A HISTORY OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE
Part 5: Wars in the New World (1622-1676)
Since the 1610s, the Hansa had been building a colonial army in preparation of an eventual war against the Iroquois nation. However, before we get ready to attack the indians, our colonial forces get involved in an unplanned fight.
The First Colonial War (1624-1627)
Some of our colonies in the New World border on English possessions. The English, envious of our thriving colonial towns, declare war on us on September 9th, 1624, and their ally, Portugal, intervenes. Sweden honors our alliance and declares war on England, but the Netherlands drop out of alliance. Is this the way they thank us for decades of military help?
The first battles of the war are not fought until January 1625, when a small English force arrives at Powhattan and starts siege works on the light fortifications in the province. Our colonial army drives them away, but not without difficulty; even though we win decisively and only few English soldiers manage to escape, our casualty rate is alarmingly high..
Our colonial army starts a siege on Manhattan, a fortified English colony, in the spring of 1625, and the English answer by sending a small infantry regiment to our undefended, unfortified colony in Iceland. They also attack West Pommerania in May, and Mecklemburg in August, but our armies at home slaughter both invasion forces. Another colonial army of ours takes control of the unfortified English colony in Catskill, and then moves on to siege Susquehanna.
While the two sieges go on for over a year in the New World, England sends another siege army to Mecklemburg in April 1626, and again the intruders are beaten back. We answer their aggression by sending a small invasion force to Iceland; we regain the province in June 1626. Later the same year, Manhattan falls, and Susquehanna starts showing signs of collapse. However, the defenders hold on until July 14th, 1627; three days after their surrender, the English agree to give us the colony of Susquehanna in peace.
With the Netherlands out of the Swedish Alliance, the Swedes go elsewhere to look for new friends. They find a rather unlikely one; the Ottoman Empire enters our alliance in 1628. Two peaceful years later, the Swedes again activate the alliance.
The Twelfth Alliance War (1630-1631)
Sweden declares war on Russia on April 22nd, 1630, and the Hansa and Turkey both take arms to help the Swedes. Once again, our siege force moves to Sjælland, where a siege starts in June; the fortifications surrender in December, but again Russia refuses to give us the province. The Hansa Regent follows the battles in the Eastern borders of Sweden with interest, but when the war seems to go nowhere, he sends the Russians another offer: 250 ducats will buy them a cease fire, in which we release our control of Sjælland. The Russians haggle the price down to 150 ducats, and the treaty is signed on September 25th, 1631.
The war between Sweden and Russia comes to an end in the following year, when Russia takes back their former province, Far Karelia. Later the same year Tuscany, which is growing in importance in the Mediterranean region, annexes the Papal States; while this is not bad news by any means, we would be overjoyed if the conqueror of the Papacy had been somebody else besides yet another Catholic nation.
The year 1633 sees two significant advances, one of which is political: an old enemy of the Swedish Alliance, Russia establishes an alliance with the Habsburgs. This is not a welcome development; the Austrian Empire is our Southern neighbor, and their army is vastly larger than ours. The other significant event of the year, the invention of muskets, is not enough to tip the scales in our favor. The next time the Swedes declare war on Russia, we may have to reconsider our membership in that union. However, muskets should make our fights with the Iroquois savages easy.
The First Indian War (1636-1638)
The Hansa declares war on the Iroquois nation on February 2nd, 1636, and our siege force, led by the famous conquistador, Colonel Landau, moves in to siege Tuscarora. The Iroquois try to raid our colony in Powhattan repeatedly, but their lightly-armed warriors are an easy target for our musketeers. Tuscarora falls in May 1627, but is then subject to a number of Iroquois invasions; however, the native warriors, fierce as they are, are mowed down by the volleys from our muskets.
Col. Landau's siege force eventually moves to Shenandoah, while another army force secures Tuscarora. Shenandoah puts up a good fight, but they are eventually forced to surrender on Christmas day, 1628, and the Iroquois chief surrenders both of the conquered provinces to us in a brief ceremony on December 29th, 1628.
While the Hansa was fighting in North America, the Russo-Austrian alliance had taken on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the results turned out to be catastrophic to the latter. Both Russia and Austria take significant chunks of Polish territory in a peace treaty in the summer of 1640. These two nations now share a land border, and both of them are becoming alarmingly powerful.
