"Over there stands a miserable collection of sheep-worrying ass weasels. There are priests' assholes with more wit than those chamber pot drinkers. Do they deserve to live? I think not."
-attributed to Strategos Leo Neokastrites
Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die...
1631 continued: It is said that Andreas Niketas was the one to coin the phrase ‘the trait a general most needs is to be lucky’ although military aphorisms of unknown origin are usually sourced to him, so that assertion is uncertain. But it is a true statement nonetheless.
On the second day of the Allied siege of Belgrade the main Belgrade arsenal issues a leaky powder barrel to one of the defensive batteries, which then takes a direct hit from a Triune howitzer. The shell ignites the powder trail, the flame racing up it. The resulting explosion is heard in Ohrid. It is a clear disaster, taking out the bulk of the garrison’s powder and a sizeable portion of its other supplies stored adjacent to the arsenal, as well as killing or wounding a tenth of the garrison plus seriously damaging the fortifications. [A Spanish fortress under siege by the French during the Peninsular War was crippled by an identical mishap.] Vauban immediately shifts his attacks to the damaged sectors.
So now there is a serious risk that the anvil might shatter before the hammer is ready and Megas Domestikos Nikolaios Mouzalon, now in personal command of the Roman armies in Europe, really does not want to see Belgrade in Theodor’s hands. He was present during all the sieges of Belgrade during the Mohacs War and is painfully aware of how formidable an intact Belgrade can be in the hands of an enemy.
At this point he has almost seventy five thousand men under arms. The Bulgarian, Macedonian, Helladic, Thracian, Opsikian, and newly arrived from the east Chaldean tagmata have mustered with Crown Prince Lazar bringing fifteen thousand Serbs as well. It is a force numerically similar in size to the one besieging Belgrade. While it would be preferable to wait while more Roman forces arrive from the east, Casimir’s cavalry screen makes getting clear news from Belgrade impossible, which helps Mouzalon think the worst.
Alternative efforts to gain more information via the Danube are also a miserable failure. Danube riverboats beat their way up the current only to meet hastily erected earthen fortifications containing gun batteries. That is to be expected. What is not expected are rafts laden with explosives, launched from the shore with lit fuses, which drift down on the gunboats. Now the accuracy of these are bad and with no way to direct the explosions they cause minimal damage to gunboat hulls. However it takes much less to damage the oar banks and render the gunboats easy targets for the shore batteries. Three attempts to run the gauntlet end with five gunboats blasted to pieces and another three badly damaged, a third of the entire Danube flotilla.
Mouzalon elects to march now.
For diplomatic reasons Crown Prince Lazar with his Serbs is put in command of the left wing, his forces bolstered by the Chaldean tagma. The suave debonair Mouzalon doesn’t have a high opinion of the “uncouth peasant” Leo Neokastrites, now sixty-four years old and accompanied by his seventeen and fifteen year old great nephews who serve him as aides. But still he would prefer having him in charge of the left wing but Lazar, who is soon to be King (his father has suffered four strokes since the start of the war and is clearly failing fast), insists on a prestigious command.
On August 14 near the village of Sopot south of Belgrade the two armies draw up for battle, Blucher choosing to fight away from the city to avoid the risk of having the garrison pitch into his rear during the battle. Both sides muster slightly over seventy thousand men. Although the impetus for the battle has been a Roman offensive, Blucher chooses to be tactically offensive. He is aware that sizeable Roman reinforcements are on the way so wants to wreck this army before they arrive. Also a significant victory over the relief army may convince the Belgrade garrison to capitulate. Blucher knows he has reinforcements of his own but can’t supply them until he has Belgrade as a depot.
The artillery starts trading shells at 10AM and for the first two hours Blucher keeps a steady pressure on the Serb-Roman lines, its purpose not to force a breakthrough but to distract the enemy while he works a force of Hungarian cavalry and mounted infantry around the Roman right flank. However on the Roman left there is a walled villa, set too far forward to be incorporated into the Serb-Roman lines, but occupied by a 700-strong garrison as a defensive bastion.
