The Invasion of 1812, A Northumbrian Survival Timeline

[FONT=&quot]The Invasion of 1812, A Northumbrian Survival Timeline[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]865, the North Sea[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Ivar the Boneless gazed with greedy contemplation at the shores which were fast approaching. He could see a few dark-clad figures huddled on the beach. More sheep for the slaughter! More gold vessels for plunder and easy victories. He crowed aloud to his thegns. "Let their God of peace save them!" A deep-throated roar of derision filled the air.

Clouds gathered and the North Sea grew rough. It would be a close-run race to reach the shore, but the long-ships were sturdy. Ivar called upon Odin and dedicated the lives of the local monks to his sacrifice. They would dangle from their own coppices of oak and elm. The warriors began to chant as they rowed.

The figures on the shore ran in panic except for one tall and ascetic monk, Brother Ethelred, who cried aloud "St Aidan, St Cuthbert and Blessed Hilda, intercede with the Lord of Peace for our lives. Deliver us from the fury of the Northmen."

The long-ships drew closer and the brother prepared himself for death, suppressing his disappointment and doubts. Then the long-ships surged forward at great speed. The impact of the shoals dismasted them and broke many an oar. Frantically, the warriors lightened the ships, but the storm grew in its intensity. Even as the great waves lifted the long-ships over the shoals, they crashed over them in primordial violence, smashing them to matchwood. Ivar and his thegns sank, their lungs bursting. [/FONT]
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Thus drowned the Great Heathen Army. The few, bedraggled and dispirited survivors could not rally in force and were cut down or surrendered. One Norwegian warrior, Olaf, a survivor of Ivar’s long-ship, was converted to Christianity, became a monk, and later canonised for his missionary efforts in Scandinavia. He was known as the Apostle of the Norse.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]865, Eoforwic[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

The bells of St Peter's great church rang out for the Mass of Thanksgiving pealing joyously over the thatched roofs of Eoforwic. Ælla and Osberht knelt side by side before the Archbishop and put aside their differences with each other and the Holy Mother Church. The Great Deliverance had sobered many a man and recalled them to their duty. They swore amity and unity.
Ælla would take the title prince and become heir to his brother as king of Northumbria. In 876, Osberht abdicated and entered a monastery to atone for his earlier sins of violence. The practice became widespread among Anglian royal families.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]911, Normandy

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[FONT=&quot]Rollo the Fierce looked upon the ruin of his army at the hands of the French nobles. He shook his head and wondered if a curse had descended on his countrymen. The men of the South had grown teeth. Perhaps there was something to their God, after all. The army retreated and took to its ships. It sailed north never to return. The Viking Age had come to an end.

