Chapter 21: The Peace of Westphalia (1574-77)
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The French Conquest of Nebesek
France brought Friesland and its subject colonial state New Friesland into another major Indian war against the Huron Confederation and its allies in 1574. One of those Huron allies was the Hathawekela, to which Friesland was no longer allied. The Huron Confederation mustered quite a large number of troops, including their own cavalry and artillery.
Although France naturally had a great overall strength advantage, most of those troops were still over in Europe. It would rely heavily on its own and New Friesland’s colonial troops and their far more advanced technical capabilities. By July 1575 the war continued, with the French alliance in front after two relatively small battles fought and Nebesek itself and other Huron territory had been occupied.
During this conflict, New Friesland had colonised the Cherokee tribal lands of Moratok in May 1574.
The War of the Protestant League Ends
Having begun in 1566, after eight years of spectacularly bloody conflict the War of the Protestant League ended with the Peace of Westphalia on 24 August 1574. Bohemia had launched the war with (non-Protestant) French and Russian support but the Austrians had emerged victorious, thanks in great measure to the assistance of their traditional rivals the mighty Ottoman Empire.
In territorial terms, the main result was to see Bohemia’s northern lands along the Baltic Coast seized and awarded to three new independent states (all Protestant), Wolgast chief among them. The practical effect was also to cause great casualties and a subsequent manpower drain for many of the participants, with the burden falling heaviest on the losing League countries. By mid-July 1575 the powers involved had only begun to recover. We shall see where the principal powers of Europe stood by that time below.
The signing of the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the War of the Protestant League (or the ‘Eight Years War’) in August 1574.
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The Settlement of Calabar
The Frisian Gulf of Guinea was further expanded in April 1575 when Calabar was claimed for the Frisian Republic by Ernst Casimir Wynja. It had just 43 Frisian colonists in place by early July.
July 1575: Frisian Matters
The metropolitan territory of the Republic had not changed since the end of the Bremer War in 1573. Hamburg had been confirmed as a core part of the nation. Potestaat Sikke Jousma still ruled the Republic and had just renewed the expansion of Frisian culture, this time into the often-restive Cleve. Of note, a Catholic missionary had finally been able to begin the work of the counter-reformation in the capital province of Friesland a few years before and his work was progressing well.
And as noted above, the alliance with the Hathawakela had been dissolved and not yet replaced with a new one, leaving the ‘traditional’ allies of France, Denmark and Savoy (a medium sized regional power with a decent army) in place.
The three-way competition between Catholicism (which remained the state religion), the Reformed Churches (Calvinist, Presbyterian) and the Protestant (Lutheran) denomination remained in the balance, with only 22% of the overall Frisian population (excluding New Friesland but including the other colonies) remaining Catholic. But as noted above, work was finally in progress to advance the counter-reformation in the capital.
The contest between the religions continued in Europe, of course. The Reformed Churches still held sway in much of the British Isles, Normandy, Switzerland and the south of Friesland. The Lutherans remained strong in Bohemia, eastern Germany in particular.
The Frisian economy remained strong, thanks largely to burgeoning trade income. Corruption was again suppressed and inflation slowly trending down, despite the earlier discovery of gold in Swellendam and the continued receipt of reparations that had followed the war with Bremen. This allowed an aggressive colonisation programme to be funded and full military maintenance to be sustained, with the army remaining above its nominal establishment for now.
July 1575: The State of the Major Powers following the Eight Years War
In July 1575, just a year after the end of the League war, Friesland’s relative position in naval and trade power remained strong. The territorial changes in Bohemia’s disfavour have already been detailed above. But the amount of territory shown on a map was only a small part of the story, of course. The relative military strength and technological advancement of the main players in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia at this historical watershed is reviewed below.
Friesland itself, as we have seen, had a decent sized army by European standards and a strong navy, with adequate manpower reserves and a stable government. Its two principal diplomatic rivals were England and Scotland. Its dominant ally to the south, France, was currently under a long regency that was due to end in another three years. Its army remained strong, though it had been weakened during the War and still had more vacancies than manpower to fill them.
