The Lords of Prussia: from feudalism to modernity (a MMP2 AAR)

[Merrick Chance']

The Four Years War and the fall of the Teutons

The last war of Brandenburgian aggression against the Teutonic Knights had been planned years in advance--Albrecht had been saving up his funds all through the 1470s after the Centralization Crisis of '74. At the beginning of April, 1481, he was told by Estavao that the provisions in the treaty signed at the end of the 2nd Polish-Teuton war was soon to be up. This time, however, Poland would not take all the spoils.

There was one major difference between this war and the last: while the 1st Northern War (a war of aggression in which Novgorod and Muscovy annexed Estland without any Swedish interference) led to a reforging of the historical Teutonic-Livonian alliance, the Teutons had also signed an alliance with Bohemia, the rival of the emperor and the rival of Brandenburg. In spite of, or perhaps because of Albrecht's support of Bohemia in the college of electors, a war with a potential Emperor was not something which Albrecht particularly wanted. To combat this potential threat, Albrecht went to the two arms of his Great Power policy: the Army, and his allies. The army had recently been retrained in the use of Pike warfare, an import from Italy, and was expanded by 2000 pikes and 1000 horse. With regards to his allies, Albrecht turned to Bavaria.

The beginnings of military talks between Margrave Albrecht's and Duke Maximilian's generals​

Bavaria had been Brandenburg's ally since the 1450s, however this alliance had never been tested. The coronation of the new Duke Maximilian gave Albrecht the perfect chance to start military talks with the country's government. Military talks about the correct tactical use of pikes started in mid-April of 1481, with Helmut Von Hohenlohe, Brandenburg's Marshal and the head of it's officer school, presiding. The other major subject would be how the two armies would react in the context of a defensive war against Bohemia, Austria, or Switzerland. In return for establishing the beginnings of a Bavarian military academy, Maximilian paid for a small contingent of Bavarian monks to set up a monestary in Postdam.

Now, if I weren't roleplaying, I'd totally go with Carmelites right now. That might just be my love of wine though.​

Albrecht Christian I personally attended a costume party which Maximilian threw in honor of the end of the talks. The party went well into the night of July 12th, 1481. During the party, Albrecht, dressed in the garb of a pikeman, asked Maximilian (dressed as an Italian painter) about the possibility of a war with Bohemia.

"Well, we do have more men combined than Bohemia and any of its allies", said Maximilian, "and with Helmut on our side, I feel more confident already!"
"So you would join me if a war started between Bohemia and Brandenburg?", asked Albrecht.
"Why yes, I imagine that it would be a glorious war! I, the dapper young intellectual, and you, the disciplined soldier, fighting against that ghastly king of Bohemia!"
"Well, my duke, with that in mind I have a confession to make"
"And what is that, my dear Albrecht?" asked Maximilian as the clock struck midnight
"My envoys are just now reaching Konigsberg, and the treaty between my mark and the Teutonic order is up. You have your war."
At that, Maximilian turned white.

Guess who doesn't give a CRAP about stab hits?​

In the end, both Bavaria nor Bohemia would be too threatened to join what would be called the 4 Years War, however this event showcases nicely Albrecht Christian I's diplomatic skill which was to be the pivotal tool of the Brandenburgers during the war. Under Frederich II's patronage, the strategy of the Brandenburgian army would be as such: the Guard would do battle with the Teutons on Polish ground, while the Vistula Armee would move quickly to take command of the siege of Ostpreussen. In practice, this made the largest section of the Brandenburger army a mere distraction to the speed of a single regiment of knights. When Albrecht discovered that this was the major strategy of Frederich II, he ordered his staff to throw the plans away, as he saw the plan as wasteful, and the generals were inclined to agree--especially considering how many of the lower ranking officers had died in the Battle of Torun.

In the beginning of 1481, however, going over the plans Albrecht noticed that the Teutonic army was staying put in Ostpreussen, and with this in mind, Albrecht planned to have the Guard stay put in Berlin, waiting to engage the northern Bohemian force, and after they were defeated, to lure out the Teutonic army. With the advantage of pikes, Albrecht thought, there was no way that his armies would lose, especially with the Elbe and Vistula as natural fortifications. Beyond this, the Vistula Army would be split in two, with a small group of cavalry led by Albrecht himself leading the siege in Ostpreussen, while the infantry would support the Poles in Danzig.

There was one thing which Albrecht did not notice, however, partially because he'd been spending the better part of 1481 in Bavaria and Brandenburg. The make-up of the Polish army had changed greatly--it was now made out of 40,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry. This greatly changed the nature of the deal that Albrecht had with King Stanislaw. On top of this, Poland and Brandenburg's declarations of war came at the same time, making the 4 Years War not one war, legally, but 2. Since Poland had no infantry to siege Danzig or Warmia with and since Brandenburg and Poland were not legally allowed to dictate terms in concert with the Teutons, Pomerania would have to pick up the slack. And Pomerania wanted a cut of the Teuton's lands.

The deal which Albrecht cut with Duke Erick and King Stanislaw was a master-stroke, for it simultaneously got Albrecht precisely what he wanted while silencing his allies and pinning them against each other. Poland would take the city of Danzig, Brandenburg would, as always, keep Ostpreussen, and Pomerania would take Warmia as a naval base. Stanislaw agreed to this because he knew of Albrecht's aims in Pomerania, which meant that he would be able to take Warmia back later. Erick agreed to this because he had his own plans in mind.

The Partitioning of Prussia​

With Bohemia neutralized and his allies sated, Albrecht took the command of the Vistula Armee. Luckily the Teutonic army moved too quickly and took the province of Torun just as the infantry Vistula Armee left it for Danzig. While this went without a hitch, a major part of Brandenburg's strategy was now ruined, as they could no longer fight a defensive war within Poland's borders. Instead the Guard would have to cross the Vistula to reach the armies of Ordermaster Walter. This was negated, however, when Walter assaulted the city of Torun, taking the city but greatly weakening their own forces. Beyond this, the Teutonic army had not yet been introduced to pikes.

Hohenlohe's strategy at the Battle of Plock was dictated by two major geographic problems--his enemy was on the other side of the Vistula, and his enemy was on a hill. However, from the perspective of the teutons, the pikes of the Brandenburgers simply looked like spears, so as the Brandenburgers crossed the river and moved up the hill, Walter charged at the head of a massive army of heavy infantry. The momentum gained by Walter's army was destroyed entirely when they fell on the pikes of the Brandenburgers, and the Knights recruited from the newly impoverished province of Neumark performed a perfect pincer maneuver, breaking the Teutonic army and forcing them into a rout. The inferiority complex which the Brandenburgers felt in the wake of the Teutonic army was then destroyed most poetically at the Second Battle of Torun. When Hohenlohe's knights caught up with the fleeing Teutonic army, they surrendered en masse, including Walter I. The Teutonic army was no more.

