Chapter 21: The Fine Art of Backstabbing
September 1, 1504: The Holy Roman Emperor passes a law through the Imperial Diet whereby Imperial states will be held accountable if they hold imperial provinces without proper claims. The Emperor stresses that this has nothing to do with the large holdings of the Hanseatic League.
Since Austria is the Emperor, is excommunicated, and holds lots of German cultured provinces (which we can take for 1 infamy/province), plans are drawn up to invade Austria as soon as her armies are committed in France.
In completely unrelated news, Southern Italy is under new ownership. Yes, that's Castille, Aragon, and Norway.
Our current relations with Austria are at 15, but we need to get a magistrate and cancel military access anyway before we can leave the HRE and declare war. We immediately cancel MA (bringing us to -4 relations).
January 1, 1505: With our shiny new magistrate, Lubeck declares independence from the Holy Roman Empire. This removes our nasty infamy and prestige penalty, which already resulted in losing 6 prestige and gaining .8 infamy. Ow.
April 26: Venetian nationalists rise up...conveniently, they will protect Venice in the upcoming war.
June 3: The Hanseatic-Austrian Excommunication War is declared by the Hansa. Hansa's vassals join on one side, and Burgundy joins Austria. Our enemies have large armies, but relatively high WE. Unfortunately for Austria, they're also at war with Polotsk, and have almost all of their armies in France except some scattered single regiment armies. Our mission will to assault everything in our path.
October 19: 4 months, 4 provinces taken by our two invading armies. Unfortunately, they're all Czech.
December 12: One of the largest battles of the war takes place outside Vienna.
February 11. 1506: The largest battle of the war ends in another shameful defeat for Austria. Best part - I don't take attrition while whooping Austrian butt.
March 7: Fortification expert in Slesvig. I don't need an Engineer right now, so I take the permanent +50% defensiveness there.
March 24: France's early successes in Burgundy have been reversed, and if it weren't for me chewing through Austria, they'd be in more serious trouble.
March 26: Lucrative Trade event. I take the +30 trade investment for 20 months (600 ducats) over the 50 ducats cash.
May 30: Muskogee converts.
June 6: Austria offers me Sudety, Linz, and Breslau. Hrm...9 infamy when I can take more German provinces. My armies have hit Tirol, but Burgundy is closing in, and I don't want France to peace out before me (since that would raise Austria and Burgundy's War Capacity, and lower what they'll accept. I also don't want to prolong the risk that my neighbors might declare war and start a cascade.
I choose to take what I can get - conveniently connecting my Bavarian possessions to Venice and cutting Austria in 4.
June 8: Austria's loss has give Burgundy an edge in voting. This would be helpful if they weren't allied.
In Eastern Europe, the Ottomans are crushing Poland, and Polotsk has occupied one of Austria's Polish provinces.
July 1: Less than a month after a war with me, Burgundy declares war on Munster to subjugate her, bringing in Portugal as an ally. Munster is in my sphere of influence, so I get a call to arms. Hopefully, I can force Portugal to cede Honduras and Pipil (now that I have cores), or at least force a white peace.
On one hand, they outnumber us, but on the other Burgundy has 9.5 WE already. Portugal outnumbers me 11 regiments to 8 in Mesoamerica, which is annoying but manageable. The main problem is that I pretty much have to beat Burgundy down a bit if I want to get anything...while praying none of my neighbors get frisky.
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