The great Norse invasion of the British Isles which began in the previous year only continued to build up steam throughout 871, as the Ráðbarðrsons could barely wait for the snows to begin thawing before resuming their attacks on England and Britannia. As soon as the weather conditions allowed it they proceeded from Turcesige toward Eoforwic, leaving a trail of devastation as they went forth in their vengeful rage. Eadulf's eldest son Osric had been hurriedly crowned there, and though the English field army had been destroyed at Turcesige the winter before, he still resolved to make a stand in the seat of the Rædwaldings so that none could say that the dynasty abandoned this 'second city of Britain' (from where they had reigned since converting to Christianity) like cowards. This decision proved to be brave but foolish, as Osric did not actually have enough men to adequately defend Eoforwic's walls – when the Vikings arrived at March's end, Flóki's Pelagian spies within the city informed him of this fact, and armed with this intelligence the Vikings duly stormed the city rather than invest & dig in for a long siege.
Flóki himself and Hrafn assaulted the part of the walls which were most thinly defended, overcoming it and leading to the fall of Eoforwic soon after. Osric meanwhile had been killed by their brothers Einarr and Steinn as well as Amleth, who had evidently decided that the son of their father's killer did not deserve the honor of a one-on-one duel and swarmed him together, and the Vikings sacked the city in their triumph – only the Pelagian community, who painted an eight-pointed cross on their doors with woad in imitation of the first Passover, were spared from the inevitable whirlwind of pillaging, murder and rapine, with Flóki himself even reportedly killing at least one over-eager Viking who tried to ignore this signal (which the Pelagians had arranged with him well in advance) and break down one such door. However the other Rædwaldings were not present to be captured & held for ransom or offered up to the Norse gods as blood sacrifices (Old Nor.:
blót), having evacuated at Osric's order. His own household had gone north to take shelter with his father-in-law Æthelred the Open-Handed, the High Reeve (Old English:
hēahgerēfa) of Bebbanburh, but as his children were still underage the English kingship next passed by the Witan's collective will to his brother Osbald, who had gone west to collect those soldiers who hadn't gone to Turcesige as well as scattered stragglers from their father's army.
Osric the Saxon and his household guards (Eng.: 'heorðgeneatas', 'hearth-companions') make their last stand against the oncoming Ráðbarðrsons
Osbald and his other brothers led these ragged remnants to Déuarí[1], where they finally linked up with the
Ríodam Guí – he had originally planned to march directly to Turcesige and join Eadulf there once the weather cleared, but since the Vikings struck more quickly than he could have imagined and had made no secret of their laying waste to the English countryside, he had promptly changed course. This combined army moved out to threaten the fallen Eoforwic (or as its Viking conquerors now called it, 'Jórvík'), not only because they had the best chance of any single force still standing on the British Isles to resist this 'Great Heathen Army' but also to buy time for Æthelred to prepare the defenses of northern England & protect Osric's family. The Vikings, who had been planning to burn down Bebbanburh next, were compelled to change course and face the Anglo-British alliance at the Battle of Wacafeld[2], thereby fulfilling that strategic aim at least.
Though even their combined strength (4/5ths of which was British) still amounted to barely half the size of the Viking invasion army, the allies presented the first serious challenge for the Vikings here: the Norse archers & skirmishers' missile exchange with the British longbowmen rapidly turned into a massacre favoring the latter, forcing the Ráðbarðrsons to immediately charge across the open field and push through the withering fire to get into melee combat as quickly as possible, only for the superior British cavalry to charge from the nearby woods and rout their own handful of horsemen before rushing their flanks. The Ráðbarðrsons' leadership prevented a rout in that moment and the Norsemen's sheer weight of numbers eventually gave them the victory in the end, but the English & British were able to withdraw in good order and Guí most certainly denied them the pleasure of collecting his head.
