In the year 1428, two great empires stood on the brink of war. The Latin Empire of Constantinople, and the Hessen Caliphate of Egypt. These two empires never got along, per se, but this was a period of increased tension. The reason? The collapse of most Iranian states led to an uptick in refugees fleeing the chaos, pushing them right into these empires in a way that led to the short-term deterioration of the border. Empereur Charles III wanted to focus to the east and north, and thus sought peace with Egypt, but didn’t trust that Egypt wouldn’t do something if given a chance.
And he was proven correct in March of 1429, as yet another raid destroyed most of the town, leading to Caliph Farouk declaring war. However, this war would be the first in a series of conflict between the two, in a period called the Long Crusade in the west and the Great Struggle in the east. The saga would contain two significant clashes with the same general war aims between the two sides. Egypt, due to claiming the Caliphal title, and simple geopolitical interest, sought to reclaim Jerusalem and Syria, both of which they had lost to the Latins in the last great fight with Charles II. In contrast, however, Charles III largely desired to retain peace, apprehensive of nations like Tartary and the chaos in Iran- or even Hungary. To Charles III, a war could only benefit any of their rivals- including the Moors for Egypt. But, unfortunately, this was all in the past, as the war had been launched and they were being invaded.
Of course, he had goals for a hypothetical victory in a war with Egypt anyway. He sought to build an autonomous Kurdish duchy out of the Egyptian provinces, giving him a puppet state and humiliating his largest rival. Of course, it should be noted others in court, such as the Prince Imperial, also named Charles, sought to annex the territory outright. Charles III also sought to limit their naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, at least somewhat. As a result of promising them their own state, the Latins had the advantage of the local population favoring them, easing the strain of supply lines. Despite this, however, the war proved to stalemate. With Constantinople becoming less centralized as an empire due to Charles II’s inaction and Charles III’s regency and civil war, it became harder to maintain the quasi-standing army, reducing the nation’s ability to respond to the crisis.
Both countries had relatively similar army compositions as well. Since the last war, the internal and maritime nature of the wars that Constantinople had partaken in had led to a reduction in their cavalry’s quantity and relative quality. This put them in the uncomfortable position of parity with the Egyptians when prior to this conflict the idea was laughable in the halls of the imperial palace. Not to mention, while gunpowder was still in infancy at this point, both of these countries had more robust uses of it than most other powers, regularly using it for sieges and as a shock troop tactic.
As a result, the first war in the Long Crusade often called the Faroukian Phase or the Kurdish phase, was the shortest and less decisive of the conflicts. The Latin Navy was stronger than the Egyptian force (frankly, just about the only major advantage either side had when both were headed by competent leadership,) and as a result, meant that Jerusalem and the Levant could hold out against Egyptian sieges of the city. However, neither side could actually break the other. For example, the Egyptians attempted to march on southern Jordon in order to threaten Jerusalem more directly. However, while they were able to take some territory, they struggled to break li Vaux Moysi, a major castle in the area. As a result, the army was bogged down and reinforcements were eventually able to relieve the siege, only for fortunes to reverse in attempts to cross the Sinai Peninsula.
The Faroukian Phase of the Long Crusade would last from 1429 to 1435, or six years. Neither side had made any notable gains, but their border was even more destroyed than before. Towards the tail end of the war, in 1433, Emperor Charles III attempted what would’ve been an ambitious naval attack from Jerusalem into Egypt proper, using the naval advantage the Latins had over their enemies. He chose to lead the attack personally, as he had in Serbia and Italy, knowing that much of his prestige from said battles had waned. However, during the journey, a storm struck his ship and the Emperor was lost at sea. While his body was eventually found some centuries later, his death took quite some time to be reported. In fact, some have wondered if Empress Mary deliberately stopped the news from reaching the Prince Imperial, weather to grieve or to stop her son from taking his birthright is uncertain.
