The Lion of Herat
Fresh from previous victories, Aghatsagh envisioned a grand conquest of India. Huge armies were rallied, and the provinces stripped to bare minimal garrisons. Every soldier would be necessary. However, this was also when the Oadhyans decided to attack. Rasam Oadhya, eager to secure his grip on the throne by vanquishing the Eastern threat, led his foremost retainers and some twenty thousand men towards Herat. Aghatsagh, cursing fate, led his army west instead.
Rasam was defeated swiftly. The Eftal Shah panicked at the unexpected size of the forces arrayed against them and the army as a whole attempted to fall back, but Aghatsagh shadowed him relentlessly. In a bold move, Aghatsagh left behind the bulk of his army and all of his foot, taking only the swift Turkic cavalry which had won his earliest victories. He harassed the Eftal columns, making them think that his forces were far greater, slowing them to a crawl. Finally, on an anonymous hilltop lost to history, Rasam made a final stand - his horses exhausted and his men thirsty, his troops circled their wagons and attempted to fortify the high ground. The Turks circled them, and the next day the main body of the Aghatsaghid army arrived, bringing fresh supplies and arrows. The Eftal were unable to use their own cavalry to its fullest extent, and their attempts to sally forth were met with disaster.
Finally, after two more days, the Turkic army attacked the defenses, and the exhausted Eftal army surrendered. The nobility was ransomed for enormous sums, and the common soldiers were sold into slavery. The Shah himself was treated with respect and dignity, as an honored guest not a prisoner, but when he attempted to escape along with a group of his companions he was beaten and lashed to a pole for three days without food or water until he begged for mercy. Aghatsagh's army, having many noble captives, found only limited strong defenses. Unlike the fortresses of Europe, many of which were becoming impressive indeed, the typical Eftal palace-fort was designed to defend against mere raiders. Few posed serious obstacles to Aghatsagh, and by mid-autumn he arrived at Ahmatan, which opened its gates to him.
The Shah, weakened by the various ordeals he had been subjected to, was made to sign a humiliating peace. He was effectively a vassal of Aghatsagh, and several of his own greatest vassals were directly made tributaries to his conqueror - a man who many called "the Lion of Herat" after his latest victories. The Shah would remain in Persia for another two years (until 735), touring the countryside. The "Turkic Indenture" as Rasam's humiliation became known, would become infamous throughout the Eftal world.
However, Aghatsagh was nowhere near done. Now, his victory finally ensured, he turned to the nascent Gandharan republic. The army which descended from his mountain fortresses on Purusapura won every battle with almost contemptuous ease - hardened by years of fighting and commanded by a tactical genius and a master of deception, the guild-soldiers found themselves simply outmatched. However, they were also numerous and the Gandharans, motivated by Dahrasena Soneta, refused to even consider surrender unless Aghatsagh recognized their councils and guilds. Impressed by the stubbornness of the Gandharans, and often merciful in victory, Aghatsagh agreed. He even spared the great universities and cities of the region even a token sack.
However, this even-handedness aggravated his soldiers, who had been promised plunder. Magnanimous victory was all well and good for the Shah's interests, they argued, but for the common warrior travelling many miles from home, material reward was necessary. As such, they pressured Aghatsagh into sailing down the Indus into the country of the Rai dynasty. Ruled by King Rai Sahasi, the Rai had successfully resisted the Siyaposha with the help of the Gurjars, but recently this alliance had been strained. Isolated, they put up a valiant fight but were destroyed in battle at Sanahpur. The Rai dynasty was wiped out to a man and their cities pillaged. Aghatsagh carved grants of land out of the river valley, and divided the cities into small provinces, which he granted to those who had performed well in the campaign.
In 737, Aghatsagh struck south against the "land of the five rivers" but here he was met with mounting frustration. The Ganarajya of Sakala resisted far longer than he expected, and brought allies - the small guild-republics of Madra and Trigarta sent reinforcements. While he ultimately won, and brought much of the Punjab under his control, it was at great cost. He deemed striking any further inland impossible, and finally turned back. The far-famed Lion of Herat remained undefeated, and it was perhaps only Aghatsagh who truly knew how close he came to defeat.