They trusted Friesland, who could call on a good many diplomatic favours if required, well enough and their opinion of Friesland was favourable. A good thing too given Queen Regent Celeste’s reputation for malevolence! France's principal rivals were Austria and the Ottomans.
Speaking of the Ottomans, they remained the pre-eminent military power in the known world, on land and at sea, though they too were still making up the heavy manpower losses incurred in the recent conflict. Though recent allies of the Austrians in the League war, the two remained bitter rivals, as did the French, Russians and Poles.
Emperor Ferdinand II von Habsburg ruled the Austrian-Hungarian Union, which had fared well in the League War, with both countries having very stable governance. Unsurprisingly, their most entrenched rivals were the French and the Bohemians. Their Hungarian subjects contributed only a small army that was a little behind most of its peers in technology.
Of course, the losing aggressors Bohemia had suffered heavily, in both territorial and military losses. While the government remained strong, the army was much depleted in size, though its manpower reserve had just begun to recover. Austria and Bavaria were their arch-rivals, but they were also on poor terms with the Poles, who had remained neutral in the Eight Years War.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth remained a strong and stable power that dominated eastern Europe territorially. Between the two powers, they could also summon large armies that were up to the same technological standard as the principal peers. Poland had an entrenched rivalry with the Danes and Russians and tense relations with Bohemia and the Ottomans. The Swiss Republic, a Calvinist bastion, is also listed here, in part because they will feature soon in another European war.
Russia had sustained heavy casualties in the League War, and though its army had been depleted its manpower reserves were already recovering. Apart for its principal rivalries already noted with the Poles and Ottomans, they had an entrenched enmity with the Frisian ally Denmark as well. The Danes, also a neutral in the recent League war, retained one of the most powerful armies and fleets in the world and strong rivalries with Russia and Poland.
Friesland’s two long-standing rivals in Britain, England and Scotland, were both relatively weak and marginal powers in this period. Though Scotland’s King James IV ruled over a large part of Wales and northern England, the Danes in turn held a portion of Scottish territory: they hard large manpower reserves but a tiny army. By contrast, King Nehemiah I (founder of the Brock dynasty) had an army of over four times the size of their neighbour, though its administrative, diplomatic and military development was well below the standard of its peers and rivals. England had also established colonies in South America in Colombia (from 1552-63) and Suriname (in 1570).
The Iberian peninsula contained three major powers of the time, all unscathed by the Eight Years War. Castile had a good-sized army and navy and considerable overseas colonial holdings. Their main rivals were Portugal, Morocco and Denmark. A little surprisingly, Aragon had the largest army and navy of the three and rivalries with France and Morocco.
Portugal, which vied with France as the greatest colonial power of the age, had a strong military though a less stable government than most. Castile and Scotland were its main rivals, Morocco a little less so.
The Sultanate of Morocco, itself one of the acknowledged great world powers, had a good-sized army, a large navy, a stable government and well-entrenched rivalries with Castile and Aragon and poor relations with Portugal and Denmark.
Meanwhile, in Western Asia, what was known in Friesland of the Persian Empire indicated they had a less stable regime than most, were somewhat behind in diplomatic and military developments, but had a strong army with a large manpower reserve and a moderately sized fleet.
In North America, the current war saw the two French colonies and New Friesland pitted against the Huron Confederacy. The three European colonies were of similar strength and largely up to European standards of technology.
The Hurons had numbers but were, naturally, very far behind the European invaders in all forms of developments. So too were the neutral Chickasaw Federation in the south-east, which maintained a very large army of over 50,000 warriors.
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The Polish-Russian War for Novgorod
In the second half of 1575, Poland declared war on Russia with the aim of grabbing more territory, with Novgorod being the principal claim. The war would be well under way by February 1577, evenly balanced but slightly in favour of Russia and its main ally Bohemia, opposing the Commonwealth and its allies. Poland had made gains in the north, Lithuania and Poland losses to Russia in the north-east and south-east, and Russia's ally Bohemia some inroads against Poland in the south-west.
