A Defiant End

After the rout of his army at Vienna and the subsequent calamity of its retreat, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha eventually managed, and only with the greatest of difficulty, to set up adequate defensive positions in Hungary.  He then continued south to Shozod, capital city of Borduria, in order to establish a base from which to re-establish command over the scattered fragments of the army. His re-assertion of control was no mean feat given the now-widespread resentment against him among the officers and men who had sacrificed and suffered much at Vienna and the chaos the army had been in during its retreat.  Ever obstinately proud and defiant, Kara Mustafa hoped to recover the situation but he was too experienced a politician for naïve optimism.  The Sultan, furious and egged on by senior military leaders and the Janissary commanders who harboured ancient jealousies, declared that Kara Mustafa would be held to account for the Viennese debacle.  Kara Mustafa was not at all surprised therefore when, in the throes of a late December cold snap, his servants notified him that an Imperial tribunal and a squad of Beylik Janissaries (the Sultan’s own bodyguard) had entered Shozod and were riding directly for the Pasha’s headquarters. 

 Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha

Through a frosty window, Kara Mustafa spotted the menacing column of horsemen, elaborately wrapped in furs and thick coats, winding their way though the street below and he thought for a moment about slipping away.  He had laid plans, men and money aside for an escape in the event that his own Janissary ortas turned on him. But where to go?  To end up in the hands of the infidel enemies would only mean lonely and shameful death and he could expect to find no shelter in the Sultan’s lands or those of his vassals.  To Syldavia perhaps?  An interesting idea… the country was tiny and insignificant, one could hide in the wilds of the frontier and a fat purse can always buy cooperation with the scoundrels who live there.   To disappear and spend a life of indulgent pleasure, undisturbed and safe, how sweet that would be…   

Kara Mustafa looked grimly out his window at the ice-rimed city and felt the cold seep through the glass into his skin.  A life hidden in Syldavia would only be that of a skulking urchin.  To be forgotten in the middle of nowhere, without power or importance?  That would be a living hell!  Kara Mustafa stepped back from the window with a growl.  NO!  To seek shelter amongst the heathens would be a heinous shame and probably death in any case.  And his ignominy would shame if not doom his family (he had been adopted by the extremely powerful Köprülü family).  I will not skulk away with my tail between my legs. I will face the Sultan’s minions and I will not be forgotten.  He had made his stellar career, rising from humble origins to the threshold of the throne, though his preternatural instincts of aggression and to take chances. What was left to him to win now?  Simply the reputation and the hour of his adoptive family and to be remembered as a lion of a man.  Kara Mustafa turned to face the door and drew himself up, one hand on his belt and another on the pommel of his scimitar.  Let them come, the cowards, and tremble as I show them how a real man dies!

Shortly, the sound of heeled boots pounding on floors was heard and Kara Mustafa’s last servants fled.  The doors of his chambers were thrown open and the members of the tribunal strode in, some faces hardened and uncomprising and others, those of old enemies and new turncoats, sneering or shamefaced.   Kara Mustafa glared at them all sullenly as he heard his sentence read out.  He was to die but would be accorded the honour of being despatched by strangulation with a silken rope, as befitting a person of his exalted rank.  At a command, a pair of strong Janissaries stepped forward to hold his arms while another pair looped a silken cord about his neck. “It will take more than two of you to do this job!  And be sure you do your duty as Janissaries should”. Kara Mustafa fixed the Janissary executioners in the eyes with a baleful stare as he spoke.  The man fixing the cord blanched and hesitated (he had expected lamentations and dissembling, as was normally the case in these circumstances).   “Tie that knot properly and do not pussyfoot about as you pull!  Be men, soldiers!” snarled Kara Mustafa again.  Now the executioner flushed and muttered, sweat broke out on his brow and his hands trembled. 

As the Janissaries (four of them now) prepared to pull on the two ends of the cord, Kara Mustafa caught sight of Hassan Muhtar Pasha, the governor of Borduria and until this moment his subordinate.  “I wish that this cord be given to the honourable Hassan Muhtar Pasha who I see before me, that he should better remember this day as he strives to both satisfy his duty to the Great Sultan and to resist the infidels!   Hassan Muhtar,  do you not know that it is King Ivan who will tie this cord about your neck”?

