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Flyguy117, thy wishes are my command... behold, anarchy!
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Chapter 28
The Compromise of 1607 and the Tailors’ War
Ali.
Hasan III and Anna’s reign, while prosperous and long, was a time of conciliation - not of solution – in regards to social issues. Political expediency and the maintenance of the central state’s power were above squabbles between the aristocrats and the emerging urban bourgeoisie; the worst offenders were imprisoned and tried, with the Caliph content to maintain a rather precarious social order. The death, first of Anna and then of Hasan, ensured that a stable transition of power would be extremely difficult, given the fact that Uwais and Ali were (heterozygotic) twins; both had a respectable claim to the throne.
The twins’ positions had polarized as their father’s health deteriorated. Uwais’s appointment as regent for his ailing father and, shortly after, as heir brought over the high bureaucracy and the clergy, swayed by his apparent legitimacy. The more strongly plutocratic factions adopted Ali as their leader for lack of a better option: Fahima lived a mostly encloistered life and, while Mariam and Anna’s rule were not altogether removed from public knowledge, she would have been harder to legitimize as a ruler, barring her outspoken lack of desire to intervene in matters between her brothers.
Pressure by Ali succeeded in him being granted increasingly greater power, though still under the aegis of his brother. Since coronation had not yet occurred, the brothers slowly achieved a more or less equal standing. While Ali and Uwais, brothers as they were, had an extraordinarily conciliatory attitude towards each other, their supporters did not. Continued pressure from these would lead to the Compromise of 1607.
The Compromise, whose manuscript was prepared by the lawmaker and later vizier Ahmad Gaber, established Uwais as Caliph, but formalized Ali’s extensive powers. While Uwais had more power
de iure, he was obliged to consult his brother on political appointments, and to take into account Ali’s personal proposals, both in terms of appointments and policy.
Caliph Uwais was regarded as a meek man, somewhat frail of constitution but skillful in dealing with the state’s administration. The workings of deceit and intrigue escaped him, both by his own moral objections and (apparently) solid position, who never forced him into such shady activities. He had a taste in music, and supported music schools during his reign, whereas previous Caliphs had been more engaged as patrons of sculpture, painting and architecture. A number of poems - of his own pen – were preserved, revealing his calm demeanor but increasing uneasiness in the months preceding his deposition. On the other hand, Ali was remarkably headstrong, and, having already ensured some parity with his brother, attempted to place some of his own supporters in key positions, both in the internal (palace rulings) and external (governorates, trade missions, embassies) administration. In this he was mostly successful, establishing a powerful support base in the provinces; still, choosing officials based on loyalty rather than merit had negative implications, as the regional finances were to be thoroughly mismanaged; this coupled with the excesses of war, caused their profoundly indebted (both to internal and foreign moneylenders) state in the civil war’s aftermath.
While the quarreling factions had been somewhat eased after the Compromise - which, beyond mediating Ali and Uwais’s powers, also addressed several sources of grievance between the traders and the landowners - Ali’s power mongering and forceful personality alarmed them once more. Rumors of his plans to seize the throne began to circulate among the court and Uwais, while disturbed by his brother’s increasingly forceful actions, stubbornly dismissed the claims.
It is unknown if Ali’s ambitions were due to harboring any ill will towards his brother; correspondence between them shows no outright hostility, and court records report no given circumstance in which the brothers clashed to any degree, only their supposed followers. Indeed, a case can be made for the two brothers being attached to neither the aristocratic or merchant factions; in Ali’s case, his supporters appear to be seen as mere pawns, to elevate him onto a greater title; for Uwais, as a power base from which to expand his hold on the state.
Harun Jahagir, leader of the Red Army and a crucial supporter of Ali.
After two years of planning, assuring his supporters were in control of key positions, final preparations began, in the utmost secrecy, in May 1608. Possessing his father’s talent for deceit, on May 27, Ali sent a letter to General Harun Jahagir[1] - from a long line of military men (the first of which had been Zulqifar, War minister to Calipha Mariam) – the commander of the Red Army…
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The artists, the courtiers, the myriad secretaries, ministers and viziers were all but gone. But not the guards; yet those were quickly serviced. In the pitch black of night, an eerie silence took hold of the place. The loud, organized marching of the various divisions was replaced with a careful walk; some fifty men were on the tip of the toes. They moved from courtyard to courtyard of the hundred-year-old palace. A few lanterns gave out precious light under the dark blue sky.
