Sounds like she's shaping up to be a much better queen than the last.
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Thank you for the update. Dita's consort choice could have a large impact on Moravia's foreign policy. The King did not get three traits in one short two year stretch, die he?
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Act II Chapter Seven
SEVEN.
Landfried and Livonia
3 September 1679 – 30 December 1681
Landfried and Livonia
3 September 1679 – 30 December 1681
The court was stricken in those years with the deaths of two members of the Inner Zhromaždenie. Bohumil z Haugvic died, and was soon followed by the dandy and maritime eccentric Ladomír z Veleslavína. Into that breach in the king’s confidence, stepped one of Judita Hlinková’s suitors: Marek Beňovský. The half-Polish Beňovský had never been of much genuine interest to Dita, being rather on the older side among the rivals for her favour. But in terms of skill in military organisation he was unmatched, and more than a worthy successor to Haugvic.
Veleslavína was succeeded by a successful man of business, a trader by the name of Lotár Capek. The departure of such a flamboyant and quixotic character as Veleslavína, for all his more-than-occasional arrogance and conceit, was a blow to many in the Moravian court. For his faults, he had been entertaining. Capek seemed far less so—a hard-headed, serious fellow with a shrewd eye for deals, men like him could be found by the dozen in Bratislava without much effort. (Before he departed this earthly coil, however, Veleslavína did introduce to the sole remaining fleet of the Moravian Navy the practice of using fruit juices, particularly those of limes, to combat scurvy.)
~~~
The following year saw not only Landfried von Asch, but many foreign suitors besides him come to bid for Judita Hlinková’s hand. The now-marriageable eldest daughter and heiress to an Emperor and King, after all, was by no means a poor catch for any man of the proper class.
Osian ap Rhys ap Siôr o Gaerhirfryn, a tall and dark-haired royal Welshman from Britain, was the furthest-travelled of the bunch. Then there was Bracislaŭ Aliaksandravič Baroŭski, a Belarusian youngster of good family. And of course there were the Moravian courtiers and commanders who looked nice and sharp in their uniforms: Miloslav z Skalický, Eduard Čuda, Tibor Mráz, Marek Beňovský, Mikuláš Jahoda…
Judita was quite aware of her heartbeat and face when around two or three of these young men. The green and vernal stirrings of youthful humours in her were remarkably strong, and she often had to confess to certain thoughts and fantasies. It was impossible not to pay attention to Osian: wealthy, powerful, with a darkness to his features, a dashing demeanour and a sculpted face of perilous beauty that only the Welsh could produce… And of course Judita got thrills every time she caught a good look at Tibor Mráz’s well-formed backside. If only he were just a little younger…
Judita’s father refrained from forcing, or even encouraging, the preferred Bavarian suitor from spending time with his eldest daughter. Jaromír stepped—as it turned out, quite wisely—to the side. Let Landfried rise or fall on his own merits with her. Jaromír already entrusted his daughter with the kingdom after his death; why not trust her with men before then? As a result, Dita felt freer to engage Landfried in conversation on her own terms, to study him in all the detail she wanted, and to compare him to other young men of her acquaintance.
Dita had to admit that her first impressions of him were… far from exemplary. For a time, Dita was rather alarmed by his brusqueness and bluntness. Landfried von Asch was not a born diplomat. And there were occasions when he simply forgot about engagements he’d made previously. This wasn’t a particularly promising start to their relationship. But if he wasn’t a diplomat, then at least the nemec wasn’t a liar. There was something to be said for that. And if he was sometimes forgetful—at other times he could be touchingly attentive and charming. Maybe he wasn’t as gorgeous as Osian, and maybe he wasn’t as physically strong as Tibor. But he was protective, tender, sympathetic in ways that more than made up.
If Judita hadn’t already started to form an attachment, a certain chance meeting between them might not have ended up as it did.
The Korunná princezná was strolling past the guest quarters, which in that fine late-summer air were left slightly ajar. She caught sight of the profile of a young-male figure within, pondering something small and precious, some cherished keepsake. A twinge of jealousy was what prompted Judita to approach more closely, to see if Landfried were not remembering some woman other than the one he’d been brought here to woo. Landfried sensed her presence, and deftly put the small thing out of sight before she could swing the door wide. Still, Dita asked:
‘What was that you had in your hand?’
With a look that reminded Judita of a small child with a cherished secret that was at risk of being spoiled, he grudgingly answered: ‘I shall show you. But you must promise not to laugh.’
‘I promise.’
‘And not to speak of this to others.’
Judita put a hand on her heart. ‘Versprochen ist versprochen, und wird auch nicht gebrochen.’
Landfried couldn’t help but crack an indulgent smile at Judita’s German phrase. He brought the little thing out again, and held it up for the Korunná princezná to examine. It was a woven cord prayer-rope, from which dangled a small pewter pilgrim medallion—of the sort that were given out in great numbers at the holy places, to the people who in faith and love drew near. This one bore an image of the True Cross.
‘From the Holy Land?’ asked Judita. ‘Not yours, then?’
‘Correct. On both counts,’ Landfried acknowledged. ‘My father Rathbod has roots deep in Bayern’s soil. Our Asch family is a cadet offshoot of the hathel Beetzen line. This medallion was given to a distant paternal uncle of mine, Gerold von Beetzen, who served as the Grandmaster of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in the twelfth century. He made it to Bethlehem, and Gethsemane, and Mount Olivet.’
‘Family heirloom, then.’
‘Yes,’ Landfried’s eyes took on a wistful look. ‘But more than that. This small piece of fashioned metal, touched the places where Our Lord walked, and spoke, and suffered, and died—and rose again. Can you imagine it? I have often dreamed of joining the Brotherhood… venturing to those places… taking upon myself the service of Our Lord for the sake of His pilgrims…’
‘Perhaps one day you shall,’ she assured him.
Landfried von Asch chuckled, shook his head, and replaced the prayer rope and medallion. ‘No. I fear not. Not in this life. Service to the Brotherhood is the lot of the younger brother, not the heir—my service is of a different kind. But no less honourable!’ he hastened to add.
Judita Hlinková got a sudden impression that now she was seeing something unguardedly genuine about Landfried von Asch. He had shared with her something that was intensely personal, a part of his innermost life. More than anything else, that vulnerability touched Judita, and caused her to see Landfried in an entirely new light. He was a young man of deep family feeling, of pilgrim dreams, of a rich inner life. If before, Judita had had no clear favourite among her suitors—now she had one.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No less honourable indeed.’
~~~
The Moravian practice of establishing small cottage manufactories and modelové usadlosti throughout the realm had borne fruit. The tax receipt in 1679 showed that. Thousands upon thousands of gold denár came flooding into the state treasury: the result of Cár a Kráľ Mojmír’s years of careful investment. (The facts that no few traditional bowers had been evicted from their lands for the establishment of these modelové usadlosti, and that these cottage manufactories often employed unmarried women on the cheap, were studiously avoided in polite conversation.)
The Church continued to be voluble in the defence of these less fortunate and most vulnerable. But after so many decades of struggling with the hesychastic Nedržitelia, the tools at the Church’s disposal were inadequate to the task. The moral perfectionism of the non-possessors was admirable, to be sure. But in practice, it meant that the laity who actually did the possessing, were free to dispossess others with near-impunity.
And so Archbishop Pankrác (Vanek) embarked on a new and aggressive campaign of acquiring lands for the Church. The Vanek initiative, as it would later be called, consisted of several distinct steps. The first was clerical and monastic possession of land. The second was the reestablishment of tenancy according to traditional practice, and safe shelter and food for any bowers or former serfs who had become landless or homeless. This step was an explicit rebuke to the new property relations on which these secular manufactories and model estates operated. The third was the establishment of poľnohospodárske rady or bowers’ councils, which were cooperative and democratic in nature.
Archbishop Pankrác was clear that the Church was to facilitate and participate in these councils, but by no means was it to lead them or to dispute their decisions once reached (except in cases of doctrinal heresy). And the fourth was the sharing of benefits between all the members of the councils, in accordance with their needs. The Moravian primate, whose surname in the world was Vanek, became recognised in later times as an advocate of cooperative political economy and agrarian democracy. The two new metropolitans under his omophor, Metropolitan Martin and Metropolitan Andrej, energetically moved to establish these bowers’ councils.
Archbishop Pankrác was aided in this endeavour by two of Cár a Kráľ Jaromír’s decisions. The first was essentially a rubber-stamp decision convoking a Zbor to deal with certain of these economic questions. And the second, and more consequential, was Jaromír’s decision to side with the Church when noble landowners, alarmed at the radical political nature of the new bowers’ councils, began to dispute Church claims to land ownership in an attempt to limit their influence. Jaromír’s finding, which was that the Church had not overstepped its bounds in civil claim, incensed many of the nobles against him at a rather sensitive time.
Jaromír’s health, after all, was failing. Just like his father, he had worked too long and too hard, and he had neglected his own health in the process. His heart gave out… but not before his daughter had settled her mind on the lad he’d originally encouraged for her. Korunná princezná Judita Hlinková married Landfried von Asch on the thirteenth of November of 1680. And her father passed from the earthly life on the sixteenth of February, 1681.
~~~
Judita Hlinková observed the customary forty days of mourning for her father, and then set herself to the task of ruling.
