The Knautschlings - part 12
Something resembling war
With the De Flandre-Knautschling agreement signed political affairs become less urgent and Faste
has time to find some handsome fellow for Sofia to marry in the neighboring Kingdom of Poland.
Exactly one day after the marriage Sofia becomes pregnant already, obviously sharing Faste´s
passion for certain activities.
Oh my Faste why are you embarrassing me like that ? My readers must think I am stupid.
Sofia´s younger sister Gunhild which we have so far talked little about suddenly overtakes Sofia
in importance as she gets married to the future King of Loire, further strengthening the bond
between the Knautschlings and the De Flandres and soon beginning her duty to provide heirs.
While poor Sofia dies in Poland at age 25 some relative of Faste manages to become the pope,
what an honor for the Knautschling dynasty !
Changing the topic back to politics again some unimportant county in the middle of Danish Britain
will set off a chain of events with huge impact on all of western europe.
The county pledging to a different liege is something Faste does not let go unpunished and he declares war.
But the new liege does in fact show willingness to defend it as is shown in the following historical document
which also show the unimportant county itself which Faste does not even know the name of.
Now that Denmark is already at war with Bavaria or Gothia as it calls itself he decides to also
protect the Viking minority living in Brandenburg by integrating that province into Denmark proper.
Brandenburg was Gothia´s vassal shortly before the war but managed to break free and is now independent.
With Danish troops closing in the local Duke seeks protection by yet another liege in an impressive display of
cunning. He also tries to bribe off Faste in an impressive display of desparation.
But the Goldstrands in Lotharingia do nothing besides sending a formal protest signed by their king
while some Danish troops march south in order to convince Gothia to accept Faste as new ruler of Brandenburg.
But the expeditionary force led by Faste himself is soon facing insurmountable odds against an unusually
strong concentration of force in Fürstenberg.
Naturally Faste only orders the retreat when almost every single one of his men is dead.
While the pathetic Gothian expeditionary troops on the British isles are slaughtered mercilessly by Danish soldiers
A not so pathetic expeditionary force attacks Brandenburg.
The resident Viking minority launches an attack shortly before the Gothian siege is complete
but can not resist the superior numbers of the enemy.
Faste is furious, gathers some more troops,
frees Brandenburg and marches south once more. At this point it is to note that the skirmishes described in this tale are
not any longer Gothia´s biggest problem no matter how fearsome the Danish army might be.
Because by now Byzantion is attacking Gothia in full force in the south and Loire is attacking in the west,
but Danish historians are unsure as to the scale of the De Flandre attack.
What is known is that troops from Danish Britain join Gunhild´s husband Raoul who was in the meantime crowned king
for an impressive battle in Foix.
The second battle in the area however did unfortunately end with the slaughtering of all Danish war painters hence I
can not show you any more historical documents about the course of war in that region.
This chapter of the Knautschling tale ends here. The following events how Lotharingia and Toledo join the war
and how Russia and Egypt come into the equation, these events my dear reader will be told by different narrators,
but not by me.
Their immediate impact to mention that shortly is that Faste´s second march south encountered very little resistance
and thus is not worthy of describing in detail either.