FULL CIRCLE!​

This all occurred within the first 2 months of the 4 years war. The Livonian front was mostly fought by Poles, who's armies were capable at winning battles, if not sieges. At the same time, while the Polish cavalry weren't entering the cities, they were laying waste to the Livonian countryside. The army Kurland was broken off from its supply chain for a month, and soon the whole of the Kurlandian coast was covered in rotting fish. In order to stop this, the Livonian Order agreed to pay a tribute of 25 ducats.

This marks the horror of the 4-Years War. At least on the Brandenburger's side, only 1000 men were killed in battle, while 9000 died from starvation and disease. When Albrecht Christian I finally entered Konigsberg in the summer of 1482, he needed to start administrating the city immediately, because not only was his army starving, but the whole city was starving and diseased by a year in captivity. Albrecht needed to make the hard decision to quarantine some of his own troops with the sick of the city in order to stop what could have been an epidemic, and he arranged a constant shipment of grain to come in from Wilno to feed the people.

A year later, in the new occupational court in Konigsberg, Albrecht was met with startling news. The Polish army in Danzig had completely died from disease, and the city had fallen to Pomeranian forces. Now that Pomeranian armies occupied both Warmia and Danzig, the wily Duke Erick signed a separate peace with the captive Teutonic ruler, granting him legal ownership over all of his occupied lands and a great amount of ducats in retribution. While Albrecht realized that the Treaty of Danzig was sure to anger his Polish ally, he used the situation to his advantage and took de jure ownership on top of his de facto administration of Konigsberg.

wait, what?​

The Four Years War had several major effects on Brandenburg. The most obvious was the annexation of the Teutonic Order and the gaining of East Prussia, which put the Hohenzollerns one step farther towards the title of King in Prussia. This was not the only advantage, however. The snubbing that the Poles got was placed mostly on the heads of the Pomeranians, which made war with them inevitable. The effects weren't only beneficial, though.

The state of the Brandenburger army after the 3-Years War​

The war forced Albrecht to see both of the flaws in his Great Powers Policy. Firstly, with the breaking of the Bavarian-Brandenburgian alliance, Albrecht was nearly entirely dependent on the strength of the Poles, who looked ready to force him to break his only other alliance. Secondly, the war in many ways weakened Albrecht's faith in the strength of his military. The well trained and disciplined soldiers of the Mark died by the thousands to diseases which didn't care who could hold a pike or ride a horse. He would need to field an even larger army now to deal with the disgruntled nobles of East Prussia.

the state of the former Teutonic Order, summer 1483​

The poles took their aggression out on the last belligerent, Meckelemburg, with an annexation which Albrecht suggested against. He was worried already about the Emperor's reaction to him taking Hinterpommern, how would the Empire react to the perception of a Brandenburger-Polish alliance carving out a sphere for themselves in North Eastern Germany?

All of the gains from the 4 Years War​

edit: Firstly, I'm really sorry I couldn't get better screenshots. A lot of the events (particularly Pomerania suing for peace) took me by surprise, but at the same time I lucked out a LOT of times during this war, and I don't really want to replay it.

 

[Merrick Chance']

From Albrecht the Elector to Wilhelm the Warrior-King

The last half-decade following the 4 Years War was a time of relative peace and quiet for Brandenburg, a time when Christian Albrecht I and the various institutions of Brandenburg consolidated the gains made during the early 1480s. Rather quickly following the 4 Years War, the Empire pressured Poland to release Meckelemburg from its occupation and King Stanislaw consented. While the Meckelemburgers didn't have any love for their previous Polish overlords, the new Duke of Meckelemburg was a Hohenzollern, and so the Brandenburgers were able to quickly move in and craft an alliance.

State of the Meckelemburg-Brandenburg alliance, 1491​

Soon after this, a dying nobleman in Potsdam wished that his estate, which bordered the monastery of the Bavarian Franciscans, be given to the Church in order to create one of the seminaries mandated by the Papal Bull of 1485. Albrecht allowed it, as a negotiating chip for his discourse with the Church over the splitting of the lands of the New World. The precedent of the Pope designating a whole continent to a pair of countries deeply troubled Albrecht--if the Pope could organize this, perhaps this decision was the first in a new era of Papal influence, where the papacy would be able to make the decisions of princes. He argued this to the college of cardinals, but many bishops were pleased by the idea.

The seminary in Potsdam built as a negotiating chip which Albrecht squandered​

In this case, it seems that Albrecht was outmaneuvered. Albrecht had many things going for him during his reign, but perhaps the largest influence on the way he administered the mark was that the only major factions in the country were bureaucratic organizations--the petty bureaucrats, the central bureaucrats, and the army. In creating the Seminary At Potsdam, Albrecht accidentally added greatly to the power of the clergy.

They would soon move up to an influential clergy​

As this happened, Estavao brought up to Albrecht the new legislation the Emperor was pushing through--a unified criminal code which would strengthen the Reichcourt. Albrecht passed it.

The issue which stayed at the forefront of Albrecht's mind throughout his last years was the new province under his command. Ostpreussen was nearly as large as the whole rest of the Mark, but it had been devastated by the wars fought over it, wars which never touched the mark but which led to Ostpreussen being pillaged every decade. The city of Konigsberg itself was rather developed--Walter I had been intelligent and had created a financial law firm similar to the Kroneauge, and the ownership of the firm switched over as a part of the annexation. Being as Konigsberg and its harbor was both devastated by disease and starvation, and Brandenburg's only access to the sea, Albrecht had to move quickly in order to develop the province and silence the Prussian nobles who still wanted the rule of Walter. Albrecht lowered the taxes in the city in order to attract people there, and extended the Banks law to Ostpreussen. Beyond this he built a larger harbor in the city.

The city of Konigsberg and the Province of East Prussia

Increasing urbanization was the greatest dynamic of the 1480s and 90s. With OstPreussen under Brandenburg's influence, many Prussian nobles moved to Konigsberg or Berlin trying to get into the College of Mayors. Many more peasants moved from the countryside to the cities to serve this new bureaucratic class, and the creation of free labor in the cities was starting to infringe upon serfdom in the countryside (+1 to free subjects).

As his health started failing him, Christian Albrecht I withdrew to his court in Berlin. Diplomatic to a fault, he was talking with the young Brunswick Hohenzollern who would succeed him when he became uncharacteristically introspective. The conversation that followed was only released by the Franciscan priest who performed Albrecht's 'last rites' 40 years later.

You know, said Albrecht, you're not like me at all
Sir?, asked Wilhelm
But, I think that that's a good thing.

However, the disease brought Albrecht close to death did not end his life, as he'd expected. His recovery would follow into the next year, and luckily few crises occured during the next year.

 

[GulMacet]

More military power in the hands of the King? I think that's self-justifying! Also: more Prussia, more good.

 

[Merrick Chance']

How should I play Wilhelm I? I'm nearly at govt tech 10, which means that I will hit my 5th NI within Wilhelm's reign. Should I go for my 3rd cultural idea (patron of the arts or humanist tolerance) and take scientific revolution after that? Or should I go for a 4th military NI (you decide!) and go for Glorious Arms? I can kind of go either way right now, and I have a savegame right when Wilhelm took control. The problem is that if I take military ideas, I'll have to use them, and I don't see many places for expansion right now after the Pomeranian war that's going to come up, but maybe I'm just being too repshy. Also I know that I named Wilhelm I the warrior king, that can be edited if he goes to a cultural route.