Very early on, her days were spent in council. Judita’s ascension was clouded by a degree of public consternation that Livonia—a rival recently empowered by modern East Frankish weaponry and Protestant zeal—had conquered a broad swathe of the old Garderikean heartland. The northern Catholic Rus’ kingdom was fragmented into three incontiguous territories: southern Finland and Karjala; the old Principality of Tver’ (now referred to on maps as Garderikean Rus’); and a handful of river port towns along the Volga (now referred to on maps as Garderikean Ural).
Great Britain happily renewed its royal ties. Osian ap Rhys ap Siôr may not have won the Korunná princezná, now the Cárovná a Kráľovna, but he didn’t walk away from the contest without a prize nearly as valuable: her younger sister Eva Hlinková, the druhá princezná. Eva’s departure for London was celebrated with great pomp befitting her station.
In response to the Livonian advance across the Garderikean frontier, as well, Cárovná a Kráľovna Judita signed over the last of Moravia’s fleets to Sámi control. Now Moravia had cut the last of its ties to salt water—a development which no doubt had the late Ladomír z Veleslavína turning in his grave. And finally, the old Karo-plus-Košice organisation of the army was phased out for a regimental system, with greater authority over recruitment, discipline and battle tactics devolved to the local colonels of each regiment.
Judita may have spent her days that way, but she passed her nights no less fruitfully, in a warm and happy marriage-bed with her Bavarian bridegroom. She announced her pregnancy to the court in early summer of 1681, two weeks after the feast of Pentecost.
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Thank you for the update. Enjoy your rest, my king. Long live the queen.
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Let's hope that Judita can deal with the brewing tension between the nobles and the Church.
How bad is that tension, anyway? Are any nobles seriously considering revolt over it?
Did Judita also inherit Carpathia, or did they have different inheritance laws?
How bad is that tension, anyway? Are any nobles seriously considering revolt over it?
Did Judita also inherit Carpathia, or did they have different inheritance laws?
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Act II Chapter Eight
EIGHT.
Imma
10 February 1682 – 11 January 1685
Imma
10 February 1682 – 11 January 1685
It was a new experience for Judita: being powerless. Having lived in the heart of Olomouc, assured of herself and her place, comfortable in her skills of governance and command, with any number of servants at her beck and call to boot, she had never really had cause to doubt herself. But pregnancy had shattered all that. She wasn’t even in full control over her own moods and hungers, the rebellion of her body against her mind and heart. And not to mention, there was another little person growing inside of her, with its own wants and needs. The imperious little half-nemec held by its own schedule, not minding whether her mother wanted to rest or not.
And then when it came due… Judita had never been so scared, as when her contractions started. In fright and in agony, she asked her maidservants to bring the icon of the Theotokos before her into her room, and she prayed as she had never prayed before. Every hint of power, every illusion of control in her was shattered brutally as her life was placed in the hands of God and of the midwife.
It tore her open. It was like no pain she’d ever experienced before, giving birth. And it lasted far too long. When she was free of the burden even the power of sight left her, and her breath stopped. But the life returned to her when she heard the baby cry out somewhere beneath her. And when she was presented at last with the tiny, scrunch-faced, squalling little infant… The little girl—for so she was—cried out hungrily. Judita bared her breast and brought her newborn daughter near to drink. The warmth of the tiny girl’s little face against her, combined with the knowledge that this girl was hers… the relief, the joy from these, sweeping over her like a tide, cleansed the soul of the Cárovná i Kráľovna.
Thank God and His All-Holy Mother that Landfried was on hand to help with administration during her postpartum recovery! But Judita was ready to resume her duties the following month… enough so, thankfully, to deal with the rush of merchants that came flocking to Pest. She trusted Landfried to deal effectively with the Galicians who were actively undermining and interrupting Moravia’s trade in their own markets, but when it came to actually speaking with men of business… perhaps it was best for the ruler herself to step back in. Diplomacy wasn’t her husband’s strong suit.
The newborn half-nemec princess, with her sky-blue eyes and fair skin and fair hair, was named Imma—a name of good standing in the Bavarian tongue, and also a conscious nod to an earlier queen-consort of the Moravian realm, Ermessinde de Vasconia-Boulogne (whose nickname was Queen Imma). Judita lost no time in declaring the infant girl, the apple of her smitten mother’s eye, her preferred heiress.
Judita had heard of an outstanding violinist and clavichordist based in Kroměříž, Heinrich Ignac Franz von Biber, and invited him to play at Olomouc Castle in honour of her daughter’s baptism and churching. Biber honoured the royals—Judith, Landfried and little Imma—with several sonatas de camera… some even of his own composition. The music was lovely and lauded with great enthusiasm by the court. It even brought tears to the Cárovná a Kráľovna’s eyes!
The royal family engaged Biber for several days. However, on the tenth day, the question arose of whether or not he should be given a permanent position at court. When the Cárovná a Kráľovna gave it to Biber himself to consider, the violin virtuoso declared that he wished to travel to Salzburg. Small wonder—the music scene in Salzburg was remarkably rich! Rather a pity that the Austrian kingdom should be so hostile to Moravia. It was well within the power of the Cárovná a Kráľovna to oblige and compel Biber to stay in Olomouc.
But Judita was not, in the last instance, an imperious woman in the slightest. Despite an early exuberance and arrogance (and no small amount of youthful lust), motherhood had mellowed Judita significantly. As far as the heart went—well, that had eyes only for Landfried! (It did help matters that Landfried was, despite his taciturn tongue, a splendid lover both in and out of bed.) And as for the rest… well. The tenderness of a mother’s heart crept its way into everything she did. She found she could no more force Biber to stay, than she could bear to see a wild bird caged and languishing. She gave Biber her blessing to go where he would, and her sincere wishes that his employment would be equal to his manifest musical talents. These Biber took gratefully with him to Salzburg.
~~~
Strumen Tanev adjusted his powdered wig and cravat, cleared his throat, made sure he had all of the papers in his leather case in the proper order, straightened his shoulders, and entered the audience chamber. Tanev took this interview with the monarch of his realm with deep gravity. After all, Tanev had been appointed to this post from the Carpathian civil service, and it was the dream of many young and ambitious Carpathians to serve in Olomouc. Judita had made the wise choice to encourage recruitment to the Moravian diplomatic corps, civil service and commissioned officer corps from Carpathia, Drježdźany and Sápmi: the better to encourage and strengthen ties between the four realms which called her their Queen or their Empress. Tanev was one such beneficiary.
As Tanev strode into the hall, he was met by Judita’s impassive gaze. He was impressed. The Empress and Queen had a presence: in despite of her sex and stature, she bore herself with a patience and dignity, the envy of many men who had worn those crowns—and these could not be feigned. She opened a hand and beckoned Tanev forward. He stepped biddably to oblige.
‘Vaše Veličenstvo,’ Tanev addressed Cárovná Judita with a bow—deep but not undignified or obsequious, ‘It is a most signal honour to stand before you. Your humble servant is Strumen, the son of Dimitr Tanev. I am a surveyor for civil constructions in Pest.’
‘Yes, your name is known to Us,’ Judita answered him mildly. ‘As is your father’s reputation. It would please Us greatly, should the apple choose not to fall far from the tree.’
‘In that case, I shall endeavour not to squander too much of vášho Veličenstva’s time,’ Tanev went on with newfound confidence from the Empress’s encouragement. ‘I have here,’ he said, handing forward the leather case he held under his arm, ‘the results of our most recent survey of the southern Carpathian lands. In short, we have identified twenty-seven sites where new mines or quarries could be dug, which would produce significant yields of vitreous copper, galena, calamine and limestone. We have also identified sixteen fields in the southern reaches, where either brown or black coal can be dug up for fuel.’
The leather case was handed to the Empress, who unlaced the front and leafed through the first several pages inside.
‘A commendable effort,’ she noted with appreciation. ‘I take it that there are prospectors already at some of these locations?’
‘Some,’ admitted Strumen. ‘Not all. Given the late and unfortunate souring of relations between Moravia and Eastern Rome over… the usual titular disputes…’ Strumen didn’t feel he needed to elaborate further than that; the Empress was surely well aware of that particular diplomatic difficulty. ‘… it was thought needful to ensure that the southern march was well-documented, in the event of more regrettable unpleasantries.’
‘A most prudent decision,’ Judita nodded with appreciation to Strumen. ‘I approve your initiative.’
All in all, it was a highly successful and satisfactory first audience for the young Carpathian surveyor. Strumen Tanev hoped as he left the chamber that it was a sign of things to come.
~~~
But despite the storm brewing over Byzantine titular politics, in which Strumen Tanev was tangentially involved, the worries on the southern march were far from the main concern for Moravia’s diplomatic corps.
This war pitted König Waldemar 4. Sture against his kinsmen in Livonia and in Östergötland as well, who had positioned themselves as treaty allies of Galicia. (A rather odd alliance on that side, that. Who would have thought that a fanatically-Protestant monarch like Livonia’s could make common cause with the Catholic East Geats and the Orthodox Galicians?) But the Baltic Swedes lost little time in asking Moravia for indirect assistance in the form of military access.
Baltic Sweden was ill-equipped to repulse an attack from three different sides, and it was rather short on fast friends in the region. Cárovná a Kráľovna Judita sympathised with Waldemar’s plight, of course—the more so since she understood as well as anyone how little the Galicians were to be trusted! But she could not spare the troops needed to commit to a defence of the Baltic coast.
