T’was the year 1453, the day May 29. Constantinople had fallen to the mighty Ottoman Empire. Hope seemed to be lost for the tiny Greek states for all but one man, King Francesco I Acciaoli. He did not see the same bleakness for the future of Athens. No, he most certainly was not willing to allow the Turks to come waltzing in and taking his land, nor anyone else’s. He had quite a wise head on his shoulders, knowing full well that the only chance of survival for the Greeks was to be unified under one flag, that of Athens.
Just as Athens had been the center of ancient Greek civilization, King Francesco wished his city to be head of a modern state of Greece. Yet this man was unlike any man in all of Greece: not only was he an Italian (Lombard to be exact), he was a member of the Catholic Church. Shortly after hearing of the collapse of the Eastern Romans, he adopted a policy of Unum Sanctum. The Pope himself then allowed King Francesco to take the lands of the heathens and heretics in order to re-forge Greece.
Unlike the state that Greece had been in times of old, Francesco’s nation sought to be the freest nation in Europe. The king decreed that the citizens of Athens would be freer in the armed forces. However, the peasants who no longer were forced into military service left the city in droves to craft their own future. Fewer and fewer people lived in the city of Athens, lowering the number of people recruit by the King’s Army.
On the dawn of the new month, Francesco led his troops across the Achaean border and easily defeated the untrained peasants. Though the city fell merely months later, King Francesco I Acciaoli never saw his kingdom expand. In the clash with the Achaean warriors, the king suffered a severe chest wound. Even the best medic could not fully heal the damage, and he is believed to have died from internal bleeding. The king’s marshal and second in command, Antonio Datti, was given the crown.
Six months later, King Antonio III had secured every city in Achaea, and thusly declared himself King of Athens and Achaea. The peace following this war was to be short-lived.
April brought a new war, this time with the remaining Greek state, Morea. Both the battle and subsequent siege were entirely uneventful. A mere four months bombardment of Morea’s fortress preceded the annexation of the last independent Greek state. At this point, the Kingdom was quite able to stand on its own feet, unless the feared Ottoman invasion was still to come.
