“The power of a bold man will
overturn a state,
The art of a necromancer also
Produces wonders.”
-Romance of the Three Kingdoms
1635 (Upper Rhine and Germany): Had Archbishop Ferdinand von Hohenzollern, otherwise known as Bone-Breaker, died on some battlefield in Roman Europe, that would’ve made life much easier for the Triunes come spring 1635. A veteran of the Brothers’ War, the Second Rhine War, and the War of the Roman Succession, the old prelate with the death of Blucher has an array of combat experience possibly unmatched in Christendom. He was already a general leading armies when Demetrios Sideros was still a freshman university student.
The House of Hohenzollern has, for 101 years now, maintained a lock on the Archbishopric of Cologne. The means have frequently been of dubious legality, with repeated whispers of bribery in the Papal Curia, but the success has elevated a rather minor German noble house into one of great prominence through the Holy Roman Empire and Europe.
During that time the Hohenzollern Archbishops, including Ferdinand who received the title in 1590 at the suspiciously young age of twenty-five [1], have substantially expanded their territory and authority. Ferdinand’s realm extends from the city of Koblenz at its southern border all the way up the Rhine valley to the border of the Duchy of Cleves, utterly dominating the Middle Rhine. Ironically the one fly in the ointment is the City of Cologne herself, an Imperial Free City and thus outside of clerical jurisdiction. There have been tensions and spats between City and Archbishopric since well before the Hohenzollerns got their hands on the later. The Archbishops have maintained the capital of their secular domains in the city of Bonn further south.
Nevertheless the domains of the Archbishopric are some of the most prosperous and populous (by area) in all of Christendom. The Rhineland is a major thoroughfare for commerce and manufacturing, with fertile agriculture adding to the mix. After Antwerp (140,000 people) and Hamburg (110,000 people), Cologne at 97,000 is the third largest city in the Holy Roman Empire, triple the size of the Wittelsbach capital at Munich. Ocean-going ships can still sail up the Rhine all the way to Cologne to directly unload their goods, which include Triune-shipped chinaware from Guangzhou and nutmeg from the Roman-controlled Banda Islands, carried by Lotharingian fluyts from Alexandria.
Despite the political tensions between City and Cleric, the economic ties between the polities are mutually beneficial. Cologne needs the foodstuffs, animal products, and rural manufactures of the Archbishop’s domains, while the Archbishopric needs the market, fiscal capital, and financial connections of the City. The expansion of the Lotharingian merchant marine in the past few decades has also been a boon to the Middle Rhine, whose wares can travel to more and further markets than before.
Thanks to the wealth, Archbishop Ferdinand has historically fielded one of the best, pound-for-pound, of the princely armies in the whole of the HRE. New recruits were corseted by a greater number than usual of professional soldiers, although that is much less the case now. But both then and now all are well-equipped, including regular uniforms. He lacks siege guns, but Bone-Breaker’s field artillery is light and fast-firing and in his cannon-to-men ratio he yields no ground to Spaniards, Triunes, or Romans.
Because of his strong resource base and the lenient terms of the Romans imposed after Thessaloniki, due to Demetrios III wanting him back in Cologne making trouble for Henri II, Ferdinand quickly bounces back. In June 1635 he has eight thousand men in the field, more than he ever mustered for Theodor’s campaigns in Rhomania, although here he has the advantage of fighting near home.
That, of course, is nowhere near enough to face the Triune juggernaut alone. However King Albrecht III gives him a Lotharingian commission, ranking him a general and giving him the command of sixteen thousand Lotharingian troops with which to defend middle Lotharingia. Also reinforcing him are the forces of the Bishop of Liege. An independent clerical state, the Bishops have often butted heads with the Lotharingian monarchs, given that the bishopric nearly bisects the Lotharingian state. However he recognizes the Triune menace and is willing to place his forces under the command of the Archbishop, although not a lay Lotharingian general. He brings 4000 additional troops, although Bone-Breaker is unimpressed by their quality.
The Army of Lorraine is the second of the three main Triune armies launching attacks all along the Lotharingian frontier. Numbering fifty thousand strong, it musters near twice the strength of Ferdinand and is commanded by Antoine Nompar de Caumont, Duke of Saint-Fargeau. Although he is descended from a family that has produced many fine soldiers and commanders, the Duke is twenty three and inexperienced, getting his posting because of his family’s political connection and great material wealth, helping to finance several tours in the Army. As such he is a poor choice to face Bone-Breaker even with his numerical superiority.
