The Serpents of the Nile Part 2 - The Continued Tales of the Egypto-Norse

[JoshtheHawk]

I'm subscribing now hoping this is still going.

 

[Tommy4ever]

With Blood and Iron now completed, I can confirm that the I will be reviving the Serpents of the Nile saga, hopefully completing this AAR as well within a reasonably short time. The latest update be up and running on Monday at the latest.

 

[Enewald]

It's about time you stop slacking.

 

[Nikolai]

This is great, no, AWESOME news! I never got into the interactive AARs thing. Vicky AAR section is almost dead to me due to it.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Anna Alfgeirsdottir af Munsö
Lived: 1600-1667
Queen of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, Arabia and Jerusalem: 1629-1667
Khatun of Bavaria: 1629-1667
Princess of Urbino: 1629-1667
Archduchess of Modena: 1645-1667
Head of House af Munsö: 1629-1667​

​

Anna lays among the most personally incapable of all of the af Munsö monarchs of Egypt. Stricken by severe learning difficulties from an early age, she was the only surviving child of Alfgeir III (her sister Katarina having died in 1628, a year before the king) and therefore his only chance of passing his inheritance onto his own progeny. With Anna unable to play any role in government the court in Cairo riddled by factionalism as a centralising, primarily ecclesiastical, bureaucracy competed with mercantile interests and a particularistic nobility. With the central government disunited, powerful colonial governors – most notably Klas Sabba of the East Indies – were able to act without impunity. Although Egypt continued to expand both economically and territorially this was a time of stagnation and relative decline of Egyptian power. For many, the beginning of the end for the House af Munsö.

​

During the 17th century certain parts of the vast Egyptian colonial Empire began to exert a genuine degree of autonomous power, in some cases allowing them to essentially function as semi-independent realms in their own right. No figure defined this tendency to a greater degree than Klas Sabba, the long reigning Governor of the Egyptian East Indies. Born into the emerging Egypto-Norse East Indian aristocracy in the late 16th century, Sabba was appointed Governor of the East Indies in 1634. Within two years he had engineered a conflict with the powerful Sultan of Brunei, who ruled over all Borneo, reducing the Muslims to the far North-West of the island by 1639. With the central government happy to see the East Indian colonists proactively expanding Cairo’s power Sabba was given free license to expand and develop the East Indies. Through the 1640s and 1650s the East Indies would continue to wage war in Borneo as efforts to forcibly exert Egyptian rule, and spread Christianity, sparked a widespread resistance (the remaining lands of Brunei being annexed in 1651). With the colony also expanded Eastward as far as New Guinea, the colony paid for and maintained an army that was directly under the control of the Governor, levied taxes, maintained the safety of the region’s trade routes and witnessed an impressive growth in the Egyptian settler-elite whose numbers had reached 100,000 by Sabba’s death in 1664. Although the central government would attempt to exert greater influence over the Empire during the latter half of the century, the precedent of the East Indies in the time of Klas Sabba remained a potent image for colonists across the Empire.

​

In the 1620s, during the late reign of Alfgeir III, Egypt had established a small foothold in South America, in the region around the River Plate – just South of Umayyad Brazil. Through the mid-17th century ‘New Egypt’ would expand to, more or less, its greatest extent – leaving Egypt with a moderately large foothold in the Americas and allowing for the growth of the first major cross-Pacific trade routes as Egyptian sealed a trading network that circumnavigated the glove. New Egypt, was a very different colony to the East Indies or the holdings in Southern Africa or India. In those colonies the local population had either been enslaved (as in the East Indies where the settlers had transformed the local population into serfs) or reached an accommodation with the Egyptians (as Ceylon and Mandurai). In New Egypt, the local population was exterminated – with the potentially rich farming lands of the region being sparsely populated by hostile natives the Egyptian authorities supported the expulsion of all natives from the region and the opening up of New Egypt to colonists (incentives like land grants being used to encouraged migration from the metropolitan Empire). Even by the end of the 1660s the society of independent, Egypto-Norse speaking, freeholders that would define New Egyptian society until the 1900s was beginning to emerge, even if the colony was only sporadically settled.