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[FONT=&quot]Author’s Premise[/FONT][FONT=&quot]: The Viking Age comes to an end prematurely in two major military failures, the Danish Invasion of 865 and the Northmen’s Invasion of Normandy in the tenth century. Although violence still racks Europe, its geopolitical development changes significantly. Anglia remains detached from the continent. In the wake of Br Ethelred’s seeming miracle of the Great Deliverance, the power and prestige of the church becomes enormously strong. The church enforces peace first in Anglia then between all the states of the British Isles. The occasional attempts at war lead to excommunication and deposition. Centralisation of states fails to occur because the power of the earls and the church frustrates it and there is no external stimulus to galvanise it. The constant wars caused by the shifting balance of powers on the continent turns its orientation inwards and leaves the British Isles isolated, somewhat more backward economically, but secure. The Age of Discovery is far more limited than in OTL. Though the Americas are rediscovered by Europe in the sixteenth century, there is very little colonisation and mostly trading posts. Plague and the Reformation remained fixed points though most colonisation and the Middle Eastern crusades are butterflied away. There is a lesser Renaissance in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Continental Background: 10th to 18th centuries[/FONT][FONT=&quot]:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Scandinavia: St Olaf returned to Norway in 885 and ended his days as Bishop of Trondheim. He achieved the conversion of most of Western Scandinavia. The Vikings reoriented their interest to the east and to Iceland. Although their several attempts at colonisation of North America ended in famine or bloody failure, nonetheless, the knowledge of the routes remained. Finland succumbed to Viking invasion by the early 11th century and Livonia (mid) and Novgorod (late) later in the century. Livonia and Novgorod were heavily colonised and the population became a mix of Swedish and Slavic. The Baltic remained peripheral to the continent politically, but not economically. Grain and furs were the mainstay of the trade. The states in 1812 are: The kingdom of Denmark (incl. Skåne), the kingdom of Norway (incl. Iceland), the Grand Duchy of Gothia (S. Sweden), the Grand Duchy of Finland (N. Sweden/Finland), the Grand Duchy of Livonia, the Duchy of Novgorod.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Germany: Germany was able to concentrate its efforts on defeating the Magyar raids in the absence of a northern threat. Frederick Barbarossa united Germany in the late twelfth century and allowed the Italian states much greater autonomy, thereby keeping his hold over the whole of Germany. Despite occasional attempts at centrifugalism, Germany remained united. The Hapsburgs became German kings in the fifteenth century after intermarriage with the Wettin dynasty. They retained the capital of Leipzig. The defining event of the Early Modern Period in Europe was the Protestant Reformation which began in royal Leipzig. The Hapsburg kings of Germany were in conflict with the Papacy over the imperial crown, ecclesiastical jurisdictions and tithes. Martin Luther's defiant stance on theology and Papal corruption was fortunately timed. Instead of sharing Jan Hus' fate, the religious reformer became the champion of German independence from external interference. Protestantism spread rapidly throughout northern Europe as rulers exempted themselves from Papal allegiance and availed themselves of the wealth of the monasteries. Germany and Scandinavia quickly became Lutheran. Further religious dissent, such as by Calvinists, Anabaptists and Unitarians, was quickly and decisively suppressed by the power of the state. The Wars of Religion raged for nearly two centuries, ending only in 1690 with the Treaty of Antwerp. The German kings, secure in their absolutist and centralised control, abolished the Papal-associated Holy Roman Empire and assumed the title of Kaiser, with its classical associations, and Protector of Protestantism. The Treaty confirmed the three accepted religions: Roman Catholicism (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Croatia), Lutheran Protestantism (Scandinavia, Germany, Frisia, Poland, Bohemia) and Reformed Catholicism (British Isles, Hungary). Other denominations, such as Calvinism, were deemed heretical by all parties and were driven underground. The long-established balance of power in Europe between France and Germany was overturned by the marriage of Maria Hapsburg and Casimir V Piast (the Silesian branch survives) in 1738. The unification of Germany and Poland in 1743 leads to the bitterly fought War of German Succession (1743-68) which devastates Central and Western Europe. Germany-Polonia wins despite the famous French military elan and discipline.[/FONT]

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Poland and Hungary: Under pressure from German imperialism, Poland and Hungary form a marital alliance in the 11th century. Their cavalry armies, the finest in Europe, drive back the Mongols in 1241 through a combination of stubbornness, cunning (they used the[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Massagetae[/FONT][FONT=&quot] cavalry trap which destroyed Cyrus the Great) and subversion (they bribed the western contingents of the Mongol army, including Turks and Kwarazmians to change sides at the crucial point). The following crusade drove the Mongols back to Russia. They soon withdrew beyond Astrakhan. Poland and Hungary became a battleground for religious conflict in the Reformation, but Protestantism benefitted from Piast royal patronage and won the day in the end in the north. The price was the end of the Union of Crowns with largely Catholic Hungary seceding to a native dynasty, the Esterházy in 1571. Poland united mar[FONT=&quot]it[/FONT]ally with Germany in 1738. Hungary was devastated repeatedly during the Wars of Religion because of its confessionally divided population. The disastrous loss of Transylvania to Byzantium in the mid seventeenth century brought about an internal revolution which overthrew the absolutist Esterházy. Reformed Catholicism, religious toleration and parliamentary restraint over the monarchy finally brought peace under Stephen VII (1679-1728). Hungary controlled the Pannonian plains, the Banat and Slovakia.[/FONT]

