The Rise of the White Huns
- Thread starter Practical Lobster
- Start date
Love this TL. I always love TLs that play around with the Age of Migrations.
I'm wondering... what has become of Christianity in the former Eastern Empire? I am thinking Eastern Christians would dance to any theological tune the Pope cares to play in order to be ruled by Christians again.
I'm wondering... what has become of Christianity in the former Eastern Empire? I am thinking Eastern Christians would dance to any theological tune the Pope cares to play in order to be ruled by Christians again.
So Cosmas completely screwed over the reconquest of Spain....i am saddened by this. This just means that the Roman Empire is going to be a different Italy.
Yeah Eastern Christendom is mostly unified under the Pope, who is the undisputed head of Nicene Christianity. The Patriarch in Constantinople is largely seen as a disreputable Eftal puppet figure. However, the powers that be in Anatolia are not entirely displeased with languishing under "heathen" rule - in some senses it is profitable and the Eftal don't care what you believe as long as you pay taxes. Of course part of this is that the cities don't think anyone will come to save them, so they've give up hope more or less.
Cosmos did screw up, yes. But don't count out the Romans yet! Although the Isidorian dynasty is done and the Severians rule in Florentia, the Roman state is still strong. Plus they're currently the undisputed successor to the Imperial title, which makes them way more than an alt-Italy.
Cosmos did screw up, yes. But don't count out the Romans yet! Although the Isidorian dynasty is done and the Severians rule in Florentia, the Roman state is still strong. Plus they're currently the undisputed successor to the Imperial title, which makes them way more than an alt-Italy.
Deleted member 67076
The First Crusade begins.
This time with a new generation of military leaders, probably with some military innovation. I expect quite a lot of anti-cavalry methods to be developed, in addition to Europe's heavy cavalry to improve once more.
And at the same time, state centralization. Nothing gets nobles to delegate defense (and power) to the king like an existential threat.
This time with a new generation of military leaders, probably with some military innovation. I expect quite a lot of anti-cavalry methods to be developed, in addition to Europe's heavy cavalry to improve once more.
And at the same time, state centralization. Nothing gets nobles to delegate defense (and power) to the king like an existential threat.
Votive War Pt. 2
The Rise of Clovis the Great
Clovis Magnus was as much lucky as he was skilled. He had the great fortune to be born a King in a Europe that for the first time feared not merely for Christendom abroad but its own existence. In his youth tales of the "Carican Turk" (a term which here included Eftal, Xasar-Sahu, and Turk alike) reached the court at Aachen. When their raids began in 745, Clovis had just ascended the throne, defeating his brother Carl and uniting Austrasia. The next two decades would see unprecedented reversals for European armies as they were outmatched time and again by the Turkic cavalry. The aristocrats of the countryside lived in fear of lightening raids, as did the common people. All old certainties had been extinguished as if overnight.
The Turks provoked fear, but it was the unification of the Hispanian and Aquitainian Kingdoms was the prospect that allowed Clovis to gain control of Neustria in 748 and subjugate the King of Burgundy in 554. From there, the other Frankish Kings quickly fell in line. As the Turks proved capable of raiding Bavaria, Thuringia, and Swabia, these duchies all folded back into a Kingdom of the Franks. By 560, all except Aquitaine was reunited - and that would come. Throughout the 60's, Clovis defeated the Hispanian warlords one by one, pressing as far south as Barcelona and ultimately making his border at the Ebro. King Unulius of Hispania, was killed in battle at Bayonne in 764, and his four surviving sons would be made dukes of the Hispanian "provinces" - Baetica, Lusitania, Suebia, and Carthaginensis, each subordinate to the King of the Franks.
What enabled these lightening conquests was the remarkable centralization of the new Frankish state. The nobles now were for the first time willing to cede power to the central administration, and frequently colluded with the same administration. This change saw the birth of the Palantine Magnates, an order of aristocrats bound to the palace who acted as viceroys over broad territories rather than kings. Required to spend a portion of their time in the capital and serve as bodyguards in times of war, these Magnates were accordingly prevented from establishing kingly privileges over their new dominions.
The Frankish army was drawn from two major sources. The reliable standing army consisted of the noble "retainers" - well-equipped, well-disciplined aristocratic soldiers. However, for major campaigns a large levy could be called up. While traditionally this levy applied only to certain regions and cities where the King had a legal right to do so, the levy was reformed under Clovis Magnus, becoming a universal right of the monarchy and certain of the Palantine Magnates. The Franks did not make widespread use of cavalry - compared to the Romans their horse were few in number, although the horsemen of their army were heavily armored and armed. Their traditional style of warfare involved bristling shield walls of infantry.
Religion played no small role in the organization of the new state. Ecclesiastical lands represented a not insignificant portion of the Frankish estate system, and as Clovis' power grew, his status as the most prominent Christian monarch grew accordingly. A pious and reverent image helped him to show his rule over almost all of Western Europe as not mere ambition but rather a divinely mandate. He began referring to himself as "Defender of the Faith" and "Equal to the Apostles" in his proclamations, and reportedly travelled to Rome on several occasions to meet with the Pope, Adrian I. What was crucial, however, was that Clovis never went so far as to claim any pretension to Imperial prestige. He was a monarch, and perhaps the greatest monarch, but he was not Roman Emperor - even when Severus took power out of the hands of the Isidorians, Clovis acknowledged the Emperor as legitimate after Severus' confirmation by the Senate and Roman Army.
Despite all this, Clovis knew well that his state would not long last without an external enemy, and for both personal and political reasons he felt it unwise to choose the Roman Empire as that foe. His state had been forged in many ways because of the Carican Turk, and thus it seemed only appropriate to continue his war against them. That the Roman Empire, Pope, and Sklavonian Empire all thought the same was only a benefit. In 771, the first call went forth for the armed populace of Europe to paint the Red Cross upon their shields and go forth to Holy War.
The Great Votive War
Historians are rightly fascinated by the Great Votive War, as it marks a major turning-point in the history of Europe and the world. Wars had of course been fought over religion before. The latter Eastern Roman Emperors couched their wars in the rhetoric of Saint Augustine's "Just War" and in an ideology that can be perhaps seen as proto-Desidarian. However, the concept of "Devotional" or "Votive War" represented a transition in ideology, an expansion of the Just War theology. Active warfare against the heathens was now, in rhetoric of Pope Adrian I, incumbent upon Christendom. The defense of Christianity and Christian holy places was an obligation for all who were capable of doing so. The armed strength of Europe should not, as it had for centuries, turn against each other but rather against their common enemies now howling at the gate. Everywhere pagans ruled Christian land. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe the armies of Christ were being driven back.
Votive War, or war fought as part of a solemn vow to God, was a blessed affair, a way of obtaining divine favor and absolving sins. Just as the warrior-kings of the Old Testament or Constantine the Great undertook wars sanctioned by God, so too could contemporary Kings and Emperors. The Papacy called on all Christians to turn against the Heathen, and the response was tremendous. With the sanction of Emperor Severus and King Clovis, the armed might of Europe began to assemble as a single, unified force.
...At least in theory. At its core, the Great Votive War is perhaps best understood as a state-sponsored war and religious alliance. The leaders of the Votive War were Clovis and Severus - there can be no doubt of that. A common goal existed for both leaders - to conquer the heathens and alleviate the stresses on their empires brought about by raiding. Both leaders also sought to distract their populace from internal issues of legitimacy and focus their nobility and armies on an external foe. The Votive War would quickly be perverted into a tool of secular conquest. All illusions of holy objectives were shattered early on by Severus' Generals, who proved to have their own radically different ambitions.
If the Votive Armies assembled to cries of "God Wills It!" they still obeyed the clear organizational lines of their respective military hierarchies. Volunteers and poor soldiers flocked to the levied armies and often created disordered and heavily armed mobs, but the average Roman soldier was a paid professional and the average Frankish soldier was fulfilling an oath of legal obligation to serve. Religion served as a motivating and inspirational factor, but it did not inherently explain why the bulk of the Votive soldiers were there. The disorderly mobs and warbands that descended from Carantania into Pannonia and were subsequently slaughtered en masse by the Xasar, later dubbed the "Army of the Vulgar Votives" were merely a symptom of the religious fanaticism that gripped Europe in this era.
The expense and logistics of this army were truly impressive. Tens of thousands of Franks travelled through Italy (with some level of escort) to Aquileia where they were barracked at great expense to the Roman State. Granaries were emptied. The Roman soldiers who marshaled grew restless as they waited for yet more Frankish troops to arrive, and, as food stores began to run intermittently low, riots and small skirmishes broke out between Frankish lords and the Roman troops. Priests and Roman officers struggled to remind the armies why they were gathered, and that the true enemy lay beyond.
Finally, in mid-Spring of 774, Clovis arrived with his own retainer, and the armies began their march. The Roman force was commanded by Nicolus Ioannis, Severus' Magister Militium. The Roman Emperor choosing to remain in Florentia caused some tension between the two camps. The Franks were uncertain why the Emperor would not personally attend, fearing some sort of scheme. Distrust had mounted over the course of the several-month long buildup to war and as the armies descended into Pannonia it reached a fever pitch. Nicolus wanted to turn south into the Balkans and defeat Kuluj personally, while the Franks envisioned a march along the Danube towards Constantinople, defeating the Xasars along the way.
Ultimately, the two armies would split over this debate. The Franks would march on Srem, and the Romans would move south, liberating the Slavs and enjoying a relatively easy campaign while they restored their Balkan territories.
Unbeknownst to Nicolus until it was too late, Kuluj Ishbara had fled north to the Xasar court with his army. The Avar and Xasar Shah, Nanaivanta, put aside his differences with Kuluj, and had persuaded the Turkic Prince to call on his father for aid and abandon his own conquests in favor of a mutual defense. If the Franks were defeated here, Nanaivanta argued, they would never again contemplate such an invasion and the rewards could be astronomical. However, unlike Christian Europe, while the Xasar and Turks might have had an alliance, common religion provided little motivation. The rulers of the steppe peoples saw themselves as secular lords, and the only commonality in their beliefs was a Buddhist philosophy which did not provide the level of shared identity that the Christian rulers were able to utilize. Perhaps because of this, the Rhom Shah, Varshirakh did not even recognize that he was every bit as threatened as the Xasar and Turks. He refused to send anything but token aid until it was far too late, for fear of angering the Sklaveni.
