The Bulwark of Christendom: A Poland MP AAR 1066-1948

[Sterkarm]

First off, this AAR is going to be about my country, Poland, in the game Great Game 2 and may be expanded to include AARs of other players in that game as well. This game is hopefully going to go from Crusader Kings-->EU2-->Victoria-->Hearts of Iron 2 and there are converters to allow us to go from game to game. We've only had one session so far, and it was a rather short one, but that is how CK games are. Anyway, that's pretty much it, I hope to be able to write this all the way to the finish (probably 2 years from now).

 

[Sterkarm]

A New Day Dawns
​

The air was quiet. With not another living thing around, the silent figure seemed to cut through the rising mist as a ray of sun through a midnight sky. Refreshingly, the man drew in a deep breath through his nostrils and exhaled satisfactorily. It was a perfect day at Wawel Castle, and Boleslaw felt rejuvenated. There was a tangible feeling of new life in the atmosphere. Both Boleslaw and his country were young, and both were about to leave their mark on history.

It was on this day, July 15, 1067, the Day of Saint Vladimir the Great, that Boleslaw, King of Poland, Protector of All Slavs, Bulwark of Christendom, and Servant of the Lord God, truly reigned over Poland. He saw that, in Poland's weakened state, it could not contend with the rapidly expanding Kievan state which his grandfather, Vladimir the Great, had once ruled. And, as the Archbishop of Krakow challenged his power, Boleslaw saw his path. It was to be that of a warrior. There would be no peace for Poland's enemies until either he or they were dead.

The Sejm United

On July 21, 1067, Boleslaw spoke to the nobles he had gathered at Wawel Castle. All had arrived except for Stanislaw Archbishop of Krakow who sent word that he could not be bothered to grant the king an audience. Boleslaw, not enraged but rather joyous, greeted the nobles warmly. Wszebor Wlostowic, the Silesian Lord, arrived in full regalia. Audaciously, he wore the crest of the Duchy of Silesia, though that clearly belonged to Boleslaw. With him, his sister, the Countess of Opole, sat modestly and spoke softly. But when Wladyslaw Hermann arrived from Plock with his mighty retinue, Boleslaw rushed out to greet his brother and rejoice over Poland's good fortune to have not one, but two Piast warriors at peace in Wawel. There was the Archduke of Wielkopolska, the Count of Czerk, and other nobles too numerous to mention here.

When these nobles were here gathered, Boleslaw set about his task: to bring all the Sejm of Poland up in arms against the Archbishop of Krakow. He needed but one thing to do so, and he received it: a warning from the Pope. When news of this reached the nobles, they were outraged. "How dare an old fool from Italy intervene in Polish affairs," they demanded. It was enough so that the very next day, Boleslaw marched out of Wawel and into the lands of Stanislaw.

Civil War

The nobles were called up, and Stanislaw's armies came hurtling out towards Boleslaw. In a fierce battle, Boleslaw nearly annihilated the Archbishop's forces, flanking them and surrounding most of them with his fearsome Cracovian knights. Stanislaw fled to the north and the siege began. Many would perish in the coming months from mere starvation, and reinforcements would do no good. When the Royal forces marched north, having taken Sieradszko, they were less than half their number, only a mere 2,000 fighting men.

As Boleslaw turned his armies north, he received troubling news: the Silesian regiments were leaving the army and returning home. This treason could not be allowed, and furthermore, as he left, Wszebor, Lord of Silesia, declared himself independent of any king, be it that of Bohemia, Germany, or especially Poland. The armies of Poland were now all mobilized, and as Stanislaw surrendered, Boleslaw marched through Silesia, exacting his revenge on Wszebor and expelling the Wlostowic line from Poland.

 

[King of Men]

Don't listen to this Polish propagandist! The Piast dynasty is evil, as I have extensively proved in my history of the Kings of Norway, linked in my sig.

 

[das]

There can never be enough of mega-campaign MP AARs.

 

[binTravkin]

Protector of All Slavs

I, Yaroslav, veliky kniaz of Pereyaslav have a lot better claim on that title!

Kievan state

How dare you oh, treacherous king of polacks, who slays his own vassals like a mad dog eating his own children, call me a 'kievan'!
I am Yaroslav, veliky kniaz of Pereyaslav!
I do own the kniazdom of Kiev, but that by no means makes me a lowly kievan.