Concerned with the rise of their Eastern neighbor, the Swedes declare war on Russia on November 15th, 1642. This time, we decide not to honor the alliance, but despite this, the Swedes let us rejoin it a couple of months later. The war eventually ends in a white peace – another idiotic peace treaty by Sweden, who at the time of signing controlled Ingermanland, and had not released control of any of their provinces to the Russians.
The Second Colonial War (1647-1650)
England has been sore at the Hansa for several years, after losing one of their colonies in the First Colonial War. They declare war on us on just three days before Christmas in the year of Our Lord 1647. We call for our allies, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, for help, and they both intervene, as does England's ally, Portugal. However, the Portuguese accept a separate status quo peace with the temporarily Hansa-led Swedish Alliance on January 5th, 1648.
Early in 1648, England again burns our trade posts in the coast of Eastern North America, and attack our colony in Tuscarora with force. Fortunately, we have a large army force stationed in that province. The English are fighting with courage, but their poor equipment hampers them; the first couple of volleys from our musketeers take care of most of their troops. In the spring, Egland also attacks Bremen and Iceland, but without success; meanwhile, our troops move in to siege Manhattan in the New World.
The siege of Manhattan takes nearly a year and a half. The province finally falls on December 26th, 1649, only a couple of weeks after yet another failed attempt by English forces to assault the Hanseatic heartland in Europe. England offers us a status quo peace, which is not good enoug for us; if we do not make them pay for their aggression, they will never leave us alone. The colonial siege force that conquered Manhattan is ordered to Catskill.
In the early part of 1650, England again assaults Bremen, and again our forces drive the invaders back. In the New World, a small expeditionary force of ours burns English trading posts in Carolina and Santee, South of our territories. The English colony of Catskill, under siege since February, starts showing signs of weakening towards the end of the summer, but does not surrender until November 16th.
A few days later, the Ottoman Empire declares war on Persia. We decide to support them, only to find that the Persians have just entered into an alliance with Spain. Partly because of this, we decide to end the war against England on December 3rd, 1650, and only take Manhattan and a 250 ducat indemnity, which is divided equally among our allies. Our diplomats manage to sign a separate cease fire with the Persians and their allies on March 10th, 1651, only days after a huge Spanish army force of over 28000 men lands near our colony in Bangor; the Ottomans end their war eight months later, by extorting a small indemnity from the Persians.
The Second Indian War (1652-1652)
After dealing with the English threat in North America, our colonial forces are ready to attack the heathens again. The Hansa declares war on the Iroquois nation on January 8th, 1652, and the colonial siege force is immediately ordered to the Iroquois province of Irondekoit, which they reach in February. During the four-month siege, native warriors attack Tuscarora repeatedly, but they are easy prey to our battle-hardened musketeers. Irondakoit falls on June 16th, and after some rest and reinforcements, the siege force marches to the Iroquois capital in Mohawk in September 1652.
While our colonial forces fight in the New World, the Old World also sees some military action. The Spanish and French alliances go to war in October 1652, and in the same month, Crimea, a former part of the Ottoman Empire, declares independence. We join the Ottomans in their war against Crimea, but only in spirit.
The Iroquois capital falls after a relatively short siege on January 26th, 1653. Our next target is Onondaga, North of Mohawk; the colonial siege force arrives in the province in March, and after two and a half months of siege, Onondaga surrenders on June 5th; our diplomats meet with the Iroquois chief on June 9th, 1653, and sign a peace treaty giving us Onondaga and Irondekoit; the Iroquois nation now has only two provinces left. Elsewhere, the Ottomans end their skirmish with the Crimeans by annexing the reborn nation on May 30th.
Hanseatic nobles have for some time been uncomfortable with the idea of being allied with an aggressive Mohammedian nation like the Ottoman Empire. After the annexation of Crimea, they start voicing their disagreement with our national policy more and more strongly, and soon the Hanseatic League finds itself in the middle of another political crisis.
As a consequence of the nobles' reluctance, we do not honor our alliance, when the Ottomans declare war on Tunis in August 1659. Sweden does not enter the war either, so the Swedish Alliance is now dissolved. We take advantage of this almost immediately, and in April 1660, form a new alliance with the Swedes, but this time with the Hanseatic League as the Alliance leader. Our former ally Hannover is also invited into the alliance, but they refuse. Our relations with our Western neighbors have been tense for decades, but a lavish gift to the Hannoverian monarch improves the situation somewhat.
