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The Battle of Trent

Background:

The year is 1380, three centuries to the day after Kaiser Heinrich opened the Imperial Diet. Cooperation between the Kaiser and the Diet dominated that session, with compromise and mutual agreements being common. Now, on the fields outside of Trent, the two forces, having slowly grown apart over the years and generations, would finally come to a head in an all-out battle for supremacy in the Holy Roman Empire. They were past words, they were past compromises, they were past legislation. By the end of the day only one faction would remain standing, and that faction would be dominant until the day the Reich fell.

Shortly after Chancellor Fritz von Kastilien prematurely closed the offensive season in 1378, a gradual exodus took place. Every significant general in the Reich, with a few exceptions, packed up their army and departed the front, making their way to what they assumed would be the meeting point for their like-minded comrades. Nobody was certain of the exact place where these forces would clash, but everyone had a general idea.

Swabia, so torn apart by its civil war during the Cataclysm and only recently recovered, saw its commanders abandoning its fronts to join different sides. Hugo de Cervole, the renegade Frenchman, was on an excursion to the French part of Iberia when the call came out to join the Republicans. He immediately turned around, picked up some forces in his recently-conquered castles, and made his way to Northern Italy through the south of France. Ehrhart Ruppel, ruler of Swabia in all but title, was farther north when he decided to fight for the Imperials. He went east, then angled south through friendly Franconia, crossing the Alps like so many other Imperials. The Imperial forces that Ruppel did not grab went to Swabia’s Duke, Athalwolf von Salza, who departed Nuremburg, picked them up, and then backtracked. Ludwig von Bohmen, longtime Count of Bruges, abandoned his quest to reclaim the city from French hands, and, commanding a group of his soldiers and some loyal Flemish Pikemen, marched in a roundabout route to join the Republicans. Only Welf von Luxemburg remained in the area to continue the war against the French, and that was more than most Houses had.

Austria experienced a similar split, although it was slightly in favor of the Republicans much like Swabia was slightly in favor of the Imperials, no doubt due to Duke Arnold’s iron rule over his House and his association with the Illuminati. As soon as the Illuminati declaration surfaced, Arnold summoned the best of Austria’s armies to Vienna, making declared Imperialist Maximillian Zirn turn around and march towards the center of the Reich (along with the Imperialist troops in Vienna that escaped Arnold’s wrath). The Dread Duke then took the road south. The other Zirn brother, Jan, declared for the Republicans and met up with Arnold east of Zagreb, leading what forces he could scrounge up. Meanwhile, the Imperialist and would-be Duke Maximillian von Hapsburg summoned all forces that did not go with Arnold and Jan to his aid and trailed the Republicans, retreating through the Alps when he realized he was outnumbered. The final Austrian, Edmund Becker, simply jammed his hands in his ears, sang loudly to himself, pretended none of this was happening, and prepared to fight, as usual, for Prague, staying out of the war.

Franconia, housing both of the von Kastilien brothers, went almost entirely with the Imperialists. The only neutral was Prinz Dieter von Kassel, who, keeping with his policy of staying out of politics, decided to remain in the north and continue the fight against the Russians. Nobody sided with the Republicans. Duke Dieter Bresch and his longtime comrade Tancred von Tyrolia, finally having some reason to be urgent, sallied out of Magdeburg, beat off the Russians, and promptly marched south, calling all loyal Franconians to come under his banner along the way. Chancellor Fritz von Kastilien, one of the Illuminati’s two primary antagonists, had a more difficult time getting south. He sailed from Stockholm to Arhus, picking up the elite men in his army there, and marched down the Jutland. Realizing he needed more forces, Fritz once again used his power over mercenaries, promising them access to the vast treasures of Bavaria and Austria if they fought for him. Naturally, they flocked to him in droves. Finally satisfied with his army composition, Fritz continued his trek.

Having always been the polar opposite of Franconia, Bavaria sided in force with the Illuminati and Republicans, mainly because there were no dissenters. Kaiser Péter von Kastilien, the only Imperialist in the area, realized he was outnumbered and in enemy territory and fled north, taking the few loyal Bavarian soldiers with him. Duke Lothar Steffen, Voice of the Illuminati, spearheaded a massive recruitment campaign, asking war-torn Italy to assist him in this time of need, one last time. Lothar’s sons Bernhard and Wenzel raced to Innsbruck, securing the crucial citadel before Péter arrived. They began to recruit troops in mass quantities there when it became clear that Italy could not deliver, Bernhard taking some of them back to Italy. Herrmann Steffen headed south and picked up the few troops that came from Naples and Sicily. The only Bavarian not involved in the recruitment drive was Fredericus Erlach, who was on an extended vacation, enjoying the beaches of the Mediterranean. Explicitly demanding total privacy and seclusion, he did not even know that the Reich burned around him.

Far away in Outremer, Matthias Steffen finally departed the desert, assembling a massive flotilla to carry him and his best Crusaders to Europe. He had convinced them that the position of Kaiser was inherently corrupt and that a Republic would allow all men a voice, something that resonated with many of them, being former dregs of society before they had taken up the Cross. The largeness of the fleet was not necessary, but Matthias wanted each ship to be as light and fast as possible. Doing that required spreading the men out. He departed with his army, in 1378, hoping to not just match but break the time it took his former King Jan von Hamburg to return to Europe. Back in friendly territory, Péter von Kastilien used his power as Kaiser to call all Imperial Knights to assemble under his banner. A great many heeded his call, and the fact that the few who did not answer to him were sparse and spread out among the Electors greatly increased his chances of winning.

So it was at the dawn of 1380 that the two great forces assembled on opposite sides of the Alps – Imperialists north, Republicans south. Fritz von Kastilien and Matthias Steffen were still lagging behind, but both sides would wait no longer. Too much had been exchanged. Both sides were too eager to continue to delay. Thus, in the spring of that year both sides moved. The armies of the Kaiser took the Brenner Pass south, and the men of the Republic crossed the Po River.

The two forces would eventually converge outside of Trent, the town where Alexander Luther had spent his remaining years after his departure from the Diet of 1340. It was here that the fate of the Empire would be decided, whether it was to stay as an Empire or become the Holy Roman Republic.

Retreat would not be an option, which added to the desperation of the situation. If the Imperialists were to fall back, they would have to march through the Brenner Pass once again, except this time Wenzel Steffen would be waiting for them with the remainder of troops from Innsbruck. Sandwiched between two armies in a narrow area, there would be no chance of survival. The situation for the Republicans was just as grim. If they had to retreat, they would be pinned against the Po and be destroyed in detail. It was the simplest task any of these men were ever faced with: Break through or die.

And so, three hundred years to the day after Heinrich opened the 1080 Diet, the Electors of the Reich assembled once again; not to legislate, but to do battle. The Battle of Trent had begun.