Also, thanks be to Ubik for increasing the war exhaustion depletion for each military idea, it's really helped me out.

 

[Merrick Chance']

I just realized that I don't have a save-file for Christian Wilhelm!

I'm going to have to rewrite the end of Albrecht's reign, but on the plus side, the fact that Albrecht is going to live another couple years, and the events of the past couple of years, mean that the creation of a Kingdom of Prussia is probably a generation closer.

 

[Rabid]

Sounds a little too 'convenient' for me

 

[Merrick Chance']

Sounds a little too 'convenient' for me

I'd written up half of an entry, and now parts of my last entry aren't true (my only save is an autosave, and during the last year Albrecht died and the Imperial Law thing were passed. Now the Bohemian! emperor is trying to pass the districts one, and Albrecht is alive)

I guess I'm getting my karma for my silly saving, because the luckiness was that I got a 'declare war on Pomerania and you get a core' mission, but those missions are buggy as hell and instead of getting a core on Hinterpomern I got one on Vonpomern. I don't know what I'm going to do now, I'm trying to find some way to switch them or something. Regardless, we're one entry away from a pretty big war.

edit:I am tremendously sorry if anyone is sensing foul play. I'm going to commit myself to saving more often.

 

[Merrick Chance']

From reconciliation to conquest: The late 1480s and early 1490s in Berlin

The post-recovery period started off with a pair of tragedies: Elmut Von Hohenhole and Pierro Della Fransesca, the marshal and chief architect of the court and Albrecht's two closest friends, had spent most of what Albrecht had thought were his last weeks at Albrecht's bedside, and had both caught the disease which had nearly felled the margrave, and soon died from the same disease. While knowledge of medicinal techniques was not up to our modern levels, Albrecht must have felt guilty with the knowledge that his friends may have died in his place.

the death of Von Hohenhole, the linchpin of the entire Brandenburger army​

While both deaths were major, Hohenhole's was of particular import. He had served both Albrecht and his father, and was the leader of the Garde for all of the Teutonic Wars. While Albrecht was a good commander, his focus on ranged combat was not relevant in a time where military conflicts were decided by cavalry charges (Hohenhole was a Sh4/F1/M3/Si1, Albrecht is a Sh0/F4/M2/Si2 leader). His death would weaken the strength of the Brandenburger army greatly, especially considering that the court still wasn't wealthy enough to establish a proper officers school.

Throughout 1491, Poland, perhaps to take out the new king's rage against the injustice of the 4 Years War's ending, attacked Riga, bringing in the rest of the Hanseatic League into conflict against the Polish-Brandenburger alliance. While the armies of the Hansa were no threat, the embargo against Brandenburg's products hurt Konigsberg at a point when East Prussia needed the trade. Albrecht stayed out of the war, mostly, and when the war was over spent the money he had saved over the decade to try to get the Lubeckers to change their minds.

Time to use that 7 diplomacy​

He personally traveled to Lubeck to firstly express his condolences to the Hansa merchants who had been expelled from the newly Polish Riga, and secondly to point out Lubeck's historical relationship with Brandenburg. Albrecht's regime was one of the least mercantalistic of the north-east, and he'd established a trade agreement with the City as one of his first decrees. Lastly, he pointed out that he went to great lengths to not fight Lubeck, even though they were legally in a state of war during what would be called the 1st Traders War. This succeeded, and Lubeck used its influence to help Brandenburger merchants to penetrate Danzig's markets.

This is important, that Lubecker influence needed to be used to get Berliner merchants into Danzig. Pomerania, previously one of Brandenburg's closest allies, was being slowly pushed away. Military relationships were fraying apart, and in late 1491, the clever Duke Erick was given the 2 months warning required by the treaty of Stettin--by 1492, Stettin would find no ally in Berlin.

Another important event in 1492 was the death of the weak Ansbachian emperor and the rise of Vladislav III to the imperial throne.

sssshhhhhiiii​

While this is what Albrecht wanted, he was now worried--he would have wished for a Bohemian emperor immediately after Hinterpomern was in his hands. The objective the state had been following since the lifting of the Lubecker embargo--to create an army that could stand toe to toe with the Bohemian military--was totally impossible.

As this was happening, a Danziger merchant, expelled from Pomerania, went to Berlin to offer his services as the head of the Kroneauge, which would give De Fournay the time to focus completely on creating better relationships with international banks.

Vresovic's name would baffle Albrecht for years​

This was the first time in its existence that the Kronesauge was headed by someone who had no other responsibilities, and the reports after 1492 show this. Within 6 months, Vresovic had a report on the effects of the crown's selling of properties on the margrave's desk. The crown, in order to finance its budget, was continually selling its property to the private sector, and was then selling out the right to build on that land. This selling of public lands was occurring mostly around Berlin, and Vresovic's report on the effects were telling--the property prices in Berlin were going down, which weakened the burghers, who then had to raise the prices of their goods. Vresovic estimated that prices had gone up by "Too and a haff percent" since 1453.

Vresovic's report was one of the first full financial reports in the Western World​

Meanwhile, Estavao (now Albrecht's sole and constant companion) notified Albrecht on an opportunity--the Hohenzollern Pretender whom Erick had ruthlessly slaughtered at the beginning of his reign had owned the majority of land in Hinterpomern. In addition to having a shaky claim on the entirety of the traditional Pomeranian duchy, Albrecht now had a strong claim on Hinterpomern, which was the easiest way to create a link to Ostpreussen besides the "Polish Road" which was slow.

The claim of the late Maxwell Hohenzollern​

Albrecht told his troops to ready themselves, he would attack soon, Bohemian emperor or no Bohemian emperor.

I have a question. Does anyone know how I could simply give myself a core in Hinterpomern? For both RP reasons and play reasons I would have no reason to attack Pomerania if I was guarenteed a core in VonPomern, which does nothing for me. I realize that the mission gives me a random core, but as I said. How can I put an event towards a specific province?

 

[Rabid]

I wasn't trying to imply anything, just making a joke

There's always save editing if you'd like to fix the core issue a little easier.

 

[unmerged(90806)]

Can hardly think of anything else but save editing. So after all will it be the diplomat margrave who'll start the war?

 

[Merrick Chance']

Can hardly think of anything else but save editing. So after all will it be the diplomat margrave who'll start the war?

There are a lot of factors which will make this the perfect time to start a war. The only problem is that I don't know who my next Margrave will be. Beyond that, while Albrecht is a skilled diplomat, as I've said before he's an autocrat at heart, and his tendency is to extend his power when he thinks he can.

Also I think that Oskar is actually a Czech...hm

 

[Merrick Chance']

Legacy and War: the War of Ostpomern part 1

The last couple of years of the 15th century is one of the most written about periods of pre-Enlightenment German history, and it easily deserves the honor. It boggles the mind the amount of work that Christian Albrecht I did in this time, between fighting the Pomeranian league, jump starting the German Renaissance, and constantly conflicting with the Catholic Church, it is said that Albrecht went through 20 horses through the 1490s traveling between the sieges in Hinterpomern and Stettin and the conflict he was having with the Church in Berlin.

