1635 (Southern Germany): After reorganizing after the shattering victory at Wennenden, Manuel Philanthropenos resumes his westward march. However the large slew of prisoners taken, which need to be guarded and escorted to the east, means that he proceeds with merely ten thousand soldiers. But except for the remnants of the Reichsarmee ensconced in Stuttgart, from which they decline to depart to meet the Romans in the open field, the Romans face little opposition as they fan out, burning and wrecking.
Yet as raids go, it could be far worse. The pre-battle maneuverings, the fighting, and the post-battle cleanup delayed the Romans, so by the time they enter Württemberg the days are shortening. Furthermore many of the supplies the Romans need have been gathered up into Stuttgart, and while what is left of the Reichsarmee dare not take the field, they are quite capable of defending the ramparts against a Roman army no larger than their own. The Romans cannot remain long before returning eastward, and their limited numbers reduce the damage they could cause. So in a way, the Reichsarmee did succeed, somewhat, in the mission of stopping the Roman ravaging, although certainly at far too high a cost.
The Lady Elizabeth is in Stuttgart when news arrives of the disaster. She has no time to mourn the death of her husband though. With Duke Eberhard’s death, the Duchy falls to her infant son Karl Manfred; the only other serious contender was the Duke of Teck, also slain, although he also leaves behind a son, a boy of five. With the support of the Count of Fürstenberg, commander of what is left of the Reichsarmee, she organizes the proclamation of Karl Manfred as the new Duke and herself as Regent. Anybody who might object either fell at Wennenden or is too shattered by the news. The fact that the Romans coincidently begin to retire two days after this happens helps to boost her position.
It is small compensation for the news from the Rhine. The Duke of Nemours quickly receives news of Wennenden and acts promptly. Knowing he faces no threat from the east, he wheels south. At Mulhouse, the Bernese and Spanish armies have finally combined, mustering 34000 strong. Added to the Reichsarmee it’d be a most formidable force. However the combined army only gets word of Wennenden just before their scouts also report Nemours barreling toward them across the League frontier with 51,000 men.
Henri II had been doing his utmost to secure Bernese neutrality. If the League stands down, the Spanish Road is clearly cut. Invading the League risks triggering the Accord, a major risk but one Henri is now willing to take. Clearly the League is up to no good, and if, as seems highly likely, the League intends to stab him, Henri would prefer to stab the League first and make amends later after the threat is eliminated. So once Nemours got his reinforcements, he also received permission from Henri to violate League territory if a good opportunity presented itself.
The Spanish and League armies have been feeling rather confident since their forces combined. With the Triunes also facing off against the Reichsarmee, the danger point would’ve been before the two forces joined together. That would’ve been the best opportunity for the Triunes to defeat them in detail, but that opportunity seems to have passed.
As a result, the Spanish and League forces are not prepared to retreat when the Triunes attack, denying them the chance to retire under the protection of the Mulhouse defenses. In a ferocious battle, the Allies inflict nearly seven thousand casualties on their foes, but can’t stand against Nemours’ numerical advantage, particularly when joined by an artillery nearly twice as strong as theirs. It is not a Wennenden as many of the Allied soldiers make it to Mulhouse, but it is still a serious defeat.
One of the Allied fatalities though is King Ferdinand’s son Duke Alfonso. He had been leading the rearguard, commanding the large infantry squares that beat off several furious Triune cavalry assaults, when a musket ball struck him in the right temple, killing him instantly. After the battle, Nemours sends a note of condolence expressing regret for the loss of such a noble, a gesture most appreciated by the Spanish.
Nemours does not stay and besiege Mulhouse, even though such a task is well within his capabilities. The threat posed by the joint army has been eliminated. After that is accomplished, Henri sees no gain in ravaging the League and risk triggering an Accord response.
