Part 1 - Chapter 10 – The Emperor has no Cores
Emissaries from foreign courts flooded into Transylvania after peace was signed with the Ottomans, praising King István for his total victory over the Turks. He also received a personal letter from the Pope (this time a real one), congratulating him in his triumph over the enemies of Christendom.
It was a bittersweet victory for Transylvania, however. The Turks had been beaten back, their expansion checked, but it came at a great cost. Thousands of families all across Transylvania had dwindled in numbers, as sons and fathers rode to war against the Turks. King István himself had not escaped the war unharmed; a wound he had taken along his ribs refused to heal, and would re-open intermittently. Physcians arrived from all across Christendom, some even coming from the heathen lands to the East, all of them trying every possible way to heal the battle wound. The wound would not close, and secretly King István admitted to his wife that he knew it would be the death of him.
Administration of the state did not halt for the King, and certainly not the progression of the world. Rebels still needed to be squashed, funding for the army found, and research into new technology pursued. And there was still the ever present elephant in the room of Europe, the Golden Horde. The Horde had declared multiple Jihads against the Russian principalities, crushing Muscowy, and beating back the Princes of Novgorod. The Rus could no longer stand alone against such a giant, and a number of countries in Europe began discussing a unified push by the nations of Christendom to expel the Golden Horde from the lands of the Rus. Deliberations and discussions continued for years, until it was finally decided that the alliance would strike when the Horde was at its weakest, caught in the grip of a succession war, with their lands over-run with rebels. Even still, it would be a very hard war.
The Western borders of the Golden Horde, September, 1445
The crusade against the Moors was still active, called for by Castille some 20 years ago. Christendom had not truly responded, as it was simply seen as a Castillian war. However, King István knew that declaring war on the Moors would bring a boost to the economy, and so in June of 1446 the declaration of war was sent. Transylvania’s allies all answered the call, but everyone simply sat at home. Messages were received from the Pope again, calling for a swift destruction of Morroco, but King István simply responded with a letter stating that it would happen in due time. The Pope was not pleased.
The Bohemians, still standing as the Holy Roman Emperor, decided that now was the time to strike again at the Austrians. The Austrians had fed the Bohemian king false information, stating that the main Austrian army had left the homeland to go fight in North Africa against the Moors, and so Bohemia declared war against the Austrians in June of 1446, bringing with them quite a long list of allies to the fight.
The Call to Arms from Austria, June, 1446
Transylvania naturally answered the call, the memory of Austria’s noble sacrifice in the crusade against the Turks still fresh in King István’s mind. The Transylvanian army was mobilized, and began moving towards Mazovia. The plan was relatively simple; Transylvania would deal with Mazovia, Austria with Bohemia. Brandenburg, which came to Austria’s aid, drew the short straw. Their goal was to distract the Bohemians so that a quick peace could be resolved, as a drawn out war against the Bohemians would end in disaster, due to the massive manpower reserves and armies that the Holy Roman Emperor could draw upon.
The Austrian-Bohemian war of 1446
Everything went off as planned. The Transylvanian army crossed the border at Ersekujvar into Mazovia, and engaged the Mazovian army. King István led the army, even in his weakened state, giving the soldiers a huge boost to their morale. István was fast becoming a legend in Transylvania, having catapulted the small country to international fame. Here was the man who had led the armies of Tranyslvania to victory in a war that had seemed doomed to failure at the start. The Mazovians couldn’t stand against such an army, and were decimated. They lost over 7,000 men in the first engagement of the war, and fled to their capital of Warszawa, where the Transylvanians pursued them and destroyed them.
The Austrians were faring better than expected to the West as well. A number of the smaller Bohemian armies had been knocked out of the war, and the armies of Austria were steadily advancing into the Emperor’s lands. Brandenburg was slowly being destroyed to the North though, as the Bohemian juggernaut swept across their lands, razing cities and destroying what meager resistance the Germans could muster against them. Brandenburg was forced to sue for peace with the Bohemians in February of 1447, signing the humiliating Treaty of Berlin. The Bohemian army began moving south to deal with the Austrians, and for a moment in time it seemed that the war would turn against Transylvania and its ally.
The Treaty of Berlin, February, 1447
The Bohemian armies were marching south post haste, now that their northern frontier was secured. However, a diplomat within the court of Bohemia had sent peace feelers to the Austrians during this time. Normally, such a move would be meaningless unless it was from the Crown, however this move began a wave of uncertainty among the peasantry in Bohemia. All they knew was that their kingdom was seeking peace with the Austrians, and why would they want peace if the war could be won? The state of affairs within Bohemia rapidly crumbled because of this tiny move, and was compounded by the total Austrian victory at the Battle of Ostmarch, where a 12,000 strong Austrian army had broken a Bohemian army nearly twice its size. Facing rising dissent and the possibility of other regional powers attacking the homeland, the king of Bohemia, Oldřich I, was forced to sue for peace with the Austrians, and signed the Treaty of Breslau on May 26th, 1447.
The Battle of Ostmarch, March, 1447
The Treaty of Breslau, May, 1447
The Transylvanian army returned home from Mazovia, but King István received a call to arms from their ally Greece, who was under attack from the Ottomans. István could not respond, however. The Transylvanian army was still recovering from the war with Bohemia, and the people were exhausted with the constant warfare. Transylvania had no choice but to decline, and watch Greece get absorbed again into Turkish hands.
Greece is annexed by the Ottomans, July, 1448
Messengers were received by István, notifying him of new developments in the west. Bohemia had annexed their vassal, Mazovia, growing their holdings in Europe by a sizeable amount. Farther west, the Kingdom of Castille took control of the Crown of Aragon, inter-twining the kingdoms, to be ruled as one.
The Bohemian annexation of Mazovia, November, 1449
The Iberian Peninsula, November, 1449