On December 20th, 1660, Russia and their ally, Austria, declare war on Sweden. At this time, we cannot honor our obligations to our allies: the Austrians are simply too strong for us, they would eat our Southern provinces Saxony and Madgeburg for breakfast. However, we manage to reform the alliance a few months later, while Sweden is still fighting the Russians; the Swedes eventually lose Nyland in this war.
The Third Indian War (1661-1663)
Ever since the Second Indian War, our colonies in Eastern North America have been on their toes against possible raids by hostile natives. We decide to try to eliminate the largest native threat, the Iroquois nation, and declare war on them on November 20th, 1661.
The Iroquois capital province Mohawk is under siege by our troops in December, while the remains of the once-proud Iroquois army attacks Tuscarora. The natives are beaten on both fronts; Mohawk surrenders on May 26th, 1662, and in August, the last Mohawk province, Oswego, is under siege. The heathens' will to fight has obviously been broken, since our siege force is allowed to operate unharassed. Oswego falls on March 22nd, 1663, and on March 28th, the Iroquois nation is annexed.
In Europe, Hannover has gotten into a war with their Western neighbor, Hessen; we support the Hannover war effort financially, and the nation is grateful. However, the war drags on for several years; it does not end until December 1669, with Hessen taking Oldenburg. The long period of peace enjoyed by the Hanseatic League has allowed us to improve our relationship with Hannover all during the war, and when our alliance with Sweden expires in 1670, we establish a new Hanseatic Alliance, with Hannover and Sweden as the other members.
Like most of the 1660s, the early part of 1670s is a time of peace and economic growth for the Hansa. Due to requests by the Arch Bishop of Lübeck, we send missionaries to convert the heathens in our formerly Iroquois provinces in North America; we also build a new colony in Sitka, in the Northern part of Western North America, in 1672, and eventually send Col. Landau there to direct the colonization of Yukon. A colony is built there in 1675, and the colonists soon discover gold in the province. Is this the start of a new, prosperous Hansa?
************************
A screenshot of the Hanseatic possessions in Eastern North America in 1676 can be found at
http://users.utu.fi/timhau/hansa1676.JPG
(Dark green = the Hansa, Red = England, Yellowish brown = the Netherlands, Light green = Venice; the lighter provinces are still neutral.)
I'm pretty sure I took a screenshot of Central Europe as well, but I think I must have deleted it accidentally; I'll give you one from the early 1700s, when I get there.
Part 5: Wars in the New World (1622-1676)
Since the 1610s, the Hansa had been building a colonial army in preparation of an eventual war against the Iroquois nation. However, before we get ready to attack the indians, our colonial forces get involved in an unplanned fight.
The First Colonial War (1624-1627)
Some of our colonies in the New World border on English possessions. The English, envious of our thriving colonial towns, declare war on us on September 9th, 1624, and their ally, Portugal, intervenes. Sweden honors our alliance and declares war on England, but the Netherlands drop out of alliance. Is this the way they thank us for decades of military help?
The first battles of the war are not fought until January 1625, when a small English force arrives at Powhattan and starts siege works on the light fortifications in the province. Our colonial army drives them away, but not without difficulty; even though we win decisively and only few English soldiers manage to escape, our casualty rate is alarmingly high..
Our colonial army starts a siege on Manhattan, a fortified English colony, in the spring of 1625, and the English answer by sending a small infantry regiment to our undefended, unfortified colony in Iceland. They also attack West Pommerania in May, and Mecklemburg in August, but our armies at home slaughter both invasion forces. Another colonial army of ours takes control of the unfortified English colony in Catskill, and then moves on to siege Susquehanna.
While the two sieges go on for over a year in the New World, England sends another siege army to Mecklemburg in April 1626, and again the intruders are beaten back. We answer their aggression by sending a small invasion force to Iceland; we regain the province in June 1626. Later the same year, Manhattan falls, and Susquehanna starts showing signs of collapse. However, the defenders hold on until July 14th, 1627; three days after their surrender, the English agree to give us the colony of Susquehanna in peace.
With the Netherlands out of the Swedish Alliance, the Swedes go elsewhere to look for new friends. They find a rather unlikely one; the Ottoman Empire enters our alliance in 1628. Two peaceful years later, the Swedes again activate the alliance.
The Twelfth Alliance War (1630-1631)
Sweden declares war on Russia on April 22nd, 1630, and the Hansa and Turkey both take arms to help the Swedes. Once again, our siege force moves to Sjælland, where a siege starts in June; the fortifications surrender in December, but again Russia refuses to give us the province. The Hansa Regent follows the battles in the Eastern borders of Sweden with interest, but when the war seems to go nowhere, he sends the Russians another offer: 250 ducats will buy them a cease fire, in which we release our control of Sjælland. The Russians haggle the price down to 150 ducats, and the treaty is signed on September 25th, 1631.
