From the Encyclopaedia Venetia volume IX
Marco Memo 1567-1623
Doge of Venice 1612-1615
Marco Memo was elected as a doge in 16xx. He won the election campaign on the promise of cutting down the military budget, improvement of the infrastructure and major investments in the social sector.
One of his first action as a doge was to reorganise the country into three military districts, each with one major army.
- District South with the main army in Lombardia, controlling the Italian peninsular and eastern France
- District East with the main army in Serbia, controlling the Balkans, Hungaria, Austria and Poland
- District North with the main army in Munster, controlling Germany and the Dutch provinces.
This reorganization resulted in the reduction of the army costs to a quarter of the previous years while remaining amongst the top of the military forces in the world. Impressed by the cost reductions the people of Venice decided to give Marco Memo the title of "The great Reformer" (
Excellent minister) with the the promise of lavish celebration within the year.
However while the celebrations were being prepared and the army reorganization was only just done, the Ottoman Empire saw the opportunity to regain some of the lands they had lost to Venice in the last centuries. The initial tides of war months went badly as Greece was flooded by Muslim troops and Venetian militia armies raised in Greece were quickly defeated. The main district east army corps meanwhile was avoiding battle with the Turks trying to sneak past them towards Constantinople. The messages of these defeats came as a hard blow to Venice. The celebration were called off and Marco Memo's grand title was withdrawn, while he only barely managed to keep his seat as doge.(
Temporal Insanity of Monarch)
This proved fortunate as the doge showed his military skills by sending in the District south army while raising more militia in district east. The army was sent not to battle the fierce Turks but to try to occupy Turkish homeland. Landing in Anatolia a Turkish force was defeated and quickly all provinces were laid under siege. Meanwhile the Turks continued to besiege the provinces of Bulgaria and Macedonia. The militia from the Balkans were joined with the main eastern army and ordered to relieve the sieges in Greece. The battle of Macedonia was a long one but in the end the Turks were defeated and driven back. During the battle for Macedonia the northern protestant provinces started to rebel funded by Turkish money. The northern army was able to put down the first few revolts, but as the rebellion continued, the army got depleted. Thus new armies were raised in Italy and to the north.
A year after the war was started all Turkish provinces were under siege or had already fallen into Venetian hands. The Ottoman Empire realized the gamble was over and they accepted their defeat and recognized Venice as their overlord. The protestant in the north struggle longer, but as they were deprived from their source of money the rebellion slowly faded out.
After peace had finally settled in Venice Marco Memo was unfortunately struck by a heart attack and forced to abdicate as doge. His during his short reign he was mainly busy with war although he was elected on the promise of peace. His army reorganisations failed completely as after the war the old situation of oversized armies and scattered army groups was restored.
