Seven Years' War: Epilogue and the Post War Years
The Roman Empire in late 1762 should have been in an excellent military position. Russia had withdrawn from the war, leaving Austria alone to fight against both Prussia and the Empire with only a highly distracted France as its sole remaining major ally in the war. The truth of the situation, however, was less glamorous.
The Kingdom of Prussia, having been attack relentlessly from four sides by France, Austria, Russia and Sweden since 1756, was utterly exhausted. Their victories later in the war could not hide the fact that Prussia had been pushed to its limit by the fighting, and even its highly trained and disciplined armies were exhausted.
Frederick the Great knew he could not ask his men to go on a long and exhausting campaign in Austria after they had given so much already just to survive. Even Alexander the Great could only ask so much from his men before they refused to go any further, and Frederick knew his army had reached that point.
While Prussia was militarily exhausted, the Roman Empire was politically unstable. A group of rebellious ministers had bribed a Roman general and attempted to launch a parliamentarian coup similar to the one that had succeeded in Sweden in the early 18th century, following the end of the Great Northern War.
It was only with the swift intervention of Grand Domestic Georgios Curcuas that the ‘Burgher Plot’, as it would come to be known, failed. Though called the Burgher plot, it was actually a collaborative attempt between opposition Dynatoi and Bourgeoisie within the Agora Nymfon, to limit Imperial Authority and instate parliamentary rule.
Though the plot failed, political tensions ran high with the Emperor away from Constantinople for so long, and many feared only his swift return would be able to restore proper order to the Empire.
In order to stop the rebellious general, Curcuas had also been forced to split his army in Italy, taking 25,000 men from an army of barely over 50,000 with him to Constantinople, leaving Italy wide open to an attack by the Austrians, who had an army of over 40,000 near Italy at the time, and in position to march on Milan or Venice if need be.
All of these things combined to greatly improve Austria’s overall situation, and gave them a ground to stand on at the negotiation table. The two sides in central Europe were at an impasse, and it looked as if further fighting could draw on for years if the war continued.
The world situation was not so stagnant however. France in its’ colonies had in general been defeated soundly by 1762. Britain had won a major victory in North America, and was poised to seize control of the entire region.
In the Caribbean, the Roman Empire had decimated the French Navy and seized several important French sugar colonies. Finally, in India, both the Empire and Britain had decisively defeated French colonial forces there and seized trading posts and colonies for themselves, as well as taking advantage of the instability of the native regimes of the region to seize control of them.
While European France was mostly intact, and saw relatively little fighting within its borders, the war had proven to be a disaster for its global empire. King Louis XV of France knew he had been defeated and asked for peace with the Empire and Britain, knowing the terms would be harsh for his Kingdom.
The Roman Empire was a signatory to both the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Hubertusburg, the only real link between the two treaties. The Treaty of Paris was signed by Darios Rshtuni on February 10th of 1763, acting as a representative of the Empire for the Emperor, who was by then back in Constantinople. Adrianos Phokas, a trusted general of the Grand Domestic, signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg on the 15th.
While Hubertusburg simply was a status quo ante bellum, with no significant territorial exchanges taking place, Prussia had without a doubt now risen to the status of a first rate European power, and would from then on be a major factor in the politics of the region, in Germany in particular, much to the chagrin of Austria.
The Treaty of Paris on the other hand involved massive territorial exchanges, in particular for North America. France was in essence given the choice of either keeping their New France territory in North America, or their colonies in Guadeloupe. They chose the later in order to retain their source of sugar.
The Roman Empire received all of France’s Caribbean colonies south of Guadeloupe, which secured them the dominance they had sought in eastern Caribbean. With the French navy greatly weakened during the Seven Years’ War, the Imperial Fleet ruled the waters around the tiny islands with little opposition.
France was also made to cede all of its colonies in India to the British and Romans. This greatly increased the amount of influence that both held over the peninsula, but this only served to increase tensions between the two powers as their interests became increasingly conflicted.
Imperial and British India. The purple in the center of India is what remains of the once mighty Mughal Empire, while the rest is Byzantine territory.
The Seven Years’ War was at last over, and for once, the Emperor had something to show for it. Yet despite their territorial gains, few were truly happy with the outcome of the Seven Years’ War. Increasing tensions between Britain and the Empire, increasing resentment between Britain and her American colonies, and the failing popularity of the French Monarchy in the eyes of its subjects can all in some way be attributed to this war, in which over 1 million souls perished across the world.
With the war over, Emperor Konstantinos XVI was finally able to turn his attention towards domestic matters, the treacherous Ampelas and his co-conspirators being the first and most important of these. Konstantinos had been greatly enraged upon finding out about the attempted coup, considering it a personal betrayal.
He had been fighting in Prussia, and found it to be utterly disdainful that they would take advantage of his commitment to his ally in Prussia and his soldiers in the field. Upon his return to Constantinople and the subsequent end of the war, the Emperor declared that all those who participated in the plot, excluding the common soldiers under Ampelas, were to be hung for high treason.
Konstantinos also temporarily dissolved parliament in order to ease the passing of certain political reforms that he saw as essential. Following the end of the war, Grand Domestic Georgios Curcuas had request that he be allowed to retire to his estate in Lesbos, a request that the Emperor granted out of gratitude for his years of loyal service.