The war between Sweden and Russia comes to an end in the following year, when Russia takes back their former province, Far Karelia. Later the same year Tuscany, which is growing in importance in the Mediterranean region, annexes the Papal States; while this is not bad news by any means, we would be overjoyed if the conqueror of the Papacy had been somebody else besides yet another Catholic nation.
The year 1633 sees two significant advances, one of which is political: an old enemy of the Swedish Alliance, Russia establishes an alliance with the Habsburgs. This is not a welcome development; the Austrian Empire is our Southern neighbor, and their army is vastly larger than ours. The other significant event of the year, the invention of muskets, is not enough to tip the scales in our favor. The next time the Swedes declare war on Russia, we may have to reconsider our membership in that union. However, muskets should make our fights with the Iroquois savages easy.
The First Indian War (1636-1638)
The Hansa declares war on the Iroquois nation on February 2nd, 1636, and our siege force, led by the famous conquistador, Colonel Landau, moves in to siege Tuscarora. The Iroquois try to raid our colony in Powhattan repeatedly, but their lightly-armed warriors are an easy target for our musketeers. Tuscarora falls in May 1627, but is then subject to a number of Iroquois invasions; however, the native warriors, fierce as they are, are mowed down by the volleys from our muskets.
Col. Landau's siege force eventually moves to Shenandoah, while another army force secures Tuscarora. Shenandoah puts up a good fight, but they are eventually forced to surrender on Christmas day, 1628, and the Iroquois chief surrenders both of the conquered provinces to us in a brief ceremony on December 29th, 1628.
While the Hansa was fighting in North America, the Russo-Austrian alliance had taken on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the results turned out to be catastrophic to the latter. Both Russia and Austria take significant chunks of Polish territory in a peace treaty in the summer of 1640. These two nations now share a land border, and both of them are becoming alarmingly powerful.
Concerned with the rise of their Eastern neighbor, the Swedes declare war on Russia on November 15th, 1642. This time, we decide not to honor the alliance, but despite this, the Swedes let us rejoin it a couple of months later. The war eventually ends in a white peace – another idiotic peace treaty by Sweden, who at the time of signing controlled Ingermanland, and had not released control of any of their provinces to the Russians.
The Second Colonial War (1647-1650)
England has been sore at the Hansa for several years, after losing one of their colonies in the First Colonial War. They declare war on us on just three days before Christmas in the year of Our Lord 1647. We call for our allies, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, for help, and they both intervene, as does England's ally, Portugal. However, the Portuguese accept a separate status quo peace with the temporarily Hansa-led Swedish Alliance on January 5th, 1648.
Early in 1648, England again burns our trade posts in the coast of Eastern North America, and attack our colony in Tuscarora with force. Fortunately, we have a large army force stationed in that province. The English are fighting with courage, but their poor equipment hampers them; the first couple of volleys from our musketeers take care of most of their troops. In the spring, Egland also attacks Bremen and Iceland, but without success; meanwhile, our troops move in to siege Manhattan in the New World.
The siege of Manhattan takes nearly a year and a half. The province finally falls on December 26th, 1649, only a couple of weeks after yet another failed attempt by English forces to assault the Hanseatic heartland in Europe. England offers us a status quo peace, which is not good enoug for us; if we do not make them pay for their aggression, they will never leave us alone. The colonial siege force that conquered Manhattan is ordered to Catskill.
In the early part of 1650, England again assaults Bremen, and again our forces drive the invaders back. In the New World, a small expeditionary force of ours burns English trading posts in Carolina and Santee, South of our territories. The English colony of Catskill, under siege since February, starts showing signs of weakening towards the end of the summer, but does not surrender until November 16th.
A few days later, the Ottoman Empire declares war on Persia. We decide to support them, only to find that the Persians have just entered into an alliance with Spain. Partly because of this, we decide to end the war against England on December 3rd, 1650, and only take Manhattan and a 250 ducat indemnity, which is divided equally among our allies. Our diplomats manage to sign a separate cease fire with the Persians and their allies on March 10th, 1651, only days after a huge Spanish army force of over 28000 men lands near our colony in Bangor; the Ottomans end their war eight months later, by extorting a small indemnity from the Persians.