Regardless, what is known is that from 1434-36, Charles IV effectively ruled as Imperial Regent. Thus, he took over the war effort. While Charles wanted to keep the war going, feeling as though the Egyptians were more exhausted than him, he was forced to begin making peace when confronted by the nobility in the east. As a result, he forged the Treaty of Damascus (1436,) which amounted to little more than Egypt paying for reparations and the destruction of some forts by both sides. Nominally, the war was a Latin victroy. However, when the Prince Regent asked about releasing his father, he was met by confusion by the Egyptian representatives, who hadn’t heard anything regarding Charles III in some time.
As a result, Charles IV took the Imperial Crown in 1437, though for all intents and purposes had ruled for some time already. Regardless, Charles IV’s coronation marks a turning point in the Latin Empire. Prior to this, the Emperors had alternated between “Emperor of Rhomania,” and “Emperor of Constantinople,” in French or Latin, referring to the country in a similar, alternating fashion. Charles IV, being the first who favored Greek over French, instead took a different title- Fassilios tis Latinikís Konstantinoúpolis. Fassilios was a corruption of the Greek term Basileus, equivalent to King or Emperor, while the rest effectively meant “Latin Constantinople.” This cemented the country as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, though common vernacular usually continued using one or the other titles.
The two hundred years since the 4th Crusade had brought great change to much of the Balkans and Near East, politically and culturally. Most of the urban centers in the Balkans had largely converted to Catholicism by this point, as well as many more rural communities between them, of course. There was quite a bit more, however. While the Greek core of the empire and western Anatolia retained quite a lot of greek culture, there was still a strong influence from, well, Latin cultures. This was best seen in architecture and visual art, wherein western styles had much better luck getting patronage, but even plays with themes of gallant crusaders and noble kings restoring order to a Near East that had fallen into savage warlords were quite common. Syria was also interesting, as it had a large community of Arabic Catholics, but remained divided religiously (Charles III had intended to address this matter, but his rule had been too concerned with war.) Central Anatolia was much more divided than the other regions of the empire, with swaths of French Catholics, Turkish Muslims, and Greek Rite Armenians, or any combination of the three (well, there weren’t too many people of french ancestry who crossed the religious lines.)
The provinces around Jerusalem were… complicated in this regard, however. The Black Death had wiped out much of the Muslim population, and the brief reconquest by the Egyptians had not had enough time to affect demographic trends. The population had been replaced with Italian Catholics, usually from Sicily (though this had changed since the loss of most of the region.) However, due to the conquest of Syria and even simple trade, there were still small communities of Arabic Christians and even Muslims. However, Charles III had banned the latter from actually entering the city.
Crimea was unique among most of the Empire. Its catholic status was now very strong, but it had also become something of a Ruthenian bastion culturally. Since the Tartars had begun centralizing and turkifying much of their Slavic domains, the Christian population had either converted or fled to Novgorod; failing that, Crimea. As a result, it was very distinct from the rest of the Empire. Southern Serbia was similar, but at the same time it had a stronger connection to the Greco-French core of the empire, whereas Crimea retained a much more distinct identity due to its isolation from the rest of the empire, mainly trading overseas and not being a priority for settlements
There is one group that has not yet been discussed yet- Jews. In general, European Jews had it a bit better than in other parts of the west when it came to the Latin Empire, as the Emperors had seen them as useful against the Muslims- though they had been banned from many parts of several cities, including many holy sites in Jerusalem (though this was lifted during the Sabbath.) However, Charles III had stripped much of their rights away, including their ability to travel within the Empire, and expanded their banned areas. Among the… riskier actions that Charles III did, however, was to prohibit Jews and Muslims from possessing weapons in their personal lives within several major cities, seeing it as a threat to imperial authority.
However, Jews who did not seem to have some level of Latin or Germanic heritage, i.e Jewish populations from Persia, Arabia, or North Africa had it far worse. Since the times of Theodora, such Jews, those who seemed to be of Arabic or Turkish ancestry, had been banned from the Capital outright, and after the conquest of Jerusalem, they had been banned from the city with any possessions seized. This had continued under governor Conrad, Emperors Charles II and III, and did not seem to be changing under Fassilios Charles IV. These Jews, along with Muslims, were banned from owning weapons outright, and if a soldier were around, farm tools were on thin ice.