Meanwhile in the east, the Viking invasion of Britain was far from the mind of Aloysius III, for the Emperor was instead focused on trying to regain Edessa from the claws of his Caliphal counterpart. The Romans' main army enjoyed greater success in this endeavor than their British federates had against the Norsemen throughout 871: first they defeated Al-Khorasani and Al-Jannabi in the Battle of the Syrian Gates near Pagrae[3], then they rolled the Hashemites back toward Edessa with further victories at Ciliza[4] and Birtha[5], and finally got around to placing the fallen Ghassanid capital back under siege near the end of the year. Ahmad, meanwhile, managed to scrounge up additional reinforcements from his Persian subjects in exchange for furthering the Aryanophilic policies of his forefathers – thus avoiding having to beg his Alid cousins for help and offering concessions like a resumption of raids on the Indian border, which could very well have reopened the Salankayana-Chandra front – and brought these up to support Al-Khorasani in trying to break the Roman siege.
In Aloysiana across the Atlantic, the men of Dakaruniku found that wherever they went, the local Wildermen tended to die in great numbers from the diseases (mostly fevers) they themselves had survived before and were now immune to – much as had once happened to them in the dark days following first contact with the New World Britons. Besides being interpreted as an obvious sign that the gods favored them over their neighbors rather than any quirk of natural biology, this development suited Naahneesídakúsu just fine, since it weakened his enemies and made them even more amenable to the idea of simply surrendering to his emissary than waging an increasingly obviously doomed struggle against his war-host. Ultimately, while he would be unable to reach the mouth of the great Míssissépe (or as the Dakarunikuans called it, 'Warú-Das-Darahčiiš', the 'Swift Holy Waters') by the end of his lifetime, he did get as far as the mound-town of Akánuʾwihax[6] (Mis.: 'Big House'), which occupied a strategic point overlooking the course of that river and thus represented a strategically important acquisition for the rising warlord – all the better that it and many other such conquests were made with much in the way of threats and cajoling, but relatively little bloodshed compared to how Kádaráš-rahbád would have approached them.
The riverine city of Akánuʾwihax, an important acquisition by the men of Dakaruniku along the course of the Míssissépe/Warú-Das-Darahčiiš
Throughout 872, the war in Britannia found itself short of major engagements: rather, both the Anglo-British and the Norse spent most of their time maneuvering against the other and trying to set up favorable conditions for when they should fight their next pitched battle. In particular, the Vikings turned their attention south, away from Bebbanburh – after all, not only had the Britons shown themselves to be a more formidable threat, but the English royals of fighting age and their remaining forces were located in that direction – and aggressively harried both the British hinterland and coasts, destroying no small number of villages and driving their surviving inhabitants to seek shelter at the nearest lord's castle from the marshy Iceni coast to the isle of Gueth[7]. Their only notable territorial acquisition this year was the easterly island of Thaneth[8], which was secured by Flóki and Steinn as a base from which to stage more extensive attacks against eastern Britain later.
The battles were fiercer and the fronts moved more quickly in the independent Celtic kingdoms in 872. Map Beòthu had seized both the Pictish capital at Pheairt and the sacred site of Sgoin on the onset of his civil war with the sons of Dungarth, and successfully defended both against the rival princes in the Battle of Craoibh[9], but while the Picts were busy shedding one another's blood in this and other engagements, Óttar of the Isles had landed in Cait once again – this time with some 2,000 men – and rapidly overtook the northern shores of the kingdom, driving all those Picts who he did not kill or else bent the knee before his advance into the rugged highlands. Now in late 872 Map Beòthu finally decisively defeated the princes Máelchon and Domelch map Dungarth at the Battle of Gheàrr-loch[10], breaking the resistance of their partisans for the time being: but both young men were able to escape from Pictland, and would eventually end up in Bebbanburh where they lamented the usurpation of their homeland by a vicious and tyrannical 'Witch-King' to all who would hear.
Contrary to the rumors spread by his enemies, Map Beòthu was not inclined towards senseless cruelty (he was no less nor any more ruthless than most kings in a similarly precarious position had to be) nor reviving the ancient druidic faith of the Celts at Christianity's expense (despite his indulgence in superstition and consorting with woods-witches, the king remained at least nominally a Christian himself). Arguably he couldn't have done such things even if he wanted to, anyway – because he now had to dedicate all of his time and resources to combating the rising threat posed by the Norsemen of the Isles, who had overrun nearly half his kingdom by the end of 872. He did strike up an alliance with the Irish High King Muiredach Mac Donnchad Uí Néill, himself a far less controversial and unambiguously Christian figure, who in turn had been off to a good start in the war against their common Norse enemies, in his case achieving a number of victories over the men of Dyflin which culminated in a fairly significant triumph at Loch Ramhar[11].
