely being able to understand each other. That thought had hit him when a Frisian soldier stood and tried to communicate with the German armaments master. The two men had basically stood and screamed at each other after accidentally insulting each other by body language, for the German did not understand the guttural sounds of the Frisian whom did not understand the hard consonants of the German. Eckhard chuckled and kept on walking.

He looked up towards the hill overlooked the little valley. He did not count on an assault; precautions had been made by sharpening long wooden sticks and dig them down in the ground. Any infantry coming from the hill would have to climb over them whilst dodging arrows from the enemy and any knight on horse would be thrown off when his horse got pierced by the pole. Up on the top of the hill stood a small group of cavalry, waving the blue banner with golden fleur-de-lis of duke Thiedric. Eckhard assumed that the tall and powerful man in the front was Thiedric himself, but before he had time to study the distant character anymore the group turned around and rode away. Eckhard shrugged to himself. Thiedric’s days were counted, and in a few hours he would be looking up to duke Godfried and ask for mercy.

---​

The sun was at its peak when the two armies started moving towards each other. They had rendezvoused on a field a few hundred meters away from the hill by the brook, and after both commanders had tried to fire the will, morale and ferocity of their troops the armies started moving towards each other. Godfried was overlooking it all from the rear, with Eckhard riding around with a squadron of light cavalry giving orders. Even for an untrained eye as the one of Godfried it was easy to notice that the Imperial army had one great advantage; they had enough cavalry to have two powerful wings. Wings that, if everything went as planned, would be able to defeat the ones of the enemy and thus attack the bulk of Thiedric’s army so that it was surrounded from three ways.

The armies clashed and the unmistakeable sound of steel against steel against flesh and bone rose to the sky like a singing bird. Already before the armies engaged in close-counter combat the archer’s of both sides had taken their toll on the enemy, causing large casualties on both sides. When looking at the men that lay where the Imperial army had started, Godfried felt queasy and immediately turned his head away.

“Are you all right, sire?” asked a young knight next to him. Two squadrons of knights were set to defend Godfried and other nobles that for various reasons did not participate in the battle. Among these was Eckbert von Braunschweig, the conqueror of Oldenburg, whom was unable to walk after having his left leg amputated shortly after the storming up north. He had gotten a lance piercing his thigh, and gangrene had developed too fast for the doctors to be able to save the leg. He now looked longingly towards the alarm of the battle, knowing that he was forever incapacitated from what he loved.

“I’m fine, boy. It is just that God intended me to read about the great battles, rather than experience them.”

---​

A few hours later it was all over. Half of the opposing army lay dead on the field and Thiedric had been taken prisoner. The Imperial-Lotharingian army was celebrating most loudly and cordially and prisoners were organized into groups of ten with bound hands and feet, guarded by two soldiers per group. Thiedric was noble though, and could thus not be bound like any peasant. Instead, he got a heavily guarded and spartanly furnished tent as his residence.

By evening-time, when the alarm had sunk with every victorious soldier that passed out due to lack of energy or drunkenness and rain had started falling, Godfried made his way to the prisoner’s tent. The guards first refused to let him in, and they obviously did not believe that he was the mighty duke of Lower Lorraine. On his inside Godfried was boiling, but he forced himself to remain calm as he grimly said to the guards that if they did not obey him, he would have them hanging from their own feet the very next day. The confidence with which he uttered the threat convinced the guards, and they let him in.

The tent was dimly lit, the only source of light being a large candle on the one table in the room. By the table sat duke Thiedric, slumped and resigned. Godfried sat down opposite to him, and waited for Thiedric to gather himself enough to salute the victor. Despite his relatively easy and very decisive victory, Godfried could not fully enjoy the sweetness of it. The complete resignation in Thiedric’s eyes, and the way his body-language told the watching world that he had nothing left, made Godfried feel pity for his former peer. And also, it made him afraid. That could be him one day. One card uncarefully placed on a deck could disrupt ones whole world, maybe for the better but most likely for the very worst. And if Godfried had sided with the rebelling dukes instead of the emperor, it could be him sitting there. The thought made him feel a chill up his spine, and he pushed it away.

“What is to happen with me?” Godfried jumped at the sudden sound, but immediately realized that it was Thiedric. He still did not look Godfried in the eyes, and the tone of his voice was tired although it held a hint of impatience.
“That is what we are to discuss, Thiedric.” Godfried answered with a low voice, trying to appear friendly and thus make the negotiations easier. “I am not a cruel man; even if others, and among them our Emperor –” Thiedric flinched at the mentioning of his former liege. “–would without doubt have you beheaded without any further ceremony, but I do not think it is a good way to walk. I am careful with my soul, Thiedric, and I do not wish to spoil it with the blood of others unless necessary.”