So Henri is extremely conciliatory. All League prisoners are released with their personal effects and weaponry, save for any coinage and their artillery, their only requirement being a pledge to not bear arms against the Triunes for a year. This gesture appeals greatly to the League members, who are now feeling rather exposed after the crippling of the Reichsarmee. As a result, the League has an easy time coming to terms with the Triunes. In November in the Treaty of Dijon the Triple Monarchy and Bernese League sign a non-aggression pact, to be good for four years.
In an extra clause, it is stated that this non-aggression pact will be void in the event of a Triune attack on Arles, a clause which gives substantial ammunition to the ‘Ocean’ faction in Arles. There will be no threat from that quarter any time soon, as Henri has no intention of attacking Arles; his eyes are on the Rhine.
Meanwhile Ferdinand is fuming. Henri has no wish to antagonize the Spanish monarch either, although he is not as generous with him as with the League. The prisoners from Mulhouse are released upon ransom, but Ferdinand’s anti-Triune strategy is in shambles. The dispatch of the Army of Observation and then the ransom has only furthered cratered his finances, not to mention his reputation. The Treaty of Dijon is the last straw.
But there is more than the humiliation and frustration of seeing his efforts fall apart. There is the anger and grief of having lost his favorite son.
And he blames the Romans. It was a Triune shot that killed Alfonso, but it was a good honorable death in battle. That Ferdinand can understand and accept. But that battle should not have taken place, would not have taken place, if those bloody-minded Romans hadn’t first distracted and then destroyed the Reichsarmee, giving the Triunes the opportunity to overwhelm the Army of Observation with far greater numbers. The Romans, if they were really as pragmatic and skilled in statecraft as they liked to claim, should have seen that the Triunes were the true threat, but they didn’t. They barged in, making a mess of everything, and now his favored son was dead.
Ferdinand does not have the money to fight the Triunes, and even if he did he does not have the allies he would need now to prosecute such a war. But he can get money for war against the Romans in the East, for the good of Spain and some satisfaction for the death of Alfonso. And so King Ferdinand approves an expedition to reinforce Spanish holdings there and to wage war against the Romans beyond the line. It will be the greatest Latin armament dispatched to the east in history at that point.
As Philanthropenos retires back to the Hungarian-Roman army besieging Munich, he receives updates on the siege that are hardly promising. Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemburg, commander of Munich, has proven himself to be an excellent counter-besieger, rallying the inhabitants and garrison of Munich to resist, when it might’ve been expected that the flight of the Wittelsbachs would have broken their morale.
Helping him in this is the Roman conduct, both in 1634 and in this campaigning season. The inhabitants of Munich and the surrounding countryside have had ample experience of the Romans, none of it pleasant. They have no reason to expect mercy from the Romans, who’ve shown precious little of it, and so see no need to yield. If they must die at the hands of remorseless Greeks, then let the Greeks bleed first.
Helping the defense is that the Hungarians are not keen to press the attack that hard. Prince Esterhazy knows von Starhemburg personally, from having fought beside him in the 1632-33 campaigns along the Danube. He knows the Count is not bluffing when he proclaims that even if the walls are breached and stormed, he will fight in the city, street by street, house by house, room by room. As part of the defensive arrangements, von Starhemburg has ordered the forging of chains to be strung along streets to help form barricades.
Since he has had cold feet requiring the entire invasion of Bavaria, Esterhazy really doesn’t want to try and storm Munich against that kind of reception. So his siege is conducted very methodically, conserving the lives of his men, but also moving very slowly. D’Este, for his part, is more vigorous on the section of the lines that he holds with the Romans, but he lacks the numbers to compensate for the Hungarians’ lack of ardor.
When Manuel Philanthropenos returns, the defenses of Munich are battered but still holding. With more Romans, the siege could progress faster now, but Manuel’s men present a new problem. The Roman ransacking and wrecking of Bavaria on the approach to Munich means that the peasants of the area have fled. Foraging expeditions have to travel further and further to bring in enough provisions.
The returns are diminishing, not only due to increased travel time but increased resistance against the foragers. Official opposition is limited, although present in certain districts, but the tables have turned. Now it is German peasants bushwhacking Roman soldiers as they guard carts of supplies. The peasants usually suffer far worse than the soldiers, as had been the case in Macedonia, but Romans bleed.
