Chapter XLIV: The Fort Aurelia Massacre

Mid-May to June 13th, 1112

Rebuilding

As Syrenia remained on the precipice of total collapse during the month of May. With chaos in the capital and the west assuming some form of independence in the face of the current threats, Kieselbach remained active in trying to restore the army to some sort of capability. Kieselbach was never a man who truly understood organization or logistics particularly well, but to his credit, he had a gift for picking a capable group of staff officers that would make up for his shortcomings in this regard.

His chief of staff was a Magissan Étranger by the name of Theodore Batatzes. Batatzes was from a distinguished Magissan noble family with a long track record of success in the Despotate. He himself was well educated in the "thinking" aspects of war: such as strategic maneuver, engineering, siege craft, logistics, organization, theory, and staff work. He had immigrated to Syrenia only a few years ago to become an engineer under the great public works campaigns during Pomerlane's revitalization projects but the coming of the war left him jobless. Majorianus, the famous military engineer that was instrumental in the capture of Atalanta, recommended his friend to Cato as a potential member of the General Staff for the Syrenian army. Taking Majorianus's word, he made him an advisor, first to Nero during the Bellona campaign and later placed him amongst his own staff where he proved to be excellent at staff work. He oddly enough struck a friendship up with Kieselbach during the previous year despite their personalities being totally different.

Batatzes was a quiet, unassuming character that preferred to work behind the scenes. He never drank, lived stoically and was a family man. But somehow, the two struck up a mutual friendship despite the cultural and personality differences that largely came from both respecting each other's abilities and some similar interests. Both men loved poetry, literature, and the fine arts; and it was perhaps this common ground that made them such close friends.

Theodore Batatzes, Chief of Staff, Army of Syrenia

In any case, Batatzes was immediately made the Chief of Staff of this "new" army that Kieselbach was creating and was given free reign by his friend to reorganize it how he thought would be best. Batatzes would spend the next two weeks following the Siege of Geminiacum rebuilding and repairing the many issues of the army, along with other men he and Kieselbach selected for the job.

1. Merging of the depleted units into other units and completely overhauled the command structure of the army itself. This included the foundations of what would become known "Corps System", which at the moment was the army being split into 2 Corps that contained 2 Divisions each. Each Corps would only have 8,000 men due to the armies' lack of manpower but ideally, they would have 20 to 30 thousand men each. The principle behind them was the study of Pomerlane's Ingrian Campaign, and the idea was for these corps to be individually combat capable units that could engage on their own terms without the rest of the army. The concept was in its infancy, and would not true use until later in the war.
2. New officers and NCOs were selected from men considered to be the most capable from the army for such work. A good many of them had no training at all for such work, but Kieselbach and Batatzes believed time on campaign would fix this issue.
3. The theoretical creation of a Pioneer Battalion, Logistics Companies, and Field Hospital units for each Corps.
4. The elimination of the baggage train for faster speed of movement and maneuver.
5. Reorganization of the Artillery based on divisional levels with an artillery reserve.

These were just a few ideas that were to be implemented, and some of them could not be implemented for some time. Kieselbach also renamed the army itself to the Army of Syrenia (Not to be confused with the former Army of Syrenia, now the Army of Venusia). But overall, this rebuilding was imperfect, as Kieselbach demoted or outright sacked commanders that he did not get along with personally.

In the end, the First Corps would be commanded by another Étranger, Georgios Maniakes, while Second Corps would be commanded by Lothar-Udo Pomu von Zollistein. The former, is indeed, the current Autokrator of Syndeoneia and his story up to this point is one worth sharing.

Born in 1081 into a smaller Dynatoi family, George was not a man destined for greatness. Indeed, when he was 17, the civil wars that came as a result of the defeat of the Syndeoneians against the Mononobe Shogunate and others during the reign of Philippos III "the Unready" forced him to flee his homeland and take up the life of a soldier of fortune. He would bounce around until joining up with a mercenary captain, Prince Pomernius of Greifswald, who we know as Pomerlane, in 1101 VTE.

He would fight alongside Pomerlane throughout the Syrenian War, evenutally being promoted to regimental commander by its end. During this time, he found a man whom he could truly call his brother, Otto-Pomu von Kieselbach. Ironically, the two started out hating each other's guts and got into a fistfight and later a duel. The duel, however, is where their relationship would change as the two of them fought each other in intense hand-to-hand combat for nearly an hour with swords. Spectators said it was the greatest duel that has ever occurred, with the swordsmanship of both being spectacular. Kieselbach, despite being only 1.65 meters tall, was able to use his finesse and surprising strength to counter the hard blows of the giant of a man that was Maniakes, who tower at 2.10 Meters.