Instead, on Judita’s orders, Marek Beňovský had the Moravian Army commit to an entrenchment of the northward march. The true engineering capacity of the masons and smiths of Bohemia and Silesia in particular were put to the test, as they shored up and braced and reinforced castle and town walls all the way from Legnica to Sadec. Moravian garrisons took up much of the costs themselves, understanding the necessity of investing in stout defences and a secure border.
The results were a true demonstration of the prowess of Moravian military architecture! It suffices here to point out, that the fortifications which were built and renovated in the 1680s on Judita’s watch are among the most intact and best-preserved even down to the present day.
The grey-bearded Brother Modest, in the world Mojmír Krakovští z Kolovrat, had a premonition of his own death in the second week of June of 1684. It was later said that an angel of God had visited him and told him that his labours would soon be at an end, and gave him to know when that would be. He put all of his affairs in order and asked to be relieved of his duties at court to rejoin the Monastery of Holy Prophet Eliáš in Bajerovce. This Queen Judita granted, not with any gladness, but with a sincere sympathy for the ailing monk. She asked for his blessing, and was granted it, before he set off. He passed from this earthly life on the first of July, 1684.
Brother Modest could not be easily replaced. He had been a gentle and caring, yet firm and steady influence—a rock of faith for many in Olomouc. It would be possible, Judita realised, to find another advisor for the Inner Zhromaždenie, but to find another spiritual guide and monastic elder for the people of Olomouc would be a very tall order indeed. So she focussed primarily on the former task. In response to this call, a fellow by the name of Ladislav ze Švamberka presented himself at court.
Cárovná a Kráľovna Judita was none too impressed by the appearance of the man. Several years older than she but certainly no more than several, Ladislav was slender and had a rather pallid, starved, pinched appearance to him. He had a rather timid bearing. The first favourable impression of him that Judita had was the mild glimmer of intellect behind his pair of narrow-bridged spectacles. When the man was introduced formally, Judita took note firstly of his place of origin (Písek, in southern Bohemia) but secondly of his place of work and residence.
‘You have spent some time in Čáslav, then,’ remarked Judita.
‘That I have, vaše Velíčenstvo,’ answered Ladislav. ‘I held a modest estate in that town, very near the assay office, for some years following my accession to the knighthood.’
‘If you don’t mind Our asking, what brought you this far east?’
‘Please do not take this as boasting, vaše Veličenstvo,’ Ladislav informed her, ‘but when it comes to determining the proper rates of exchange and the proper volume of release for the gold and silver which comes out of Čáslav, the assayers simply don’t know their own business the way I know it. I daresay my advice to the money-houses there is half or more of the reason why the Krakóv merchants have fared as well as they have these past years.’
‘You are quite self-assured,’ Judita answered. ‘But We have reviewed your qualifications, and find that you are more than competent enough to advise Us on matters of finical concern.’
In this way, Ladislav joined the Inner Zhromaždenie.
Judita continued to delight in Landfried in the evenings, and well before Imma reached her third birthday, her royal mother had already conceived for her a younger sibling. But the tensions between Moravia and Galicia, perennial rivals that the two realms were, continued to mount. In a tit-for-tat against Galicia’s claims on Sadec, Judita began to press the historical claim that Moravia had on nearby Přemysl. It seemed that the fracture point for a war between the two neighbours would crack along that stretch of uneasy border.
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Let's hope the ERE doesn't press their claims on the southern border while Moravia is occupied dealing with Galicia...
If Judita had a son, would he take precedent in the succession over Imma?
If Judita had a son, would he take precedent in the succession over Imma?
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Eastern Europe is heating up. Muslims v. Gaderike. Galicia v. Sweden. Will Moravia v. Galicia be far behind? Little Imma is above average just a little bit less than mom. Hopefully, Judita has a long life. Thanks for the update.
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NINE.
The Northern Expansion
11 January 1685 – 13 October 1688
I.
11 January 1685 – 1 April 1686
The Northern Expansion
11 January 1685 – 13 October 1688
I.
11 January 1685 – 1 April 1686
Judita made sure that she was visible and approachable during the Nativity procession of the Year of the World 7194. It was, of course, the monarch’s duty to be a presence at the Christmas Feast, but the Cárovná a Kráľovna delighted in it. She held her candle raptly and gripped her prince-consort Landfried’s hand warmly as she heard once more the tale, read aloud by Archbishop Pankrác, of the birth of the Saviour… long ago in that cave in Bethlehem, surrounded by the animals, worshipped by mighty king and subtle philosopher and rude shepherd all alike, son of man and Son of God. Tears came to her eyes as the company broke out in a stirring rendition of ‘Štedrej večer nastal’.
It may have been partly somatic, of course, this surge of emotion she had… she was, after all, in a family way, and only two months to her due day. But Judita had loved the Nativity since she was a little girl. Not only because it meant an end to the forty-day fast, though that too had its appeal… but it was also an opportunity for her to bestow beneficence in person upon the poor and sick and needy of the realm. After the Nativity procession and the caroling in the Velehrad town square, Judita took it upon herself to visit the ‘domy Basila’: that is to say, the monastic hospitals, herbaria and leprosaria that were located in Velehrad. Judita drew great peace of mind from personally ministering to the injured and the infirm. And at the end of her tour of the ‘domy Basila’, Cárovná Judita returned to the snow-bound steps of the Cathedral at Velehrad and made a pronouncement to a throng which had gathered in the deep white of the chilly candlelit courtyard.
‘Beloved subjects, and brothers and sisters in Christ, We greet you upon the occasion of the birth of Him Who deigned to become an infant, so that through Him we might be saved. The Kingship of Him, to Whom the wise men of Persia bent the knee, and to whom We too therefore bend the knee and bow, is exactly a Kingship that seeks the lost, that gives hope to those who have none, that comforts the bereaved, aids the poor, heals the sick, and even raises those who have died. It is thus not to Us alone that this feast belongs. It is to all of us. Understand therefore, that upon this Nativity, it is thus enacted by Our decree in the sight of Christ and His Church, that an additional tithe of all tax receipts from Velehrad will not proceed northward into Our hand, but instead remain here, and be payable directly to the houses of Basil, to the institutions that minister to those in need. May the newborn Lord of All, to all give His blessing.’
Archbishop Pankrác lifted his crozier and made the sign of the Cross in Cárovná Judita’s direction. ‘Dá Boh vám veľa, veľa rokov!’ That call was answered, ‘veľa, veľa rokov’, by the whole crowd of those gathered in procession.
Judita’s piety may have been highly ‘public’ in this fashion, but it was also heartfelt. She held to her word: a fact which all of the neighbouring countries and Judita’s direct vassals also appreciated. Even as the tax base in Velehrad was expanded by investment, Judita scrupulously ensured to the end of her days that an additional tenth of the moneys due from the town of Saints Cyril and Methodius stayed there, and provided funding for the hospitals and charitable houses in the district of Brno. Not since the days of the Three Christened Kings was the Church so favourably disposed to a reigning monarch in Olomouc.
~~~
But as Judita was entering her final moon of pregnancy, the final pin dropped along the border between Galicia and Moravia. A contingent of riders from Livonia had chased a retreating regiment of Baltic Swedes across the border, onto a property belonging to the autocephalous Metropolitan Julian of Vislania. The Orthodox Baltoswedes tried to take refuge with a local church, but the Protestant commander of the Latvians ordered the church to be burned with their enemies inside. This was, sadly, common practice for the time… and not without precedent even in Moravian history.
Even so, the incident provoked a general howl of outrage in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie of Moravia and Carpathia when it became known. Even the Jewish community in Nový Sadec, which normally (for its own protection) did not take strong stands on political problems among the goyim, called for bloody retaliation against the Livonians. Cárovná Judita was left with little choice, then, but to send a formal declaration of war against Efrosynia 2. Niska of Galicia: whom she held accountable for the grave sins, sacrilegious outrages and wanton murder, committed by her Protestant allies on Moravian territory.
The positions of the various governments in the region were known almost before the ink on the declaration was dry.
The debonair young archvoivode of Drježdźany, Uściech Rychnovský, did not wait for the summons from his feudal liege to arrive before penning his own, quite voluble, declaration of war against Galicia-Volhynia. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind but that his soul was truly enraged by the incident in Vislania: Uściech may have been something of a dandy, but there beat a noble heart in his breast which would not shame the likes of his ancestor Kaloján chrabrý. Sápmi was a bit of a different story: the Ráđđi in Anár did wait formally for the summons. But they did not disobey that summons when it was issued. Bayern, given the marital ties between Judita and their own Fürst Landfried von Asch, could not help but be drawn into the conflict on Moravia-Carpathia’s side. To no one’s surprise at all, Veliky Knyaz Fedor 2. Ivanovič came faithfully to Moravia-Carpathia’s aid.
A bit more surprising, though, was that the British Empire placed its thumb firmly on Moravia’s side of the scale. Diplomatically at first: King Iorwerth ap Siôr Gaerhirfryn issued a stern condemnation of Livonia’s ‘fol Enormityes and bloodye Excesses’ on Moravian territory, but would not yet commit his united kingdoms to military action. The issue was brought before the British Senedd and debated at length, before a majority decided to co-sign a declaration of war against Galicia-Volhynia. Together with Britain, of course, the British colonial dependencies of British Brasil, Argentine and Columbia were also drawn into war on Moravia-Carpathia’s side.