The war started off with a tremendous mistake--the Hohenzollern pretender to the Pomeranian duchy owned a great deal of land in Western Pomerania, not Eastern Pomerania, and in the Riechscourt the Brandenburgian claim to OstPomern (Or Hinterpomern) was denied. Brandenburg now faced its greatest fear--a war on 3 fronts (Magdegburg, Pomerania, and Bohemia), and the end result of this war would be a controversial annexation of Eastern Pomerania which would make Brandenburg an outcast in the Holy Roman Empire.

The 3-front war led to looting throughout the Mark​

The Riechscourt session was used to the benefit of Brandenburg, however. Albrecht stated over and over that this war would only be over the province of Hinterpomern, and no other. This assuaged the Bohemian Emperor Vladistock, who would then go by horse on the same road as Albrecht to his army. This period was the perfect time for Albrecht to declare a war of conquest, because another war of conquest was occurring in the Empire, one which involved Austria. The war of the League of Wien (Austria, the Palatinate, and Hungary) against the Emperor took the majority of Vladistock's time, and as long as Brandenburg had no reason to send its armies south, Vladistock would have no reason to unleash the Imperial army against the mark.

Vladistock was known to say during the OstPomern war that he was fighting "the whole damned East!"​

Now would be a good time to compare and contrast the Brandenburgian and Bohemian armies, because this is not the only time that the two would come to fight, even if the Ostpomern war was in many ways a cold war. It would not be a misrepresentation to say that the Brandenburger army and Bohemian army took completely different approaches to warfare. While the Bohemian army was very much a top-down affair, the Armee Der Mark was bottom-up. But what does this distinction mean, in practice?

The typical soldier in the Armee Der Mark had a half year of training before he was allowed in the army, but after this the usual pikeman spent another half year drilling. The drilling was to take the conscripts and instill a degree of courage into their 'very souls'. The mark took quickly to the idea of soldiers using gunpowder, but the number of soldiers wielding arquebuses by this point was negligible. A huge amount of training went into the life of the average knight in Brandenburg--in order to break the power of the Aristocracy in the army, Frederich II stated that a knight must train for 2 years, with the last part of their training involving hunting and killing a wolf armed only with a sword. Though many nobles still bribed their way into the army, the 'wolf challenge' did create a hardened corps of cavalry men who were afraid of few things. The average officer was still a position separated from the army--you went to an officers school and many officers did not see combat through their training.

On the other hand, the Bohemian army was built on a model which put the officers first. The method of recruitment was far more rationalized--rather than being organized by town and region, the soldiers were organized by regiment, and the officers were only trained after they showed competency in the field. The Bohemian army, after seeing the success of the small number of arabesquesers in the Armee Der Mark, established their own engineers corps.

The institutions of the Kingdom of Bohemia​

Looking simply at the institutional strengths of the Bohemian and Brandenburger armies, the two seem balanced. The true strength of the Bohemian army was that its rationalized regimental system made the transition of Bohemia into the position of Emperor far easier, as the manpower of the Imperial army was quickly turned into a part of the Bohemian army.

The grand strategy of Brandenburg for the Ostpomern war was unchanged by the discovery in the Riechscourt--the Armee Der Mark would move into Hinterpomern, while the Armee Der Pruesse would defend the mark. What the Polish-Brandenburger forces were hoping for was a quick occupation of Pomerania, followed by a separate peace which would annex Hinterpomern to Brandenburg, and Danzig and Warmia to Poland. Brandenburg would then trade their claims on Western Pomerania to the Bohemian emperor in exchange for peace.

The battle plan went well throughout the first half of the war. With the Bohemian army distracted by the larger Austrohungarian forces, and the Pomeranian army destroyed quickly by Polish cavalry, Polish forces besieged Danzig while the Armee Der Mark besieged Hinterpomern. There was a thorn in Albrecht's side, though--he hadn't expected the Bishopric of Magdegburg to honor their alliance, being that they were led by one of Albrecht's nephews, Christian Wilhelm I.

The battle of Ruppin​

The presence of a belligerent at Brandenburg's western flank led Albrecht to add another aim to this war--he would occupy Altmark and make the bishopric a vassal of the mark. While it would remain independent, it would be a buffer state, making sure that Brandenburg would only be attacked on 2 of its borders. What Albrecht did not count on, however, was the cleverness of his nephew, who organized a peasants uprising against the Army of Prussia. The battle between the peasants and the Brandenburgers lasted for 2 weeks before the commander of the army captured the peasant leader. However, upon discovering that the peasant has as many issues with the Bishopric as he did with the occupation of Altmark, Wilhelm Frederich decided that he would allow the peasants to do his work for him as he besieged Vonpomern.

The peasants uprising quickly spread to Thuringia, and when the army of thuringia expelled the peasants, they moved to Altmark to support the siege. The war seemed to be going Albrecht's way, with Hinterpomern occupied, Stettin, Glomowski, and Danzig under siege, the armies of Pomerania and Altmark destroyed, and no Bohemian army in sight. That was, until he got the Estavao's report.

This is what you get for having an army made mostly out of cavalry.

Brandenburg would have to fight the rest of the war on its own.

edit: Hinterpomern is weird, because it was split from Pomern by the MM team. Technically its province ID is 48 while Pomern's is 1810. In the save game editor just to make sure I gave myself cores on all 3 provinces. However, in the vanilla game there is only 1 province, so whenever I give myself a core on Hinterpomern instead I end up getting a core on Pomern. If I really wanted a core on Hinterpomern I could use the Claims on my rivals until I get a core on Hinterpomern, but that'd end with me getting cores on literally every province around me, which in one case would make sense--Altmark was actually a part of the mark by this point, and Magdegburg was on the other side of that river (the Netz?). Would that be amenable to you guys if I just eventually got cores everywhere around me, which I would give up to the Bohemian emperor in exchange for peace, as well as annexing Magdegburg and Hinterpomern?

edit2: or perhaps if I manage to pull an awesome victory out of this it would make sense that I could claim all of the Hohenzollern lands...

 

[Merrick Chance']

Intermission: On Good Works-the German renaissance

While the Ostpomern war gets the majority the attention of historians and watchers of the History Channel, due to the diplomatic intrigue and its position as a war inbetween the dominance of knights and the beginning of primitive Tercio formations, one of the most interesting dynamics during the period was the beginnings of the German Renaissance in Berlin. The kickstart of this trend was the expelling of the last Jews in the Kingdom of Castille.

The migration of Jews​

The new ghetto in Berlin, built next to the Berlin marketplace by Jews who bought a good deal of land from the Brandenburger state (which was hemorrhaging property and licenses due to its attempts to fund the war), included a large number of scholars who brought their knowledge of Greek and Latin to Berlin. This knowledge, combined with the new interest in the translation of Roman and Greek sources, combined to make Brandenburg's Renaissance greatly different than the Renaissance in the rest of Northern Europe.