August von Mackensen is commanding the German troops here and while he doesn’t press his attacks too hard he quickly notes that the troops in the villa haven’t gotten any replacement ammunition (it is due to an administrative snafu, although whose is never determined). A sudden assault at noon overwhelms the defenders, the survivors fleeing as they are cut down. Mackensen immediately puts in more troops and some artillery, the cannon punishing the Serbs terribly. Blucher, spying a potential opportunity, immediately reinforces Mackensen with more infantry and cavalry, including the Polish horse.
Lazar, alarmed at the losses, orders six of the Chaldean tourmai to attack and retake that villa. Neokastrites furiously protests, arguing that any assault is suicidal with the Polish cavalry swarming menacingly behind the German lines. Lazar insists, arguing that the villa is too dangerous to be left in enemy hands. Despite repeated arguments Lazar remains adamant, also explicitly ordering the strategos not to appeal to Mouzalon. And while Neokastrites thinks this is stupid, he is a soldier and orders are orders.
So to the surprise of Mackensen and Blucher six thousand Roman troops leave their prepared positions and begin to advance forward, a high-ranking Roman officer mounted and riding ahead of them. It is Neokastrites. Although he was not ordered to personally lead the assault he is not going to send his men into this of all things and stay behind. He orders his senior tourmarch to take care of his grand-nephews and it is all the officer can do to keep the teenagers from joining their great-uncle.
It is, if nothing else, magnificent to see. The six tourmai move forward in perfect formation, as if on a parade ground. For a moment the Germans hold their fire and then the cannons open up on this target. Still the Chaldeans advance, still in perfect order. Theodor, looking on the scene, doffs his hats, points towards them, and tells his courtiers “Look, those are brave men!”
At 50 meters the Chaldeans halt, present arms (Neokastrites, somehow untouched, pulls back to the line), fire one crashing volley into the German lines, and charge. Clearly visible is Neokastrites, the first to crash into the enemy, his saber flashing. He goes down almost immediately as his men plow in behind him. The German lines shiver at the impact, several companies of Thuringians and Hessians routing. For a moment it looks like this attack might succeed, and then the Polish cavalry comes sweeping in on both flanks.
The Chaldeans are annihilated in twenty minutes. And now there is a gaping hole in the Serb-Roman lines, set in between the left wing under Lazar and the Roman center. Casimir, now up personally, leads the assault, the fresh Polish cavalry backed by German horse and foot coming up behind. They fly into the breach, turning to flank their foe, and are met by desperate and furious counter-attacks by the Roman reserves, the kataphraktoi leading the way, the air filled with the shrieks of dying men and mounts.
The reserve bloodies the Poles and annihilates the German horse but at the cost of their own destruction and with the Hungarian flanking maneuver threatening on the right Mouzalon can only commit enough forces to blunt the assault, not push it back. Finding the Serbs a softer target, Casimir wheels around to drive them back as Mackensen forces more troops in, driving a wedge between the Serbs and Romans. Lazar begins to retreat west while Mouzalon, his left flank hanging by a thread and his right about to come under attack, retires southeast.
Both retreats are relatively unmolested. Blucher’s cavalry is either bloodied or blown and in no condition to pursue. Still he has reason to be proud. For four thousand casualties he has inflicted close to nine thousand on the enemy (two-thirds of those are Chaldeans) and split the Roman and Serbian armies. After a brief respite he focuses on the Serbs, who are in worse shape and not retreating towards thousands of reinforcements. Meanwhile Vauban, playing up the defeat for all that it is worth, convinces Belgrade to surrender.
The news of Sopot does it for old King Stephan VII of Serbia, who dies at his palace in Rashka. Lazar rushes back to the capital and is quickly crowned King of Serbia.
At Sopot Emperor Theodor has Strategos Neokastrites buried with full military honors. On the spot where he was killed he orders a monument erected to the Chaldeans. On the plinth in Latin, German, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian and Greek are the words of the famous observation he made of them whilst they advanced. And underneath are the lines that made their charge immortal:
Half a League, Half a League,
Half A League Onward,
All in the valley of death
Marched the six thousand.
It is still there to this day.