Clash of Empires in the Balkans

 My latest book, Clash of Empires in the Balkans: Ottoman-Russia-Austria War of 1736-1739, is now on sale. It is always good to get to the end game of a book I have spent a lot of time on over the past year. My eighth history book since I moved into semi-retirement in 2018.

In the 1730s, the allied Russian and Austrian Empires viewed the weakening Ottoman Empire as an opportunity to expand into the Balkans and along the Black Sea coast. However, the Ottomans proved to be far more resilient than expected. Russian armies paid a high price for every mile gained in Ukraine, while Ottoman forces successfully defeated the Austrians in Bosnia and Serbia. This book recounts the significant conflict, detailing the leaders, soldiers, battles, and sieges that shaped the great clash of empires in the eighteenth-century Balkans.

I chose this subject for a few reasons, not just because very little has been written about it. My last book, The Struggle for the Pontic Steppe: Russo-Ottoman Wars 1768-1792, covered the later 18th-century wars, and some of the research pointed back to this earlier conflict. The Russians learned a great deal about the logistical challenges, but the victories over the Austrians strengthened the Ottoman conservatives' resistance to army reform.  It also reminded me that my very first wargames journal article was on this war. In Miniature Wargames 171, I wrote an article on the Bosnian part of the conflict. For those old enough to remember, Gareth Simon had a cottage publication business called Pallas Armata. He published Ibrahim Basmajee's Excreated Infidel Wretches, which gave us a rare primary source from the Ottoman side.

As I started the research, I also came across the story of the 20th Earl of Crawford. The village and castle are not far from me, and he went to Russia, met the Empress, and then rode down to meet the Russian commanders in the south. He then went to Austria, where he fought in the last battle of the conflict at Grocka. He was wounded in that battle and probably died early as a consequence, many years later. He was more a battlefield tourist than a genuine soldier of fortune, but there were plenty of those on all sides.

I usually match my main wargame project to the book I am writing. So the subject of this book was pretty obvious to everyone playing with my 1736 Austrians. There is an annex to the book on wargaming the period, which includes three scenarios. We did Banja Luka at Carronade, and will do Grocka at Claymore using Lust for Glory rules. The third is a skirmish game that focuses on the challenges the Russians faced as they advanced through Tatar territory. We played this one again as part of the midweek game, using Rebels and Patriots rules this time.

It didn't go well for the Russians. The Hussars made some progress, but eventually ran out of steam. The Cossacks were pushed back, not helped by a blunder that had the dragoons firing on them! In the actual war, a Russian colonel was executed for making a mess of a command like this!

1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople

 This is Anthony Kaldellis's new look at the Siege of Constantinople. I thought I had this subject well covered, but, like the author, I realised that my copy of Sir Steven Runciman's book dates back to 1965 and doesn't cover much about the siege itself.

The basic story is well known and has become the defining date of the end of the Middle Ages, at least for those of us focusing on Eastern Europe. The 1453 siege of Constantinople began on 6 April when the forces of the Ottoman Empire, led by Mehmed II, surrounded the city, the capital of the Byzantine (or Roman) Empire. Defended by approximately 7,000–8,000 soldiers under Constantine XI Palaiologos, the city withstood relentless artillery bombardment, including attacks from massive cannons designed to breach its formidable land walls. The Ottomans also bypassed the defensive chain across the Golden Horn by transporting ships overland, allowing them to pressure the city from multiple directions. After nearly two months of continuous assaults, mining operations, and bombardment, the Ottomans launched a final coordinated attack on 29 May. Exhausted defenders were overwhelmed after a breach near the Gate of St. Romanus, and Constantine XI was killed while fighting. The city's capture marked the end of Byzantine resistance and secured Ottoman control of Constantinople.

The ruined walls today, on one of my visits

The key point of this new book is that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was not inevitable, as most people think. This common perception suited both the West, which failed to save the City and the East, which wanted to start a new period.

The Romans (Byzantines) actually believed they could hold out, and Kaldellis argues that they could have. They were successful in resisting a wide range of methods that Mehmed used to besiege the city, including large cannons, the portage into the harbour, and mining. In the end, it took a massive infantry attack through the partial breach to get in, and then, probably, because of the Genoese commander Giustiniani's wounding. Much of the blame was placed on him because he escaped, only to die on Chios weeks later. However, we know little about what actually happened, and without him and his armoured defenders, the walls would certainly have fallen earlier. We should remember that there was no help from Byzantine territories in the Peloponese, or elsewhere in the Balkans. In fact, it was Serbian miners who worked for the Ottomans.

Much of the story of the breach was told by Italian sources that virtually ignore the role of the Romans, few of whom escaped. The City's population was not large, and certainly not big enough to properly defend six kilometres of wall, but they still outnumbered the Italians, mainly Genoese and Venetians. The total defence was about 9,000 men. There were also around 27 ships in the harbour, with an iron chain guarding the entrance, although the one in the Archaeological Museum is probably from Rhodes.

