The Ebony Cross and the Sacred Eagle (Era I)

[orlanth2000]

Even with the voting over I will add mine for A as well much easier to deal with in smaller parts.

And should any one want to read the full update in one sitting they can just hold off for a little

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Even with the voting over I will add mine for A as well much easier to deal with in smaller parts.

And should any one want to read the full update in one sitting they can just hold off for a little

okay, cool.

there MIGHT be an update today, no promises though.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Chapter VII – Werner König von Insterburg (1497-1511)​

After Johann von Tiefen’s death in October 1497, the Teutonic Vice-Master called a capitulum to meet in Ordensburg Marienburg to elect the thirty-fourth Grand Master of the Order. The twelve selected men converged in the castle, well aware that their Ordenstaat was at war. But the ceremony had to take place.

The seven knights, four sergeants, and the priest balloted many times without coming to a majority. Eventually it was split between two candidates. One was Friedrich von Sachsen, a Saxon nobleman from the Jagiellon Dynasty of Poland. The other was Werner König von Insterburg, a Prussian Komtur of Reval (in the Estonia region) who had served with the Order his entire military career.

On December 13 1497, the capitulum voted 9-3 for von Insterburg. According to procedure, the three men in the minority conceded their votes, and Werner was elected unanimously.

Werner König von Insterburg rose to the helm of the Ordenstaat amidst wars with several nations simultaneously. The most pressing was the First Teutonic-Mamluk War, which raged across the Holy Land.

During his first months as Hochmeister von Insterburg focused on consolidating his hold on the northern Levant. In late January an army of around four thousand Knights moved west from Hawran area to attack Judea and besiege the holy city of Jerusalem.

The city of Jerusalem in the late 15th century
​

They faced heavy resistance from fanatical Mamluk swordsmen, as well as Muslim cavalrymen who were willing to fight to the end to defend the holy city.

A Mamluk cavalryman, similar to the ones faced by the Knights in the Battle of Judea.

​

After several days of heavy fighting, the Mamluk regiments eventually collapsed and fled. Some returned into the city to aid with the defense, but most just deserted, melting into the desert. But they had done their duty. In the battle five hundred Teutonic soldiers had died, while only two hundred and fifty Mamluks had perished.

After the siege ring closed around Judea, von Insterburg turned his attention north to Damascus, where there was already an ongoing siege. The commanders reported that although the city was well fortified, after having surrounded it for eight months the defenders were beginning to weaken. So von Insterburg ordered that several artillery cannons be brought to the siege. They arrived on April 10, 1498. The next day the cannons began a prolonged bombardment that would last almost a week. When the cannons fell silent on April 15th, there was no reply from the defenders. On April 16th, the garrison marched out. They had surrendered. Damascus had fallen.

Several weeks after the city fell, Mamluk Sultan az-Zahir Qansuh sent a peace offering to von Insterburg. He offered to cede Badiyat Ash Sham, Hawran, Dayr Az Zor, and Aleppo to the knights in return for peace. But Grand Master von Insterburg, his head dominated with visions of the entire Holy Land under his control, refused the offer and vowed to continue the war.

At this time the Mamluks called on the other Islamic states in northern Africa to assist in the war. On May 20, the Beylik of Algeria declared war upon the Ordenstaat. By themselves the Algerians could do little, but they were allied with the Moroccans, who could pose a threat to Gibraltar, the key to bringing supplies into the Mediterranean. If Gibraltar fell, the whole war could collapse.

Von Insterburg was beginning to regret not taking peace from the Mamluks. But now he had to fight on, against many more enemies as well. To speed the war in the Holy Land, von Insterburg focused the majority of his troops in several major areas. He reasoned that the quick capture of the key Mamluk cities in the region would allow him to exact a peace heavily in his favor.

So in this vein, the strength of the troops around Judea was increased to ten thousand men. While besieging the city the fought off a counterattack, but paid dearly for it. Most of the commanders were not experienced in battle with large numbers of troops, and it showed. In the Second Battle of Jerusalem, almost three thousand Knights died (thirty percent of their forces), while only 374 Mamluks were killed (nine percent of their forces).

But there was Teutonic victory. The siege was not broken.

In late May, another problem rose up. Preceding the war with Algiers, most of the Knights in Tunisia had been withdrawn for the Greatest Crusade. So when the Mamluks decided to attack the city of Sirt, there were few defenders. However, the ones that were there managed to hold out for two hundred and seven days. But the city and surrounding territory fell to the Mamluks on May 28th.

In mid-June, the weakness of the Teutonic position in inland Arabia was exposed. While ten thousand professional Knights carried out the siege of Jerusalem, the military action that took place in the deserts was done by only a comparative handful of troops. In the deserts of Badiyat Ash Sham, two regiments of Knights battled a regiment of strong Arab soldiers proficient in desert warfare. But even that couldn’t stop the tide of the battle. Only one Teutonic infantryman was killed – some say it was an accident – while two hundred and fifty Mamluks were killed, taken prisoner, or wounded and left for dead.

