Everyone Loves the Underdog: A Croatian AAR

[totalbasscase]

Everyone Loves the Underdog: Croatia’s Return to Power

By TotalBassCase

(Note: I try to explain the war between Venice and Hungary/Croatia that’s on during the beginning of the game. If anyone knows otherwise to what I have made up, please correct me. Thanks.)

Chapter I, In Which the Protagonist Throws Off the Yoke of Oppression and Thrashes the Doge

The viceroy was growing complacent. That old fool Gingic was letting the Hungarians tread all over him, and subsequently us. Half of every harvest, half of every taxation was tithed to those damnable Magyars, and what did they do with it? Spent it on lavish balls to court Austrian women. Pah. Croatian money belongs in Croatia, not floating around some German’s parlor. For every crystal goblet that’s discarded after a single use, we could put a halberd into the hands of a Croat to fight for his homeland. The “Partnership” the Magyars spoke of had to end. The only question was how to do it without incurring their wrath.

Ironically enough, they solved that problem for me themselves. In late December of 1418, tensions were high in the Balkans, as Venice tried to exert her commercial might over the lot of the tiny states on the peninsula. Hungary, adversely affected by the trade sanctions, and having no navy of her own to counter the Venetian forces with, sent riders through Zagreb with a message: Hungary was at war with Venice. Croatia could join Hungary in this war without any further commitment to alliance, or she could join Venice, and be crushed.

Since being appointed as the Viceroy’s advisor, I had long seen the reclamation of the Adriatic coast as the key to regaining power for Croatia. The Venetians held it, and this could be the perfect opportunity to both break free of Hungarian oppression and reclaim lost Croatian lands. I got Gingic’s rubberstamp approval and sent the reply to Budapest: Croatia would fight alongside her Magyar “brethren”.

The Hungarian troops would take at least a month and a half to reach the Venetian borders, while my own border guard was a mere thousand pikemen and four thousand cavalry. I ordered the forging of ten thousand halberds and the training of men to wield them, split into two divisions out of Krain and Zagreb. My border force was immediately sent southwards towards Triest, where they had orders to begin a small-scale siege and run at the first sign of Venetian troops. I had my own plans for the Venetians.

Meanwhile I faced the problem of the empty coffers under the palace at Zagreb; the tributes to the filthy Magyars had run our finances dry. I began relaxing the controls on trade and Croatian merchants, going towards a more laissez-faire approach. This in itself caused some turmoil in the country, though it was quickly repaired; for all of his ideological shortcomings, Gingic was an administrative genius, and a diplomatic prodigy to boot.

As my divisions left their training camps and formed up for the march to the sea, Hungarian forces passed through Zagreb on their way to begin the siege of Trieste. Marcovic, commander of my skirmish force in Istria, told me later of the look on the Magyar commandant’s face as he saw the ragged band of men laying siege to the city. “He was astonished we were here, let alone alive; he had just engaged a force of 15,000 Venetians and lost 20,000 of his own men, a full half of his force!” We had a good laugh about the incompetence of the Hungarian commandant the night of the treaty signing, without a doubt.

My timing was perfect. Just as the battle in Istria ended, with my forces nearly intact and the Hungarians limping along at half strength, my rider reached Budapest with a scroll bearing the seal of the new Kingdom of Croatia. No longer would half our income flow into the pockets of the Magyar oppressors, we were a free people. Our partnership in military affairs could last as long as the Hungarians liked (Like it or not, they had to accept that we had priority in the siege in Istria.). It was, of course, worded much more politely than this, so as not to offend them into attacking Marcoviæ’s force, but the gist remained the same.

Our people had become lazy and unused to change, and the severing of our ties to Hungary caused some significant unrest in the land. Noone took up arms, as there was a war on and the people knew better than to betray their country so, but it took a few months before everything was back to normal.

Meanwhile, the Venetians had mounted more than a few counterattacks, all turned back by the Hungarian hordes, while Marcovic and his troops sat quietly in the siege. Their band had been reduced to a mere 500 men, 100 of them mounted, because the province simply could not provide enough food to feed the Hungarians and our force. But as long as the Hungarians followed the modus belli, they could not assume control of the siege. Marcovic issued orders left and right to Hungarian siege engines and troops, and in general enjoyed himself immensely. Meanwhile my two fresh divisions arrived in Venice and Dalmatia a few days ahead of the Hungarian reinforcements, laying claim to those cities as well. Hungary itself was reconquering Croatian lands for its former vassal, and I had but to sit back and wait.

Well, sometimes waiting is the hardest part. The sieges themselves took over four years; ironically enough, the last to fall was the first to be besieged. Dalmatia fell in a mere 9 months, the canal city of Venice a year later, and two years after that, the beleaguered citizens of Trieste finally raised the white flag of surrender. I was in the middle of drafting my demands to be delivered to Venice when the rider burst into my chambers, panting from exhaustion.

“My lord Baron! The Venetians send you a peace offering.” He knelt, offered me a scroll with an imprinted wax seal, and left the room at my dismissal. My jaw hit the cold stone floor as I broke the seal and read the letter; right there, translated into perfect Serbo-Croatian, was an offer of two hundred and twenty five chests of gold ducats, and possession of the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia, in exchange for peace. This went beyond my wildest dreams; apparently when my troops had seized the port of Venice, no orders had gotten out to the island territories in the Aegean, and no reinforcements were enroute to break Croatian control of the area. I drafted my reply with a shaking hand, ordered a scribe to recopy it, signed and slapped some wax on it, and used my ring to imprint the seal. I had just doubled the size of my country, and freed it from oppression and tyrrany… but this was only the first step towards assuring the survival of the kingdom. I would need to cement my powerbase in the Balkans and build a strong coalition with which to resist the growing Turkish threat in the east.

(That's all for now, cause I took PSATs today and I have work to do for my CompSci courses. Will play more tonight and write more tomorrow! Comments, please!!!)

[Lord Durham]

Nice piece of writing. I like your choice of country. This first post is in the first person, does that mean you'll only cover a set amount of years, or do you plan on 400 years? If the latter, it's a pretty ambitious project. Good work, though.

[totalbasscase]

Yeah, I plan to keep it going 400 years, or until the Austro-Ottoman sandwich gets a liiiittle too painful.