​

In a period in large part defined by the continuous growth of enormous international Empires, 1641 rests amongst the most important dates of the era. Although the Umayyads had been defeated by the Melguelids during the Late Medieval era – eventually forced into the Sahel by the irresistible power of the new Shia Caliphs in Andalucía – they had witnessed an impressive revival with the acquisition of a large colonial Empire in Brazil. Having spent decades attempting to influence their smaller brothers, in 1641, under military, religious and political pressure, the Umayyads agreed to surrender their independence and be absorbed into the wider Shia Caliphate. With Brazil coming under Andalusian control, reducing the once proud Umayyads into little more than powerful land holders in Africa, Shia power reached new heights as its colonial domination of the Americas grew ever stronger.

Although slipping behind the British Empire, and even Egypt, in technological terms the Shia remained more than powerful enough to challenge their British rivals for control of the North Atlantic world. The two powers butting heads in a series of conflict from the 1640s through until the 1670s with neither party able to gain the upper hand, Egypt standing aloof from the conflicts. The most lasting effects of these conflicts between the Shia and British was to devastate much of France, Lotharingia and the Low Countries (where the fiercest fighting was invariably focused) and usher in a new era of military modernisation as both powers looked to make strides forward in order to gain the upper hand.

​

The conflicts between the British and Shia in the mid-17th century were to have a truly devastating impact upon the societies of Western Europe. The apocalyptic social dislocation brought about by the conflicts, which saw as much as 10% of the population of the region perish and many more emigrate to the new world or other parts of Europe and North Africa, would have a major impact upon the religion of Western Christian – breaking a unity that had stood for centuries. With the Roman Catholic Church having functioned as little more than an arm of British Imperial rule for centuries the Church was inflexible, dogmatic and wholly beholden to secular power. Its reaction to the growth of the ‘Protestant’ movement from a small cult to an important minority amongst the Latin Christians of Western Europe was inevitably to label the dissidents heretics and claim they were in league with the Shia. Seeing an opportunity to weaken their enemies the Shia openly courted Protestants – offering safe haven within their Empire and promising religious freedom. The attitude of the Shia in turn led to a split within the fledging Protestant movement. With only a limited number of Northern European Protestants taking the Shia up on their offer of shelter and emigrating South, most Catholics within the Caliphate (a very substantial minority in France and Iberia) looked to become ‘Protestant’ so as to reject the troublesome association with the British enemy. The Reformation in the Shia realms therefore saw the Church break free of the Papacy but alter its practises comparatively little when compared to the radicalism of the ‘Reformed’ Protestants of Northern Europe.

​

Perhaps influenced by aspects of Protestant ideology, perhaps merely reaching rebellious conclusions as a result of similar stresses to those present in the West, Eastern Christianity would witness the growth of its own challenge from within from the 1650s. The Middle East and Egypt had for millennia been home to a powerful monastic tradition that had on a number of occasions produced heretical thinkers eager to challenge the existing Church hierarchy. However, it would not be until the 17th century that this tradition would finally produce a movement capable of shattering the unity of the Coptic Christians. Abdul Hakim (whose followers would come to be known as Hakimids) was a Syrian monk of impressive intellect who, like many before him, sought to challenge the corrupted nature of the Coptic Church (and indeed the Orthodox Church as a whole). After publishing a lengthy assault upon a great many of the practises of the Church including perceived corruption, the refusal to translate the Bible into vernacular languages (notably Arabic but also the Egypto-Norse tongue of the Nile, North Africa and much of the Levant) and a number of theological issues. Mirroring the response of the Catholic Church to the early Protestants, the Coptic Papacy declared Abdul Hakim a heretic and called for his arrest. Fleeing to live amongst the Bedouin, Abdul Hakim escaped the reach of the Egyptian state and began to spread his ideas which found a receptive audience amongst all classes in Arabia, Mesopotamia and even the Levant and Egypt proper. Offering both a more spiritual Christianity that presented individuals with a personal connection to their God, as well as a rejection of the Official Coptic Church and the elites of Cairo and Alexandria, Hakimidism would rapidly grow – as many as 1/5 of the Christians in Egypt would be identified as Hakimids by the year 1700 creating endless religious tensions in an Empire that a century before had been notably for its uniformity in faith.