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Russia: The Russians never united. Their Principalities, though badly devastated, survive the Mongol invasion. Novgorod, by 1812, is culturally, religiously and linguistically detached from Russia. The Principalities of Yaroslav, Tver and Suzdal dominate the north while the Kingdom of Kiev controls the whole of Ukraine except for Byzantium’s Bosporan province. The Russian states are semi-constitutional monarchies[FONT=&quot],[/FONT] Orthodox and [/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]quite wealthy from trade[/FONT]. The Patriarch of Kiev heads the Autocephalous Church.[/FONT]
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Frisia: This grand duchy was the focus of warfare between France and Germany from 11th to 17th centuries. It was in consequence heavily fortified. The cities became wealthy from textiles and from the carrying trade, ranging from the Baltic to the Western Mediterranean. By the 17th century, it was the centre of Northern European banking. The Protestant Grand Duchy of Frisia, comprising all of the Flemish-speaking lands, finally gained its independence from France in 1690 by the Treaty of Antwerp. It was henceforth an ally of Germany, later Germania-Polonia.[/FONT]
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France: The early defeat of the Viking invaders and raiders strengthened the western part of Europe. The Capetian dynasty was able to unify France by the late eleventh century. In the absence of a strong Normandy and with Anglia disunited and focussed internally, France was able to overcome its centrifugal tendencies. In the High and Late Middle Ages, it made repeated though unsuccessful military attempts to absorb Northern Spain and fought with Germany over Frisia. In the end, the Angevins, a cadet branch of the Capets became kings of Aragon through [FONT=&quot]m[/FONT]arriage. When the Valois took power in France, Aragon became detached. Southern Europe remained Catholic in the Wars of Religion. Valois France and Angevin Spain rallied their forces against the northern powers. The[FONT=&quot]se wars[/FONT] absorbed men and gold that might otherwise have gone to colonialism. France and Spain were generally allies henceforth though often loosely. The Valois dynasty was weakened by its defeats in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They faced several decades of weakness and unrest, especially after state bankruptcy in 1788, but survives through repressive measures. Charles XII (1772-1809) is himself ineffective, but dominated by his steely Spanish wife, Marie Catherine, who organises the Tuileries Massacre in 1800 which decapitates aristocratic opposition. The young Dauphin, Henry, played a personal role in the violence, gaining the nickname "the teenaged ogre." France was weaker than of old, but seeking to widen its influence once again. It sought to conquer Anglia, less the Celtic states in 1812 to regain the wealth and population to fight Germania-Polonia again.[/FONT]
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Iberia: Spain engages in its Reconquista in 11th and 12th centuries, but is more centralized and less troubled by internal strife because of the need to repulse French imperialism which had shifted south after unification. The Angevins becomes kings of Aragon in early 14th century through marriage and then of Castille and Aragon, as the kingdom of Spain, again through marital alliance in the late fourteenth century. Granada falls in 1404. Portugal remains independent largely because of its poverty and peripheral location. This leads to warfare with the emerging Berber Caliphate (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Tripolitania). Spanish attempts to conquer North Africa fail though the contest to control West African trade is more equal. The Jesuit Order has notable success in West Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Spain and Portugal have divided the Caribbean between them and both have trading colonies from Brazil as far north as Florida. Attempts to defeat native empires were disastrously defeated when small expeditions, though heavily armed, were simply overrun. This and the Spanish focus on the Wars of Religion had a dampening effect on the Age of Exploration and Colonisation. [/FONT]
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Italy: The Italian states were rich, but less dominant in commerce given the Byzantine revival and the consequent absence of crusades. The prelates and dukes were able to withstand the rise of the merchant class politically. Internecine strife between states attracted the younger sons of Europe as mercenaries throughout the Middle Ages. By the 17th century, the Papacy has become a purely ecclesiastical power with no political control outside the City of Rome. France controls Savoy, but the rest of Italy is divided into moderately sized principalities and duchies: Lombardy, Liguria, Tuscany, Verona, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Urbino, Latium, Campania, Sicily-Calabria. Apulia is a Byzantine province. Italy is the centre of Southern European banking, science and industry.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Croatia: Croatia maintains its independence under the descendants of Tomislav the Great. In the thirteenth century, it conquers Bosnia. [/FONT]
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Byzantium: At the time of the Great Deliverance in 865, the great Eastern Roman Empire was beginning to recover from long decades of religious dissent and political and military weakness. The tenth and early eleventh centuries saw expansion and consolidation. The battle of Manzikert in 1071 was a disastrous defeat. But Alexios I Komnenos uses good judgement in his commercial concessions to the Italians in the immediate aftermath, granting them only for three year blocks. He hinders the Seljuk advance with mercenaries until the new military districts of the Balkans can yield well-trained squadrons and regiments. The Serbian and Bulgarian knights are instrumental in his crushing victory at Iconium in 1091. The Turks are driven out of Anatolia and neutralised as a military power. Thereafter, the commercial concessions are phased out and the financial crisis eased. In the 14th century, Byzantium benefits from the westward orientation of Poland-Hungary to absorb the independent principality of Wallachia. Byzantium held its Balkan possessions and expanded into Transylvania, but was slowly pushed back by the Arab Caliphate in wars of siege and attrition. Once again significant portions of E. Anatolia were lost though the fortress city of Trebizond held out. In 1763, the Saffavids seceded from the Caliphate, effectively saving a weakened Byzantium. Basil VI (1791-1815) modernised the Byzantine state, giving it a new lease of life.

