1631 continued: The losses at Sopot are painful, and the splitting of the Serbians from the Romans is very useful, but Blucher’s ideal of crippling the Roman army before more Asian reinforcements arrived is a failure. A month after the battle, Mouzalon has almost a hundred thousand troops mustered in Macedonia.
Blucher has not been idle though. Engineers swarm over Belgrade, working to repair the fortifications at a feverish pace while cavalry columns fly across northern Serbia, sweeping up the harvest to fill German bellies and scattering the Serbian populace. Little effort is expended in harassing the refugees but what is done purposely nudges them to the southeast where their march will congest the roads on which Mouzalon is marching to re-engage.
Mouzalon makes no move to link up with Lazar’s forces. There is a large amount of disgust in the Roman ranks with the new Serbian King, one of the droungarioi of the Helladic tagma penning The
Charge of the Chaldeans less than three weeks after the battle. Having Roman officers quoting ‘Lazar had blundered’ would hardly do well for diplomatic relations. Rumors abound that if Lazar ever found himself within musket range of the remains of the Chaldean tagma he would be fired upon.
Furthermore there is the issue that having Lazar around would probably require appointing him back into an important position. Given the size of the army Mouzalon now has and the limited number of troops Lazar could add, having the Serbian army with that price tag just isn’t worth it in Mouzalon’s opinion.
There is argument in favor of not advancing back into Serbia to battle the Allied army. Blucher’s logistics are shaky at best and would only get worse if he had to advance further south.
But the Roman cavalry, already badly damaged at Sopot, is now having difficulties with the Hungarian and Polish cavalry up in force, so Mouzalon has few means to interdict Allied supply convoys or foragers and also limited intelligence on Blucher’s forces. Yet he does know that more reinforcements are on the way and that Belgrade is being repaired. Avoiding another brutal siege of that place is greatly to be avoided. Furthermore Ibrahim is back in Mesopotamia and reports from Lombardy are not encouraging.
The Roman and Allied armies draw up for battle on September 20, the Serbian village of Drenovac forming part of the Roman line, which is anchored on the left by the Great Morava River and partly screened by stands of wood on the right which Mouzalon fills with pickets of akrites. The center is mostly open farmland.
To Mouzalon’s surprise, Blucher fields only a slightly smaller army, ninety one to his ninety four thousand. Blucher was able to rush reinforcements despite questionable ability to feed them, estimating that Mouzalon would attempt to counterattack before Blucher received said extra troops.
But Mouzalon immediately realizes the logistical constraints Blucher faces so he holds his position, declining two attempts to be baited into attacks. Although Polish cavalry beat off efforts by trapezites to hit the Allied supply lines, Mouzalon’s presence means that they can only forage a little. A Hungarian effort to hit a Roman convoy ends with it being hurled back with the loss of four hundred mounts and half that number of men. So either Blucher must retreat in the face of an intact enemy force, starve, or attack.
He chooses to attack, by which point it is September 24. Polish and Hungarian cavalry attempt to turn the Roman right flank but get snarled up in running battles with the akrites in the copses. They make progress but it is slow and bloody.
The main assault is on the village of Drenovac itself with German infantry storming forward with tremendous courage to be met by furious blasts of point-blank musketry. The fighting is brutal at close-quarters, with several older officers stating it was as intense as that of Astara in 1607 during the Eternal War.
The Germans manage to seize about a quarter of the village but can’t press any further while the Romans are unable to hurl them out. Soldiers fire away at each other at ranges sometimes little longer than the length of their muskets. Still the pressure does suck in some of the Roman reserves. Meanwhile the cavalry flanking effort is slowly, bloodily, grinding its way through the copses, sucking some more reserves that way, including portions of the weakened Roman cavalry.
It is now that Blucher reveals his masterstroke. The Roman left flank is secured by the Great Morava River and so cannot be turned. It is thus not so strongly held, especially when one realizes that a good percentage of the Roman reserves have been siphoned off to Drenovac and the right flank.