Returning to a more political side of history, the recent war between the Latin Empire and Egypt had disrupted trade, as war was wont to do. As a result, the coutnries of Spain, Morocco and Portugal were redoubling some of their expeditions, each feeling a stronger need to circumvent the two powers and their constant bickering. Not that these three were any better about said bickering of course. In fact, in 1430, Portugal and Morocco came to blows over the burgeoning Atlantic Slave Trade. The war was actually quite brief, with the Moroccans quite effective in hampering their Portuguese counterparts. As a result, the few small outposts in west africa and around Mali that Portugal had were ceded to Morocco.
However, despite how brief the war was, the conflict would wind up quite historically significant. The Portuguese, now forced to focus on the North Atlantic, were put in a very uncomfortable position between the Castilians and the Moors. However, the Castilian adventures in Vinlania were somewhat known to the Portuguese, and while the crown was less than interested in venturing that far north, the notion that something had been discovered that far west gave hope. As a result, small expeditions were launched that pushed the boundaries of the map further west. This included the full charting of the Azore archipelago, which would be settled and turned into a full territory of Portugal fairly shortly. These explorations would take longer to yield the world-changing results, but the process was begun.
Caliph Farouk died in 1440, leading to a power struggle between his two sons, Ismael and Ali, though for now, it was Ali who wore the crown. Ali was the favorite of the priesthood and had his supporters in the nobility, and had won over much of the common folk, but was seen as foolish by more conservative nobility and had alienated a large portion of his personal retinue due to his brash and ambitious personality. In contrast, Ismael was more liked among the military and the nobility closer to the frontier due to a fear that radical changes would leave them unprepared during a time when the Latins were clearly hostile, which the Egyptians naturally saw as problematic.
After five years of tension building within the empire, Ismael attempted an assassination on his brother. However, Ali survived the attempt on his life and ordered Ismael imprisoned. Naturally, this led to Ismael declaring himself sultan and for his own allies to rise up against Ali and his sultanate. This civil war would coincide with the next phase of the Long Crusade, a mere ten years after the last. Ismael was eventually put on the back foot, which led to a desperate appeal to the Latin Empire for help, even offering some concessions. The Latin Fassilios, Charles IV, naturally saw a lot of value in rendering the Egyptians subservient to him, and moved in. however, all this did was turn almost all of Ismael's allies against him due to groveling at their natural enemy’s feet, especially since he won many of them by promising to protect the border against the Latins. As a result, Ali’s forces were quick to recover most of Egypt and turned to face the Latin Empire, which now sought to actively install their puppet.
Over the last five years, Ali had made a few reforms to his army. For a start, he had imported a large force of Tartarian cavalry, which was hoped to give him the mobility advantage. In addition to this, Ali had started affixing blades to the hand cannons of his gunpowder soldiers. While the gunmen still had swords, Ali rationalized that by having their ranged weapon also able to double as a blade, they would save time and be able to maintain momentum in battle. As a result, Ali and his inner circle were fairly confident in their ability to wage war against the Latins.
But the Latins hadn’t been stagnant either. In the ten years of peace, they had developed a match lock for their firearms. These “match locks” are regarded today as the first true firearm, and proved vital later on. While these weapons were in their infancy and thier doctrine not yet refined, they greatly increased the accuracy of firing, however they were quite awkward to aim and fire. As a result, match lock rifles were still restrained to acting as shock troops reinforcing the cavalry core of the army. In fact, because the second war of the Long Crusade, the Alian phase, was so much longer than the first, the matchlock’s doctrine and primary use would largely develop over the next several years.
While the Alian phase of the war was much more mobile than the Faroukian phase, it was not less prone to stalemate for quite some time. Most of these grand battles were fought within a mere hundred miles of the border, and neither side was quite able to break the frontier. The Egyptian tartar cavalry were more mobile, but the caliphate did not have enough to really capitalize and incapacitate their enemies with them. Similarly, while the Latins had better guns, that did not change the fact that they were awkward to use and limited in ability. The main reason the war was more mobile than the previous was that, because both sides had been forced to destroy major forticifations, they were able to take and hold more territory, but at the cost of being more vulnerable to the opposing armies. As a result, the eastern mediterranean was once again ravaged as two armies of near equal skill and size tried to eliminate the other.
