Chapter 36: Looking for Trouble (1695-96)
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Postbellum
The ink was not even dry on the treaty that had ended Savoyard-Mantuan War on 11 October 1695 before the rapacious Frisian Republic was looking for somewhere to forcibly impose the Dream of Frisian Freedom and some ‘lucky’ neighbours. One option that had been suggested was a colonial war against the Granada-owned Ivory Coast.
This was seriously considered, given a 17,000-strong Frisian army was then in Carabar, having been reoccupying Guinean territory occupied by Tunis in the recent war. But the Granadan state here was quite powerful and maintained an even larger army, while they would call in some allies who could make life difficult in an isolated spot.
Even if Aragon was brought in to distract Tunis and Morocco, the number of troops that would need to be sent and the terrible attrition they would suffer even before any fighting began was enough to persuade the Potestaat that this was not a cost-effective option at this time.
Bremen was a long-standing and attractive target, but the problem here remained Austria and the possibility they might call in one or more powerful allies. It was not clear the risk of war with Britain was realistic but it gave pause.
And Bavaria was a Frisian ally they did not want to see brought in against them. While the unfortunate Austrians were still in a losing war against the infidel Ottomans and it might be poor form to put another dagger in their back.
But
something would be done and soon. The Frisian armies in Europe were ordered to end their drilling and prepare for active operations while the government considered other options.
Meanwhile, there was a Republic and colonial empire to run. The great trade centre of Makassar on Sulawesi had a fortune of 800 ducats spent to develop the harbour into a world class port.
And in a bid to increase income for the Frisian Company of the Moluccas (FCM) the excellent ports in Kalapa and Banten were both upgraded to entrepot level. Then the entire state reverted to territorial status so all four provinces could be assigned to the FCM.
[Questions: Does this mean I need to start shifting trade emphasis to that area instead to gain the most from this? Or does the TC just produce income that is sent back home?]
At home, Hamburg had a total of 140 military power spent to increase its development by two to 36, in the hope of promoting the growth required to satisfy the Diet’s demand for a stock exchange to be built there.
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Interbellum
As the Frisian leadership hatched its plans, the cheeky Kilwans, who had taken an active dislike of Friesland for reasons of religion and territorial ambition, had their spy ring discovered and expelled by the vigilant Frisian Republican Secret Police (the
Republikeinske Geheime Plysje, or RGP).
In the East Indies, in late 1695 Friesland’s former conquest target Bone found itself in a war supporting Blambangan (in Java) against Portuguese imperialism (ie the
wrong kind of imperialism
). The Frisian Governor-General agreed, for what little aid it might provide against their main regional colonial adversary.
In Buru, a large Bengal-led army was still trying to reduce the walls of the expatriate Scottish capital.
Back in Europe, Friesland had in late November 1695 secretly decided on their preferred strategy – and it would be an ambitious and likely bloody one. They would seek to open up the land corridor to Hamburg in a single war, with Stade and Verden to be wrested from Magdeburg as a minimum.
The complication here was Magdeburg’s allies and guarantors: an attack on them would trigger Poland-Lithuania and Bohemia, plus two far smaller allies, to intervene. Fortunately, Friesland could call on four useful local allies, led by Scandinavia, to support it. Each owed Friesland more than enough favours. At that point, the army in Guinea was recalled and began embarking for the long (and hazardous) voyage home.
As Friesland continued to prepare for war, a spy mission would be sent to Magdeburg in mid-December to see what they could do (a claim on Stade already existed).
But in the meantime, word was received from King Philip I of England that a Golden Era had begun in Britain. The letter was very polite, professing the friendship and good will of his Kingdom for the ‘Good Burghers of Friesland’. This was just as well, given their growing power and Frisian planning for imminent continental expansion.
As the year was ending, after three years of bitter fighting Austria was forced to the bargaining table by the Ottomans and made to concede yet more territory in the Croatian region to the seemingly unstoppable Turks.
This left Naples and Genoa (a shadow of its former self these days) alone to fight on against their Ottoman enemy.
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The new year of 1696 saw the Frisian army force limit having been reduced – presumably as a result of the State of Banten having been incorporated into the FCM. To rectify this, at great expense an Officers’ Mess was built in Banten in February which immediately provided the capacity to properly maintain five regiments.
And in Gorontalo in northern Sulawesi a regimental camp began construction, though that would take another ten months to complete.
In mid-March, the army returned from Guinea, having lost around 3,000 men from attrition during the voyage. They were sent to Cleve to recuperate and be prepared to advance on the Polish-owned enclave of Upper Guelders (subject to a Frisian claim) in the event of war with Magdeburg.
