Enewald: Not really early, you get them at Prod 4 in DW.
Rabid: Correct, something will have to be done about our friends to the north sooner or later.
Boris ze Spider: I’m Orthodox, so no chance of conversion to Prot/Reformed.
Thanks to everyone else who responded as well!
The Pharaohs Return: An Alexandrian AAR
Chapter Four: Roman Courage, or Roman Stupidity?
The war against the Knights didn’t last much longer. They surrendered the entirety of the Anatolian coast back into Byzantine hands and retreated to their island holdings. Already word was filtering into Alexandria that the Emperor planned further campaigns to re-establish Roman dominion, although he was remaining tight-lipped on the target.
It didn’t dissuade Kallinikos from continuing his efforts, as he sought whatever legal recourse possible to finance the construction of tax infrastructure in the kingdom even if it meant robbing the dead.
Stricter tax enforcement did not go down well with the serfs, and murmurs of discontent continued to spread amongst the lower classes. While Kallinikos sympathised, in his eyes the feudal order was all that kept the Greek leadership being overthrown by the majority so he refused to loosen feudal restrictions.
He also began funding expeditions down the Nile deeper into Africa. While the terrain was harsh and the locals unfriendly, there was a lack of the organised resistance that there had been in the Muslim regions. Greek settlers soon discovered that most of the hospitable places along the Nile were settled already by Nubian tribes. At first they tried to live peacefully, but the Nubians were not eager to share the limited resources with foreign newcomers and tensions began to rise.
It was unfortunate for the project, as the king’s attention was elsewhere. The Byzantine plan had been decided and it was a bold one, some might say insane. The Emperor longed for the days of the Roman Empire and was willing to launch an all out invasion of Italy to begin reclamation of Rome. Opposing him was an alliance of Italian states, the Pope and the distant but dangerous English.
Immediately, Kallinikos had the fleet depart towards Greece with reinforcements. However the Byzantine fleet was strangely missing, allowing the Neapolitan fleet to slip and deliver a minor but decisive defeat to Alexandria. Forced to seek refuge in Anatolia, the navy began repairs while the army took the slow way to the front.
Access through Hungary and Aquileia were secured in an attempt to combat Milan, which was embattled in its own separate wars. Unfortunately those wars had come to the end by the time the Alexandrians arrived and the full strength Milanese army drove them off.
With the military occupied elsewhere, the natives of Dongola took the chance to rise up and wipe out the Greek settlers. Such barbarism angered Kallinikos, but with a major war on there were no forces available for reprisals.
(Yes, I am doing this deliberately. Colonisation would be far too easy otherwise.)
The location of the missing Byzantine fleet was eventually determined when the Emperor proudly proclaimed he had forces marching on London. The real question that concerned Kallinikos was where the English army was during this.
In Egypt, that’s where. The English landed as far west as possible to avoid Byzantine fleet patrols and began marching towards the Nile. The moment the king found out he immediately recalled the army from Greece where it had been recovering from the mauling at Milanese hands. It still had to take the long way through Armenia and Jerusalem with English and now Castillian ships joining the enemy dominance of the seas.
Strangely, they did not go for Alexandria directly and instead focused on spreading out and securing all the surrounding areas of the country first. This was a fairly smart move as it prevented reinforcements from being raised, but it did give a chance for the leftover Alexandrian troops to fight a guerrilla war striking wherever the English occupiers were weakest.
Castille’s entry into the war had provided some benefits. Their Aragonese rivals were eager to finance anyone opposing them. It came at a crucial time as most of the major cities in Egypt were under siege and unable to provide for the war effort.
Losses continued to mount up, most prominently the king’s younger brother and heir apparent, Ioannes, who fell sick in besieged Cairo as supplies diminished. Kallinikos promised to dedicate a church to him once the war was over.
As soon as the main armies had returned they descended upon the English with righteous fury at the occupation of their homeland. All the smaller siege forces were hunted down and the primary English army, tired and diminished from months of fighting the searing heat a long way from home, was defeated conclusively at the mouth of Nile itself.
Meanwhile, the Empire was discovering itself how much it had overreached with this effort. The main army continued to mess around in Italy, taking regions only to immediately lose them to a pursuing Italian army large enough that neither side wanted to risk a direct engagement. A variety of enemy forces were moving freely through the Greek countryside and causing havoc in their absence.
With his country free of enemy troops, Kallinikos was able to negotiate his way out of the war with only minor tribute paid. Enough damage had been done for him to be more than willing to let the Emperor handle his own mess.
Finally free of the war effort, a regiment of guards were sent with the next wave of colonists in the south. This time, the natives organised an enormous army to drive the Greeks out and once again slaughtered the defenceless colonists. This was too much, and Kallinikos ordered the full might of the Alexandrian army forward. This time the Nubian army was wiped out, and every village with a certain distance of the Greek settlement razed to the ground. This time, the colonists would be there to stay.
The survivors of the Alexandrian campaign were taken and sold into slavery and soon the colonists began raiding some of the more outlying villages to continue this lucrative trade.
It looked liked the Emperor was learning his lesson as well, as he had withdrawn from Italy entirely, bought peace with the English and was now mopping up the remaining invaders. Would he be able to hold onto this when planning his next war?
Continuing the good news, word came that the final holdout of Islam in southern Egypt had finally been dealt with. Finally, Orthodox Christianity reigned undisputedly along the entire known length of the Nile. There remained a lot of work to do however to ensure that Alexandria was strong enough to survive the whim of the Byzantine Emperor’s grandiose designs.
The year is currently 1436.
To be continued…