Duchy of Brabant, a new path to follow

The discussion with the Duke had some disappointing results for our counsel member.

The Duke was very reluctant to carry out a few laws that were agreed on the previous year. But the most annoying thing was the constant pressure felt from Jan IV's military advisor, a Burgundian noble responsible for funding the Burgundian war machine. But this consumed vast amounts of resources and there was no room for long term focused improvement.

In the meeting minutes we agreed on a stable powerbase between Flanders and Brabant, apart from the Burgundy House. We all felt the rising power of the French dauphin, and this danger would in time consume both Flanders and Brabant.

The Flanders delegation (both nobles and traders) realised they were already part of a French oriented sub house. They were very worried to speak about the opportunistic Burgundy Dukes. In fact the war atmosphere between France and England would drag Brabant and Flanders into a black hole.

The only issue was the fact that the Flanders garrisons were all commanded by Burgundy orientated captains, so their support was not available.

Also there was no real support base for the Brabant Duke Jan IV left, as everybody wanted his brother Filips of St. Pol to take command. Jan IV, unfortunately, was protected and steered by his Burgundian military advisor.

So the final plan was agreed. We would assasinate the Burgundian advisors to Jan IV, we would pressure Jan to cancel the vassal status of Brabant.

Then we would declare war on Burgundy (within the week), and have a small expedetion force liberating Flanders while Brabant would gather a support army group.

Johans father had a splendid idea. He suggested to improve the relations with France by giving a personal present of the Brabant cities. Even more, we would ask for military acces...

We would take Jan IV prisoner and let his brother Filips of St. Pol be trained to become our new Duke ... He would officially take over as Jan IV had died in his dungeon.

Spring 1420, we declared war on the Burgundy House...and our main army caught the Burgundian army by suprise. The siege of Flanders fortress began and the Burgundian relieve army was defeated in August 1420 by our support army group.

In the mean time France had agreed on our military acces and were now seen as our dear friends, ... for now altough. France denied the Burgundian main army to travel trough France... the Burgundian Duke was furious because his war efforts were failing...

Eventually we captured Flanders by winter 1421 and we marched upon Zeeland and Holland where our support army was dealing with recruitment of fresh Burgundian troops.

The Burgundian Duke launched a diplomatic offensive to bypass France, but his efforts were in vain...

By 1425, after a long but confortable war, we managed to capture Zeeland and Holland. Burgundy was defeated and the Duchy of Brabant got what they wanted=Flanders!

In 1426 we promoted our bailifs in Brabant and Flanders, and improved our relations with Friesland and Gelre. Eventually we established an alliance in 1428. By that moment, Filips of St. Pol (1427) took command of the Duchy and imposed some reforms of the army. We focused on quality, as war in the near future would once again descend on our people.

The COT in Flanders brought huge amounts of cash into our treasury. We improved our relations troughout Western Europe by means of royal marriages.

In the meantime (1430), travelers spoke about the growing might of the French king as he had taken some land from Brittany. Byzantium and Venice took some land from the Ottoman Empire. Venice had grown very fast during the last 10 years...

Our ambition was ever increasing and the opportunity to attack the Burgundy House was still present. The French would deny military acces to the Burgundians. Also we now had 2 allies (Friesland and Gelre). The only present danger was the alliance of Burgundy with Castille and England...

This war would be much more difficult as Burguny (and its allies) was massing an army in Artois (close to our capital) to counter our attack....

In 1432, Filips of St. Pol discussed matters with the Flemisch and Brabant leaders how to increase power in the region. We were eager to capture Zeeland and Holland, both having the Dutch culture and producing significant amounts of money...

Winter 1433, we declared war on Burgundy and called in help from Gelre and Friesland... Would we prevail or ...

Aha, didn't noticed somebody actually read the stories of Lambert and Johan. Here we go...

Whe gave orders to march our main army to Zeeland with the goal to attack the northern Burgundy Provinces. In the meantime our relief army would avoid any hostile actions with the Burgundy army present in Artois.

Both the army in Artois (bordering our capital province) and the fact that both England and Castilie were members of the Burgundy alliance made it quite a suicide attack... Hope was that France would not allow military acces to Burgundy relieve forces. In the meantime we had to be quick and deadly as England and Castille would ship for our rich provinces, as soon they received official news from Burgundy...

Our two army group generals generals Franken and Lodewijks were totally different. Franken sometimes took great risks and was a master in sieging, so he would crush the troops in Zeeland and Holland. Lodewijks was a bit more opportunistic and could bring up the most develisch ideas just to obtain objectives.

Anyhow Franken was victorious in Zeeland and started the siege in summer 1434. Lodewijks had retreated to Gelre leaving the capital vulnerable for the Burgundian army group in Artois. Later on it looked that Lodewijks called in help from the Gelre general to relieve him in Brabant. For a strange reason, the Gelre army had to face the Burgundy army ... alone...and was defeated.

Spring 1435 Lodewijks decided to relieve Brabant from the siege armies of Burgundy. Attrition had massacred large parts of the Burgundy army and reinforcment could not follow the losses during the hard winter.

News arrived that our allies dropped out of the war, signing a white peace with the enemy.

Lodewijks achieved a glorious victory and chased the Burgundian army to Artois. In the mean time Zeeland had fallen to our forces and Holland was under siege...

Lodewijks splitted his army group and detached a siege force to be stationed in Artois. Lodewijks and a fresh recruited brigade would try to capture Alsace, Franche Comté or Lorraine form Burgundy. He would also look for opportunities to capture the capital province Bourgogne.

Winter 1435, an English expeditionary force landed in Flanders and was sieging the province. A new recruited army under the command of Mayaert marched instantanious to Flanders to fight the peril.

Disaster! A month later Mayaert was defeated by the English troops and the siege continued.

Summer 1436, we captured Holland form Burgundy. Franken decided to counter the English danger...

Autumn 1436, a new attempt to relieve the English army ended again in a massacre. We decided that Lodewijks should come back from his march into deep France to fight the English. Our Flanders fortress would fall in 3 months!

Filips van St. Pol had a meeting with some English diplomats. The result was that England proposed to sign a white peace. Nobody knows what the real bargain was for the English... Perhaps they were in favor a declining Burgundy House. We sended a gift to the English ruler and improved our relations substantially.

After this unexpected event, Lodewijks marched to Artois to help the siege force. We signed white peace offers with most of Burgundys allies.

Summer 1437 we captured Artois from Burgundy and we started to march for Lorraine and Alsace.

Winter 1438 we captured Lorraine from Burgundy and a Burgundy diplomat offered us Zeeland and Holland... We're glad that our objectives had been met and agreed...

Now the next objective was to invest in land and trade technology to avoid losses like the ones against England and to achieve a monopoly in Flanders.

Our reputation had dropped to rather bad and we tried to vassalise Gelre and Friesland. They both declined.

Our beloved monarch focused his domestic policy on land technology...

Travelers spoke about the assimilatoin of 2 vassals into the French crown. The Ottoman empire captured Constantinople and Byzantium goverment moved to Bulgaria...Venice further increased its possessions in the Balkan. Austria captured some land from Bavaria and Helvetia.

After torturing the travelers a bit, they confessed the story was not 100% true.

It seemed the Ottoman Empire had declared independance after a long revolt. They stood up against the Byzantine Empire and their allies.
The new Ottoman empire established it's seat in Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor fled to Bulgaria...

A few years later, the Byzantine goverment did fall after a revolt and Bulgaria emerged after hanging the Byzantine Emperor...

cruel bedtime stories...

nice to know...