East-1643: In the Footsteps of the Ancients
As Helios’s strength rains down in greater vigor upon the earth and as Demeter rejoices with the return of her daughter Persephone from the realm of Hades, so the devotees of Ares and Athena gather to perform their worship. The Roman troops have rested over the winter while Iskandar has recruited a few thousand more soldiers for himself from supporters in the Khorramabad area. Meanwhile Ibrahim has gotten his new army as ready as he can.
It is just the three of them, Odysseus, Iskandar, and Ibrahim, as the battle moves into the heart of Persia. The Egyptian army had retaken the territories held by the Ottomans during the truce and Roman administration is in the process of reestablishing itself, as well as conducting the Great Crime, wiping out a Sunni Muslim culture in the land of Syria that was nearing its thousandth birthday. It is a good thing for Odysseus’s image that he was far away from where it was happening, absorbed in the war with Ibrahim. (That Odysseus deliberately absented himself during the Great Crime for the sake of his image, as has been suggested by some, is rejected by most Roman scholars. As Mosul and Baghdad alone show, and Rome before them, he had no qualms with bloody hands. It was just a matter of priorities.)
The Georgian army has finally taken Tabriz and the trans-Aras lands taken from them originally by Iskandar the Great, but has not moved any further. Earlier there were some raids across the old frontier that seemed more for the sake of loot, which prompted the sufferers to declare loyalty to Iskandar in a bid to make them stop. While successful in that, afterwards the Georgians have evinced no desire to advance anymore.
For the sake of supply and ease of movement, the army of Odysseus and Iskandar is split into two segments, with each monarch commanding their half. This could present a skilled and lucky opponent with an opportunity, but Ibrahim is most unlucky in the duo he is now facing. Odysseus had been a dangerous foe alone, and with Iskandar now acting truly as an ally and brother in arms, he is substantially more dangerous.
Ibrahim tries to exploit the split, but it is to no avail. The duo are too well-coordinated. One segment if attacked turns turtle, stubbornly defending its position, while the other promptly wheels to aid the other, crashing into Ibrahim’s flank and driving his force from the field. Whichever portion is the one attacked does not matter; the other will be there to aid the other, wherever and whenever needed.
To inspire his men, who need it, Ibrahim displays a heretofore unseen personal courage on the battlefield, throwing himself repeatedly into danger to rally his troops. Over the course of 1643, nine horses are killed under him, twenty-eight of his bodyguard are killed or wounded on the field, and ‘innumerable holes’ are punched in his clothing and turban, and yet he suffers not a scratch despite repeated efforts to kill him. It is Suleiman Pasha who points out the futility of the effort. It was by the decree of the sorcerer Demetrios III himself, the father of Odysseus, that the men of Odysseus and Iskandar would not have it within their power to slay Ibrahim.
Ibrahim’s valor and immunity to bullets helps him hold his army together during the 1643 campaign and even get reinforcements for it for far longer than might otherwise be expected, but even that is not enough to turn the tide. In four great battles over the course of 1643 the duo of Odysseus and Iskandar systematically destroy the impressive might Ibrahim is able to raise against them. And while no battle between great and valorous armies can ever be neat and clean, these are sweeping battles of maneuver, not the bloody slogs of Qara Tappa and Baghdad. The soldiers of Odysseus and Iskandar bleed, but not in torrents.
With the military tide clearly favoring Iskandar, more Persians come over to his side, especially as 1643 advances. The capital of Hamadan falls without a fight and Iskandar briefly takes up residence in the Shah’s palace, presenting himself as the Shahanshah in fact as well as in name. (For the sake of diplomacy and appearances, Odysseus and the Romans stay outside the walls of the capital.) He does not stay there for long, with the pursuit of Ibrahim continuing.
A key note of the campaign is the speed, with both sides moving their armies at clips rarely equaled and never surpassed until the days of railroad. Necessity demands the speed. Ibrahim must keep retreating to avoid being enveloped. Iskandar and Odysseus must pursue and eliminate him, but they also cannot rest and consolidate anyway. Living off the land, the army must be constantly in motion. If it stops, it starves.
Ibrahim attempts to exploit this weakness, but whenever he starts to scorch the earth, those Persians whose earth is getting scorched promptly support Iskandar to protect their property. Those Persians defecting to Iskandar also quickly realize that presenting supplies to the Romano-Persians promptly is highly beneficial to their own self-interest. The Romano-Persians get the supplies they need quickly without the need to forage, slowing them down, while the locals can contain the damage to their own livelihoods. Even a friendly army, if it has to forage to survive, has more similarity to a swarm of locust than anyone in its path would like.
