The Rise of Manuel II and the Marmara Campaign
HIS 1032 : Imperial Dynastic History – Week One
Epidamnos University Dyrrhacion, 1980
“God my head hurts.” Natasha complained. “Why did you buy that much sambuca Basil?”
“I don’t know, felt like a good idea at the time, I enjoyed it.” His obnoxious grin plastered across his face.
“I hate you... why don’t you get hangovers?”
The pair of them sat down in the front of the new lecture hall. The university had just been built at the behest of a donation by a rich merchant, and it was really spectacular, just in the history building they had restorations and replicas of old busts, filling a neo-classical building.
The lecture hall itself was somewhat less grand, whilst the acoustics meant that you could hear absolutely everything, it was filled with seats that flipped back up, like in a cinema, and long wooden shared desks.
Natasha and Basil had known each other since they were seven, and now at eighteen they were studying history together, thick as thieves. Natasha was from an old Russian family, the Rurikovichs, but defied the stereotype of alcohol immunity, whilst Basil was from an even older house, the Greek Laskaris, and was the designated heir to a rather fantastic estate in Italy, but you’d never know it looking at him. Whilst she was bedraggled due to her hangover, he was sitting there with an obnoxiously large mop, and was twitchy and hyper as a twelve year old.
The room filled up, dozens of people from every part of the world, Berbers, Athenian, Farsi, even a couple of Japanese students were there. Just behind them sat a couple of lads, an Italian and Turk by the looks of them, the Italian folding a paper airplane and the Turk getting a laptop out.
“Hey, nice laptop, Britannia 320, not a bad machine” Basil instantly started to prod the Turk about his laptop, the specs, complaining about the weight. “Name’s Basil by the way, you’re...?”
“Mehmet of the Persian branch of House Osman.”
“Wow, I’ve heard of your family, didn’t you just make a fortune with Opium or something?”
“Yes, but, I don’t like to talk about it, I’m not really interested in Pharmaceuticals.”
The Italian burst out “Wait, you’re one of the Persian Osmans? My dad works for you guys, name's Antonio, of House Garibaldi.”
“Umm, hi.” Natasha piped, how’re you?”
She noticed that the lecture room was oddly silent, turning to see astern faced, dour man frowning at the four of them.
“As I said, this module is about the Imperial Dynasties of the Empire, and what each of
their rulers did. There will be two lecturers, myself, and Dr. Oxley. She shall teach you those dynasties upto the Dukids, whereas I shall teach after them, the Komenids, the Palaiologids etc.”
He paused, turning towards Natasha “My name, for those of you who weren’t listening, is Dr. Angelos. Now that introductions are dealt with.”
He began writing onto a tablet on the table, picking it up, and as he did so, the words ‘What is the Byzantine Empire’ appeared on the board. He looked around the room, no hands, and so turned to Natasha.
“You, girl with the purple hair, what is the answer?”
“Umm, the, the Empire in Greece?”
“Close, it was the empire that survived that of the West, truly it was the Eastern
Roman Empire, but it was the period that was after the Empire of Nicaea that we define as the Byzantine. This empire that we now live in is the same state legally, however, it was very different then, due to the fractious nature of the themes, that without the Palaiologid Renaissance, the Empire may well have fallen in 1453. Does anyone know whom to?”
“Mehmet II Osmanli” said Mehmet.
“Pardon? Please speak up.”
“The Sultan of the Ottoman Turks, Mehmet Osmanli II.”
“Correct, I was not expecting an answer, but well done. Yes, now, I am going to end this lecture here, and set your first assignment. The Komenid period is easy enough to write about, and that will be seminar work later this week, however, for that seminar next week, I would like an essay about the reign of Manuel Palaiologos II, upto and including his Triumph, you are free to choose a title, and I will award marks for accuracy, literary flare, and maps. Dismissed.”
The Rise of Manuel II and the Marmara Campaign
Natasha Rurikovich
Feburary 16 1391 saw the death of Ioannes V Palaiologos, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, and Head of House Palaiologos, shaming his son Manuel, due to his public conversion to Catholicism, as well as submitting to Ottoman suzerainty. It was his son, Manuel II
The Stalwart, Pillar of Rome who is the focus of this essay.
The beginning of his reign saw the realm weak and subservient to the Turk, as well as his personal position weak in comparison to his nephew Ioannes, whom was favoured by Sultan Bayezid I of the Ottoman Sultanate. Whilst Ioannes was a marginally greater administrator and marshal, it was Manuel who held the city.
Manuel Stats Admin 5, Diplomacy 6, and Military 5
Ioannes Stats Admin 6, Diplomacy 6, and Military 6
After garnering support from Bayezid, claiming to be the elder as well as more direct successor, and another offering Ioannes the position of
Kaisar ahead of his own son. Granting Ioannes the
Kaisarship as well as the position of
Megas Doux led to Bayezid demanding first Manuels head, but later only a mosque and a Turkish quarter in the Queen of Cities as punishment for what Bayezid considered insubordination. Refusing all demands and even contact with the Sultan, Konstantinopolis soon found itself under siege.
Two years later in 1396 the Crusade of Nicopolis granted a period where the siege was broken, and whilst it was unsuccessful, it would leave Bulgaria open for conquest from the Turk, as well as inspiring the writing and distribution of the controversial but influential text – “The Strengths and Weaknesses of East and West”, which argued that whilst Roman ethics, law and culture was superior, the Latins were developing new technology and recovering lost knowledge much faster than the East. These and other theories in the text proposed new military organisation, and the popularity of the book spread the concept virally throughout the nobility, clergy, army and populace.
