1600 – Something: When the Smoke Cleared

Back with the 1600 – Something campaign, you might recall that a defeated Muscovite army withdrew from Estonia to Latvia. The Latvians, given a failed Muscovite GOOS roll, were not too impressed with this and local forces rallied to see off the threat. You might wonder why the Muscovite army went that way, but this was because there was not really room inland from Estonia for another army, as a withdrawal to Novgorod would force the Muscovite army there into garrison. And anyway, the Muscovites still harboured ambitions for a port on the Baltic.

The Latvians, therefore, as a local force, drew randomly from the German Minor States list. They got four cavalry bases, four pike bases, three shot, and one light horse base. The Muscovites, given the casualties last time, had reverted to a wholly Muscovite list, consisting of six cavalry bases, two streltsi shot, two Cossack light horse bases, and an urban Cossack pike and shot base.

The terrain really did favour the Latvians, with a nice hill within their deployment area to put the infantry on, and plenty of terrain on their side of the table to make life difficult for the Muscovite cavalry. After some consideration, the latter decided to mask the Latvian right and centre with some cavalry and the infantry, and to try to overwhelm the Latvian left with light horse and cavalry.

Not much happened in the early part of the battle. The Latvians were reluctant to move off the relative safety of their hills, and so the Muscovites had to slog across the field to get at them. You can see in the foreground the Muscovite right hook getting into position. Lurking behind the trees on the left is the Muscovite general and some more of the cavalry, who are hoping to strike the Latvians centre-left when the Muscovite right has done its job.

As you can see above, an extensive firefight has started in the centre, and it is not proceeding to the Muscovite advantage. You can also see there is a fair bit of smoke drifting about, as I am using the rules piloted in the previous battle. The wind speed is 3, which is fairly light, and it is blowing from the camera side of the field. I am now thinking of adding some weather rules, but I’ll need some which are appropriate to different regions of the world.

The action proceeded with a lot more smoke hanging around. The firefight continued to go in favour of the Latvians. One base of Streltsi has already been routed, two more are shaken and stranded in front of the Latvian infantry. The Cossack pikes were left to their own devices and attacked the Latvians on the hill, only to be routed by the latter’s pike. In the foreground, the Muscovites are working on their cavalry traffic jam, hoping to get a charge in on the Latvian left.

Continued good shooting from the Latvians has seen off another base of streltsi, and the Cossack shot are rocking as well. In the foreground, the Muscovite general has charged with his cavalry up the hill. The Latvian shot have been driven back shaken, but, after initial success against the pike, the Muscovite cavalry has been driven back down the hill. The Muscovite general survived this (a first, I think, in the campaign), but the morale check caused by the fleeing foot has caused the Muscovite army to waver.

The end came fairly quickly. The Latvian shot, peering through the gun smoke, saw off another Muscovite foot. The Latvian pike on the hill, commanded by the general, advanced down the slope to rout the shaken Muscovite cavalry they had just recoiled, while the left wing Latvian cavalry advanced into the wavering Cossack light horse and routed them as well. A Muscovite success was routing the Latvian shot on the hill.

The constant stream of losses had sapped Muscovite morale, although a good roll (considering the initial score was minus 2) meant that they ‘only’ went to withdraw status. Conversely, a poor Latvian score meant that they wavered. The Muscovite general, incidentally, survived the rout of his cavalry base.

However intact, the Muscovites only have five bases left from the initial twelve, and so retreat is the only option. The Latvians managed to hold out, with the loss of a single base. I will have to work out what the Muscovite army does next. At present, I think disbanding it is favourite, as I do not think the Muscovites have the money to repair it, and there is not really anywhere to move it to to recuperate.

That was an interesting action, I think. The Latvian defensive position was always going to be a tough nut to crack for a cavalry army, and the Muscovites nearly made it work. A slightly better roll on the uphill cavalry attack on the Latvian main position could have given them the upper hand. On the other hand, their infantry was simply shot to pieces by the Latvians. This was just good dice rolling rather than anything else. As it turned out, the Latvians could have put their second pike block on the hill as well, and then the Muscovite attack would probably have failed more quickly. As it was, neither the Muscovite left, nor the Latvian right got into action.

So, in spite of their best efforts, and the help of dastardly French diplomacy, the Muscovites have, for the moment, failed to get to the Baltic coast. Mind you, they do have a fleet on the northern coast, but that is a bit hampered by lack of support, and being a Swedish unit that defected. It may have to disband, and Muscovite strategy might need reorienting away from the Baltic towards the south. We shall see.

Next along, I think, we have the Ottomans taking on the Austrians in Bosnia, at the behest of the Venetians. As I have just had two distinct defensive victories, some rooting for the offence might be needed. We shall see.

Lightest Africa Again

In the chapter on conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Seventeenth Century, Jeremy Black observes that there were three types of conflict. The first was between African states themselves, the second between European actors and native Africans, and the third between Europeans (The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: Renaissance to Revolution, p. 42). The dynamic powers, he observes, were African. Colonialism had not really got started by 1600.