Map Beòthu was many things, few of them good; the Romans and their allies considered him at best a greedy and hateful usurper, at worst a crypto-pagan who consorted with witches. But few would deny that he was a much more brutally effective leader than his predecessor, and perhaps the king the Picts needed to fend off the Viking threat of the 870s
On the eastern front, unlike their subjects in Britannia the Romans were due to fight another major battle against the Arabs this year. Al-Khorasani marched to relieve the besieged Al-Jannabi in Edessa with some 32,000 men in the summer of 872, while Emperor Aloysius stood ready to oppose him with a similarly-sized army. Since their forces were more or less evenly matched and neither veteran commander was inclined to just slog it out conventionally without employing any battlefield trickery, both the
Augustus Imperator and the Islamic generalissimo resolved to concentrate their strength against one part of the other's battle-line in hopes of breaking through there and rolling up the rest of the enemy host. The Romans massed in the center, intent on cleaving the Saracens in half and rolling up their divided flanks afterward; whereas Al-Khorasani deployed his men in an oblique formation with a strong and greatly advanced left wing, his objective being to break the Roman right before turning to crush their center & left.
Both the Romans and the Arabs achieved their initial goals, with the Saracen center giving way before a great offensive wedge directed by the Emperor while the Roman right in turn was crunched beneath the Muslims' own assault. Alexander Caesar had commanded the Roman right wing and fell there, hounded and cut down by a squadron of Islamic
ghilman despite his best efforts to fend them off, yet news of the imperial heir's demise (while sure to have baleful consequences for the Aloysian line of succession) did not faze his ever-steely father, who was reported to have remarked
"Many thousands of soldiers have died and will continue to die for God and for Rome today. There is no time to mourn any lone one of them over-much above the rest," before returning to doggedly fighting on. The Roman center pressed forward and broke past the Arab reserve contingent, threatening even the Caliphal encampment: but there the elite
qaraghilman and remnants of that reserve contingent managed to stand and fight long enough for the main Saracen force to break the Romans' other wing and wheel around to attack the main body of the imperial army.
The Islamic army then converged upon the Roman one from multiple directions, a dangerous position to be sure. In a testament to his grit and martial ability, Aloysius managed to redirect his legions against the Muslim wing and break through their ranks to reach safety in the west, even despite that being the strongest part of their army. But although this Battle of Edessa had not been as catastrophic as the one Emperor Valerian fought with the Sassanids six centuries before, and enough of the Roman army had survived to ensure that they weren't yet down for the count, it still represented a significant defeat for the Holy Roman Empire and one of the larger Islamic victories in recent decades. Aside from the fallen Alexander, whose corpse Ahmad had returned to his father in a gesture of respect (and to try to facilitate a truce on account of the Muslims' casualties from Edessa being quite high as well), the Bulgar Khan Belkermak and Al-Ayham were both slain as well. The Cilician Bulgars would endure: but Edessa it seemed would be the final doom of the Ghassanids, for although their royal house remained extant through Al-Ayham's young children & siblings, the losses they sustained on that battlefield broke what remained of their power and closed the door on any realistic chance of them recovering their (already greatly truncated) kingdom.
Alexander Caesar struggles to fend off the elite Turkic ghilman swarming him on the battlefield before Edessa
In China meanwhile, the Liang and Han finally reached a truce and began peace negotiations after more inconclusive fighting, culminating in a final series of counteroffensives in both the west and east by the True Han by which they were respectively able to expel the last Liang garrisons in the mountains & woods around Xiangyang but not to establish, much less expand, a beach-head on the northern banks of the Lower Yangtze. Gangzong and Duzong agreed to return to the original borders of their empires – mostly running on the Yangtze, with the exception of the Han exclave centered around Xiangyang – which, at first glance, seemed as though the rival dynasties had just expended an enormous amount of effort and lives to end up in more or less the same situation they were in at the start of the century. However, not only had they tested each other's strength once more and taken some valuable lessons from this war – certainly the True Han will be sure not to appoint any more princes-of-the-blood to positions of great import for starters, instead relying on their mandarins and generals of lower birth – but a more prominent strategic development had taken place in the north, where the Jurchens had managed to gain ascendancy over the Khitans in large part thanks to the conflict with the Han greatly reducing the Liang's ability to support their allies up north. The Liang may have won this round, but they now had to worry about the next one being a proper two-front war against both the Han and the rising power of the Jin.
