Good luck on leaving the Atlantic seaboard for the Rocky Mountains. If the grandkids will not leave the mountains for Rensselaer, then Rensselaer must go to the mountains.
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Last update Brandenburg was in the middle of a war of our choice against Holland and our Germanic rival Austria. We attacked Holland first because they would bring fewer allies than a direct attack upon Austria.
By October of 1626 we’d occupied large swathes of the Austrian homeland, and had many cities under siege. We kept losing armies in the Netherlands, though. <sighs>
The Dutch-ish situation got yet more complex in January 1627 when Gelre and Oldenburg dogpiled on Holland, which, to be fair, hadn’t had a lot to do with Brandenburg’s setbacks there. In fact, we’d sunk most of their navy and occupied much of their land. We just kept having large non-Dutch armies show up and stomp our troops!
The Gelrean War presented opportunties for gain and loss for us. It divided the attentions of those hostile armies. But it also meant there was a race, now, to occupy Hainaut and Liege. Austria, you might notice, was in no place to oppose Gelre, already being at war with Brandenburg, Hungary and Spain, and begged off that war, breaking their treaty.
Hungary, at the beginning of the year, finally took control of Hradiste, on their border with Austria. I’d had a regiment of troops there for a while, just to make sure the siege didn't drop because we’d had some difficulty convincing the Hungarians to stay on station. For short periods it was our regiment that kept the city from resupply.
On paper, if you check the above chart, our side in the war had 320,000 soldiers. Countries on our side are marked with a green dot, the other side with a red dot. Our enemies, in January 1627, had only 91,000 soldiers. About 30,000 of ours were Mercenaries.
The problem with a simple numbers chart is it doesn’t tell the full story. Hungary was participating with only a fraction of its army. And Wurzburg was kinda angling for independence anyway, and as I recall their soldiers pretty much just sat around home. So that’s almost half my numbers that weren’t really engaged. Most of the rest of our armies were sitting on a half-dozen city sieges.
In February a joint army of Austrians and Ulmers began re-taking Austria’s Balkan territory. But soon after the Hungarian army that had recently captured Hradiste arrived and beat the enemy army like a drum. I don’t have a screenshot to prove it, but I can’t imagine this army escaped without full surrender.
Meanwhile, the walls of Austria’s capital city Wien had been breached, and it began to seem as if this city might capitulate in coming months.
My strategy, overall, was working. Overpower and overwhelm. Even when setbacks occurred, they simply delayed the inevitable. Was this a costly strategy? We had taken out several loans, by this point. But overall an 8 ducat-a-month interest payment was paltry. We were spending nearly 10 times that much just for having more armies than our Force Limit would allow!! Our Force Limit was 134 and we had 185 regiments in the field. The Mercenaries were costing 25 ducats a month. Reinforcements nearly 50. On the whole, with an income of 202 ducats a month our expenses were 309 a month – a 107 ducat a month shortfall (a 50% deficit!) which was being supported by gradually more loans. The monthly Army Maintenance alone was greater than our total monthly income!
Could I keep this up? Sure!
Poor Liege, who couldn’t even keep their own capital, and were making do with Loon, with only a level 1 Fort, was placed under siege in February. To make things worse for them, King Christian of Oldenburg (one party to "that other war") was soon destroying most of what was left of their army – an oblique act of service to Brandenburg.
The situation in Austria had gone from bad to worse as Spring 1627 wore on. We continued to take more territory, and the walls at Wien stood breached and just begging for an assault of arms upon them. But I wasn’t willing to waste the blood of my troops in such a manner. This war would go on – it had to, since I had declared against Holland. I was in no particular hurry to end the war. By the end of May Wien was at 28% likelihood of surrender, with Ingolstod and Loon at 7% and Ulm…
Ulm was sacked in July. It did not come as good news to King Friedrich VIII. Or perhaps it did? At age 17 it’s hard to say how one in a position of such power might feel. Especially in the midst of war. But with 6 Admin skill, one would hope that he wasn’t gladdened to hear of such an act of brigandry.
Ulm, of course, surrendered. We got 24 ducats and forced them to convert to Protestant. They got off cheap! Liege surrendered in November, paying the 10% indemnity, and also convert to Protestant. We got 55 ducats from them. Mostly I was just glad to get their armies off the board.
Wien was up to 57% siege progress in September, and of course by the end of the year that had progressed further. Other cities fell during the last half of 1627 – Ingolstod, Augsburg, Frankfurt and Cilli.
Warscore at the end of 1627 was up to 39%.
By the very beginning of 1628 I am spending basically 300 ducats a month against a 200 ducat a month income, and the loans are stacking up. But I’m only paying 13 ducats a month for interest, which is 6% of my income, and that’s easily sustainable. War Exhaustion is at 5, which increases time to build things and increases unreset, etc. The scale gives you up to 20, so I expect 5 is sustainable also.
By 1628 I was also planning out what we might ask of the Austrians. I briefly considered just requiring a 10% indemnity (which might have been quite a haul!) and Humiliation, which would give us a good Power Projection score. That would cost 50% Warscore, which we were almost up to (note that we had 40% in the overall war, but 49% against Austria, since that was where most of our territorial gains had occurred).
In March I hatched a plan to import 15,000 Brandenburger troops into the Netherlands to help complete our conquests in the coastal areas we were having trouble reaching. But….
Ultimately I sent them back to port. For one, I saw 29,000 Austrians huddled nearby, and that would set us up for a third loss of an army if we weren’t more careful.
But I also noticed 45,000 Spaniards approaching, so I got out some popcorn!