Basing from Chȃlons-sur-Marne, Duke Saint-Fargeau marches into northern Lorraine, setting up a siege of Verdun, which is not part of Lotharingia but a small sovereign bishopric and member of the Holy Roman Empire. He faces little opposition to his advance, much like his colleague the Duke of Nemours further south who is on his approach to Strasbourg.
Then breathless couriers fly into camp, bearing urgent reports. Ferdinand has stormed across the frontier, sacking the town of Sedan and massacring the garrison. A flying column of German cavalry and mounted infantry, commanded by Ferdinand’s “nephews” (illegitimate sons) Karl and Paul, has seized Rethel in a daring nighttime attack, securing a bridge across the Aisne River. And Bone-Breaker is heading straight for Reims, which is not well-fortified or garrisoned. The Archbishop couldn’t possibly hold the city for long, but the spectacle of having the city where the Kings of France are crowned in enemy hands for a single hour would be an utter humiliation.
Leaving his siege guns and a contingent to continue the siege of Verdun, Saint-Fargeau frantically races west to defend Reims. As he does, Ferdinand, whose main force has never left Sedan, slashes south, piling into the unprepared and outnumbered Triune soldiers left at Verdun. Spread out in the siege lines, Ferdinand is unable to kill or capture more than a fraction of the men before they flee, but the whole of the siege train is destroyed or captured. The new cannons are fine and expensive pieces, a most useful addition to the fortifications of Verdun and Metz.
Saint-Fargeau races back to Verdun when he hears the news but is far too late. When his lead troops march into range of the city, their former siege guns fire on them. To add an extra insult, Karl and Paul’s flying column attack an inn, an inn which they know to be the lodgings of the Count of Eu. The Count and all his papers are seized and bundled across the Lotharingian frontier.
This has been a complete embarrassment for the Triunes. Henri II is fuming and Gaston, the Duc d’Orleans, immediately decamps from the siege of Lille to take command of the situation. He has veteran commanders in the north, where sieges predominate and where Vauban is, who can cover that area. He will deal with the Archbishop personally.
Gaston, who has crossed swords with Ferdinand before, frankly admits to his cousin Henri II that the cleric is a better general than him. But Gaston is experienced and was heavily involved in the improvements made to the Triune army after the humiliation of the last war with the Wittelsbachs. He knows its capabilities, has vastly superior resources to his opponent, and knows how to use them.
Saint-Fargeau is sent packing with a contingent to besiege Verdun. Gaston takes the bulk of the Army of Lorraine and calls on the Army of the Center for reinforcements. The Army of the Center has been gradually mustering and training new soldiers and formations to feed them into the field armies and Gaston takes the most trained soldiers. After all that and pulling some soldiers from the Army of Flanders, six weeks after taking control the Duc d’Orleans musters seventy thousand men, nearly triple that of Ferdinand.
In the middle of August, Gaston invades Luxembourg. The army is too big and unwieldy to concentrate entirely, but the Triune forces move in parallel columns. Ferdinand tries to attack the columns and defeat them in detail, but each one is organized as a miniature army, able to defend itself quite capably while the other columns swerve over to hopefully pin the Archbishop between them. They never manage to catch the cleric in a trap, but he is steadily forced back.
The city of Luxembourg resists briefly, until Henri II arrives at the siege to personally take command. The garrison commander, thoroughly intimidated and demoralized, yields on terms. Henri, wanting to deny manpower to the Lotharingians, then conscripts his prisoners into his army, a common practice. The loyalty of the Lotharingians may be suspect, but they don’t have the nationalist instincts of Romans, yet, and many of the soldiers are non-Lotharingian mercenaries. As long as they get paid they won’t be trouble.
Gaston presses forward, advancing on Trier. Ferdinand keeps snapping at the edges and sends his “nephews” raiding back behind the Triune armies, but Gaston is not diverted. While Karl and Paul cause some damage, including the destruction of a 400-strong wagon train, it is not enough to halt the Triune advance. There are too many Triune soldiers protecting their logistics for the pair to make more of a dent, yet the Triune field army still far outweighs their father’s forces.