As for the attackers, there may have been this huge gun, but it is much more likely that there were several, and they were not something new. They also fired stone shot rather than the iron balls being used in Western Europe. The Ottoman army was large, but not nearly as big as usually claimed. Probably no greater than around 50,000, and 145 ships. The ships were also too small to take on the larger Genoese ships that managed to get into the harbour with modest relief forces.

After the Ottomans broke into the City, it didn't take long to capture the city and round up the captives, mostly for safety. Probably no longer than three hours. Certainly shorter than when the 'Crusaders' broke in during 1204. There was a debate within the Ottoman system over whether to elevate it to a centralised administrative capital. They are usually identified with the semi-independent frontier warlords who had a looser conception of the Ottoman expansion project. They loved the idea that Hagia Sophia had been turned into a mosque and that Muslim dreams were realised, but they hated the City. Constantinople changed the Ottomans as much as they changed it. It catalysed and accelerated their conversion from nomadic warriors expanding the frontiers of Islam to a centralised state with a sedentary capital. Mehmed also decided to run the city himself, rather than have a Roman official do it.

This is an excellent take on the siege, with lots of details that debunk, or at least challenge, much of what we are usually told. Highly recommended.

This is from the diorama inside the museum of the siege in modern Istanbul. A bit touristy, but worth a look.

Another take from the Harbiye Museum.

And this fine model from the Hisart Museum.

Saladin

My current Turkish TV addiction is 'Saladin: The Conqueror of Jerusalem'. Another very long TV series, this one was co-produced in Pakistan. The producers asserted that the main target of the series is non-Muslims who are unaware of Muslim history. 

A good start, however, anyone who has read any history will quickly spot that this isn't the case. This clicked with me when the series starts with Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayub being secretly adopted by Nur ad-Din, who wasn't even the 'Sultan' at the time, and it didn't happen. They also forgot to mention that Saladin was a Kurd 😅. There are all sorts of other historical imaginations, including the Jews financing the Crusades, in a pretty awful bit of anti-semitism. Impoverished Crusaders often funded their military expeditions by looting and plundering wealthy Jewish communities. In this series, the Crusaders are bossed around by the Jews, whose plan is to secretly create a Jewish state. It is frankly inconceivable that Crusader kingdoms would have tolerated anything even close to being bossed about by Jews, anywhere. Everyone also travels around the region as if Damascus, Jerusalem, and Ashkelon are a couple of miles away!

However, once you get past the fact that this is not anything close to being historically accurate, it has all the best bits of a Turkish TV series. You always know who the baddy is, and when one dies, another quickly arrives.  The uniforms are not bad in this one, although horse archers dismounting is always an irritation. Given that horse archers were trained from birth, I accept the challenges here. There are also strong roles for women, perhaps a little overdone, including their amazing sword-fighting abilities, but great fun. I suspect the Turkish producers won on this one because it reflects other historical TV series.

It reminded me that I had read the first in Jack Height's Saladin Trilogy. This is historical fiction, but a lot closer to the history. This mostly covers his period as Vizier of Egypt, a really interesting period in his life that is often forgotten in Britain, as we focus on his time fighting Richard the Lionheart. Richard appears in the final book. This is excellent historical fiction and highly recommended.

This inevitably led to the tabletop. Most of my Crusaders tend to come from Spain and the Balkans, but the Spanish are mostly fine. I have a mix of Seljuks and others that also work fine. For last week's midweek game, we played a game using the Midgard rules. We hadn't played with them for a while, so the game went slower than planned, but I do like them.

I was playing the Crusaders, and while my knights stormed across the table, my infantry was a bit slow getting forward, hanging onto a hill in front of them. They outnumbered the enemy, so this was a mistake. Anyway, my cavalry charged up the hill on the left, taking a few casualties, but still got pushed back. On the right, they did better but got flanked by the Turcomen horse. There was a bit of recovery on the left, but the wicked Ayyubids got onto my flank there as well. The infantry eventually reached the enemy but then got flanked as well. Game over. 

Still, a good game, and we must play more.

Stronghold Scotland

 My local library has been downsized, and I have been struggling to find my monthly library pick. However, I did spot Geoffrey Williams' book on prehistoric and Roman fortifications in Scotland. Scottish medieval castles are famous, but there are hundreds of earlier fortifications that are dotted around the country.

I suspect the author's chatty, almost quirky writing style will irritate some folks, but I found it very readable. It is also a very solid hardcover that will withstand the heavy handling it is likely to get when used as a guide.

