Updates here always make me happy. Especially when it looks like things might work out well after all.
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Great update! I'd still put my money on Melissinos, but something tells me his best laid plans as to defeating Gabras as his forces disembark will go awry :/
Thanks all for the continued interests, comments, and intuitive guesses as to what will transpire next.
It is always good to make true on my promise to discharge my responsibilities in completing this adventure. Alas, while I do not have an extensive amount of free time that I care to devote to the details an AAR of a game I completed 2 years ago now--it is always nice to be back in writing form.
It also gives me a good excuse to get back to playing some EUIV--even if not for the content of this AAR.
Thanks again. Stay tuned for more truly byzantine politicking and betrayals...if you all didn't glean that already.
It is always good to make true on my promise to discharge my responsibilities in completing this adventure. Alas, while I do not have an extensive amount of free time that I care to devote to the details an AAR of a game I completed 2 years ago now--it is always nice to be back in writing form.
It also gives me a good excuse to get back to playing some EUIV--even if not for the content of this AAR.
Thanks again. Stay tuned for more truly byzantine politicking and betrayals...if you all didn't glean that already.
I have to say that I find the "well, there could have been more sweeping plagues" much more ominous and dreary sounding than "we know precisely how many sweeping plagues there were".
I think part of the allure of the medieval period, even if late medieval or early renaissance, is that we don't know too much as compared with more contemporary times and it allows to add a flavor of the imagination.
Chapter XXVIII
The Battle of Bysanthe
The Battle of Bysanthe
West of Constantinople, near the town of Bysanthe, was the location of Gabras’ departure from the sea and onto land. Gabras’ strategy was simple, even if complex. He planned three landings around the city—west, center, and east. The intention was the split Melissinos’ forces evenly while he would land at the center with his main force—overwhelm the smaller defense force while sacrificing one flank and subsequently overwhelm the other. His plan was to sacrifice the west, crush the center and eastern forces of Melissinos—thus preventing his retirement from battle and block the roads returning to Constantinople. Settlement, not destruction, would hopefully set in.
The plan was simple, but its execution, complicated. The morning of the landing was met with choppy shore waves. The makeshift fleet, comprising of both actual and composite warships and rafts, were staggered. The proper warships had no problem arriving at their scheduled destinations, and on time, while the ships hastily constructed by Gabras prior to his voyage and defeat of the imperial navy suffered in the seas. And the result was a staggered landing.
Melissinos had taken the bait, and divided his forces evenly to cover all the prime locations of Gabras’ prospective landing. Although he held a majority over Gabras, including a strong reserve, Gabras’ strategy was still his ace up his sleeve. But the staggered landings cost him his major advantage.
As Gabras’ soldiers disembarked, they were met with sporadic musket and arrow fire, closely followed by the advance of the Roman infantry with their spears, pikes, and short swords. The battle spilled over from the beachhead up the plains and hills, and back into the seas as both sides saw victory at certain locations and defeat at others.
From the sea, Gabras’ warships peppered the shore with artillery and arrow fire. The center, where Gabras’ forces were supposed to drive Melissinos away in quick order, were briefly stunted due to the staggered landings and the fierce fighting of the defenders. However, by noon, Gabras was making progress toward Bysanthe but was losing on his flanks. He was now tasked with a fateful decision—where to disembark the remaining troops still at sea. His plan, seemingly working, was nonetheless progressing at a slower pace than expected. Melissinos’ soldiers were putting up stiff resistance. From his flagship—the Hades—Gabras could observe that his left flank was being pushed back into the sea. He also observed that his right flank was in serious danger. If both faltered, rather than one, his center risked being enveloped.
Gabras decided to press the center in accordance with his earlier strategy—hoping that the last 4,000 men could wrap up a quick victory and swing swiftly to the east and help the men at the beach. The decision proved tragic. With both flanks making progress, but his center reeling, Melissinos deployed his reserves to the center to bolster his beleaguered men. Unknowingly, they marched into battle at the perfect moment.
Gabras’ forces at the center had overextended in their advance, and the forward units were quickly overwhelmed in Melissinos’ counterattack. Now in retreat when Gabras’ remaining troops reached the shore, rather than march into town and swing east, they were forced to fight on the beach with the rest of the center units scattered in various locations due to the disorderly advance.
Witnessing the events unfold from the sea, many of the imperial sailors who had jumped ship—pardon the pun—arose against Gabras’ soldiers standing guard. Mutiny, it could be called, added another advantage to Melissinos. Several ships fell into the hands of Fernio’s formerly captured sailors—now the captors—and they began firing at Gabras’ men. A brief battle erupted from the decks of the Hades wherein Gabras and his staff regained control of the ship—but by then, it was too late.
