KnightofTempest
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Chapter 46
🕑 Added 2024-07-24 16:26:22 +0000 UTCAs the fall campaign season opened, I gathered my army to me. There were no speeches this time, no grand whipping up of the troops into a frenzy. I didn't have anything to whip them up with, as this was a pure land grab on the part of my allies and I. I think the men knew that, but they honestly didn't care so much as long as I could bring them another victory. Morale was high simply because the men were fighting under my banner, rather than any moral rightness of our cause. After all, had I not done the impossible twice over in defeating both Rome and Carthage? Surely this would be yet another victorious campaign.
As far as strategy went, things were fairly simple. I would be taking twenty-thousand troops south to link up with the Aitolian League Forces pushing into Boeotia and Attica, while another twenty-thousand would embark on ships to seize Euboea and the Athenian Islands in the Aegean, aided by my fleet. At the same time, Sparta would be marching its own army into the parts of the Peloppenese controlled by Corinth, an Athenian Puppet. If all went well, we would be able to overwhelm Athens from three directions and force the city to Capitulate.
As it would transpire, none of those prongs were the first to see action. Instead, action was first seen by troops of the Spartan Vassals in Crete, the League of Knossos. It seems that the Athenian Vassals in Crete, the League of Polyrrhenia, had sensed that war was in the offing and resolved to strike first. The Army of the League of Polyrrhenia attacked the Town of Pyrgos just over the border in the territory of the League of Knossos.
Pyrgos was taken completely by surprise by the alacrity with which the League of Polyrrhenia moved and was forced to shut its gates without even deploying its forces. However, the League of Polyrrhenia was prepared for such an eventuality. The Strategos of the League of Polyrrhenia, a man named Sosibius of Etea, had prepared for such an eventuality by placing spies inside Pyrgos in advance of the campaign. Three nights after the gates were shut, as Pyrgos was settling in for a siege, the spies opened the gates of the city for Sosibius' men, who took the city by subterfuge.
This was a huge upset for the League of Knossos, who requested aid from their Spartan Overlords, and as I made my way South to link up with the Aitolian League under Strategos Polyarchos, I received a runner from the Army of King Archidamus the Fourth of Sparta bearing a message on parchment. Apparently, the runner, a man named Critias, had gone through quite a journey to bring his King's message to me in a timely manner.
"I took ship from Anthana on the Gulf of Argolis and made landfall yesterday at Volos. I ran through the night from the port there to bring this message from my King to you, Pyrrhus King." Informed Critias, holding out the parchment. The parchment was taken by one of my Guards, a Kataphractoi named Thrassylus, and handed off to me.
"You must have a perishing thirst, rest up, drink water, and await my reply to your King's Message before you return." I bade.
"My thanks, Pyrrhus King. I shall do just that." Nodded Critias, as he left to rest.
In the meantime, I broke the seal on the parchment and began reading Archidamus the Fourth's Message. It wasn't great news. We were expecting Sparta to march against Corinth with a force of forty thousand men, but Archidamus was being forced to send ten thousand to Crete to offset the loss of the initiative now that Pyrgos had been taken by the enemy. He would only have thirty thousand to face the forces of Corinth when they met in battle. As it was, it looked like he would be facing a roughly numerically equal force outside of Argos made up of Argive, Corinthian, and Achaean Vassals of Athens before even nearing the Isthmus of Corinth. He was also concerned about the Athenian Navy intercepting his reinforcements to Crete and wanted to know if there was anything my own fleet could do to offset that risk.
"Bring me Ink, Wax, a Quill, and Papyrus." I intoned. I was brought the writing implements by a camp slave, an unfortunate reality of the time I had been sent to live in, and began writing my reply to Archidamus.
In it, I told him that I was close to the rendezvous point with the Aitolean League Forces and that we would begin moving into Boeotia and Attica soon. That should draw off any possible Athenian Reinforcements to their vassals, allies, and puppets in the Northern Peloponnese. I also told him that the Athenian Fleet would soon have larger problems closer to home to worry about and that my fleet should be making landfall on Euboea in the next week. If the Athenians still sent their fleet to intercept his with that going on, then their sense of priorities would be skewed enough that it would force us to completely re-evaluate our strategy to take into account the fact that the enemy does not possess the same reasoning skills as the rest of us.
Once that was done, I sealed the papyrus with wax, impressing my seal into it, and called for Critias to be brought to my tent once he had finished his rest. A few hours later, the Spartan Runner stood before me once again, rested and ready to take my reply back south.
"Here is my reply, I bid you take it to your King as swiftly as you might manage. To facilitate your path, I offer you this pouch of coin, that you might take a fast ship from Volos back to your King. Can you ride?" I began, continuing at Critias' nod, I said, "Then you shall be given a fast mount to take you to Volos with speed."
Thrassylus handed my reply and the pouch of Drachmae to Critias, who saluted and said, "My thanks, Pyrrhus King. This shall make my duty a shade lighter."
"Do not thank me yet, Critias. The Euboic Sea is likely to become a battlefield within the week. You must act with speed to avoid being caught up in such a conflagration. Were I to simply let you go about your duty without such aid, it is likely that my reply would be much delayed if it reached your King at all." I warned.