"My Lord Baron, the Austrians have accepted our offer of annexation!"

I wish.

Anyway, I'm going to keep it in the first person and then just narrate from the point of view of Hracovec's descendants. I'll make the advisory position a hereditary one, that way I can have the same ethnic prejudice against Magyars and pride in the familial achievments. Maybe even a coup d'etat to begin the Royal House of Hracovec? Only time will tell.

Thanks for the comments!

[Estonianzulu]

Aghh, PSATS those are evil...
Nice start, maybe the underdog will come out on top.

[Sorcerer]

Powerful start, but you'll need to gain strength quick if you want to survive between the white and the green blotch on the map...

I'd like to read a bit more about the Hracovecs, perhaps the narrator could introduce himself?

[totalbasscase]

Chapter II: In Which The Protagonist Plays the Schoolyard Bully and Picks on Those Smaller Than Him


In 1427, things were just starting to cool down around the court. Most of Europe lauded the end of the Venetian stranglehold on the Adriatic sea, and Dalmatia was becoming internationally recognized as sovereign Croatian soil. I, however, was not content. If we were ever going to be able to defend ourselves against Hungary, we would need more revenue, and that meant two things: More commerce, and more territory.

I had begun my commerce reform 8 years prior, and the results were becoming apparent: While no marketplace was completely dominated by Croatian merchants, they were an ubiquitous site, with two or three at every bazaar from Tago to Isfahan. A gradual shift in policy to a complete free market system would be the way to maximize income, and that would allow us to finance a larger army to defend against our neighbors.

The other option, of course, was to expand. To save face in the eyes of my fellow heads of state, I limited the scope of my ambition to fellow Catholics with similar culture; I tried to stay away from Orthodoxy as that would inevitably lead to confrontations with the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor. As the dust settled from the Venetian war and the ink was dry on the treaty of Trieste, I saw my neighbors to the east, Serbia and Bosnia, embroiled in a furious clash over Kosovo. I stationed my forces in Dalmatia, both to keep an eye on the proceedings and to keep down the Venetians-Turned-Croatians in the province who might think to rebel. My initial plan was to wait for Serbia to defeat Bosnia, annex them, and then step in; a quick war with Serbia would yield the province, and I would never bear the black mark of having annexed another nation.

As any military commander will tell you, plans are useless as soon as the battle begins. By the glory of God, the Catholic Bosnians, outnumbered three to one, drove off the Serbs back into the capital of their allies, Wallachia, where they sat and watched Kosovo and Beograd fall to the might of the Bosnian army. On November 12, 1429, Serbia consigned the province of Kosovo and 5 chests of gold, their entire treasury, to the government at Sarajevo. I was on hand for the treaty signing, cursing my luck the entire time through a smile as false as Byzantine claims of power and dominance.

This made my situation much more difficult. Ragusa and Bosnia had been allied for quite some time, and my options were slim; I could both annex Ragusa and take orthodox Kosovo from Bosnia, or turn my attention immediately to Hungary. I chose a third option; in frustration I sent a formal declaration of war to the still-recovering government in Beograd, laid a quick siege to the city, and forced the Serbs into a vassalship to augment the Croatian treasury. This, however, was a mere distraction- I needed some way to unite the Catholic Slovenes while excluding the Orthodox citizens I could not afford to convert.

Once again, my enemies solved my problems for me. I received word of a massive conversion effort underway in Kosovo by the Bosnian government, a conversion effort that would ultimately allow me to take the province by force. Thankfully, they could afford the huge effort involved in such a large campaign of ideals, I had other fish to fry.

While I was off in Dalmatia with my military leaders, some peasant rabble raised an army around Zagreb and began a siege. We were caught completely off-guard, and had left no troops in the capital; with the treasury rarely greater than thirty chests of gold, we could not afford such large armies except in wartime. The main force of twenty thousand was brought back to deal with the rebel scum, but the country remained badly shaken for another year before things quieted down. I settled in for a long wait until Kosovo was fully Catholic; until then I would build the Croatian economy to the point where it could support an extended war against both Bosnia and Ragusa.

I realized the need for friendship to the north, because I certainly was not making friends to the south. For some reason the Magyar fools still held some obscenely high level of respect for us, so I arranged for the daughter of some courtier that I wasn’t very fond of to be married to a Hungarian prince. The King’s niece herself was married to an Austrian archduke, while his son was being prepared to inherit the throne (To avoid any nasty succession issues, of course.) Even in the far-off courts of France, England, Castile, and Lithuania, Croatian maidens graced the arms of noblemen in royal families across Europe, assuring neutrality at the worst and support at best in case of a showdown with the heathen Turks.

Back home, however, I was feeling some resentment from Serbian nationals visiting in Zagreb. They would mutter about the “Dirty Croat Oppressors”, and it occurred to me that I had become exactly what I sought to destroy… corrupted by my own morals. Well, the ends certainly did not justify the means. Tomorrow I would issue the order to free the Serbians from their vassalship… it wasn’t really contributing that much to our accounts anyway.

But for now, sleep.

[Leone]

Good AAR, though... Free market? Laissez-Faire? Adam Smith, famed Croatian economist of the 15th-century, undoubtably came up with all of these excellent ideas for you.

Anyway, looks good. Austria shouldn't be too much of a problem if they don't get Hungary/Bohemia... How you will engineer that in your current state is something I haven't figured out yet.

Oh well.

[totalbasscase]

Chapter III: In Which the Protagonist Fights a Three Front War, and Negotiates His Way Out of Certain Doom

__________________
Before we start, here’s a quick overview of the Hracovec family, to avoid confusion.

Josef Hracovec [Son of a Croatian duke and an Austrian princess] [Born 1380]

[Married 1412]

Natlya Marcevic (Niece of Gingic I)[Born 1391]


Children: Radek [Born 1414], Anna [Born 1418]
__________________

January 3rd, 1431

The red and white checkers of the Croatian flag hung behind His Royal Highness, King Gingic I as he hobbled up to the pulpit. The priest supported him by the elbow as he ascended the short staircase, muttering about the indecencies of old age. He spoke at length about the achievements of the man in the coffin, the service to his country, his unending devotion to his King.

I knew the truth.