After a relatively quiet 872 full of maneuvers and 'foraging' rather than dramatic pitched battles and sieges, the Sons of Ráðbarðr returned to form in 873 with audacious offensives targeting the
Ríodam's realm, striking at Guí and Osbald before the latter two could engage in their own counter-offensive against the Vikings. After inflicting further defeats on the British fleet throughout spring, the Norsemen used Thaneth to safely bypass the difficult terrain of the Fens entirely and begin landing in force in southern Icenia & near Lundéne, and their first target for a storming & sacking was Camalóui[12] – a grievous insult which Guí had to answer, for it was also the hometown of the Pendragon dynasty. This Flóki knew and intended, for the strategist among the Ráðbarðrsons hoped to draw the British High King into battle on ground more favorable for the Norse and got his chance when the allied army reached a ford on the Lesser Metaris[13].
When the British and English attempted to cross at Bellol[14], the Vikings were waiting in ambush (having taken hostages from among the leading village families to force them into pretending that nothing was amiss) and inflicted a resounding defeat on the allies before they could finish moving their full strength over the ford. The British longbowmen did not seem so formidable when caught unprepared and out of position, and Guí himself was badly wounded in the retreat. Following this victory some of the Norsemen hoped to pillage north- and westward into the British hinterland, but the Ráðbarðrsons maintained discipline and directed their army towards Lundéne instead. Panic was already setting in at the British capital as news of the Battle of Bellol's outcome spread, but the city's stout defenses and considerable stockpile of supplies might have still allowed its outnumbered garrison to hold out until help could arrive from the continent.
Alas for the defenders, a fortuitously timed Pelagian uprising within the walls – carefully planned to launch alongside the Norsemen's own assault and to secure the city's northern gatehouse for their benefit – fatally compromised their carefully planned defenses. As a reward for their allies the Norsemen installed the Pelagians' local leader Guílodhin (Old Brit.: 'Gwylyddyn') as the city's bishop and burnt his Ionian counterpart Guidelén (Lat.: 'Vitalianus') at the stake, as had happened to many a Pelagian heretic, on his order. 873 would thus end with the Norsemen in control of both the English and British capitals, while the defenders of Christian Britannia were left in great disarray and lamented Guidelén's death as a martyr.
Norse fireships leading the amphibious segment of the great Viking assault on Lundéne, their flames further serving as a signal for the Pelagians within the city to rise up
Beyond Roman borders, the other Celtic Christians at least were having a better time. Map Beòthu resolved that the best way to win the loyalty of his recalcitrant new subjects would be to deliver them from the fury of the Norsemen, and although his weakened army could not hold Pheairt against Óttar's army when the latter landed, he was at least able to defend the holy site of Sguin in a sanguinary battle to the north. This was the extent of Map Beòthu's major engagements this year, as he now needed to rebuild his depleted forces in the Caledonian Highlands and was limited to taking opportunistic swipes at the Norsemen who had stormed his kingdom's shores until that was done. Across the Irish Sea, High King Muiredach's offensive continued to gain steam as he won the loyalty of the petty-kings of Connachta and Mumhain, with whom he crushed an attempt by the Norsemen in the west to come to Dyflin's aid in the Battle of Carntierna[15]. Those Vikings who had settled at Corcaigh surrendered and were drafted into opposing their kindred to the east, while the Vikings of Hlymrekr[16] were killed to the last man and their settlement sacked sometime after their great defeat.