A grisly depiction of the demise of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa, 1683 

And, with that, the tightening cord began to do its work.  Soon after, a sweating Janissary stepped up to Hassan Muhtar Pasha and, with a bow, proffered the neatly coiled silk rope.  Reluctantly and stiffly, Hassan Muhtar Pasha accepted Kara Mustafa’s troubling gift.  

A Picture for Alan of Tradgardland

In a thread over at the Tradgardland blog, Alan has been discussing some interesting pictures of 16th and 17th soldiers bearing both pikes and missle weapons, a combination which may or may not have been widely used!  Alan's post reminded me of some images I have seen here and there of late 18th century Austrian grenzers using a sort of spontoon as well as their musket, the spontoon having  a  hook mid-shaft, presumably for stabilising the musket for long range shooting.   Here is a one such picture of a  grenzer scharfshutz , from the magnificent New York Public Library Vinkuizen web site.

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=125794&imageID=90317&total=94&num=40&parent_id=120437&word=&s=&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&lword=&lfield=&imgs=20&pos=58&snum=&e=w

King Ivan's Campaign of 1683

Shozod, the dusty Bordurian capital located in the Danube basin, had been transformed into an Ottoman military camp by the early spring of 1683.  On behalf of the Sultan, Kara Moustafa Pasha had amassed over 150000 men under arms from such places as Rumelia, Bulgaria, the Bosporus, Anatolia and the exotic oriental fringes of the vast Ottoman Empire; by early May, these troops were billeted in the city of Shozod, capital of Borduria and awaited orders there, or were on their way.  This astonishing army was rapidly stripping Borduria barren of food and fodder, despite the seemingly endless trains of wagons, mules and even camels bearing supplies for the army.  Kara’s Mustafa’s orders were to subjugate the upper Danube and the Kingdom of Hungary (comprising the territory of northern Hungary, now in rebellion against the Habsburgs; southern Hungary, or Transylvania, was already an Ottoman vassal), and secure a defensible frontier within Austrian territory.  Kara’s Mustafa was an extremely ambitious and capable man who had risen from nothing to become second only to the Sultan; his vanity and ambition were his Achilles heel however; he had already laid out plans to exceed his orders and to take as much of the territory of the Imperium as possible (to his own advantage) by striking its fat underbelly, the capital of Vienna.  The Habsburg Imperium crushed, he dreamed of turning south, of taking Venice and invading Italy, even of taking Rome itself.

The Pasha took stock of the reserves of men and materiel available to him and of the time he would need to win his major immediate objectives for the campaign.   Heavy snow and then protracted rain in the early spring had saturated the roads and slowed transport of supplies and his plan was now running late.  New supplies could be wrung out of Hungary and the southern Austrian provinces once crops were ready, but even maraudage takes time, as do sieges of heavily fortified cities. Kara Mustafa knew that he had to move quickly to be in secure winter quarters in Austria by autumn.  Nevertheless, he had not yet gained complete control over the Balkans.  Syldavia, Ragusia and the Venetian client state of Dalmatia were of some strategic importance in the long term but were not essential immediately, nor were they real threats to Ottoman control of the Danube.  Surely their fall would be inevitable, as would that of Venice itself, once the power of the Imperium was broken.  So, on the 20^th of May, 1683, Kara Mustafa commanded his army to march north into Hungary, where it would meet up with the forces of allied Wallachia and Transylvania, and thence march on toward Austria.  The Ottoman threat thereby passed Syldavia by and King Ivan gained a reprieve. 

Having ignored Kara Mustafa’s attempt to coerce a Syldavian surrender and having in fact taken up arms against the Ottomans (technically alongside the Venetians), King Ivan I was preparing himself for the worst, a large-scale invasion of Syldavia from Borduria.  A more cautious man would likely have bowed to Kara Mustafa rather than face the rather awesome force he had assembled in 1683.  Unable to think of backing down, King Ivan put his regiments on alert and drilled them endlessly, he saw that fortifications were supplied and ordered patrols to comb the frontier for evidence of an invasion.  Ivan also brought up the strength of his army by training new drafts of men and by calling militia companies to assemble at regional forts where they were amalgamated into auxiliary battalions. 