But the Baltic Swedes themselves were, to say the least, suspicious of Moravia-Carpathia’s motives. Not only did they not join the war on Moravia-Carpathia’s side, but they also revoked their request for military access to Moravia. In the eyes of König Waldemar 4., Moravia had not been willing to defend their soldiers from such a dastardly massacre on their own territory, and had only been using them as an excuse to forward their own territorial ambitions.
Livonia and Galicia-Volhynia, of course, were already committed, being co-combatants against Baltic Sweden. East Francia, under its zealously-Catholic young Königin Uta von Braunschweig, also rose to the occasion as Galicia-Volhynia’s treaty ally. The fact that her much more bitterly-hated enemies, Britain, were aligned with the Moravian side, probably played no small role in her decision.
Equally significant, from a geopolitical point of view, was Bo 4. Sture’s decision to defend Galicia-Volhynia. The Konung of Östergötland drew his colonial governor Orvar Läma of Vinland into the war along with him. This made the war between Moravia-Carpathia and Galicia-Volhynia, two Eastern European powers, a pan-European and even trans-Atlantic war in nature.
~~~
The Moravian Armády poured over the borders of Malopolska into Galicia in March of 1685.
They were led by a couple of younger generals who had taken command in the wake of the elderly Totil z Husi’s passing from this earthly life. Róbert Komenský—the first and so far only bearer of that surname to be entrusted with any sort of high office in Moravia since the Trials of 1623—had the more conservative temperament, and was the more cautious of the two generals; while Ladislav z Nostic was much more of a rule-breaker and risk-taker, much in line with Totil z Husi himself. The differences between the two generals was understandable. Róbert Komenský, a lucky survivor from a family of persecuted romantics and radicals, felt much more keenly the political precarity of his position, which as much for his family’s sake as for his own he was not keen to jeopardise. On the other hand, the fortunes of the Nostic family had risen spectacularly along with those of the Hlinka. Ladislav came onto the field self-assured, brash, cocky, fiery and eager to prove himself.
It was thus no surprise that the Armády Krakova, Kapitála a Košíc under the general command of Róbert Komenský took a conservative pattern of attack. Komenský immediately seized the districts of Tarnov and Přemysl along the border, expelled any local defenders, repressed any possibility of local espionage or infiltration, and laid siege to the Galician fortress of Sandomír. By contrast, the Armády Prahy a Vraclava under Ladislav z Nostic’s command made a concerted charge deep into the Volhynian lands, and took up position around the fortifications at Volodymyr. Nostic wasn’t taking as great a risk as Husi might have done, though… particularly when one considered that Ryazan was nearby and ready to assist.
Ryazanian Rus’ undertook a mobilisation of grand and terrifying proportions, fitting to Ryazan’s reputation as a camp on the wild steppes. Fedor 2. Gorčakov had a minor problem on the home front to deal with—pretender revolts being something of a seasonal problem in Rus’—but his assistance, though delayed, was not lacking. He reinforced Nostic’s armies and made his own southwestern thrust toward Ľviv and Kremenets.
The Atlantic side of the war was heating up as well. In late 1685, a fleet of nearly 300 frigates and three-deckers from Macapá in British Brasil made a beeline north toward Vinland, where they set up a blockade between Östergötland and its New World possessions. Commanded by Admiral Reece Broderick and crewed mostly by Arawaks, Tupis and unfree ‘Pardoes’ of mixed West African slave stock, the Brasilian fleet put down anchor in the Cabot Straits and aimed its rows of cannon squarely at the Vinlandic capital at Piktuk.
Interestingly, the Brasilian fleet readily received resupply and intelligence aid from the nearby Mi’kmaq. Relations between the Mi’kmaq and Vinland had deteriorated drastically since the 1630s. For decades, raids and kidnappings and slayings of Mi’kmaq tribesmen had occurred along the peninsula of Nya Skottland, which the Mi’kmaq called Enmigtagamog. These came to the attention of the young (Roman Catholic) Grand Chief of the Mi’kmaq, Joseph Tjigagôist 3. Tjipogtotjg. Tjigagôist had appealed through a series of Dominican priests to a succession of Scots-Swedish governors of Vinland for formal legal redress… all in vain. The governors stubbornly refused to acknowledge Tjigagôist’s jurisdiction over any part of the peninsula, and also refused to complete any of the investigations that Tjigagôist asked for. Thus, when it was reported that a fleet manned mostly by Tupi and Arawak came up from the south and threatened the cruel blue-eyed recreants to their west, Tjigagôist, though cautious, was immediately sympathetic.
Tjigagôist became even more sympathetic when, through an Arawak emissary, Admiral Broderick related the circumstances of the Moravian-Galician war, in which both Brasil and Vinland were involved. When he had heard the Arawak emissary out, Tjigagôist is reported to have exclaimed:
‘May Almighty God spread His mercy and favour upon the Tribe of Ephraim!’
There could be no mistake that he was referring, in this expression, to Efraim Kadlec, the Moravian officer and diarist who was still fondly remembered among the Mi’kmaq.
Grand Chief Tjigagôist 3., in baptism Joseph, never became directly involved in the conflict, though there is little doubt that the Brasilian fleet had definite reason to be glad of his favour and support. At Tjigagôist’s direction, Mi’kmaq boatmen and traders offered supplies to the Tupi and Arawak crews well below cost, if not outright giving them away. In Broderick’s logs, there is an obscure reference as well to a certain ‘Form of Releef’ brought by the Mi’kmaq ‘on Behaf of the Pardoes’. He further notes: ‘Among our pardo Fellowes, ſom of theſe have taken red indian Squawes for them Selves. I wold have seiz’d and hang’d the Rascalls for Desertion, had not theyr newe indian Brothers-in-Lawe offered theyr own Service abord my Ships in theyr Place.’[1]
What became of the escaped Afro-Brasilians who married into Mi’kmaq homes is now known only to the Mi’kmaq themselves. But as for the Mi’kmaq sailors who entered Broderick’s fleet in this roundabout way, this was far from the end of their involvement in Moravia’s war.
~~~
Judita’s second pregnancy ended in sadness. She gave birth to a stillborn on the twenty-fifth of March, 1685.
Sandomír had fallen to Moravian troops in May of 1685, and Kremenets to Ryazanian troops in June. Taking advantage of the strategic pathway across Galicia which this opened up, an emboldened Róbert Komenský marched east and northward, leapfrogging Nostic and besieging Kholm along the Livonian front.
However, as the front was pushed further north and east from Moravia’s borders, the cost of the war was just as quickly coming home. Judita, having been bereaved of her second child before it ever drew breath, was faced now with a finical problem. She drew upon the goodwill of the Church and made a formal request for them to pitch in for the war effort. This request was not met warmly.
Archbishop Pankrác, although he had little love either for the Protestant heretics in Livonia or for the Catholic schismatics in East Francia and Östergötland, felt (as many Moravian Orthodox clergy did) that the burning of the church in Sadec was, in some measure, a judgement of God upon the personal presumption and pride of Metropolitan Julian of Vislania. As a result, the Moravian Orthodox Church had not given its formal blessing for the war against Galicia-Volhynia; and Judita’s request for funds came just shy of being an insult to the Church’s independence and prerogatives. The Moravian Orthodox Church did forgo some of its tax forbearances in the end, but not gladly, and (it insisted) only as a temporary measure to preserve the stability of the state.
Livonia was undergoing domestic religious and political upheavals between its Protestant and Catholic nobility, which had extended to the state. Rebellions had broken out in the eastern half of the country, which had never fully embraced Western Christianity in the first place but still held to the memory of an Orthodox past. As a result, they weren’t able to present much of a unified threat. But the East Geats were a different matter. They pressed in and pressed in further still, rolling back all the initial victories that Sápmi had scored against them early on. They reoccupied ‘Lappland’, and then Hälsingland, and then Västerbotten.
The East Franks stood on the borders of Bayern and issued an ultimatum. And the Asch family, of which Landfried was supposed to be the patriarch, had caved to it, on the first of April, 1686. Bayern withdrew itself, under the force of East Frankish arms, from the war—and from all treaties it had signed with Moravia-Carpathia. Including those which traditionally had held on account of Judita’s marriage to its Fürst. And to add insult to injury, Bayern was forced to pay a tithe in reparations of its total income to the Galicians for their part in the war.
When Judita heard of this news, she withdrew to her chambers, she found Landfried sitting and reading there. As soon as he saw her, though, he put down his book and stood. Judita’s eyes swam. She stumbled toward him and collapsed into his arms, and wracked herself with months’ worth of wretched sobs: for the daughter that she’d lost, for the war in which she’d mired her nation, for the neglect that she’d shown to him, and for the loss that he’d suffered in his family’s cutting of ties.
‘I’m no good for you at all,’ Judita wailed. ‘Forgive me, husband. Forgive me.’
‘Oh, mei’ Liebe,’ Landfried whispered into her hair. ‘Sei net so traurig. I did as God commanded when I married you: I left my father’s house and cleaved unto you. Their loss hurts me, yes, but your loss would wound me to death.’
‘You—you mean that?’
‘With every part of me,’ said Landfried.
‘I don’t know what to do now,’ Judita’s breast heaved a hopeless sigh.
Landfried steadied his wife between his hands, and willed to impart to her whatever German strength he had in him. ‘You will do, Kaiserin, as you have always done. You will stand steadfast. And you need not fear; I will be at your side. Even if my kin and those of my country are not.’
