And Rumours of War

GrimPagan said:

It seems to not be the lack of Poland but rather Norway that seems to be the problem.

Click to expand...

Well, either way, no endless wars in the Baltic.

By the way, you might find this note from the recent War of the Fall of the Roman Empire amusing: I derive a reasonable fraction of my income from having a monopoly in a New World COT; the COT, in turn, gets a lot of value from fur provinces in Canada. This session most of Europe went to war with Byzantium to partition it; the demand for furs dropped by 90% over a very large swathe of the world; the value of my COT went from ~1000 to ~500; and my income dropped around 10%, before expenses. Ouch. And I wasn't even in the war!

Right. Hence Norway's plaintive diplomatic appeal in the chat: "Make fur hats, not war!" Alas, they did not listen. When will they ever learn? When will they eeever learn?

Bah. Maybe I should see if I can find any iron provinces I can conquer.

Hmm. I wonder if I can sue for damages under the terms of the Roman Commonwealth? By my calculations each of the belligerents owes me something on the order of 100 ducats, although I don't expect to collect from Byzantium.

August 17th, 1569
Somewhere on the Ivory Coast
Breton Empire

The chief's Brezhoneg was bad, and Peder's not much better. But the facts were clear enough: The chief would sell ivory, a tiny amount, streaked with yellow. He would sell elephant hide, indifferently tanned and already moth-eaten in spots. He would sell slaves, too young for serious work or else stinking of illness. And in each case, the reason the goods were bad was that another Norwegian ship had been here three days before and swept up the good stuff. Peder bit back curses; he had hoped that by leaping far east along the coast, to the point of real danger from naval patrols out of Fernando Po, he might have got ahead of his rival, whoever he was. But it was the same as it had been all along the coast: Only dregs, enough perhaps to return the shareholders a ten percent profit, but no more. And you could make that much on a legit voyage, paying the exorbitant Breton tolls; a smuggler captain who returned with ten percent would be laughed out of town, and never given another commission.

On the other hand, he was only three days behind his rival, now. At his last stop it had been three weeks; it followed that the other smuggler had been making the intermediate stops that Peder had skipped in hopes of getting ahead of him. And Peder had a good idea of what his rival's next two stops would be; there were only so many slaving chiefs willing to risk smuggling, even on this malarial coast where the Breton writ ran only lightly. He took a curt leave of the chief; back on the Maria Galante he gave orders to sail east towards Bassam.

This far east, it would not be possible to fill up his hull with high-quality goods; the risk of running into a patrol increased for every day's sail closer to the Breton naval base at Fernando Po. But on the far side of the law there were not many distinctions; if he got home with a full hold of cotton and tobacco from the colonies, there wouldn't be any questions asked. After all, smuggling was a risky activity; fully one ship in ten didn't make it back, and who was to say why? And at Bassam his rival would need to sail for some distance up a narrow river, overgrown by jungle.


August 25th, 1569
South of Bassam, on the Ivory Coast
Breton Empire

The Marie Galante lay in a tributary, well hidden by the overgrowing greenery. Fighting from the ship was out of the question; she had guns, certainly, but his rival's ship - whether it was Nordvesten, Håpets Gallei, or Jomfru Margrete - would have them too. There could be no surprise in a ship-to-ship action, and without surprise the chances were equal; besides, a cannonade would damage the valuable goods. That was why fights between slavers were rare. But Peder had an advantage: He knew that his rival would have to pass up this narrow river, where the tree branches overhung the deep channel. And with surprise and speed on his side, a boarding action from ambush would by no means be an equal fight.

His lookouts had alerted them half an hour before, and his crew were in the branches, armed to the teeth - another advantage. Slaving crews were armed to guard against their prisoners, but they would be carrying knives and marlin spikes, not braces of pistols - only officers were issued firearms except in preparation for battle.

Time dragged; it seemed an hour before the other ship came into sight, and another while it slowly made its way into the ambush zone, towed by its two ships' boats. The figurehead was a dolphin, and Peder bared his teeth in a grin. It was Nordvesten, and Peder knew the captain: Steinar Torsteinsson, his distant cousin. The ambush was business, but now it was also a pleasure.

At last Nordvesten drew under the foliage where Peder's men hid, and he gave the signal by the simple expedient of dropping down onto her deck. His men dropped down all around him; as planned, Peder went for the forecastle while David, his second, led men to the bridge.

That was when things went bad. An officer on the forecastle gave a shout of command, not in Norwegian but in Brezhoneg - and suddenly men began pouring out of the lower deck, not a lightly armed smuggling crew but men in the uniform of the Breton Coast Guard and armed with muskets. In a flash Peder understood what had to have happened: The Bretons had caught Nordvesten with a hold full of slaves and no customs receipts, and had decided to use it as a decoy for a raid on another smuggling village. A Norwegian ship would not spook the villagers into fleeing for the hills or taking up arms as a customs cutter would, and so they'd be able to get in among the natives and teach them proper respect for the decrees of the Breton Empire. The legendary bad luck of the Torsteinssons had caught up with Steinar, and Peder had jumped right into it with all his crew!

