1453: Revival of Byzantium - Chapter 498

“Nam unusquisque naturali necessitate bonum sibi appetit, neque est quisquam qui bellum istud omnium contra omnes, quod tali statui naturaliter adhæret, sibi existimat esse bonum”

“For every man by natural necessity desires that which is good for him: nor is there any that esteems a war of all against all, which necessarily adheres to such a state, to be good for him”

–        De Cive, Chapter 1 Section 13, Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

“And in the end after much consideration and observation, we have decided to choose you, my friend Julian. I hope that you shall not disappoint me in your subsequent missions, and I hope that you shall never disregard your fellow commanders because you are given the command of the army. I shall not interfere with your command any longer, go, Julian, show me what you are capable of doing. I shall be here waiting for your come back in Ptolemaida.”

Julian could not feel his hand palms after that conversation with his liege. He has just been the commanding officer of a regiment of around two thousand men for most of the time, never had he ever been in charge of commanding a troop more than ten thousand men before this battle. This new appointment comes with honour and glory, of course. But these things come with responsibilities and extreme difficulties too, one wrong decision might cause the entire army to be wept out and himself engraved on the wall of shame in Roman history.

The guard that Julian has ordered to invite the Caesar here came back with the piece of news Julian has expected; The Caesar shall not come, instead he ordered the guard to pass him a verbal messege saying that he has full trust on Julian and shall wait for him to bring back another victory. With the message came a blade, a cutlass that is already full of dents, cracks and rust that is already unusable but, this is the cutlass that Antonius used to hold when he was still a pirate captain.

There is no need to mention about the significance of the blade and the message Antonius wants to pass to him and the surrounding commanders with it. Julian feels like he is filled with confidence again as he rose the blade pointing towards the morning sun, waved it in circles and then pointed it forward towards the Ottomans.

“Forward!”

With this order, the goat horns behind Julian that has been quiet since the start of the battle started blowing, sending its unique soundwave to the entire ten thousand Roman forces surrounding the hills, telling them of their new head of command’s general orders. The Roman formations came back into action, marching forward towards the woods and hills with their spears and shields covering their upper bodies, closing in the encirclement on the Ottomans inside.

The Ottoman commander Hussein kept his watch on the Rumelians as they approach, his entire chain of command has entirely broke down from the severe loss of signallers and junior commanders in the chaos the day before. The only method he can use to transmit messages to various troops is through messengers not going around on horse back, but on foot, which means that after the battle breaks out it would be extremely difficult for him to pass any orders to the respective units effectively.

Hussein has made every effort he can think of to allow his warriors to hold the grounds. Everyone, including the Ottoman commanders themselves, know that it is a mission impossible to change the final outcome of the battle with a bunch of exhausted, drained, hungry and depressed soldiers. Many of them, especially the conscripts, attempted to run the night before, but they are either caught and sent back by their Ottoman superiors after a good beating, or are simply way too afraid to step their foot out in the fear that they might be slain by the enemies on the opposite side who want to use their head to claim their bounty and honour.

Despite having the almost same culture, belief and language, there is still a thin barrier of untrust between the people on the east and the west of the Pindus mountain ranges due to the geographical complexity of the region limiting the connections and message transmission between people on each side of the mountain range, most of the communications in the past times are done through the flourishing Mediterranean sea trade but sadly it is sealed off too after the increased tension in the region. The Ottoman commanders added a flame to it too, by describing the Rumelians as a bunch of maniacs who would not hesitate to conduct atrocities, and of course, those who successfully escaped by surrendering definitely would not want to come back to spread the news, making the conscripts hang back their thoughts of surrendering.

Hussein jumped down from the tree and looked back with a bit of anticipation. His friend and colleague Emir did not show up since the morning with his affiliated troops. After so long Hussein is still counting on his friend dreaming that they would somehow miraculously show up on the back of the Rumelians and rescue the stranded troops here out of the encirclement. But of course, dream being a dream it can never really come true. Minutes after minutes passed, the sun is already high above the horizon and Emir still has not shown up to his post yet, Hussein’s heart turned colder and colder as he knew that his friend has fled and left him alone here.

The Rumelians started moving.

Hussein knew that the time has came as he made orders to his troops too ordering them to engage when the Rumelians enter an appropriate distance as what he has told them an hour earlier. Though his troops again disappointed him as many of the panicking soldiers started pushing down tree trunks and boulders towards the Rumelians downhill way before it can actually deal any threat to the enemies. And just as what he has expected, the enemies dodged these obstacles with ease, wasting the valuable defensive mechanisms that his men spent the whole night to prepare.

These mistakes left the defenders in a very embarrassing situation, they have thrown out all of their prepared weapons and tricks, but it showed little to no effect to the enemies, so what are they going to do over here now? Face the enemies bravely, like those tales told them by their Ottoman commanders? Of course no, most of them are not even Ottoman Turkish in the first place, for they are just a bunch of drafted conscripts that did not manage to escape. What does it got to do with them if the properties of the nobles are taken away? It does not affect them too!

So the soldiers who have used up their arrows, wooden logs and rocks started pulling back from the line of engagement step by step watching carefully as the Rumelians advances. No matter how hard their Ottoman commanders slash them with their whips, their determination seems to be unchanged, though they still don’t have the guts and stomach to go against their Ottoman masters, as most of the horse meat last night are distributed to them not to the soldiers, the later mostly relied on the only dried foods they have brought with them, or the grass roots they found in the snow.

A surge of fury and frustration soared up in Hussein’s mind like a erupting volcano as he looked around and realised what his soldiers are doing. It is pretty hard for him to know in his perspective that why are these soldiers disobeying his general orders to hold the lines and never pull back one single step without a clear instruction given. He feels both angry and frustrated, thinking that he has already done so much for his troops by drawing out a detailed battle plan telling the respective commanders on what they are supposed to do, and yet his hard efforts are paid back with such lousy performance of his troops. Why can’t these conscripts understand his effort? Why can’t they just endure the temporary suffering?

Those who have their stomach full of smoked horse meat cushioned with sprinkles of Libyan Sea salt shall never understand the desire of those who survived on purely natural healthy salad made with freshly preserved vegetation with zero pollutions.

It started with only a handful of Ottoman conscripts successfully making a run towards the back, then with these good examples they attracted more and more soldiers, finally after a while a whole Ottoman unit started getting their feet up and start running, leaving their commanders staring at one another with their whips still in their hands, but left with no one to slash this time round. In just less than ten minute’s time, the Ottoman defensive arrangements are already filled with holes and weaknesses.

Judging by the situation, this battle is nothing but a starter’s package for Julian to allow him to master more experience on how to coordinate numerous units in a ten thousand men sized army.