While the Romans swept East without resistance, meeting the Sklavenian Autocrat at Thessaloniki and striking an alliance, the Franks became bogged down quickly. The Carican armies were too light and too mobile for them to face. However, as the combined Xasar-Turkic alliance gathered more and more forces, Kuluj became arrogant and decided to directly attack the Franks. At the Battle of Sisak, the Turks learned a brutal lesson. The Frankish shield walls simply did not break. Forming a large square formation, with archers in the center, the Franks smashed the charging Turks time and again, refusing to yield and using their long spears to counter the Turkic charges. Despite becoming totally surrounded, Clovis held his ground, and, as the Turks became exhausted he ordered a single cavalry charge with his heavy horse. Shah Nanaivanta countered the charge but at the cost of most of the Xasar companions and he himself was grievously wounded. While the Shah would recover, the Xasar retreated to Srem, which would fall several months later.
The Franks however, in keeping with the rough plan decided ahead of time, could not commit to turning north to finish off the Xasar but rather continued along the Danube, through friendly Christian territory. Clovis sent a portion of his forces north under one of his Count-Palatines, Berthaire. Berthaire was a veteran of many campaigns but his forces lacked a strong cavalry element. At the battle of Morisena he suffered a brutal defeat against the wily Kuluj Ishbara and retreated to Srem, which would become besieged.
For the main body of the Frankish army, supplies began to run low. As they marched down the Danube, they turned against the Slavs there and began to pillage openly, justifying their atrocities by saying that the Slavs were hardly true Christians, and observed strange rites that could only be pagan devil-worship. As word of these atrocities spread southwards, the Romans and Sklaveni became increasingly at odds. Tense messages were exchanged between Clovis, who could not rein in his men, and Nicolus, who feared losing the Sklaveni as allies and thus provisions to his own men. The two Votive armies prepared to meet at Adrianopolis, but Autocrat Samuel I, disgusted with the Frankish atrocities declared he would carry on no further. Rumor spread that he was considering an alliance with Varshirakh, who was a known quantity and enjoyed good relations with the Sklaveni. Angered by Samuel's refusal and worried by the rumors, Nicolus acted swiftly. He invited the Sklaveni Autocrat to a banquet with many retainers, and promised to make a full apology. However, once the Sklaveni arrived, they were taken hostage. The Sklaveni army was quickly disarmed and made to march south under guard. Weakened by their many defeats against the Turks, the Sklaveni were too few to refuse, and the Roman Legate Cyracius Ricio marched south with a token force and occupied Thessaloniki. While Samuel retained his throne, his position was now deeply uncertain - a prisoner in his own palace, he lived now at the mercy of a distant Emperor.
Severus himself was shocked by these developments, but he wasted little time. He dispatched another five thousand soldiers, stripping bare the garrisons of southern Italy to round out the force. Roughly half soldiers marched to reinforce Berthaire in Srem, and they succeeded in breaking the siege. Berthaire was now free to consolidate and push back, although 775 would see mostly inconclusive skirmishes. The Franks rarely advanced beyond the Danube in force. The other half of this force sailed to Thessaloniki, and bolstered Cyracius' position there.
As the new year dawned, the Franco-Roman army arrived at Constantinople. Its walls repaired and well-defended, several sporadic assaults in the early spring saw massive casualties for the attackers. Varshirakh had prepared well. The aging Shah had a large fleet and a well-supplied city. Knowing well the atrocities that had been perpetrated already by the Votive Army, he did not dare to consider negotiation. The Votive Army grew frustrated beneath the walls. Their fortunes would change when the Roman navy, massively expanded under the later Isidorian Emperors, secured a massive victory in the Bosphorus. Much of the Rhom fleet was crewed by Christians from the city-states of Asia Minor, and these elements mutinied when they learned of the Votive War's purpose. Those ships that remained loyal were bottled up in the Golden Horn and Constantinople was surrounded. However even still Varshirakh refused to surrender. The army outside his walls was too vast - he knew this. It had devastated the countryside to feed itself and now it was starving faster than the Eftal inside the walls.
Nicolus, knowing this cold arithmetic well, decided to leave only a small force besieging Constantinople and cross the Hellesponte. Coastal Anatolia was rich and fertile - it could feed the army. Clovis cautiously agreed with the plan, although he himself would remain. Having seen the city, the King had become fascinated with it. He seemed eager to deny the Romans the prize, and he falsely believed that Varshirakh was on the verge of surrender.
The cities of Asia Minor rose up en masse. The Eftal hinterlands, rich with agricultural estates, were pillaged and the Eftal landlords and grandees driven out. Lesser Frankish lords would often find regions and carve them out as personal fiefs, and when local Roman authorities tried to evict them the response was violent. Even the Rhom Eftal were at a loss in the face of this mass incursion. Ikonya fell rapidly and the Eftal fled into Syria en masse. Battles at Amorion and Sozopolis saw Frankish and Severian Roman victories respectively against the Rhom Eftal lords, whose tactics were effectively countered by a now experienced Votive Army.
As impressive as these sprawling conquests were, they left uncertainty and chaos in their wake. The Frankish Empire was distant, and the Frankish nobles were inspired by loot and religious fanaticism. By contrast the Romans were more immediate and often more practical (though no less fanatical). But both wanted some portion of the spoils of war, even before the war ended. A Hispanian warlord was busy carving out a territory for himself around the town of Myra, and with the tacit approval of Emperor Severus, Berthaire founded the Frankish duchy of Srem. The Sklaveni kingdom needed to be handled, and the new conquests in Anatolia distributed. Furthermore, even as both sides made the first shaky steps towards consolidation, Constantinople remained untaken and belligerently defiant. An Eftal commander named Kurshanam, commonly called "the Bandit Shah" was operating from a base near Amaseia and waging effective guerilla war against any Roman forces nearby, having gained the allegiance of many Alans.
Then, there was a still greater concern. The rank and file soldier had no conception of the distances involved, but a desire to reach Jerusalem had grown prevalent. If the Franks and Romans together had retaken so much of the Roman Empire, why stop here? Jerusalem lay within their reach, must it not? Would God not enable them to continue their triumphs?
Even some of the greater nobility were caught up in the fervor. A group of Roman commanders, lead by a charismatic Legate named Majorian swore an oath not to rest until they had restored the entire Empire under God. They broke off from the main body of Nicolus' force and marched south towards the Cilician gates. They were followed by the mighty Duke of Burgundia, Tescelin, and the Palatine Theodard of Aachen. Nicolus himself was waylaid by a fever and would not leave Iconium for any reason, even as his army disintegrated into warring factions and began to clash openly with the Frankish troops.
As word of all this began to reach Clovis, the Frankish King began to despair. His holy quest had seemed to glorious when it had all began, but it was increasingly sullied by the schemes of men and material gain. A war to drive back the heathens had become a war to restore the Roman Empire had become a war to carve out petty fiefdoms out of the ruins. In his despair he personally lead one final assault on the walls of Constantinople. Finally his soldiers made it over the walls in several places, in conjunction from assistance by Severian warships mounted with high castles. Bitter street-to-street fighting ensued, and portions of the city were devastated once more. King Clovis was on the cusp of victory when a lone Eftal archer on a rooftop shot him in the eye, killing him instantly.
The Franks, badly bloodied, fought to pull their King's body from the carnage and lost many men in the attempt. Constantinople remained in Eftal hands. The Votive War would enter its second phase - one where the great rulers who had been its authors would lose control of their creation entirely.
Clovis Magnus was as much lucky as he was skilled. He had the great fortune to be born a King in a Europe that for the first time feared not merely for Christendom abroad but its own existence. In his youth tales of the "Carican Turk" (a term which here included Eftal, Xasar-Sahu, and Turk alike) reached the court at Aachen. When their raids began in 745, Clovis had just ascended the throne, defeating his brother Carl and uniting Austrasia. The next two decades would see unprecedented reversals for European armies as they were outmatched time and again by the Turkic cavalry. The aristocrats of the countryside lived in fear of lightening raids, as did the common people. All old certainties had been extinguished as if overnight.
The Turks provoked fear, but it was the unification of the Hispanian and Aquitainian Kingdoms was the prospect that allowed Clovis to gain control of Neustria in 748 and subjugate the King of Burgundy in 554. From there, the other Frankish Kings quickly fell in line. As the Turks proved capable of raiding Bavaria, Thuringia, and Swabia, these duchies all folded back into a Kingdom of the Franks. By 560, all except Aquitaine was reunited - and that would come. Throughout the 60's, Clovis defeated the Hispanian warlords one by one, pressing as far south as Barcelona and ultimately making his border at the Ebro. King Unulius of Hispania, was killed in battle at Bayonne in 764, and his four surviving sons would be made dukes of the Hispanian "provinces" - Baetica, Lusitania, Suebia, and Carthaginensis, each subordinate to the King of the Franks.
What enabled these lightening conquests was the remarkable centralization of the new Frankish state. The nobles now were for the first time willing to cede power to the central administration, and frequently colluded with the same administration. This change saw the birth of the Palantine Magnates, an order of aristocrats bound to the palace who acted as viceroys over broad territories rather than kings. Required to spend a portion of their time in the capital and serve as bodyguards in times of war, these Magnates were accordingly prevented from establishing kingly privileges over their new dominions.
The Frankish army was drawn from two major sources. The reliable standing army consisted of the noble "retainers" - well-equipped, well-disciplined aristocratic soldiers. However, for major campaigns a large levy could be called up. While traditionally this levy applied only to certain regions and cities where the King had a legal right to do so, the levy was reformed under Clovis Magnus, becoming a universal right of the monarchy and certain of the Palantine Magnates. The Franks did not make widespread use of cavalry - compared to the Romans their horse were few in number, although the horsemen of their army were heavily armored and armed. Their traditional style of warfare involved bristling shield walls of infantry.
Religion played no small role in the organization of the new state. Ecclesiastical lands represented a not insignificant portion of the Frankish estate system, and as Clovis' power grew, his status as the most prominent Christian monarch grew accordingly. A pious and reverent image helped him to show his rule over almost all of Western Europe as not mere ambition but rather a divinely mandate. He began referring to himself as "Defender of the Faith" and "Equal to the Apostles" in his proclamations, and reportedly travelled to Rome on several occasions to meet with the Pope, Adrian I. What was crucial, however, was that Clovis never went so far as to claim any pretension to Imperial prestige. He was a monarch, and perhaps the greatest monarch, but he was not Roman Emperor - even when Severus took power out of the hands of the Isidorians, Clovis acknowledged the Emperor as legitimate after Severus' confirmation by the Senate and Roman Army.