The Spanish caused Austria 18,000 casualties, and the remnants of that army limped away…
Only to be caught by my army at Den Haag on 1 May, where the 12,000 survivors laid down their arms and surrendered. I think this was the last major Austrian army.
In July 1628 Wien finally surrendered. We began to disband our mercenary armies because there wasn’t much for them to do any longer.
In November Gelre made peace with Holland, forcing them to cede Den Haag (their major fort) and Zeeland to Gelre, leaving Holland owning only three provinces.
The consequences of this peace treaty for Brandenburg were huge! We immediately shifted our army from Den Haag to Amsterdam. So not only did the peace mean we already had two of Holland’s remaining provinces under siege (Utrecht was already under our control). But Amsterdam, their capital, had only a level 1 fort, and now that it was under siege it had no defenders because they could not reinforce!!
Amsterdam surrendered to us on 3 January, 1629. This brought our Warscore up to 79%.
We couldn’t make peace with Holland yet – we had to end the Austrian war first.
On 11 February we concluded peace with Austria, including a 10% monthly indemnity transferred from their income to ours for 10 years and the cession of three border provinces in what used to Saxony and Bohemia to Brandenburg.
Vogtland would connect our territory with the Ansbachian city of Beyreuth. Eger had a fortress to guard our new border, and Eger and Erz constituted the beginning of our shifting of the border southward to weaken Austria and enrich ourselves at their expense.
Thirteen Power Projection helped also, and nearly 400 ducats of cash payments.
A few days later we made peace with Holland, bringing the fighting to a close. They would pay a 10% indemnity, gave us 215 ducats cash, and we forced them to give Utrecht to Friesland (see @Bullfilter!
).
This leaves Holland with only two provinces at the mouth of the ZuiderZee. Yes, they probably have a handful of colonial provinces around the world, here and there.
Holland also went Bankrupt, which has some serious consequences. Not long for this world, I might predict. I wonder if they even really have the resources to beef up that fort at Amsterdam!
It was a costly war. Yet it will take a good amount of time for Austria to recover from this beating. They’ve been permanently reduced in territory and their Manpower has to build back from Zero. Same with their armies. Power Projection is low, as is Prestige.
It was a good hit, if not a truly solid blow.
Okay… Now we’ll step back a year to look at something fun. No… Not fun. Interesting. Definitely not fun. A little funny, but not funny for Brandenburg.
By January of 1628 the Emperor’s troops had actually captured 2 of the 4 provinces France held in the English Isles, including London (aka “Domaine Francais”)!
Unfortunately, that was only a quirk of geography and oceanography. France couldn’t march there to defend it, and so it lost some lands. On the Continent, France dominated.
A month later France annexed East Frisia (not to be confused with 2-province minor Friesland). This was bad (for us) because we actually had a claim on that province – it was considered part of Brandenburg/Prussia’s natural growth corridor along the coast. It gave us a Casus Belli against France, but….
Then in March the Emperor admitted defeat. Brabant ceded Antwerp to France! And 525 ducats and an indemnity. Bam! So much for the Great Holy Roman Emperor, eh?
WHO RULES EUROPE??!! FRANCE RULES…. Erm… Brandenburg kinda rules Europe cuz’ we’re better than France and the Emperor combined… We just can’t prove it (yet). Stop laughing!
In my dreams?
Probably.And yes… In 1629 the Coalition rears its head again, predictably. And Bavaria breaks their alliance with us. Everyone is so touchy!
Brandenburg takes Diplo Tech Level 16 and Admin Tech Level 18. Admin 18 allows us to take a new Idea Group, and we choose Offensive Ideas. Sorry the text is a little small, there, but it’s a bunch of military stuff that we’re probably going to need at some point.
Bayonet Leaders is the one Idea we take immediately, increasing Land Leader Shock by 1.
But the real measure of whether Brandenburg profited from this war is in the Great Power race. Brandenburg gains 80 points, while Austria loses 52 points. By comparison France gained only 82 points, despite their win over the Emperor, so we actually barely lost ground in our (longshot) bid to eventually catch up to France.
The main upshot is that Brandenburg poached Austria’s 4th place ranking, shoving Austria down into 5th place.
Thoughts? Any predictions on Brandenburg’s next decade?
Here’s a screenshot of Europe in 1629, to help visualize our situation.
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Those indemnities just lost a lot of value...
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AE management is going to be a real struggle, but Bavaria breaking the alliance is a blessing in disguise, since you need Munich and want Augsburg to form Germany. Time to start looking for bigger allies - Spain would be ideal depending on rival setup.
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I want a three-way between Blue Blob/Green Monster/Old Yella! When a country goes bankrupt, does 10% reparations get cancelled? Are loans included in war reparations? Thanks for the update.
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That's the Brandenburg we know and love. (Assuming that 'we' are not one of Brandenburg's many many MANY creditors.)
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And all the accountants of Brandenburg wept, but the money lenders rejoiced!Could I keep this up? Sure!
A no-CB and 70 AE besides will do that to you. How large is the coalition this time?
Unless you want to tackle the coalition head on (which may not be a bad idea depending on its size), I think this will be a decade of rebuilding. Another war with Austria after that maybe, depending on if they rebuild fast enough.
France looms large. Can you become HREmperor again to deter them? I forget if the Protestants won the league war to allow this. A Spanish or Russian alliance might be a good call.
Eger (one of the Bohemian provinces you took from Austria) has a gold mine, I'm not sure if you noticed. It would definitely be good to invest in it.
Just reduced I'm pretty sure, since the country's total income goes down.
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Nicely fought war. At least the money-lenders think so. I'd probably spend the next while consolidating, and maybe looking at Spain as an ally.
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