Fire in the East - the rise of the sons of Osman

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

Well, perhaps not Assyrians, and the cohorts were not really gleaming in purple and gold. But when it came to sweeping down, there was plenty of it. And as for wolves, they could have taken our correspondence course.

Our campaign began on 1 January 1419, when we - the heirs of Osman - entered an alliance with the White Sheep (Ak Konyulu) and Dulkadir. Both would eventually have to fall beneath the yoke of empire, but for the moment we decided to choose them as our friends.

At home, we increased the centralisation of the state.

Our meagre diplomatic forces having been exhausted by the effort of allying with the White Sheep, we waited for an opportunity to begin the assault on the infidel. We used the opportunity to choose our enemy.

The Byzantines? The city of Constantinople was calling us, it could not long be denied us. But immediately, so precipitately. Perhaps the time was not right.

Teke? A small nation, a little amuse-geule before the main course? Later, maybe. They were involved in a war with Karaman, the outcome of which it would be interesting to see.

Candar? Ah, Candar. Serenely nestling on the north of Asia Minor. A modest country with much, as the man once said, to be modest about. And our first target.

In early January, the Byzantines declared war on the Duchy of Athens, and we could swear that our Ruler would have declared war on them there and then, had the diplomatic corps not been undergoing intensive de-briefing with (or by?) their concubines.

July 3rd, 1419, and we declare war on Candar. But, to our surprise, the White Sheep have whiter hearts, while Dulkadir are made of similar stuff. They both desert us, while we are left to battle the not-so-terrifying forces of Candar on our own.

1420, and the White Sheep have declared war on the Black Sheep. Not all Black and White, we think, ho ho. But we should make some efforts at getting the White Sheep into our alliance. They are targets for vassalisation in due course, and that means that we need to keep them on side, and in our alliance.

15 April 1420, and the world wakes up to the absence of Candar in Asia Minor. Rather like waking up and forgetting that you have a maiden aunt you once wrote to but who has never written back, we suspect.

But for the judicious, it is a warning of the fires to come from the East, where we have taken the first steps to ensure our ascendancy in the world. And Allah's, of course.

Ash-hadu anla ilaha illal-Lahu Wahdahu la Sharika Lahu wa-ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu.

In September of 1420, the White Sheep were brought back into our fold, ho ho, a joke I fear we shall meet again before this history is out.

We waited until the following April to tackle the first of the infidels. The Duchy of Athens, having fought a long stalemated war with the Byzantines, was out of money and out of troops. We marched.

Our Ruler changed on 27 May 1421, when Amurath (they call him Murad) II became Sultan. In July, while Athens was cowering under siege, the Byzantines declared war on us, and Amurath went into battle, laying siege to Constantinople, while a force from Bulgaria moved on to the Morea. Venice and Trebizond joined in on behalf of the doomed empire, and we recruited new men in Macedonia and Angora to take the war to them.

We had to wait until February 1422 to take the Duchy of Athens off the map of Europe, and to turn our attention fully to the Byzantine non-menace. Their former allies in Tuscany saw the futility of fighting, and agreed a white peace.

In August of that year, certain imams expressed displeasure at the way that we were conducting ourselves in the manner of religion, and we naturally agreed with their requests to tighten the punishments available for heresy.

Finally, on November 19, 1422, we captured the city of Constantinople, and were able to turn our full forces on the Morea. Nafplio fell in February 1424, after a tedious siege, and we made our demands. We demanded the Morea and a substantial sum of money from the Byzantines, as well as Ionia, Corfu and Crete from the Venetians. The Byzantines were in no position to refuse us, and the Venetians gave up their unconquered provinces with the greatest displeasure, we were delighted to see.

Now, the whole world knew our name, and we had barely begun. Soon, the whole world would fear our name.

We were still at war with Trabzon, for a reason we were unable to fathom, but their existence was not prolonged beyond the 21st January 1425.

The following day, after a time for rest and recuperation, we declared war on Albania (whose allies Naples joined in). The next step on the road for us. And for Allah, of course.

Ash-hadu anla ilaha illal-Lahu Wahdahu la Sharika Lahu wa-ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu.

Albania would be easy of course. Almost too easy, so we suggested to our Ruler that he might want - for the sake of honour - to lead an expeditionary force against the Kingdom of Naples, recently reduced to a single province after an unsuccessful war against Aragon. Our Ruler Amurath II was always a sensible man, and agreed with us wholeheartedly, as was only right.

In November 1425, we rejected the proposal for an office of Sheikh-ul-Islam. We were quite knowledgeable enough about Allah's desires, thank you, and we were not about to take lectures from some smelly old cleric about what Allah wanted and what he didn't. Naturally, Allah wanted what was best for the sons of Osman, his crusaders in the world of men.

In September 1426, the first of the states of Italy fell to our forces, and our bridgehead against the Sultan of the Christians was formed right beneath his nose. From now, for ever, Naples would echo the name of Osman.

On the same day, Albania slipped quietly into the night, and our hold in that area of the world was made firmer.

We allowed a little more time to pass before we moved against our next target. This was the small nation of Ragusa, which was allied with neighbouring Bosnia, and we marched in November 1427.

To the eternal shame of the commander of the day, our invincible forces were routed by the a small Ragusan force on arrival at the city walls. Clearly, some encouragement was needed. The following February, those soldiers who had not been used for the encouragement returned, defeated the defenders and laid siege.

The war against Bosnia - who had just come out of a long war with Serbia - was much more straightforward. They had no army, hardly any fortifications, and were, by mid 1428, another ornament to the sons of Osman.