I give you 3 GG cookies for this - you have good writing style, and I especially liked that episode about 'old fool'..
Be it a bit longer and a bit more illustrated I could even give 4.

 

[Sterkarm]

I, Yaroslav, veliky kniaz of Pereyaslav have a lot better claim on that title!

How dare you oh, treacherous king of polacks, who slays his own vassals like a mad dog eating his own children, call me a 'kievan'!
I am Yaroslav, veliky kniaz of Pereyaslav!
I do own the kniazdom of Kiev, but that by no means makes me a lowly kievan.


I give you 3 GG cookies for this - you have good writing style, and I especially liked that episode about 'old fool'..
Be it a bit longer and a bit more illustrated I could even give 4.

It tore my Catholic heart to say that about the pope. Well, except that I say that about ol' Benny these days. But thank you, I did forget to take screenshots during the session, hopefully someone will remind me next session. Oh, and hopefully I'll have an AAR chronicling the fall of Kiev to the Polish Piast dynasty. Thanks for the comments, good to know someone from the actual game is reading it.

NOTE: I'm not offended really, but just so you're aware, polack (spelled pollock I believe) is essentially a racial slur, I believe. You might want to ask a real Pole about that though, not a person who's merely 2nd generation American and descended from Poles.

 

[das]

Not sure, but I think "pollack" is a pretty ordinary Old English term for a Pole. "Poljak" is the commonly-used non-offensive Russian word for the same... not sure about the Poles themselves, though.

 

[binTravkin]

pollack
Marine fish Pollachius virens of the cod family, growing to 75 cm/2.5 ft, and found close to the shore on both sides of the North Atlantic.



© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.

 

[binTravkin]

The word comes from Polish word "Polak" which means ‘a Pole.’ It came to English language probably directly from French "Polaque<Polish Polack" or from German "Polack< a Pole." Most probably American usage was influenced by German example. The first notation in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from a letter by Sir Philip Sidney from November 27, 1574. Shakespeare used it in "Hamlet" (" You from the Polack wars, and you from England, Are here arrived" – V. ii. 1601-02). In the mid-seventeenth century the modern polite form, a Pole, started to be used, as noted by OED in1656. Americans have used the word Polack insultingly since the end of the nineteenth century (1898). The remaining of the word as an insult is parallel to the use of the old but nonstandard Injun for Indian and Nigger for Negro.

http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/polack.htm

Blame the americans!

It's an old english word for 'pole' that's it.
It might be that 'nigga' is actually a praise/compliment somewhere in the world..

 

[unmerged(32341)]

It might be that 'nigga' is actually a praise/compliment somewhere in the world..

Well- we've got Nigeria and Niger in Central Africa. That must mean something. People wouldn't just volountarily call their country Dickland or Moronia, would they?

 

[das]

Thought so!

A bit like with the word moskal - perfectly normal Polish word for "Russian" or "Muscovite", but used as an insult by the Ukraineans...

 

[unmerged(48100)]

Nice pseudo reason for a senseless civil war Sterk. I give you 3 GG, but I think it was too short (even for the amount of time we played).

 

[Lurken]

Well- we've got Nigeria and Niger in Central Africa. That must mean something. People wouldn't just volountarily call their country Dickland or Moronia, would they?

Niger is black in latin, it is a shame that people forgets it.

 

[unmerged(32341)]

Niger is black in latin, it is a shame that people forgets it.

Well ofcourse it originates from Latin. It's a damn good reason to call a country 'Blackia' if its inhabitants' skin is dark as chocolate.
The famous white cliffs of Dover made those same Latinists call Britain Alba or Albion.
My point is that the age of colonisation turned a perfectly normal word niger into an abusive term.

 

[Lurken]

My point is that the age of colonisation turned a perfectly normal word niger into an abusive term.

Yes it is a shame, but we are very off-topic, so we should end the discussion now.

 

[unmerged(32341)]

Yes it is a shame, but we are very off-topic, so we should end the discussion now.

Yep. True.
Three cheers for the author. Let his vision flow.