My father lay there, cold and still, hands clasped over his breast in a final gesture of complacency I knew he would not have appreciated. Here he was, being laid to rest before God and King and Country, and his eulogy was chock full of references to how all through his life he served the King.

My father served no one. When he began his works there was no king. He forged this kingdom with iron and blood, and only let that senile fool take the throne so as to keep himself out of the public eye. My father did what he did because he had spent his childhood buried in books, reading about the glory of a Croatia long gone, of dominance in the Balkans and power equal to that of the Magyars, or the Franks, or anyone else who had aspirations in the area. He dreamt of seeing Croatia return to her station, and he had died because of it.

A week prior he had decided to release Serbia from its vassalage. A guilty conscience is a statesman’s worst enemy, but he let it get to him, and drafted a resolution of emancipation. On his way to deliver the speech in the public square and announce the proclamation, he had descried a Serbian national standing on a crate, stirring up a crowd of listeners. The charismatic man was near to inciting a riot, and my father ordered his personal guard to apprehend the man. As the Serb was brought before his captor, he recognized the man upon whom he gazed and wrenched his arm free from a guard. Before anything could be done, a small stiletto was impaled in my father’s stomach. The guards hauled the man away and summoned help for my father, but it arrived too late.

He was on his way to free those ungrateful wretches.

I got the message a day later, on station in Zara, commanding the garrison there that kept watch on the Ragusans and Bosnians. I doubled the size of my own personal entourage and rode with all due haste to Zagreb, where I was taken to conference with King Gingic.

“Radek, you must know I am truly sorry about what has happened to your father. Josef was one of my most trusted advisors, and it was oftentimes that I conferred with him before a major decision—“

“Conferred with him? If it were not for him you would be a Hungarian slave. He put that crown on your head, and you had best remember that when you speak of him.”

Gingic raised his leathered hands to silence me. “Calm yourself, child.” I bristled at that. Anyone was a child compared to this relic, even my father, who had borne witness to half a century. “I ask only for you to serve me as loyally as your father did. You are every bit as brilliant a tactician, and I have no doubt you shall serve to further Croatia’s glory.” This man’s silver tongue could be turned on anyone, and though it had saved us from the wrath of the Austro-Venetian alliance more than once, I wished it’s effects were slightly less potent right now.

“Of course, my liege.” Of course I’ll serve you. But what I do, I do for the motherland, not for you. Gingic put a feeble arm around my shoulder and we began walking towards the dining hall for a meal before the funeral. “Tell me, young cousin, how is your sister?”

I sat in the front row, listening to Gingic’s speech and feeling my blood boil. That cantankerous fool could not last much longer. When his body failed him, I would be ready for whatever weak-minded relative won out in the jockeying for position that would follow his death. I was descended from this man a few generations back, and as much as that fact disgusted me, it would allow my ascent to power to be complete. Only when the power behind the throne sat on the throne would Croatia return to her former glory.

I had only just begun arranging my personal effects in my father’s old office when the ambassador from the Magyars, only allowed back in the court in the week since my father’s death, entered the room. “Hracovec, we must speak. I must inform you that the Serbian aristocracy has gravely insulted my nation, and we wish you to honor the military alliance that has been so beneficial to us in the past. Our declaration of war was delivered this morning, will you follow it?”

I frowned. “Of course you know they are a protectorate of the Kingdom of Croatia? How can you expect us to declare war when they are our vassals? Do you have any idea what kind of turmoil that would cause in our country?”

The ambassador’s tone changed. “Our relations will be greatly disrupted if you should dishonor the alliance. We may even go so far as to include you in the declaration of war.” They would be legally within their rights, but he knew as well as I that Hungarian cavalry would have no chance of victory in the thickly forested hills of Croatia.

“Then I suppose this meeting is at an end. Consider our alliance terminated.” I showed him out of the room, and not ten minutes later Gingic was brought in, screaming as best he could.

“How could you do that? The Hungarians outnumber us five to one! We don’t have the resources to fight them! You’ve doomed us all!” He looked to be on the verge of exploding. I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him. The rich color of the cape next to the pale gray of his skin was mildly sickening, and he gave off the impression of a walking corpse.

“Think for a moment before you begin your tirade. We will never come to blows with the Hungarians, even if we stand without an alliance for the next century. And you will ensure that in the days to come. Begin overtures to the Mantuans, as they are the true power in the Veneto-Austrian alliance. With the Habsburgs and northern Italy on our side, neither the Hungarians nor the Ottomans will think to challenge us.” A smile crept over his face.

“So that is why you have been sending lavish gifts to the Mantuan court! A cunning strategy indeed. I shall draft my letters immediately. You are a credit to your family, young Hracovec.” Moreso than you shall ever know, I thought to myself. He left the room with just as big a bluster as he had entered, and a week later the reply came from Manuta: We were welcome in their alliance. I could again turn my eyes eastward towards Bosnia, as my father had.

Not a month later, a summons came from the Venetian ambassador. The bad blood ran deep between our two nations, as the War of Croatian Independence had reduced Venetian continental holdings to merely the Canal City and its immediate surroundings. They resembled Byzantium in that respect, save for the commercial influcnce they still held. The latest word from Constantinople was that the Ottomans had accepted Morea as the price for peace, forcing the Byzantines into a war of aggression against Teke in order to have something to placate the Sultan with the next time he took the city.

“We would prefer not to involve you in this, but as we are requesting help from all our allies, we would like to ask that you declare war on the Ottoman Empire. They have challenged our posession of Ionia and we are forced to respond in kind.” I smiled at the man. He reminded me of a snake, with the way his eyes darted around the room and his body seemed to be one long tube of flesh.

“Of course, Monsignor ambassador. We would be glad to declare war on the Turkish infidels. However, I regret to inform you that we maintain no activy navy, and as such, will be unable to contribute to the war effort unless Turkish troops land in Italy.” An expression of dismay crossed his face, then erased itself just as quickly; he was upset that his attempt to break up the alliance had failed.

“We thank you for your support, monsignor. My regards to your King.” He backed out of the room, seeming more serpentine than ever. I turned back to my analysis of the situation in Bosnia and prepared to completely ignore the coming war with the Ottomans.