The other unique factor in the Brandenburg Renaissance was the degree to which the Margrave supported it. While the Italian Renaissance was limited in its humanism by the presence of the Pope, and the strength of the conservative Bohemian Emperor and Austrian Duke meant that any philosopher in Central Europe would have to watch their steps and hope not to offend any member of the Church, the clergy was a new presence in Brandenburg, a presence which Albrecht did not care for. His support for humanism had as much to do with his constant search for power as it did with his views of Christianity.

The increasing strength of the Jews in Berlin did not do much to prop up the ailing Estavao Rodriguez, who was now close to 60. The age of the elder court members troubled Albrecht greatly, as it would mean that his death would soon be followed by the death of all those who could advise the new Margrave. Beyond this, Estavao had failed miserably in his write-up of the claims of the late Luthor Hohenzollern, pretender to the Pomeranian duchy. This failure threatened the whole legacy of Estavao, and possibly of all of Brandenburg if the Bohemian army was to turn its blades north.

However, the failure of Estavao led directly to the explosion of German humanism. The obvious mistake he made was followed by a month of heavy work for Estavao's staff, looking for something to prove his worth with, not only because his job was in danger, but because his friendship with the aged Margrave was in jeopardy. He eventually came upon a rather obvious document--the leader of the Kronesauge was not Polish, but Czech.

This led to the following conversation.

Albrecht: It has come to my attention that you are not Polish.
Oskar: Yes, sir. I am not.
Albrecht: You are, in fact, Czech.
Oskar: Yes, sir, I am. I was hoping that your ignorance of names would shield me.
Albrecht (laughs): What did I think your name was for the first month?
Oskar: Ormund?
Albrecht: Ha ha, yes. Well I've summoned you to ask whether the fact that you are a Bohemian will hurt your work as a Brandenburger.
Oskar: Of course not, my Margrave. My professional and personal lives are completely separated, and my work on the inflation of prices in Berlin is really picking up.
Albrecht: Then I will have to give you 2 months notice before I will fire you.
Oskar: Sir?
Albrecht: I will not have disloyal men working as my subordinates.
Oskar: Yes sir.
Albrecht: I suggest that if you are loyal to this realm, that you use the Kronesauge to find funds for our war effort.
Oskar: Yes sir.

This led to a gap in the court. The youngest senior official was now out of the door, which filled Albrecht's head with worries. Relief came from the strangest corner: the clergy in Potsdam. The Franciscan monastery, which had once been filled with Bavarians, was now far larger and split between two groups: Italian Franciscans who were mildly supportive of the ideas of the Renaissance, and a native German contingent who went one step farther, and wanted to use the skills of the new group of Jewish scholars in Berlin to discover more about early Christianity. One morning, just as he was about to leave for the front in Stettin, Albrecht was confronted by a choice: both groups wanted state support. Which one would the state support? "The Germans, of course" answered Albrecht.

I picked Humanism​

The leader of the German group, Luipold Kreyitz, was a man lucky to have been born in his time, but had he been born in 1450 rather than 1480, his ideas would have been denounced as heretical. There are many elements of luck to the rise of Kreyitz, but the largest one was that Kreyitz's personal philosophy was in line with the life of Christian Albrecht. Kreyitz believed that the only factor which brought one into heaven was "good works", or acts which benefited others. This appealed greatly to Albrecht, who was never the most pious of rulers, but who, over time, had become more and more generous with his money. From his beginnings as a margrave who wanted the entirety of the court's money to go into the army, Albrecht had slowly transformed into a more balanced individual, who believed that he was helping his people through public works. The margrave and the philosopher/monk quickly became close friends.

The philosopher Kreyitz​

The ideas of the Humanist Renaissance also appealed to Albrecht in another way--in the carriage which he rode up and down the Elbe on, many political philosophers and books on political philosophy were discussed. Albrecht was quickly coming to the idea that the Papacy's rule over his country through law was an infringement of his right as sovereign. He remedied this the next time he was in Berlin, in early July of 1495. He closed the canonical courts and declared that all courts in Brandenburg would afterward be secular.

​

The second crisis occurred when the Italian contingent came to the Margrave in mid-july, pleading that Kreyitz was infecting his brain with heresy, and that it was in the best interest both of the Church and of Brandenburg that Luipold Kreyitz be expelled from the realm. Albrecht's response was a rousing defense of sovereignty against the papacy:

I, and I alone, am the one who decides who is expelled from these lands,as it is my land, not yours.--Christian Albrecht I​

With the margrave strongly behind freedom of religious speech, the Humanism (as it is called in Brandenburg) spread quickly through the realm. There were disadvantages to this, though. The war funds found by Oskar in his last months in the Kronesauge went down quickly as banks discovered that Poland had exited the war. Rather than the 3,500 thalers (I'm switching to Thalers rather than ducats, as 100 thalers = 1 ducats, simply because it sounds more realistic) of loans that Berlin could find in the winter of 1494, the state agreed to a 5 year loan of 2,200 thalers in January. This small amount of money was made even smaller by the instability and cost incurred through shifting all court costs to the state. Beyond that the pseudo-secularization of the Brandenburger state was deeply unpopular abroad and especially in the Holy Roman Empire.

the response of the clergy​

But this legacy, of intellectual freedom, would be echoed throughout Prussian history. Albrecht's decree--that the margrave was the sole and only legal authority--was balanced out by Albrecht's belief that rule of law should limit the freedom of sovereigns to the benefit of the people. In fact, one can say that Albrecht's greatest legacy was not the territorial gains made during the many wars he started, but the legacy of German inquisitiveness. The German Renaissance, or the Humanism, was not centered on art, rather it was centered on philosophy and writing, and in this lens, one can see the Humanism to be more of a precursor of the Enlightenment than a reflection of the goings on in Italy. In Italy, the greatest achievements were made in the field of art. However, while these achievements were critical in some ways, the Humanism could afford to be directly critical of nearly all of the institutions of early modern Europe. It was this spirit which gave such prestige to Prussia in its later spirit, the spirit which Kant summed up 200 years later--"Dare to know!"

Christian Albrecht I's true legacy​

 

[Merrick Chance']

Fighting for your life: the second half of the OstPomern War

The War of Hinterpomern was one of the most desperate times for the Brandenburgian state, because it was fighting for its life on two separate fronts--it was going bankrupt sending troops north to die of disease, while the armies of Bohemia, freed from their wars with Poland and Hungary, were moving towards the mark and easily outnumbered the new greatly depleted army of the mark, and on top of this, Christian Albrecht I was nearing death during this. His fight to keep hold of his health while the threat of watching all of his achievements crumble around him was echoed by the whole of the people of the mark.

In May 1496, the Brandenburger army was in a tough place: taking advantage of the destroyed Pomeranian army, the Army of the Mark and the Army of Prussia turned their sights north were besieging Pomerania's major cities. However, the Bohemian army had also turned their sights north, and were now besieging Potsdam, Neumark, and Berlin. On top of this, the peasants that Frederick Wilhelm had left in Altmark were now in control of the province and killed Christian Wilhelm, Albrecht's closest heir.