Ragusa held out a little longer, and while they were still holding out, the Knights of Rhodes declared war on us. We were delighted to see that the alliance that the Knights had managed to put together against us included three one-province statelets (the Knights, Wallachia and Moldova) and one two-province nation (Serbia), all of which shared borders with us. We began to plan for an expansion of the Sultan's palace, which would clearly be necessary to house the administration for all these new provinces.

Elsewhere in Europe, our Ruler told us that a long war between England and France had ended with England paying 22 "ducats" in indemnities to France.

Ragusa became another flower in our garland on 1 February 1429, though our Ruler was unfortunately struck by a political crisis in the July of that year. Never mind, the stability gains from conquest would quite reverse that upset.

The first of the minnows to be swallowed up was Wallachia, which succumbed to the inevitable on October 5, 1429.

More encouragement was needed after another loss, this time to the Knights of Rhodes whose small land army was laying siege to Ismir.

Moldavia came next, a little delayed after a confused messenger mistakenly ordered the besieging army away to handle a revolt elsewhere. They merged with the infinite on September 1st, 1430.

We removed Kosovo from Serbia - preparing them for a later meal - near the end of 1430, and delivered the final blow, ending the Knights' residence on Rhodes, on August 17th, 1431.

Once more, the sons of Osman were at peace, and this time we thought that our Ruler should proclaim a year of peace, as befitted the peaceful nature of the sons of Osman. And, of course, of Allah.

Ash-hadu anla ilaha illal-Lahu Wahdahu la Sharika Lahu wa-ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu.

Thanks for reading, folks. Here's some fb-fb.

Joe - I know what you mean about Candar. It's just so inviting, so small, so unimportant and yet just so ... irresistible. Ok, I'll stop before I start sounding like an advert for a chocolate bar.

MrT - I'm not normally a conquer-y sort of person, but I can make an exception...

Warspite - Hiya, thanks for dropping in. Nigel? Yeah, good mate of mine. Few bevvies down the Dog and Duck (cont. on p. 94)

Rath Jones - I agree about the importance of encouragement. It works for armies - it could work for Hull City Council, that's what I say.

Zagloba

Originally posted by Craig Ashley
Nice start! In my own Ottoman campaign (plug), I went straight for the Byzantine empire, but I had my reasons. I love taking on the Knights and their pathetic allies. Naples and Albania also are easy prey. After that, I found myself taking on larger alliances.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind remarks, and the pointer to your very interesting AAR.

As you will soon see, I started playing with the big boys before too long.

Zagloba

Our year of peace was very boring, though we did send missionaries to Dobrudja, Rumelia and Bulgaria (of which only that to Dobrudja was ultimately successful).

The year having passed, we marched against the unallied Teke on 18 August 1432. They were added to the Empire on 27 September 1433. While we were laying siege, the believer barbarians called the Golden Horde captured the Christian realm of Suzdal, and forced them into vassalisation.

Shortly after our war against Teke had come to its inevitable conclusion, the Lechy (Poles in their language) declared war on us, and we persuaded Amurath to head north to attack Bujak. The Lech army attacked Moldova, but our Ruler's greater power and ingenuity won the day, and Bujak fell to our forces before Moldova's defences were even put to the test. Thinking it better to restrain our possessiveness on at least one front for the time being, our Ruler negotiated a peace with the Lech, without tribute paid. It was a little sad to see the Lech armies march out of the Empire unmolested, but as one of us said, there was always time.

There then followed a fair deal of peace. We were able to amuse ourselves with putting down various peasant rebellions in divertingly novel ways. They still talk about oxen and arrows in Crete, we understand.

At about this time, the infidels in Morea were converted to the one true faith by our agency. We also persuaded our Ruler to reform the Army in the direction of better offensive capabilities.

Finally, in July 1439, we persuaded our Ruler to order the final assault on the falling Byzantine Empire. Their allies Venice, Cyprus and Georgia joined the war, but the depth of their loyalty was shown when we secured quick "white" peaces with each of them.

The Byzantines, in desperation, threw themselves on the mercy of the Pope in Rome, and declared that they were a Catholic nation. A desperate measure, but then that was hardly surprising, as they were entirely without defence against our armies. It just remained to wait.

While we waited for our inevitable triumph over New Rome, we were troubled by declarations of war from Poland and the Mamelukes. We quickly agreed peace with the Polish cowards - their armies had not even bothered to march by the time peace was agreed - but the Mamelukes were a different matter. They were a large empire, and weak. Ripe, in fact, for the picking, and we diverted all our rebel-quelling armies into sieges of all the Mameluk provinces we could get them to.

We will not bore you with a recitation of provinces captured, cities reduced, populations decimated. To say all, let us say only that on May 7, 1446, the Mamelukes ceded Alexandria, Delta, Samaria, Lebanon, Aleppo, Adana, Judea, Sinai, Quatarra and Konya to the sons of Osman.

Of far greater importance to our pride and to the image of our power was the fall of Byzantium, which occurred during the Mameluk war. Old New Rome fell on 14 January 1440, and we transferred our capital to the newly-renamed Istanbul. We honoured former trade agreements, for we were no lawless barbarians, but we suppressed the Christian patriarchate, to send a signal that there would be only one faith tolerated in the Porte. We hoped that this great fall would be seen for what it was intended to be - the founding of a new Roman empire, a greater Roman empire, bowing low before the sons of Osman. And, of course, before Allah.

Ash-hadu anla ilaha illal-Lahu Wahdahu la Sharika Lahu wa-ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu.