Chapter 12 part 2: The Cousins Go To War (1564-1570)
We left off with Emperor Frederik I the "Well Advised" awaiting advice on whether to claim the Triple Throne of Bohemia-Poland-Lithuania. And on February 20th, 1564 he decided to seize the moment and claim the Bohemian throne
Immediately the relations with the Bohemians deteriorated and they broke the alliance. In the month that followed, before Denmark could issue an official declaration of war, Burgher loans were taken ( 1,050 ducats each ) and the money used to recruit every available European mercenary company. All of them were recruited in the low countries which formed the economic and development heart of the Danish Empire.
And then on March 23, 1564 Frederik declared his second war for a throne, this time for the Bohemian one.
There was a lot of aggressive expansion generated by the declaration and none of Denmark's allies were willing to join ( although later Hungary offered help, but they were not called so that they kept focused on the Spanish front in the other war ) .
Denmark was now facing simultaneous wars against some of the strongest Great Powers in Europe. But militarily this did not turn out to be a difficult task for Denmark. First of all, Spain had a few armies in the New World ( remember that they had just pweviously Denmark to help with teh war on Hasinai confederation). Second, Hungary was helping Denmark and was more than capable of holding down - and even advancing against- the Spanish on her own. Third, the vast expanse of Denmark's subjects in the Russia region meant that Lithuania and Poland would waste a lot of time and effort occupying land and sieging forts that would not put much pressure on Denmark herself. And in anticipation of all this, the Danish high command formulated a simple stragegy for the war: peace out Savoy ( allied to Spain) then assemble all the armies in South Germany and then drive straight towards Prague.
That plan was in response to the Emperor's conscious decision to prioritize the war with Bohemia over the war in Spain for 2 reasons.
First, the Spanish front had some fort bottlenecks that slowed it down, and Spain's overseas provinces meant a high war score against them could take time to achieve. In contrast, Bohemia could be easily occupied entirely without having to direct armies all over the world. Second, and more importantly, enforcement of the Union on Spain first would create aggressive expansion with all three of Bohemia-Poland-Lithuania. In contrast, subjugating BPL first, before Spain, would only have one country ( Spain) take the aggressive expansion penalty.
Besides the challenge of winning the wars, Frederik faced a significant internal challenge in keeping the country stable. DUe to depletion of Administrativ power, stability could not be restored to quilibirum and that caused unrest.
Diplomatic power had to be spent as well to decrease war exhaustion and convince the nation to put up with the continued fighting. But despite that , the disaster of internal conflicts began to loom. And this was mainly driven by the recent annexation of land in the East Indies causing over-extension in addition to the low stability.
SO the highest priority for Emperor Frederik was to improve stability and he saved his administrative resources precisely for that.
As to the conduct of the wars, the only pitched battles that happened were in Florida, where Spanish armies faced Atwixians and Danes at Mayaca, after the Danes seized the Spanish colony of Ais.. The rest of the "fighting" consisted of siege and counter-siege.
The main benefit for Denmark from the war in the Americas was that it tied up a significant portion of the Spanish army. This in turn allowed HUngary to actually slowly push South in Iberia. Meanwhile Danish troops inexorably advanced towards Prague, while Bohemia and her subjects - as predicted - wasted their time on the Eastern European provinces.
And Denmark had a stroke of good luck when a Gold Rush hit one of her few Gold provinces ( Sofala, Kilwa and Pontianak). And that allowed her to finally Embrace the printing press while keeping a nice reerve in teh treasury for waging the war .
In late 1564 , a mere 9 months after the declaration of war, Prague fell to Danish troops .
The fall of Prague opened the path to the remaining Bohemian forts, which were quickly surrounded and besieged simultaneously, thanks to the large number of Danish regiments ( number 410 at the peak of the war , despite having a force limit of "just" 247 ).
In contrast, the enemy could only besiege one or two forts at a time and they were much slower due to lack of siege generalship and artillery ( Denmark had a 4-pip siege specialist in the commander of the Frisian company) .
While war raged in Europe among the Christian powers, war erupted in the Middle East between the Muslim powers as Ottomans declared on the Timurid vassal Medina
That war was a godsend to Denmark, as there were real fears of a coalition developing soon, and seeing the tow major Muslim powers be unable to join it was wonderful.