​

The great military clashes between the British and Shia did not only contribute to the eruption of tensions within the Latin Church, they also acted as a catalyst in the military and political norms of the period. Both the Shia and British sought to professionalise the officer corps of their armies, introduce new tactics and new technologies into warfare. All these military advances belatedly had an impact upon the sleepy elites in Cairo with the establishment of the Cairo Military Academy in 1654 and the Egyptian Admiralty in Alexandria in 1657. However, many were not satisfied with merely keeping up to date with the latest military changes, a large part of the Cairo based elite wanted to copying the political changes occurring in the West as well – adopting the ideas of Absolute Monarchy emanating from the Shia Caliphate and British Empire. An Absolute Monarchy seemed to forge a powerful, centralised, state capable of doing away with internal divisions (offering a solution for the ecclesiastical-bureaucracy to their eternal conflict with the fiercely anti-centralist nobility) and projecting power abroad in a manner the feudal monarchies of Egypt and Byzantium looked increasingly incapable of doing.

However, it was a secret to no one that Anna was totally incapable of acting as the authoritative centre such a system required. The situation was made only more complicated by the absence of any viable candidates for the Egyptian throne upon Anna’s death. Indeed, the af Munsö line appeared to be rapidly heading toward extinction. Only the grandchildren of Georg, the Bastard, appeared to maintain anything but the most distant of claims to the throne. As Anna entered her dotage a two clear schools of thought emerged within Egypt with very different minds of which way forward she should take. On one side stood the advocates of Eirikr af Munsö, the eldest grandchild of Georg, the Bastard, and a firm Absolutist – his supporters claiming that Georg had merely given his brother Alfgeir precedence in the line of succession rather than wholly abandoning the claims of his issue. On the other side lay those who demanded the calling of an assembly of the upper nobility, a position influenced by Hakamid thought, who would then elect a new monarch in the absence of any viable candidate with a strong legal claim to the crown – it was clear that such an assembly would invariably elect a monarch strongly committed to empowering the localities at the expense of Cairo. Egypt was proceeding inexorably towards conflict, when Anna final died in 1667 the two opposing factions were already sharpening their swords.

 

[Tommy4ever]

And the Serpents are officially back!

If you are wondering just how bad a ruler Anna was her stats were 1/0/0 .... it had to be her that had the 38 year rule .

Also, when I was looking back at my files I noticed that I actually started the Anna update back in October - writing the title bit and the first paragraph. So I guess this is the longest update its ever taken me to finish .

 

[Mr. Sometimes]

So wonderful to see the AAR going again, and to see it start up with a bit of crisis is even better Looking forward to see if there will be a civil war or if an accord can be reached without bloodshed. But I doubt that, it seems more likely that the fertile shores of the Nile will once again be watered with the blood of Egypt's young men.

Also that Klas Sabba seemed to be a very interesting person, had I lived in this universe I would look a biography detailing his life and deeds in the east indies!

If you are wondering just how bad a ruler Anna was her stats were 1/0/0 .... it had to be her that had the 38 year rule .

That must be a feature, it can't be random chance that makes all horrible stated rulers live decade after decade while the geniuses croak within a few years of taking the crown. 1/0/0 though... Dear God.

 

[wam-mnebu]

What were the Hakmids? Is there any in game mechanics for an orthodox reformation?

 

[Enewald]

For the republic!

 

[Nikolai]

The Hakamids sounds like a viable threat to the realm...! Reform inside the Coptic church might be needed? Counter-reformation.

Klas sounds like a man I'd love to read a biography of. As for the house Munsö, obviously it has a god given right to rule. No elections!

 

[Jape]

Yay its back. From a readers point of view I cannot tell a lie, incompetent nonentities make some of the most fun reading. And Anna has proven quite effective in that regard.

 

[cpteveros]

Glad you brought this back!

 

[soda7777777]

Awesome, it's back.

 

[GreatUberGeek]

Hurrah! This is a great AAR, Tommy, looks great.

 

[Legolas]

Awesome!

I really like how you manage to weave the events in the game into this alternate-history narrative (the Protestants and Reformed Christians, in this case).

 

[Belgiumruler]

yay! It's back, finally

 

[Elden]

So glad this brilliant story is back in action. Can't wait to see more.

 

[BogMod]

Can't believe I missed this. Great work!