In August 1683, finding the Bordurian frontier only lightly guarded, Ivan ventured a proactive move and sent nearly his entire army into the field.  A major force (including the King’s Musketeers, the Wladir and Ragusia infantry regiments, the Hum militia, the irregular “Grenzer” company, the Cuirassier Regiment, a squadron of irregular scout cavalry and artillery (with a handful of heavy siege guns, recently obtained at a good price from the Venetians) moved up the Wladir river from Djordjevaro.  With them, Ivan forced his way through the small, fortified frontier towns of Mocjiro and Orehovo on the north bank of the Wladir river and finally laid siege to Klow itself. If it could be taken, Klow (and the adjacent St. Vladimir Grad fortress) presented strong points from which the Ottomans might be better resisted when they returned.

Typically ambitious, King Ivan also sent a strong detachment (consisting of the Travunia and Zeta infantry regiment, elements of the Ragusia, Travunia and Zeta militias, the Dragoon Regiment and the small squadron of the Household “Husjzar” Guards (acting as hussar scouts) north over the St. Mihailo Pass with the intention to cut off eventual reinforcement or resupply of Klow from the east. This force stormed the weak Bordurian fortification guarding the pass and then descended into the Wladrujan plain.  While the presence of this second force did cause the Bordurians distress, and paralysed the Bordurian detachments in Istow and Neidzdrow, Ivan found that he was unable to remain in effective contact with it.  The force bumbled about for a time before moving, as intended, to occupy the small town of Ottokardin, east of Klow, which controlled principal routes of access to the city from the east.

No real relief force for Klow was mustered immediately by the Bordurians, as they were weakened by their commitments to Kara Mustafa’s army and caught unprepared by King Ivan’s offensive.  The undermanned Bordurian garrison of Klow proved to be determined, however, and the Syldavian army amply showed its inexperience in this sort of technical warfare.  Furthermore, the Syldavian army was short on suitable artillery necessary to force the issue and lacked professional engineers.  The direction of the siege rested in the hands of several of the new émigré officers, largely in the artillery (a branch overlooked by King Ivan to this point) who possessed some idea of the principals of military engineering.  The siege endured nearly three weeks before the artillery officers had trenches and a redoubt in place that could bring the army’s handful of heavy cannons to bear on a vulnerable portion of Klow’s walls and on a city gate.  Once these were breached, Ivan launched an assault which resulted in a short but sanguine battle that ended with the Syldavian troops taking control of a section of walls and opening the city gates.  Bordurian resistance collapsed at that point and the city was taken. 

A 19th century artist's impression of the entry of King Ivan into Klow, 1683.
Some details are erroneous.  Count Nikolai Mikolic,
shown mounted at left centre, was not present nor were the Household Husjzar horse
(in yellow and red uniform), and the King's Musketeer Regiment (background,
 wearing blue uniform) were still wearing round hats). Nevertheless uniform colours
are thought to be accurate.   

It was a day of great rejoicing in Syldavia and in Klow, when Ivan entered the old capital city of the Almazoutian dynasty.  He was the first Syldavian king to do so since the Ottoman conquest of Wladruja in 1430.  The downtrodden city, which still remembered well its former days of glory, turned out to welcome Ivan.  The mood of the countryside was more mixed, however.  Communities of old-time Syldavian farmer families flocked to the King’s banner, while those of more recent settlers, from Borduria and the Ottoman empire, installed since the Ottoman conquest were anxious at best.  Some of these, including families descending from janissaries and holders of timar feudal holdings, packed up their households into wagons and streamed off into Polishov as refugees rather than remain.

A Bordurian relief force was, in fact, being amassed as Klow fell; its advance was halted when scouts reported the presence of the second Syldavian force in Moltuja, which was assumed to be waiting to entrap the relief column.  A second halt came when news arrived regarding the siege of Vienna.  Incredibly, Kara Moustafa’s siege had been broken by the counter-attack of a united Austrian-Polish army under King Jan Sobieski and Archduke Charles of Lorraine.  Even harder to believe was the news that the Ottoman army was routed with huge losses at Vienna and that its ruined remains were streaming in chaos back south toward Shozod with the Austrians hot on their heels.  The Bordurians were stretched very thin as the majority of their army went with Kara Mustafa to the disaster of Vienna (though one imagines that the noted Bordurian talent self-preservation would bring some of those soldiers home…).  The Bordurian pasha, Hassan Muhtar, still on his hurried way home from Vienna, was in no position to intervene directly and so district commanders in Borduria were forced into a very defensive posture to protect Borduria’s northern frontier as well as the provinces of Polishov and Zympathia.  Accordingly, the relief column intended for Klow was used to reinforce the St. Vladimir Grad fort.  The weak and now isolated Bordurian posts in Moltuja, Wladruja and Zympathia had to fend for themselves for the time being.

