“It is a grave insult to you and the Empire, your majesty.” Artaxias Papadakis spoke softly to the eight year old Emperor in an attempt to convey the seriousness of the what he was saying.
“Why?”
“Well, because they are claiming lands that belong to you! Lands that belong to Transylvania; it’s more than enough to justify war.”
“War?” Mihály looked perplexed, as it was kind of a flimsy excuse for open warfare despite what Artaxias was saying.
“Oh yes, it is a grave insult.” Artaxias passed him a inkwell and quill, “All you need to do is sign here, and everything will be handled accordingly.”
Mihály signed mutely, not truly understanding what was going on.
The door to the room opened and the now General Kálmán Lázár hobbled in on one leg with the help of his crutches. “Ah, Artaxias. I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here whispering your drivel in the Emperor’s ear.”
“Now, now. I am simply a humble representative of the people, General.”
Lázár eased himself down into a high backed chair in the small room in Koloszvár’s palace. “You’re a snake is what you are.”
Artaxias shook his head, tsk’ed twice, and picked up the freshly signed declaration of war and began to move to the room’s exit.
“And what is that, exactly?”
“Oh this?” Artaxias held up the document with a quiet smirk, “War against the Ukraine. Kiev should look nice as part of the Empire, no?”
“Another war? We just started one against Denmark! Besides, Ukraine’s independence is guaranteed by Scandinavia.”
“So? Who cares?”
“Jesus Christ you’re stupid. Were you asleep these past few years? We just had a bloody civil war; we don’t have enough men to go against the Scandinavians.”
“The Internal Government ordered new regiments raised from among the Persian provinces.” Artaxias gave General Lázár a toothy grin as he opened the door and exited the room.
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It was a rather volatile arrangement that the Empire found itself in, with a child Emperor on the throne. Reforms and laws were passed as record speed with the purpose of stripping the power of administration of the law from the Emperor and transferring it into the duty of the Internal Government.
The Judiciary Act is passed just weeks after Mihály II’s coronation, March 31st, 1635
The war with Denmark was a minor thing. The Danes could field around 11,000 men at best, and it was a disgruntled General Lázár who was given the task of crushing the Danes, and then remaining in Denmark to pacify conquered regions. It was an assignment he was chosen for not because of his skill, but because a large majority viewed him and General Leopold Apafi as threats to themselves, given their influence over the boy Emperor. Within a quick short weeks, Copenhagen was under the control of the Transylvanian Empire, and the rest fell shortly after that. Though the pretense for the war against Denmark was some obscure claim to the Danish throne, the IG opted instead to simply take territories from Denmark (partly so that General Lázár and his troops would be forced to remain in Denmark, far away from the politics of the Empire).
The Treaty of Copenhagen, May 7th, 1636
The war with Ukraine and their ally Scandinavia was an all together different situation. Through blind luck rather than careful strategic planning, the main portion of Scandinavia’s veteran troops were far East, having just recently conquered the lands of Xia China.
The Transylvanian War of Conquest against the Ukraine
The Transylvanian armies in Lithuania that had spent the majority of the civil war putting down local rebellions were quickly mobilized and struck North inside Scandinavia’s Russian lands, smashing aside a Scandinavian army in Vladimir and forcing the area’s city garrisons to surrender in just 6 days. Farther East, a newly raised army made up of various Persian, Armenian, and Arabic regiments received their first combat experiences in the Hindu-Kush, fighting a fierce guerilla style war against Scandinavia’s Kazakhistani soldiers. The rather green Transylvanian battalions would eventually force the Scandinavians out of the Hindu-Kush by sheer numbers, but it wasn’t that move which brought peace.
When Transylvania had declared war, the Scandinavian King Håkon III had recalled all his armies from the Far East to fight against the Transylvanians, and the first of those troops were trickling in from Siberia mid-1637. Still recovering from the bloody civil war, the Empire was in no condition to fight a prolonged war against another major land power, and so General Kálmán Lázár disobeyed the orders that he had been given – to stay put in Halland and Skåne and quell any unrest in the newly conquered Danish territories. He decided to march his army north, and it wasn’t until a Transylvanian army was besieging Stockholm that the Scandinavians were willing to discuss peace terms.
Though, the war didn’t end. It is a rather interesting political story of
why exactly it was prolonged, but for the most part it was because the Internal Government was entirely divided on the issue and everyone pulled and tried to sway the young and almost entirely unguided Emperor into supporting their proposals and obfuscating their opponent’s. The first Scandinavian armies arrived from the Far East and chased the newly raised Transylvanian armies out from the Hindu Kush, and actually advanced south and started besieging Transylvania’s Persian provinces.
It wasn’t actually until late November of 1637 that the war ended, after General Lázár’s troops broke through the gates of Stockholm and stormed the city. After that, King Håkon III was willing to accept even to most ludicrous of proposals, and with Scandinavian troops pressing deeper into Persia, even the most militant of politicians within the IG finally relented and allowed peace to be signed between the two states.
The Treaty of Stockholm, signed November 26th, 1637, after many hair pulling peace talks and political meetings
The next two years were spent almost entirely in bringing back the Transylvanian armies to full strength and raising new regiments, but Mihály was getting older every passing day, and by the time he came to be the age of 12 he finally realized the extent of the manipulation that the politicians within the Internal Government had used, and began fantasizing about taking his revenge. That would come later, but for now it was enough for him to play the part of an Emperor, and what Mihály wanted more than anything was to lead soldiers into war, and so in 1639 the Transylvanian Empire prepared for another excursion into its favourite playground – India.
The military strength of the Empire, September, 1639