Hah! An update just before Christmas.
Knew I could do it if I tried. No pics, but enough text to keep you happy I think. By the way, Najd is still my vassal.:wacko:
Anyway, without further ado, here it is!
~Part 8~
In which the Empire learns a lesson
The Teutonic Order was feeling ambitious again. With a Viceroy in place, they now moved against the north German cities, who were weak and fractured. They had declared war and were now alone against a coalition of Denmark, Hamburg, and the Palatinate, as their allies had refused to join.
The "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" was one of these small, North German states. Its army of 3000 soldiers bravely patrolled the Republic's frontiers, and were horrified to see a Teutonic army assembled on their once-Danish frontier. Their chances of success were small: they faced an army twice as large. They had heard that the Danish army in København had been crushed in days, and that that city was unde siege, but they thought that it would delay the Teutons long enough for the Emperor to arrive. They turned out to be wrong.
The Hamburger army was all but crushed when Imperial aid finally reached their border. The Palatinate's army was powerful enough to force the Teutonic cavalry into retreat, but by that time Sjælland had already fallen and Denmark was annexed.
Sweden and Norway, free of the Danish yoke, now turned on each other.
The Teutons left the Scandinavian states to slaughter each other as they moved to lift the enemy siege in Slesvig. They arrived too late, but forced the occupying forces into Jylland and Hamburg and liberated the captured city of Ribe. The armies then moved to eradicate the enemy forces. Meanwhile, rebels had risen up in Skåne and Gotland. A force was sent to defend Visby but the 8000 Danish patriots outside Lund were too numerous to be evicted.
The siege of Lund was concluded and the rebels moved onto Halland. Meanwhile Jylland had almost fallen, but the Teutons avenged this by besieging Hamburg. Repeated attacks on the fleeing Hamburger army led to their annihilation in Slesvig, and the now-free army moved north to defeat the Imperial army under King Ludwig III. That battle was brief, and the Palatinate's force moved south. They had also moved 1000 horsemen into Danzig, and their was nothing the Teutonic armies in Denmark could do to save the city.
Hamburg fell to the Teutons, and the now available troops moved aboard the fleet and landed in Danzig, where a further thousand infantrymen had arrived. The battle was brief but decisive. The Palatinate's troops were forced out, and Peace was demanded. It was denied, but after another while of bloody combat across Denmark, Hamburg, and Luneberg, followed by an invasion of Pfalz itself, they offered a White Peace. The Teutons accepted it, and now turned their attentions to the rebels in Sweden and Sjælland.
As one force returned home to Teutonia they suddenly encountered rebels in Ostpreussen and Estland. They put down one revolt and moved north to cripple the other. The other armies now attacked the rebels in Sjælland as one group of rebels moved from Halland into Sweden.
Phillip Wilhelm I of the Palatinate now replaced Ludwig III as King and Holy Roman Emperor. The Danish patriots in Halland and Skåne now declared independence and Lund became capital of Denmark. They immediately offered peace, but to no avail. Denmark had unwittingly declared independence from the most powerful state in the Baltic, just as they finished a victorious war.