News that his British subjects were now groaning beneath the axes of an invader even more troublesome than the Anglo-Saxons had once been, and that Adalric still struggled to assemble a fleet capable of challenging the Norsemen in the North Sea (much less crossing to finally relieve the beleaguered Britons & Saxons), represented a new and most undesired frustration for Aloysius. After all, the Emperor was still grappling with the demise of his only son and the trouble this caused for the line of succession – the Stilichians duly sent him their condolences but he had the feeling that it was an insincere gesture, especially since Alexander's death without lawful issue cleared the way for his grandson, Alexandra's second child and firstborn son Stéléggu to become the most obvious contender for the purple. Furthermore, he was still at war with the Muslims who were eager to press their renewed advantage after the Battle of Edessa, and while sending the Italian fleets to fight in the North Sea seemed like the most straightforward way to clear a path for Adalric's army, that was not possible as long as the Saracens still threatened the eastern Mediterranean.
As usual however, once the Emperor had collected his thoughts, he tackled this assortment of thorny challenges with an understated grit and determination. No pronouncement would come from Aloysius on the matter of succession yet: neither the toddler Stéléggu (being a female-line descendant of his) nor Alexander the Arab (having been born out of wedlock) were qualified to succeed him both under the law and in his own mind, and instead he resolved to remarry and father another son as soon as he could, even though he was getting up there in years. And as for the Muslims, he spurned all suggestion of negotiating a surrender or even ceasefire, not that Ahmad or Al-Khorasani would have settled for anything less than Antioch in their euphoria over the smashing success outside Edessa anyway. Despite now being at a disadvantage, the
Augustus Imperator and faithful Duke Andronikos turned back overconfident attempts by the Saracens to advance upon Antioch at the Battles of Souran[17] and Beselatha[18] this year.
The Holy Roman Emperor Aloysius III on a rare break, aged 54 as of 874 but looking at least ten years older due to the stresses of constant warfare, and now also having to cope with the loss of his heir & consequently a looming succession crisis
The Viking onslaught kept on coming throughout 874, as the Sons of Ráðbarðr were not sated by their conquest of Lundéne and eager to sustain the momentum of their offensive before their enemies could catch a breath. Guí II died of his injuries in the early winter months of this year and was duly succeeded by his son Artur IX, who had barely been crowned in the fortress of Camalué[19] and made arrangements with Osbald for his marriage to the latter's niece, Osric's daughter Cynehild (though the wedding itself would have to wait for some time, for she was presently stuck in Bebbanburh) when he was forced to contend with the Norsemen swarming out of his fallen capital. Artur's reign was off to a poor start as the Vikings smashed through the Anglo-British defense at Avongeoíne[20] and then again at Gelleu[21], with his younger brother Guítri (Old Brit.: 'Gwydre') laying down his life to ensure the new
Ríodam would safely escape.
It was then that the Ráðbarðrsons decided to split up so as to gain the most ground possible, not only because they were now confident that their victory was imminent, but also because dissent was swelling in their own ranks and putting pressure on them to do so: their own increasingly impatient warriors wanted to start actually settling & enjoying the fruits of their triumphs. Einarr & Hrafn (and Amleth) went back north to finish off the English while Flóki & Gunnarr remained in the south to crush the Pendragons, and Steinn would continue to guard the seas against the Roman forces marshaling on the continent. The English and British, however, did not split their own forces up in response, for Artur successfully argued that they needed to hold their remaining army together and that their chance of victory would dramatically improve if they concentrated their strength against the divided Viking armies in detail.
A British peasant trying to defend an abbot during a Viking attack on one of their inland monasteries, which unfortunately laid in the path of the Ráðbarðrsons' westward rampage
Artur's wisdom in this matter was proven toward the end of 874, despite additional summertime setbacks in the form of the Viking sack of Guenté[22] and another defeat at Flóki's hand in the Battle of Cornogóui[23], the latter being made all the more painful by the Vikings having the audacity to taunt him with his brother's head on a spear. But as the Norse advanced deeper into the British West Country, threatening to split the Pendragons' Dumnonic possessions away from their last remaining major city of Gloué, the
Ríodam found his chance to turn the tables and seized it with both hands at the Battle of Magne-Sylve[24]. A squadron of British horse-archers, the handful of knights in Pendragon service who had managed to retain their Sarmatian ancestors' tradition of mounted archery, drew the Viking army into attacking his English allies on the edge of these western woodlands. The still-much more numerous Vikings overwhelmed Osbald's shield-wall and killed him, but as they chased the fleeing Englishmen into the forest which gave the battlefield its name, the majority of the British and English troops (now led by Osric & Osbald's younger brother and successor, Oswiu) promptly ambushed them.