In one of the more obscene moments of the unfolding carnage, the imperial cavalry charged the disorderly ranks of Gabras’ disembarking soldiers. The heavy horses thundered into the muck and mud of the shore sand, and while not especially mobile in that soft but thick muck, the horses drowned many of the soldiers as they were trampled into the muddy sand—often face down—and unable to get up from the weight of their armor, weaponry, and the pressing hooves of the warhorses.
A contemporary depiction of the battle of Bysanthe.
By this time, most of Gabras’ men were surrendering their arms on shore. Several ships scattered, others—the captured—turned and began attacking the ships that were not flying the imperial colors. With chaos all around, Gabras resigned himself to defeat. Melissinos had been victorious, if not through luck and mutiny, but was once again the savior of Constantinople and the empire. A bargain was struck between Gabras’ soldiers and Melissinos—rejoin the ranks of the Imperial Army, and avoid arrest and almost certain death.
But in Melissinos’ victory, great peril was afoot back in Constantinople. The prestige of Melissinos was swelling to a new high. There was no room for him in Sophia’s regency, just as there was no room to quarter a traitor like Gabras. Sophia’s spies had observed the battle, and had reported back to the iron empress of the new situation. And like a double-edged sword, Sophia’s wrath and ambition to retain power descended upon friend and foe alike. Her first target—her former lover and the “savior of the Roman Empire.”
Like a swift plague, she unleashed a massive purge through the imperial halls, the ranks of the army—especially the officer corps, and even the Greek aristocracy that had largely pushed their support of Gabras in a move that could only be described as an attempted coup. Here, she rightly earned nickname.
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While there's not a good way to die in battle, drowning in mud has always seemed a particularly terrible one to me.
And why am I not surprised at yet more ruthlessness from Sophia? Gotta do what you gotta do to hold onto power, I guess, particularly if you're female.
And why am I not surprised at yet more ruthlessness from Sophia? Gotta do what you gotta do to hold onto power, I guess, particularly if you're female.
Reminds me of the D-Day landing at Normandy when the landing troops climbed over the side of their landing craft and proceeded to drown because of the weight of their equipment.
I guess the lessons of Agincourt never reached the other side of the Mediterranean! Ruthless women, the invisible power behind so many "great" men...
I suppose the eternal lesson of war, in such situations, is men + heavy equipment + water/mud = bad outcome.
Great update! I do hope Melissinos isn't cut down (Literally or figuratively) by Sophia, not after having come so far. I fear if he does, the result could be very similar to when Valentinian murdered Aetius, Melissinos, while no genius, is clearly the best commander the Empire has.
Throughout history, Greeks have been the greatest killers of Greeks.
I guess history always repeats itself!
(Hush!) Is that saying much?
I think the Byzantine ruling and power class are in shambles. Or at least that's going to be the narrative in the forthcoming chapters.
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Sorry again for the long break. Update sometime this week. Until then, cheers!
Chapter XXIX
Empress Sophia Consolidates Power
Empress Sophia Consolidates Power
The fallout from the Battle of Bysanthe was swift and momentous. In a flash, Gabras and the Greek aristocracy’s gambit for power had been crushed. Melissinos was, for the time being, the face of the empire with rumors of his victory circulating through Constantinople despite censorship to hide the decisive victory for purely political reasons. Lastly, Empress Sophia—ever prescient of the possibility of Melissinos riding a wave of popular sentiment to the throne—embarked to shackle any dissident movements that threatened the regency’s hold on power.
The vast spy network that her husband, Emperor John, had built had ever watchful eyes throughout every corner of the empire. The spies had infiltrated the ranks of the Imperial Army, many of them occupying the ranks of the junior officers—the lower aristocratic class that was deemed the most potentially dissident within the ranks of the army. Individual commanders may come and go—or be defeated—but an underclass of revolutionary officers was never a healthy thing for an army or an empire.
Melissinos’ victory was kept quiet, to the best of Sophia’s ability. Her spies moved swiftly to contain the potential damage. From within the ranks of the Imperial Guard and the officer staff of Melissinos’ command—the hidden officer spies were quick to arrest nearly 100 officers, generals, and other key players who were considered overly loyal to the “savior” of the empire. In the midst of the night just east of Bysanthe, where Melissinos was still camped seven days after his victory—the spies moved against the officers.