It is a testament to the duo’s leadership, and their men’s faith in them, that they are able to keep the army going at such a pace for so long. If metal bullets run low, pebbles will replace them. If the powder runs low, then the ambrolar will be used all the more.
But the advance continues.
But not all go over to Iskandar’s side, with Ibrahim still raising substantial armies until the last is destroyed in the fourth battle, at which point even Ibrahim can do no more. Some of the resistance is from stout Ibrahim loyalists, whose position under Ibrahim means their future under Iskandar is questionable. Other sources come from those alarmed by reports of the Great Crime taking place to the west and thus steeled to resist against Odysseus and Iskandar. The Roman response is that the ‘punishments’ being hurled on the Syrian Muslims are only for those who resided in pre-war Christian lands, which according to many Muslim qadis, they should have not been doing anyway, and are not meant for those Muslims who live in the Dar al-Islam. The effectiveness of this argument is questionable. Another source of resistance to Iskandar which overlaps with the former are hardline Muslims who won’t tolerate any whiff of Christianity around their ruler, no matter how many oaths Iskandar swears on a Qur’an.
Much ink has been split on who is to blame for the brutalities that follow. These holdouts for Ibrahim are utterly destroyed if they resist, with the ruthlessness increasing as the tide turns ever in Iskandar’s favor. Some scholars attribute it to Odysseus, who has already demonstrated a capacity for extreme ruthlessness for those who hold out against him. But others point out that Iskandar could be responsible. He is seeking to establish authority in a land he has not been since he was a child, in company of a foreign monarch and army, and with shaky legitimacy. Utterly annihilating those most recalcitrant to his rule is a good way to establish his authority.
Also because of the speed of the march and constant need to move on, Iskandar is unable to really consolidate authority in the areas that pledge allegiance to him. Terror will have to keep anyone from getting ideas until he can rectify the issue. The need for continual advance also imposes its own logic for brutality. Strong points that resist can’t be sieged as that would take too long, so they must be stormed. And there is no mercy for the vanquished there.
In the long run and to the victims the question doesn’t matter. Dead is dead and Odysseus’s and Iskandar’s march across northern Persia in pursuit of Ibrahim is marked with both great battlefield victories and the scenes of massacres of those unable or unwilling to accept the new order.
Both participants of the expedition and historians writing about it frequently make callbacks to antiquity, especially Alexandros Megas. The ancient references are appropriate in an unexpected way as it makes a valuable contribution to the study of ancient history. Early in 1643 at the impetus of Odysseus, some Roman and Persian soldiers make sketches of the Behistun Inscription, of all three languages despite the difficulty. Reportedly Odysseus said he did not want to face his father’s shade unless he’d gotten the whole thing. While part of the Roman delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Mashhadshar, Demetrios Sideros had become aware of the Inscription and tried and failed to get some locals to make inscriptions of it, much to the then-Eparch’s profound annoyance. The copies are sent back to Constantinople where they would eventually be translated, an invaluable boon to the future study of ancient history as they would allow the eventual translation of a great many ancient documents.
As the campaigning season of 1643 winds down, most of Persia proper is at least nominally loyal to Iskandar, but despite strenuous efforts, Ibrahim has not been captured and killed. So long as he is alive, Ibrahim is a threat to Iskandar, just as Iskandar’s mere existence was always a threat to Ibrahim. This is especially pertinent considering the thin loyalty of many Persians who are currently pledging their support to Iskandar.
Ibrahim is fleeing east with those retainers still loyal to him. The Afghan lords around Kabul are unlikely to shelter and aid their former overlord and enemy, but they have no desire to aid Iskandar, who would want to be their new overlord. Beyond them is Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, the former Ottoman governor turned independent warlord, who by this point is lord of the Punjab and some outlying districts. Given that he broke away from Ibrahim’s authority, they are not automatic allies, but a resurgent Persia under Iskandar is a threat to the Pasha. Especially if his troops were combined with Afghan contingents, Ibrahim could muster a formidable army, and it must be remembered that Ibrahim’s own path to lordship began with an army of his father’s veterans in northern India.