Thiedric smiled briefly. “Duke Godfried,” Since Godfried was the victor he was entitled to be called ‘duke’. This was a right that Thiedric was without, since his future as a duke all of a sudden was very dubious. “You are speaking to a warrior, a man that cannot read and cannot write more than his own name. The one thing I can do is to kill and have others kill for me. I do not know anything of immortal souls; what I do know about is the life on Earth, and I am severely worried for mine by now.”

Godfried could not keep from smiling. It seemed that he and Thiedric shared the scepticism towards the church, and even though the man claimed to be a simple brute he was highly skilled in the art of speaking.

“I think you will find me more merciful than you seem to think, Thiedric. I do not plan on having you executed, nor do I want to hurt any of your kin in order to force you into an agreement you do not wish to enter.” Thiedric appeared watchful, as if looking for a crack in the honest façade of Godfried. “In fact, I do not believe in violence in any form. I believe in diplomacy and the wisdom of men, and I am convinced that the two of us will be able to reach an agreement that will render us both satisfied.”
“And why would you, with victor’s right, care about my satisfaction?”
“Because it is in my interest that you are.” Godfried smiled. “If it was Henrik von Franken sitting here, you would be lying in a dungeon waiting for your execution, much like I have heard that your ally Ludwig of Thuringia is in this very moment. I am not Henrik von Franken however, and after having served him in this war he owes me the right to make my own peace treaties.”

Thiedric appeared both interested and puzzled, and remained silent to hear the proposition.
“You are a marked man now, a man that will do best to keep a low profile the rest of your life. It will take a long time before this is forgotten, and it is impossible to keep you among the ranks of the dukes after what you have done. I thus demand your ducal title of Holland.” Thiedric nodded slightly. He was clearly agreeing to what Godfried said, but wanted to hear the whole proposition before commenting it. “However, with this you have a good interest to use any chance you can to live without an overhanging threat. You have a wife and children, and I do not wish to send you drifting away on the streets and all the time be on the watch for the Emperor’s troops. Thus I will let you keep the counties of Holland and Westfriesland – letting the county of Zeeland enter into my own demesne – if you agree to enter under my protection and become my vassal.”

Thiedric lowered his gaze, and to his surprise Godfried saw that the man seemed to fight laughter. When he raised his eyes again, they were awake and alert, and he looked younger than he had done a few minutes earlier.
“Truly, duke Godfried, I think you are pulling my leg.” he said, shaking his head slightly to show that it was not what he really thought. “Your offer is merciful and kind and I cannot say no to it. I thus submit to you, and both Zeeland and the ducal title is yours.”

He fell on his knees and took Godfried’s hands.

“Thank you for your mercy, my liege. I will not fail you, and I will remain forever faithful to your dynasty.” Thiedric rose again and bowed to Godfried. When their eyes met, Thiedric looked at Godfried with the gaze of a man that has just tricked Death and is paying his honours to the one that has helped him do so. Godfried smiled to himself and walked out again. It had ceased to rain.

---

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The Northern Holy Roman Empire after the civil war, and the states of Poland, Hungary, France, Denmark and Sweden.

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Thus endeth the ninth chapter.

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A marvelous victory in battle, and a former enemy has become a vassal. Godfried's reign as Duke is going very well. He should not be too far from becoming King of Lotharingia now.
 
crusaderknight said:
A marvelous victory in battle, and a former enemy has become a vassal. Godfried's reign as Duke is going very well. He should not be too far from becoming King of Lotharingia now.
About 5-7 provinces actually ;)
 
Impressive.

And yes, sometimes being merciful is very profitable...
 
RGB said:
Impressive.

And yes, sometimes being merciful is very profitable...

Very? Im sure Machiavelli would have something to say about that, something along the lines of "it is far safer to be feared than loved." ;)
 
RGB: And in any case, Godfried is probably what men like William the Conqueror would call a complete wimp. But someone's has to fly the flag of mercy ;)

Aethis: Yes, look at Stalin. :D Then look at the Russian czar. Luckily, Machiavelli is not reading this thread.

Alfred Packer: I don't know why, but I've always gotten the impression that Heinrich von Franken (I am actually not sure why he, in my story, is called Henrik von Franken but that's too late to change now) is very unintelligent and rather useless. Don't ask me why, it might be the stare of his empty eyes...

Mettermrck: You mean when destiny plays Godfried in the hands so that he manages to gain more lands in Germany. ;) I'm merely a chronicler of humble descent.