Theatre of Ivan's campaign of 1683, showing approximate routes of his two attacking
forces along the Wladir River (left) and over the St. Mihailo pass (right).
Defensive positions of the winter of 1683-84 are noted in magenta;
very small towns and villages are in green and large towns are indicated in yellow.  

King Ivan was greatly encouraged by the progress of his campaign (naturally enough, he now had control of Klow, the strategic hub of Syldavia) and the trouble that his enemies found themselves in.  After leaving a garrison in Klow, Ivan attempted to exploit his advantage by eliminating Bordurian detachments in western Wladruja that could menace his supply lines and then by attempting to besiege the Bordurian-held fortification of St. Vladimir Grad, which commanded the frontier between Wladruja and Polishov.  It was late in the year however and again the conduct of a siege proved a challenge for the Syldavian army.  With no real progress and few local resources left to sustain his army, Ivan broke off the siege and retreated to winter quarters.  He established the bulk of his force in Klow and set up defensive positions at strategic posts controlling access to the city (Ottokardin, Nie Zilheroum, Klasdroje and Orehovo).  He established a new supply depot in Klow and waited for spring while he cogitated impatiently for a plan of attack.  

Happy Holidays!

It is time for the now-traditional Syldavian Christmas greeting and toast, brought to you by a chosen grenadier of the Polishov Musketeers Infantry Regiment.  Some of you might remember him from last year; he is back this year to wish you and your families the joy of this festive season and a happy and interesting year to come.  

It is a very busy time here, as we are travelling visiting with families and old friends and delighting in our three-year-old's excitement at the holiday's bustling social round.  And sleeping in so far as we are able - something lacking the frenetic last few months.  I'm away from my Syldavian army but I am scribbling away, in a few pleasant minutes here and there, at my next post on King Ivan.  As well,  in a few minutes before retiring each night, I am putting the primer and base colours on a unit of Bordurian cavalry I brought with me...   It is a time of happy progress on all fronts.

My thanks for dropping in this blog over the last year.  With help from Alan of Tradgardland fame, I am looking forward to presenting you the results of some real games played in 2012.  

  

Syldavian History 1681-1682: Dbrnouk at the centre of attention

Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa

King Ivan’s efforts after 1677 to modernize Syldavia’s military were timely indeed.  In 1681-82, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, the Ottoman Sultan’s chief minister and satrap of Rumelia (the western provinces of the Ottoman Empire, comprising the southern Balkans) put in motion a grand plan of aggrandisement, both Imperial and personal.  Kara Mustafa sought to mount an aggressive campaign against the Habsburg Imperium and to bring Hungary, then (as always) dissenting from Habsburg rule, firmly under his control in doing so.  In order to prepare the way for his plan, and through occupation and intimidation, Kara Mustafa attempted to consolidate his hold on the Balkans and to secure from that region both sources of men and materiel.  He also sought access to ports in the Adriatic from which he could sustain a naval threat to Venice or move troops around the Balkan Peninsula.  Kara Mustafa amassed troops in Borduria and Wallachia and turned those client states into forward bases for his push northwards into Hungary.  He attempted to extort Syldavia’s submission through diplomatic threats backed up by raids into Syldavian territory from Skhoder and Borduria.  Similarly, the free petty-state of Ragusia (the city of Dbrnouk) was threatened by Kara Mustafa with outright annexation and extermination of its ruling council if it did not consent to vassalage, to turn its fortress, fleet and fortune over and to aid the Ottoman fleet to confront Venice in the Adriatic. Dbrnouk’s excellent fortifications, upon which Ragusian independence largely rested, had been seriously damaged by an earthquake in 1679 and were still in repair three years later.  The city’s governing council felt quite vulnerable to the Ottoman threat as they knew that they could not hope to resist a determined Ottoman effort from an occupied Syldavia, and that they could not defend themselves against Venetian reprisals that would inevitably come if they consented to be used as an Ottoman naval base.

