Bmao: Jerusalem is important religiously/culturally, so its loss is the most ‘mud in the eye’ for the Romans. But if Ibrahim’s main army gets smashed or shoved out of Syria, all of the territories lost to the rebels could be taken back by Egyptians/Ethiopians/militias without the main Roman army needing to get involved save for providing siege equipment/expertise.
HanEmpire: Its loss is embarrassing; it is the Holy City of Jerusalem after all. But as a military/economic asset it’s pretty irrelevant. Demetrios II would probably freak; Demetrios III is, at most, a bit irked.
In Ibrahim’s defense, the Romans are the only nearby peer power to the Ottomans with the ability to threaten their core territories (there’s no way Vijayanagar could project power all the way into Persia), so knocking them down is always a good thing in their eyes. And he’s never going to get a better opportunity than this.
Catconqueror: Taking Egypt would solve his supply issues, although he’d have to retake Gaza with its enlarged and improved garrison first, and then march down a long coastal road while Egyptian and Roman warships play target practice on his columns.
RogueTraderEnthusiast: Ignoring the moral implications, wiping out the rebel population makes good economic sense. The empty land can be used to reward the loyalist populations and also the bulk of the new Roman recruits were landless laborers previously. Giving them a Syrian farm is a nice ‘thank you for your service’ and hopefully keeps the mass of demobilized soldiers from slamming the economy and causing trouble. And thank you.
Stark: That’s Demetrios III’s thinking. A loyal Syria is a strong asset to the Empire. The state of affairs as it has been is most decidedly not.
Khaine: He does have heirs (haven’t been brought up yet). Haven’t determined yet their number/quality/character.
Evilprodigy: The Kingdom of the Isles was a breakaway state from Aragon ruled by a pretender (name escapes me) who took the Balearics and Sardinia as a consolation prize. Since then it was taken over by the Colonna family and took Corsica in an anti-Genoa alliance with Lombardy (this is what caused Kalomeros’ family to flee to Egypt).
Good analysis. The Ottoman army is still very much Iskandar’s army. It has a lot experienced veterans and able officers, many of which learned from Iskandar himself. And like Andreas Niketas or Genghis Khan, he had an eye for military excellence in subordinates (the best commanders do).
ImperatorAlexander: Looking back at it, I didn’t word that as well as I could. Demetrios is worried that Theodor will try some ‘grand gesture’ rather than call it quits, which is why he wants the eastern army intact and relatively disengaged in case he needs it.
Shard: As a whole, no. But some of the fringe areas like Khorasan, Yazd, Tabas, the central Asian region (the old Timurid Empire) and the Ottoman territories IOTL Pakistan might make a break for independence.
Minifidel: Theodor wouldn’t put it that way, but he’s invested too much into this to go out quietly. He’s playing the ultimate game of thrones, and if you don’t win…
You’re right about Far Eastern officers being more innovative, especially the higher ranks. If you make it to becoming a Katepano, you got to be smart and tough. If you’re not, you’re probably dead.
Also good analysis.
Curtain Jerker: Glad you liked it. Naming an ITTL general after an OTL one is an easy cheat to say ‘pay attention to this guy; he’s good.’ (Although saying that, now I want a Bazaine to show up.) The inversion would be fun; that’s why I made Leo Kalomeros a naval officer rather than a soldier.
I think comparing Sinan Pasha to the Gaza kastrophylax is unfair. The former was the commander of a significant detached army with an important assignment. The latter was posted to an, at the time, out-of-the-way and likely to be generally irrelevant fortress. The best Roman parallel to Sinan Pasha, I would say, is Thomas Amirales.
Theodor, for all his issues, has been blessed with probably Germany’s greatest generation of military talent. Meanwhile the Persians have a lot of high-quality officers from Iskandar’s days (much as how many of the strategoi in the Time of Troubles who’d cut their teeth under Andreas Niketas were high-quality themselves). There are some structural/cultural issues with the School of War that have been lingering as a sort of ‘poison fruit’ from the Time of Troubles. Once the war is over I’m playing some topical updates and probably the first one will be a sweep of Roman reforms such as Demetrios’ full tax-scheme and also including a revamp of the School of War.
The Roman general staff has been more involved lately with the logistics/intelligence side of things, rather than grand strategy.
A lot of the slaves will end up staying in Arles/Iberia. It saves the shipping cost across the Atlantic and they’d lack the tropical disease resistance of the Africans so they wouldn’t fetch as high a price in the Caribbean. They’d be like the Native American slaves in prices (2 of them ‘worth’ one African) but with much higher shipping cost. Plus working on sugar plantations isn’t conducive for long-term population growth. So some might go and survive, but attrition is literally a killer. Any that made it to the less-murderous mainland (that’s not Brazil) would have more of a chance.