 

[Tommy4ever]

Eirikr X Johansson af Munsö
Lived: 1628-1700
King of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, Arabia and Jerusalem: 1667-1673
Emperor of Egypt: 1673-1700
Khagan of Bavaria: 1667-1700
Prince of Urbino: 1667-1681
Archduke of Modena: 1667-1700
Head of House af Munsö: 1667-1700

​

Ruling over the Egyptian Empire with an iron grip for three decades, Eirikr X was quite possibly the most radical of all Egypto-Norse monarchs. The political reforms he introduced in his realm amounted to nothing short of a revolution as Egypt wholly embraced the absolutist ideas of the age. With the constituent Kingdoms of the Empire, with their separate laws and institutions, being totally abolished in favour a standardisation and centralisation of powers, Eirikr and his allies hoped to reconstruct the Empire into an efficient, indivisible and powerful realm capable of competing with the modernising powers of the West. In the long run, only one of those objectives was achieved – the triumph of absolutism causing as many problems as it solved.

The death of the old Queen Anna in 1667 instantly set off a political crisis of titanic proportions across the Egyptian Empire. At Anna’s death Egypt had been left in the troublesome position of having no clear legal heir – the absolutist Eirikr Johansson af Munsö might have been the grandson of a King, but his legal status was unclear as his grandfather had renounced the claims of his children half a century before. In response to the crisis a powerful conciliar movement emerged amongst the gentry demanding the creation of some form of assembly vested with the power to elect the new monarchy, inevitably attached to the conciliarist movement were demands for decentralisation, the empowerment of the nobility and in many cases the acceptance of religious non-conformists. The only way that civil conflict could have been avoided would have been for Eirikr to abandon his absolutist ideas and grant significant concessions to his opponents, such a course of action was never a real possibility.

​

Two weeks after Anna’s death Eirikr launched a military coup in Cairo – seeing a number of high ranking conciliarists imprisoned or executed - he quickly secured undisputed control over Egypt proper and had himself crowned Eirikr X. Within a few short months Egypt had fallen into Civil War, ending decades of relative stability. Whilst particularist revolts would arise in the Mediterreanean isles and the ancient Republic of Cyrenaica (all territories with powerful conciliarist support) and Abyssinia (where there were ambitions for the reconstitution of an independent Kingdom), the greatest threat to Eirikr came from the East. In the Mesopotamian city of Basra a grand council of Arabian, Syrian and Mesopotamian nobles was formed known as the Basra Parliament in opposition to Eirikr’s seizure of power. There they formed an alliance, known as the Basran League, and promised to fight the ‘false King’ until victory and then form a new parliament encompassing the entire Empire. Just as the metropolitan Empire drifted into conflict much smaller scale battles arose across many colonies as supports of af Munsö absolutism and their opponents clashed.

Blue Dots – centres of particularist revolt
Blue Arrow – advance of Abyssinian army
Red Line – Western limit of Basran League, January 1668
Red Arrow – advance of Basran League​

By the end of 1667 Eirikr was at war with a vast portion of his Empire – the security of his core territories in Egypt proper under the dual threat of the Northern advance of the Abyssinians and Basran invasion of the Levantine coastline, most of which had remained loyal in the initial months. Eirikr held a number of key advantages: the three main bases of the Egyptian Mediterranean Fleet (Tunis, Alexandria and Sidon) had all remained loyal, 2/3s of had stood by his side, the wealthiest part of the entire Empire (Egypt proper) was unquestionably under his thumb and the Basran League had blunderously, and unsuccessfully, attempted to illicit Byzantine support – allowed Eirikr to align himself with Anti-Greek sentiment.

​

With two very polarising visions of Egypt’s future colliding the stakes of the conflict could not have been higher. Whilst in Nubia the Abyssinian army was already engaged in a slow, fighting retreat by early 1668 the Basran League proved a far tougher opponent. Seizing control over the Indian Ocean trade routes – one of the single most important sources of income not only for the Egyptian crown but for the Nile based elites as a whole – the League planned to wage a slow and methodical war, all the while knowing that the longer the conflict went on for the more dissent Eirikr would have to face from his own camp. Advancing Southward from near the Byzantine border the Basran League besieged and captured city after city, advancing slowing into Palestine and towards Egypt as Eirikr struggled to assemble and army large enough to strike back. When a royal army was crushed at the Battle of Beirut in the Lebanon in late 1668 it appeared inevitable that the monarchists would face defeat. However, the tide was to turn definitively at the Battle of Arsuf around a year later – with confidence in his camp beginning to waver Eirikr riskily sought battle with his enemies as they began to overwhelm Palestine. Fearing that the loss of Jerusalem would lead to a collapse in his support he had deployed as much as 3/4s of his entire army into Palestine – winning a key victory and sending the Basrans into retreat.

