The Relief of Aleppo, 1326
The battered army of the Kaiser pressed on towards Aleppo. They had been informed that the two Byzantine armies besieging the citadel would be working close together and that it would not be possible to attack them at night. Consequently, Elberhard struck the smaller one at day. To his surprise, the larger besieging force did not come to the aid of the smaller army.
The battle was not marked by any tactical subtlety and cost Elberhard a further 150 men.
*****
The Kaiser’s army was near exhaustion by the time it reached Aleppo. There a full, well-balanced Byzantine army was preparing to storm the citadel.
Elberhard sent word to the garrison to prepare to sally, hoping to fix the attention of their besiegers on the citadel rather than the army coming to relieve it.
As usual, the Kaiser led with his crossbowmen in loose order and used his cannon to snipe at the main concentration of enemy heavy troops. The Byzantines sent their Vardariotai and then their foot archers to duel with the Germans.
Elberhard used his surviving heavy cavalry – his own escort – to run down the enemy foot archers.
Amid the slaughter, it seemed to Elberhard as if the sky became red and everything he saw on the battlefield became tinged with an unearthly pink hue. [OOC: My computer started to overheat and the colour went whacky – the screenshots were unaffected.] It was as if the Kaiser had entered a ethereal dimension, where the dust, the noise and the grime of battle disappeared making the lethal combat appear unreal and dreamlike. In truth, it was less a battle and more a slaughter. Exhausted and dehydrated, Elberhard’s trance like state insulated him from the reality of the carnage.
The battle turned decisively in the Germans’ favour when the enemy general – a Vardariotai captain – was shot down during the missile duel.
As before, with the Guard Army, the loss of their general fatally weakened the fighting spirit of the Byzantines. Even when their heavy regiments attacked the German line, they quickly lost heart and were repulsed.
Yet the sheer number of Byzantines on the field denied the Germans a quick victory. Elberhard was reluctant to commit his already mauled army to another massive melee. Instead, he continued cutting at the enemy with his archers and cavalry, reducing it as if slicing a salami – Byzantine regiment by Byzantine regiment.
Once the killing finally stopped, Elberhard entered Aleppo, to be feted by its beleaguered defenders.
Afterwards, he sat down and added up his losses. He had set out with a grand army of 1472 to rescue 134 men, trapped in Aleppo. Over the course of three battles, he had lost 694 men – almost half of his army. Moreover, these casualties included almost all his heavy cavalry and his regiment of elephants. The enemy had lost 3417 men – almost five times what the Reich had suffered.
“Will it be enough to save Matthias and Outremer?” Elberhard asked his retinue.
Sir Charles de Villiers shrugged: “We have at least given him a fighting chance, Sire. I will contact my people and arrange for English crusader knights to take over the defence of Aleppo.”
Elberhard nodded and fell back into a chair exhausted, his mind wandering south towards Jersualem where the young Count von Kassel was marching to challenge the Pontiff.
Re: Battle reports thread - King of the Romans PBM