The quarters of the Royal Family. Having been abandoned in the wake of Jahagir's drive into the city, the Warda palace (and other, minor, ones) would see little use during the war, after which they would be expanded.
They reached the residential quarters soon after. The men clutched their guns and sabers fiercely, yet they found no resistance to their movement in the inner sanctum of the palace. When they slammed open the cumbersome doors of the Caliph’s bedroom, they found nothing… Save for a small scribbled note, with a seal. It was meant to be easy!
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Uwais’s escape from the Warda Palace just before its takeover by Ali endangered his brother’s position. While he now controlled the central government, much of the personnel had fled with Uwais; with the rightful Caliph reluctantly gathering his supporters, Ali would have to fight a drawn out war. The Ummah would split once more. He sent orders for his accomplices to rally their troops. The Civil War had begun.
The breakup of the empire along the lines of the various governorates. Those in ed supported Ali; those in green remained with Uwais. The Yemenite Kingdom and the Bosporan Republic, both satellite states to some degree, opted for different candidates. The Republic supported Uwais as commitment to the ruling monarch, and due to the fact that his control of Constantinople and the Straits was vital to their trade interests. The Yemenites held onto Ali, and would be rewarded with autonomy. The Maghreb remained undecided till the war's practical conclusion, while Al-Andalus did not even bother to profess their devotion to either claimant. Targoviste was split, and is portrayed in cyan as such. Bear in mind that this map presents a simplified version of the loyalties of each region. Within them, support for each candidate varied, especially when comparing more rural areas with the cities
Ali’s policy of appointing loyal governors paid off: The wealthiest regions of the Caliphate joined him in his revolt. One should note however that these were also the most urbanized, where support for Ali’s supposed merchant policies was the highest. The peripheral regions (North Africa, Arabia, eastern Persia) was overwhelmingly in Uwais’s favor, and their economies were dominated by subsistence agriculture for the most part, under a system of landlords; in the central areas, smaller land holdings were common, owned by a mixture of wealthy merchants and aristocrats. Many of the ‘dynasties’ dominant in these lands been given these properties by earlier Caliphs (Hasan II, Mariam) as rewards for military service; they constituted the vast majority of the local officials. While those who had participated in the Revolt of 1575 had had their land confiscated, they pushed for action against the increasingly plutocratic focus of the central government.
The Grand Bazaar in Constantinople. While it supported Uwais, the city was a model of the urban, bustling environment where support for Ali was the highest.
Slavery was not as widespread there as it was in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It would be helpful to contrast the increasingly different economic regimes between them: the central regions absorbed the vast majority of the slave trade, which fueled their plantation-like farming (both of foodstuffs and cash crops – coffee, sugar and cotton), highly dependent on the large-scale irrigation granted by the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile river valleys. In this economic heartland, manufacturing centers abounded in the large cities, while they formed isolated pockets elsewhere. They were also the major recipients of the East-West trade routes, which normally entered the Persian Gulf, going overland through Mesopotamia and Syria, and were shipped to European markets either through the Levantine port cities or Constantinople.
However, there were some irregularities in adhesion to either side that muddy this clear definition. The Governorate of Constantinople supported Uwais for fear of competition from the Levantine merchants, who were predominantly pro-Ali. The cities of the Hedjaz, headed by Mecca and Medina, supported Uwais as Caliph due to hostility to the secular literati and merchants that grappled Ali’s attentions, as well as the elder brother’s purportedly more solid claim.
Increasingly, the rulers of Al-Andalus ignored the central authorities, leading to the eventual secession of the territory from the Caliphate.
To the Far West, the Maghreb and Al-Andalus mostly removed from the power play, voiced support for neither candidate. While the Maghreb was to join Ali near the end of the war, the Iberian lands were apathetic to both Caliphs, thus evidencing the already present independent spirit of the local populace. Somewhere in between in economic terms between the two major blocs, and with a vastly larger Christian populace[2], Al Andalus grew increasingly distinct from the rest of the Empire. With well-trained regional forces, it was to – without any authorization by either pretender – invade what remained of the Spanish lands to the north, on account of several daring Spanish raids. Spain could do little but complain, now entirely exiled to the Americas. With the rest of Europe aflame by creed, as shown by the Forty Years’ War, the French Wars of Religion and massive Orthodox revolts in Russia, the Taylors’ War came at an opportune moment.
