Chapter 39: The Tenth Crusade (1625-1630)
After the festivities of Christmas, Eastern Europe and the Near East would be reshaped by the neighboring powers around them. Despite the season of festivities and joy, the Empire had ceaselessly worked to strengthen their exarchs and to establish a Pax Elysia in the Eastern World. From the mountainous lands of Hellas to the ancient cities of the Levant, order and stability had come to lands that had been suffering under the subjugation of tyrants or were divided among warlords. As the Empire conquered new lands, the new citizens had found that the newfound stability had come at the cost of living under new laws, government, and were under threat from constant warfare.
The Pax Elysia, known as the Imperial Peace, was something that was promoted but was not found. The Empire was frequently at war with neighboring powers, from isolated warlord states to the great powers of Europe, or even all at once. This was done in order to establish a long-lasting peace at the cost of changing the power dynamic of an entire continent, and with the cost of the Empire’s own humanity. Some expected that this Pax Elysia would not be immediate, despite the end of the many wars the Empire had fought.
Emperor Basil, now having become an increasingly frail and elderly man, faced a problem of making peace as an acceptable mode of life for all Elysians and her exarchs. The Empire had been at war with one power or another continuously for nearly two centuries. Like the Romans before them, the Elysians regarded peace not as an absence of war but a rare situation that existed when all of her enemies had been defeated and lost the ability to resist. The Emperor believed that, once order had been established in Europe, only then would a true Pax Elysium be established.
After decades of service under the Empire, the ‘Balkan Shield’ would be integrated into the Exarchate of Constantina. Full civil rights would be granted to Albanian, Serbians and Bulgarian for their long-term commitment and would become recognised and accepted ethnicities. Croatians and Bosnians would, due to being under the heel of the Habsburgs and under the Ragusan Republic, not be included.
The integration would serve to boost Constantina’s economy and their defenses in the Balkans, and would secure a safer area of control within the Balkans. In time, should the Habsburgs act disloyal to the Elysians, the Empire had made their eyes to secure the Northern Balkans and seize Bosnia and Croatia from the Austrian Emperors.
As Elysia had remained concentrated among European affairs, frightening news would come from the former Persian states. For the first time since the Muslim conquests of the region in the seventh century, a new and powerful Persian Empire would emerge. United by one of the descendants of Timur, this Persia would adopt Shia Islam as the official state religion, something that would be seen as a turning point in Islamic history.
Almost immediately, Persia was working to consolidate their new Empire from opposing threats. New territories were being integrated into the administration, the Shia faith was aggressively promoted and the new Persian Shahanshah was redesigning his as a Feudal Theocratic state, blending Imperial and Church rule into one. Like the Persian realms before them, the Elysians expected this Persia to be a dangerous regional threat that should be treated with caution with all interactions.
With the wealthy city of Aleppo seized from the tiny Syrian state, the Empire had been planning for years about a military campaign to seize the Levant. With the decline of the Mamluks, the Sultanate had been weakened by inner turmoil and simply didn’t have the finances to raise and maintain a sizable military. In comparison to the Elysian Thema’s positioned around the Mediterranean alone, the Egyptians had simply nothing to hold the region yet alone from their own rebels and opportunists.
The Empire’s main focus was to seize the important city of Damascus, but none could deny about the opportunity of seizing the Holy City itself, Jerusalem. Everything from Antioch to Ascalon was to be taken under the Imperial banner and that of Christendom itself. This was to be not just a simple war of conquest, but a Holy War in its own right. It was to be a Crusade against the Saracen, and on November 11th 1625, the Tenth Crusade would begin.
In just two weeks, the Imperial Army would make rapid pace along the dusty landscape and seize everything to Damascus. As soon as they made it to the walls of Damascus, it would become apparent that no Muhammadian force would approach the Elysians, leaving the Imperial army confused. Some would question if they would even experience any armed combat at all, and some of the more zealous soldiers quickly entered prayer and gave thanks to God.