To be continued

August 25th, 1569
South of Bassam, on the Ivory Coast
Breton Empire

There was clearly only one thing to do: Get in among the customs troops where their muskets would just be heavy clubs. Peder ran, shouting for his men to join him. Fortunately there was no time for the Bretons to coordinate the volley that would have stopped the charge in its tracks. The ones at the front fired, but as individuals; and snapshots with the 13-pound Valencia-pattern musket were just not very dangerous.

Being a scion of a wealthy Yngling squire, Peder had been given training in the martial art called håndvåpen. His men hadn't, but they were smugglers and brawlers. Their opponents, on the other hand, were regular troops of the Breton customs guard, policemen as much as soldiers, with little experience in close combat. Two of them went down under Peder's first snake-swift knife-strikes. But they pushed forward in a closed mass, and the brawl took on the character of a formal battle; now it was the Norwegians, not used to this sort of fight and wielding shorter weapons, who were at a disadvantage. They were inexorably pushed backwards.

Peder stepped back to avoid a musket stroke, and found nothing to support his right foot. He went crashing down awkwardly; his right leg dangled into the ship's interior while his torso and left leg were on opposite sides of the hatchway he had just fallen into. Some idiot landsman had left a hatch open. Worse, one of the idiot's comrades was about to exploit the idiocy to kill him, Peder: In a moment the Breton line would sweep over him and a musket would come down, and he was in no position to dodge. His position was too awkward to get up in a hurry. Instead he gathered in his left leg and dropped gracelessly down the hatchway, landing with a thump in the hold.

He had landed on a raised gangway, away from the slaves chained neck-and-neck all along the hull. That was fortunate, since they would certainly have torn him limb from limb if they could get at him. As it was he flinched from the strong stench of shit and despair, although at least it was not yet mingled with death as it would be a few weeks' sail into the Atlantic. But a smuggler was used to that. He quickly reoriented himself. The slaves would be the victor's loot, the important thing was to get back into the battle above and make sure he was the victor. Climbing back up the hatch would be suicide. He had to find some other route. But suppose he could get up forward, find a different hatch, and come in behind the Breton line? A quick attack in their rear might break up their formation and create the chaos that would favour his men. He'd better not dawdle, though, the Brezhoneg shouts from above were getting more triumphant by the moment.

He sprinted forward along the hatchway, through a bulkhead, and stopped in surprise. This was where the crew would sling their hammocks; naturally those were stowed away now during the day, but the space was not empty. There were men chained along the hull here too, but they were not black. He grinned in savage realisation: The Bretons had decided to make a little extra profit on the side. White slaves would fetch good prices as curiosities in the eastern markets, especially tall blonds with a reputation as backwards savages. He spoke in rapid Norwegian: "Listen. The Maria Galante is boarding you and stealing your cargo, but we weren't expecting the fordømte Bretons. Help us and we'll help you, eh?"

He didn't bother with their savage curses, instead bending down to insert his knife into a chain link. The chain was cheap pig iron, good enough for holding a naked man but no match for his upper-class steel blade; it gave way with a snap. The man thus freed leapt up, grinning savagely. Peder recognised him with a shock; it was his much-loathed cousin Steinar, bruised and dirty but not seriously hurt, from the way he moved. Peder tossed him his belt knife and bent to free the next prisoner. The cheap chains made quick work; they had all twelve prisoners freed in less than a minute.

"Steinar, we don't like each other but we're both in a bind. Here's the situation. The Bretons are up on deck fighting my men. If we go up through this hatch we'll be in their rear. You'll have to use your chains for weapons; hope you're not too stiff. Once we get up, charge right in; give them a moment and they'll turn about and use their muskets, and then it's all over. Ready?"

There was no argument; they all knew what would happen to them if they didn't seize this opportunity. Steinar led the way, jumping up onto the deck and charging at the Bretons alone, waving Peder's second knife. Peder and the others followed as fast as they could get up through the hatch. In the confusion of battle the Bretons didn't become aware of them until Steinar chopped down his first victim, plunging the knife into a kidney. He followed up by wrapping the chain dangling from his lefthand around a Breton neck and squeezing, then grabbed the fallen man's musket and began laying about him with that. Then Peder's knife went into the neck of a man turning about too slowly, and a crewman jumped onto the trooper beside that one and began biting, and it was all over. A huge cheer went up from the Norwegians on the other side of the Breton line, and they poured into and then through the weak spot. With their cohesion broken the Bretons were no longer a match for the individual fighting skills of the slavers. The line unraveled in both directions, quickly becoming nothing but individual troopers running for their lives - with nowhere to go but the river. Some of them would likely make it to the bank, the river wasn't that large; but with their powder wet, they'd be easy prey for the natives.