The Alian phase of the Long Crusade would last about fifteen years. Charles IV was eager to, if not take over Egypt in its entirety, then to take the Sinai peninsula, which would leave Cairo wide open in the event of another war. This, as well as imposing Ismael on the Egyptian throne, he hoped would be enough to secure their subordinance and allow him to focus on Iran and Tartary. Naturally, however, the idea of ceding their most strategically important area or letting a traitorous puppet be put on their throne would not be entertained by the Egyptian leadership if given anything resembling an option. Naturally, if they were to win, they hoped to reclaim Jerusalem and part of Syria, seeing it as vital strategically.
While the Alian phase of the Long Crusade was going on, there were developments ot the north as well. While Tartary might have considered invervening against the Latins, they found themselves otherwise occupied. Poland and Novgorod had forged an alliance, hoping to expand at their expense. They invaded in 1450, with some support from Hungary. Ozbeg II, though by now getting a bit old to lead his armies, was eager to meet their blades head-on. While both of these armies were powerful, both of them still had very limited use for gunpowder, keeping it largely for artillery and siege weapons. This particular war showed a strong contrast between the light cavalry of the Tartars, and the heavier cavalry favored by Poland and Novgorod (most Europeans favored such cavalry, with the Latins being an exception due to how much they tended to fight said light cavalry- and even they were still on the heavier side for ‘light’ cavalry.)
Ozbeg II rationalized that Poland would be the greater threat, and thus moved against them first. This is not to say he discounted the threat the Rus could pose to him, and placed his son, Selim, in charge of the Novgorodian front. Regardless, Ozbeg’s old age had not tempered him, and in some ways made him crueler. Fearing a potential revolt from his christian subjects, espeically those of Rus ancestry, the Kral waged a brutal war of destruction wherever he chased the Poles, even if it was deeper into his own territory. The goal was simple: set an example and show the lengths the Kral would go to if it meant securing his realm.
Selim made short work of Novgorod. The republic was large and had become more densely populated in recent decades, this was true. But it was never a militant nation, largely content to trade on the baltic, knowing that a reconquest was not possible without strong allies. As a result, they did not have a large army, and their quickly amassed army of mercenaries did little to help against the veteran cavalry of Tartary, that had reunited the empire and had pushed deep into Iran. And while Selim was not particularly brutal for a warlord of this time, he was still very willing to send a message. And the message was simple: do not defy Tartary.
As a result, it only took two and a half years to pacify Novgorod. Ozbeg the Great gave Selim the authority to broker the peace as he saw fit, or define the goals of the treaty from their perspective- Ozbeg knew he was old and wanted to make sure that the boy was actually practiced in diplomacy. Selim had two goals- to extract as much tribute as possible from the Novgorod Republic and to make them politically subservient. To that end, he and the representatives agreed that out of the government’s revenue, at least 4% would go to Tartary annually for at least fifteen. This was large, but not unmanageable. His political goals however- the removal of the current prince and Tartary having final say over the election of the replacement and his successor were deemed too much. After several weeks of haggling, and significant harm to the republic and the coastal cities that made the region its money, the representatives agreed that Selim could remove the current prince and confirm or deny his replacement, but nothing about his successor.
Between Tartary and Poland, the difference in style for cavalry made this war difficult to gauge. The Tartar light cavalry remained formidable in battle, but they often struggled to break the lines of the Polish forces and could be worn down; conversely however, the poles were slower and struggled to capitalize when they did route the enemy or break their lines. While the Poles were deep into Tartary, they were not realistically putting much pressure on the Kraldom to actually negotiate peace talks, as the major centers of power were all in the south. This worked to Selim’s advantage- he could lose as many men as he needed to, but so long as he kept the Poles in the north, they could not actually threaten the realm. This overly defensive plan was odd compared to how he waged his wars in the past and is best explained by the Kral himself.