There are two parts to this book. A history and then a gazetteer. The first part is a history of the period and the fortifications that developed during that time. It is shocking to think that the early immigrants probably came from England 😅. Then the Picts, of which we know relatively little, even the name of which was bestowed by the Romans. We are also not sure when the Celts arrived, but they are certainly not indigenous to these isles. By the Iron Age, the population of Scotland was probably around 200,000, and as social structures developed, so did the strength of their fortifications. The Romans came but failed to conquer, though they left behind some fortifications north of Hadrian's Wall.

He then describes the types of strongholds, each with its distinctive style. From simple blockhouses to the early brochs, some of the finest examples are on Orkney. When I was working up there, I usually found an excuse to go and look at them. The best preserved is at Mousa on Shetland.  

Then the water-based crannogs, one of which has been reconstructed on Loch Tay, and it is well worth a visit. The largest fortifications are the hillforts. These are mostly earthworks today because the wooden palisades are long gone, although many had stone walls. Sadly, many of these have been stolen for other building projects. The Roman forts exist as both marching forts and the various walls built across Scotland.

The gazetteer is a fabulous resource, offering alternative days out from the usual historic sites. Around 120 strongholds are covered with references to the others. They are often in scenic spots, making for great walks. Scotland's right to roam makes these more accessible than in other parts of the UK. There is an excellent online resource for hillforts. The Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (ScARF) is also an excellent resource.

This is worth getting for the historical background, but it is also a really useful guidebook.

I haven't got any Picts, too much woad to paint. So, let's have a Roman camp.

Armies in North Russia and Siberia 1918–20

This new Osprey MAA by Phoebus Athanassiou examines the intervention forces that operated in North Russia and Siberia during the Russian Civil War. North Russia and Siberia hosted tens of thousands of Allied troops, predominantly Japanese, Czech, American, British, French and Italian.

The Allies also provided huge amounts of supplies and equipment to the various White armies. Britain alone spent £4bn to equip up to 200,000 men. All wasted, by late 1920, Allied forces had been evacuated from their bridgeheads in North Russia and Siberia, and most of the White armies had been defeated. This book outlines the interventions, and if you want a more detailed description, I would recommend Anna Reid's book A Nasty Little War. 

Many of the Allied troops involved were not happy to be there, and the intervention was equally unpopular at home. There were even mutinies among the Allied troops, including the Quebec members of the 259th Battalion, Canadian Rifles, and 13th Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment). Conditions on the ground were gruelling, with supply shortages, constant rain (in autumn 1918 and spring 1919) and intense cold (during the winter months) making the lives of the Allied troops miserable. There are many period photographs, which give an impression of how bad it was.

The strength of the book is in the description of the troops. There was more than a brigade of British and Canadian troops in North Russia. The main Commonwealth contributor to the war effort on the Siberian front was Canada, which also dispatched a Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force of over 4,000 men to Vladivostok. There were also Royal Navy and RAF contingents. The latter had to operate from dirt strips. As with most of the intervention forces, they were equipped as in WW1.

Canadian troops in Russia

The USA provided an infantry regiment and support units in North Russia, and a brigade-sized (8,800) contingent in Siberia. The US troops had a limited mandate and sought to maintain a degree of neutrality. In contrast, the Japanese were enthusiastic interventionists, building on their victories in the Russo-Japanese War. Elements of eleven infantry divisions were deployed, totalling 73,400 men at the height of the intervention. They had fully transitioned into the khaki uniforms by this period.

Smaller contributions included the French, with 2410 in North Russia and 1,159 in Siberia. I do like a Balkan link, and there was a small Serb detachment with the French of two officers and 17 men. They would be equipped like the French. Italy provided a battalion in North Russia and around 2,500 men in Siberia. The Czechoslovak Legion has been covered in another Osprey title, and totalled two divisions of former PoWs, mostly equipped in adapted Russian uniforms.

The Whites and Reds were organised into a bewildering array of armies, some with less-than-clear political affiliations. The author does a decent job of outlining this, and the wide-ranging uniforms and equipment. Distinguishing between belligerents and civilians was often challenging, as the period photographs highlight. The Red Army had a more unified command structure and greater unity of purpose than its fragmented White adversaries, which may help to explain its triumph over them.

The Allied intervention, despite the huge resources, may have weakened the White armies by creating a dependency which distracted them from building local support. The longer-term consequence was the trauma that the Allied interventions left behind them in Russia, long after those who had witnessed them were alive to tell their story. This trauma may explain Russian perceptions of the West, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. It certainly complicated relations between Stalin and Churchill during World War II.

For the wargamer, if you have WW1 armies, then you probably have all you need to take some of these actions onto the tabletop. The lovely colour plates in this book may persuade you to go further.

 

My British WW1 artillery in 28mm. They might have worn coats in Russia!