As the ways wars were fought had changed during the 17th century, single battles appeared far less decisive than in the past and involve much larger armies which sustained a noticeably greater percentage of casualties. Had the victory of Arsuf not been endowed with such political significance for the royalist camp (the battle being the first great victory over the Basrans) and not been accompanied by a major slave revolt in the Yemen it is unlikely that the course of the war would have changed so drastically after that moment. Yet form 1669 the anti-Eirikr block began to see their fortunes reverse dramatically. Advancing swiftly across the Levant and Syria Eirikr had deployed armies into the Hedjaz and Mesopotamia by 1671. After the fall of Basra in 1672 he sought to bring a final end to the conflict – offering all rebels a terrible choice, the total relinquishment of all political power to the King and the acceptance of peace or the continuation of a war he would inevitably win and the confiscation of all rebel held lands. Most chose to relinquish their power in exchange for the retention of their lands and properties – giving Eirikr free reign to reshape Egypt politically.

​

The reforms Eirikr introduced from 1673 would see Egypt embrace absolutism to a greater degree than any other state in the Late Modern period. In an Empire than had long seen a multitude of different codes of law and geographically defined governmental institutions function the entire Empire would enforce function with a single court of law (Egyptian law being expanded to all parts of the Empire), maintain a single administrative language (Cairo-Alexandrian Egypto-Norse supplanting both local dialects and distinct languages like Arabic, Greek, Catalan and Ethiopian), government be rationalised with provincial governor, appointed by the monarch, replacing the aristocracy as the heads of local government. Total and unrestricted political power was vested in the monarch in a manner the Egypto-Norse had never before seen – the aristocracy retaining legal and economic privileges in exchange for surrendering all claim to political authority, and in doing so breaking the power of the one social class that had in the past been able to hold back the power of the crow. With Eirikr removing his court from the 15th century Kasr Palace (based within Cairo) to the far larger and more imposing Björn Palace several miles outside the city (the Palace being named after the 9th century founder of the Egypto-Norse realm) the definitive break with the past appeared clear as day. Indeed, seeking to raise the status of the Egyptian monarchy in line with the other great rulers of the Western world, Eirikr had himself crowned Emperor of Egypt – at the same time abolishing all lesser titles (except of course those relating to the lands merely in personal union with the Empire).

​

Internationally, the British embarked on their own campaign to destroy dissent and massively enhance the power of their Imperial monarchy. First, the Catholic Church took a step that the Copts had failed to by organising the Council of Plzen in 1673, at which the Church adopted a series of deep reforms designed to counter the spread of the Reformation and establish a newly militant and powerful Church focussed around the power of the Pope. Then, in 1686, Britain absorbed Bohemia into its colossal Empire after a period of personal union – expanding the British Empire by a colossal stretch of territory stretching from the Baltic to the Danube.

​

The British were not alone in expanding their Empire during the late 17th century. Even after the reorganisation of Egypt’s Kingdoms into a single Imperial administration in 1673, Eirikr continued to control Urbino, Modena and Bavaria as separate Kingdoms in personal union with Egypt. Hoping to consolidate Egyptian power over these realms the absolutists around the Emperor pushed hard within these Kingdoms for integration – the Principality of Urbino dissolving itself into the Egyptian Empire in 1681 and giving Cairo direct control over the South and East of the Italian peninsula.

Across the Ocean, Eirikr X’s reign saw the Egyptian colonial Empire continue its expansion with the archipelago to the North of Egypt’s older holdings in the East Indies (names the Filipines after Eirikr’s son and heir) and even the Chinese island of Taiwan coming under Egyptian rule. At the same time Cairo attempted to weaken the autonomy of the colonial authorities of the East Indies by dividing the colony forged by Klas Sabba earlier in the century into a number of separate colonies under the supervision of crown appointed governors from metropolitan Egypt – seen as far more loyal than the men of the local nobility.