While Kral Ozbeg II did not regularly keep a journal, there are letters between himself and most of his family. From one such letter in 1452: “It would not be incorrect to say that the conduct of this war is different than my adventures when I was young. I am being more cautious, seeking to contain my enemy, rather than to break him. Where before I would’ve simply allowed the Polish to starve themselves in the planes of the rus while I burned their towns and cities, I am now choosing to wear them down in battle and break their resolve. I can not find a single reason. I would like to believe that this way I am keeping the south, with its glorious cities and its peaceful trade safe. Maybe I have gone too long without battling a worthy opponent and seek to make it last. Perhaps I am simply old and this is merely the combination of old age and generalship.”
Ozbeg died in 1454, leaving the realm to Selim. The new Kral was much more willing to be aggressive and actually damage the Polish state than his father, who had resigned himself to a long war that would exhaust his foes. However, Selim also did not want to sew unnecessary hostility between the two kingdoms, seeing it as a hurdle to Iranian and eastward expansion. As a result, he made a simple offer to the Polish- they could buy some of the northern territories they sought to annex. However, when the Poles refused, he was resigned to bringing the fight to them, and launched an invasion into the south of Poland, threatening the area around Przemyska, i.e the center of dynastic power within Poland. This naturally threatened the Polish state a great deal and they asked to negotiate shortly.
As Selim had not defeated the Poles nearly as totally as the Novgorodians, this peace was much more evenly negotiated. While Selim was deeper into Polish territory than they were into Tartary, it was also apparent that even if the core of Tartary wasn’t too damaged, the northwest, which provided a lot of wealth and importantly had supplied some of Selim’s advances, was rather damaged. As a result, Tartary chose primarily to break the alliance with Novgorod and extract tribute. The Poles were left with little choice, and accepted the Treaty of Warsaw. While some in Poland wished to keep up the fight, with the core of the country so seriously threatened it simply was not seen as a viable choice by the king.
While the war between Tartary and their western adversaries had been brief, all things considered, the conflict between the Latins and Egypt had remained fierce, with neither side getting a significant advantage over the other. While the Latin navy had remained stronger and cut off Egyptian trade in the Mediterranean, they had no power in the Red Sea. However, by 1453, this had begun to change as the Latin match lock troops began to use a volley technique of fire. By standing in rows, the groups were able to cover each other while they reloaded. While this was less effective against the mobility of cavalry, it proved quite powerful against infantry. And while Ali and Egypt had a large amount of cavalry, they were not quite able to make up for the casualties to their infantry.
With the stalemate broken, the Latins were able to push all the way to Cairo for the first time. Naturally, this gave them a very powerful negotiation position. Charles IV pushed to receive both Egyptian Mesopotamia and the Sinai peninsula. In fact, he actually managed to receive part of the northwestern Arabian peninsula, giving the Latins a coast on the Red Sea. while Ismael was dead at this point, the Fassilios managed to press that his son, Farouk, would be made heir, thus securing him what he hoped would be a loyal puppet. The Egyptians, with fifteen years of continuous warfare (and civil war, however brief, on top of that,) saw little choice but to accept. This greatly damaged the Hassenian claim to the Caliphal title. Not only that, it shattered much of their actual legitimacy within Egypt itself, causing tensions within the country that would last quite some time.
However, the Latins were also severely exhausted after the war. Much of their manpower was depleted, and famine was brewing in the Balkans. Trade had diminished severely, even more so than during the Faroukian phase. While Charles IV celebrated that he broke the Egyptian power, trouble was brewing. The time at the front had been long- the Fassilios once calculating that of fifteen years, he had spent in total, six of them on or near the front leading troops. Naturally, this had decentralized the realm and led to the nobility asserting themselves even more, though they still accepted that they were subservient to the Crown. And of course, the treasury was not exactly flush with cash to pay soldiers or administrators, both of whom were vital for an empire that had just annexed a large amount of heathen lands.