George Maniakes, giant of a man, and further Emperor of Syndeoneia

Around roughly an hour, both men laid down their arms. They both were bleeding from cuts from the other and the mutual anger that both of them fought with for most of the fight had slowly turned into smiles and respect. Hugging each other, the two would go to a tavern that night and drink till the morning. They soon found out shared a lot of similarities in their lives, both having lost their parents during civil wars and had to fight for their survival as mercenaries before finding a cause worth fighting for. They would form a blood oath between each other, whereby they would become sworn blood brothers for life.

As of the current war, Maniakes rose to become a Divisional commander under Cato and at Populonium, rallied some infantry to help Kieselbach form a rear guard. His promotion to the command he got was controversial considering he was not only clearly there because of his friendship, but he was a true outsider, not even from the Empire itself. None of that matter to Kieselbach, however.

Kieselbach strikes back

At the beginning of June, Kieselbach decided that sitting around in Geminiacum was a waste of time. His army had been reorganized as much as it could, and the ever-aggressive man decided to launch his own offense to strike at the Dragoons when they would least expect it. He also believed victory would help rebuild the morale of his army, which despite recovering a good bit thanks to its victory at Geminiacum, was still low. Looking over the map, he quickly picked out a target that would be suitable, a key fort along the road to Arretium known as Fort Aurelia. While it's garrison of 750 men was more than enough of holding it for weeks, Kieselbach correctly assumed that it would be unprepared for a Coup de Main by his army because truthfully, no one would expect the Army of Syrenia to recover or assault such a strong position. Only a fool would throw his army away like that!

Indeed, Kieselbach had made the correct assumption, as when he marched his army to Fort Aurelia on the night of the 10th of June, he caught the fort totally off guard. Just before dawn, Maniakes personally lead 1,000 Grenadiers into a direct assault on the fort. Scaling the battlements, the Grenadiers threw their grenades on the startled garrison and force many to scatter. Within 10 minutes, the entire fort was captured, and the garrison surrendered. The Imperial Army had suffered only 2 killed and 4 wounded in this great coup.

Kieselbach came into the fort to negotiate with a commander and as soon as he shook the man's hand, a sharpshooter fired a shot at him which grazed his hat. Kieselbach, seemingly unphased but now completely enraged, told the commander "Big Mistake" and gave the order to his men to kill every single man in the garrison. A slaughter erupted that lasted an hour, where captured Dragoons were lined up against the wall and shot while others were chased down and bayoneted by the Grenadiers. Those who tried to escape the fort were chased down by cavalry and butchered. When it was all said and done, Kieselbach had killed all but 6 of the garrison. Kieselbach order that the bodies be thrown into a tributary of the Vesta that would ensure they washed up at near Arretium.

Aftermath

The word of this massacre quickly spread, and marked a turning point in the Syrenian theater, which would quickly become much more brutal in part thanks to Kieselbach and some atrocities taken against villagers earlier this year by reckless Dragoon commanders. Regardless of this however, Kieselbach's taking of the fort was more alarming to the Dragoon Commanders than the atrocities. He had severed the road between Trinitas and Arretium with this move and had captured a strong defensive work that he would surely garrison. Magnus was preoccupied with driving the Army of Proserpina back into Eliria and crushing it, feeling this was a greater concern that whatever Kieselbach was doing, so he left it in the hands of his subordinates to take care of.

The day after Kieselbach took Fort Aurelia, a letter came from the new Grand Viceroy, Prince Nicephorus. The letter congratulated and praised Kieselbach for rescuing the army and beating Magnus at Geminiacum, but also informed him that a suitable replacement would be coming to take his place as commander of the army so he could resume a role he was "better suited" for. Kieselbach was infuriated by this letter, not because he didn't want to lose his power but that it insulted his abilities to command an army that he had proven already.

Instead of complying with the letter, he instead sent another letter to Archduke Demetrius and the Empress, in which he detailed that he believed that the Vesta River defense needed to come under one overall commander for the two separate armies. He told them he would only accept replacement as commander by someone he felt worthy of it, which he outright said would be Sigismund Pomeranius, Freiherr von Eppingen. Furthermore, to Demetrius, he advised to him that they both should remain in frequent contact with each other as to coordinate strikes better.

Demetrius received the letter first, and seconded what Kieselbach said because he too was not on good terms with Nicephorus and saw merit in what Kieselbach was saying. He, however, did not believe that Kieselbach should be replaced as a commander because Demetrius was impressed with him personally. He seconded Kieselbach's proposals to the Empress, furthermore, stating that he believed Nicephorus should not have any say on military matters. The Empress would receive both letters in Late June and agreed with her cousin and Kieselbach. She would personally intervene in the matter, stripping her uncle of the any say on military matters and instead giving said powers to Demetrius. It would take a few weeks for this to trickle down to both commanders, before word had reached both of them by Early July. Interestingly enough, the replacement commander sent by Nicephorus was captured by the Dragoons before he could even make it to the army. History has lost his name, unfortunately.

But as all of this intrigue was going on, both Kieselbach and Demetrius were in the midst of their own campaigns along the Vesta Front that would change the situation greatly.