The Second Indian War (1652-1652)
After dealing with the English threat in North America, our colonial forces are ready to attack the heathens again. The Hansa declares war on the Iroquois nation on January 8th, 1652, and the colonial siege force is immediately ordered to the Iroquois province of Irondekoit, which they reach in February. During the four-month siege, native warriors attack Tuscarora repeatedly, but they are easy prey to our battle-hardened musketeers. Irondakoit falls on June 16th, and after some rest and reinforcements, the siege force marches to the Iroquois capital in Mohawk in September 1652.
While our colonial forces fight in the New World, the Old World also sees some military action. The Spanish and French alliances go to war in October 1652, and in the same month, Crimea, a former part of the Ottoman Empire, declares independence. We join the Ottomans in their war against Crimea, but only in spirit.
The Iroquois capital falls after a relatively short siege on January 26th, 1653. Our next target is Onondaga, North of Mohawk; the colonial siege force arrives in the province in March, and after two and a half months of siege, Onondaga surrenders on June 5th; our diplomats meet with the Iroquois chief on June 9th, 1653, and sign a peace treaty giving us Onondaga and Irondekoit; the Iroquois nation now has only two provinces left. Elsewhere, the Ottomans end their skirmish with the Crimeans by annexing the reborn nation on May 30th.
Hanseatic nobles have for some time been uncomfortable with the idea of being allied with an aggressive Mohammedian nation like the Ottoman Empire. After the annexation of Crimea, they start voicing their disagreement with our national policy more and more strongly, and soon the Hanseatic League finds itself in the middle of another political crisis.
As a consequence of the nobles' reluctance, we do not honor our alliance, when the Ottomans declare war on Tunis in August 1659. Sweden does not enter the war either, so the Swedish Alliance is now dissolved. We take advantage of this almost immediately, and in April 1660, form a new alliance with the Swedes, but this time with the Hanseatic League as the Alliance leader. Our former ally Hannover is also invited into the alliance, but they refuse. Our relations with our Western neighbors have been tense for decades, but a lavish gift to the Hannoverian monarch improves the situation somewhat.
On December 20th, 1660, Russia and their ally, Austria, declare war on Sweden. At this time, we cannot honor our obligations to our allies: the Austrians are simply too strong for us, they would eat our Southern provinces Saxony and Madgeburg for breakfast. However, we manage to reform the alliance a few months later, while Sweden is still fighting the Russians; the Swedes eventually lose Nyland in this war.
The Third Indian War (1661-1663)
Ever since the Second Indian War, our colonies in Eastern North America have been on their toes against possible raids by hostile natives. We decide to try to eliminate the largest native threat, the Iroquois nation, and declare war on them on November 20th, 1661.
The Iroquois capital province Mohawk is under siege by our troops in December, while the remains of the once-proud Iroquois army attacks Tuscarora. The natives are beaten on both fronts; Mohawk surrenders on May 26th, 1662, and in August, the last Mohawk province, Oswego, is under siege. The heathens' will to fight has obviously been broken, since our siege force is allowed to operate unharassed. Oswego falls on March 22nd, 1663, and on March 28th, the Iroquois nation is annexed.
In Europe, Hannover has gotten into a war with their Western neighbor, Hessen; we support the Hannover war effort financially, and the nation is grateful. However, the war drags on for several years; it does not end until December 1669, with Hessen taking Oldenburg. The long period of peace enjoyed by the Hanseatic League has allowed us to improve our relationship with Hannover all during the war, and when our alliance with Sweden expires in 1670, we establish a new Hanseatic Alliance, with Hannover and Sweden as the other members.
Like most of the 1660s, the early part of 1670s is a time of peace and economic growth for the Hansa. Due to requests by the Arch Bishop of Lübeck, we send missionaries to convert the heathens in our formerly Iroquois provinces in North America; we also build a new colony in Sitka, in the Northern part of Western North America, in 1672, and eventually send Col. Landau there to direct the colonization of Yukon. A colony is built there in 1675, and the colonists soon discover gold in the province. Is this the start of a new, prosperous Hansa?
************************
A screenshot of the Hanseatic possessions in Eastern North America in 1676 can be found at
http://users.utu.fi/timhau/hansa1676.JPG
(Dark green = the Hansa, Red = England, Yellowish brown = the Netherlands, Light green = Venice; the lighter provinces are still neutral.)
I'm pretty sure I took a screenshot of Central Europe as well, but I think I must have deleted it accidentally; I'll give you one from the early 1700s, when I get there.