And if one were to be particularly ambitious, there is the realm of Oudh. Kishan Das passed away in 1640 to be succeeded by his son, renamed Chandragupta a few years earlier. The name is highly suggestive of the ambitions of the state of Oudh. Oudh has a bigger population than Rhomania, Persia, the Triple Monarchy, and Spain combined. If Chandragupta elected to back Ibrahim, Ibrahim would be extremely dangerous, as if the last few years never happened.
Those are the pragmatic reasons for continuing the march east, but what historians sometimes forget to their peril is that people are not automatons, and Odysseus is no exception. Historians, particularly psycho-historians, have debated what debt or responsibility Odysseus felt to Andreas III, but Andreas III had mused about an overland invasion of India after marching through Persia to deal with Ibrahim. That may have been ideal speculation or a flight of fancy on Andreas III’s part, but that may have been another spur driving Odysseus ever further as they marched through lands that had never seen a Roman army and not seen a Greek one since the Diadochi.
As the army marches into the lands of the Afghans, the initial response is hostile. The locals have no wish for a restored Persian rule; the person of the Shah does not matter. After enduring some harassment, Odysseus and Iskandar march on the three clans who are causing the most trouble. The Afghans retreat to their mountain forts, trusting that the formidable natural defenses will keep them safe until rapidly approaching winter forces the lowlanders to retreat.
That the lowlanders cannot afford protracted sieges is quite true; an Afghan winter is not to be endured in the open. Odysseus and Iskandar resolve their predicament in all three cases in the same matter, following a template established by Alexandros Megas when he was in this part of the world. Picked teams of Roman and Persian troops scale the peaks in secret and then attack from above while the main army assaults from below. In all cases, the combined offensive is too much and the Romano-Persians break in, massacring everyone in the forts, from the oldest crone down to newborn infants.
Everyone else in the region gets the message and the Romano-Persians have no further trouble. Kabul opens its gates, handing over a large quantity of needed supplies. At this point some reinforcements arrive, making good the Roman losses and slightly boosting the Persian contingent, although many of the new arrivals are posted in garrisons in Kabul and elsewhere; Iskandar wants to retain his authority established here. Once that is done, in one last surge born in wanting to avoid being caught in an Afghan winter, which fortunately for them has held off so far, the army resumes its march, once again in pursuit of Ibrahim and towards the land of India.
* * *
The Khyber Pass, November 20, 1643:
Odysseus and Iskandar were seated atop their horses, stationed on a rocky outcrop set in the side of the pass that overlooked it. The vanguard had already gone through the pass and secured the immediate area, while flankers swarmed the heights above in case of any ambushers. But it did not appear that there were any challengers to the host that was marching through the Khyber.
The main body was coming into view, the trump of thousands of boots echoing off the stony walls, joined by the marching music. Banners, both Roman and Persian, fluttered in the weak breeze. The inevitable dust cloud was billowing out behind the marching soldiers, much to the annoyance of those posted further back in the line of march (rotations were cycled so no units suffered it constantly, but all suffered it), but the units out front presented a fine sight.
“Did you really think this would ever be possible?” Iskandar asked.
“Honestly, not entirely, at least until I saw it.” A pause. “A part of me still doesn’t. It fears this is but a dream.”
“And we’re about to wake up and find that the Germans have turned our flank again and are coming down the slope,” Iskandar finished. Odysseus nodded.
They passed a few moments in silence as the main body marched closer. “We’ve created something special, unique,” Iskandar said.
Odysseus smiled, genuine warmth showing on his face. “Yes, we have. Nothing like this in at least two thousand years, and possibly not even then.”
“And at least another two thousand before it comes again.”
“Yes. A brief moment it must be, but it is ours.”
The lead unit, now getting quite close, let up an indistinct cheer and the two monarchs doffed their hats. When they placed them back on their heads, the soldiers took up a call-and-response that had been increasingly popular in the last few months, after together they had scattered the might of Ibrahim and marched across the length of Persia.
“ODYSSEUS! ODYSSEUS!” the Roman soldiers cried out.
“ISKANDER! ISKANDER!” the Persian soldiers shouted.
A brief pause.
“ISKANDER! ISKANDER!” The Roman soldiers shouted.
“ODYSSEUS! ODYSSEUS!” the Persian soldiers cried out.
It was followed by an indistinct cheer much greater than the one that had inaugurated the verbal exchange, a mighty roar that reverberated off the ancient stones, echoing down into the east.