Back in Europe, the forts of Warsaw , Krakow , Pozan, Inntal and Vilna were all taken by Danish troops who also liberated the forts of Tuchola, Konigsberg and Riga. The Bohemians generally avoided engaging the much larger Danish armies and there were no decisive pitched battles. Thus by the 2nd anniversary of the declaration of war on Bohemia,Denmakr was ready to impose terms.
Of course the peace included enforcing the Union on Bohemia ( and by extension Poland and Lithuania) . But in addition to that, Emperor Frederik did a survey of all provinces of his three new subjects to make sure that all the citizens in them were accepted or sister culture of their rulers. Bohemia turned out to have several provinces of unaccepted [red label] cultures , and these were returned to their owners in the peace
[Personal Unions do not allow seize province like vassals do, so I cannot change their borders easily in the future]). The only province that remained with unaccepted culture after the peace was Polish culture Podlasie owned by Lithuania ( who accepted Byelorussian and Ruthenian and was part of the Baltic group, but did not accept Polish).
Now the most important question was whether the new additions to Denmark's domain were loyal . And they ....were!
Although clearly the people of Bohemia / Poland / Lithuania resented becoming part of Denmark's domain, they were not about to rebel against Emperor Frederik, and they were going to help him subjugate the Spanish. And defend him against any coalition that may form. And form, a coalition did.
Started first by France, the coalition quickly grew to include almost all of independent Europe ( countries not allied or subject to Denmark) , and much of the East Indies and the Middle East. The notable absences from the coalition were the Ottomans and the Timurids, busy fighting a war that appeared to be an even fight so far.
And of course Denmark was still embroiled in a war with Spain, which saw its culmination in the defeat of Carlos v Wittelsbach at the battle of Cadiz at the hand of Hungarian, Gascon and
Polish troops.
Soon after Spain signed a peace treaty , giving away its independence and becoming Emperor Frederik's 5th foreign Crown
[halfway to achievement]. And like its sisters in the Kalmar Union , Spain was loyal to Frederik, although not happy about it.
The peace with Spain also included the annexation of a couple of Ivory Coast provinces by Denmark to improve the latter's control of the crucial trade node .
The peace with Spain did not have much effect on the coalition, which continued to grow adding more countries ( presumably as they became eligible due to being at peace or truce expirations, or whenever their rulers decided to consider it) . As for Denmark, she kept quiet for the remainder ofthe decade focusing on improving the relations with the new subjects, and praying for the long life of young Emperor Frederik, who was barely 18 years old , and already ruling a vast Empire ( and who was so glad right at that moment that he did not become a general because an un-expected death would have broken all the new unions , but still kept Denmark saddled with the coalition) .
And besides improving relations with the new Unions , the diplomats kept busy working on countries on the brink of coalition, including ally Portugal who was bribed 250 ducats to keep a positive opinion of Denmark
[did not want to wait till month tick - I have seen countries join coalition just as their opinion became positive].
And remarkably, as Denmark eclipsed her last rival ( the Ottomans) , she kept all her other alliances intact .
And that meant she was safe from an attack by the coalition because those allies included the Great Powers of Hungary and Portugal, as well as regional powers like Bulgaria and Ethiopia . And as we mentioned, not much else happened in the rest of the decade, but we do note that Poland's opinion of DEnmark flipped positive in March 1568
And this was later followed by Lithuania in June 1569. Bohemia, however, remained hostile despite maximal improvement
And the reason for this discrepancy is that the aggressive expansion hit from enforcing the union was only felt by the Bohemians - the Poles and Lithuanians simply exchanged one master for another, so did not particularly care!
And so as we close the decade, we look again at the coalition , which is arguably the darkest cloud on Denmark's horizon .
The coalition should start to shrink, with at least one member ( Utrecht) poised to leave once a re-evaluation is made
[I will reload the game]. But Ottomans and Timurids are both poised to join once they finish their current war, which luckily seems to be at a stalemate. Denmark may need to attack one or both of them before they enlarge the coalition .
As to Frederik's domain, the difference in the map that the last decade made is very stark. Frederik the Well Advised certainly did good by taking the recommendations to claim the Bohemian crown.
