1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 338: Here We Go Again

But time is not going to wait for Mahumad Pasha Angelovic to slowly settle the situation of Edirne, as by the end of November in year 1459, the Ottoman guards on the watch towers spotted a new flag being hang on the fortress in front of them - red flag with a Rumelian crown and a white lion. Obviously this war banner belonged to the man they both hated and feared the most, Antonius De'Ricci. Yes, he is finally here arriving in the front line. 

The arrival of that famed pirate commander who stole Ottoman territories and slaughtered tens of thousands of Ottoman sons through sly dirty tricks proved to be a hit for the already dwindling Ottoman army morale. It is impossible to cover up news coming out of Edirne from various channels and with each day piece after piece of bad news comes in to the ears of the soldiers from sources like transport caravans, reinforcements and messengers. 

The soldiers slowly began to understand that their pillar the Grand Vizier might have been assassinated, their families might be in danger getting caught in a fighting between the Sultan, the Janissaries and the Eastern army group, but they cannot do a thing about it. 

Facing this situation their pasha made a series of plans trying hard to boost his men's morales like hosting feasts, inviting outsiders for performances, building a camp for prostitutes, allowing soldiers to write letters to their families. However, all of these efforts proved to have little effect when the channel of worsening news does not stop coming from their back every single day. And thus, Hamza Pasha decided that it is now essential for the Sultan to come to the front line, but how is he going to do it?

If it is some one like Candarli Halil Pasha or Ibrahim Pasha they would attempt to do things, especially this kind of sensitive political partitions to the Sultan in a smart way, like transmitting the message through another channel and reaching a deal with the Sultan Dowager promising their safety in his camp. However, this is not the case for Hamza Pasha, as he is a professional soldier pasha who rose through the ranks mainly from his past military achievements starting from a mere recruit fighting under the banners of Murad II, not that kind of Pasha who climbed the ladder through political conflicts and court power struggles. 

Thus because of this Hamza Pasha tends to do things in a straight forward manner without thinking about so much political stuff. He went straight back to his tent picking up his quid and paper conscripting another letter in a straight forward language sending it right away towards Edirne.

Then, Hamza Pasha waited anxiously trudging around his tent in circles day by day occasionally taking a peek out of the camp gate towards the direction of Edirne hoping for a reply, but of course, not a single reply reached him after five days. Five days, five precious days, every one knows that an army can do a lot of things in a five day's time, and Hamza Pasha as a military leader is extraordinarily clear about this rule: Whoever that has advantage in time during a war has more advantage in securing his victory. 

So at the end of the fifth day with still no news coming, Hamza Pasha decided to wait no more deciding to grab the last possible advantage he have on his side, the initiative to strike first. By the day break of the next day he laid his troops in an oval shaped formation along the narrow stripe of land right in front of the Rumelian encampment with a four thousand strong cavalry force acting as flank guards, and six hundred elite horsemen from Anatolian tribes armed with heavy armour and lances, trying to occupy as much battle width as possible squeezing the Rumelians limiting the amount of forces they can put in to contact at the same time.

Of course he knows about the trick the Rumelian adopted during the battle of Thessaloniki five years ago demolishing their own fences to allow their calvaries to charge at full speed, and he invented a tactic to counter that too, which is pretty simple; the troops at the front are to bring a bunch of defensive obstacles which is made with a portable frame, usually just a wooden log, with many wooden spears in tact. 

These wooden obstacles are to be placed at the front of the formation in two layers, designed to stop enemy calvaries from charging in with out losing some of their meat and speed in the process, and also if the Ottoman troops are planning for a retreat or advance these portable obstacles are pretty easy to be pushed around too, thus Hamza Pasha's army is now effectively able to curb most of the threat from the Rumelian carrying out a pincer attack. 

Well there is still one thing that Hamza Pasha is worried about is the Rumelian attempting to surround his troops by making a landing from the sea on his back. He do not have any thing to do on the seas but that is exactly why he placed six hundred of his best horse men at the back acting as rear guards. So just in case the Rumelians dared to make a landing his proud heavy cavalries would make a charge towards them at once making them scatter around and then ending up getting pinned down on the beaches, until they are all eliminated. 

We cannot say that the plans and preparations made by Hamza Pasha is a plan that can secure a victory by a hundred percent certainty, as there are still pretty lot of weakness and holes that his foes can exploit and the battle field is always a place where by sudden unexpected changes might happen which will divert the course of victory with a minor event. However, this arrangement is already the best plan Hamza Pasha could come out with the current strength he has in his hands, even Zaganos Pasha or Sultan Murad II came they would most likely adopt a plan roughly the same. He is a qualified military leader worthy of a fight, and what he did has really proved Sultan Murad II's decision to promote Hamza Pasha to his positions today is indeed wise. 

Facing this situation Antonius decided to adopt another counter tactic provided by the old gentle man Anjelo, which is pretty simple as he named it the 'phony tactic'. He just sat there all day long behind the walls making the bulk of his troops retreat to one Roman mile away to construct another line of defence, waiting for the Ottomans to get their heavy siege equipment ready and lay siege to the first and original line of defence. 

The Romans, on contrast to their foes, is pretty confident about the outcome of this battle knowing that they have no political distress behind their back and a stable supply route free from any potential disruptions either by their enemies or by one of themselves, unlike Hamza Pasha worrying that his supplies from Edirne might get cut off at any moment if the capital city plunges in to a state of civil war. Thus Antonius could adopt this tactic which is basically to exchange victory with time and land, waiting for the Ottomans to crumble by themselves.

It took the Ottomans another two days before they finally got their heavy siege equipment like catapults and towers ready. Learnt from their mistakes this time the Ottomans did not attempt to use drafted pawns from the peasants laying siege to the walls with nothing but a bunch of ladders. This time they need to minimize the number of casualties as every single soldier standing on the grounds now is extremely precious to the Ottomans under Hamza Pasha. Every lost Ottoman soldier would mean the entire army has lost a valuable combatant forever, there is no chance that the front line troops might get a replenishment with the situation so damn screwed up like this. 

Though there are always some surprise awaiting Antonius in the battle, just as he received reports that the Ottomans is starting to move their heavy siege equipment across the hard terrain, a fast ship came at the beach passing a report saying that roughly a week ago a transport fleet made up of cargo ships, fishing boats and even paddle boats escorted by a pitiful amount of convoys can be seen travelling along the coast of the Black Sea outside the straits of Bosporus can be seen. 

No doubt that it is the reinforcements from Zaganos Pasha in Anatolia being sent to aid the western army over here. The patrol fleet immediately requested for reinforcements leading to a interception mission which only managed to sink or destroy one quarter of the enemy transport fleet due to relentless resistance by those pitiful amount of escort ships, which all had a heroic out come sinking in to the base of the Black Sea. Though their sacrifice did pay off with still the rest of the fleet successfully breaching on to the beach allowing the reinforcement troops to safely embark on to the land of Thrace.