​

The reign of Eirikr X witnessed a distinct neoclassical revival as cultural and political discourse took a distinctively Roman turn. The absolutists appeared to consciously model themselves upon Imperial Roman, and even Pharaohnic Egypt – justifying Eirikr’s power as a revival of a form of government that had produced the peace and prosperity unlike anything ever seen before or since. Indeed, in Cairo an enormous status of Björn Ironside was constructed with the barbarian warlord presented as a Roman Emperor, an irony most certainly not lost on the regime’s primarily Arab or otherwise non-Norse and Hakimid critics, and in Alexandria a project was begun to reconstruct the Great Library. It is true that in the final quarter of the 17th century Egypt enjoyed a period of protracted stability – the absence of political factions, the security of the realm from outside threat and the relative economic prosperity of the period contributing towards the period of peace. Just as the absolutists drew a political narrative from the ancient world, so too did the opponents of the regime – instead referencing the liberty of the Roman and Athenian Republics and the tyranny of Imperial Roman. Recycling Tacitus, the Hakamid scholar Ibrahim af Mosul would cuttingly counter the absolutist claims to have created peace in Egypt ‘’they make a desert, and call it peace’’.

When Eirikr X passed away in 1700 he left his eldest son an Empire forged in his own image. Whether the absolutism of Eirikr had been the result of a gradual process leading back to the 13th century, a more immediate result of Eirikr’s victory in Civil War or just another stage in the endless conflict between the af Munsö monarchy and those forces in society that would limit its power reaching back as far as the 9th century, the form of government functioning in Egypt at the turn of the century for totally unique in Egypto-Norse history. Filip was confident that such a state would allow him to project Egyptian power beyond her own borders, and allow him to fulfil his personal ambitions of conquest.

 

[Tommy4ever]

So wonderful to see the AAR going again, and to see it start up with a bit of crisis is even better Looking forward to see if there will be a civil war or if an accord can be reached without bloodshed. But I doubt that, it seems more likely that the fertile shores of the Nile will once again be watered with the blood of Egypt's young men.

Also that Klas Sabba seemed to be a very interesting person, had I lived in this universe I would look a biography detailing his life and deeds in the east indies!

That must be a feature, it can't be random chance that makes all horrible stated rulers live decade after decade while the geniuses croak within a few years of taking the crown. 1/0/0 though... Dear God.

Well, there was once again another civil war. I re-read over this AAR before continuing it, to remind me of the story etc, and one of the things I liked most were the smaller characters, not quite monarchs, but highly significant figures none the less like the Omani-Norse explorer Klas Nils or the French Shia explorer who discovered America al-Nasser. So glad you liked another somewhat similar figure as well. And yeah, I have a strong feeling its programmed in to make the rubbish ones live longer.

What were the Hakmids? Is there any in game mechanics for an orthodox reformation?

Since there are no in game mechanics for an Orthodox Reformation (shame, in many converted games like this one it would make a lot of sense) the Hakamids are only in the story - but they will play a big role.

For the republic!

Funny you say it, for the first time in almost two thousand years I'd go as far to say there is a genuinely Republican political discourse forming in substantial circles of Egyptian society!

The Hakamids sounds like a viable threat to the realm...! Reform inside the Coptic church might be needed? Counter-reformation.

Klas sounds like a man I'd love to read a biography of. As for the house Munsö, obviously it has a god given right to rule. No elections!

Let us see what the future holds for the Hakamids ...

And the af Munso continue to rule, now as limitlessly powerful Emperors!

Yay its back. From a readers point of view I cannot tell a lie, incompetent nonentities make some of the most fun reading. And Anna has proven quite effective in that regard.

I do enjoy the updates for the incompetent rulers more, but playing them is less fun .

Glad you brought this back!

Awesome, it's back.

Hurrah! This is a great AAR, Tommy, looks great.

yay! It's back, finally

So glad this brilliant story is back in action. Can't wait to see more.

Can't believe I missed this. Great work!

Thanks! Glad to be back, and welcome to those of you who are new .

Awesome!

I really like how you manage to weave the events in the game into this alternate-history narrative (the Protestants and Reformed Christians, in this case).

Thanks, thats what I try to do so glad you think its working .