Ferdinand uses the terrain to his advantage as best he can, but taking up defensive positions doesn’t help. The sheer numerical advantage of the Triunes mean that any position is outflanked fairly easily. While the Triunes have to spread out their forces for logistics, giving him opportunities to attack in detail, none of his slashes are decisive. And his forces are dwindling. In a characteristic battle at this stage, on September 15, Ferdinand catches three Triune tours strung out along a road and isolated from their compatriots. In the course of two hours he rolls over them, inflicting sixteen hundred casualties for two hundred and thirty of his own. The sixteen hundred Triune losses are made good within ten days, while each one of his losses is irreplaceable.
Ferdinand’s army is not the compact veteran force it was in Bulgaria. The hard marching and fighting, while inflicting bruises on the Triune army, is wearing out his greener soldiers. Many of the forces from Liege have deserted, while disease, accident, and battle casualties are wearing down those from Lotharingia and Cologne. By September 20, he’s down to 17500 men, while Gaston’s complete forces including those guarding his logistics approaches 80000. That said, such Triune numbers are only possible because Gaston’s has had to pull some troops from the Army of Flanders, but that is little comfort to the Archbishop at the moment.
On September 20 the city of Trier surrenders to the Duc d’Orleans, although the Archbishop-Elector has fled beyond the Rhine. With news of Wennenden and Mulhouse, there isn’t much stomach for fighting the unstoppable Triune juggernaut. Two days later the Free City of Cologne signs a treaty with the Triple Monarchy. The burghers of Cologne are terrified that if they don’t side with Henri, once he takes the Lower Rhine he’ll lock them out of the markets there which would be their financial ruin. One stipulation of the treaty is that the Cologne militia, reinforced by a few Triune tours, will attack the Archbishopric of Cologne. (By this point, with the main Lotharingian army tied down with the Army of Flanders and Ferdinand tangling with Gaston, smaller Triune forces have largely free range south of the Meuse.)
Ferdinand is forced to continue retreating as lack of supplies and money cause desertions to increase. By October 1 he arrives at Koblenz, the southernmost of his cities, with sixteen thousand men only to find the gates of Koblenz shut in his face. The inhabitants are more scared of Gaston than Ferdinand at this point, and the Duc d’Orleans has made it clear that good treatment of the inhabitants is contingent on them helping Gaston destroy Ferdinand’s army. Both Gaston and Henri want Bone-Breaker broken.
Ferdinand wants to head north, but one of the Triune columns has crossed over the Mosel. That means Ferdinand would have to force his way across with that in front of him, while the other two Triune columns are converging on him from the south. The only option is to try and retreat across the Rhine, although with those two Triune columns pressing on him trying to do so without the fortifications of Koblenz means that option is not much easier. Still it must be done.
The battle of Koblenz as it is called takes place on October 2, as Ferdinand’s army begins crossing the Rhine in boats they’ve managed to snare while 45,000 Triune soldiers converge on their west-bank bridgehead. Ferdinand blesses his sons but has them be among the first to cross, to organize the soldiers as they arrive on the east-bank. Meanwhile he stays on the west-bank, rallying his men to fight as long as possible so that as many as possible can get to safety on the other side of the river.
Musket and cannon balls fly fast and thick. The Triune artillery outweighs Ferdinand’s near five-to-one, yet four separate assaults on the Archbishop’s encampment are beaten back even as the ferries constantly carry soldiers across the river. At one point a soldier asked Ferdinand to stop exposing himself to Triune fire. It is not expected though for an officer to show signs of fear of the enemy, particularly in a situation like this when every man’s instinct is to panic and run for the boats. Ferdinand replies “When God no longer needs me to defend Germany, only then will he come for me.” [2]
Two hours later God comes for him. He is slain by a single bullet to the heart. His body is caught by some of his faithful soldiers, who retreat across the river carrying it. He is buried on the right bank of the Rhine, surrounded by the 13000 soldiers who made it successfully to the right bank. His eldest son Karl takes command of the army with Paul as his second.
Gaston does not pursue across the river. While sending his respects to Karl and Paul, honoring their father as a brave and skilled opponent, who was his enemy but for whom the Duke had the utmost personal respect, Gaston sends out his soldiers to secure the west-bank. There is practically no opposition. Mainz capitulates on October 17 and Bonn three days later. Only in the north, where the main Lotharingian army and most of their fortresses still stand, are there still serious forces contesting the Triunes.
On the other side of Germany, King Ottokar, taking advantage of the collapse of what remains of Wittelsbach power, has marched his forces into Saxony. A Saxon delegation had arrived in Prague, protesting that Wittelsbach rule since the Brothers’ War has been in violation of the Act of Transference that placed Saxony under the Wittelsbach. In exchange for agreeing to the terms of the Act, the Saxons offer their loyalty to Ottokar. If anyone in the Holy Roman Empire can protect them, it is the Bohemian King.