Some points on what you said: Snafus happen in war- the ‘sn’ part stands for situation normal. It’s not necessarily bad leadership; it’s just war. The whole bit from the villa running out of ammo to Leo’s doomed charge is taken directly from OTL, the British side at Waterloo. By that argument, Wellington is a bad military commander. This is why I pointed out the cavalry charge into the fort with the powder bag worked (sort of) despite the siege being commanded by Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy; one can be really good but that doesn’t mean you’re perfect. (I’m not putting Gabras up in Eugene’s level, but not being perfect doesn’t equal bad).
And yes, there’s been some big corruption in the upper bureaucracy. That was the point behind the ‘Thomas Autoreianos’ interlude. I can’t have all the Roman leaders be good and loyal and smart and honest. That would be ASB. For the sake of reality, there have to be bad apples in places.
There were several prominent Roman generals since the death of Andreas Niketas. There was Petros Doukas (annihilated the Georgian army during the Orthodox War), Stefanos Doukas (backstabbing twit who unfortunately used his talents against fellow Romans during the Time of Troubles, but he routinely mauled other Roman armies despite being outnumbered most of the time), Giorgios Laskaris, and Andreas Drakos. That’s from 1517-1548. There’s a gap from then until 1590 or so, but the Empire was at peace except for the brief War of the Rivers during that time. It’s the last 45 years that are the issue.
TheCataphract: The big issue right now is the massive expansion. The Roman army almost doubled in size, meaning that the well-trained officers are stretched thin training lots of new recruits while the additional officers brought in, whether old retirees or hastily-trained new ones, have issues of their own. Which is why Theodoros wanted Ibrahim to rot for a while anyway before he attacked, since that gives him time to work and drill his new soldiers and officers.
There’s been some rotations in the east to give soldiers and officers some combat experience (Leo Neokastrites first showed up at Pyrgos). But it is a small fraction because of the expense. Also tropical diseases are a problem. The budding ‘Andreas Niketas to-be’ officer may die of malaria at 20 instead.
Wolttaire: There are local militias and tribal clients that could be used against rebellions, but the A and B+ military material is in Syria/Palestine or northern Mesopotamia.
Turgut Reis, as the best Ottoman siege commander, very likely was the one who took Arra from the Romans in the first place. So he’d be very well aware of how a Roman commander would go about reducing the place. That’s why he was able to pre-sight his guns on the best locations. That’s planning ahead.
Jjstraub4: The mentality is becoming ‘the only good Sunni Arab in the Empire is a dead one’. Shia Muslims are part of the minority militias that served during the Great Uprising and Eternal War and are part of the loyalist population being removed to the coast. Now in territories outside the Empire, relations are based more on realpolitik. This is a continuation of OTL Byzantine foreign policy, which was pragmatic when it came to allying Muslim states but was very firm on not wanting Muslim subjects in land directly controlled by Constantinople (Muslim vassal states were fine though).
InMediasRes: Yup, there was some rotation out east but the numbers were pretty limited, so impact was minimal.
Komnenos002: It’s not ‘centuries’. A time span of that length of bad Roman generals would include Andreas Niketas and Andreas Drakos. The issue has been the last 45 years of so. The Romans have been suffering from bad luck, a mediocre generation talent-wise, and there are some structural/cultural issues in the School of War that have been hampering things in the background.
JSC: Thanks for the really detailed comment/analysis. Much appreciated.
I’d forgotten I’d made that comment about the Sundering, but yes, we are.
The Laskarids are some sort of cousins to each other (and Theodoros Laskaris is related to Demetrios III).
Emperor Joe: The Megas Domestikos is the head of all Roman military units, so yes. There’s probably some sort of ‘War Room director’ who’s the on-site boss. But Mouzalon’s shift from field command to general oversight of the war effort is the shift of the position from a field to administrative post.
JohnSmith: Yes. Last name of Monomakos (don’t remember his first name off the top of my head). He fell off my radar so I never closed that up, but since he was active and of high rank (so older) in the 1590s I’m declaring that he died of old age a while back. He did pass on his expertise; the Roman/Ottoman forts in northern Syria and Mesopotamia that changed hands in the update were all top-notch and fully modern.
Lascaris: I’m glad somebody noticed that. Gabras got sacked while the guy (Sarantenos) who was the senior Roman negotiator for the treaty of Mashhadshar is still at his post. In Neokastrites’ defense, if he fought to the last bullet then there’d be a chance that the Kaisar gets killed. And remember how this war started.
Also the Akoimetoi at Drenovac were posted as the rearguard when the Romans withdrew and held off the Allied army by themselves long enough for Mouzalon to disengage, and then fought their way clear once night fell. So I think a good bit of their honor has been restored.
) to be a nice break. It's like I'm in a podcast within a story.