Part of the fortifications of Dbrnouk

Scrambling to react to the Ottoman threat, Ivan mobilised his forces and succeeded in pushing back raider forces that attacked the towns of Cetinjow in Zeta and Djordjevaro in Hum.  He personally led the force that vanquished the Hum raid.   Fortunately for Ivan, Kara Mustafa was impatient and impetuous; he had already begun to move the bulk of his army up the Danube and did not bother to ever send more than a small force against Syldavia.  Nevertheless, not knowing Ottoman dispositions, Ivan kept his forces, their nerves taught with dread, on guard. 

The Venetians were not idle in this time and did much to add to the tension of the moment.  In great anxiety himself over the Ottoman offensive, the Doge sent emissaries to attempt to coerce the Syldavians and Ragusia into vassalage once again as a means of better controlling the Balkan frontier and Balkan military forces (the Venetian army was not so very strong).  In opening a front on the Ottoman’s western flank in the Balkans, the Doge hoped to deflect some of the force moving against the Imperium and to create opportunities for re-conquest in the Mediterranean islands at the same time.  Messengers brought the Doge’s stern admonishment to join in the fight against the Ottomans under Venetian leadership to King Ivan and the Ragusian governing council even as Ottoman troops were being amassed on the Bordurian frontier.  Being entirely aware of the weakness of Dbrnouk’s defences, and informed by their spies of another impending raid into Travunia and Ragusia from over the St. Mihailo Pass, the Venetians ultimately took the initiative themselves and landed an improvised force of mercenaries, Oultramarinos, a light cavalry squadron and some artillery (including a few siege cannons) north of Dbrnouk, with the intention of seizing the city when the bulk of its troops were engaged with the Bordurian/Ottoman raiding party. 

A Ragusian man with Dbrnouk in the background

Ragusia had plenty of its own spies, however, and knew of the Venetian plan of annexation.  The leader of the Ragusian ruling council, Nikolai Marcusj, was a very crafty fellow and hurriedly mobilised his own forces (largely militia) and proposed an emergency meeting to King Ivan, who was in nearby Hum province, having just repulsed the first Bordurian raid near Djordjevaro. Marcusj met with King Ivan near the border village of Gladinajur.  There, Marcusj proposed a joint defence in the short term (ostensibly against the Ottomans) and a political union, where Ragusia would re-join the Syldavian kingdom as a semi-autonomous province legally subject to the King but retaining its traditional laws and quasi-Republican government.  King Ivan was astonished by the proposal but eagerly agreed (hardly needing any encouragement by his ministers who seemed well-informed of the proposal and rather too quickly produced papers legalising the union…).   Returning to Dbrnouk with the Ragusian dignitaries and detachments of Ragusian and Syldavian troops, King Ivan and Marcusj intercepted the Venetian force.  The political officer in charge of the army was more than vexed to learn of the de facto fusion of the two petty states; to overrun tiny and friendless Ragusia was one thing but an attempt to annex a Syldavian territory through naked force would be outright war on a country Venice hoped to steer back into its fold and one with mutual allies with Venice (the Imperium).  Even if it was a small and weak state, war with Syldavia would be a pure gain for the Ottomans and a significant problem for Venetian strategy to keep the Ottomans out of the Adriatic.  The Venetian officer was a prudent man, he abandoned the planned move on Dbrnouk and to save face when challenged to explain the presence of his own force, he had to concede to join the conjoint Syldavian-Ragusian expedition against the Ottoman raiding parties in Travunia.  In this venture, the Venetian troops played a useful role (in one key skirmish, their siege artillery was used to effect against a fortified position, forcing the Ottomans to leave the field), before departing.  Nikolai Marcusj went to bed a happy man, having more than trebled overnight the number of troops defending Ragusia and in having repelled one weak Ottoman threat and one a very significant Venetian threat through a diplomatic coup de main that changed little for Ragusian political reality.  And what delicious irony to have had that Venetian army in the field technically in the defence of Ragusia!  King Ivan was also extremely pleased, for he had expanded his kingdom by recovering a long-lost territory without a shot fired, and gained a major city and a port.  The port was significant for the trade and revenues it would bring, even if it was not well-connected to Syldavia’s heartland or rivers.  In Venice, the unfortunate office in charge of the aborted mission had to explain to the glowering Doge that he had at least forced Syldavia and Ragusia into the war squarely against the Ottomans.  And elsewhere, in Szhod, Kara Mustafa put his plans of conquest into motion...   