Bosnia had an alliance with the tiny kingdom of Ragusa, and both were devoted to the cause. The only question was which nation to declare war on; I finally decided on Ragusa as Brandenburg, who had powerful allies in Poland and Lithuania, spoke for Bosnia’s independence. As I sent off the declaration of war to the ambassador from Ragusa, I was informed that Poland itself had vouched for the sovereignty of Ragusa. That tripartite alliance declared war a few days later, as my troops awaited the Ragusan attack in Dalmatia. I was not particularly worried, as Poland and Brandenburg had no way of getting to my territory or that of my allies, but Lithuania had the port city of Jedisan and a small navy, and could land 5000 troops or so every month on Croatian shores.

The initial battles favored us. Preferring to fight in the rocky hills of Dalmatia instead of the unknown passes of Ragusa, I had an army of 35,000 infantrymen await the Ragusan charge towards Zara, while I commanded the 20,000 man excursion into Bosnia. The Bosnian army, of comparable size to my Bosnian Expeditionary Force, was off in Kosovo, placating revolts in the now-Catholic province. The fight in Dalmatia resulted in ten thousand dead Ragusans and only 500 dead Croats, and pertaining to the orders I had left, General Marcovic took the army into Ragusa and laid siege to their capital city. My own armies left a force of five thousand at the gates of Sarajevo and moved on to engage the Bosnians in the forests of Kosovo. As we prepared to leave, however, the Bosnian army appeared over the horizon, and we had barely enough time to prepare ourselves before the initial cavalry charges came crashing down upon us. Having learned from some ancient Roman military histories that had been sent to me by friends in Mantua, I ordered the pikemen to extend their weapons at maximum range and the general infantry to cover them with shields, forming a sort of spiked shell around my forces. The cavalry were forced to retreat or impale their mounts, and the meager force of 500 soon dismounted and joined their allies. The infantry battle was pitched, and more than once the Bosnians penetrated far back enough that I had to take up a sword and defend myself. In the end our troops were on the verge of routing when I raised a white flag of truce and offered peace to the Bosnians in exchange for our withdrawal to Zagreb. They accepted, leaving their allies in Ragusa to my mercy (Or lack thereof.) I ordered the troops southwards towards the siege in progress, and we had barely arrived when the city fell. The Ragusan monarch signed over his lands to King Gingic in exchange for peace and an offer of governorship of the new province. We turned to head for home, leaving a garrison of ten thousand men, and met a message runner on the path towards Zara.

Wallachia had declared war, and with it came the Magyars and Transylvanians. A similar declaration had come a day earlier from the Albanian government, allied with Naples and Modena, and as I muttered to myself I gave orders that our allies be called into both of these conflicts. All at once we spotted a small force of a thousand men laying siege to Zara, with the red banner of Lithuania above their heads. Outraged, I ordered a charge, and we fought them back to the sea. There they turned and expected to find their boats, which had just sailed back to get reinforcements. I ordered the slaughter of every last man; I would not stand for any such violation of Croatian territory.

I stationed the men in Zara and left immediately for Zagreb to confer with Gingic. I needed his silver-coated tongue now more than ever. With half of Europe bearing down on us, and a mere fifteen thousand men left, we could not keep this up much longer.

We gathered together the ambassadors from all the nations we were at war with. No less than fifteen nations were represented in the council chambers, including those of our allies and our enemies, as Gingic began to speak.

“My friends,” He began, “Right now we stand on the brink of a major decision. There lies before you a nation, and her name is Croatia. Through one circumstance or another, she has come to stand opposite you on the field of battle. However, I implore you to look at her as a nation, and not as an enemy.

She is a small nation. Even were she to be completely partitioned, most of you would walk away from this war empty-handed. Who is to say who would come away with territorial gain? It would be a scramble for territory, and turn one alliance against another, reducing all of Europe to war and suffering.”

Even as he spoke, Hungarian troops poured across the border into Krain and Zagreb. The border forces fought valiantly, but were overwhelmed. Hungarian troops marched in lock-step towards the capital, intent on nothing but total victory.

Lithuanian ships disgorged thousands of troops onto the beaches of Istria and Dalmatia, and forced the defenders back. Ottoman galleys waited in the harbors for the Christians to clear the beaches, prepared for an easy march to victory.

“Croatia is not a rich nation. If we were to divide our treasuries among you, you would each receive perhaps a fourth of a chest of gold. It would cost more than that to even field an army to threaten us, let alone pay to replace casualties. This war can in no way be profitable.

The citizens of all our nations cry out for peace. If the aim of government is to protect the people, then let us listen to those we are charged with protecting. Let us have peace, instead of war.”

The delegates looked around themselves. I stood behind a tapestry, listening to the mumblings. The first man to rise wore the Danish cross on his attire; Denmark had been forced into this war by its alliance with Poland. He signed his name on the Treaty of Zagreb, and the two nations were at peace.

Then followed Poland, and Naples, and Albania, and all the others who could not hope to gain anything from the war. Finally all that remained were the ambassadors from Hungary and Turkey. “Why,” asked the Turkish ambassador, “should we accept this peace if we are now the only combatants left in this war? Now that the rest have capitulated, there will be enough spoils of war to make it worthwhile.”

“Now wait a moment, I left this war because I expected you all to do the same. If you don’t put your name on that treaty, by God, you’ll find youself at war with Poland.”

“Lithuania as well!”

A chorus of voices clamored for the Turkish and Hungarian ambassadors to sign, and eventually, faced with the possibility of such a huge war, they gave up. The Treaty of Zagreb was hurried off to be archived before anyone else could change their mind.

As the argument came to a close, a messenger burst into the room. “Your Highness! Magyar troops are outside the gates!” A wordless glance from Gingic to the Hungarian ambassador sent him to the balcony, where he called to his commander. The siege was broken immediately, and the troops sent home. The ambassadors retreated to their various residences, and families in all of Central Europe set about rebuilding their homes, and their lives.

Gingic came up to me that night. He looked very solemn, and he said to me, “Hracovec, you have just saved my kingdom. Whatever you want, name it. You’ve kept Croatia in my hands.”

It should never have belonged to you, I thought to myself. You don’t deserve it. I only smiled, and knelt before him. “I only wish to continue in your service, your Highness. That is reward enough.” For now.

Because when I am ready, you old fool, I will take my reward from you with a sword.