More supplies are coming in via convoys from Hungary and Austria, but these are also getting attacked. The attacker in this case is a quite large and disciplined peasant band, led by a red-bearded ex-sergeant named Friedrich Zimmermann, who has turned the farmers and laborers under his command into capable bushwhackers and skirmishers in a surprisingly short time. With each success he gains more recruits, making his next attack all the more ambitious and deadly. By early September he has three thousand men under his command, organized into three regiments, each of which has ten companies, all commanded by individuals Friedrich has selected for their abilities. Mostly armed with captured Roman kit, it is a formidable force and strongly appreciated by the locals for the defense against raiders as well as captured goods it provides.
The logistical situation, which was already getting shaky before, becomes intolerable when Manuel returns with his soldiers and haul of prisoners that all need to be fed. The latter becomes a bit less of an issue when one of Friedrich’s raids liberate two hundred prisoners, most of whom promptly join Friedrich’s force.
Because of the logistics, if Munich is to fall it must be taken quickly. Eyeing the situation, Manuel thinks the city could be stormed, if the Hungarians threw themselves into the assault as well, a doubtful proposition. And even then, the effort would make taking Ulm look like a schoolyard scuffle in comparison. Deciding it is not worth the cost and risk, five days after arriving at Munich, the Roman-Hungarian army breaks camp and retires east.
The Romans and Hungarians end up settling in winter quarters in Austria, Passau, and Salzburg; eastern Bavaria is not in a condition to support a hungry army. The Wittelsbachs return to their capital in early December, but are greeted with less than full cheers by the inhabitants. Starhemburg’s loyalty is without question, but much of the goodwill Elizabeth had won during her brave defense of the city in 1634 was dissipated by her flight this year.
Elizabeth though has certainly come a long way from her years as Andreas III’s Empress in Constantinople. Visiting hospitals, poorhouses, and orphanages, giving gifts of food, clothing, and money to the patients, indigent, and children, she soon wins back their loyalty. By Christmas she has regained a good portion of the goodwill she lost, for the people of Munich had loved her before and find it easy to love her again. On the other hand, they find the image of Theodor in peasant garb digging a ditch most amusing and approve of his madness, as that means he’s out of the way and Elizabeth is in charge instead.
That said, a broken pot may be glued back together but it cannot truly be made whole, and while Munich may support her the wracked countryside is less forgiving. The contrast between Wittelsbach flight and Friedrich’s irregulars has been noted.
Another action that is gaining her favor is the prospect of peace, at least with the Romans. Demetrios III is far more open to her overtures now than in the spring, the bloodlust having been somewhat sated, meaning more practical arguments can get some traction. The battle of Wennenden has created a power vacuum, one to the benefit not of the Romans but of the Triunes. Ferdinand has been seriously alienated, Demetrios would like to start implementing his planned reforms, and Asian affairs demand attention.
A renewed assault on Bavaria would require more Roman soldiers and materials, particularly in logistical support. Because of the Roman incursions, much of eastern Bavaria hasn’t pulled in a decent harvest since 1633, and that one wasn’t particularly impressive either even by the standards of seventeenth-century agriculture. It would be an expensive undertaking and at this point, before his tax reforms have been implemented, Demetrios III desperately wants to reduce the strain on the Roman exchequer.
And for what? Any Roman restructuring of the Holy Roman Empire enforced at gun-point would be promptly repudiated as soon as said gun was pointing elsewhere. The last thing Henri II needs is an opportunity to come riding in as a ‘protector of traditional German liberties’.
In February 1636 the Treaty of Buda is signed between the Romans, Wittelsbachs, and Hungarians. In it the Wittelsbachs cede Austria to Hungary and recognize their possession of the Bishopric of Passau while the Romans keep the Archbishopric of Salzburg. The Wittelsbachs also state that they never had, or will ever have, any dynastic claim on the throne in Constantinople, no matter any future familial/dynastic connections. The Romans do not plan on there being any, but it is phrased such for diplomatic considerations.