[1] It is uncertain from this passage, but it may be the case that the Mi’kmaq found this kind of ‘elopement’ and substitution a possible way of manumitting the enslaved members of the British fleet. They had, after all, taken in the surviving Beothuks in the same way.
- 1
II.
27 April 1686 – 13 October 1688
27 April 1686 – 13 October 1688
Moravia’s fortunes in its multi-theatre war with Galicia, Livonia, Östergötland and East Francia did take a turn, however, for the better. Later that April, General Róbert Komenský proudly returned the news to Olomouc that his men had surrounded and taken the Livonian outpost of Polock. Then, on the ninth of June, he sent back word of his success in capturing not only Kholm but also Novgorod the Great: a signal accomplishment, given Novgorod the Great’s historical importance to Rus’, and given its degree of fortification under Livonian occupation. With such victories Komenský had gone a long way toward rehabilitating his family’s reputation.
Livonia, riven by its internal class and religious fractures, still suffering from revolts, was utterly exhausted and unable to continue its war efforts in the face of concerted Ryazanian, Moravian and Sámi assaults. They had paid, dearly, for the ‘fol Enormityes’ they had committed in Vislania during their war with Baltic Sweden. Ryazan took possession, not only of Kholm, but of two signally-important historic Rus’ cities as well: Novgorod the Great, and Rostov the Great. Moravia was content to receive reparations from Livonia in monetary form. Cárovná a Kráľovna Judita clearly took after her predecessors in the policy of allowing allies and vassals to gain territory from wars, rather than annexing territory herself.
That same war continued to grind on. Livonia had been beaten, but they were only a minor partner in the alliance—decidedly minor in comparison with East Francia and Östergötland. In September of 1686, General Ladislav z Nostic finally brought Volodymyr to its knees, entering the city and flying the Moravian chequered eagle from its ramparts. Nostic declared as his men entered the city that the churches were to be spared, but that any men who had participated in the burning of Vislania be taken and executed. Volodymyr’s private homes and businesses were nevertheless ransacked, and a large number of Volhynians were rendered up—fairly or unfairly—to grim Moravian military justice for their crimes in the Balto-Swedish War. In total, 83 men were found guilty and hanged, their bodies displayed in gibbets along the walls.
There was one major setback in the west of the country. This débâcle, a thorough embarrassment for the Moravian Army, would be known as the ‘First Battle of Cvikov’, though in fact it was less of a battle than an utter massacre and rout. The Vraclavská Armáda, caught unprepared and out of formation, was completely crushed and annihilated in a surprise attack on Cvikov by the East Frankish Generaloberst Karl Haase. The entire command structure of the Vraclavská Armáda was liquidated, and most of the soldiers were either killed or fled. Out of a force of 14,000, nearly 10,000 men were killed outright in the East Frankish assault; the rest were routed or taken prisoner.
Landfried von Asch, who understood military matters well, took them into his own hands. He began reinstituting conscription in Bohemia and Silesia, and gathering two armies to replace the one that had been lost. His father Rathbod had bequeathed him a firm understanding of tactics as well as a fine predilection for commanding men in the field, and he made full use of both of these. He thus presented to his wife a new Erste Armee of eighteen thousand, and a new Zweite Armee of seventeen thousand, both ready and able to march into battle with any East Frankish force and make aim for Karl Haase’s head.
‘Darling,’ Judita said, embracing her husband after her review of the two new armies in Olomouc, ‘I can’t thank you enough!’
‘S minterste, waz i doa kan,’ answered Landfried, hugging her back fondly.
Needless to say, the lovemaking in the royal chambers in the wake of these drightly gifts was more than satisfactory, and Judita was once again with his child before long.
In truth, though, Landfried von Asch wasn’t the only man in court pulling his own weight and more for the war effort. The questions of production and manufacture were foremost in the minds of the economic advisor to the throne in the Inner Zhromaždenie, Lotár Capek. Capek, who had grown up in plazas and squares among stalls and booths, hearing all day long of the marvellous glories and unsurmountable benefits of the freedom of trade among nations, began to suspect that this attitude among his class had certain rather hard limits… and a war between those nations was one of them.
Capek studied carefully the proposed reforms of Ctibor Ignac Komenský (that is, General Róbert Komenský’s ancestor, taken and hanged for treason during the Kafenda regency) and of Hugolín Elefánthy, his Magyar associate who had shared his fate. In the course of this study, Capek began to question the received wisdom of his family, and to understand the qualitative long-term benefits of selecting domestic producers, farmers, herdsmen and manufacturers for state protection, and encouraging them with subsidies. He thus—carefully and cautiously at first—began promoting small pieces of what amounted to a neo-protectionist policy.
Judita Hlinková was two generations removed from her grandfather, who was considerably friendlier to a policy of laissez-les faire when it came to political economy. And it turned out she was inclined to trust Capek, in whose personal ability and goodwill she had no doubts. When other advisors and the townsmen in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie began to point out that Capek was treading the path that had brought down Komenský, she notably replied:
‘Gentlemen, he who gets results carries far more weight with me, than he who bears only promises.’
In this pronouncement, she gave Capek her imprimatur. She followed Capek’s recommendations particularly as tradesmen, craftsmen and bowers began making requests for support and protection from the Crown. Although this action lost her favour with the gentry and the haute bourgeoisie, the results for keeping Moravia competitive in production of war goods could not be denied.
~~~
The Atlantic ‘theatre’ of the Moravian-Galician War of 1685 was shifting as well. Britain had received from the Pope a blessing for a fourth colony in the Americas, located in the Cascade Mountains of the far West. Admiral Reece Broderick sent some of his three-deckers and frigates back to Macapá for resupply, but also in case the ships needed to be reassigned to reinforce the British claim on the Cascades. However, these same ships were recommissioned from Macapá at the beginning of the summer of 1687 by Admiral Meurig Blood, who brought those ships back across the Atlantic to join the blockade of the Helgoland Bight. The sailors on these ships were not only Britons, but also Tupi, Arawak and a handful of Mi’kmaq. This is how 141 Mi’kmaq sailors in the British service ended up fighting in the European theatre of the war.
Blood’s Blockade of the Helgoland Bight was both timely and strategically critical. It neatly severed Östergötland of any passage by sea into East Francia. This action not only bought the Moravians some precious time to recoup after the total loss of the Vraclavská Armáda, but it also thankfully robbed the Galicians of any East Geatish reinforcements from the north. Thus, Ladislav z Nostic was able to take 2,000 Galician infantrymen by surprise at Dramburg the same way that Haase had done the Moravians at Cvikov nad Muldou.
Two British relief forces marched southward from their landing-point in Hamburg. The first one, the Army of Scotland led by General Henry Clinton, marched southward to besiege Ulm. The second one, the Thirteenth under General Colwulf Whitgilsing, included four regiments of Britons and two of Brasilians, which marched into Drježdźany to relieve Cvikov. Because of the recall of the Macapá ships by Admiral Blood, among these two Brasilian batallions were the 141 Mi’kmaq ‘volunteers’ who had substituted themselves for enslaved Pardoes.
The arrival of a real live group of ‘červení Indiáni’ in Drježdźany was a matter of great excitement and curiosity for the Moravians there, most of whom had only known of them from Kadlec’s diaries. As such, there was a great deal of exchange, as well as more than a bit of misunderstanding. Representative of the fact are two pieces of writing from the time: one from a Mi’kmaq ‘volunteer’, Philippe Tjiptjôitj, written in French back to his brothers on Enmigtagamog; and the other from a Sorbian soldier, Nadporučík Hurban Tillich, back to his wife in Budyšín.
Hurban Tillich writes:
‘It is most instructive to observe the Migmachov in training under Whitgilsing’s command. I confess, I expected to find them different than they were. The red Indians are sharp, tough, disciplined, orderly, clear-headed, keen of hearing and keen of aim. They keep tight formation. But they also have a truly fearsome command of the tactics of forest combat. When so ordered, they can go from a single formation to vanishing utterly into the woods, in the space of a minute or less. If the Germans do not fear them already, they surely shall soon! It struck me that their Brasilian Major, Owain Ubiratã, was rightfully proud of commanding such a troop…’
And Philippe Tjiptjôitj writes:
‘I have met with so many different tribes and bands of men here: Britons, Germans, Moravians, Sorbs, Russians. I confess that the tongue of the Moravians and that of the Sorbs sound much the same to my untried ears, the way men from the west side of Enmigtagamog might speak to men on the east side. Among these, I think I admire the Russians most of all, and their Grand Chief Dmitri Gubastov. They belong to the “Grecian” belief like the Sorbs and Moravians, but they honour the Creator and the spirits of places, and they live by their horses, and they treat their horses and livestock with a sensibility that is almost Mi’kmaq in its closeness and sympathy…
‘But these Moravians are so full of questions! I believe that Kadlec may have somewhat misrepresented us to them, for they were surprised to see our sma’knisk drilling alongside the Britons. They were shocked to see that we could load, handle and aim a gun as quickly and proficiently as, if not better than, many of them. I think they expected us to be peaceable craftsmen and pedlars, or else wild men dressed in skins. But they do not understand that we have lived among such men as they for the past three generations, and we know their ways as they do not yet know ours…’
The Moravians, Sorbs and Mi’kmaq would soon have the chance to fight alongside each other at the Second Battle of Cvikov nad Muldou. Both sides threw practically all of their forces into this battle, which took place on the 20th, 21st and 22nd of April, 1688.