Attrition would consist as a problem, as it had always been something that the Empire had suffered against. While not experiencing any professional Mamluk military response to the Crusade, Muslim civilians would harass the Elysians as much as possible. Some would burn their own crops to starve the armies out, poison water supplies, or simply scream and curse at them. As this did seem to have an effect on the Elysian army, as some men would die from the weather, the Empire would make a more aggressive approach in making their campaign. The Military Council of the campaign would order an assault on Damascus, with the intent of breaking Muslim lines and wishing to seize Jerusalem as soon as possible.
Damascus, after experiencing a month of siege, would last mere hours during the assault. With the capture of the important city, the Empire would march south towards Jerusalem at incredible speed, covering a tremendous amount of distance due to smaller yet more mobile units. Should an enemy force enter Jerusalem, it would leave the Empire in a more difficult position to assault the city.
Coffee, a drink associated with the Muslim world, had become more and more commonplace among Christians in Europe. In an increasingly connected world, acquiring coffee was no longer as difficult as it used to be. Largely as a result, coffeehouses are being established in Europe and exotic beans were more and more in demand.
This would also include Elysium and Retoria. Coffee was becoming more and more in demand to cope with the cold winters in Vinland and Northern Elysia, and the tropical forests of French Columbia and Brazil were the perfect place to produce the exotic beans, as well as the more dense tropical regions of Spartania. The drink would become popular among the Elysian aristocracy, and it was incredibly popular among the Imperial Family where more than one member would proclaim their love for the drink.
Andronikos I Palaiologos. Formerly the Prince of Hespredia, Andronikos was fascinated with the cultures of Asia.
Life around the capital and the Empire at large would come to an abrupt stop on June 1st 1626. Emperor Basil I, Emperor of the Elysian Empire, would pass away at the age of sixty six from natural causes. As the Empire would enter a period of three days of mourning, Basil was be the father of eight children, most of whom were well into adulthood and held their own titles within the Empire such as Doukas and Doukissa. Only one of the eight children of Basil would succeed him and sit upon the throne as Emperor, his eldest son Andronikos.
From the beginning of the century, the Ming Dynasty had been in decline. The largest and most powerful state of its era, the Ming would crumble under an economic collapse, administrative mismanagement, famine caused by a shifting climate and rampant corruption. With an underpaid army, the military was openly defecting to the rebel cause and outside realms took the opportunity to cause chaos. With the dying dynasty, the end of the Ming was in sight.
Shortly after the ascension of Emperor Andronikos, Elysian soldiers had captured Jerusalem on June 15th 1626. There was no resistance among its inhabitants and the birthplace of Christianity was captured. It was a blessed day that would go down in history forever. The Pope and the rest of the Christian world would envy Elysian success, for where him and his catholic legions had failed over and over, the Orthodox Thema had succeeded.
Elysian commanders, under the order of Emperor Andronikos, would immediately spend the rest of the campaign restoring the holy city to its status as the centre of Christianity while the rest of the Levant would be seized. All Muslim in the city would be thrown out of the city, and their homes would be sacked along with sacred sites dedicated to the false prophet. Throughout the city, some opposition had arisen to the desecration of such places but were easily resolved with force. The Emperor would order that the Jewish regions of Jerusalem was to be untouched, for Andronikos had his own desires for them
The entire Muslim quarter of the city would be burnt, and all places of worship was to be destroyed. The Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, sacred temples among the Islamic world, would be completely destroyed. The Islamic World would recoil in horror as the Elysians ransacked their quarter of the holy city, and the burning of some of the faiths most sacred places was an unforgivable insult to the faith. Despite the horror that occurred, the Elysians were incredibly vengeful towards Islam during the campaign, making some question and noting the hypocrisy the Elysians had about the means of embracing the peaceful humanist teachings it had only recently adopted.
With not a single army in sight, the Mamluk Sultanate would be forced to surrender to the Elysians only a month after Jerusalem was liberated from the Egyptians. It was an incredibly punishing treaty among the Muslims, as virtually the entirety of the Levant was taken and kept under Elysian control. While the Sultanate would retain the Sinai and small portion of Arabia, their internal problems and lack of strength had made a reconquest of the region virtually impossible as long as Elysia maintained a presence in the holy lands.