The position of the Mark, 1496​

The Army of Prussia, though it had nearly starved the province of Vonpomern into submission, was forced south to Brandenburg by the troubling events in Berlin--the city's walls were breached and it was mere weeks from being occupied. The army moved south and engaged in a battle in which it was outnumbered and outled--the general James Thune (weird name for a Bohemian) was fresh from the war against the Hungarians, and was in command of one of the most elite groups of knights in the world at this point. The Riechsgard, a 1,000 strong regiment of men who had fought against not only the Hungarians and Poles, but in many cases the Turks, Italians, and French as well. Part mercenary and part standing unit, the group was a hold over from the Order of the Golden Fleece in Burgundy. This unit was at the head of a 6,000 strong man army. The Brandenburger army, on the other hand, was a paltry 4,000 man force, mainly pikemen.

Frederich Wilhelm used the confusion created by the large-scale siege of Berlin to move his troops south of the Bohemian force and on the other side of the Spree tributary. Thune responded to this challenge by moving his troops across the Oder, and it was at this point that Wilhelm attacked. Thune responded to this threat in his traditional way--a massive cavalry charge, fronted by the Riechsgard, slammed into the pikesmen, leading to a battle which lasted deep into the night. Wilhelm kept his cavalry as a reserve as the battle made the riverside into a marsh. Soon enough horses weren't even able to move in the sludge of the Oder, and as Thune's army moved to the west bank of the Oder, Wilhelm's knights, who had crossed the river earlier that day, intercepted the retreating soldiers and expelled them from the mark. While this was only one battle in a larger war, it showed that the Brandenburgers were willing to go to great lengths to defend their capital--the 1,000 pikemen who died at the battle of Brandenburg were a full tenth of the remaining army. The 3,000 strong Army of Prussia then marched west to take Altmark from the peasants and their heretical priest.

The second battle of Altmark and the site of the battle of Brandenburg​

The assault on Altmark took the lives of another 1,000 Brandenburgers, leaving the 2,000 strong force to defend the mark. The fall and winter of 1496 was one of the lowest points in Brandenburg's history, starting with the failure of Wilhelm's army to defeat the small number of cavalrymen sent to besiege Potsdam. Three other pieces of news came to the attention of Margrave Albrecht at this point, as he was catching a particularly acute case of pneumonia--

1.The realm had only 500 Thalers left, and would need to find another loan to continue the war effort. This would be particularly difficult because Bohemian armies were looting most of the Mark.
2.The army of Bohemia had marched into Neumark and were occupying the region.
3.A 15,000 strong force was marching north from Lausitz.

Never saw both parties retreat before​

The realm was desperately in need of coin at this point. Instead of pursuing an annexation of Altmark, Estavao personally rode to Altmark to sign a peace deal. Here are selected items of the Treaty of Altmark:

1.Magdeburg was to provide 7,500 thalers to Brandenburg upon the end of the month
2.The City of Altmark will be annexed to Brandenburg, and its mayor will be appointed by the Margrave from the College of Mayors
...
6.The Bishopric of Magdeburg will continue to be ruled by a Bishop chosen by the Pope. The Margrave of Brandenburg reserves the right to change this provision after the year of our lord 1516.
...
10.The Bishopric of Madgeburg will supply 10 percent of its annual monies to the Margrave of Brandenburg at the end of the year.

The treaty of Altmark​

The signing of this treaty was the turning of Brandenburg's fortunes--the question now was how quickly the Army of the Mark, which had been fighting across Pomerania for the past 5 years, could destroy the remnants of Pomerania's army and convince Duke Erick to hand over Hinterpomern before the 15,000 strong Army of Prague could finish the siege of Berlin. Soldier were now fighting all across the Mark. All of the citizens of Brandenburg sought out heralds to find news of the 3 battles going on simueltaneously through the month of December--the Battle of Neumark, involving the 1,000 man remnant of the Army of Prussia and a 2,000 strong contingent of Pomeranians and Bohemians, the battle of OstPreussen, involving 3,000 Polish mercenaries and the 4,000 strong Army of Pomerania, and the 4th battle of Hinterpomern, involving the Army of the Mark (6,000 strong), and Erick's personal guard of mercenaries, 3,000 strong.

It is not too forward to say that the loss of any of these battles could have led to the end of Brandenburg. But luck shined on Albrecht's forces, and the Duke of Pomerania's mercenaries routed, allowing him to move to support the Army of Prussia. With a surprise cavalry charge on the 10th straight day of battle, Albrecht had managed to create a victory with which he could bring to Prague. In the end, the war of Hinterpomern went to plan--the final negotiations were the annexation of Hinterpomern to Brandenburg and Albrecht giving up his claims to Vonpomern and Pomern.

The two provisions of the Treaty of Prague​

And with this, the war of Hinterpomern was over. The mark had not only survived against the forces of the papacy and the Emperor, but had outmaneuvered both. The prestige that the government had by this point was colossal, both from the won wars and from Albrecht's ability to get his people out of danger with words alone.

The new borders of the Mark, and the prestige of Brandenburg​

 

[Merrick Chance']

another shorty, I didn't play long after the rise of Johan Georg because that war took a lot out of me

Repercussions and the death of Christian Albrecht I

The first major repercussion of the OstPomern War was that Brandenburg felt the full effects of Estavao's failure. The laws of the Empire, which Christian Albrecht I had supported wholeheartedly, were now turning against him.

Our claim to Hinterpomern was not accepted​

The second was that the towns of the mark, which had been looted by the Bohemian army and Duke Erick's mercenaries, were now nearly decimated. Including the influence of the Humanism, which spread throughout the mark during the War of Hinterpomern, meant that more and more people from the provinces were moving to Berlin in order to experience the explosion in the capitol's economy from the building of government printing presses.

Sorry if anyone's weirded out in the way that I'm interpreting serfdom VS free subjects, I just feel that tons of attacks on the aristocracy would be not only anachronistic but out of place for Prussia​

This led to a short period of 'balance'--all of Brandenburg seemed to be working in tandem, the cities working with the towns, the aristocrats with the bankers, the clergy with the 'Drucker' or printers. This balance wouldn't last long.

The culmination of Christian Albrecht I's policies​

The reason for the disruption of this balance was the final death of Christian Albrecht I. By this point he had guided the Mark for 40 years, and now seems to be a good point to state his legacies. He left 2 legacies which were quickly accepted by the whole of the state, and one which would remain a controversy for years to come. The legacy of a professionalized army and bureaucracy which would form the two pillars of the state lasted throughout the country's whole history. While much has been written on the influence of the Junkers in Prussia, it's notable that one couldn't get by through a name with a 'von in it' as was the tradition in Austria. Even though being an aristocrat would certainly help the rise of many great men and some not so great men, the Prussian landed nobility would never have the influence that their cousins in France or Spain could control.

The second legacy which Albrecht left upon his successors was a strong tradition of autocracy. His battle against the Papacy led to a monarchy which would always consider itself independent of any outside or inside influences. The Kronesauge would lay the beginnings of a central German bank centuries in the future, though its objective would slowly move from surveying specific assets to controlling the entirety of the German economy.