Brandenburg is more complicated. The Brandenburgers would like a powerful protector, a role Elizabeth seems unable to fill, and here in the north she doesn’t have the personal loyalty the Bavarians are willing to give. On the other hand, they’ve long resented the Saxon dominance over them and so aren’t as keen in joining Ottokar. The Bohemian monarch, since he has not been invited by a Brandenburg delegation, only secures Saxony and doesn’t proceed further, but would welcome the chance to prune the overly-large Wittelsbach tree.
Enter Karl von Hohenzollern, eldest son of Archbishop Ferdinand. He currently commands an army, which while on the small side is still an army and those are in short supply these days. Although many of the soldiers are technically Lotharingian, these mostly-mercenaries, who are the most tough and faithful to Ferdinand of those that had fought west of the Rhine, are now loyal to the House of Hohenzollern rather than the Lotharingian Valois. That their pay from Antwerp is now in arrears also has an effect on their change of loyalties.
He no longer has lands and so desires compensation as well as a means of supporting his army. Unlike his father, who remained a Wittelsbach loyalist, Karl is skeptical of the family, blaming them for the disaster currently befalling Germany. Finally, he has ancestral connections with the Ascanian line that ruled Brandenburg before the line died out in the male line and Brandenburg was inherited by Saxony.
So Ottokar presents Elizabeth with his demands. Firstly, Saxony and its electoral title will go to Bohemia. Secondly, Brandenburg and its electoral title will go to Karl, who will certainly be grateful for Ottokar’s efforts on his behalf. Thirdly, the Imperial title will be recognized as vacant due to Theodor’s incapacity and a new election held. In return however, Ottokar will guarantee Wittelsbach claims to Bavaria and recognize Karl Manfred as Duke of Württemberg.
Elizabeth hates these terms but is powerless to resist. With Triune forces in control of most of the Rhine’s west-bank and some forces probing east of the river, a strong and sane Emperor is needed. The only option on the table now is Ottokar and he knows it.
After a foregone election, on February 1, 1636, Ottokar is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the new Pope Clement VIII in the city of Prague.
Despite the proclamation, spirits across Germany fail to lift. Ottokar is not German after all, and his contacts with Henri are well known and not forgotten. The death of Archbishop Ferdinand casts an unshakeable pall; Germany, it seems, no longer has a defender.
But perhaps there is another. If any hour would call him forth, surely it would be this hour?
According to legend, the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa lies asleep beneath the Kyffhäuser. Waiting motionless at a stone table, his beard growing through the table over the centuries as he sleeps, he awaits the time of Germany’s most desperate hour when he shall come forth. The ravens riding the winds above the mountain signal his presence below. The figure of the King-under-the-Mountain has merged with that of his grandson Friedrich II “Stupor Mundi”. It is said that he will return, to again do battle against a corrupt and hedonistic church, to cleanse the church, to tear down the rich and oppressive, and lift up the poor. He will return, to remake the world into a better place.
Such tales are far from unique to the Germans. The legend of Andreas Niketas, asleep beneath a mountain until Rhomania shall call him forth to battle yet again in her hour of need, is little different. Considering such a time as this, it is little wonder that these tales would be told by Germans, hoping, wishing, praying for its promise to be fulfilled.
And it would seem those prayers have been answered. No historian knows, and likely will never know, where or when it began, but it did. The call goes forth: “Hear, O Germany, and know. The ravens have left the Kyffhäuser.”
On February 1, 1636, the same day as Ottokar is crowned Holy Roman Empire in Prague, a pudgy Franciscan friar named Johann Eck, accompanied by a Greek priest and a tall red-bearded ex-sergeant named Friedrich Zimmermann, stands before a crowd of peasants near the town of Amberg in northern Bavaria. There Johann asks them a question.
“I ask you, when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentle man?”
[1] To help add a little perspective to the length of his tenure, when he became Archbishop the Great Uprising was just starting and a young Shahanshah Iskandar was marching on Uzbek Samarkand.
[2] Slight adaptation of the words of the commander of the soldiers defending the Peitang/Beitang Cathedral, which was besieged by the Boxers during the Boxer Uprising. However since most of the people in the Cathedral were Chinese Christians in contrast to the people in the Legations, this part of the Boxer Uprising is usually ignored.