The absence of crusades, the eclipse of the Turks and the weakening of the Mongols allows for a revival of the Arab Caliphate in the fourteenth century. Tamerlane dies from a fall from his horse and is never historically notable.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The British Isles: 10th to 18th centuries[/FONT][FONT=&quot]:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In Anglia, Viking raids diminish after 865 and there is no settlement. The kingdoms of Mercia, E. Anglia, Kent and Northumbria survive. The ascendancy of Wessex and its centralisation under Alfred and his successors never comes to pass. The power of the church becomes very strong after the Great Deliverance. The prelates and abbots enforce peace aggressively through religious sanctions. By the 12th century, towns have begun to grow. Wessex is torn apart by civil wars in the 13th century in the wake of the attempt of Ethelhelm IV to conquer Kent and Mercia. The royal house dies out in decades of fighting and smaller states emerge. The bishops become independent and smaller principalities emerge. The prince-bishops of Salisbury and Winchester and the Bishop of Wells rule much of the core of Wessex. Cornwall (under native princes), Devon, Dorset, Surrey and Sussex regain their independence. Bristol is a free city dominated by its merchants. The Celtic states remain wholly independent. Northumbria retains Lothian and inherits Strathclyde through marriage, but otherwise Scotia is united. Anglia had held aloof from poltical and military developments on the continent. The Prince-Bishops declared their independence from Rome after the early failure of the Council of Trent. They rejected Protestantism though and reformed the church from within, maintaining a Catholic liturgy and theology. The Prince-Bishops name themselves Archbishops and found universities, the first in Anglia, in the mid sixteenth century. The influence of Erasmus spread widely across the islands. The Frisian ended his years as Bishop of Dunwich. The Synod of Dunwich in 1572 brought agreement over theological matters across the islands. Lichfield and Dunwich become Archbishoprics as part of the synod. In 1575, Edmund the Peaceful of Northumbria convokes the Council of Jarrow which draws up agreements on raiding and piracy between the various states to be enforced by the rulers and guaranteed by the church through excommunication.

The Welsh principalities and Irish kingdoms remained independent. Mercia was the strongest power in the islands, but more of a primus inter pares. East Anglia was wealthy from trade and textiles.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In 1812, the largest cities in Anglia proper were:

Bristol (free city), Lichfield (Mercia), London (E. Anglia), Canterbury (Kent), Norwich, Colchester (E. Anglia), Winchester, Nottingham (Mercia), Salisbury, York (Northumbria), Chester, Lincoln (Mercia).

The capitals of the kingdoms were Lichfield (Mercia), Canterbury (Kent), Norwich (E. Anglia), Winchester, Salisbury, Wells (Archbishops, Bishop), York (Northumbria), Hastings (Sussex), Southwark (Surrey), Dorchester (Dorset), Exeter (Devon) and Truro (Cornwall). Dumbarton is the capital of Scotia. Armagh is the capital of Ulster.

King list of the House of Swale, rulers of Northumbria:

1249-67 Edward II the Restorer
1267-1307 Ethelred IV
1307-48 Edmund VI
1348-61 Edward III the Short
1361-76 Alfred IX
1376-1430 Edmund VII
1430-63 Ethelred V the Builder
1463-79 Ethelred VI
1479-93 Edward IV
1493-1531 Edward V the Merchant
1531-74 Edward VI the Pious
1574-77 Edmund VIII the Peaceful
1577-1601 Leofric III
1601-14 Edward VII the Slender
1614-17 Leofric IV
1617-45 Edward VIII
1645-61 Edward IX, St Edward (Abdicated to become Abbot
of Ampleforth)
1661-99 Edward X
1699-1713 Edward XI
1713-37 Edward XII the Wanton
1737-77 Edward XIII the Wastrel
1777- Edward XIV[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Northumbria in 1778[/FONT][FONT=&quot]:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]At the beginning of Edward XIV's reign, Northumbria was still largely agricultural though the woollen towns of the West Riding had emerged as centres of manufacturing as early as the mid fifteenth century. The monasteries, bishops and nobles owned great estates though there were a goodly number of Yeoman farmers too. The crown was very heavily indebted by the excesses of the eighteenth century kings. Most of its estates were mortgaged or alienated.