The book was supposedly researched whilst in the west seeking assistance, and whilst England welcomed him warmly, there was ultimately no response from the Franks, and when Emperor Manuel returned in 1403, after absorbing the despotate of Morea in the process, and receiving the gift of a loyal Kaisar, a Konstantinopolis not under siege, the addition of Macedonia and Thessalonica to the lands of the Empire, and non-aggression pacts from the other Christian powers of the Balkans “for as long as the Turk or Saracen controls the lands between Serbia and Armenia.”, he fathered the concept of Roman Jingoism.
Increased Centralisation, which luckily only destabilised me
With the interregnum overwhelming the Ottomans, Manuel II had arrived with a plan for succeeding where the Crusade of Nicopolis had failed, but may have arrived too late.
The interregnum was drawing to a close during 1405, in preparation for an invasion in December, Manuel recruited a large army, expanding the 7000 Roman troops to a massive 21000, larger than it had been for a long time, with no mercenaries, simply mercenary trainers, such as the successful Prokopios Batazes, as well as implementing some drastic religious and economic changes, with a highly regulated mint under Palaemon Diogenes and granting some state powers to the new Patriarch, Stefanos Zarides, in order to eliminate any spies, with the unintended effect of increased religious intolerance.
On the international scene the Basileus and the Kaisar worked Ioannes was told that as Kaisar he is in charge of working on trade, leading to expansion of Genoan and Venetian trade, whilst the Emperor gathered alliances with the Serbs and Wallachians, and offering marriages between members of House Palaiologos and the royal houses of Eastern Europe.
The war began, within weeks of the interregnum ending, with the Roman alliance consisting of themselves, Serbia and Wallachia, versus the Ottomans and their distant allies of the Jalayirids, with the later addition of a Bedouin realm known as Najd. In effect the war turned into a direct battle between the Ottomans and Romans, and the idea of freedom from Ottoman Suzerainty.
The first conflict was typical of the war, Romans swarmed by a disorganised host of Turks that largely outnumbered them. After a retreat to Edirne, the following battle routed the turks, with unfortunate results for the remaining turk forces for the remainder of the war.
Was attacking a smaller number, and a stupidly huge number of 1000 man armies attacked me till I was outnumbered – had to run just in case, but they split their army into 3 smaller ones, so I just took them out one by one – easy victory.
It would be so demoralising for the Ottoman Alliance that despite the entrance of Najd, the Jalayirids offered peace in September 1406, whilst Manuel sent troops to besiege Anatolia, whilst chasing down Mehmet II.
It was shortly after in October that Manuel ordered an expansion of the bureaucracy, in order to create a loyal management to mirror the dynatoi, in a similar manner to the Governors of the Republic, in order to balance their personal power and that of the state, which was under threat till the defeat of Mehmet distracted the Princes and remaining nobles, so much that when some local Turks were accepted into high office after the war, it was accepted without complaint, this may have been attributed to their outrage at the failures of Serbia and Wallachia to fight in the war.
I.e. in early 1407 that the alliance began to break apart, with Wallachia taking Silistria in a personal peace, and Serbia taking control of Nis and the Morava River.
It would be after several fateful battles for the Ottoman fleet, being forced from port to port for the Ottomans to offer peace, and unfortunately an injury in battle finally caught up with Manuel in July 1408, followed with a peace treaty that granted the entirety of Ottoman Europe, as well as all Anatolian ports besides Bursa.
Ioannes VII would send out several requests for marriage between his children and the east European Royalty, the family prestige greatly increased by the successes of Manuel II. Part of the treaty helped to pay for the Triumph of Manuel, built as a gateway through the ruins of the Anastasian Wall. Its use as both Triumphal Arch and fortification was unprecedented, but more surprisingly was the discovery of his mausoleum underneath the road in 1833, with the inscription of
“Here Lies Manuel II Palaiologos, Roman Emperor.”
There is a later addition, a polished granite obelisk, inscribed in Latin, Greek, Arabic and Farsi.
“A Pillar upon whom rests the World.”
Believed to be a symbol of how the Roman people revered him (as the pillar is currently undated), it was matched by the policies of the new Emperor Ioannes VII, who would shift his attentions from Europe to Anatolia and the Asia Minor coastline, publicly announcing that Manuel gave his life for Europe, and Anatolia would recompense the Roman people for taking him from them. This call for vengeance would drastically change the Eastern Mediterranean in the following years.
Addendum – State of Eastern Mediterranean on the Death of Manuel II
The shift in power between the Ottomans and the Romans is obvious, however the Ottomans are still one of the largest powers in Anatolia, comparable to the Ak Koyunlu (I think that is how it is spelt) to their east. An interesting event was the Trezbizond Komenids inheriting Epirus. Serbia is currently being overwhelmed, at war with Hungary, and haven't made a call to arms, and Wallachia have Silistria, leaving the small province of Dobrenegia isolated in the north
Otherwise, there are still a number of fractious Beyliks surrounding the Ottomans, as well as the Crusader states. However, it does seem that naval power will be a fight between the Mamluks and I.
Anyway, here we go (again) and hopefully I will get the next one up in the next couple of days, after playing it - lots of war, and possibly a bit of Komenid history to boot!