Throughout June and into July the siege of Judea raged, and much smaller armies roamed the interior of the Holy Land. At the same time, von Insterburg had raised another regiment of soldiers from the Prussian homeland, loaded them into transports, and the regiment was sailed down to Gafsa to defend Tunisia.

It was not a moment too soon. On July second, a regiment of Algerian soldiers who had been trekking through the desert for days arrived in the outskirts of Gafsa province. They expected the city to be undefended, so did not maintain battle formations. The Teutonic Knights took advantage of this, attacking the Algerian camp at twilight. After hours of fierce fighting – in which many were wounded by few killed – the Algerian leader ordered a retreat. The casualties sustained on both sides were light, with only seventy-five deaths on the Algerian side and twenty-one on the Teutonic side.

Later in July, the Moroccans decided to extend their presence into Spain once again. The irregular German regiment that had been rushed to defend Teutonic Granada was inexperienced and had very low morale. When the Moroccan troops landed, they inflicted heavy casualties on the Knights, while sustaining almost no fatalities amongst themselves. The surviving Teutonic Knights retreated into the fortress of Gibraltar and prepared to defend it, hoping to be relieved by another Teutonic army. But von Insterburg could not spare any men from the Mamluk war, so the garrison would have to fight on their own.

By August the situation in Africa was progressively worsening for von Insterburg. An Algerian army of three thousand attacked Gafsa and drove out the regiment of Knights holding the city.

A month later, the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding area – Judea – fell to the Ordenstaat. By this point the entire northern areas of Mamluk territory was under control of von Insterburg, but still az-Zahir vowed to fight on. He rejected peace negotiations, and the war continued.

Out of the ten thousand man army that had taken Jerusalem, eight thousand were separated. This new army moved south to attack a Muslim army camped in Gaza. But although the Knights sustained a higher amount of casualties, the Mamluks retreated into the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula.

By the end of the year, the Teutonic forces had consolidated their hold in northern Mamluk territory. They were then prepared to move south, into Arabia. Several days before New Year’s Eve, az-Zahir rejected yet another of many peace demands. He also successfully counterattacked at Badiyat Ash Sham, where due to sandstorms neither side suffered any casualties from battle. However, due to an error in judgment the Teutonic commander there decided to retreat, despite his numerical superiority.

After that attack, az-Zahir stopped the offensive, deciding to consolidate his troops and ready his defenses west of the Sinai. He also incited a rebellion in Sirt in early March. As peasants took up arms and, aided by local Mamluks, surrounded the fortress in the city, the Mamluks prepared an attack that would surround the entire province. As a distraction, they supplied arms and supplies to rebels in Damascus, who began to rebel in early May. An army of Teutonic infantry was quickly diverted to subdue the rebels and consolidate Damascus.

On May 22, the city of Gabes fell to Morocco. The same day, a Teutonic army in Gaza fended off a counterattack in Gaza with relatively light casualties on both sides. This stymied az-Zahir’s plan of taking back the Holy Land, for now at least.

Time dragged on into June 1499. Battles over Gaza and the Sinai continued, but the Mamluks could not marshal enough troops – or at least enough skilled and trained troops – to dislodge the Knights. The defenders in the Gaza fortress began to lose hope, and became more and more desperate.

Meanwhile, the Teutonic situation outside of the Holy Land was steadily deteriorating. Algiers and Morocco refused peace, determined to siege Teutonic Tunisia. And a Mamluk army marched into Teutonic Tripoli, and broke defenders of the city of Sirt. Even as von Insterburg’s armies struggled across the Sinai, their countrymen were fighting all across North Africa and even in Spain.

In October, the population of Edirne rebelled. Two thousand peasants armed with mostly swords and improvised weapons managed to surround the garrison in the city. This was yet another crisis for von Insterburg. The Ottomans could choose to “intervene” in Edirne, seizing back the province, and the Ordenstaat could do nothing about it.

Grand Master Werner decided that by putting more pressure closer to the Mamluk capital in Cairo, he could force them to surrender. So he put together a three-regiment army of 3200 men, and landed them on the coast of Diamientia, a stone’s throw from Cairo. They defeated the Mamluk troops in the area and prepared for siege. But even with his empire collapsing around him, Sultana az-Zahir refused to restore peace.

He sent another army to attack the Teutonic-held Sinai, and this time almost succeeded. The continuous assaults, combined with desert attrition, had worn down the defending Teutonic armies greatly. The Mamluks outnumbered the Knights, but eventually were beaten back, at great cost to both sides.

That was the last military action of the XV century. After the Christmas Sinai battle, both sides broke off engagement. A week after the beginning of the year 1500 AD, Diamientia fell to the Teutonic Knights. With the city under von Insterburg’s rule, the city of Gaza that had been the site of so many battles in the past months was cut off from the rest of Mamluk Egypt. The Mamluks tried to rectify this by attacking into the Sinai. But the beleaguered Teutonic 3rd Army only just managed to fight them off. In battle, though, the Knights were luckier than they had been before. Only a single soldier of theirs was killed, while a third of the Mamluk soldiers were lost.