Securing the Narrow sea

This is Steve Dunn's story of the Dover Patrol 1914-18. I read a bit about the Dover Patrol when writing my book on HMS Ambuscade because the WW1 destroyer of that name briefly served there. I relied on Admiral Bacon's book The Dover Patrol 1915-17, and the papers and ships' logs in the National Archives and the Greenwich Museum library. I must have missed this 2017 book, or ignored it, as it doesn't mention the ship. Nonetheless, it is a comprehensive study of the Dover Patrol from its inception to the end of the war.

The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War. Its primary task was to prevent enemy German shipping, chiefly submarines, from entering the English Channel en route to the Atlantic Ocean and the allied shipping lanes. Its roles also included protecting the supply and troop transport convoys from Britain to France and bombarding the German positions in Belgium.

In 1914, the bombardment of German positions in Belgium took priority. The ships available to the Patrol were not well-equipped to act as floating artillery, as the Grand Fleet was based in Orkney. Some older battleships, cruisers and monitors were deployed to supplement the period's lightly armed destroyers, but they were vulnerable to German submarines. Once the Germans captured the Belgian ports, they created submarine bases, and losses mounted. 

Nearly 81,000 tons of shipping were lost in March 1915, and U-boats were slipping through the Dover Straits at will. This failure led to the dismissal of the first commander, Rear Admiral Horace Hood, although his wanting to sack Churchill's brother-in-law may have been a contributing factor. He was replaced by Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, who commanded until early 1918. Various methods were used to create a barrage across the channel, with mixed success. Nets deeper than 40ft rarely survived the Channel tides, and the gaps were plugged with mines. Lots of drifters or small trawlers were used to maintain the barrage, but the Germans frequently found a way through or over the barrage. 

Mine warfare was in its infancy, and they often came adrift and sank British ships. The Germans floated their own mines into the Channel to add to losses. By 1917, Bacon had around 20 destroyers, four monitors, six minesweepers and eight submarines, along with auxiliary vessels, but many more were in the dockyards for repairs. Dover was also not an ideal port as a base. By the end of 1917, 39,000 of the newer contact mines had been laid. 

This chart is from Bacon's book.

The book covers the many naval actions around the barrage, fought mainly by destroyers and submarines. They also bombarded the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend, followed by the famous raids. These raids were promoted by the last commander, Acting Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. He divided opinion, with some welcoming his more aggressive tactics, while others thought him self-centred and a trophy hunter. By July 1918, he had 41 ships at his disposal.

The Dover patrol became a jack-of-all-trades. Bacon believed hunting submarines was 'almost useless and hopeless', although the Patrol managed to sink 22. However, the German navy never managed to disrupt the supply chain between Britain and France, and not a single soldier was lost in transit. That included 12 million soldier movements, 2094 troopship movements, and 3875 hospital ship movements. U-boats were forced to travel all around the UK, although the barrage was only fully impenetrable by the summer of 1918. The Patrol lost eight of the 84 destroyers that served there, and 2,000 men died, 6 per cent of all naval losses. These were mostly amateur sailors and fishermen. They are remembered in various memorials, including this one at Dover.

For wargamers, there are many small ship actions that can be refought on the tabletop, particularly using destroyers. Jutland is fine, but it was the only major fleet action, and the naval war in WW1 was really about blockade and the smaller warships.

My modest collection of WW1 naval models in action. 

Taken to Testify

 One of the reasons for my recent visit to Valjevo in western Serbia was the Scottish link during the First World War. The Scottish Women's Hospital, rejected by the British army, established field hospitals in this and nearby towns to treat the wounded and those suffering from disease after the Austro-Hungarian invasion. However, they were not the only outside medical support the Serbian state received during the conflict.

In the local museum, I picked up a book, Taken to Testify, which tells the story of Dr Arius van Tienhoven's photographs taken from the Balkan battlefields between 1912 and 1916. 

Dr Van Tienhoven was a Dutch Red Cross surgeon who documented war crimes against civilians in Serbia during the Balkan Wars and the First World War. During his deployments from 1912 to 1916, he took hundreds of harrowing photographs and meticulous journal entries that served as primary evidence of atrocities. His wartime diaries were later published, notably as De gruwelen van den oorlog in Servië (The Horrors of War in Serbia), and subsequently formed the basis for this book by the historian Vladimir Krivošejev.

The photographs in the book are indeed harrowing, but also portray aspects of the war you rarely see. The centre of Valjavo has changed considerably over the years, but you can see elements in the surviving buildings. Most of his photographs are preserved in the original albums by the ⁠Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

Like many of the medical staff from across Europe who went to Serbia, he contracted Typhus. He survived and went on to have an outstanding medical career; many others did not. 

Dr Van Tienhoven and his team in Serbia

Retreating Serbian troops and civilians

He took pictures of dozens of raped, tortured and killed civilians. To the left of Van Tienhoven stands the captured Austrian major Josef Balzarick. He was accused of being responsible for the atrocities. Shortly after this picture was taken, he committed suicide.