But while Albrecht was in many ways the precursor to the later absolute kings, he could never go all the way with this policy. His reaction to the incompetence he perceived in his father led to a desire to question established norms and to his more hands off approach with regards to social policies. While Albrecht always viewed the ruler of a state to be above all other men of a country, he also had a belief that laws were above all men--a philosophy that would be followed once the Enlightenment started. I agree with Clark's opinion, that Christian Albrecht I was one of Prussia's first liberals, but such a shift could only bring a backlash.

And oh, did the backlash come.

The rise of Johann Georg to the throne brought immediate ramifications​

Johann Georg I was, like Christian Albrecht I, never raised for rule. His cousin, Christian Wilhelm I, the bishop of Magdeburg, was the man who was to become the margrave of the Mark. However, with the death of Wilhelm, Georg was the eldest male relative of Albrecht. While he was knowledgeable in both law and warfare, he was also known to speak his mind about the issues for which he cared--in his case, his hatred of the influence of Judaism. His Antisemitism was rooted in the same ideal for which Albrecht had fired Vresovic--a man could only be truly loyal to his state, thought Georg, and since the Jews had no state, they could never be wholly loyal.

Georg watched the War of Hinterpomern with great interest, and took seriously the claim that Estavao Rodriguez had purposefully sabotaged the state of Brandenburg. While he cited a failure to discover which claim the government actually had, the court knew the true source of his decision to fire the elderly diplomat.

Georg's antisemitism was awkward even by early modern standards​

Though some historians have taken the tack that most of Georg's policies were anti-Jewish, his Antisemitism did not define him. He disliked all affronts to his sovereignty, and in this vein he continued the autocratic tradition of Albrecht, though taken farther. If Albrecht was the prototype of the liberal Prussian king, Georg was the typical arch-conservative. This was where he and the philosophers of the time parted ways. The second decree of Georg after the firing of Estavao Rodriguez was the limitation of printing presses, for he believed that the criticism of the German Renaissance needed to be 'stopped now, before it was too late'.

Role playing a German Antisemite? Awwww man this is gonna be awkvard

 

[Chris Taylor]

Ah, the good old Laws of the Empire; ensuring imperial conquests are viewed as favourably as a fart in church.

Interesting that you went for the "balanced policies" effect; sometimes I do too if the timing is right, but generally I like my Quality sliders to live very far to the left, and that usually gets in the way of being balanced.

 

[Merrick Chance']

Well Georg is going to muck the whole thing up by creating a more conservative regime (I haven't taken the religious decision that gives you +1 aristocracy, nor have I taken the limiting the press event which gives you +1 tradition and serfdom). It ended up balanced because I felt that Albrecht was a pretty liberal leader which balanced out the feudal situation I was in at game start.

I'm thinking that while Georg is going to create a more conservative regime, he'll get caught up by the international (IE Imperial) institutions which Albrecht helped create, or at least that's how I may play it in order to get Humanist Tolerance under a ruler like Georg. Either that or I'll 'modernize' the officers system via either regimental systems or battlefield commissions, I'm still not sure, and luckily I'll have a weekend to think about it. Either way I think that after getting a conservative regime (3 aristocracy, 3 tradition, 3 serfdom) I'm going to start toying with the army sliders. Luckily Georg, with his dislike for internationalism and stuff (I'm going to use the antisemitism to also represent a dislike of international things because otherwise this AAR would get pretty iffy) will be the perfect ruler to embrace the Reformation.

And lastly, it's great to have such an esteemed reader! I'm loving your AAR though I'm moving through it rather slowly (job hunting + this + my nightlife is taking up a lot of my time)

 

[Merrick Chance']

The end of the Humanism

Johann Georg experienced a large degree of culture shock upon moving to Berlin from Anhalt. The Berlin he remembered, the Berlin of his childhood, was a somber and small town, where most of the important citizens were students in the College of Mayors, who were a rather dour group, too preoccupied with the authoritarian politics of Berlin to engage much in 'folly'. Anhalt was more the same, though it was a town of merchants and bankers rather than bureaucrats. These bankers generally lived within the city, and there wasn't a large degree of movement.

The world of Berlin was markedly changed by the 1490s. Albrecht, realizing the powerful nation-building tool of literacy and books, as well as the money the state could make, bought a huge number of printing presses and rented them out to anyone with money in hand. This created the beginnings of an intellectual class in Berlin (they were called Druckers, or printers, at the time as intellectual was a term invented in the 19th century). Beyond that, the rise of Franciscan and Humanist priests made Berlin a "city of steeples and papers", which, while connected to the state through property licenses and the renting of presses, were not controlled by the government.

While Georg's long term goal was to end what he saw as a dangerous trend towards criticism and cosmopolitanism, he knew that he couldn't start the trend while the country was recovering from its worst war in decades. Beyond this, he wasn't planning on increasing his priveledges with the new Emperor breathing down his neck.

Anyone have any clue what my odds are?
​

Throughout the War of Hinterpomern, Estavao Rodriguez had the sole job of arguing Brandenburg's case to the Imperial Courts. He pontificated in Nassau on how the Emperor's 'twin responsibilities' were to defend the empire from the Turk, and to, in the modern translation, "support the institutions of the Empire" (IE the legal system), not to intervene in 'personal disputes'. He accused the Bohemian Emperor of favoritism, and of seeing no problem with Duke Erick's intra-statal war against the Hohenzollern nobility, while taking issue at the inter-statal war between Margrave Albrecht and Duke Erick. While he did not entirely convince imperial jurists, he did convince many of the electors who were already wishing for the old days of the weak Ansbachian Emperor, and so they elected the Margrave of Ansbach to the Imperial Throne again.

This suited Georg, who, though bright, was not particularly suited for diplomatic matters. The Ottomans were still expanding, and by 1500 they had conquered all of the crusader states. The Western European states were getting rich from their newly established colonies, and the weak Ansbachian emperor would not be able to defend Germany from any would be conquerors.

On the subject of wealth, Brandenburg, partially through new taxes on the city of Altmark and the province of Hinterpomern, and partially through the newly simplified taxing system, was now doing rather well in money. The small loan that Albrecht had taken at the country's low point of 2,200 thalers was now one half of the yearly census tax.

The state of Brandenburg's finances​

This was balanced out by the unfortunate death of Louis Du Fournay. The man had greased the relations between international banks and the government of Brandenburg, reassuring them as to risks and placating any worries as to policy irregularities. This was helped along by Albrecht's rather continuous policy, and the government was able to rely on a regular supply of cheap (2%) loans. Now, with the new Margrave slightly off kilter, the Brandenburger state seemingly poised to get itself into a new war whenever the chance showed up, and without Du Fournay to assuage any worries, interest rates swiftly shot up to nearly 10 percent per loan. This was further worsened by the collapse of the Hanseatic league. Lubecker banks where Berlin's traditional source for funds, and for the next decade those banks would be in turmoil.