Caught out of formation on difficult terrain, the Vikings received their first serious defeat of the campaign here: Gunnarr the Amorous was among the thousand Norsemen killed, making it as far as a forest meadow where he tried and failed to form the men he still had with him up into a shield-wall, and his own severed head was among many others in a sack later brought to Flóki by the only Norse prisoner kept alive (only to be released after first being mutilated) by the vengeful Artur. News of this grisly loss reached Jórvík just in time to spoil Einarr's coronation as King of the Norsemen of Britain there, and unsurprisingly infuriated the remaining Sons of Ráðbarðr beyond reason – Einarr himself would sack Déuarí in his rage after first procuring that isolated city's surrender under the false promise of lenient treatment. While Artur worked to stabilize his new front-line against the Norsemen, one which stretched from the eastern edges of Cambria's mountains to old Dumnonia's border in the south and was anchored at Gloué, Einarr and Amleth marched south to rejoin Flóki and crush the Britons once & for all, leaving Hrafn to set out north with orders to extinguish the last significant center of English resistance at Bebbanburh.
Victorious British & English soldiers of Artur and Oswiu's army prying the raven banner from the soon-to-be cold & dead hands of Ráðbarðr's middle son in a clearing in the Magne-Sylve
Off in the east, Aloysius III began his own new offensive against the Arabs after first bringing additional Balkan reinforcements from over the Bosphorus to strengthen his army, hoping to end this war quickly so as to be able to throw his full strength at the Vikings presently laying waste to Britannia. The Saracens drew them into battle on what they thought would be favorable ground on the River Ufrenus[25], but were caught off-guard by Aloysius' decision to have smaller detachments cross at unguarded fords further up that river from his army's main crossing point, who then emerged to attack Al-Khorasani's flank overland when battle was joined some days later. Further up north, though much of the Georgians' strength might be presently committed to the imperial army, they mustered enough soldiers to launch a destructive incursion into Azerbaijan with help from the Alans and Caucasian Avars, with only Bab al-Abwab[26] managing to hold out against them and eventually having to bribe the besieging army to leave due to the Muslims' over-commitment to the Levantine front leaving them with no spare troops to relieve the city.
The Romans managed to drive the Saracens back over the Euphrates with the ferocity of their initial onslaught, isolating Edessa (which was besieged once more) and also threatening Aleppo and Harran. The former city was captured by treachery, as some of the kin of the Roman collaborators previously executed by Ahmad sabotaged one of its gates for the Romans, who promptly stormed in and sacked the place; Harran meanwhile surrendered without much of a fight yet again, the second time they had done so before Aloysius in this war, which got him to contemptuously deride the Harrani people as cowards in his private notes. Only Edessa's garrison still held out, fearing that Aloysius would kill them all if they yielded. However Al-Khorasani rallied the armies of Islam to finally stop the Roman offensive in the Battle of Balis[27], and after regaining their footing the Saracens made plans to come to Edessa's relief and to definitively drive the Romans out of the territories being contested in this conflict, including the former Ghassanid lands.
The Norse continued their westward attacks on the Anglo-British coalition straight through 875. For his part, Artur understood that the disparity in the numbers between their armies made pitched battle a risky proposition, and that he would be best-off avoiding it unless the Vikings could be brought to battle in favorable conditions (or if he could manufacture those favorable conditions himself) as had been the case with the Battle of Magne-Sylve, and so generally avoided direct confrontation with the vindictive heathens coming for his head. Instead, the
Ríodam relied on his cavalry advantage to harass the advancing Vikings, using the preponderance of small castles and fortified manors dating back to Britannia's days as an independent kingdom surrounded by enemies as bases for this method of warfare and also to further slow the Norsemen – thus buying himself time enough to hold out for help from the mainland.