In regards to the military, the Red Army, under General Jahagir, supported Ali’s cause. The Blue army remained steadfast to Caliph Uwais, partly out of their officers’ sympathy and mostly due to simple antagonism with the Red Army. The Yellow Army was to defect to the revolt later, while the Greens, assigned to Al-Andalus, failed to intervene. The Caliph’s Guard stayed on Uwais’s side. The intense, often petty rivalries between the various ‘sections’[3] of the military was to lead to their extinction and replacement of the middle Jalayirid military system with the Jahagir reforms. Ali enjoyed control of most foundries and military depots (as well as the officers’ academies) and controlled the major dockyards and, soon the majority of the war fleet, docked primarily in Hormuz and the Levant. However, Uwais was in control of the eastern border regions, with their systems of forts and plentiful frontier troops, which could easily be diverted into internal warfare. In addition, while outmatched in terms of weaponry, he had a more experienced officer corps and cavalry forces (including the able Bedouin) which were usually staffed by men with an aristocratic background.
The first moves undertaken by Ali, besides crushing dissent in the regions mostly under his control, was to move quickly against Uwais’s pockets in Eastern Persia and Anatolia, while maintaining a spirited defense elsewhere. In the western Balkans, mostly cut off from lines of communication, the fight was messy as there was much confusion was to the actual loyalist and revolting troops. Little progress was achieved, as both sides faced insurrections by the still sizeable Christian populations in response to mandatory conscription.
[
Muskets such as this one were used extensively during the Tailors' War by both sides.
The first (large-scale) battle of the civil war occurred in Mosul’s environs, at Karamlish. The Battle of Karamlish unfolded as two divisions of the Red Army - who were on their way to Anatolia, so as to dissuade the loyalists from striking in the region, from Constantinople - numbering some 21,000 men (along with 1,700 horse and 75 artillery pieces, mainly new demi-cannons) were met by part of the Yellow Army, at 23,000 strong, including 4,000 conscripts. The inexperience of the latter was compensated to some degree by the well-drilled professional troops, with plenty of ammunition. The Red Army attachments had neglected to bring with them sufficient supplies for a pitched battle, as they expected to be refitted along their journey and at their destination. They had also been the victims of forced march, and arrived at the battlefield not quite as energetically as their opponents.
The Loyalists occupied the road to Bartella, and placed rudimentary defenses before the enemy could approach. While at first the results were promising, the Loyalist center held on volley after volley, while the Red Army detachments suffered from withering morale and were prevented from charging the enemy head on by the erected defenses. After a cavalry attack against the Loyalist rear was thwarted, Omar Aqil, the ‘Tailor’ commander, gave orders for a withdrawal due to lack of ammunition. While it was orderly for the most part, overeager soldiers rushed out of battle, giving the impression of a rout. The Loyalists descended from their positions and began melee combat; the swift movement provoked disarray in both lines.
After a quarter hour of intensive fighting, both sides began to slowly withdraw. The Tailors retreated southwards, and the Loyalist army in the opposite direction. Some 7,000 lay dead from both sides, yet the battle wasn’t truly decisive; still, it prevented an effective defense of Ali’s lands in Anatolia, and the Yellow Army was to hinder communication between the two halves of Ali’s main bases (Egypt and Mesopotamia). Thus the campaign began on a bad note for Ali, who furiously proceeded with his campaign to pacify the eastern borders.
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Notes
[1] From a long line of military men (the first of which had been Zulqifar, War minister to Calipha Mariam), Harun Jahagir was to be an irreplaceable cog in Ali’s bid for the throne. Leading the Tailor armies eastward into Khorasan, his neutering of a potentially difficult front was to enable the eastern push that would characterize the second phase of the Civil War.
[2] In the form of Mozarabs; while many had departed for the Spanish Main, a significant number of Christians adopted - like their forefathers before the Christian ‘Reconquista’ – Arabic customs, including language. Intermarriage with the Arab colonists was to slowly dwindle their numbers; native born Christians constituted merely some 3% to 5% of the population in Al-Andalus.
[3] In fact, each so-called army included several army-sized subdivisions, subordinate to an authority (the corresponding army’s command), who only then communicated with high command and the War Ministry. This system had the downside of promoting bureaucracy and inefficiency.