Two deaths--of Du Fournay, and the Hansa--shook German financial circles to their core​

This, along with the death of Frederich Wilhelm, alarmed the Brandenburger central bureaucracy, as neither was met with a replacement. This was purposeful--Georg wanted to wait for the previous generation of civil servants to die off, which would give Georg a blank slate for his social experiments. In the meanwhile, Georg continued the expansion of the Kronesauge into Neumark, while slowly and quietly buying the remaining independent printing presses.

As the century turned and the Imperial Advocates left, Georg was informed that nearly all of the printing presses in the mark (9 out of 10 went the estimate) were under the control of the government. With this, Georg announced the creation of a new Brandenburger institution: the Kronesohr (or Ear of the Crown), which would censor the papers printed through government presses and control the appointment of mayors (replacing the College of Mayors) and bishops. With one blow, Georg had put the state back into civil society and destroyed the Humanism.

The creation of the Kronesohr​

While many contemporaries and historians criticized the Kronesohr as a simple tool of tyranny, it did have practical use. The process through which mayors were appointed was a byzantine process, with connections and kowtowing playing the most important roles. With the exception of the mayor of Berlin, whose appointment was directly appointed by the Margrave, the College of Mayors had tendency of producing incompetent and corrupt leaders. With a bureaucracy empowered to appoint mayors, the corruption dipped for quite a while.

With the social situation under control, Georg turned to the military. He reorganized the Army Von Mark and Army Von Pruesse into a pair of columns which would, theoretically, each be 10,000 strong, and commissioned the ironworks of Potsdam to build two hundred cannon for the Army of the Mark. This would finally allow the Army of Brandenburg's focus on sieges to come to the fore.

The discovery of cannon building technology was swiftly put to use​

The first year of the new century was marked by an event which thrust Brandenburg even farther into the limelight and showed its position as one of the most prominent German states. The King of France, who had been cozying up to Brandenburg ever since the crowning of Johann Georg I, sent an envoy with a request to create an alliance. Georg obviously accepted.

Brandenburg's allies and royal marriages, 1500​

 

[Merrick Chance']

State of the world, 1500​

50 years into the game, what are the new and old dynamics?

The Weak Empire

While Estavao convinced Brandenburg's fellow electors that the job of the Emperor was to defend the Empire from outside (IE Muslim) threats, the Empire, which had been relegated to the position of international court, was not protecting its members. This meant that though the Emperor in Ansbach stated that his reign would be for the small states, the small states had the most to lose--many margraves and counts lost their holdings in the second half of the 15th century.

Legend: red=provinces unlawfully held; blue=states unlawfully vassalized; orange=provinces lawfully taken; green=provinces given back at the behest of the Emperor​

The major players in the empire, IE the electors plus Austria, were gaining much from the current deal, at the expense of the smaller states who were now merely pawns in the game of larger powers.

The continued expansion of the Turk

The Ottoman Empire moves southward​

The Ottomans had, by 1500, destroyed every Crusader state to their south. The only Christian holdings by the 16th century were the holdings of Venice, who was weakened by Austria's belligerence. The regency council following Mehmet II's death had dissolved following the crowning of Mehmet III, who was even more competent than his father (8/9/8). His few threatening neighbors were either involved in their own wars, or ruled by fools (the Mamlukes for instance). Immediately upon the crowning of the new king, Mehmet III disbanded the expensive mercenaries in his armies, making the Turkish army far leaner, and ready to turn to the Balkans again when it strikes his fancy.

The incoming unification of the Russian states

'Novgorod has one more war left in her, but after that, we must be careful'--Christian Albrecht I​

The might of Moscow, through the 1400s, slowly eroded the wealth and strength of his sister city, Novgorod. Of all the trends occurring, this one worried Johann Georg I the most. The Polish-Brandenburger alliance had been almost entirely a one sided affair, with Brandenburg always being the belligerent and going into wars of its choosing. With the threat of a united Russia on Poland's border, Brandenburg will need to pay the piper. The threat of Russia was very much connected to the nature of Brandenburg's alliance with Poland. The Four Years War showed the denizens of the mark rather clearly that Poland was the only state which they could trust, and the importance of Brandenburg's holding in Eastern Prussia meant that leaving the alliance was out of the question.

The return of politics, and the proto-Reformation

Throughout the Medieval Years, there was one dominant force: the Catholic church. The Church was more powerful than Counts, Dukes, Kings or Emperors, and the support of the Church was necessary for any prince's stable rule. This was soon to change. Part of the reason for the Kleinstaterati (Legacy of Small States: the dynamic of the Holy Roman Emperor) was that the Catholic Church, and the idea of Christian Universalism, had such a pull that it acted as a hegemony: Christian rulers dared not go into wars of conquest against their brethren, for fear of the Church's disapproval. The Renaissance broke this hegemony. Soon you would have Machiavelli writing that princes should act purely on their secular interests, and while Il Principe was a colossal coup in Foreign Policy, it was already being performed in practice within Germany and in France. The Protestant Reformation would further destroy this order.

The colonization of the New World

The discovery of the New World by one Christopher Colombus created a new avenue for trade and finance, which was already being felt only a decade after it's discovery. Already the Hansa and Venice, the two trade superpowers of the late medieval era, were in decline. England, Castille, and Portugal were already being changed irrevocably changed by inter-Atlantic trade.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Beyond this, he wasn't planning on increasing his priveledges with the new Emperor breathing down his neck.

I don't know what your odds were, but you picked the most logical option. Better to ride out the Emperor's hissy fit than gamble on maybe getting the province scot-free, or maybe having to cough it up and say you're sorry.

... helped along by Albrecht's rather continuous policy, and the government was able to rely on a regular supply of cheap (2%) loans. Now, with the new Margrave slightly off kilter, the Brandenburger state seemingly poised to get itself into a new war whenever the chance showed up, and without Du Fournay to assuage any worries, interest rates swiftly shot up to nearly 10 percent per loan.

This expository bit about Louis du Fournay is terrific and plausible. If only the EU3 game engine were smart enough to actually adjust interest rates factoring in economic capacity, monarch stats and infamy/reputation.

I am confused about the end of the Hansa, though. From subsequent screenshots it appears that Lübeck is intact, so... Did they just switch government types? Darn those city burghers, screwing up the economy of northern Europe!

He reorganized the Army Von Mark and Army Von Pruesse into a pair of columns which would, theoretically, each be 10,000 strong, and commissioned the ironworks of Potsdam to build two hundred cannon for the Army of the Mark.

To paraphrase a famous "legitimate businessman", you can get a lot more with kind words and artillery than just with kind words.

The King of France, who had been cozying up to Brandenburg ever since the crowning of Johann Georg I, sent an envoy with a request to create an alliance. Georg obviously accepted.

France is a good ally provided you can absorb frequent, recurring stab hits without flinching. I don't think they really enjoy getting into the intra-German slap fights though, so they might leave you in the lurch at a critical moment. Still a better ally than the weak and ineffectual Ansbach emperor chump, though.

Europe in 1500 looks pretty good. I'm impressed by Castile and Portugal's extensive New World holdings only a few years after colonisation began. Not so jazzed about Austria inheriting Bosnia though. Do they start as vassals? The same thing happened in my MMU game.