When the Sons of Ráðbarðr slowly and painfully pushed their way past this network of defenses and the constant back-biting attacks on their armies to reach the western limits of Roman Britain, they further found their path obstructed by natural barriers: the Cambrian Mountains in the north, and the swamps & woodland of Dumnonia in the south which had already proven so problematic for Flóki & Gunnarr. Sheer numbers and grit carried the Norsemen far as they had done before, and for a few short weeks they placed Artur himself under siege in Camalué: but in a smaller-scale recreation of Ørvendil's logistical woes when he invaded Treveria the constant raids on their supply-lines from those British castles they had been unable to conquer on the way, a lack of villages to 'forage' from (their denizens having withdrawn to said castles with their resources well in advance) and the inhospitable terrain of the Dumnonian Levels by which they camped ultimately forced Flóki to withdraw in failure. A similar attack on Gloué by Einarr also faltered before its stout Roman walls on account of its English & British defenders being ready, numerous enough to properly man those defenses, and the lack of a meaningful Pelagian underground community which could sabotage the defenders there as their compatriots had done in Lundéne – Artur had launched a hunt for said Pelagians before the Vikings could arrive, and his soldiers left their burnt corpses tied to stakes outside the city to intimidate the oncoming Norse besiegers.
A skirmish between Norse warriors and dismounted British knights (Bry.: 'cavalier') in the mud & reeds of the Dumnonian Levels
Up north, Hrafn was not having any more luck with sieges than his older siblings, for an outbreak of disease at his camp forced him to withdraw and allowed the English holdouts up there to breathe a little more easily. The 'Witch-King' of Pictland was also back on the warpath this year: the Norsemen of the Isles made some headway further inland and captured Sguin earlier in 875, but they did not get to savor their victory for long before Map Beòthu descended from the highlands with a new army. He launched an audacious night assault on Óttar's army as the Norse were still marshaling to invade his mountain stronghold at Céthramh Mhoire[28], with forward elements of his army approaching the Viking camp wearing coats with branches, grasses and flowers attached, so as to disguise themselves as bushes and small trees until they got close enough to attack the Norse guards at Óttar's palisade with javelins and arrows. Map Beòthu followed up this victory by driving the Norse from Sguin and Pheairt, demonstrating to Óttar that the Picts could not be taken lightly even in the aftermath of a civil war. This trend of reversing Viking fortunes took a more positive turn – with misfortune turning to good fortune for a change, rather than the other way around – in Ireland, where Muiredach attempted to go for the Hiberno-Norsemen's throats after his victories in the past few years and besieged Dyflin but was routed when the defenders unexpectedly mounted a forceful sally against him.
While the war in Britain had become a holding action, the one in the east was fast approaching its climax. As Al-Khorasani needed to raise quite a substantial number of reinforcements to replenish his ranks after the battles of the previous years, the Arabs were unable to move quickly enough to save Edessa from falling back into Roman hands. Roman siege engineering made quicker work of that city's already-damaged defenses than the Saracens had hoped, and since Al-Jannabi did not consider yielding even at the last possible moment (before the Roman ram touched the city gates), the victorious Christians ruthlessly wiped out the Islamic garrison to the last man to avenge the death of their
Caesar. With this last thorn in his rear lines removed, Aloysius could turn and face the Muslims advancing against Aleppo, meeting them for another major battle on a plain near the Arab village of Deir Hafir.
Old Al-Khorasani deployed his army in a very different fashion than at the Battle of Edessa three years prior, strengthening both of his wings (rather than just one) at the expense of his center. He also took advantage of his superior numbers to detach a division under Al-Turani with orders to circle around Aloysius' army entirely, attack their camp and cut off their retreat so that he could hopefully totally annihilate the
Rūmī in this engagement, but Al-Turani's inability to read the map he was given resulted in these men getting lost and eventually deciding to return to camp rather than follow through with their orders. In any case Aloysius deduced that his opponent was most likely attempting a re-run of Cannae and responded by having Andronikos drive a massed offensive wedge comprised of his stoutest legionaries and federate heavy troops through the weak Islamic center even as the cavalry on his own wings seemingly retreated before their counterparts, practically egging the Arabs on to close their trap. When they did just that, he rallied his horsemen to attack the Muslim pincers, effectively encircling the encirclers of his heavy infantry (who were still valiantly holding out despite being under attack from all sides).