"I shall endeavor to hasten then, Pyrrhus King." Nodded Critias. And with that, he saluted before leaving, Thrassylus showing him to a steed that would take him to Volos in a dozen hours as compared to a day and night.
For my part, I continued south and eventually linked up with the thirty-five-thousand-strong army of the Aitolian League under Strategos Polyarchos southeast of Delphi. Delphi itself was neutral territory, none wished the wrath of the rest of the Amphictyonic League, the sacred protectors of Delphi and the Oracle there, to which all of Greece belonged in some form. Sacred Wars were often messy, after all. Instead, we set our rally point for the linking up at Daulion, a small Polis on the border of Boeothia and the Aitolian League.
Daulion had, in the years before Phillip the Second of Macedon's conquest of Greece, actually belonged to the Boeotian League, but it had since gained independence and maintained a careful balancing act between the Aitolian League and the Athenian-controlled Boeotian League, playing one off of the other until very recently, when it had been compelled to join the Aitolian League by a combination of bribery, military threats, and political pressure.
It was here that our armies combined and began moving into Boeotia toward the City of Lebadeia in Boeotia with our combined Fifty-Five-Thousand troops. The Boeotians must have realized that they had to call on their Athenian Masters for aid and otherwise stood no chance of resisting our attack because Lebadeia threw open its gates for us and did not put up a fight in the least. We stayed in Lebadeia for two days, organizing a garrison and negotiating the City's Entry into the Aitolian League, before moving east. Over the remainder of September of two-seventy-nine, we took several towns on our way toward Coronea, including the Polis of Chaeronea, which we seized after a brief skirmish with Boeotian Cavalry.
The Boeotian Cavalry was well trained, but trained and equipped in the older Companion Cavalry Style. That had been good enough for Alexander, but given I was fielding Kataphractoi, it was no longer the gold standard of shock cavalry nowadays. The Boeotian Cavalry put up a brief, but stubborn, fight with my Kataphractoi, killing or wounding several dozen of them before being driven off. They left a few hundred of their own dead and wounded on the field of Charonea before they did so. They were our first casualties of the campaign, but would not be the last.
The day after we took Charonea, I received several pieces of news. The first was that my expedition to Euboea had made Landfall near Oreos and begun besieging and blockading the port there. The second was that our main fleet had engaged the Athenian Fleet near the Sporades off the South Coast of Skopelos in a series of running battles. Next was that King Archidamus the Fourth had engaged the Forces of Corinth, Argos, and the Athenian puppets, vassals, and allies in the Northern Peloponnese south of the Polis of Argos and had pulled out a victory there. Following that, the League of Knossos and the League of Polyrrhenia had fought a battle on the Lasithi Plateau the League of Knossos won the Battle thanks to High-Quality Iron Equipment and Spartan Training, but the League of Polyrrhenia withdrew in good order back to the Polis of Kamara, where the port there would keep them supplied and allow for the League to ship them reinforcements. Finally was the fact that Athens had sent reinforcements to the Boeotians from Attica.
That last part would become apparent as we neared the City of Coronea. A large, organized, force of Boeotians, Attic Greeks, and Athenians had formed up outside the City, waiting for us. At sixty-thousand-strong, they actually outnumbered our combined army by around five thousand troops. It looked like Athens was finally ready to fight, having made their Boeotian Vassals trade space for time to muster a large force.
As October dawned on two-seventy-nine, it looked like we would finally be in for a major engagement of our own. . .
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AN: All right, here's the start of the fall campaign season against Athens and their vassals and puppets. The Boeotians didn't have a lot of strategic depth to trade space for time with, but Athens and the heart of their power in Attica are quite literally right next door to Boeotia, so they didn't need to buy a whole lot of time. Meanwhile, things on Crete are see-sawing back and forth between the Vassal Leagues, while Sparta is advancing in Argolis and Pyrrhus' troops have made landfall on Euboea.
Notably, their Cretan Vassals are performing better than the Athenians are themselves. They may have lost a field battle, but they didn't lose too badly and they still have captured a city. There are a few reasons for that, but it mostly comes down to Crete's long-standing tradition of sending troops to be mercenaries in other people's wars. Cretans know how to fight a lot better than the average Boeotian, Argive, or Attic Soldier in the Armies of Athens.
The League of Polyrrhenia is actually in a better position than Athens themselves are in right now. Whether that state of affairs will last once the Spartan Reinforcements arrive or not remains to be seen, however.
At any rate, the next chapter will involve the Battle of Coronea, then we'll have a few interludes showing the Battle of Argos, the Siege of Oreos, and the Naval Action in the Sporades.
Stay tuned. . .
Comments
KnightofTempest
I have one scheduled for later in the week, actually
KayS
Any thoughts on updates for this amazing story?
KayS
Amazing chapter! Really love this story of yours. I’ve read it twice back to back :)
Sir Gideon Ofnir - the All-Knowing
Fantastic update! I am curious though, if Pyrrhus' son, Ptolemy, will be involved in any capacity with his father's army during this war. Perhaps this can act as a way of preparing him for any future military roles that he might need to fill, especially with war looming against Bolgios .