In their tents and besides the midnight fires, they were forcibly shackled, several killed, and quickly led back to Constantinople under the cover of darkness to be rest in the dank cesspools of the city’s “jails.” It was a stunning and brilliant move that altogether sacked the Imperial officer corps, Melissinos most prominently, and installed loyalists at every level of the military and civil administration.
For his treachery, Gabras and his officers too, were “freed” from Melissinos’ guards only to be taken to Constantinople in a second line of prisoners. Although he had, all along, planned to depose the regents and either claim the throne for himself or the Greek aristocracy that had backed him—Sophia had other plans for both Gabras and Melissinos. She knew that both were the most talented commanders in the empire despite their personal rivalries and ambitions, for better or worse.
She also knew their loyalists in Asia Minor and Greece would not stand to have them both shackled to a rock in Constantinople—plus she artfully understood how that would reflect back on her. Instead, after a month of torture, they would both be “banished” back to their power bases—but with no power base whatsoever. Their distance from Constantinople with no military forces would provide a certain safety and security for the regents for several years, at the fewest. Their freedom would also ensure a double rivalry, that would hopefully—perhaps paradoxically—keep the tripartite peace between the generals and Sophia.
The End of the Greek Aristocracy
Sophia also knew that it was the Greek aristocracy, moreover than Gabras, that was her primary threat. Melissinos’ claim to power rested with his popularity among the proletarian masses which could easily be clamped down or shackled. The aristocracy in Greece, however, was another matter altogether.
The constant efforts at centralization was seen as a direct affront to the privileges and power the aristocracy had come accustomed to for nearly a millennium. Their fight was one, in their eyes, over honor and the rights of nobles. The centralization effort was not cast as an affront to either, but a modernization effort to keep pace with the new century and the obvious centralization of Rome’s principal rivals: the Turks and the Mamlukes. Despite the propaganda from both sides—the power and wealth of the Greek nobility allowed them to raise a private army for a relatively competent general who was bested by a superior.
Nevertheless, Sophia had to move quickly to silence the dissident ranks within the aristocracy. The Imperial Army marched into Greece, along with her spy network, and sacked the villas and manors of many of her opponents. Killing nobles was never a wise policy, but casting them into poverty and turning them against one another would suffice.
In some instances, like this one above, the spies forced riots that the nobles had to deal with before the army arrived and removed them on pretexts of not treating their subjects in the spirit of Christian charity and welfare.
Her spies forcibly extracted information from the early nobles whom were willing to sellout their comrades for the promises of safety and security. Some were even rewarded with elevated status. It pit the lower rung of the aristocracy against the upper elites within Greek society. Long the bottom dwellers of the aristocratic class—many of whom still joined the coup attempt—now quickly turned against their “oppressors” and were rewarded for their “loyalty” with more prominent positions within the aristocracy. The aristocratic elite, however, suffered cruelly.
As mentioned, their villas and manors were burned. Some were sacked of their titles and became pretender claimants to their old lineages. A few disappeared, their positions taken up by their sons—with the ever watchful eye of Constantinople always looking over them. Several more, primary in the foothills of southern Greece where the army had yet to arrive, committed suicide rather than suffer humiliation at the hands of spies and soldiers.
And with that, Sophia dealt a swift and devastating blow to the Greek aristocracy that had conspired against her husband and her regency. When Gabras returned to Greece, he found an unfriendly aristocracy. He was left with a petty command—the garrison of Athens. His “friends” were either displaced, forced into a silence by threats, or dead.
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As opposed to the Japanese during World War Two, whom trumpted every defeat as a glorious victory for the Emperor. There was always a glorious victory where countless Americans ships were sunk - victories that curiously kept getting closer and closer to the Japanese home islands.
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Great update
Thanks! Sadly, what free time I have for writing is going to my "professional" writing. Shameless self promotion, but I have an editorial being run in Forbes!
That, and other reasons, sort of explains the tremendous slowdown in updating here. Oh well, we're still on track to beat Gibbon who took 13 years to write his history.I believe, err, know, Sophia's iron regency has just begun!
Propaganda still has its limits. Yes, I've always wanted to do a psycho-analysis of the Japanese population to really get an understanding of the problem of what your government is saying in war, vs. what reality is dictating. The same thing happened in the Six Day War, Radio Cairo was broadcasting fake reports of Israeli aircraft being destroyed and Egyptian soldiers entering Israel. Nasser even called King Hussein to tell him to "seize as much land as possible" before a UN Cease fire--of course, Nasser's bid there was to get Jordan into the war and therefore cause Israeli soldiers to move from the Sinai to fight in the West Bank.