Despite all this, Clovis knew well that his state would not long last without an external enemy, and for both personal and political reasons he felt it unwise to choose the Roman Empire as that foe. His state had been forged in many ways because of the Carican Turk, and thus it seemed only appropriate to continue his war against them. That the Roman Empire, Pope, and Sklavonian Empire all thought the same was only a benefit. In 771, the first call went forth for the armed populace of Europe to paint the Red Cross upon their shields and go forth to Holy War.
The Great Votive War
Historians are rightly fascinated by the Great Votive War, as it marks a major turning-point in the history of Europe and the world. Wars had of course been fought over religion before. The latter Eastern Roman Emperors couched their wars in the rhetoric of Saint Augustine's "Just War" and in an ideology that can be perhaps seen as proto-Desidarian. However, the concept of "Devotional" or "Votive War" represented a transition in ideology, an expansion of the Just War theology. Active warfare against the heathens was now, in rhetoric of Pope Adrian I, incumbent upon Christendom. The defense of Christianity and Christian holy places was an obligation for all who were capable of doing so. The armed strength of Europe should not, as it had for centuries, turn against each other but rather against their common enemies now howling at the gate. Everywhere pagans ruled Christian land. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe the armies of Christ were being driven back.
Votive War, or war fought as part of a solemn vow to God, was a blessed affair, a way of obtaining divine favor and absolving sins. Just as the warrior-kings of the Old Testament or Constantine the Great undertook wars sanctioned by God, so too could contemporary Kings and Emperors. The Papacy called on all Christians to turn against the Heathen, and the response was tremendous. With the sanction of Emperor Severus and King Clovis, the armed might of Europe began to assemble as a single, unified force.
...At least in theory. At its core, the Great Votive War is perhaps best understood as a state-sponsored war and religious alliance. The leaders of the Votive War were Clovis and Severus - there can be no doubt of that. A common goal existed for both leaders - to conquer the heathens and alleviate the stresses on their empires brought about by raiding. Both leaders also sought to distract their populace from internal issues of legitimacy and focus their nobility and armies on an external foe. The Votive War would quickly be perverted into a tool of secular conquest. All illusions of holy objectives were shattered early on by Severus' Generals, who proved to have their own radically different ambitions.
If the Votive Armies assembled to cries of "God Wills It!" they still obeyed the clear organizational lines of their respective military hierarchies. Volunteers and poor soldiers flocked to the levied armies and often created disordered and heavily armed mobs, but the average Roman soldier was a paid professional and the average Frankish soldier was fulfilling an oath of legal obligation to serve. Religion served as a motivating and inspirational factor, but it did not inherently explain why the bulk of the Votive soldiers were there. The disorderly mobs and warbands that descended from Carantania into Pannonia and were subsequently slaughtered en masse by the Xasar, later dubbed the "Army of the Vulgar Votives" were merely a symptom of the religious fanaticism that gripped Europe in this era.
The expense and logistics of this army were truly impressive. Tens of thousands of Franks travelled through Italy (with some level of escort) to Aquileia where they were barracked at great expense to the Roman State. Granaries were emptied. The Roman soldiers who marshaled grew restless as they waited for yet more Frankish troops to arrive, and, as food stores began to run intermittently low, riots and small skirmishes broke out between Frankish lords and the Roman troops. Priests and Roman officers struggled to remind the armies why they were gathered, and that the true enemy lay beyond.
Finally, in mid-Spring of 774, Clovis arrived with his own retainer, and the armies began their march. The Roman force was commanded by Nicolus Ioannis, Severus' Magister Militium. The Roman Emperor choosing to remain in Florentia caused some tension between the two camps. The Franks were uncertain why the Emperor would not personally attend, fearing some sort of scheme. Distrust had mounted over the course of the several-month long buildup to war and as the armies descended into Pannonia it reached a fever pitch. Nicolus wanted to turn south into the Balkans and defeat Kuluj personally, while the Franks envisioned a march along the Danube towards Constantinople, defeating the Xasars along the way.
Ultimately, the two armies would split over this debate. The Franks would march on Srem, and the Romans would move south, liberating the Slavs and enjoying a relatively easy campaign while they restored their Balkan territories.
Unbeknownst to Nicolus until it was too late, Kuluj Ishbara had fled north to the Xasar court with his army. The Avar and Xasar Shah, Nanaivanta, put aside his differences with Kuluj, and had persuaded the Turkic Prince to call on his father for aid and abandon his own conquests in favor of a mutual defense. If the Franks were defeated here, Nanaivanta argued, they would never again contemplate such an invasion and the rewards could be astronomical. However, unlike Christian Europe, while the Xasar and Turks might have had an alliance, common religion provided little motivation. The rulers of the steppe peoples saw themselves as secular lords, and the only commonality in their beliefs was a Buddhist philosophy which did not provide the level of shared identity that the Christian rulers were able to utilize. Perhaps because of this, the Rhom Shah, Varshirakh did not even recognize that he was every bit as threatened as the Xasar and Turks. He refused to send anything but token aid until it was far too late, for fear of angering the Sklaveni.
While the Romans swept East without resistance, meeting the Sklavenian Autocrat at Thessaloniki and striking an alliance, the Franks became bogged down quickly. The Carican armies were too light and too mobile for them to face. However, as the combined Xasar-Turkic alliance gathered more and more forces, Kuluj became arrogant and decided to directly attack the Franks. At the Battle of Sisak, the Turks learned a brutal lesson. The Frankish shield walls simply did not break. Forming a large square formation, with archers in the center, the Franks smashed the charging Turks time and again, refusing to yield and using their long spears to counter the Turkic charges. Despite becoming totally surrounded, Clovis held his ground, and, as the Turks became exhausted he ordered a single cavalry charge with his heavy horse. Shah Nanaivanta countered the charge but at the cost of most of the Xasar companions and he himself was grievously wounded. While the Shah would recover, the Xasar retreated to Srem, which would fall several months later.
The Franks however, in keeping with the rough plan decided ahead of time, could not commit to turning north to finish off the Xasar but rather continued along the Danube, through friendly Christian territory. Clovis sent a portion of his forces north under one of his Count-Palatines, Berthaire. Berthaire was a veteran of many campaigns but his forces lacked a strong cavalry element. At the battle of Morisena he suffered a brutal defeat against the wily Kuluj Ishbara and retreated to Srem, which would become besieged.
For the main body of the Frankish army, supplies began to run low. As they marched down the Danube, they turned against the Slavs there and began to pillage openly, justifying their atrocities by saying that the Slavs were hardly true Christians, and observed strange rites that could only be pagan devil-worship. As word of these atrocities spread southwards, the Romans and Sklaveni became increasingly at odds. Tense messages were exchanged between Clovis, who could not rein in his men, and Nicolus, who feared losing the Sklaveni as allies and thus provisions to his own men. The two Votive armies prepared to meet at Adrianopolis, but Autocrat Samuel I, disgusted with the Frankish atrocities declared he would carry on no further. Rumor spread that he was considering an alliance with Varshirakh, who was a known quantity and enjoyed good relations with the Sklaveni. Angered by Samuel's refusal and worried by the rumors, Nicolus acted swiftly. He invited the Sklaveni Autocrat to a banquet with many retainers, and promised to make a full apology. However, once the Sklaveni arrived, they were taken hostage. The Sklaveni army was quickly disarmed and made to march south under guard. Weakened by their many defeats against the Turks, the Sklaveni were too few to refuse, and the Roman Legate Cyracius Ricio marched south with a token force and occupied Thessaloniki. While Samuel retained his throne, his position was now deeply uncertain - a prisoner in his own palace, he lived now at the mercy of a distant Emperor.
Severus himself was shocked by these developments, but he wasted little time. He dispatched another five thousand soldiers, stripping bare the garrisons of southern Italy to round out the force. Roughly half soldiers marched to reinforce Berthaire in Srem, and they succeeded in breaking the siege. Berthaire was now free to consolidate and push back, although 775 would see mostly inconclusive skirmishes. The Franks rarely advanced beyond the Danube in force. The other half of this force sailed to Thessaloniki, and bolstered Cyracius' position there.
As the new year dawned, the Franco-Roman army arrived at Constantinople. Its walls repaired and well-defended, several sporadic assaults in the early spring saw massive casualties for the attackers. Varshirakh had prepared well. The aging Shah had a large fleet and a well-supplied city. Knowing well the atrocities that had been perpetrated already by the Votive Army, he did not dare to consider negotiation. The Votive Army grew frustrated beneath the walls. Their fortunes would change when the Roman navy, massively expanded under the later Isidorian Emperors, secured a massive victory in the Bosphorus. Much of the Rhom fleet was crewed by Christians from the city-states of Asia Minor, and these elements mutinied when they learned of the Votive War's purpose. Those ships that remained loyal were bottled up in the Golden Horn and Constantinople was surrounded. However even still Varshirakh refused to surrender. The army outside his walls was too vast - he knew this. It had devastated the countryside to feed itself and now it was starving faster than the Eftal inside the walls.
Nicolus, knowing this cold arithmetic well, decided to leave only a small force besieging Constantinople and cross the Hellesponte. Coastal Anatolia was rich and fertile - it could feed the army. Clovis cautiously agreed with the plan, although he himself would remain. Having seen the city, the King had become fascinated with it. He seemed eager to deny the Romans the prize, and he falsely believed that Varshirakh was on the verge of surrender.
The cities of Asia Minor rose up en masse. The Eftal hinterlands, rich with agricultural estates, were pillaged and the Eftal landlords and grandees driven out. Lesser Frankish lords would often find regions and carve them out as personal fiefs, and when local Roman authorities tried to evict them the response was violent. Even the Rhom Eftal were at a loss in the face of this mass incursion. Ikonya fell rapidly and the Eftal fled into Syria en masse. Battles at Amorion and Sozopolis saw Frankish and Severian Roman victories respectively against the Rhom Eftal lords, whose tactics were effectively countered by a now experienced Votive Army.