Combat-exhaustion threatened to knock him out, but there were things to do first, before anyone else recovered. That was the secret of the Viktorsson luck, Peder's father had told him: Always do things fast, even when you were tired and would rather stand about panting heavily and leaning on a railing, as Steinar was doing. Two of the Nordvesten crewmen were down with wounds, leaving nine including Steinar. On the other hand they were not as exhausted as the dozen unwounded members of Maria Galante's crew, and they were carrying stolen muskets. If it came to a fight it was not clear who would win.

"Steinar! Who is captain of this ship?"

The other Yngling blinked. "I am, of cou - "

Peder's fist drove into his stomach, and he doubled over, gasping.

"No, you're not. I'm captain, by right of conquest. Now, here's the deal. You helped us out in a tight spot, so we won't rob you completely blind like we were going to. We'll leave you half your cargo, and you can have the shit in our holds, and you'll go somewhere else and let us deal with the chief at Bassam. Got that?"

Peder leaned threateningly over his cousin, making sure he understood the implicit threat in the words. Steinar had no need to know that it wasn't so clear-cut as all that; if the Nordvesten men fought, well, the odds were in Peder's favour but they weren't overwhelming. Even if he won he might be left with too small a crew to transfer the slaves between ships. Speed and intimidation, that was the trick; if his cousin were given time to think, he would spit defiance out of plain Torsteinsson habit.

Steinar licked his lips, looking about. His men were looking at their captain; the Maria Galante's crew, taking Peder's cue, were grinning intimidatingly and ostentatiously reloadig pistols. Peder lifted his kinfe threateningly, and Steinar's resolution collapsed.

"All right! Fine! You win, you Viktorsson bastard."

The tension went out of the confrontation as Peder's men collected the muskets. Steinar stood slumped by the railing, defeated; for a moment Peder felt sorry for the man. It couldn't be easy to be a Torsteinsson, and know that you were always going to come out second best. He shook his head, dismissing the thought; no doubt Steinar would have done fine if he hadn't insisted on being in the way of a Viktorsson out to make some money. It was a big world; there was plenty of room, even for the second-best men. After all the Torsteinssons were Ynglings too.

Just not as good at it.

So that makes two Great Games where Byz has gone down fighting with terrible efficiency even to the very end. Last time Constantinople held against the Burgundian tanks in a siege that lasted half a year.

The closing years of the sixteenth century were dark ones for the Norwegian Republic. The long peace had been broken at last, and a nation which had fought no major battle for a century was woefully unprepared for war. The French, on the other hand, had been schooled in the hard lessons of Byzantine occupation, reconquest, and religious war. When their armies poured across the southern border of the Norselaw, they met little resistance; the scattered garrisons withdrew to the Highlands and waited for reinforcements from the colonies, where most of the Ynglinga Hird was stationed to deal with Indian raids and bandits.

The reinforcements never arrived. The Norwegian navy - the power and the pride of the nation - was as large as the French; but it was dispersed to ports in the New World, away from prying eyes and close to the pirates that were its principal foe. Worse, the Admiralty were unaware of the French navy's vast growth in the preceding decade, and also unaware that the new French ships were larger and better armed. Orders were given to concentrate in the Channel to cut off the French armies from reinforcements and supplies, and to pave the way for a blockade; the squadrons accordingly set sail across the Atlantic, and arrived piecemeal, straight into the maw of the waiting French galleons. In a disastrous battle off Land's End, half the Norwegian navy faced the full power of the French - odds of two to one in hulls and rather worse in guns - and were sunk or taken to the last rowboat.

There could be no recovering from such a defeat, and no reinforcements across a French Atlantic. The negotiations were accordingly swift: Two months after Land's End, the south of England was under French rule. Shock and grief ran like an epidemic through the Norwegian public, all the more so since French nobles publicly boasted of their intention to rule all the Isles. A second Diaspora, a flight across the Atlantic to the colonies, seemed possible, and was openly avowed as the goal of French foreign policy. Mention was made of compensation, offers of protection and trade were given; surely, the suave French ambassador pointed out, it was better to accept the inevitable gracefully, and reap at least the benefit of having a powerful friend.

The Norse polity united, for the first time in a century, in utter rejection. The exiles had put down roots in their new country, all the deeper perhaps for the memory of being uprooted once. Should the green fields of England join the mountains and the forests in the tales of bygone days, in the legends of an exiled people? Not if the sons and grandsons of the men who had fled across the North Sea had anything to say about it. In their thousands they joined the army, eagerly voted taxes for rebuilding the navy, built foundries for cannon, dug new mines for iron and coal.

Still there are limits to enthusiasm. France was counted a minor power in the councils of Europe; but it could draw on fields enormously more fertile than those of straitened England, and a war-hardened population six times that of Norway. When the war was renewed, fifty thousand regulars of the Armee d'Angleterre crossed the border, with fifty guns; the Ynglinga Hird could muster only thirty thousand to oppose them.