Syldavian History of the 17th century

Syldavia began the 17th century in possession of only a fraction of its historical territory and was fortunate to have even that. Borduria held the rest on behalf of the Ottomans and all of the country would have been entirely occupied if not for the long intervention of the Venetians.  Even in the lands that remained in its possession in the 1600’s, Syldavia’s sovereignty was open to question, as their kings had been vassals of the Venetian Republic since shortly before the arrival of the Ottomans in the north-western Balkans.  While the Venetians exercised their power in Syldavia principally to their own advantage, their interest in using the western Balkans as a front to contain the Ottomans did have the effect of propping up Syldavia and the Almazout dynasty during their period of utmost weakness.  

By the reign of King Karel II in the mid 17^th century, Venetian dominance in Syldavia began to chafe, most notably due to the trade monopoly and demands for taxes and ongoing troop contributions for the reinforcement of the besieged Venetian army in Crete.  Few of those soldiers ever returned home. Karel II’s intention was of course to continue to push back the Bordurian frontier but the Venetians’ attentions had, by then, been turned toward their Mediterranean empire.  The troops Karel lost to the struggle over Crete greatly weakened his efforts to recover more territory.  Karel did manage to retake the strategic town of Djordjevaro, key to the upper Wladir river valley, but could not hold it in the long run.  When the last treaty of vassalage expired in 1658, Venice was terribly weakened by the expensive war still going on in Crete and was not in a position to coerce a renewed pact. Karel and then Ottokar VIII managed to forestall the question of vassalage for years by signing trade deals favourable to Venice and consenting to a mutual local defence treaty.  Syldavia had regained its sovereignty. 

King Ottokar VIII.  Note purported Mace of King Muskar at right.

Ragusia (the territory of the city of Dbrnouk) had also defected in the same manner a generation earlier and had guaranteed its security by building impressive fortifications around its port, through the growing importance of its trade which brought wealth rendered it too important for most neighbours to attack outright) and by new strategic alliances.  The governing republican Council of Dbrnouk extended preferential trade rules to the Ottomans who then used Dbrnouk as a preferred (if secondary) port in the Mediterranean trade.  This was a matter of some importance as trade goods originating in or passing through the Ottoman Empire were prized throughout Europe and by supporting a separate market in Dbrnouk, the Ottomans cut into the trade of their adversary in Venice.  Dbrnouk’s significance as a centre of Balkan trade was still limited however, as its access to the continental interior was limited by poor roads and by the eternal hostilities on the Bordurian frontier. 

Ragusian Irregular Infantryman, 17th century

With the diminished authority of Venice, Karel II, Ottokar VIII and their successors strove to culture closer relations with the Imperium.  The Habsburgs had played, since the time of Alexander I, more or less the role of a friendly uncle to Syldavia.  They were certainly interested in expanding their influence in the Balkans and in working with enemies of the Ottomans.  Better yet, Syldavia was too far from the Imperium’s real borders to permit substantial gestures of aid and real diplomatic entanglements.  By the latter 17^th century, many young Syldavian nobles passed time in Austria, as students or wastrels. As well, Syldavian mercenaries found their way into Imperial service and some of these proved quite successful, at least at la petite guerre.  The experience of these men led some of the sons of Syldavia’s privileged families to venture to Vienna (Wyenow in the Syldavian tongue) and to undertake military careers there.  Upon their return to Syldavia these men commonly found their way into positions of political and military leadership, resulting tin a general sympathy for the Imperioum in Syldavian government.  With the battle against Borduria going nowhere, Ottokar VIII turned to Imperial examples to modernise his forces.

Syldavian Irregular Light Infantry and Cavalry of the mid to late 17th Century (image actually from the fabulous Vinkhuijzen Collection
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?col_id=206 ) 

Until the late 17^th century, the Syldavian Army was for the most part an improvised force built of varied and indifferently organised bands of troops raised by individual commanders who were, in turn, held commissions from the Crown or forces raised and organised through ancient clan kinship systems.  While pike-armed troops were a necessity of the times, an important part of the army comprised light infantry and cavalry well suited to the rough landscape of Syldavia’s interior.  The soldiers themselves were of rather good quality, raised locally of hardy men whose former lives as shepherds, farmhands, woodsmen and the like were no less demanding of endurance and determination than the occupation of soldiering.  Like those of many other regions of the Balkans, Syldavians often found their way into the forces of the Imperium and of various Italian states, where they enjoyed a hard-won reputation as wily and redoubtable fighters particularly adept at skirmishing and raids.

Despite being made of good raw material, the Syldavian army was hampered by its lack of formal training and organisation (outside of the clans) and by its commanders’ variable technical (in)expertise.  Commanders preferred skirmish engagements (where their knowledge of the land, personal leadership and courage were enough to give the Syldavians parity with their opponents) and avoided massed battles.  The efficient use of masses of troops was largely beyond them.  As a result, Syldavia’s military forces were typically unable to break the long-standing stalemate with their Bordurian foes who enjoyed the advantages of numbers and strong defensive positions.  

Musketeer and Pikeman of King Ottokar VIII's army, circa 1660 (image actually from the fabulous Vinkhuijzen Collection

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?col_id=206 )

The first initiatives for modernising Syldavia’s army came under King Ottokar VIII who in the midst of his reign (1652-1669), instituted moves to formally train modern modern Continental-style musketeers and artillerymen and improve the casting of cannon.  With these improved troops he managed to push Bordurians out of the strategic town of Djordjevaro once and for all.  After the premature death of Ottokar VIII, his sister, Beneficia (1669-1677), assumed the throne and continued to push the improvement of training and drill and instituted a formal bureaucratic office (the Könikstzrwa Zyldav krag ministarstvo or Royal Syldavian War Ministry) charged with overseeing supply, the artillery and fortresses.  The campaigns of her reign saw both advances and reverses and the pushing the Syldavian frontier several miles further up the Wladir River.   The most important military reforms were made under the leadership of King Ivan (1677-1712), the son of Queen Beneficia.  Ivan was nicknamed “Iron Head” because of his infamous temper and bloody single-mindedness. 

In their youths, Crown Prince Ivan and his cousin Count Nikola Mikolic gained personal experience with modern methods of warfare as cadets and then as officers in the Habsburg Imperial Army.  Ivan returned to Syldavia upon ascending to the throne in 1677 while Nikola remained to work as a staff officer of the newly appointed Field Marshall Duke Charles of Lorraine.  Ivan dreamed of reclaiming the Syldavian territory still held by the Bordurians by breaking the impasse of border skirmishes through a decisive offensive campaign.  A more fully modernised army was essential to his goal and, from the start of his reign, Ivan worked to introduce a system of formal and permanent regiments.  He brought with him from the Imperium a cadre of experienced officers looking for advancement (both Syldavian and émigré professional soldiers) and, as a rich Imperial gift to the new king, a body of Syldavian émigré troops who had been in Imperial service as musketeers and as troopers of a dragoon regiment.  Both bodies of troops had in reality dubious reputations.  These soldiers were reconstituted into Syldavia’s first formally organised modern regiments comprising the simply named King’s Musketeers and the Dragoon Regiment who, with the old Royal Guards (now a formal regiment as well), formed the basis of a professional army.

Living under the watchful eyes of the King, church and kinsmen, and patiently drilled into discipline by the King and his officers, these miscreants eventually were shaped into dependable and disciplined soldiers.  Once he was satisfied with his results, King Ivan split up his regiments to serve as training cadres around which whole new regiments were built.  By 1681, Ivan was training men for four regular regiments of musketeers, one of heavy horse and one of dragoons.  As well, a formal provincial militia was instituted in an attempt to circumscribe the power of the clans in the countryside.  From local militias, chosen men were selected to form a small light infantry force comprising a couple of companies.   With these troops, King Ivan was equipped to face the challenges and opportunities that were about to be presented, unexpectedly to him and to Syldavia.

History of Syldavia from the 14th to 16th century

In the late 14^th century, Syldavia was caught in a vice between the Venetians who continued to expand into the Balkans from the northwest and the Ottomans who began to press into the Balkans from the southeast.  Moving north from the ruins of Byzantium, the Ottomans overwhelmed Bulgaria in the 1390’s. When Borduria fell soon afterwards, Syldavia suddenly found the Ottomans on their northern and eastern borders. The whole region fell into a chaotic and fearful reactive stance for the next century as the Ottomans pushed incrementally to the north.  Syldavia reinforced its frontier forts and waited grimly. In order to stave off pressure on its vulnerable trading fleet from both the Venetians and the Ottomans, the independent city state of Dbrnouk chose to become a nominal tributary (on very liberal terms) of the Ottomans in 1469.  They stayed assiduously out of conflict as far as possible and free of any real Ottoman occupation.  The Ottomans, preferring to tax Dbrnouk’s trade rather choking it off by making the city into an isolated theatre of war with Venice, left the city largely alone.

Dbrnouk in the 17th century

Syldavia’s mountainous border and its marginal value to the Ottomans given their much greater interest in richer lands further to the north (notably the Danube corridor and the Hungarian plain) saved Syldavia in the short term.  A combination of stubborn military resistance aided by troops and fortifications paid for and built by the Venetians, diplomacy and the continued resistance of Albania further prolonged Syldavia’s semi-autonomy.  Nevertheless, through incessant raids and episodic small campaigns, Syldavia gradually lost most of its inland territory to the Ottomans and Borduria by 1430.  In between these campaigns, the desperately weakened, King Karel and his successor King Grygor II pledged vassalage alternately to the Venetians and the Ottomans and a few times to both at once, in order to forestall outright conquest.  Under unremitting pressure, however, (especially after the fall of Albania in 1468), Syldavia was finally overrun in 1494 and annexed to the Ottoman Pashaluk of Borduria.  At the 11^th hour, with the final Ottoman advance bearing down, the ageing King Grygor knew that Syldavia’s time had run out.  He smuggled his family out of Syldavia with his most loyal retainers and treasure.  The promise of a possible future for the dynasty secured, Grygor led a final raid against the Ottomans in the Wladir River valley near Rivajow, where he was captured.  In shameful captivity, Grygor was executed, his body buried in an unknown place.  The Almazout family fled in exile to Italy and later to Vienna, where they were received with sympathy by the Habsburg court. The family converted to Roman Catholicism at this time, a move noted both in Vienna and Rome.  The young heir in-exile, Alexander I, become a notable officer of the Knights of Malta and a scourge of the Ottomans at sea, many of whose corsairs in the Adriatic were now based at Cattaro.  Many Syldavians became exiles as well as refugees moved to Croatia and some to Italy, Austria and further afield.  There is even mention of a troop of mountaineers from Zympathia in the employ of far-off Tradgardland. 

The Ottoman occupation was soon contested.  The Venetians organised and armed displaced Syldavian refugees and allied with the restive clans still residing in the coastal provinces in a long struggle to push the Ottoman frontier back to the east.  The conspicuous service of Alexander I with the Knights of Malta served him well, as he (now a man in his prime) was given command of a force of Syldavian exiles, Knights and Austrian volunteers with which he re-took the town of Douma in 1516 and then lead a night attack on a key fortification in the harbour at Cattaro in 1517.  The port was opened to the Venetian ships and the Bordurian garrison capitulated once the Venetian troops made land.  In 1518, the presence of Alexander in Syldavia at the head of an armed force incited a popular uprising (much as happened in 1204) and the bulk of the provinces of Hum, Travunia and Zeta all fell relatively rapidly to the Veneto-Syldavian forces.  Dbrnouk became a vassal of Venice as well. Venice, facing the obvious political situation caused by the uprising inspired by Alexander and considerable pressure from Vienna and the Vatican in support of him, reluctantly accepted the reinstatement of the Almazoutian dynasty as kings of the reclaimed territories. 

Venetian-built fortifications at Cattaro, modified in the 17th century 

Venetian-built fortifications protecting the landward approaches to Cattaro

The price of Venetian protection of the Almazout dynasty included a pact guaranteeing Syldavia’s quasi-colonial status and other such niceties as preferential Venetian trade rights and bases in Cattaro and Douma.  Several generations of Syldavian kings preferred their tributary status to extinction and happily lived with this deal.  Quite naturally, Syldavian society and its military followed Venetian trends during this time.  While the Venetians oversaw the reconstruction of the coastal territories, including building imposing fortifications and new port facilities, the military situation was deadlocked in the interior.  The Ottoman (Bordurian) – Syldavian border fluctuated frequently along the mountains separating Wladruja from Hum and Travunia at this time; occasional minor gains in territory were balanced by minor losses.  This stalemate lasted well into the 17^th century. 

King Alexander I, wearing habit of the Knights of Malta

A modern view of the town of Cattaro