On the Moravian side, Ladislav z Nostic brought the Pražská Armáda and the new, Bavarian-trained Erste Armee into the fight. About twenty thousand Sorbs were there, of course, defending their own territory, most under the command of General Josif Cyzh, but a smaller number under the direct command of Arcywojwóda Uściech 2. Rychnovský. And Whitgilsing’s Thirteenth Army, a third of which was composed of Tupi and Arawak Brasilians as well as Mi’kmaq, was already at the ready. But the bulk of the forces on the Moravian side were Rus’ from Ryazan.
The stern-but-fair, aggressive, dynamic young Veliky Knyaz, Fedor 2. Gorčakov, personally led the Ryazanian Šestaya armiya into battle. The Šestaya armiya were mostly regulars and conscripts from central Rus’: men of Smolensk, Kiev and Ryľsk. These were about thirty thousand strong: half infantry, and more gunners than cavalrymen. But the bulk of the Ryazanian Rus’ were commanded by Dmitri Gubastov.
Ataman Dmitri Gubastov was a bold, flamboyant, florid-faced, long-whiskered Cossack from the Donets River Basin. And he made sure that he looked every bit the part! Fur-lined papakha and cloak, long loose-fitting Turkic trousers and felt boots, a cavalry sabre at his side, a war-hammer strapped to his back and a long-bore loaded pistol tucked into his wide brocade sash. His men both loved and feared him. They loved him because he was quick with a joke and a laugh, and eager to pray and break bread and drink hospitably with any man who would sit with him. And they feared him because his mood was as temperamental as the Pontic steppe skies under which he was born. His eye could just as easily turn stormy and cruel, and his hand as quickly curl into a hard and violent fist, or reach for steel to teach any rascal in his path a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget. None of his lieutenants had escaped his blows, and there were several who bore scars from his steel.
Gubastov commanded the Vtoraya armiya (mainly a gunnery contingent from the towns of Sluck and Černigov, with some Muscovites thrown in for good measure) as well as the Don Cossack Host commanded out of Vyoški, which had been reformed as the Treťya armiya. Proud nomadic cavalry of mixed Tatar and Russian blood, defenders of the southern reaches of the Rus’ even in the times of Great Ruthenia, the Don Cossacks of the Treťya armiya were eager for combat and ready to hurl themselves headlong at their Catholic and Galician foes.
Generaloberst Karl Haase was the main opponent, as before, at Cvikov. The patient and methodical German commanded the Rhenish-Franconian Armee von Berg, a balanced force of twenty thousand infantry and ten thousand artillery pieces and their support. His forces were running at high morale, as they well might be, given how easily they had dominated this selfsame field once before. The East Franks marched confidently back onto the field outside Cvikov, reasonably assured that they could hand the Moravians their own behinds once again.
Adding to that assurance, the East Geats already had a sizeable force deployed south of the Helgoland Bight, unaffected by Blood’s Blockade. General Bo Trolle brought the East Geatish Åttende armé with him to Cvikov: these were thirteen thousand men, mostly gunners. Most of his infantry support was supplied by a mercenary force of eleven thousand ‘Free Samogitians’ commanded by Kapitonas Vyšataus Naryškinas. The Galicians themselves, under Dobrynia Kolzov, fielded a force of five thousand, mostly infantry.
Haase, Trolle, Kolzov and Naryškinas thus had the advantages of position and of morale. Having already occupied Cvikov, they had managed to scope out and occupy the tactically-superior ground on the south and southeast sides of the town.
The Moravian allies attacked the enemy positions at Cvikov from different directions. Whitgilsing’s British and Brasilian forces approached Cvikov from the south; Rychnovský, Nostic and Cyzh attacked from the west, from the direction of the city walls; while the Rus’ led by Gubastov and Gorčakov attacked from the east. The hope was that by catching the Germans, Galicians, Lithuanians and East Geats in a three-way pincer formation, the allied forces could eliminate the advantages of terrain and position and cut off any chance of escape. But it also meant that the forces that would move in first would be at a relative disadvantage.
The Brasilians and British led the first stage of the attack on the 20th. Whitgilsing took a cautious manoeuvre, and allowed the allied Mi’kmaq sma’knisk to do what they did best. The Mi’kmaq sailors-turned-infantry took position in a nearby stand of trees and began firing intermittently on the position of Naryškinas’s Free Samogitian gunners. When one volley finished, they melted into the trees and vanished from view. Some of the Samogitian infantrymen broke formation and headed into the woods in pursuit, but not one of those who did so came out of that grove alive.
Around mid-morning, the Sorbs and Moravians made their push from around the south side of Cvikov. Nostic, true to his character, led the charge against Haase’s main line, making sure to keep his left flank turned toward the city wall to avoid being surrounded or forced into an impossible position to defend. Thus engaged on the south and on the west, the Galician-aligned force was pinned on two sides by an inferior—but tenacious—force, while the Ryazan Rus’ made their preparation for an attack.
The withdrawal of the Moravian, Sorbian and British-Brasilian forces in the evening offered a pause in the fighting, but as the second day dawned, there came a dread cry like the howling of wolves from the eastern hills. Holding his pistol aloft, the Don Cossack Ataman appeared on the crest of the hills from the direction of the Rudohory Pass.
With an almighty wordless howl, Dmitri Gubastov led a wild charge from the east, and the thundering of ten thousand sets of Cossack horse-hooves resounded in the Cvikov foothills, striking terror into the hearts of their enemies. The main Ryazanian infantry were not far behind, and the artillery pieces were being wheeled into position along the flanks of the charge, firing ahead of them.
The German lines broke first. Haase ordered his men to retreat northward while the East Geats covered their pass around the eastern side of the Cvikov city walls. The Lithuanian mercenaries, whose hatred of the Rus’ was well-known, were loath to take these orders… but Vyšataus Naryškinas’s gunnery lines had been harried mercilessly by the Mi’kmaq sma’knisk fighting from the trees. He was in little position to hold out. It was the East Geatish and German infantry, though, who bore the hardest brunt of the wild Cossack charge, as the fearsome Russian cavalry shot, hammered and sliced broad, gory swathes through the flesh of their hated foes.
The Second Battle of Cvikov nad Muldou was decisive. The alliance had pinned the last of its hopes on holding Cvikov against the Moravian Cárovná a Kráľovna. The Galician Knyaginya, who had lost control of all of her territory except for the town of Seradz, was forced to come to terms.
It was a rotund and heavily-pregnant Judita Hlinková who received the formal petition of surrender from Efrosynia 2. Niska, on behalf of her entire alliance. The terms that they came to were punitive, though once again Moravia made no direct territorial gains. Niska ceded the former White Russian town of Turiv to Fedor 2. Gorčakov, which was promptly renamed Turov. Uta von Braunschweig was forced to relinquish the town of Leipzig and its environs to Uściech 2. Rychnovský, who restored to that settlement its original Sorbian name of Lipsk. And Bo 4. Sture, perhaps most humiliatingly, was forced to part with the entire northeastern third of his territory, to the Sámiráđđi: the territories of Hålogaland (renamed as Romsa), Finnmark (renamed Finnmárku) and Jokkmokk (properly retitled Johkamohkki).
The vast majority of the Mi’kmaq who had fought at the Second Battle of Cvikov returned to their former homes in Enmigtagamog, across the Atlantic. But Philippe Tjiptjôitj and several others actually resettled in the newly-acquired territories of northern Sápmi, converted to Orthodox Christianity and took Sámi wives. It was largely on account of the Mi’kmaq contributions to the Moravian-Galician War of 1685 that the name of Efraim Kadlec was further cemented in the Sámi oral histories.
As for Judita Hlinková, the Cárovná of Carpathia and Kráľovna of Moravia gave birth to a healthy baby boy this time, and she christened him Ostromír.
- 1
Judita had such a good relationship with the Church... hopefully that can be recovered once this war is over.
Perfidious Bavaria! At least they didn't end up allying with East Francia?
Congrats on your victory!
Will these new Mi'kmaq in Sapmi form their own unique culture? Will we hear from them more?
Perfidious Bavaria! At least they didn't end up allying with East Francia?
Congrats on your victory!
Will these new Mi'kmaq in Sapmi form their own unique culture? Will we hear from them more?
- 1
Thanks. Why did Bavaria peace out so early? Did the AI actually coordinate with you this well?
TEA.
One Lump or Two?
13 October 1688 – 22 May 1691
One Lump or Two?
13 October 1688 – 22 May 1691
Sápmi and Drježdźany both benefitted immensely from their new acquisitions.
Uściech 2. Rychnovský took the opportunity of holding a formal state visit to the Church of Saint Nicholas in Lipsk, where for the first time in nearly four hundred years, the Byzantine rite Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom was held. The Archbishop to the Sorbs (as his formal title was) Handroš (Latk) led a rather subdued procession, not triumphant in tone but conciliatory and irenic. His homily that day stressed the need for Sorbs and Germans to live together in harmony and put aside confessional differences. But it was hard to ignore the general buoyancy among the ethnic Sorbs in the town at the outcome of the war. The Liturgy was followed by a festival fall planting of linden trees in the Roßplatz, in token of Lipsk’s return to Sorbian rule.
As for Sápmi, the acquisition of the Western Territories, which included a great deal of reindeer-grazing grounds, was a matter of celebration. Under order of the Ráđđi, stakes and fences were demolished, as well as any reminders of sedentary life in the area. Storehouses were kept under communal use-rights, for fodder, blankets, weapons and tools. A general amnesty was proclaimed for any Norwegians, Swedes or Geats who wished to continue to live there under Sámi rule, but relatively few were the Scandinavians who took their Sámi neighbours up on the offer.
Both Sápmi and Drježdźany were, by this point, fully cognisant of their status as buffer-states. The Sámiráđđi understood that their strategic importance was as a bulwark in the north against Östergötland and Livonia. And of course the Sorbian branch of the Rychnovských had long known that they served as a check on the ambitions of East Francia. But in the wake of the Moravian-Galician War, the designation of Sápmi, Drježdźany and Carpathia as buffers was now a formal doctrine of Moravian diplomatic policy.
The Moravian-Galician war left Ryazan, however, with a bitter aftertaste indeed. Their Grand Prince—their bright, promising, brave, stalwart eighteen-year-old Fedor 2. Ivanovič—had taken a Lithuanian lead ball to the thigh in Gubastov’s mad cavalry charge at the Second Battle of Cvikov. The ball missed the artery, and so it was assumed after the battle that he would live from the flesh wound. But despite the doctors’ best efforts, the wound festered and became gangrenous. By the time the Šestaya armiya had reached the borders of Ryazanian Rus’, their Veliky Knyaz’ had departed this life for the next.
There was a massive public outpouring of grief at the death of Fedor 2. Maria Khilkova, Fedor’s widow (eleven years his elder, after the traditional Slavic fashion) from an old Riurik-derived noble family, had loved her boy-husband passionately, howbeit briefly, and mourned him deeply. Having became regent for their young son Fedor 3., Princess-Regent Maria dressed in black continuously for the following twelve years, rebuffed all suits, and retired to a stauropegial women’s monastery at the end of her regency. The Don Cossack Host of the Treťya armiya mourned him as one of their own. Ataman Dmitri Gubastov gave a brief, but fitting elegy for the departed Fedor: ‘Žil Fyoďka knyazem, a umer kazakom.’ (‘Fedka lived as a prince, yet he died as a Cossack.’) At his funeral, the Cossacks sent him off with shouts and gunfire and drinking and raucous dancing, as was their custom. And the town of Turov itself became known—with affection—as Saban Fyodora: the burial-shroud of Fedor.
~~~
King Iorwerth ap Siôr ap Prawst Gaerhirfryn of Great Britain was also quite young—only twenty years old—when he met his end. His consort, Anne Edulfing, took over as Regent for their infant daughter, who was also named Anne. Cárovná a Kráľovna Judita took care to renew ties with both Ryazan and Britain, both of countries were as desirous as she was to uphold the longstanding tradition of alliance.
What was unexpected and new was the sudden warmth that Baltic Sweden showed toward Moravia in the wake of their war with Galicia.
Waldemar 4. Sture had viewed the Moravian-Galician War of 1685 with profound suspicion. Even though they had claimed to be acting on behalf of the Swedes whom the Livonians had burned to death in a church near Chenciny, he felt that Moravia’s motives were self-serving and unscrupulous. But his young son Mads 2., who had also taken office the past year, was of a much more gracious bent of mind. Baltic Sweden was, much as its forerunner Pomerania had been, short on friends and long on grudges—both situations he sought to correct. And so Mads 2. had pragmatically extended the olive branch to his realm’s old rivals to the south.
Within Moravia itself, Landfried von Asch and Lotár Capek were widely hailed as the men of the hour in the war. Landfried, because he had commissioned, recruited and drilled the Erste u. zweite Armee for his grateful wife the Cárovná a Kráľovna. These armies were regularised and stationed during demobilisation. The Erste Armee was rechristened as the Budějovická Armáda, and the Zweite Armee as the Druhá Vraclavská Armáda. Judita’s wifely gratitude to her Bavarian husband knew no bounds, as was shown in her again-swelling belly in the early months of 1689.
Lotár Capek’s unconventional wartime economic and monetary theories, largely considered to be a form of zmenkizmus (promissorism) and novokomenskizmus (neo-Komenskism), were widely touted and hailed as the salvation of Moravia’s nascent manufactures. His policy proposals and studies of the Komenský-Elefánthy reforms of the early 1600s were published for public consumption and even translated abroad. Not everyone, however, was satisfied with the state-of-affairs he had conceived.
The serfs and free bowers of Carpathia, in particular, had been hit hard by the war. Not that many of them had been conscripted—an army runs on its stomach, as every good general knows—but the prices of grain had gone down during demobilisation while the prices of everything else had gone up. Many of them now felt the pinch. And when they brought their complaints to Olomouc, they felt that those complaints had largely fallen on deaf ears.
As such, peasant uprisings broke out in a broad swathe across Carpathia from the Serbian southwest into the Vlach-speaking northeast. These uprisings were quashed heavily by the Carpathian Home Army under the Tatar-Bulgarian General Trifon Kolčak, with assistance from the Moravian Košícká Armáda. In the wake of these uprisings, C. a K. Judita agreed to some minor concessions to Carpathian rural sensibilities, lowering tariffs on import goods into the Carpathian lands (but not into the Moravian realm).
~~~
‘Here, dearest. I’d like you to try something.’
The reddish beverage in the small porcelain cup did smell fragrant and alluring, albeit also a bit bitter. ‘What is it?’ asked Žigmund, Barón Hlinka z Hlinku, of his wife.
‘It’s a new product: a stimulating beverage originating from the Pai Kingdom of Ta-Li in the Far Orient, in what used to be the Ti kuo of Ta-Ming. The Welsh merchant I got it from called it té.’
Žigmund brought the beverage up to his nose, just beneath his moustache, took a ginger sniff, and then put the rim of the little cup against his lips for a slight sip. The flavour was astringent, pungent, yet slightly sweet. There had been sugar added. ‘Mphm,’ the Barón harrumphed.
Štvrtá princezná Hana Hlinková dimpled at her third cousin and husband’s diffident reaction.
‘It’s alright,’ he admitted finally.
‘The stuff’s all the rage in London,’ the C. a K.’s youngest sister said, pouring herself a cup from the teapot. ‘Evidently Regent Anne can’t get enough of it!’
‘The Britons do go in for some rather pointless fads,’ Barón Žigmund pronounced, peering with a critical eye down into his teacup.
‘Oh, you’re too stubborn!’ Hana laughed. ‘The Sorbs drink it as well, though of course they mix it with rose-hips, chamomile or valerian root for additional effects. Why, even Juraj Pongrac drinks at least four cups a day!’
‘Well, stands to reason. He’s a philosopher. Philosophers always are a little queer in their habits, that’s how they end up the way they do.’
‘A rather odd sort of philosopher, though, you have to admit. Berates his own profession and its practitioners constantly and without cease! Dearest, haven’t you read his most recent pamphlet—Výklad o Jeremiášovi?’
‘Mphm,’ Žigmund grumped.
Hana Hlinková grinned again.
‘And?’
Žigmund cleared his throat.
‘Pongrac… makes a few good points. Of course one ought to be chary of sophists and the like, the sort of “intellectuals” who use self-serving phrases, guiding arguments and clever language in order to secure their own positions at the public expense. Surely the ear we are lending him gives us a leg up in our reputation abroad, for the fair hearing of… let’s say… “original” thinkers. Though really, I think old Juraj fancies himself a second Diogenes, lacking a barrel! And, dearest one, think—in all his denunciations against the academic and philosophical disciplines in general, does he not himself hoist on his own pétard? After all, the fellow’s own hire and position with the Inner Zhromaždenie were secured by a state trust bequeathed by Lotár’s old man.’
‘True enough, dearest. As you would have it,’ Hana Hlinková conceded. ‘Still, he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in now if he hadn’t earned it. And a good polemicist is not necessarily a poor investment… just as a good master of mint might have some unforeseen benefits to the realm.’
‘Švamberka was a credit to the realm,’ Barón Žigmund agreed. ‘It’s a pity your sister got shot of him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Armies so smartly equipped, and at such reasonable cost. I must say, my heart… it’s agreeable to be married to a woman who understands affairs.’
Hana embraced her husband and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Praise in my dearest’s mouth is all the more precious for its rarity.’
‘Yes, yes, very well. Leave me some space, woman,’ the Barón grumped. But he was remarkably complacent about it.
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Thanks for sending me to the Ta-Li rabbit hole. Any day with learning is a good day. Thanks
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Huh. How popular will this tea beverage become? I wonder if it could inspire states to invade China...
How annoyed is Ryazan with Moravia? Didn't Moravia drag them into the war that killed their beloved ruler?
How long will all of Carpathia remain a buffer state? Could Judita split off the more distant portions to form a more effective buffer state and strengthen ties between Carpathia proper and Moravia?
How annoyed is Ryazan with Moravia? Didn't Moravia drag them into the war that killed their beloved ruler?
How long will all of Carpathia remain a buffer state? Could Judita split off the more distant portions to form a more effective buffer state and strengthen ties between Carpathia proper and Moravia?
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Ohhh, yes. Yunnan has a very deep local history with its own lore, one which I didn't really appreciate until I started reading the Jin Yong wuxia novels (or at least, fan translations thereof)...
Well, tea is here and it's here to stay... anyone's guess, though, as to what kind of impact it's going to have on Moravia.
In-game, the relations penalty that Moravia took from the war and the dynastic succession wasn't zero, but it also certainly wasn't heavy. I went from maybe +200 to +193 or something like that.