The political and military structures were antiquated. The Privy Council was dominated by the the factions of the Earls and the Bishops, each protecting their respective interests. The royal position was quite weak after decades of sloth and neglect. The army was split into eight regiments of one thousand men each: the Royal Guards and Royal Household cavalry were at the personal disposal of the king. The Marshal, a member of the cabinet, was the hereditary commander of the other six regiments which were based on county levies: the Northern Borderers (Galloway and Lothian), the Westmorlands, the Cumberlands, the Lancashires, the Bernicians and the Yorkshires. The Earl of Westmorland was the marshal. Barons and gentry bought commissions to officer the regiments. The War Office was highly corrupt and quite inefficient. The Lord High Admiral, the preserve of the Earls of Hull, commanded the royal squadrons, six frigates at Hull, manned by Yorkshiremen and four frigates at the large fishing village of Liverpool (3K), manned by Lancastrians. The Admiralty was honest, but moderately inefficient.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The population was 1.2 million, principally countrymen. The largest cities were:York (90K), Edinburgh (60K), Lancaster (35K), Hull (35K), Bamburgh (30K)

The major towns were:
Dumfries (20K)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Carlisle, Ripon (15K)
Pontefract, Morpeth (10K)
Richmond, Whitby, Manchester (8K)
Leeds, Newcastle, Halifax (7K)
Bradford, Preston, Bolton, Penrith, Scarborough (6K)
Selkirk, Burnley, Bury, Sheffield, Pickering, Wakefield, Durham, Wigan, Kendall (5K).[/FONT]
 
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Map of Anglia in 1812

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Apologies for the typo of Leinster
 
So is the Typo of Leinster its official style in this timeline :D?

Seriously though this looks really interesting and well crafted a set up, I shall observe with interest.

Good luck to all involved given how you polished off Ivar with such dispatch they are going to need it :eek:
 
So is the Typo of Leinster its official style in this timeline :D?

Seriously though this looks really interesting and well crafted a set up, I shall observe with interest.

Good luck to all involved given how you polished off Ivar with such dispatch they are going to need it :eek:

Thank you kindly. Oh, the French do better than the Viking. They at least get ashore.
 
What happened to the Turks after their expulsion from Anatolia?

To be honest, I hadn't thought that through, but I think that the most likely options are being absorbed and acculturated by the Arab Caliphate or simply retreating back into central Asia. Very interesting question. Any thoughts yourself?
 
It is quite possible that you would see a "turkization" of previously Arab lands, particularly Mesopotamia and the levant. Turkish expansion is unlikely to stop after their expulsion from Anatolia and they would most likely not just return to their homelands in Central Asia. A very good TL so far, I look forward to seeing more installments.
 
To be honest, I hadn't thought that through, but I think that the most likely options are being absorbed and acculturated by the Arab Caliphate or simply retreating back into central Asia. Very interesting question. Any thoughts yourself?
Well, as Iudeaus said, it's more possible that the Turks would head south (Syria and Mesopotamia) after their explusion from Anatolia, but returning to Central Asia would be an incredible feat.
 
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It is quite possible that you would see a "turkization" of previously Arab lands, particularly Mesopotamia and the levant. Turkish expansion is unlikely to stop after their expulsion from Anatolia and they would most likely not just return to their homelands in Central Asia. A very good TL so far, I look forward to seeing more installments.

Fair enough, but remember that the Arabs revive in this TL.
 
Or the Turks go the way of the Huns and Avars, just another steppe people that got absorbed by settled populations.
 
Turks

Could the turks go southeast into India?

It is a long way, but then so is Central Asia. The main point for the background is that they are a badly beaten people militarily, so major plans of conquest are out of their reach. I quite like Josephus' suggestion a bit above: acculturation and disappearance.

I'll try to crack on with some personal background to Edward XIV this morning before he is king, but I'm still waking up and on my first mug of tea.
 
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