Another reason for choosing to turn back after 737 was that the Syrians were proving an increasingly dangerous threat in the west. After seeing the Oadhyan's defeat, Shah Avyaman Kithara began launching attacks further and further into Mesopotamia, turning several border lords openly against Rasam and thus by extension Aghatsagh. Leading his forces west to counter this new threat, signs of age and stress began to show. The Lion of Herat was still only middle-aged, but the stress of campaign and his wounds had taken their toll on him. He still inspired great devotion in his polyglot soldiers, but it was in the evolving corps of officers who he placed most of his trust in this campaign.
The Aghatsaghid army fought the Syrians to a draw, and finally Avyaman agreed to an exchange of hostages and peace. The critical fortress cities of Nasibin and Dariy were handed over to the Syrians, and peace was concluded in the west. The Shah of Syria married his son, Hvarmei to one of Aghatsagh's many daughters, Culpan, and the two men entered into an uneasy but practical alliance. Not long after, Aghatsagh returned to Herat. He named his son, Korshad Lasgara, co-Shah in the Eftal tradition, and settled down to rule.
However, within two years he became restless. Tales had reached him of the weakness of the Qi dynasty, and he began to plan a massive overland invasion of China, involving some hundred thousand men, perhaps a third of them mounted, and over a thousand war elephants. Ignoring the logistical difficulties of such an endeavor, especially for a military establishment which had lost much of the lightness and mobility which had made its earliest victories possible, the plan was short on details as to how such an army would propose to take Chang'an or press into the vast heartland of a vaster empire. Perhaps fortunately for his legacy, Aghatsagh would die before he could undertake such a venture, in 740.
The Terror of Europe (in brief)
The twenty years before the Great Raids seemed to bode well for the future of Christian Europe. Cities were growing and wealth was on the rise, especially in Italy. The Berbers to the south were relatively quiet. Trade, although nowhere near what it had once been, now flowed once more into North Africa. The first tentative tales of golden kingdoms across great seas of sand were seeping north. For once, the trend seemed to be in favor of unification as well, rather than fragmentation.
In Florentia, Emperor Valerian would pass away in 736, succeeded by his son Isidorius Petrus Constantius. Isidorius was by all accounts a humble and devout man, raised at the periphery of the Imperial court out of his mother's fear of the influence of the military men who controlled Isidorian affairs to so great a degree. Upon his ascension, Isidorius found that his lack of military expertise ensured he would simply not be respected by the professional military bureaucracy whose control over the state was absolute.
Rather, one man was perhaps the undisputed master of ever-shrinking Christian Europe. The Magister Militium, Cosmas, had successfully expanded Roman power across the Mediterranean and into the Balkans. Unlike his predecessors, who had been conservative, or the Pope who still looked East, Cosmas believed he could restore a Western Empire. The Frankish kingdoms were deadlocked - apart from brief and bloody feuds they were inward looking. The Hispanians were still reeling from their humiliation at the hands of the Berbers. Furthermore, the Hispanian monarch, Suinthila had proved incapable of siring a male child. His nobles were restless, and Cosmas saw nothing but opportunity.
The Roman attempt to conquer Hispania was born out of a comedy of errors. Cosmas' attempt to subtly suggest a union between the two crowns was taken entirely the wrong way. His attempts to interfere in the growing succession crisis were seen as belligerent, and Suinthila, tiring of Roman interference declared war, and marched from Narbo into Provence. Having spent his youth fighting for his crown, Suinthila was no stranger to pitched battles. While Cosmas struck a hasty alliance with the Aquitainian King, nearly doubling the forces available to him, Suinthila easily outmaneuvered Cosmas and defeated him in 737, leading to the Magister's death. The Emperor was quick to make peace, but the Empire was humiliated. Their opportunities squandered, they could only look with terror as Suinthila turned his attentions north, defeating the Frankish King of Aquitaine and restoring his dynasty's control of southern Gaul.
Meanwhile, the Franks, frightened by this new display of power from Hispania, began to rally around the King of Austrasia, Clovis, who as a young man had quickly defeated his brothers and expanded his dominion into the territory of the Saxons. They could not see that the Visigothic dominion was a paper tiger, strong only because of the various weaknesses of their enemies, and doomed to crumble once more the moment Suithila died. Unfortunately for the Franks however, Suithila would not be quick to die. He would finally die in 745, with rumors of poisoning abounding, and in the broader context of history he could not have picked a worse time to die. His sons-in-law divided the sprawling territory between themselves, and one by one they would be conquered by the Franks to their north.
745, was the year that the Khirichan realized the wealth of Europe. Compared to the Slavic tribes to their north, Europe was ripe for looting. It would not be long after that Kuluj Ishbara Shiqarogul, third son of the Khirichanid Khagan, would launch the first raid on Europe. Striking hard into the Balkans with a small force, he would carry back vast quantities of treasure from raids on rural estates. This in turn would only encourage more raiders and greater targets. Travelling light, his raiders were able to avoid concentrated field armies and local fortifications and wreak untold havoc. When his foes did manage to bring him to battle, they invariably lost. Isidorius was defeated in 749, and Northern Italy was opened to the Khirichan. From there, Spain and Southern France became targets as well.
Later raids between 753-759 would target primarily northern Europe, circling through Barvaria into Gaul, but in 763 a major raid, organized independently by a group of Xasar-Sahu warlords, managed to sack Meilanum (Milan) itself after a small party gained access to a sally port during the night. Each successful raid spawned imitators, and the few major defeats were counteracted by an abundance of victories. These raids would in turn allow the Khirichan and Xasar to truly establish themselves in the Carpathian basin. Utilizing their homeland as a base for raids, all of Europe was open to attack. Reprisals from Rome were limited - Isidorius concentrated on fortifying key entrances into Italy - which had some success, but did little to impress the military, which demanded answers. Finally, in traditional Roman fashion, Isidorius would be overthrown by his Magister Militium, Severus, in 768. His small family would be executed or forced into exile as well. The Isidorian dynasty came to an end, but the Roman Empire would not.
That same year, the Romans lost their Balkan territories and clients once and for all. Kuluj Ishbara turned from raiding to outright conquest, taking Illyria by storm and then proceeding south into Sklavenia. His raiders, hardened by their many victories, defeated Grand Prince Samuel and wrested Moesia and much of Epirus away from the Sklavenians.
The Great Raids had left Europe in a state of panic. For a generation their defenses had been shown to be vastly inadequate. Pagan brigands had ravaged deep into the heartland of western Christendom unopposed. Now, Kuluj Ishbara had carved out yet another heathen kingdom in Christian lands. It was unacceptable. Rumors that Kuluj, the Xasars under Shah Nanaivanta, and the Rhom Shah had formed a triumvirate alliance to conquer Rome itself spread like wildfire. The Sklaveni begged the Pope for aid. The Franks unified with remarkable speed, given their early factitiousness. Clovis accomplished what his predecessors had barely dreamed of - a unified Francian "Empire." In the wake of so many raids and upheavals, he promised to be a Defender of the Faith. One apocryphal story relates him traveling to Rome and swearing a sacred vow to restore the Holy Places and the Church entirely.
The stage was set for the Great Votive War.
[Stay tuned. Next post will cover in detail the rise of Clovis the Great (same time frame as this post) and his alliance with Emperor Severus. From there I plan to take a lot of time to focus on the buildup to the Votive War, the war itself, and aftermath.
Europe in this time period is not my strong suit. I welcome questions and comments. Kuluj Ishbara's raids are based on the Hungarian raids of OTL.]
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