Also, Carpathia is soon going to learn what being a buffer state to Moravia truly means. (Laughs evilly in authAAR)
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ELEVEN.
Khilkova’s Eastern Campaign
12 July 1691 – 23 September 1693
Khilkova’s Eastern Campaign
12 July 1691 – 23 September 1693
Judita cradled the tiny little babe in her arms as the precious thing suckled greedily at her breast. A baby girl—much smaller than Ostromír had been—was now Judita’s third offspring with Landfried, who stood by them. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. Judita could feel the radiance of his joy warmly upon her bare shoulder.
The two of them had come to something of an impasse over her name. Landfried had wanted their little girl, whose light ring of babyish curls was already a rich, bright gold in colour, to be named Oda, but Judita found the resemblance to the name of her East Frankish rival Königin Uta von Braunschweig to be too close. She had offered Drahomíra as a Moravian alternative with a similar meaning, and this had met with a (historically-justified) like refusal. Between them, they had arrived at an acceptable compromise, and thus had their newborn daughter been christened Lukrécie Hlinková.
Not long after little Lukrécie’s birth, though, a herald arrived from Ryazan with an urgent summons.
‘The Regentša Rusi Ryazanskoi urgently requests, and beseeches upon Moravia’s honour as an ally of long standing, your immediate assistance in an eastward campaign. This God-bearing common task,’ the herald stressed, ‘is for the immediate liberation and relief from the Tatar yoke, of the Uralic territories of the Eastern Varangians—territories which were, until very recently, under the sway of a God-fearing monarch… and soon will be again. Will you join us in this right and blessed endeavour?’
Judita considered this request briefly. She did not personally know Maria Khilkova, the Princess-Regent of Ryazan—only by reputation. And her reputation, other than having been fiercely devoted to her tragically-young departed husband, was that of a competent if rather lacklustre administrator. She was no religious zealot, no firebrand. Chances were good that this campaign had been either foisted on her from the boyary, or else had some ulterior objective. It could be as simple and straightforward a case as Khilkova jumping at the opportunity to grab a handful of contested territory. Or it might be something else. For example: if Khilkova blamed Ataman Dmitri Gubastov for her husband’s death, such a risky campaign in couched in the language of such a high-flown cause might well afford numerous and plausible opportunities for getting rid of the man.
With regard to what Moravia ought to do? Well, there was little choice. C. a K. Judita was, after all, a woman of her word, a woman of honour. She could not refuse such a call from Ryazan, any more than she could take her dear little Lukrécie and dash the precious girl’s head against a wall. The Moravian armies were mobilised once again, and marched eastward into Ryazan’s territory.
But this time, Judita wasn’t about to leave the question of finances up to the Church. Even though the Moravian Orthodox Church was, in this instance, much more supportive, Judita was still jealous enough of her personal piety and eager enough to avoid a conflict with Archbishop Pankrác that she took measures to ensure she would not need to turn to them for funds. Thankfully, Lotár Capek had already begun the process of setting up offices of credit for the state. These could issue bonds and other financial instruments to increase the total pool of funds that the diplomatic corps, administration and armed forces could draw on at need.
The successes of Lotár Capek’s zmenkizmus a novokomenskizmus policy were demonstrated most signally, as merchants who came to market at Krakóv were usually able to furnish goods of a much superior quality at competitive prices. It got to the point, of course, that the Galicians lodged a formal diplomatic complaint. But as Krakóv belonged to Moravia, and not to Galicia, it was rather expected that the Galicians were to play by Moravia’s rules and not the other way around. The Moravian merchants stayed, despite the diplomatic costs.
~~~
The Moravian Budějovická Armáda under Róbert Komenský crossed the Ağeðil on the seventh of June, 1692, in advance formation of the Kapitálová a Krakovská Armády. Ryazan had already made a number of advances to the ‘left’—that is to say, to the north—up the Kama River, but the Ağeðil was heavily fortified at several points upstream, and the stockades would not be easy to take.
Róbert Komenský had only here and there caught glimpses of the enemy. For the most part, they stood at the very edge of the line of sight, seeing but unseen. Occasionally there would be the crack of a musket afar off, and occasionally a sentry’s horse would return riderless. But there was no more contact with the Bashkirs than that.
The Urals, it must be said, were (with few exceptions) far from the majestic mountain ranges that the Slovaks among them were used to. No High Tatras these—these were gently sloping, flowing hills that ran between one steppe to the southwest and a much larger steppe to the northeast. And they were all a stark and verdant shade, ripening in the open to yellow in the heat of the summer. And the Ağeðil flowed blue and languid along, dipping in and out of view amid the lush green of the box elders, wych elms and silver birches that basked along the shores. Róbert Komenský sighed. These Cossack steppes would have been idyll in his eyes… were it not for the deadly business that they were about.
There was one minor skirmish with the Bashkirs, that took place on an uphill fortification along the Ağeðil. The commander among the Bashkirs was in fact a Far Eastern Balti by birth, by the name of Malikšah Chöphel. Chöphel, commanding a force of some four thousand Bashkir fighters and three thousand guns, never stood much of a chance against Komenský’s far superior force, which is why he had confined his engagements to hit-and-run tactics. When cornered, however, he and his Bashkirs fought with great bravery, and managed to make the Moravians pay for Bashkir blood with some of their own… though they were wiped out in the end.
The war progressed quickly and one-sidedly after the Battle in the Badžgard and the surrender of the Kazakhs. Böjök Ustyug fell in the Bashkortostani north, followed by Holmogor. And finally, robbed of agricultural supplies from the Ağeðil river valley, the fortifications along the northern upstream of that same river quickly found themselves starved into submission. The Badžgard fell in August of 1693—and with it, any further will from the Bashkirs to fight off the Rus’ incursion.
The price that Bashkortostan paid to Ryazan for peace was its entire southern march. Maria Khilkova extended her Regency and her son’s rule over Perm, the Ağeðil (renamed by the Ryazanian Rus’ as Belaya), Badžgard (renamed Tetuševo), Kazan, Starodub, Nižnii Novgorod, Ulatăr (renamed Alatyr) and Bolğar (renamed Spassk). Ryazan extended its rule deftly up to the Southern Urals, and the fields beyond now lay open to them.
In addition to this, the Bashkirs agreed to cede Holmogor and Galič back to the Garderikeans… though at this point the exhausted and weakened government of Garderike had no power or administrative capacity to defend, patrol or garrison those holdings. That meant in essence that these were terra nullius—and up for grabs for whomever sought to claim them next.
Notwithstanding Judita’s suppositions about the motivations for this campaign, it remained the case that Ataman Dmitri Gubastov had quite stubbornly refused to die in this war. Indeed, the proud Cossack of the Donets added his successes in the east to his already quite-long list of military triumphs, and his customary swagger emboldened itself accordingly.
~~~
On the home front, C. a K. Judita continued to rely heavily on the economic advice and theories of Lotár Capek, who grew more and more strident in his support for protective and soft-money principles that would come to be known in Western Europe as ‘mercantilist’. Judita herself, who saw first-hand the results of these policies and liked what she saw, continued to rebuff the gentry and haute-bourgeois voices who cautioned against such policies. In addition, Judita gave birth to yet another child by 1693: another daughter, whom her parents named Renáta Hlinková.
It had proven to be a fateful choice by Moravia-Carpathia’s Hlinka rulers, particularly Jaromír and Judita, to focus their policy on indirect rule and regional influence, rather than on territorial conquest or colonial acquisitions. The influence and general esteem of the diplomatic corps had never been greater.
Moravia had long been proud of its diplomats. That historic pride was attested in the diplomats’ choice of patron, Saint Jakub the King. But it was only in the last couple of generations that the diplomatic corps was seen as the prestigious choice of career for second sons of aristocratic families of the good old blood, preferable even to service in the military. With reason, the diplomatic corps in Olomouc could be said to represent the crème de la crème of Moravian society.
A lot of Moravia’s diplomatic activity around this time (the 1660s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s) involved provokácie a represálie. That is to say, it was essentially carrying on feuds with the Catholic German powers to the east by less-violent means. A little complot here, a dab of religious tension there; few were the tense and dramatic episodes of Central European public affairs that Moravia’s diplomatic corps supposedly didn’t have their fingers in… In addition, anti-Austrian and anti-East Frankish polemical pamphlets and salacious reports of Austrian hypocrisy and courtly perversities regularly flooded bookshops. These could regularly be seen in the coffee and tea houses in any Moravian or Carpathian city, and more than a few of Austria’s neighbours besides. If such reports had only a grain of truth to them (if even that), they were widely enough spread and believed that Austria and East Francia were forced to expend considerable resources refuting or denying them. Of course, Austria and East Francia retaliated to the degree that they were able, and Moravia’s diplomats were occasionally themselves put on a defensive footing. It was an old and well-practised game.
If such a use of the diplomatic corps’ time and energies seems rather petty to modern eyes, it must be remembered that the stakes were well understood, and that the alternative to this kind of endemic low-level diplomatic sniping was a destructive shooting war, of the sort that had happened between Moravia and Austria in the 1630s. British historian Robert Evans once famously held it as a testament to the skill and restraint of the Moravian diplomatic corps, that the peace was more or less maintained intact between Moravia and Austria up until 1715.
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Ryazan is expanding... I wonder how far east their influence will reach...
Are some of these diplomats also acting as spies, or are they just performing reputation-smearing?
Are some of these diplomats also acting as spies, or are they just performing reputation-smearing?
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