The Ottoman-Neapolitan War was now approaching its end stage, with the Turks having landed troops in the south and gained access from the north as well. Despite enormous losses (now over 630,000 men since the war began) the Ottomans had around 200,000 men and over 200 ships in the vicinity.
On 2 April the Frisian Australia treasure fleet arrived – but of the 125 ducats of gold and silver it had set out with, 25 had been taken by privateers along the way.
By 1 May, the Guinean army (now named the Leger van Geldern) had fully recovered to its strength of 17,000 men. The other three armies (two main, one smaller as a reserve) were poised and ready in the eastern provinces. That day, Gerulf Galama was recalled to the capital from his mission to Magdeburg (just a two-day trip): he would soon be getting a new letter to deliver!
On 3 May, Galama delivered the declaration of war: the Frisian-Magdeburgian Nationalist War had begun! All the available allies on both sides were called in – giving the Frisian Coalition almost double the total troops and reserve manpower of the Magdeburgian Alliance.
Of interest, Bohemia was by that stage well-progressed in their support of Magdeburg in their own nationalistic war against Brunswick. This new conflict would provide welcome relief for Brunswick and its allies Cologne and Liege. And incidentally keep them ‘on ice’ as later targets for the expansionary Frisian Republic.
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Initial Operations in the West, May-June 1696
As Friesland made its first moves on Upper Guelders, Stade and Verden, Franconia found itself in some trouble due to a passing Bohemian army attacking a leaderless group of troops at Würzburg. A larger Franconian army was nearby, but it was uncertain whether they could or would intervene in time to save their comrades.
They would not as it happened, with Franconia suffering a sharp defeat some time before 17 May.
At the outset of the war, of the infantry (used here as a general comparative guide) Scandinavia brought the strongest army to the war. Friesland followed – on paper – but around a quarter of the Leger was permanently deployed in the FIE. The recently enlarged Savoy, then Franconia and Bavaria provided the rest of the strength for the Coalition campaign.
For the enemy Bohemia, then Poland and Lithuania, were the main players. Magdeburg could provide only a small force, with the contribution of Mainz and Goslar being negligible. The Coalition’s combined fleet, led by Friesland and Scandinavia, was of course vastly superior.
The start of the war saw a small Polish fleet sailing off the east coast of England – with the Frisian English Channel trade protection fleet bearing down on them from the north. A heavy battle fleet was formed in Amsterdam the same day, setting out to hunt the Poles down from the east, to ensure there was no escape.
And the first engagement of the war was fought at sea, where the Poles were intercepted at the Dogger Bank by the English Channel trade fleet on 9 May. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, with all ten Polish ships sunk and only light damage for the Frisian navy. They had been without an admiral, so one was appointed after the battle in case they found themselves in combat again.
The battle was over just before the 2nd Fleet could arrive. They were re-tasked to blockade Stade instead, where a single Magdeburgian warship remained at port.
By mid-May, Stade and Verden (neither of which had forts) were under siege by the two main Frisian armies. The reserve Leger van Prignitz had moved up to Hoya and now headed to Hanover: they would try to do Brunswick a favour (and Magdeburg and Bohemia harm) by liberating the city of Hanover.
Five days later, word came of a great battle being fought between Bohemia and Bavaria at Westfalen, in Cologne.
The Bohemians had been attacked (though they showed as attackers, as they had been besieging Westfalen at the time) by a slightly larger Bavarian force. The Bavarians were soon in trouble as the Bohemians got the better of the opening exchanges, with Bavarian morale plummeting.
After a few days though the Bavarian commander Ferdinand von Passau had turned things around and slowly clawed back the advantage. By the 31st things were roughly even as von Passau ordered a devastating charge. A few days later, large armies from Franconia and co-belligerent Cologne had arrived to put the enemy to flight and deliver a decisive victory for the Coalition by 6 June.
Bavarian General Ferdinand von Passau leading the decisive cavalry charge at the Battle of Wesfalen, 31 May 1696.
In early June, the first major Scandinavian army arrived in the western Theatre, with 41,000 men passing south through Stade on 6 June. They saw the Frisian siege works as they passed and by the time the Scandinavians were in Verden, both Stade and Verden had fallen.
The siege works of Verden, 13 June 1696, as Frisian troops pour inside the last bastion in the province held by Magdeburg; by A.I. Bing.
As these provinces were surrendering, Gerulf Galama was sent back to Magdeburg – this time undercover again, to resume building the spy network.
The Frisian heavy battle fleet had arrived in the Heligoland Bight on 26 May to blockade Stade. The sole Magdeburgian frigate had tried to escape the fall of its home port but was found and destroyed on 14 June.
Poland and the Baltic, May-October 1696
Franconia had suffered the most as a result of the outbreak of the war, which found an army of 27,000 men isolated in Poland, at Leczyca west of Warsaw, with two larger Polish armies nearby.