The Islamic ranks collapsed in disarray at this development and to the Emperor's delight even Al-Khorasani himself was killed, separated from his bodyguards in the chaos and cut down by a squadron of eager young knights: the old generalissimo fought well in his own defense, but not only was he no longer nearly as spry and deadly as he was in his own youth, but he faced 8:1 odds and his opponents were practically competing for the opportunity to be the one to present his head to Aloysius. However, the Romans' declaration of victory and tossing of the hard discipline which had just seemingly won them the battle so they could go & pillage the Islamic camp was rather premature. Al-Turani's lost division returned in time to witness the Romans sacking their encampment and although the temptation to flee from what appeared to be a crushing defeat must have been great, this last Islamic general standing exhorted them to launch into an attack, snatching victory from the maw of defeat by driving the shocked & confused Romans into retreat. Caliph Ahmad was found far away from his litter, having jumped into a well to avoid being captured or killed by the Romans, and after being fished out of there (and swearing the
ghilman who helped him back up to never speak of this embarrassing episode again) finally received an offer to negotiate terms of truce from Aloysius' camp.
Since this war had been a generally evenly matched back-and-forth, with both sides winning and losing a similar number of battles (and none of these engagements, not even the most significant Roman defeat at Edessa, being crippling blows), Ahmad pursued moderate terms for the Treaty of Aleppo and Aloysius agreed. In exchange for a lump-sum payment of reparations from Kufa for starting the conflict, Aleppo & Harran were returned and the remaining Ghassanid territories were conceded to the power of Islam, including Edessa itself. Though the Romans still controlled these cities at the time, they didn't have the manpower to actually hold any of them for long in the face of a determined Muslim offensive, and both parties knew it.
The Ghassanids and other Christian Arab nobility would be compensated with estates and high office in the Prefecture of the Orient, ultimately integrating into the Constantinopolitan nobility to a great extent much as the exiled Sassanids had. They would also be allowed to bring with them the holy Mandylion (the 'icon not made by hands', a relic in the form of a cloth with the face of Christ imprinted upon it which first came into the possession of Edessa's Christian king Abgar; not to be confused with Jesus' burial shroud, appropriately named the Holy Shroud, or the Veil of Veronica which the eponymous saintess used to wipe the Savior's brow on his road to Calvary), which would be held at Constantinople for safekeeping until and unless Christendom ever retook Edessa. While these gains were not especially grand relative to the cost, Ahmad sold his victory as a great triumph over the Banu Ghassan, who had earned a special and bitter acrimony with their kindred for being the champions of the Arab Christians and one of Rome's primary eastern shields against Islamic expansion; meanwhile, Aloysius had managed to limit his losses in the East, killed the Islamic generals most responsible for Alexander's death, earn some financial compensation for his troubles, and was free to finally get around to delivering Britannia from the fury of the Norsemen.
Following the Treaty of Aleppo, the 'Icon Not Made By Hands' from Edessa joined the ranks of other relics such as the True Cross and the Lance of Longinus which had been 'exiled' from their rightful sanctuaries in the Holy Land, and would serve as one of many motivators for the Romans to fight to retake the eastern lands which they had been slowly but steadily losing to Islam
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[1] Deva Victrix – Chester.
[2] Wakefield.
[3] Bagras, Turkey.
[4] Kilis.
[5] Birecik.
[6] Memphis, Tennessee. Its core is what's now known as Chucalissa, an archaeological site within the T. O. Fuller State Park.
[7] Vectis – the Isle of Wight.
[8] Tanatus – the Isle of Thanet.
[9] Crieff.
[10] Garelochhead.
[11] Lough Ramor.
[12] Camulodunum – Colchester.
[13] The River Little Ouse.
[14] Thetford. This alternate British Romance/Brydany name is comparable to French Belleau ('fair stream').
[15] Fermoy.
[16] Limerick.
[17] Sawran.
[18] Bizaah.
[19] Camalet – Cadbury Castle, Somerset.
[20] Windsor, Berkshire. The name is a Brydany approximation of Old English Windlesora (the origin of the modern name 'Windsor'), 'winch by the river' – 'avon' for river, 'geoíne' being derived from the Latin
ciconia or crane.
[21] Calleva Atrebatum – Silchester.
[22] Venta Belgarum – Winchester.
[23] Durocornovium – Swindon.
[24] Sylva Magna – Selwood Forest.
[25] The Afrin River.
[26] Derbent.
[27] The former Barbalissos near Maskanah, Aleppo.
[28] Kirriemuir.