As impressive as these sprawling conquests were, they left uncertainty and chaos in their wake. The Frankish Empire was distant, and the Frankish nobles were inspired by loot and religious fanaticism. By contrast the Romans were more immediate and often more practical (though no less fanatical). But both wanted some portion of the spoils of war, even before the war ended. A Hispanian warlord was busy carving out a territory for himself around the town of Myra, and with the tacit approval of Emperor Severus, Berthaire founded the Frankish duchy of Srem. The Sklaveni kingdom needed to be handled, and the new conquests in Anatolia distributed. Furthermore, even as both sides made the first shaky steps towards consolidation, Constantinople remained untaken and belligerently defiant. An Eftal commander named Kurshanam, commonly called "the Bandit Shah" was operating from a base near Amaseia and waging effective guerilla war against any Roman forces nearby, having gained the allegiance of many Alans.
Then, there was a still greater concern. The rank and file soldier had no conception of the distances involved, but a desire to reach Jerusalem had grown prevalent. If the Franks and Romans together had retaken so much of the Roman Empire, why stop here? Jerusalem lay within their reach, must it not? Would God not enable them to continue their triumphs?
Even some of the greater nobility were caught up in the fervor. A group of Roman commanders, lead by a charismatic Legate named Majorian swore an oath not to rest until they had restored the entire Empire under God. They broke off from the main body of Nicolus' force and marched south towards the Cilician gates. They were followed by the mighty Duke of Burgundia, Tescelin, and the Palatine Theodard of Aachen. Nicolus himself was waylaid by a fever and would not leave Iconium for any reason, even as his army disintegrated into warring factions and began to clash openly with the Frankish troops.
As word of all this began to reach Clovis, the Frankish King began to despair. His holy quest had seemed to glorious when it had all began, but it was increasingly sullied by the schemes of men and material gain. A war to drive back the heathens had become a war to restore the Roman Empire had become a war to carve out petty fiefdoms out of the ruins. In his despair he personally lead one final assault on the walls of Constantinople. Finally his soldiers made it over the walls in several places, in conjunction from assistance by Severian warships mounted with high castles. Bitter street-to-street fighting ensued, and portions of the city were devastated once more. King Clovis was on the cusp of victory when a lone Eftal archer on a rooftop shot him in the eye, killing him instantly.
The Franks, badly bloodied, fought to pull their King's body from the carnage and lost many men in the attempt. Constantinople remained in Eftal hands. The Votive War would enter its second phase - one where the great rulers who had been its authors would lose control of their creation entirely.
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Oh!! So close with Constantinople!
Nonetheless, without the capture of Constantinople, its going to be hard for the Franks and Romans to consolidate their conquest, as you'll probably show in short order.
And we're also just in time for the Vikings to start their raids as well, setting up yet another front for Christian Europe to have to deal with.
Part of me had been hoping that Aghatsagh, or his successor, would have lived long enough and advanced west enough to fight the Franks and Romans in Anatolia. That would have been quite the epic battle.
In any case, a map would be nice to cover these cataclysmic developments.
Nonetheless, without the capture of Constantinople, its going to be hard for the Franks and Romans to consolidate their conquest, as you'll probably show in short order.
And we're also just in time for the Vikings to start their raids as well, setting up yet another front for Christian Europe to have to deal with.
Part of me had been hoping that Aghatsagh, or his successor, would have lived long enough and advanced west enough to fight the Franks and Romans in Anatolia. That would have been quite the epic battle.
In any case, a map would be nice to cover these cataclysmic developments.
You read my mind, Bmao! Here's a map of the White Huns timeline world on the eve of the Great Votive War.
Apologies for mild spoilers in the East, but currently the Middle East is 40 years behind Europe chronologically in my telling of the story. I need to catch them up to the rest of the world!
HAHA YES!
I love where this is going!
I'm curious now: where would you say this is going?
Deleted member 67076
I'm curious now: where would you say this is going?
The Xasar might peace out in the chaos, but are left exhausted for the next decade or so. The tribal elite might become unsatisfied with the leadership and cause a round of civil war. In that, we might see even one or two tribes convert to Christianity to gain favor with the invaders, and support in a bid for power in all of Pannonia. Unlikely, but worth a speculation.
In the Balkans, the Romans are going to win in the long term, relatively speaking. Horde presence has been severely curtailed and won't be back for a long time as they have no patrons to back them nor a recruiting base, nor do the Slavs really have the manpower to fight back. Additionally, the region's already been rebuilt after its collapse a century ago so it won't break down as badly as before. Furthermore the peoples are friendly Christians firmly in the Nicene fold who are open to Roman influence for the next few decade. De facto vassalage might become the status quo for a decade or 3.
Constantinople will fall. With Asia Minor in revolt the Eftal have no way to reinforce it. It will be a costly battle for the Alliance- possibly Pyhrric, but a victory nonetheless. Only a matter of time. Or after grinding the invaders any remaining Christians open the door and the Franks have their way.
The Rhom Shahdom is likely to implode. Crusader states pop up everywhere as the mass of armies push east in a bid to take everything north of Jerusalem. Or it might be propped up with Aghatsaghid intervention. Of course, they might decide to intervene and raid for all its worth. Eftal and/or Alan there might become an endangered minority. Lots of equivalents to the counties of Antioch and what not.
Speaking of Crusaders, with the leadership scattered, we now have essentially roving bands of hordes (ironic eh?) pillaging their way east. They might settle, conquer or offer their services to the local Christian Noble.
Now in this, Egypt has plenty of options. They can play up their Christian credentials and manipulate the roving bands to attack their larger neighbor, recruit them as a new army, pay them off, settle them, or aggravate them and end up fighting the Crusaders over some petty nonsense. The last one I think is the most likely.
Aghatsagh
Aghatsaghid
Like the Oadhyans, the Aghatsaghid can also be considered in many ways the successor to the Eftal state. Like the Eftal their regime originated in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and it borrowed its culture and legal codes more from the Eftal imperial sensibilities than from the feudal precedents of the Oadhya dynasty. Aghatsagh's religion is unclear, and indeed he seems to have had few convictions in that regard. His son Korshad Lasgara, however, seems to have converted to his wife's monist, nondualistic sect of Hinduism. Having married the daughter of an important Sibipuran potentate so as to endear himself to the his guild subjects, Korshad Lasgara spent most of his early life warring and governing in the Punjab, learning vital lessons about governance.
At his father's death, the Co-Shah faced few internal threats close at hand. Riding to Herat to accept his father's seat, he had the implicit loyalty of his retainers. The threats came from the West. No sooner had Aghatsagh's body cooled than the Oadhya rose up in rebellion with the backing of a not insignificant number of greater lords. The Aghatsaghid response, when it came, was brutal. By attacking the seats of the vayan, the Oadhya were forced to divide their forces and rush to counter the Aghatsaghid attacks. Pars fell in early 741, followed by Huzestan later the same year. As the next campaigning season came on, Korshad rode north, defeating the Oadhya first at Xwast and then again at Nihawand. He captured Ahmatan and executed the whole of the Oadhya family, sending a stark message about the perils of rebellion.
With this victory, the short-lived Oadhyan Empire was truly undone. Their primary legacy would be the patchwork feudal system overlaid across Iran, and ending the period of bloody feuding which had preceded them. However, the Eftal era was rapidly coming to a close, and in many senses it was a victim of its own successes. The umbrella of Eftal had become too broad to develop a coherent identity around. Tribal lines accordingly had developed, and it was these that would significantly weaken the Eftal capacity to resist. The period of unified Eftal Empire was a distant memory now, and manifestly failed as a rallying cry against the various invaders of the east. As Ahmatan became the seat of a Turkish viceroy, the Eftal increasingly found themselves accepting the foreign dominion as little different than being ruled by a different tribe. And in their own way, the Aghatsaghids had embraced a distinctly Indo-Eftal heritage.
The next step in Korshad's plan to pacify the west would be driving the Banu Tayy from such cities as Ambar and Anat. In the old tradition of conquerors across the East, he employed a mixture of strategies. Resistance was met with brutality, but those tribal patriarchs who surrendered quickly were retained as vayans within the feudal system he had inherited from the Oadhya.
In the twenty years of his reign, Korshad had little opportunity to spend any of them in his Indian provinces. Consistently frustrated by affairs in the West, with tribal conflicts and attempts to rebuild the vast devastated tracts of Mesopotamia, the Shah left the guild republics of the East to their own devices. This benign neglect translated into a relatively peaceful and untroubled region. While the west stubbornly resisted attempts at reform and regime change, India remained largely untouched. The only issues were in southern Sindh, where the annihilation of the Rai dynasty had left the transplanted Turko-Eftal landlords ruling large tracts of land, and without local expertise, these grandees often administered their new estates poorly.
Towards the end of his reign, he clashed with the Syrian Eftal over the status of Nasibin. The major fortress-city was a lynchpin of any successful defense of Mesopotamia, and though Aghatsagh had given it away in exchange for peace, Korshad refused to acknowledge the sale. In 757, the Aghatsaghid army mounted a full scale invasion of Syria under the command of the Kamboja general Kharshida. The war was costly. Despite initial victories in the field such as at Karrai and Zeugma, the warlike Syrian Eftal refused to surrender. The war dragged on for four indecisive years, transitioning slowly to a guerilla campaign. Kharshida attempted to starve the Eftal out by annihilating their herds and driving them into poor pastureland, but the Rhom Shahdom provided shelter for these displaced tribes, allowing them to mount hit and run attacks on the Aghatsaghid supply lines.
Unwilling to risk war with the Rhom Eftal, peace was finally signed. The Syrian Eftal were made into a series of small vassal states, but they retained a level of autonomy and were allowed to resettle their territory.
After Korshad's death in 761, his daughter's husband Tarkhsigh Arslan took power. Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh saw the future of the Empire as being located in India. He had accompanied Korshad on most of his campaigns, and saw India as the true heartland and great prize. Early in his reign, he would develop a reputation as a patron of the arts and sciences, encouraging learned men from the monasteries of Syarzur and Gandhara to travel to Herat and debate. He established the first printing presses throughout his kingdom, so as to be able to distribute royal decrees quickly. A system of riders would take the initial printings to regional hubs, where they would be copied or amended and then sent on to the next lowest level of government and so on.
He also cultivated a close friendship with the aging orator Dahrasena of Taksashila, and seems to have been intrigued but suspicious of the republicanism of Gandhara. It is Tarkhsigh Arslan who was primarily responsible for the preservation of Dahrasena's works on government and philosophy, which a less enlightened ruler might have destroyed as subversive of his regime.
Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh was loathe to travel west. He remained largely ignorant of developments in Syria and beyond, focusing on the rising power of the Surasena Ganarajya along the Yamuna river. Having conquered Indraprastha, the Surasena ambitions had expanded to involve cultivating buffer states along the eastern Punjab. In 765, Tarkhsigh moved to crush these buffer states, but was defeated in a series of campaigns over the next seven years. Humiliated, he was unable to take the cities of Jalandhara or Sagala, which remained a thorn in his side.
Thereafter, Tarkhsigh would attempt to be peaceful. Much as the councils of Surasena might dream, Mathura, though wealthy and populous, was not strong enough to exert direct force into the Punjab. An invasion by the Kimek Turks in 774 was dealt with by local governors without even calling on the central government. All in all, there were no immediate threats to the Aghatsaghids... until the Votive War came.
The Votive War - Anarchy and Aftermath
The descent of the Votive War into anarchy was perhaps not unexpected by those with foresight. Clovis had relied on personal force of will to keep his lords and retainers in check. The Romans acted with more coordination, but they too fell victim to the fanaticism and opportunism that reigned supreme after Clovis' death and the brief incapacitation of Nicolus Ioannis by fever. As the Magister's health recovered, he found that large portions of his army were in open mutiny, spurred on by fanatical motivations.
The Legate Majorian had departed with a full five thousand Roman soldiers, and much of the Frankish force had departed with him. Those who had not were busy cutting the Rhom Shahdom into personal fiefs, ignoring promises Nicolus had personally made to Roman cities to protect them from pillage and brigandage. These cities were often walled and thus difficult for the roving Frankish warbands to capture, but some did fall. When rumors of Clovis' death reached the main army, Nicolus sent riders under his trusted subordinate Emanulis to inform a nearby Frankish force in Mokissos under the command of Count Aigulf of Augsburg. Some sort of misunderstanding developed and the Count murdered Emanulis with an axe. Two Roman cavalrymen fled the scene and reported the news, at which point Nicolus attempted to take the remaining Frankish forces in Iconium into custody.
However, the Franks were wary. They had seen Nicolus betray the Sklaveni and a rumor that the Romans had caused Clovis' death was sweeping the army. Pitched battles began in Iconium, with the Romans controlling the citadel, barracks, and a large part of the walls, and the Franks holding the marketplace and most of the city proper. They dragged carts into the streets to form impromptu barricades and responded to Roman attacks with contemptuous ease before pulling out of the city and marching west, perhaps meaning to return home.
While the Romans and Franks tore their alliance apart with astonishing quickness, the Votive War, in more than a few senses, carried on. Majorian, along with perhaps ten thousand mixed Roman and Frankish soldiers, marched through the Cilician gates into the Aghatsaghid Shahdom. While Majorian knew the politics of the region and attempted to reach out to the local Vayan and gain an escort on their "pilgrimage" many of his own soldiers and all of the Franks saw this as consorting with the heathen and began pillaging Cilicia with reckless abandon. Several engagements occurred, which saw the Eftal repulsed and what remained of the Votive Army continue their march. En route, they continued their pillaging, taking losses to Eftal raids and attrition, but remaining undefeated. As the summer came to a close, they bypassed Antioch and came to to Heshanid ruled Apameia.
The local military governor, Thomas of Byblos, was a Monophysite, but he was willing to parlay. After determining that this motley and exhausted force were ostensibly little more than an armed pilgrimage, he cautiously determined that they could be allowed to progress south under escort. If they truly desired nothing more than to see the place of Christ's death and resurrection, who was he to deny that to them? However, it was not long before the fact of the "Coptic Heresy" was realized by the rank and file. A council was held were several lower-ranking officers approach their commanders and lords. One of them, a young man by the name of Cheldric, claimed to have a vision wherein God called upon Duke Tescelin to restore his Holy Kingdom over Jerusalem. The Monophysites were no different from the Eftal. They smeared filth and lies over the name of God and deserved death all the same. Majorian agreed, and the Votives turned on their escorts and massacred them, before turning south towards Emesa, whose walls had fallen into disrepair, and putting it to sack.
It took the Heshanids too long to react, and when they did it was uncoordinated. While the Votive soldiers might have considered it a miracle, the truth is simply that the Heshanid military had atrophied over the past several generations of relative peace. Several disastrous defeats and failed ambushes later, they realized they had no hope of containing this mob, or the several armed bands of stragglers which followed it in the following months. Thomas of Byblos was himself killed in battle with one of these bands. When the Votives reached Jerusalem, the city, fearing the worst, opened its gates to them. This did not stop a general massacre of "unbelievers" and a vicious sack.
After the end of the bloody pilgrimage, many Franks began to realize that returning home was no simple prospect. The Heshanids controlled the sea and all the coastal ports. If they went their separate ways, none would ever see Europe again. A council was convened once more, and Majorian promised that every man among them could be a landholder if only they trusted and followed him. God did not call them to return home, he called them to fight for a holy purpose, to purge the heretics and unbelievers. Merely coming to Jerusalem was not enough - they must become its defenders.
The subsequent conquest of the Levant was unprecedented in its brutality, even by the standards of Eftal raids in past centuries. However, in the end, Tescelin crowned himself King of Jerusalem, Majorian became his "Mayor of the Palace" and Theodard of Aachen became Duke of Syria.
In the north, Cilicia had been almost entirely "liberated" by Count Aigulf. Because of its minimal remaining Christian population, nearly all of which were Nestorian, this liberation was little more than outright genocide. However, Aigulf was not alone in his aims. Many of the Frankish forces in Anatolia realized a simple reality - the Romans were the only power with the capacity to bring them home, and the Romans under Magister Nicolus had betrayed the sacred oaths of the Votive War. In the meantime, it was every man for himself. Each soldier should do as he felt God required of him. For many, that involved carving out a petty kingdom. Many, especially the Counts Palantine, realized there was nothing waiting for them at home. There was no guarantee even that Clovis' Empire would not crumble once word reached it of his death. Best to cut their losses and keep fighting the heathens.
Some, such as DukeBerthaire, had remarkable success with this policy. He ruled most of the Danube, and many of the Roman soldiers lent to him by Emperor Severus followed him in exchange for land grants - far more than they could expect from the Emperor. Another great victor was Sigebert of Nantes, a bodyguard and Palatine of Clovis' who led a follow-up attack on Constantinople after Clovis' death. The beleaguered city finally fell, and Sigebert was merciless in his revenge. After taking the city he left it in the hands of a small garrison and marched on Adrianopolis, conquering it as well.
Perhaps the most successful however, was the Count Palatine Helinand, whose conquests would go on to form the "Holy Kingdom of Asia" - he was uniquely able to convince cities such as Nicomedia to align themselves with him rather than the Romans through charm and deft political maneuvering. However, he also earned the animosity of Nicolus through his actions. The Roman commander had been fighting Eftal holdouts around Sardis when he discovered that Helinand was calling himself "King of Asia" - immediately he turned to dispatch the newest threat but was defeated by Helinand's Frankish cavalry, and forced to limp back to the coast.
Severus was left reacting far too slowly to the news. He ordered Nicolus to fall back and defend the Balkans, but the orders were never received, and even if they were, Nicolus' army was heavily atrophied and suffering from very low morale, having been turned away from its ostensible holy purpose. Legate Cyracius Ricio in Thessaloniki was effectively in sole command of pacifying the entire Balkans with a pittance of a military force. He was forced to negotiate with local Slavic lords, most of whom were currently his hostages. His demands were simple. Assistance would see them retain their rank and position in the new Roman government. Refusal would leave them imprisoned in Thessaloniki or killed. It was a stopgap measure, but it was mostly successful. Despite only having token forces, the Romans were able to maintain loose control over a vast territory - those parts of it which were not carved out into Frankish kingdoms.
The Eftal themselves suffered badly - the loss of Constantinople and much of Asia Minor put an end to their short lived preeminence in the eastern Mediterranean. Even the "Bandit" Shahdom, although ruled by Kurshanam, a Buddhist, was in large part populated by Alan Christians who resisted Frankish dominion of their homelands. If there was any victor among the conquered peoples of the Great Votive War, it was the Roman cities of coastal Asia Minor. Most of these cities were spared any major pillage, and almost all enjoyed almost total autonomy under Christian rule once again.
As the marital strength of Europe was expended conquering Asia, Clovis' death left a power vacuum which would be filled by his only (legitimate) son, Theuderic. However, news of the great eastern conquests reached distant Aachen only sporadically and often with a great many inaccuracies. Somehow, the notion that Clovis had been killed by the Romans became the predominant narrative - a narrative exacerbated by reports of Roman-Frankish clashes across Asia and the Balkans. Theuderic's councilors urged him to go to war with Severus, and Theuderic did so, marching south with his remaining retainers and what levies could be drawn up at short notice.
Severus met him near the city of Arles with a force of some ten thousand disciplined Roman troops and his famed Xasari guard. The Franks were more numerous but generally of far inferior quality, and it showed. While the Frankish riders and elite house troops survived almost entirely, the levied forces broke and fled. Severus swept north into Burgundy, and, after meeting with the Gallo-Roman aristocracy of Aquitaine, managed to incite a rebellion there. Theuderic was forced to rush across his territory, putting down rebellions, including one by his bastard brother which temporarily seized Paris.
Another map is coming soon.
Like the Oadhyans, the Aghatsaghid can also be considered in many ways the successor to the Eftal state. Like the Eftal their regime originated in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and it borrowed its culture and legal codes more from the Eftal imperial sensibilities than from the feudal precedents of the Oadhya dynasty. Aghatsagh's religion is unclear, and indeed he seems to have had few convictions in that regard. His son Korshad Lasgara, however, seems to have converted to his wife's monist, nondualistic sect of Hinduism. Having married the daughter of an important Sibipuran potentate so as to endear himself to the his guild subjects, Korshad Lasgara spent most of his early life warring and governing in the Punjab, learning vital lessons about governance.
At his father's death, the Co-Shah faced few internal threats close at hand. Riding to Herat to accept his father's seat, he had the implicit loyalty of his retainers. The threats came from the West. No sooner had Aghatsagh's body cooled than the Oadhya rose up in rebellion with the backing of a not insignificant number of greater lords. The Aghatsaghid response, when it came, was brutal. By attacking the seats of the vayan, the Oadhya were forced to divide their forces and rush to counter the Aghatsaghid attacks. Pars fell in early 741, followed by Huzestan later the same year. As the next campaigning season came on, Korshad rode north, defeating the Oadhya first at Xwast and then again at Nihawand. He captured Ahmatan and executed the whole of the Oadhya family, sending a stark message about the perils of rebellion.
With this victory, the short-lived Oadhyan Empire was truly undone. Their primary legacy would be the patchwork feudal system overlaid across Iran, and ending the period of bloody feuding which had preceded them. However, the Eftal era was rapidly coming to a close, and in many senses it was a victim of its own successes. The umbrella of Eftal had become too broad to develop a coherent identity around. Tribal lines accordingly had developed, and it was these that would significantly weaken the Eftal capacity to resist. The period of unified Eftal Empire was a distant memory now, and manifestly failed as a rallying cry against the various invaders of the east. As Ahmatan became the seat of a Turkish viceroy, the Eftal increasingly found themselves accepting the foreign dominion as little different than being ruled by a different tribe. And in their own way, the Aghatsaghids had embraced a distinctly Indo-Eftal heritage.
The next step in Korshad's plan to pacify the west would be driving the Banu Tayy from such cities as Ambar and Anat. In the old tradition of conquerors across the East, he employed a mixture of strategies. Resistance was met with brutality, but those tribal patriarchs who surrendered quickly were retained as vayans within the feudal system he had inherited from the Oadhya.
In the twenty years of his reign, Korshad had little opportunity to spend any of them in his Indian provinces. Consistently frustrated by affairs in the West, with tribal conflicts and attempts to rebuild the vast devastated tracts of Mesopotamia, the Shah left the guild republics of the East to their own devices. This benign neglect translated into a relatively peaceful and untroubled region. While the west stubbornly resisted attempts at reform and regime change, India remained largely untouched. The only issues were in southern Sindh, where the annihilation of the Rai dynasty had left the transplanted Turko-Eftal landlords ruling large tracts of land, and without local expertise, these grandees often administered their new estates poorly.
Towards the end of his reign, he clashed with the Syrian Eftal over the status of Nasibin. The major fortress-city was a lynchpin of any successful defense of Mesopotamia, and though Aghatsagh had given it away in exchange for peace, Korshad refused to acknowledge the sale. In 757, the Aghatsaghid army mounted a full scale invasion of Syria under the command of the Kamboja general Kharshida. The war was costly. Despite initial victories in the field such as at Karrai and Zeugma, the warlike Syrian Eftal refused to surrender. The war dragged on for four indecisive years, transitioning slowly to a guerilla campaign. Kharshida attempted to starve the Eftal out by annihilating their herds and driving them into poor pastureland, but the Rhom Shahdom provided shelter for these displaced tribes, allowing them to mount hit and run attacks on the Aghatsaghid supply lines.
Unwilling to risk war with the Rhom Eftal, peace was finally signed. The Syrian Eftal were made into a series of small vassal states, but they retained a level of autonomy and were allowed to resettle their territory.
After Korshad's death in 761, his daughter's husband Tarkhsigh Arslan took power. Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh saw the future of the Empire as being located in India. He had accompanied Korshad on most of his campaigns, and saw India as the true heartland and great prize. Early in his reign, he would develop a reputation as a patron of the arts and sciences, encouraging learned men from the monasteries of Syarzur and Gandhara to travel to Herat and debate. He established the first printing presses throughout his kingdom, so as to be able to distribute royal decrees quickly. A system of riders would take the initial printings to regional hubs, where they would be copied or amended and then sent on to the next lowest level of government and so on.
He also cultivated a close friendship with the aging orator Dahrasena of Taksashila, and seems to have been intrigued but suspicious of the republicanism of Gandhara. It is Tarkhsigh Arslan who was primarily responsible for the preservation of Dahrasena's works on government and philosophy, which a less enlightened ruler might have destroyed as subversive of his regime.
Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh was loathe to travel west. He remained largely ignorant of developments in Syria and beyond, focusing on the rising power of the Surasena Ganarajya along the Yamuna river. Having conquered Indraprastha, the Surasena ambitions had expanded to involve cultivating buffer states along the eastern Punjab. In 765, Tarkhsigh moved to crush these buffer states, but was defeated in a series of campaigns over the next seven years. Humiliated, he was unable to take the cities of Jalandhara or Sagala, which remained a thorn in his side.
Thereafter, Tarkhsigh would attempt to be peaceful. Much as the councils of Surasena might dream, Mathura, though wealthy and populous, was not strong enough to exert direct force into the Punjab. An invasion by the Kimek Turks in 774 was dealt with by local governors without even calling on the central government. All in all, there were no immediate threats to the Aghatsaghids... until the Votive War came.
The Votive War - Anarchy and Aftermath
The descent of the Votive War into anarchy was perhaps not unexpected by those with foresight. Clovis had relied on personal force of will to keep his lords and retainers in check. The Romans acted with more coordination, but they too fell victim to the fanaticism and opportunism that reigned supreme after Clovis' death and the brief incapacitation of Nicolus Ioannis by fever. As the Magister's health recovered, he found that large portions of his army were in open mutiny, spurred on by fanatical motivations.
The Legate Majorian had departed with a full five thousand Roman soldiers, and much of the Frankish force had departed with him. Those who had not were busy cutting the Rhom Shahdom into personal fiefs, ignoring promises Nicolus had personally made to Roman cities to protect them from pillage and brigandage. These cities were often walled and thus difficult for the roving Frankish warbands to capture, but some did fall. When rumors of Clovis' death reached the main army, Nicolus sent riders under his trusted subordinate Emanulis to inform a nearby Frankish force in Mokissos under the command of Count Aigulf of Augsburg. Some sort of misunderstanding developed and the Count murdered Emanulis with an axe. Two Roman cavalrymen fled the scene and reported the news, at which point Nicolus attempted to take the remaining Frankish forces in Iconium into custody.
However, the Franks were wary. They had seen Nicolus betray the Sklaveni and a rumor that the Romans had caused Clovis' death was sweeping the army. Pitched battles began in Iconium, with the Romans controlling the citadel, barracks, and a large part of the walls, and the Franks holding the marketplace and most of the city proper. They dragged carts into the streets to form impromptu barricades and responded to Roman attacks with contemptuous ease before pulling out of the city and marching west, perhaps meaning to return home.
While the Romans and Franks tore their alliance apart with astonishing quickness, the Votive War, in more than a few senses, carried on. Majorian, along with perhaps ten thousand mixed Roman and Frankish soldiers, marched through the Cilician gates into the Aghatsaghid Shahdom. While Majorian knew the politics of the region and attempted to reach out to the local Vayan and gain an escort on their "pilgrimage" many of his own soldiers and all of the Franks saw this as consorting with the heathen and began pillaging Cilicia with reckless abandon. Several engagements occurred, which saw the Eftal repulsed and what remained of the Votive Army continue their march. En route, they continued their pillaging, taking losses to Eftal raids and attrition, but remaining undefeated. As the summer came to a close, they bypassed Antioch and came to to Heshanid ruled Apameia.
The local military governor, Thomas of Byblos, was a Monophysite, but he was willing to parlay. After determining that this motley and exhausted force were ostensibly little more than an armed pilgrimage, he cautiously determined that they could be allowed to progress south under escort. If they truly desired nothing more than to see the place of Christ's death and resurrection, who was he to deny that to them? However, it was not long before the fact of the "Coptic Heresy" was realized by the rank and file. A council was held were several lower-ranking officers approach their commanders and lords. One of them, a young man by the name of Cheldric, claimed to have a vision wherein God called upon Duke Tescelin to restore his Holy Kingdom over Jerusalem. The Monophysites were no different from the Eftal. They smeared filth and lies over the name of God and deserved death all the same. Majorian agreed, and the Votives turned on their escorts and massacred them, before turning south towards Emesa, whose walls had fallen into disrepair, and putting it to sack.
It took the Heshanids too long to react, and when they did it was uncoordinated. While the Votive soldiers might have considered it a miracle, the truth is simply that the Heshanid military had atrophied over the past several generations of relative peace. Several disastrous defeats and failed ambushes later, they realized they had no hope of containing this mob, or the several armed bands of stragglers which followed it in the following months. Thomas of Byblos was himself killed in battle with one of these bands. When the Votives reached Jerusalem, the city, fearing the worst, opened its gates to them. This did not stop a general massacre of "unbelievers" and a vicious sack.
After the end of the bloody pilgrimage, many Franks began to realize that returning home was no simple prospect. The Heshanids controlled the sea and all the coastal ports. If they went their separate ways, none would ever see Europe again. A council was convened once more, and Majorian promised that every man among them could be a landholder if only they trusted and followed him. God did not call them to return home, he called them to fight for a holy purpose, to purge the heretics and unbelievers. Merely coming to Jerusalem was not enough - they must become its defenders.
The subsequent conquest of the Levant was unprecedented in its brutality, even by the standards of Eftal raids in past centuries. However, in the end, Tescelin crowned himself King of Jerusalem, Majorian became his "Mayor of the Palace" and Theodard of Aachen became Duke of Syria.
In the north, Cilicia had been almost entirely "liberated" by Count Aigulf. Because of its minimal remaining Christian population, nearly all of which were Nestorian, this liberation was little more than outright genocide. However, Aigulf was not alone in his aims. Many of the Frankish forces in Anatolia realized a simple reality - the Romans were the only power with the capacity to bring them home, and the Romans under Magister Nicolus had betrayed the sacred oaths of the Votive War. In the meantime, it was every man for himself. Each soldier should do as he felt God required of him. For many, that involved carving out a petty kingdom. Many, especially the Counts Palantine, realized there was nothing waiting for them at home. There was no guarantee even that Clovis' Empire would not crumble once word reached it of his death. Best to cut their losses and keep fighting the heathens.
Some, such as DukeBerthaire, had remarkable success with this policy. He ruled most of the Danube, and many of the Roman soldiers lent to him by Emperor Severus followed him in exchange for land grants - far more than they could expect from the Emperor. Another great victor was Sigebert of Nantes, a bodyguard and Palatine of Clovis' who led a follow-up attack on Constantinople after Clovis' death. The beleaguered city finally fell, and Sigebert was merciless in his revenge. After taking the city he left it in the hands of a small garrison and marched on Adrianopolis, conquering it as well.
Perhaps the most successful however, was the Count Palatine Helinand, whose conquests would go on to form the "Holy Kingdom of Asia" - he was uniquely able to convince cities such as Nicomedia to align themselves with him rather than the Romans through charm and deft political maneuvering. However, he also earned the animosity of Nicolus through his actions. The Roman commander had been fighting Eftal holdouts around Sardis when he discovered that Helinand was calling himself "King of Asia" - immediately he turned to dispatch the newest threat but was defeated by Helinand's Frankish cavalry, and forced to limp back to the coast.
Severus was left reacting far too slowly to the news. He ordered Nicolus to fall back and defend the Balkans, but the orders were never received, and even if they were, Nicolus' army was heavily atrophied and suffering from very low morale, having been turned away from its ostensible holy purpose. Legate Cyracius Ricio in Thessaloniki was effectively in sole command of pacifying the entire Balkans with a pittance of a military force. He was forced to negotiate with local Slavic lords, most of whom were currently his hostages. His demands were simple. Assistance would see them retain their rank and position in the new Roman government. Refusal would leave them imprisoned in Thessaloniki or killed. It was a stopgap measure, but it was mostly successful. Despite only having token forces, the Romans were able to maintain loose control over a vast territory - those parts of it which were not carved out into Frankish kingdoms.
The Eftal themselves suffered badly - the loss of Constantinople and much of Asia Minor put an end to their short lived preeminence in the eastern Mediterranean. Even the "Bandit" Shahdom, although ruled by Kurshanam, a Buddhist, was in large part populated by Alan Christians who resisted Frankish dominion of their homelands. If there was any victor among the conquered peoples of the Great Votive War, it was the Roman cities of coastal Asia Minor. Most of these cities were spared any major pillage, and almost all enjoyed almost total autonomy under Christian rule once again.
As the marital strength of Europe was expended conquering Asia, Clovis' death left a power vacuum which would be filled by his only (legitimate) son, Theuderic. However, news of the great eastern conquests reached distant Aachen only sporadically and often with a great many inaccuracies. Somehow, the notion that Clovis had been killed by the Romans became the predominant narrative - a narrative exacerbated by reports of Roman-Frankish clashes across Asia and the Balkans. Theuderic's councilors urged him to go to war with Severus, and Theuderic did so, marching south with his remaining retainers and what levies could be drawn up at short notice.
Severus met him near the city of Arles with a force of some ten thousand disciplined Roman troops and his famed Xasari guard. The Franks were more numerous but generally of far inferior quality, and it showed. While the Frankish riders and elite house troops survived almost entirely, the levied forces broke and fled. Severus swept north into Burgundy, and, after meeting with the Gallo-Roman aristocracy of Aquitaine, managed to incite a rebellion there. Theuderic was forced to rush across his territory, putting down rebellions, including one by his bastard brother which temporarily seized Paris.
Another map is coming soon.
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I'm thinking that the Romans and the Franks ending up going to war was not what the papacy had in mind...
This could be a good moment for the Papacy to intervene in order to create a ceasefire between the two sides, remind them what the purpose of the Votive War was.
Nonetheless, I think we're seeing a long term rivalry developing between the Franks and the Romans, as they strive to gain influence over Christian Europe and squabble over the remnants.
In terms of what happens in the future, Sigibert is looking to be in the best shape, for the simple fact that he now controls Constantinople and that he can declare himself the 'Liberator of Constantinople'. Is there a possibility that Sigibert, seemingly spurned by both the Roman Empire and the Franks, now tries to declare himself the Eastern Roman Emperor and thus centralize much of the area around himself? It would put him in a very odd position.
And lets not forget one thing; as Europe is busy trying to conquer the east, there is also going to be a new threat coming from the north. Time for the Vikings!!
This could be a good moment for the Papacy to intervene in order to create a ceasefire between the two sides, remind them what the purpose of the Votive War was.
Nonetheless, I think we're seeing a long term rivalry developing between the Franks and the Romans, as they strive to gain influence over Christian Europe and squabble over the remnants.
In terms of what happens in the future, Sigibert is looking to be in the best shape, for the simple fact that he now controls Constantinople and that he can declare himself the 'Liberator of Constantinople'. Is there a possibility that Sigibert, seemingly spurned by both the Roman Empire and the Franks, now tries to declare himself the Eastern Roman Emperor and thus centralize much of the area around himself? It would put him in a very odd position.
And lets not forget one thing; as Europe is busy trying to conquer the east, there is also going to be a new threat coming from the north. Time for the Vikings!!
While comparisons to the First Crusade are only logical, IMO they're two very different beasts. The motivations and actors are significantly different.I'm glad you're enjoying it though!
Since the Romans seem to have come out on top, and the Papacy and Romans are rather interconnected, I'm not sure they'd mind so much. Among the Franks the idea that the Papacy just used their manpower to accomplish Roman aims is not going to be an unpopular theory in the years to come. Although plenty of Franks made out very well, in general a lot of Frankish blood and treasure was expended to more than double the size of the Roman Empire, not counting any future potential gains yet untouched on.I'm thinking that the Romans and the Franks ending up going to war was not what the papacy had in mind...
This could be a good moment for the Papacy to intervene in order to create a ceasefire between the two sides, remind them what the purpose of the Votive War was.
I hadn't considered that, but it's an interesting thought. A Frankish Emperor in Constantinople and a Roman Emperor in the West... that's a weird world!
Two of the things that I'm most excited for right now are the Vikings and the future progress of India.
Attached is a link to the map.
http://i.imgur.com/8NpGV99.jpg
Note that certain things, such as the duchy of Srem, are somewhat rough at the moment. As is the entire map really.
Much of the area controlled by the Kingdom of Jerusalem is very loosely or still holding about with the Heshanids, but at the scale of the map that's difficult to indicate.
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Aghatsagh Overview
Aghatsaghid Society and Culture - an Overview
The seventh century saw by its end the complete destruction of the last surviving Eftal state, the Rhom Shahdom.[1] The end of the Eftal era is typically marked by this event, the fall of Constantinople. In a few brief decades the Eftal, both as a social class and an ethnic group had gone from pre-eminent to marginalized. A Turkic dynasty held sway across most of the traditional Middle-East, and Frankish and Roman kings and generals ruled all the rest.
As a military caste, the Eftal would continue to serve their purpose across the Iranian plateau and the river valleys of Syria, two regions that they had profoundly transformed by their presence. Even the Turkish settlement which became more prominent in this era was insufficient to displace them. Of course, these Eftal often regarded themselves by local tribal identities - the continuation of a trend that had begun ever since the collapse of the Eftal Empire. In time, the word Eftal, or "Ifthal", became increasing identified with the concept of "an Iranian horseman" rather than the original strict ethnic definition. In much of the Aghatsaghid Shahdom, these Ifthal horsemen provided a valuable auxiliary force and an integral part of the local aristocracy, regardless of their background.
The Aghatsaghid Shahs and their bureaucrats saw enormous potential in many of the old territories of the Eftal Empire. Mesopotamia in particular, long devastated, had undergone radical demographic shifts since its time under Sasanian rule. The Assyrian Christian population which had been predominant in Arbayestan was markedly diminished, forming only a minority in their traditional homeland. Much of the length of the Euphrates was so consistently raided by Arab tribes such as the Banu Tayy as to be depopulated. The great cities of Asorestan had been neglected by the Eftal and massacred by the armies of the Soasyant Husrava - and all the efforts of the Oadhyans to restore them had essentially involved partitioning their lands among their kin to rule as landlords. They had brought in Slavic and African slave laborers to work plantations growing cash crops and the like but this had not greatly arrested the decline of the region.
However, credit should not wholly go to the Aghatsaghid dynasts for the restoration of Mesopotamia under their reign. Various mountain tribes, living a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the periphery of Mesopotamia would at this point come into prominence. Called the Khardi[2], they had long existed in Southern Armenia and the region around Lake Urmia, and had a unique Iranian culture and language, and their own pagan religion which took in elements of Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Like the later Eftal, with whom they had many similarities and were often mistaken by contemporaries, they identified more by their own local tribal groups than by any broader category. It was these people who would resettle Arbayestan and northern Asorestan, with the patronage of the Aghatsaghid Turks. The Aghatsaghids recognized that by elevating the Khardi, they could gain an ally in their attempts to retain control over the Mesopotamian region. The Tigris, between Tesiphon in the south and Kephas in the north was by 800 firmly a Khardish river.
Southern Mesopotamia, or Mesan, was a different story. This was the old heartland of the Mahadevists, and they retained some measure of their old strength here in spite of repeated persecutions and an official repudiation of the Saosyant. However, unlike their predecessors the Aghatsaghids saw little reason to continue these persecutions and accordingly were tolerant of the Mahadevist congregation.
In general though, the Aghatsaghid empire was a Buddhist one. The Eftal patronage of Hindu philosophies had led to a situation where the traditional Iranic religions had been largely supplanted, meaning that from Sugd to Syarzur the population was majority Buddhist. While this was largely Mahayana Buddhism, it is important to mark it as distinct from the Buddhism of East Asia - the Buddhism of Iran was known, even to people of the Aghatsaghid era, as "Sogdian Buddhism" to distinguish it from the practices of other regions. This name itself is something of a misnomer. It is unclear if Sogdian Buddhism truly developed in Sogdiana. Regardless, it was a Buddhism developed for a distinctly Iranian audience. It retained deities and traditions familiar to the Eftal warlords and Sogdian merchants who patronized it. The veneration of a large pantheon of deities facilitated its rapid spread through the Iranian world. Even among the Turks it found a foothold, as it gave special veneration to Tangra.[3]
This was the still-developing religion encountered by the Franks and Romans who overran the Rhom Shahdom, and their massacres and persecutions would drive the Eftal of Rhom east, back to their traditional homeland of Syria. Accordingly it should be little surprise that the two faiths would ultimately set themselves at odds with one another. Unlike traditional Buddhism, Sogdian-style Buddhism was far more martial in character - it retained warlike deities whose addition to a Buddhist framework cast them as inferior to the enlightened ones, but still necessary and powerful figures who could grant victory in battle. While no equivalent to the doctrine of Votive War developed, the Eftal Buddhists nevertheless were able to use aspects of their faith as a rallying cry against the invading Christians.
Particularly under Tarkhsigh Arslan, a scientific revival of sorts would also occur across the new empire. Ideas preserved by monasteries from the Eftal Golden Age were brought back into the light along with the latest Hindu and Chinese discoveries. Once more, the Middle East would become a new crossroads of civilization, combining ideas and innovations in radical new forms. However chaos and warfare in Asia Minor and the Balkans prevented these ideas from penetrating the Latin West, at least for the time being.[4] One school of thought, being largely Hellenophilic, argues that the Frankish incursions were yet another deathblow to the intellectual and cultural tradition of the Greek East, just as the Eftal incursions had been. Another would be that the Roman and Frankish reconquests would simply contribute to the cultural mixing of the middle east, bringing a new, distinctly Germanic influence to Asia much as the Sahu trade routes brought a Slavic one. In reality, the truth is likely a mixture of these two options.