 

[Sterkarm]

OOC note: Sorry I haven't done two AARs and, even worse, I have no screenshots for either of them as I just reformatted my computer (to have some sort of chance of running Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and neglected to save anything from CK. I'm going to write quite a bit in the next few days though, hopefully my words can make up for the lack of pictures and/or illustration.

 

[Sterkarm]

The Wolf at the Gate

The scene was surreal around Boleslaw. The air was silent on the plains outside Kiev and Boleslaw Piast, King of Poland, stood seemingly alone, surrounded only by corpses. As he strode through the Golden Gate of Kiev, hundreds of Russian troops ambushed him, yet he dispatched them all with ease. The city suddenly rose into flame as Boleslaw strode through to the citadel at the city's center. While he walked defiantly through the streets, the Kievans begged him for help, yet he turned a deaf ear. When he reached the castle, a light shone down upon him and the fires which ravaged the city vanished nearly instantly. A crown then appeared on his head, and he could see all the lands of Rus. It was magnificent, he saw a pure white eagle flying from the Oder River and in moments, past the Volga and on into the mystery of the east.

Ting! rang Boleslaw's helmet as an arrow ricocheted off of the upturned visor. As knights rushed by, one of them, seeing his king fall to his knees, dismounted and pulled Boleslaw to his feet. The horsemen continued on by, but the knight made sure Boleslaw had his senses about him, gave the king his horse, and fought on on foot. The king, still slightly delusional after his vision, brought himself back to reality and charged onward. The battle itself, however, is a story for another day. Boleslaw and the warriors of Poland were victorious that day and walked through the Golden Gates of Kiev and seized the city. The war, which had been sparked by numerous invasions of Christian realms in Rus by the Rurikovich in Pereyaslavl, would also be won by the descendants of Mieszko. After years of campaigning in the farms, hamlets, villages, and cities around Kiev, Boleslaw negotiated a peace which ensured Polish control of Kiev and the surrounding county. The situation in Rus worsened, however, as the Kniaz of Pereyaslavl continued to expand into weak, Christian lands.

The Wolf and His Wounds

Boleslaw grew more and more worried further into his reign as his legitimate heirs were few and it seemed his wives simply could not produce him a strong male heir. Boleslaw's second wife had died in childbirth and he decided to marry yet again, this time to the young daughter of the Staden line's patriarch. As he waged war now upon the pagans, Boleslaw drew his sword and swept north through the realm of the pagan Chief of Lithuania and brought destruction upon all lands south of the Dvina River.

The pagans however fought like ravenous beasts and the wars nearly bankrupted the Polish kingdom and at one point nearly all of the troops in Poland totalled only 2,000 men in fighting shape as the pagans began a new offensive into the lands of Boleslaw's vassals. However, with a new boost in loyalty from his vassals, Boleslaw raised a mighty army of roughly 6,000 men and led it to victory against the Pruthenians and the Livonians. Upon his defeat of all his enemies in the North, and the formation of a pact with the King of Sweden, Boleslaw was crowned King of Poland-Lithuania in a glorious ceremony. However, the now-empty Polish treasury would need to be rebuilt and the people of Poland given new hope as the returning warriors found their lands ravaged by rebellion and famine.

In an effort to stem the ever-decreasing balance of the royal treasury, Boleslaw made a last-ditch effort to call the Estates General and, while it brought the kingdom out of debt, it caused the vassals to waver in their loyalty, driving the Count of Sacz to revolt, but the revolt was quickly put down by royal troops from Krakow and Sacz was re-absorbed into the royal demesne lands.

As peace fell over the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, it was broken once more as religious tensions arose in the newly conquered provinces. Aukshayts, the former capital of the Lithuanian tribes, was brought to the flock by means of the sword, and the blood flowed like wine through the rivers of the Baltic coast. Danzig was also brought towards the light in this way, in a mighty repressive move by Boleslaw. Through these cullings of the unfaithful, the Kingdom of Poland was made temporarily weak, but in the future the now-Catholic residents would bring great wealth to the king and his coffers.

Boleslaw had reigned now for decades and was approaching his old age. As he retreated to Wawel Castle to raise his sons and bring order to his realm, the sun was rising once more on the Polish kingdom, and a new day was dawning for the Slavic peoples.