However, the Emperor, instead of choosing a new Grand Domestic, instead decided to completely abolish the rank altogether. This was mainly done because of the Burgher Plot, where a group of Dynatoi Senators and Bourgeoisie parliamentarians had attempted to elect the next Grand Domestic and through him, directly attack the Monarchy.
The duties and powers of the Grand Domestic were from then on directly vested in the Emperor himself, making him in every way that mattered the sole authority in Roman military as its Commander-In-Chief. He had the option of vesting these powers in another citizen of his choosing, if he so desired, but there was no longer a permanent military official for his enemies to use against him.
Following the parting advise of the last Grand Domestic, Konstantinos made several important reforms to the Roman Army, the main one being a large increase in its overall size. Since the early 1700s, the Roman army had maintained a standing professional force of 180 – 200,000 soldiers across the world.
However, even this large standing army was not enough to properly protect the vast Empire that had been built over the last centuries. The Empire constantly found its armies overstretched during protracted conflicts in Europe, and new recruits took time to train, which they often did not have, especially if the war was unexpected.
Drawing upon the Empire’s vast wealth the Emperor, from 1763 to 1770, expanded the Roman army to over 350,000 men globally. There would now be a stratos in every major region within the European Empire. Each Stratos would consist of 50,000 men, divided into 40,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and at least 150 artillery pieces.
This expansion greatly drained the Imperial treasury and took vast amounts of wealth to maintain on a permanent basis, but the colonies of the Empire provided that wealth in abundance. In addition to the new stratos, he also created the Stratos Konstantinoypoli, a 30,000 man army that would remain in Constantinople at all times and was under the Emperor’s direct command. This was to dissuade any overly ambitious Stratos from trying to march his army on Constantinople in the future.
While still allowing for the centuries old Meritocratic system that the military had become accustom to, he carefully handpicked each would-be general to insure their loyalty to him. As each of the seven generals had over 50,000 men under their command, this was essential.
This massive standing army would allow the Empire to respond to any surprise invasion, like that of France during the War of the Austrian Succession, or Frederick’s invasion of Saxony at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War.
A new system of conscription, designed by Georgios Curcuas decades earlier but never implemented, would then allow the Empire to, in a relatively short amount of time, nearly double the number of soldiers in the field to over 600,000 men. This would give them by far the largest army in Europe, larger than even France’s 400,000. Such a potentially large army would not be triumphed until the Napoleonic Wars, by the French Empire’s ability to draft over 1 million men.
Darios Rshtuni II, who had served as unofficial ‘First Minister’ during the Emperor’s absence was awarded the wealth of the executed nobility along with Georgios Curcuas. He was instructed to return to his normal political life, however, and most of his specially granted powers were cordially stripped from him.
Emperor Konstantinos XVI was determined to remain the only ruler of the Empire, and the Agora Nymfon was not even allowed to reassemble until 1767. The Emperor’s harsh rule only served to further turn the members of the Agora against him however. By 1772, the parliament had become polarized between the Absolutists and the Parliamentarians.
On November 14th 1766, former Grand Domestic Georgios Curcuas died peacefully in his estate at Lesbos. Though he was raised in a Bourgeoisie family, his victories and military genius elevated him to the status of nobility.
Loved by his soldiers, popular with the people and devotedly loyal to his Emperor; Curcuas was given an illustrious burial in Constantinople, in the large courtyard of the Imperial Palace where the non-ruling members of the Imperial family were buried, symbolizing his close personal relationship to them. Curcuas was the only person of non-Imperial blood to ever be buried there.
Following the end of the Seven Years’ War, the Empire began to realize that it would likely be forced to count Britain among its enemies sooner, rather than later. They both sought global hegemony, wishing to dominate trade across the world, while they both were great maritime powers with vast fleets of warships and trade galleons.
The Emperor, wishing to seek allies against this potential new foe, turned to his old enemy France. Though the Empire had taken territory from France in the Seven Years’ War, it paled in comparison to the harsh terms imposed upon her by Britain.
The Emperor sent emissaries to the court of King Louis XV, seeking to put their past troubles behind them for the sake of their mutual interests, much in the same way France and Austria had prior to the Seven Years’ War. The King, knowing his popularity with his people had reached a critically low point, sought to recover his image by forming a powerful diplomatic alliance against the British.
France had several terms for this alliance however, one involving the return of several of France’s more valuable Caribbean colonies, which the Emperor assented to, while at the same time making it clear that the Indian possessions the Empire had gained would remain under Constantinople’s control.
In addition, France offered to buy Corsica, in order to secure a large port within the Mediterranean for their fleet. The Emperor agreed to sell them the island, as long as they agreed that it would still be open for Roman military use.
Following these concessions, France and the Roman Empire signed the Treaty of Rome on June 4th, 1769. The treaty stated that the two powers would come to one another’s aid in the event of a war breaking out with a Third Party, and that the Empire would provide 20 warships to France’s decimated fleet.
This alliance proved to be a great threat in the eyes of the British government, which attempted to close its trade centers in India to the Empire opposition to the treaty. This had little affect however, and the new alliance was maintained.
Finally, at the age of 77, Emperor Konstantinos XVI died in his sleep on December 29th, 1771. His son, Nikolaos, was coronated on January 9th as Emperor Nikolaos III Palaiologos. With a new Emperor upon the throne, the course of Imperial Politics once against began to take a different direction…
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There you go! Enjoy and reply.
I hope these updates aren't coming out too fast for you guys, I'm just feeling really pumped up right now for some reason.