[1] The Heshanids, though Eftal in origin, should be considered thoroughly native by this point, and ethnically were as much an Arab dynasty as an Eftal one.
[2] Kurds, done in a way to (sloppily) reflect the linguistic shifts the Eftal have brought about.
[3] Eftal/Sahu version of Tengri, which they worshipped only sporadically but the Turkish gave a key place to in the pantheon.
[4] I can envision perhaps a largely discredited alternate-future sociologist who might argue that the Latin West has "Bloody Borders" as part of a grand narrative of the "clash of civilizations". No other culture, after all, was "bloodthirsty and fanatical" enough to come up with a concept of holy warfare.
[Something else I almost posted with the rest of the above post but I decided to do it this way for the sake of length. I admit much of it is a rehashing of stuff discussed in prior posts but posts like these are good at least for me to help ground what's going on. Also a mild Kurdwank occurs as northwestern Iranian nomads move into Mesopotamia, displacing the remaining indigenous inhabitants. This may have been done for the delicious irony of having a Turkish dynasty be the great patrons of the Kurds.]
The seventh century saw by its end the complete destruction of the last surviving Eftal state, the Rhom Shahdom.[1] The end of the Eftal era is typically marked by this event, the fall of Constantinople. In a few brief decades the Eftal, both as a social class and an ethnic group had gone from pre-eminent to marginalized. A Turkic dynasty held sway across most of the traditional Middle-East, and Frankish and Roman kings and generals ruled all the rest.
As a military caste, the Eftal would continue to serve their purpose across the Iranian plateau and the river valleys of Syria, two regions that they had profoundly transformed by their presence. Even the Turkish settlement which became more prominent in this era was insufficient to displace them. Of course, these Eftal often regarded themselves by local tribal identities - the continuation of a trend that had begun ever since the collapse of the Eftal Empire. In time, the word Eftal, or "Ifthal", became increasing identified with the concept of "an Iranian horseman" rather than the original strict ethnic definition. In much of the Aghatsaghid Shahdom, these Ifthal horsemen provided a valuable auxiliary force and an integral part of the local aristocracy, regardless of their background.
The Aghatsaghid Shahs and their bureaucrats saw enormous potential in many of the old territories of the Eftal Empire. Mesopotamia in particular, long devastated, had undergone radical demographic shifts since its time under Sasanian rule. The Assyrian Christian population which had been predominant in Arbayestan was markedly diminished, forming only a minority in their traditional homeland. Much of the length of the Euphrates was so consistently raided by Arab tribes such as the Banu Tayy as to be depopulated. The great cities of Asorestan had been neglected by the Eftal and massacred by the armies of the Soasyant Husrava - and all the efforts of the Oadhyans to restore them had essentially involved partitioning their lands among their kin to rule as landlords. They had brought in Slavic and African slave laborers to work plantations growing cash crops and the like but this had not greatly arrested the decline of the region.
However, credit should not wholly go to the Aghatsaghid dynasts for the restoration of Mesopotamia under their reign. Various mountain tribes, living a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the periphery of Mesopotamia would at this point come into prominence. Called the Khardi[2], they had long existed in Southern Armenia and the region around Lake Urmia, and had a unique Iranian culture and language, and their own pagan religion which took in elements of Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Like the later Eftal, with whom they had many similarities and were often mistaken by contemporaries, they identified more by their own local tribal groups than by any broader category. It was these people who would resettle Arbayestan and northern Asorestan, with the patronage of the Aghatsaghid Turks. The Aghatsaghids recognized that by elevating the Khardi, they could gain an ally in their attempts to retain control over the Mesopotamian region. The Tigris, between Tesiphon in the south and Kephas in the north was by 800 firmly a Khardish river.
Southern Mesopotamia, or Mesan, was a different story. This was the old heartland of the Mahadevists, and they retained some measure of their old strength here in spite of repeated persecutions and an official repudiation of the Saosyant. However, unlike their predecessors the Aghatsaghids saw little reason to continue these persecutions and accordingly were tolerant of the Mahadevist congregation.
In general though, the Aghatsaghid empire was a Buddhist one. The Eftal patronage of Hindu philosophies had led to a situation where the traditional Iranic religions had been largely supplanted, meaning that from Sugd to Syarzur the population was majority Buddhist. While this was largely Mahayana Buddhism, it is important to mark it as distinct from the Buddhism of East Asia - the Buddhism of Iran was known, even to people of the Aghatsaghid era, as "Sogdian Buddhism" to distinguish it from the practices of other regions. This name itself is something of a misnomer. It is unclear if Sogdian Buddhism truly developed in Sogdiana. Regardless, it was a Buddhism developed for a distinctly Iranian audience. It retained deities and traditions familiar to the Eftal warlords and Sogdian merchants who patronized it. The veneration of a large pantheon of deities facilitated its rapid spread through the Iranian world. Even among the Turks it found a foothold, as it gave special veneration to Tangra.[3]
This was the still-developing religion encountered by the Franks and Romans who overran the Rhom Shahdom, and their massacres and persecutions would drive the Eftal of Rhom east, back to their traditional homeland of Syria. Accordingly it should be little surprise that the two faiths would ultimately set themselves at odds with one another. Unlike traditional Buddhism, Sogdian-style Buddhism was far more martial in character - it retained warlike deities whose addition to a Buddhist framework cast them as inferior to the enlightened ones, but still necessary and powerful figures who could grant victory in battle. While no equivalent to the doctrine of Votive War developed, the Eftal Buddhists nevertheless were able to use aspects of their faith as a rallying cry against the invading Christians.
Particularly under Tarkhsigh Arslan, a scientific revival of sorts would also occur across the new empire. Ideas preserved by monasteries from the Eftal Golden Age were brought back into the light along with the latest Hindu and Chinese discoveries. Once more, the Middle East would become a new crossroads of civilization, combining ideas and innovations in radical new forms. However chaos and warfare in Asia Minor and the Balkans prevented these ideas from penetrating the Latin West, at least for the time being.[4] One school of thought, being largely Hellenophilic, argues that the Frankish incursions were yet another deathblow to the intellectual and cultural tradition of the Greek East, just as the Eftal incursions had been. Another would be that the Roman and Frankish reconquests would simply contribute to the cultural mixing of the middle east, bringing a new, distinctly Germanic influence to Asia much as the Sahu trade routes brought a Slavic one. In reality, the truth is likely a mixture of these two options.
[1] The Heshanids, though Eftal in origin, should be considered thoroughly native by this point, and ethnically were as much an Arab dynasty as an Eftal one.
[2] Kurds, done in a way to (sloppily) reflect the linguistic shifts the Eftal have brought about.
[3] Eftal/Sahu version of Tengri, which they worshipped only sporadically but the Turkish gave a key place to in the pantheon.
[4] I can envision perhaps a largely discredited alternate-future sociologist who might argue that the Latin West has "Bloody Borders" as part of a grand narrative of the "clash of civilizations". No other culture, after all, was "bloodthirsty and fanatical" enough to come up with a concept of holy warfare.
[Something else I almost posted with the rest of the above post but I decided to do it this way for the sake of length. I admit much of it is a rehashing of stuff discussed in prior posts but posts like these are good at least for me to help ground what's going on. Also a mild Kurdwank occurs as northwestern Iranian nomads move into Mesopotamia, displacing the remaining indigenous inhabitants. This may have been done for the delicious irony of having a Turkish dynasty be the great patrons of the Kurds.
]Deleted member 67076
Crusader states everywhere! While bad for the inhabitants, this is excelent for the Romans as a whole swath of the east's markets have been opened up.
I don't think the technological gap will be that limited. Once things settle down and get normalized (which i believe they will, there little interest on the part of the Iranians and Turks to retske Syria or Anatolia) trade will bring these new ideas and methods with it all the way to Italy and then, Gaul and Iberia.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem is in a bad place. The Levant is a terrible spot for an empire- unless they move south into Egypt or into Anatolia.
I do love the irony of the Turks being great patrons of the Kurds. Speaking of which, could this see Kurdish being the lingua franca of Mesopotamia?
Also, the buildup of Mesopotamian infrastructure is going to create a massive population boom. Thats a sizable powet base; not good for our ruling dynasty. Great for the Swahili city states though.
I don't think the technological gap will be that limited. Once things settle down and get normalized (which i believe they will, there little interest on the part of the Iranians and Turks to retske Syria or Anatolia) trade will bring these new ideas and methods with it all the way to Italy and then, Gaul and Iberia.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem is in a bad place. The Levant is a terrible spot for an empire- unless they move south into Egypt or into Anatolia.
I do love the irony of the Turks being great patrons of the Kurds. Speaking of which, could this see Kurdish being the lingua franca of Mesopotamia?
Also, the buildup of Mesopotamian infrastructure is going to create a massive population boom. Thats a sizable powet base; not good for our ruling dynasty. Great for the Swahili city states though.
I don't want to spoil too much but I do agree that the east's markets and technological innovation will spread. It's just difficult in the short term because of all the violence. Also as things calm down in Anatolia especially we'll see cool hybrid cultures developing.
The Kurdish dialects/language are/is becoming more common in Mesopotamia. Because of how depopulated the region is currently they will enjoy massive success early on and I can see them spreading well beyond their initial allotted territory. The Aghatsaghids will largely be incapable of stopping this if they want to - the center of their power and concern is far away.
The Kurdish dialects/language are/is becoming more common in Mesopotamia. Because of how depopulated the region is currently they will enjoy massive success early on and I can see them spreading well beyond their initial allotted territory. The Aghatsaghids will largely be incapable of stopping this if they want to - the center of their power and concern is far away.
Will the continued existance of the Roman Empire as a nation sometimes at odds with the Franks lead to the Germanic Frankish language continuing to exist rather than mutating into the Romance language of French? It'd also be a lot easier for the Franks to hold on to the eastern Germanic peoples like the Bavarians if they don't shed their Germanic heritage. Plus I'm still hoping that the Frankish Empire can survive Clovis's death. Especially when contact with a strong Frankish Empire could lead to the Germanic and Slavic peoples in the otherwise blank parts of the map developing civilized society. I'm eagerly awaiting when the Polonian Kingdom becomes part of the map, and thus the timeline.