[Stroph1]

Nice start. I thought you were done for when the B-boy wars crashed in on you!.

I have a question for you -- why is the Pope and the HRE happier that you take out Catholic nations then heathen ones? Are yo simply refering to ones for which yo have a CB?

[totalbasscase]

Stroph: Yeah, that was a bit of fiction I interjected. I mean, historically Venice was like a supercorporation and was very protective of their merchants. So the loss of two ports would loosen their grip on shipping and commerce, and I think people would appreciate that. But there's no in-game representation of it.

Leone: Thanks, bro. You know all those lessons from Ms Curtis have burned themselves into my brain =P. Supply and demand, baby.

[Sorcerer]

You were pretty lucky, eh?

I like the way the map turned out. You did a great job.

[Eochaid]

Great, yet difficult, first two decades. And despite what that young wolf Radec is saying, the King looks like someone pretty active and useful. Always negociating and everyrthing... He's a Gingic-Tonic! LOL

[totalbasscase]

Chapter IV: In Which the Protagonist Fulfills His Father's Goals and Takes What is Rightfully His

Excerpted from the memoirs of King Radek Hracovec I;
Translated by Professor of Balkan Studies Jason Cartwright, Princeton University, 1992


The next few years passed uneventfully. Our “allies” in the north fought their meaningless wars, with the Habsburgs laying claim to the Helvetian province of Schwyz, and our longtime enemies in Venice tried again to break up the alliance by declaring a war on the duchy of Napoli, reduced to the city and its immediate environs by a costly war with the armies of the Pope. I smiled coyly at the Venetian ambassador as I added my signature to the declaration of war, knowing full well that only the Mantuans had the authority to forcibly eject anyone from the alliance. Given that Gingic’s third cousin sat on the Mantuan throne beside their King, the chances of our being betrayed were slim indeed. Relations were cordial between the two states, and I gave thought to the idea of proposing that they accept us as their suzerain at some point in the future. Unfortunately, I had more pressing concerns.

The artisans of the country, who produced such goods as the citizens could not hope to live without, were unhappy with the way the government was running the country, and approached the crown with a petition to abolish a steep tax on the wares sold by them and their peers. Gingic informed them that their ideas would be taken under advisement, and had them removed from the palace. I found the petition strewn on the floor, and asked the King why he had not brought it to my attention.

“Why should I consult you on every minor decision I make?” He scoffed. “I believe you are misunderstanding the relationship between us, Baron Hracovec. I am the ruler, and you are the subject. I am your suzerain, and you swore fealty to me. Why should we return tax money to these peasant fools? It is better off in our coffers, that it may be used to protect them.”

“Senile old fool!” I snarled. “Don’t you realize that if we grant them this minor concession we will regain it a hundredfold in terms of the progress they shall make? They will be happier, work harder, and spend this money to bolster our economy and infrastructure. Is that not worth a hundred meager chests of gold?”

“You would exhaust our treasury? What is a nation without a supply of gold? And you, with your policy of ‘death before debt!’ You would sooner surrender land than see our government owe a single ducat to the populace!”

“Just watch, Great One. See how this tax reform betters our nation. And trust in me to do what is best for our motherland. God knows you cannot.” On hearing my words, he threw up his hands in surrender and left the room. I signed off on the tax reform the next day, and our economy showed signs of improvement as soon as the next month.

I had been watching the affairs of the rest of Europe as well, and seen an ambitious Castile reconquering the entirety of the Iberian peninsula from their Aragonian neighbors, save for Aragon itself. Realizing that a powerful ally in the West could be of assistance to me, I arranged for the marriage of some niece of the Princess Isabella to a Croatian nobleman, and began a series of letters to the regal Castilian woman who sat atop their throne. I felt that it was more to avert making a possible enemy than to gain an ally, as my current alliance, if you can call it that, was working out fine. We all simply ignored each other and fought our own wars; it was more of a nonagression pact to protect our flanks. Venice was sandwiched in between hostile powers, Austria was constantly embroiled in wars to the north, and Mantua was a small nation unable to defend herself. By concentrating ourselves outward we assured peace in the region while increasing our power.

Always a proponent of a stronger central government, I stripped more than one nobleman of his title in 1451, making strides towards complete authority exercised by the monarch… or rather, the man behind the monarch. My father’s dream, however, of owning the Slavonic province of Kosovo, had never become a reality. The costliness of a war with Bosnia had been simply too great for our meager treasury to cover, especially after the tax reforms of 1446. All that changed when a nobleman named Dracek approached me with an offer in late November, 1455. He had one hundred thousand ducats, and was willing to give them to the state to finance a war against Bosnia, on the condition that he be given estates in the new province totaling twice what he owned now, on the Aegean coast. I signed the deal immediately, we were in dire need of the funds and Kosovo was a prize waiting to be snatched up. I ordered the conscription of twenty thousand new troops, bringing the totals to forty thousand infantrymen; perfectly suited to combat in the hills and forests of the Balkans. Ten thousand were stationed in Zagreb, another ten thousand in Zara, and twenty thousand in the province of Ragusa. This would be a glorious campaign.

When the troops were trained and ready to march, I sent out the battle plans to my field commanders. A meager thousand men defended Sarajevo, but Kosovo was guarded by twenty thousand stalwart Bosnian warriors, a full half of them cavalry. I decided that it was best to reduce their forces before laying siege, and laid out the battle as follows: Dalmatia Regiment would leave for Sarajevo five days after the declaration of war. The Bosnian units would most likely return to their capital to defend against invasion, and my forces would arrive just as they did. The Ragusan regiment would lay siege to the now undefended Kosovo, leaving a force behind just large enough to wear down the city’s defenses, and move on towards Sarajevo and the oncoming battle. The two forces would join up and engage the Bosnians from the southeast, driving them towards Zagreb. I would command the final regiment, and march from Zagreb to Sarajevo, driving my ten thousand pikement into the flank of the Bosnian army. Cornered, they would surrender, or die to a man.

My father had a saying. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

I delivered the declaration of war to the Bosnian ambassador, who had been expecting it from the troop movements along the border. Careful timing was involved, and the siege was laid at Kosovo on schedule. However, Dalmatia Regiment performed quite poorly, and was routed before the Kosovo army could arrive. Those forces from the south were delayed by poor weather, and my army of ten thousand met the sixteen thousand strong of the Bosnians on the field with no reinforcements. The situation was grim.