Vauban hits it with a grand battery, 98 cannons pounding the Roman lines, overwhelming the 28 Roman guns that try to respond. German assault columns storm forward, taking heavy losses from Roman musketry but the lack of artillery is crucial. Sheer weight of numbers smash through the Roman lines.
Mouzalon immediately orders a withdrawal. With his left flank turned and his right pressed, trying to keep these positions is a hopeless task. But an organized withdrawal in the face of enemy attacks is a hard thing and Blucher presses his advantage for all that he’s worth, determined to wreak as much damage as possible while he has the upper hand.
The Domestikos orders the Akoimetoi into Drenovac to act as a rearguard, although he explicitly orders Alexandros Drakos, son-in-law to the Emperor, not to accompany his unit. He protests furiously but obeys. Covered by the Akoimetoi the Roman army manages to disengage, smacking aside the few Allied units that work around the village and try to impede their march.
Meanwhile the bulk of the Allied host turns its full fury on the Akoimetoi. A demand for surrender is answered by Strategos Abalantes, who played such a key part in the Night of the Tocsins, with the immortal words “The Guard dies, but does not surrender.” Considering Nineveh that is not exactly true, but the unit is eager to wipe out that black spot.
And for five hours, the Akoimetoi defy an army that outnumbers them well over sixteen to one, enduring the pounding of Vauban’s guns, responding the best they can with their own artillery. Assaults are thrown back with bullets and ambrolars, swords and rocks, fists and teeth. When night falls the village is still in the hands of the Akoimetoi, who then sally forth, hacking their way through the cordon to safety. When they reunite with the main army a day later their unit cohesion and discipline is still intact, even though only 2 of 5 remain to the colors. Abalantes is one of the fallen.
Drenovac is a German victory, of sorts. Blucher has forced the Roman army once again out of Serbia, Mouzalon retiring back across the border, although woe betide the Allied formation that gets too close. Furthermore he inflicted ten thousand casualties on the Romans for eight thousand of his own.
But while the losses to one of the guard tagma is painful, Roman losses are soon made good whilst the same cannot be said for the Allies. Already one-sixth of the Polish heavy cavalry that Casimir led forth from Krakow in the spring have fallen. Reinforcements are coming, but whether they can keep up with casualties is doubtful. Despite the fall of Belgrade and his two victories, Blucher in a letter to his wife admits that he finds the prospects for the next campaigning season to be doubtful, especially when it is reported that there are plans to bring twenty thousand Sicilians come the spring.
Post-Drenovac operations are also less promising. There are four smaller battles as Blucher, at Theodor’s insistence, tries to grab some Roman territory before the onset of winter kills major operations. The political import of securing some Roman land is significant, as is the need to secure more peasant-stocked foodstuffs. But every attempt to breach the Roman frontier is bloodily repulsed.
But the optics of Drenovac are more important than the reality. Lazar, on hearing the news, capitulates to Theodor. Bosnia is to be ceded back to Hungary but Serbia proper is reduced to a Despotate, Lazar renouncing the Serbian crown and receiving the rank and insignia of a Roman Despot (identical in every detail to what Demetrios III would issue to his Despots) on his submission. The same can’t be said for his subjects. Serbians are to be conscripted into the Allied ranks, but their loyalty is questionable and four thousand slip across the border to present their arms to the Romans, including Lazar’s younger brother Durad.
Emperor Theodor Receives the Submission of Serbia. Note the Winged Hussars. King Casimir is the black-bearded and black-hatted figure mounted behind the nearest Hussar.
Before returning to Munich to oversee domestic affairs and some important negotiations over the winter, Emperor Theodor erects another monument to the Akoimetoi in the center of Drenovac, underneath which are lain the bodies of the fallen. On it is writ:
Go, tell the spartans, stranger passing by
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
Like Sopot, it is still there to this day.