Russia had won the two largest land battles so far against Poland, in Lubnai and Perejaslavas, while the Poles had defeated Bohemia in Poznan and Praha, despite losing some territory to them and defeated the Imereti in Budysin. The Commonwealth had lost all three naval battles contested. The biggest benefit to Poland was the fact they held the main objective, Novgorod itself.
The Lüneburgian-Verdner War
A small local war had also been in progress since late 1575, mainly of interest as an indication of the strength (or lack of it) of some of the small states in Friesland’s vicinity. Verden’s army, already apparently devastated by an earlier rebel uprising, had been quickly destroyed by the invaders from Lüneburg.
Verden had been occupied since February 1576, but with only 4,000 men themselves, Lüneburg was itself too weak to take on the rebels who occupied their prime objective in Stade. This meant the war had dragged only slowly ever since and by February 1577 seemed destined to do so until Verden were finally forced to give up or Lüneburg got sick of the conflict and negotiated a peace deal.
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The Austrian-Swiss War of Imperial Reconquest
Switzerland had been lost to the Holy Roman Empire some years before the Austrians decided to reconquer it in 1576. The war pitted Austria-Hungary against Switzerland and their main ally of France. By February 1577 Austria had the upper hand, with the main fighting concentrated around the Swiss-Austrian border.
It looked as though a Hungarian army had been able to take Bois-le-Duc from France in the north after defeating the French in Utrecht, who had themselves defeated a smaller Austrian force there earlier. A large Swiss-led army had been defeated in Breisgau early on in the war and then in Zurich, presumably leaving Bern open to occupation. The Franco-Swiss alliance had lost more battles and taken by far the heavier combat casualties, while almost half the Austro-Hungarian losses had come from siege attrition.
February 1577: Friesland and North America
In February 1577, the rather unpleasant but effective and long=serving Potestaat Sikke Jousma was dreaming the Frisian dream in the 14th year of his life term. And his chancellor and captain-general were both more effective (and expensive to retain) than most of their predecessors had been. The focus of political power had been shifted into the administrative field. And the ally network had not changed since 1575.
The next national idea would lead to the addition of a fourth Frisian merchant, possibly available from July that year.
The army remained over its establishment and the navy (whose traditions were by now very high) still working up to its.
The provinces were developing fairly slowly, with not much state effort invested in it for some time. The addition of Hamburg to the Republic made in the second most developed after Friesland itself.
In North America, the French-Huron war had ended in a predictable French victory in just the month before. The gains had gone to Floride in the north, while the French colonial footprint was also rapidly expanding to the south of New Friesland as well, which was likely to eventually be hemmed in at this rate, with Moratok still not yet developed to full colonial status.
February 1577: Religion
The counter-reformation had resumed in Friesland in few years before. In January 1577 it had made its most import inroad yet with the conversion of the capital back to Catholicism, boosting the population share of the True Faith in the Republic back to almost a third.
The missionaries were now waiting for the next domestic province to become available before committing to the next conversion. Both sides of the religious divide continued to fish for souls in the waters of the Frisian Republic.
More widely throughout Europe, the same struggle went on. Of Interest, Genoese Crimea was providing five cardinals to the Holy See!
February 1577: The Wider World
Frisian mariners had now discovered more Pacific islands, all the way up to Hawaii, in the last couple of years.
Admiral Eilert Stellingwerf was currently charting the Red Sea. Some of his previous recent voyages had charted the west coasts of India and Australia.
Friesland's main claims to fame remained its navy and trade income. It remained outside the great powers list, which was still dominated by France and the Ottomans (and no more VPs had been scored either).
With just the one colonial subject, six provincial religious conversions and its golden age now 15 years in the past, Friesland’s progress in the Age of Reformation was rather modest so far.
But the treasury was strong, the government fairly stable and Republican tradition remained high.
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