On February 7, 1500, another serious problem arose. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Ordenstaat. The Fourth Ottoman-Teutonic War had begun. Von Insterburg was faced with another war, meaning he had to fight all around the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar and Morocco in the west, to Tunisia, Egypt, the Holy Land, and now the Balkans as well.

​

 

[Prinz Wilhelm]

Wow, you should really make peace with Morrocco and Algeria, war is stretching your forces really hard!

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Wow, you should really make peace with Morrocco and Algeria, war hard is stretching your forces really hard!

yeah, I know... I'm finally starting to feel the effect of badboy.

but the stupid AI in 1.1 (or maybe it was 1.2 I played it in) was really stubborn, and wouldn't accept peace...

 

[coz1]

Gulp!

Perhaps a bit of over-reach there when not accepting that first peace over. Still, it is a valiant effort and the Lord is pleased. So pleased, he is greeting quite a few of the Order as St. Peter let's them through the gates.

 

[forkboy]

Wow, that is a bit of a predicament you have gotten into there! I hope that you can battle on and destroy the infidels grasp on the Holy Land for good however

I've just read from start to now and want to say what a fantastically written AAR this has been so far, glad that I found it.

 

[Trondheim]

The Ottomans declaring war was bad timing. But I noticed that the Ottomans were at war with the Karakoyunlu in one of the screens. Were they still at war with them when they declared war on the Teutonic Order?

Good update!

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Gulp!

Perhaps a bit of over-reach there when not accepting that first peace over. Still, it is a valiant effort and the Lord is pleased. So pleased, he is greeting quite a few of the Order as St. Peter let's them through the gates.

yeah, I'm thinking maybe I should have taken it. but hopefully there will be a better offer. von Insterburg will only settle for the ENTIRE holy land.

Wow, that is a bit of a predicament you have gotten into there! I hope that you can battle on and destroy the infidels grasp on the Holy Land for good however

I've just read from start to now and want to say what a fantastically written AAR this has been so far, glad that I found it.

yeah, I know.. war with around five nations at once..

I hope so too.

The Ottomans declaring war was bad timing. But I noticed that the Ottomans were at war with the Karakoyunlu in one of the screens. Were they still at war with them when they declared war on the Teutonic Order?

Good update!

for the next fifty years or so (not sure exactly), the ottomans and Black Sheep Turkomen fight a large amount of wars... culminating in.... well, you'll see.

 

[Murmurandus]

Mmm, the Great Mediterranean War has errupted! Great!

 

[orlanth2000]

Yet again an exelent update, but one nidpick:

On April 16th, the garrison marched out. They had surrounded. Damascus had fallen.

I can't help mentioning it as I had to read this part twice to understand what did happen.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Mmm, the Great Mediterranean War has errupted! Great!

eeeexcellent.


@ orlanth: I just noticed that too. fixed now.

 

[canonized]

The Crusades finally begin in Earnest ! Go forth and crush the infidel !

 

[unmerged(61606)]

The Crusades finally begin in Earnest ! Go forth and crush the infidel !

the knights with never give up until the crusades are complete!

 

[canonized]

the knights with never give up until the crusades are complete!

Deus Vult !

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Deus Vult !

exactly. and speaking of which, I should really buy that.

 

[unmerged(58610)]

Soldiers of the Lord do a lot of fighting. There's never a dull moment of peace. I wonder if Al-Jazir will be quite so stubborn when you're dangling him from the top of the highest Minaret in Cairo? The Ottomans haven't done so well in Wars I-III, and I'm confidently expecting them to fare no better in number IV: A New Hope - nah, more like a false dawn. The Teuton 3rd Army will crush them under foot.

Some see this as a real test of the Order's mettle. I have supreme confidence in your ability to vanquish your foes.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Soldiers of the Lord do a lot of fighting. There's never a dull moment of peace. I wonder if Al-Jazir will be quite so stubborn when you're dangling him from the top of the highest Minaret in Cairo? The Ottomans haven't done so well in Wars I-III, and I'm condfidently expect them to fare no better in number IV: A New Hope - nah, more like a false dawn. The Teuton 3rd Army will crush them under foot.

Some this as a real test of the Order's mettle. I have supreme confidence in your ability to vanquish your foes.

I think that might humble him, just a bit.

yes. the ottomans will hopefullly lose yet another war.

 

[unmerged(75640)]

Well last night and this morning I read this from start to finish. Amazingly done. I had checked out KcD and I didn't really care for it but this one is very good. I will keep watching it.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

Well last night and this morning I read this from start to finish. Amazingly done. I had checked out KcD and I didn't really care for it but this one is very good. I will keep watching it.

well, I'm glad you're enjoying THIS AAR...