The Bosnians were haggard from being on the move, having lost four thousand men and beasts to the elements and my own forces from Dalmatia, but they were still a larger force and as such I was careful about comitting my troops. I saw their cavalry flanking to the east, as they disappeared around a hill; their effectiveness would be diminished but the shock value of the trampling hooves could not be discounted. I ordered a controlled retreat to Dalmatia and barely escaped, and I allowed the Bosnians to lay out their siege at Zagreb.

This worried Gingic much more than it worried me. I still have his letters, flown out of the city by pigeon, from those days, he was panicky and asked when I would return to break the siege. I had no intention of doing this, as the winter snows were just beginning to fall, and I decided to let the motherland have her way with the invaders before I dealt the final blow. Kosovo fell after a brief six month siege, and I ordered that group to join up with those in Dalmatia to lay siege to Sarajevo.

The snows had the desired effect, and the army around Zagreb starved or froze itself down to a meager 1500 men in a matter of 12 months, while the city’s fortress held out. I led a charge against the defenders, and liberated the city in late 1456, but there could be no celebration. I hurried on to Sarajevo, preparing to enter the city as a conqueror and accept the King’s surrender personally.

Gingic, however, was not happy with the way I was running things. He believed we should have stayed pacifistic for longer, and was never happy with my hawkish ambitions in Kosovo. He took the opportunity to rally his supporters, and raised armies in Zagreb, Trieste, Krain, and Zara against me, planning to remove the governors I had installed whose loyalties lay only with me. The city of Sarajevo fell the day I received word of the “revolt”, as it were. Technically it was more an attempt by a feeble old king to regain power he never had, but for all intents and purposes it was a revolt.

I wanted to accept the surrender of the Bosnian government before I marched against the rebel armies, and so have the resources of Kosovo at my disposal, but King Tomasevic would not sign a treaty without the legal King of Croatia present, so I marched off to battle with my forces depleted by the necessity of occupying both Kosovo and Sarajevo.

Old King Gingic was a wily diplomat, and I later found out he had Venetian backing (some of the rebels wore their hair and clothing in the style of the Venetian army), but he was not a very capable tactician. He was outnumbered in every battle, but instead of consolidating his four forces, split them up to try and stop my troop production. I had no need of fresh recruits, my veteran troops slaughtered his mercenaries at every turn. They practically ran into my ambushes, and as I sent captured Bosnian cavalry to outflank them, they oftentimes simply lay down their arms.

Finally it came time to liberate the only city the rebels had captured, the capital of Zagreb. The army was quickly routed, and we settled in for a long siege through a hard winter. There would be no quarter, any not surrendering would be killed on sight.

Well, the winter took its toll on the rebels as well. Having just survived a siege by the Bosnians, the fortress was in no condition to stand up to another prolonged siege, and fell a mere four months after we set our camp around its walls. I marched into the city at the head of a column of pikemen, on a mount with white fur so bright it shone in the winter sunlight. A regiment had surrounded the castle and brought Gingic to me in the public square, where I had him set before me on his knees.

“Your Majesty, I would like to formally request that you abdicate your throne. I, as your third cousin, will continue the line and rule Croatia as she was meant to be ruled.” I spoke down to him but looked straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the treacherous dog, lest he turn his wiles upon me.

“And what if I should refuse?” His tone was defiant, but shaky; he knew the answer before he asked the question.

“Death. There can be no other way. You have betrayed the Motherland.”

He looked sullen. With a hacking cough, he removed the crown from his head and set it on the ground. “Long live the king,” He said sardonically.

I slapped him hard across the face with my gauntlet. I don’t think I broke any bones, but his head hit the cobblestone ground hard. I had him removed, and gave the crown to my lieutenant, until I could be formally coronated. He raised the crown in the air, and shouted in defiance of the former monarch’s sarcasm, “Long live the king!” The army took the chant up with a gusto, and the crowd gathered followed suit. I held up my hand to silence them.

“Hravatska!” I yelled, at the top of my lungs, as I rode towards the palace to draft the peace accords with Bosnia. I heard the chant for hours into the night, as a celebration was held to commemorate the acceptance of Kosovo into our realm. The Bosnians had offered their entire treasury as well, adding 145,000 ducats to our coffers and solving our financial troubles for the time being.

I had a sort of cage constructed in the square. I could see it at all times from my window, and the guard was constantly changing. I had sentenced Gingic to death by starvation, and left him to rot twelve feet above the ground, swinging gently to and fro on the chain his prison was suspended by. A visible reminder to the nation of the fate that awaited any who betrayed the motherland. When he was dead, after two long weeks of water and nothing else, when his body had consumed itself and left a bag of skin and bones, his corpse was hung from a rampart of the castle. The carrion birds picked at it for a while, then left it be. A year later, I had a tomb built for the first King of Croatia. His skeleton shall sit upon the throne of dirt and mud inside that tomb until the end of Time.

Croatia’s glory had only just begun.

[HolisticGod]

TBC,

Great work so far...

If I may---

What settings are you running? Any modifications?

[Oleg]

I love it! Also, I love the maps even more, if that's possible.

[francescomoro]

Sigismondo, king of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, declared war to Venice in 1411 for the possession of disputed city of Zara (Istria) and other dalmatian towns.

Hi,
Francesco

[totalbasscase]

HolisticGod: I'm running at Easy difficulty and Normal aggression (cause Normal diff is exponentially more difficult and im already dirt poor). No mods, although I have EEP installed. Just not using it. EU2 V1.05

Oleg: Thanks. Blame Sorcerer... he gave me the idea and I ran with it. I'm abusing it though, you dont really need to see every province I take.

francescomoro: Thanks! In the interests of continuity I'm not going to change it, but I appreciate knowing what is really going on.

and Sorcerer: Theres no two ways about it, I was lucky as shit. The many white peaces I got in my BB wars surprised me, and were a great plot device. Equally lucky was the Ass. Of Noble I used as a plot device and the Civil war i got and used as a plot device. Yay, random events. Now if I can just get a conquistador and an explorer... Croatian sugar islands, anyone?