The Wittelsbachs furthermore pledge to respect any ‘arrangements’ the Romans make in Italy, while an accommodation is set up whereby they can ransom their many captives in Roman captivity. However because of lack of funds, the vast majority of those Germans end up working and dying in Rhomania, never returning to the lands of their fathers.
Passau is soon restored to its bishop, although now as a Hungarian vassal. For a while Salzburg lasts as a Roman enclave, but after the three great financial scandals rock the Empire in the late 1630s the land is eventually ransomed back by the Archbishop who retains the territories as a Roman vassal as well.
It is a treaty that could’ve been signed many months before it was, with far less death and destruction inflicted in the meantime. But the invasion of 1635 and the treaty were not without consequence.
The most obvious is that Wennenden and the fallout were a godsend to the Triunes, devastating arrangements formed against them, and greatly facilitating their conquests.
Another quick result was the return of the Roman ‘Turk’. In the late 1300s and 1400s the Romans were often portrayed as Turks in western European literature and art. It had faded after Theodora Komnena Drakina’s diplomatic expeditions to the west, although never disappearing entirely. It returns in full force as early as newsletters in late 1635.
The strategic senselessness of the Roman attack in 1635 had been apparent to everyone, even Henri II who’d never expected it to get past Munich and privately referred to Manuel Philanthropenos jokingly as his best general. The only point of the attack, in the Germans’ eyes, had been destruction for the sake of destruction, blood for the sake of blood. It conjured up memories of tales of the great Mongol raids of the 1240s, terrifying bolts which seemed to exist merely to add more suffering and pain to the world [1].
That connection is not that surprising for a couple of reasons. One is the ancestry of the House of Sideros. The other is that Roman light cavalry, the ones doing most of the raiding and burning, are called turkopouloi, and are still in 1635 attired like Turkish light cavalry with the addition of gunpowder weaponry. (Their ethnicity is by no means restricted to Turks.)
The fruit of this is new and increased bitterness between the Romans and the Germans. The Germans resent the suffering inflicted upon them. Meanwhile the Romans resent the Germans’ complaints, rejecting them as whines about the shoe being on the other foot, an argument that hardly endears itself to the Germans.
The final fruit takes longer to ripen, and is not the result solely of the 1635 invasion and Treaty of Buda, although those are key components. Outside of the Mediterranean basin, the year 1635 marks the high tide of Roman involvement in Europe for many decades to come.
In the coming years, Roman attention will shift eastward and stay there. The Spanish expedition to the East, followed by the War of Wrath, as well as developments in India and Island Asia, will take center stage in the minds of those in power in Constantinople.
In contrast, the 1635 expedition shows the limit of Roman power projection westward. At Wennenden, Philanthropenos had been massively outnumbered. He had still won, but such brilliant victories cannot be relied upon as regular. If he’d been facing the Army of Burgundy instead, avoiding a disaster would’ve been a miracle all by itself.
But while after 1635 the Romans are willing to recognize the Triunes as the main Latin threat as compared to the Germans, there is too much animus against the Germans for the Romans to stomach backing them against the Triunes. While the Triunes are a threat, they are mainly a threat to other Latins rather than to Rhomania. Seeing a growing Triune hegemony, the Romans are inclined to entrench with their sphere of influence in the form of the Belgrade Treaty signatories and the various Orthodox powers. This inclination is strengthened by the financial scandals, which spur the sale of Salzburg back to its Archbishop as a way to make some extra money, plus the demands and interests of the East. In the fighting in central Europe after 1635, the Romans will be conspicuous largely by their absence.
The Treaty of Buda marks the beginning of peace between the Romans and the House of Wittelsbach, but there is no peace in sight for Germany.
[1] The Germans at this time are unaware of the Mongol withdrawal to deal with succession issues in the Khanate. To them it seems like the Mongols just showed up to kill for no reason, and then left.