The Levant would be returned under Christian control for the first time in centuries, and all but a few important territories across the region would be under the imperial banner. Due to the religious makeup of the region, the Levant had been overwhelmingly Muslim for centuries and had lost some of its Jewish and Christian roots. Even with the full backing of the Church, it would still take many years to re-introduce the true faith as a majority religion in the Levant. With the backing of the entire Elysian Orthodox church, the most sacred areas was to experience extensive missionary work, with the holy land becoming a primary focus.
After the weeks following the conquest, the administration of the new area was centralized under a new Elysian Exarchate. Syria et Palaestina would be founded on July 28th 1626, where the new exarch would include much of the land taken from the Sassanian Empire at the Roman Empire’s greatest extent, as well as the large urbanized cities of the Levant. With the area being retaken by Elysia, the area would be ruled by an Elysian-led Syrian exarch in cooperation with the ruling elite
Unsurprisingly, the Persians had openly announced the Elysian Empire as their rival within the Near East and an enemy of the Islamic faith. While nowhere near as powerful as the Elysians they had declared their hatred against, Persia did pose a serious threat to regional interests, especially due to the establishment of a new exarch that haven't been completely integrated into the new administration yet.
Among the lands of Asia was an archipelago, which despite having been explored by the Empire for several decades now, had never seen any real serious settlement attempted by the Elysians. Largely populated by established realms in the area, the region had never interested Elysia as much as the lands of Australia and Taiwan did. With these lands under the Empire, the Empire had turned towards the spice islands.
The Elysians had believed that they had discovered Maniolas, a name used by Ptolemy to refer to a group of islands to the south of China, along with another island known to the Empire as Baroussai. Explorers would speak that that the country was recorded to Ptolemy's maps when a sailor named Hippalus had told him the existence of "beautiful islands" in southeastern Far East. While it was not the true name of the island, the name had stuck among the explorers and Imperial settlement of Maniolas would start to begin.
On the borderlands of Syria et Palaestina, a neighbouring warlord state known as the Fadl were conquered and incorporated into the exarch. Ruled by a group of Arabian nobility known as the Sauds, they were crushed under Imperial might.
Despite having lost almost everything within the previous couple of decades, the pirates of Vinland were still conducting raiding operations along the Elysian coastline. Previously kept dormant for years, the Empire was both enraged and amused that the Althing still had the tenacity to maintain continued hostility. With this raid however, it would be the largest of its kind within a generation, and the Empire was eager to soak the frozen north with the blood of the foolish Vinlandic people.
As religious efforts proceeded in Syria et Palaestina, some regions were adapting to the true faith better than other states. The significance of Jerusalem once again being under the banner of the Empire helped accelerate this growing process, as the willing and the brave started to embrace Christianity.
With Islamic dominance of the Levant after many many centuries, Muslims across the region were not ready to accept Elysian political and religious supremacy by peaceful means and erupted into open rebellion. A Jihad was launched among the Levant by the zealous and the completely fanatical, targeting any Christian ‘crusader’ they seen.
In response, the Empire would respond with just as much zeal as the Jihadists and prove the Muhammadians with the might of Imperial steel. The Jihad would be put down with extreme force and almost instantly, where thousands of zealots would be massacred by the Imperial army. Husayn Nasuh, one of the pivotal leaders of this Jihad against Elysian rule, would be captured after the Battle of Sayda and executed in Damascus, where the central position of the large city was being selected as the Exarch’s capital.
In the campaign to consolidate the remainder of the Levant and secure it within Imperial rule, the Empire organised a campaign against the Anizah to conquer Transjordan from them. While investigating the tribe, the Empire would make a surprising breakthrough that the Ottoman Empire had signed an alliance with them, providing Elysia with the ability to kill two birds with one stone. With one half of the Imperial army surrounding the Ottoman lands, and the other positioned close to the Jordan river, the Empire declared war on March 21st 1628.