Peace~

[Zhai]

I am enjoying this thread. Good work! I am only 1/4 way through it but, good work!

Good luck! I can symathize with you for I am Rhodesian Knight. I know what it is like to be near the great power!

[Zhai]

I just have done reading this AAR and I give it thumb up. I love the map, how did you do that!

Your monarchy, it follows the game or are you making them up?

[totalbasscase]

Chapter V: In Which the Protagonist Treads On Thin Ice, and Falls In



“He saw greatness in mediocrity, and claimed victory even in defeat.”

-From the tomb of King Radek Hracovec I


The next few years were a flurry of diplomatic activity. Our “allies” in Venice tried a final time to split the alliance, and finally succeeded: They issued a declaration of war on Tuscany that neither Austria or Milan would honor. As the entire point of the alliance was to protect Croatia from the Habsburgs and their inane territorial claim on Trieste, I left the alliance myself and sought out a new ally. I found that ally in my oldest enemy; the same Ambassador still resided in Zagreb from Hungary that we had delivered our declaration of independence to, and he had just come out of an alliance with Poland after they declared war on Austria. We signed the papers, with Croatia leading the alliance, as I had more cordial relations with the various heads of state of the Balkan Peninsula. Serbia, vassalized in a fit of rage by my father years ago, entered into the tripartite pact as well, and so we stood, a lump of land in the middle of Central Europe, ready to take up arms to defend each other. That resolve would be tested quicker than anyone anticipated: a mere two years after the alliance was formed, Austria declared war on Hungary. I seized on the opportunity, and directed my twenty thousand man army towards the gold mines of Stiermark, thinking they would be a welcome addition to my nation and her treasury. We laid siege in July of 1461, and the Austrians tried four times to break through to the city: All four attempts failed. Half of Hungary fell to the Habsburg armies, but the Magyars stood firm and reclaimed their last province even as Stiermark opened its gates to the Croats around it; the city fell in April of 1464. Almost immediately, There were three ambassadors in my chambers: The Bosnians, Corsicans, and Savoyards all had declarations of war in their hands from their respective alliances. I sighed, forseeing hard times, and acknowledged the messages.

I was now at war with half of europe. My forces were strained, tired, and generally inexperienced; new recruits had been cycled in as the Habsburgs killed off the experienced troops, and our fifteen thousand man infantry division marched towards Bosnia. I hoped I could annex the small state and use its assets to defend against the other aggressors. The Venetians entered Istria and set up camp around Trieste as my troops reached Sarajevo, and just as soon as they arrived I had them march back to lift the siege on the coastal city. In a fierce, twenty day battle, forty thousand men would die, and the ground around Trieste would be stained red with the blood of fallen warriors, but the Venetians would be thrown back. They were kept at the border for the remainder of the conflict, and never threatened Croatian lands again. My forces, newly bolstered with recruits from the Zagreb area, marched on Sarajevo once again. The Bosnians were sieging the city of Belgrade, so I had free run of their nation. I settled in for a long wait, as I knew the rest of my enemies were too far away to strike.

I was mistaken. Thirty thousand Frenchmen and Savoyards disgorged from their transports a month later, besieging the city of Trieste just as it had finished rebuilding from the previous conflict. I let them wear themselves out, supplies were scarce in the province and they could not have enough to last for very long. Meanwhile my “allies” in Hungary had sent a general to assume command of the siege in Bosnia, and I received news of it too late to do anything. This infuriated me… I must have spent an hour screaming at the Magyar ambassador, who only smiled and told me there was nothing he could do. The Hungarians were holding their own against the Savoyard incursions into their territory, though, and I was thankful that those troops were occupied in the plains of Hungary instead of Croatia, so I made no move against the Magyars.

In hindsight, it was a good idea to let the offense slide. A rebellion cropped up in Zara, people afraid for their lives as the invaders drew near. The French were starving themselves out, though, so I took no action other than to quash the rebellion and bring my forces up to a meager 14,000 pikemen. The Corsican ambassador was willing to sign a treaty returning us to the status quo ante bellum, so I was left with only the Savoyards to deal with.

Until the ambassador from the Ottoman Empire decided to pay me a visit.

“Your Majesty, we, ah, regret to inform you that our nations are now at war. We request your formal surrender immediately.” I blinked at the unexpected words.

“What? You can’t just do that, you have no legal claim to my lands.” I drew myself up to my full height, as the Turk was rather short and I felt that perhaps I could intimidate him where my armies had failed.

“We have been granted title to the land known as Croatia by the Caliph, and he receives orders from God. You cannot stand in the path of Heaven and hope to survive. Surrender while you are able.” He did not attempt to match my height, but merely stared into my eyes. His eyes were cold, a pale shade of yellow that seemed inhuman.

“You shall pay dearly for this. Tell your Sultan his days in this realm are numbered. And get yourself out of my sight.” He bowed and left the room, a smirk on his face. As the door closed, I sat down hard on my chair, trying to figure out just how I was going to get out of this.

My first order of business was to notify the Magyars that their assistance was required. The same general who had won the battle of Sarajevo would be of great use to us, but unfortunately involving Hungary meant consigning Serbia to the armies of the Turk. We need the manpower, I thought to myself as I sent the request to the ambassador. I then contacted the Savoyards, offering them 5 chests of Croatian gold for a peace that should rightfully have been white. I needed to focus my efforts on the Ottomans, and could not afford any distractions. The ambassador signed the treaty happily, as he was embroiled in a war in Northern Italy that required his more immediate attention. In the days to come his armies would starve in Istria waiting for a navy to evacuate them; a navy that had been destroyed by the Venetians weeks before. None of this mattered very much to me, however, I had my own war to win.

The Turkish general bypassed the ambush I had set in the forests of Kosovo, instead laying siege to Zagreb. I had a message sent that the siege should be broken immediately, and recalled the entire army. In its wake, the Turks laid siege to Ragusa and Kosovo, but I had expected to lose those provinces as a consequence of the war. Zagreb was the key.

The Hungarians had initial successes in the east, but soon fell to the overwhelming numbers of the Ottomans. I lost hope for help from the Magyars when all but their capital had fallen to a single army of twenty thousand over the space of four years. The Hungarians, I was later told, had signed over every province they owned in exchange for the ability to retain their independence as a vassal state. I was disgusted. But things were looking down on the home front as well.