But again, in the eastern theatre the first battle of the war was at sea, where 44 Scandinavian and Frisian ships (the 13 heavy frigates still conducting trade protection in the Lübeck node) ambushed four Bohemian and two Polish ships in the Southern Baltic on 9 May. Five were sunk and one captured.
Some days later, the Franconians were hit in Leczyca. By the 17th both Polish armies were attacking and the Germans were swiftly and comprehensively defeated. It was estimated that around 18,000 Franconians were killed or captured.
A little over month later, it seemed the Franconian remnants had retreated to and taken Sieradz, with the Magdeburgian army closing in on them from the south-west. That battle would also be lost.
Much of the Polish effort was directed north, with 45,000 men besieging Marienburg in Scandinavian West Prussia by mid-June. The Poles would never intervene in the west during the war, though they did later contest Scandinavian incursions into their remaining Russian holdings (Polish Novgorod).
Marienburg had fallen by late July, with the Poles moving to occupy East Prussia and a small Magdeburgian contingent in the process of liberating Sieradz following the Franconian defeat there.
The West, Late June-December 1696
The intended Frisian ‘favour’ to Brunswick backfired badly on 25 June, when the city fell to Frisian troops. Once the occupying Bohemian garrison had surrendered, Hanover was badly sacked by the victorious soldiers. The ‘usual looting’ turned into an ill-disciplined and ruinous atrocity. Faced with a range of choices, the Frisian Republican government decided that it must show itself to be better than that.
The devastation was limited and army discipline improved in the aftermath but at great cost to the Frisian treasury: almost two-thirds of its 1,600 ducats went out for repairs, payments and reimbursements. This paid off a few days later, when despite this disaster the Brunswickian leadership showed appreciation for the original intent of the operation and for the open-handed generosity the Republic’s reparations.
On 6 July, the tough siege of Polish Upper Guelders was reinforced by 39,000 Franconian troops, including 19 more regiments of artillery. At that stage, the dial on the war had barely been shifted in either side’s favour.
A 40,000-man Savoyard expeditionary army was spotted in northern Franconia by mid-July, heading into Cologne. A few days later, Friesland completed its occupations of Celle and Braunschweig and looked to redeploy its two main armies to Weimar (Bohemia) and the great city of Leipzig (Mainz).
Bohemia continued their siege of Würzburg, which they had begun after winning the battle there in May. Bavaria was investing Goslar and the Scandinavians were in Altmark.
By mid-August (no report available) a second Savoyard army had engaged the Bohemians at Würzburg, where the battle raged on 23 August, going slightly in favour of Savoy. The Bavarian army had marched south and were in Niederhessen by then, marching to the sound of the guns in Würzburg. They would join the battle before it ended, resulting in a major Coalition success.
The Bavarian army subsequently attacked the Bohemians (who appear to have lost at least 20,000 men in Würzburg) where they had retreated to Aschaffenburg, probably in late July or early September.
By 7 September, von Passau had the upper hand, with this time the Savoyards approaching from the west. Some time before 21 September, this battle would also be conclusively won by the Coalition and the power of the Bohemian field army was largely broken.
Savoyard heavy cavalry charges into the flank of the beleaguered Bohemian army of Vladimir Mansfeld at Aschaffenburg, September 1696.
The Bavarians had then advanced unhindered in central Bohemia, investing the heavily fortified Praha itself by 19 October. To the east, Friesland was doing the same to Leipzig and Fojtsko, having quickly overrun Weimar. The Frisian reserve army had also taken over the siege of Goslar.
The siege of Prague, October 1696.
Liege, allies of Brunswick in their own war against Magdeburg and Bohemia asked for and was granted military access in November, as Coalition forces pushed west into Bohemia and northern Poland. Cologne had a large army in north-western Bohemia.
In the east, the Poles were concentrating on Scandinavian Prussia and Livonia. Even further north, the Magdeburgians had seemingly abandoned all intention of defending their homeland and were headed toward Finland.
Little more would change before the end of the year, as winter set in on a Europe once again enduring a bloody war.
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Other News
Just as the war against Magdeburg was starting, news came of a settlement between Scotland and its latest adversaries on 9 May 1696. Aceh was given The Andamans and Scotland was forced to pay reparations of 45 ducats. But Scotland retained its capital of Buru and the colony of Lae, in eastern Papua. A long way from and with very different weather to Edinburgh!
In June, the Frisian economy remained in good enough shape though the persistent high inflation finally prompted the Government to intervene to reduce it.
In late October, traders in Frisian Australia started to step out of bounds and were brought back into line with a heavy hand, at the cost of some internal dissent that the Government believed could be dealt with before it boiled over.