In what would become the final battle that the Ottoman Empire would ever face, the Turkish forces were wiped out to the last man and completely humiliated. With the completely annihilation of the once fearsome Ottoman army, all that the Empire had to do was to seize their capital.
With an Anizah army failing to break through the Elysian assault, it had left their defenses open. Unfortunately suffering heavy losses during an attempt to relieve the siege of Kerak castle, it had left the Empire to concentrate on breaking the defense of the enemy. Unexpectedly, Kerak would put up much more of a resistance then initially thought due to an well-supplied and entrenched enemy, leaving the siege to last much much longer then expected
After decades of siege, the breakthrough on the Siege of Amasya would occur on the sixty ninth day. It’s fall to Elysia would send shock waves across the entire Islamic world, and would signal the complete end of Turkish and Islamic rule in Anatolia. No longer would the Turkish menace ever threaten Christian Europe again, and not longer would they pose a threat to the people of Anatolia. The Elysian Empire and her Exarchs now stood as the undisputed power in the East.
The Ottoman Empire was over.
With new developments within metalwork and glassmaking, more refined scientific instruments were being created that magnify the incredibly distant and the incredibly small. These would prove invaluable to the Empire’s astronomers and natural philosophers, and chemists had began to hone their craft with more complex tools. This recent breakthrough had given Elysian Empire an incredible edge in the production of the scientific equipment, and intelecturals across the Empire eagerly awaited the discoveries that could now be made possible.
After a lengthy siege, the defenders of Al Karak surrendered after succumbing to hunger and disease. The defenders of the castle would surrender to Imperial forces and become prisoners of war, while the Empire would take the castle and the area around it.
The conclusion of the siege of Al Karak would be what was needed to enforce a surrender of Anizah, and the war would come to a decisive conclusion. The remainder of Transjordan would be seized by the Empire, where only the Mamlukean held southwest of the country would be safe due to the truce between Elysia an the Sultanate.
After months of preparation and negotiating with the natives, Elysian settlement of Maniolas arrived on the eastern portion of the Island. At first the interactions between the peoples of the archipelago were dealt with by diplomatic means, largely by Liaison interactions and native curiosity. After several months on the island, once the Empire had established the a foothold among the archipelago, the Empire seemed interested in granting decentralized rule to the island or conquering the region outright.
Christianity would spread among the island through the territories that the Empire held an influence over. Through interaction with one of the many tribes in the region, one of the Elysian settlers was able to cure the son of an influential tribal chief. In gratitude, the tribal chief and his entire village would convert to Elysian Orthodoxy. The Empire had seemed interested in the spice trade among the islands, and once that should be secured, the financial gain from Asian trade would finance religious missions among the region.
After years of chaos in China, the Ming Dynasty would completely collapse following the capture of Beijing by rebel forces. On August 5th 1628, the Ming would completely shatter and new warlord realms would appear overnight. The Mandate of Heaven was now available to anyone who could unite China, and new violent period in the long history of China was about to take place. The Second Warring States period had begun.
Within Vienna, the Habsburg Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire had implemented more of their reforms to centralise Imperial rule. The Ewiger Landfriede, one of many Imperial reforms, declared that member states were forced to solve their disputes in courts of law rather than a battlefield. This would make all internal warfare among the member states of the Empire come to a complete stop, only strengthening Austrian authority even further.
After decades of Imperial rule, Elysia had claimed the entirety of the Pacific Islands under Imperial Rule. The Mare Nostrum of the Pacific, as incredible of a feat that it was, was not completed. It did however, bring a new meaning to the Elysian meaning of ‘Our Sea’.
With the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and all of Anatolia restored to Hellenic-Elysian rule, the Empire had re-established the Theme System. The Empire had recovered from the brink of destruction, and many called for the reestablishment of the old Imperial administrative system to ensure that this would never happen again. Greek naming would be restored across all of Anatolia, all the while Hellenic rule would be cemented along Anatolia during the process of Hellenization in Anatolia.