I lost nearly the entire army retaking Zagreb. The Ottoman force was driven back, but hardly reduced in number, while my own army was reduced to the merest 1200 of men. I raised another thousand, all the treasury could support; I was already a thousand chests in debt as I had broken policy and borrowed madly to retake Zagreb. The Janissaries just slaughtered my troops left and right, though, and it seemed each battle was costlier and shorter. In December of 1469 I was reduced to the four provinces my father had possessed in 1431, and my small army was pushed out of the Zagreb area to Dalmatia. I ordered a counteroffensive, and by some miracle we drove the Turks west, toward the heretofore undespoiled land in Krain and Istria. They split their forces and laid sieges, and even as Hungary fell, only Zagreb was left untouched. There was an eerie peace surrounding the city, as reports of the surrenders came in: First Triest, then Krain, then finally Zara in January of 1471. The Turks were brutally efficient, and left not one man alive in the fortresses while being remarkably lenient towards those who would work for them, the peasants. Finally I got my last report from Zara… the Turks were on the march.

I was in conference with the general of the thousand men that remained in the province when they arrived. The remnants of the Croatian army were quickly slaughtered, and the siege was lain… a terrifying prospect, capture by the Ottomans. In the dead of night we heard songs in a strange language, alien to our own. It did not have the singsong tone of the Italians, the warm, familiar sounds of our own tongue, or the harsh, guttural lyricism of German, it was terrifying in its simplicity. We could not see the invaders under our walls, but there they were, digging tunnels for explosives, making camps, trading arrows with the few defenders on the ramparts. It was November when the walls finally crumbled, a tunnel had gone unnoticed and the blasting was too much. Through the crack poured the conscripts, then the Janissaries, all beelining for the castle and ignoring the terrified peasantry.

They stormed into the throne room to see a king awaiting guests. Knowing the end was near, I had laid out a table for peace negotiations, with fine Italian wines from the cellars and pastries that even I saved for special occasions. They would be having none of that, though. The troops killed everyone but myself in that room, knocked over the table, stripped down every Croatian flag they could find, and began herding important people into the room designated for prisoners. Everyone not useful as a negotiating tool was killed mercilessly, left to bleed to death from stomach wounds or cut from sternum to crotch. The corpses littered the hallways, but I only caught a glimpse as they opened the door to my throne room to bring in another prisoner. My mistress was bought in, still in her nightclothes, as the walls had fallen shortly after sunset and I had instructed her to go to bed and not worry about the Turks until the next day. When the castle was empty save for the few noblemen turned prisoners, we were all knocked unconscious and brought downstairs to the prison.

They waited a week before they even asked if I was ready to negotiate. The beatings came hourly, and it was only by their frequency that I could tell the time; I was left naked and cold in the stone cell that, ironically enough, had held Gingic before he was put to death. After a week or so I was given an update, in a terrible butchery of my beautiful language, of the situation: I was told in graphic detail of the rape and execution of the woman they believed to be Queen, but was actually a simple peasant girl I had taken a fancy to and removed from her parents household. I was informed of the fall of the last organized resistance to the Turks, of the populace accepting this inevitability and working for their new masters without so much as a glimmer of rebellion in their eyes. The Sultan stood behind the interpreter, arms crossed, watching the once-proud enemy now huddled in a cold, dark corner of the prison he had made such use of over the years of his reign. I was told of the assassination of my sister Anna, who I had sent to live in Vienna as a precaution; a disguised Turk had stabbed her in the street. The sultan demanded my immediate and unconditional surrender, and the surrender of all Croatian lands save for the city and its immediate environs, which would remain autonomous and pay tithe to the Ottomans monthly. I informed the Sultan that he would be in my prayers that night, as such a soul as his would need all the help it could get to reach the Gates of Heaven.

His reply was an extended beating that night.

All was not lost, however. I had designed this prison, and I had designed a way out of it too. I was not such a fool as to foresee that someday I might occupy one of these cells. A finger, inserted into the latch the right way, would enable the index finger of the other hand to open the lock silently from the outside. I reached around the bars and began my escape, creeping up on the guard and hitting him in the back of the neck with all my might.

I was not quite as young as I had once been, an aging fifty years old, and it was only through luck that I survived the fight. I managed to grab hold of his arm, and wrench his own dagger into his stomach; he gurgled twice and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

So many thoughts raced through my mind in those few moments that I thought I might faint. I tried to see how my escape would help the situation at all, and realized that it could not; the Turks could simply bring in troops from outside Croatia if I led a rebellion, and I would likely be dead before I reached the countryside. My reverie was cut short by the arrival of two guards, who had been sent to investigate the noise that had reverberated throughout the stone corridors. As they advanced on me, scimitars drawn, I did the only thing left available to me: I turned the dagger on myself and plunged it into my breast.

So ended the reign of the Kings of Croatia.
****************************************
Jason Cartwright, Professor Emeritus of Balkan Studies at Princeton University writes:

King Radek Hracovec I (1414-1471) died trying to escape the prison in his own castle in 1471 after Croatia’s defeat by the Ottoman Empire. The kingdom was reduced to a single province, and forced into a vassalship under the Empire; it was annexed in 1476 after a failed revolt and separation attempt. They would not achieve independence again until 1918, when the Austrians ceded the province to the Allies as a part of the Treaty of Versailles, one of the provisions of which was the breakup of the Habsburg empire. Radek’s leadership saw Croatia the largest she had or has ever been, but in the end his rapid expansionism and lack of even mere lip service to the other nations in his surrounding area led to a series of wars that led to Croatia’s eventual downfall. His illegitimate son Banec sought asylum in four different countries, finally finding solace in England, where the line perished in 1865 as Radek’s final three descendents died in a fire. He often wrote that in every defeat was a victory, and in his own suicide it can be supposed that he saw victory in denying the Turks the pleasure of executing him.


___________________________________________


Well, that's all, folks. My BB caught up with me, and I couldnt even bankrupt myself out of it. Fought off three major powers, and lost to the Jolly Green Giant down in asia minor. I hope you all enjoyed my brief run as Croatia, (I sure did!) and I hope to have my new AAR up by the end of the week. This sure is fun =P

Peace~