The planned expansion of the 1600 – Something campaign to Africa has reached the South-West of the continent. The activity here was mainly Portuguese. The margin by which European technology – muskets – outclassed native weaponry was not great. The Musketeers were hampered by a slow rate of fire, and I read somewhere that the Africans learnt to throw themselves flat as the firearms were discharged, scrambling up and charging before the Europeans could reload.

For my pains I have been reading John K. Thornton’s The Art of War in Angola, 1575-1680 (Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30(2), 360–378, (1988).) As with much modern military history, it is of perhaps limited use to the wargamer. In a similar way, I am afraid, Thornton’s book on warfare in Atlantic Africa was only of limited use. There are reasons for this which I have discussed elsewhere (p. 168 – 170 of that book), so I will not repeat myself here. But there are some interesting takeaways, at least for my purposes.

Firstly, there were no cavalry available in central Africa. The climate is just not suitable for them, and even though the Portuguese tried to introduce them, they never got above about a dozen mounted men. These might have been useful for scouting, but could get overwhelmed by the scouts of the other side. So, in general, cavalry were not used.

Secondly, at least for Angola, the DBR army lists seem to be in error. Thornton argues that the normal Portuguese army in Angola consisted of European officers and generals, and mostly African troops. The DBR list (III.1) lists 10 – 48 Portuguese foot, and 6 – 12 Africa slave or Arab infantry. This seems to be incorrect, although the West African Forest Peoples list (III.7) does allow Portuguese allies. This is probably more accurate for ‘Portuguese’ armies.

A consequence of the lack of horses was, of course, that the pack animals became humans. Given that the land was fairly sparsely occupied, armies had limited opportunities to forage, and so had to carry more or less everything they needed, in terms of food, with them. Hence armies had large quantities of porters and camp followers. Thornton suggests a rule of thumb should be one and a half camp followers per soldier. This limited the maximum size of armies to 10 – 15,000, although these were regarded as handy armies in Europe at the time, I believe.

The impact of the musket was limited. As noted above, the slow rate of fire was a problem. So, too, was the habit of Angolans to fight in fairly dispersed formations. They did use arrows, but saw no need to close up as European armies did. The latter fought in close order units, of course, because they did have to face cavalry. The Angolans, not having this problem, fought in a much more open formation. Thornton notes, along the way, that opponents tend to overestimate the size of armies which are dispersed. The units, after all, fill more space per man than expected.

The Angolans did not use much in the way of fortification. After all, if your opponent was going to starve in a few days anyway, you only had to delay him for that length of time, and they would be forced to go away. Thornton notes that the local defences resembled the earthworks, ditches, and low walls that Europeans had developed painfully from the later Fifteenth Century. Given the logistical and manpower limitations, and the infrequency of fortifications, artillery was not widely used.

The Portuguese, it seems, largely adapted themselves to Angolan styles of warfare, rather than the other way around. The Portuguese infantry did have some advantages in weaponry, swords and armour, although it made them rather slower than their opponents. The Angolans too had heavier infantry, and used them as a reserve, which could win or lose the battle. The Portuguese adopted similar tactics. These reserves were used when the lighter infantry ran away, which they often did. After all, the threat of pursuit was much less in a cavalry-free battle environment, and so breaking formations (especially when they were looser already) had a much lower penalty than it did in Europe.

This ability to run away also made the baggage train more important, incidentally. The protection and capture of baggage was an important consideration on the battlefield. After all, many of the troops’ families could be found there, and so it was an important morale consideration, if nothing else. On the other hand, given the propensity to run away, decisive victories were hard to obtain, as the defeated army would simply reform a few days later and menace the victors.

Overall, I think Angolan forces will fit quite well into the campaign. The Portuguese tried for decades to subdue them, largely unsuccessfully. Conquest had to wait until the Nineteenth Century. In fact, the Portuguese conformed largely to local tactics and conditions, and used African troops extensively. One force in 1585 consisted of 300 Portuguese and 9000 Africans. The parallels to the Spanish conquest of Mexico are few. The Portuguese did not have the same technological edge as the Conquistadores, nor did they arrive at a critical time in the politics of the regions as the Spanish did.

African polities were quite capable, in the time period of interest, of resisting, allying with and using European forces and arms. The Portuguese were not always successful against African forces, and the situations on the ground were often complex, with assorted native polities, mutually hostile, who were quite capable of manipulating the situation to their advantage. In this sense, of course, the parallels with Central America are more distinct. As there, we have to let the native have their agency.

Rounding Up The Stragglers

There are a few outstanding things to report here, and I shall start with the painting status.

The above shows the Japanese forces, now all painted and almost all based. There are six foot Samurai bases, four ashigaru with yari, two shot and one bow ashigaru base, and two Samurai cavalry. Those of you who have good memories and like that sort of thing might immediately smell a rat: were there not five ashigaru with yari bases?

You are correct, there are. Unfortunately, I messed up the basing of one of the said bases, and it will have to await the next batch. This sort of thing happens from time to time, I suppose. Anyway, the above nearly doubles the available Japanese forces, from about one-and-a-half armies to three. Thereabouts. It will be useful if either the Japanese decide to invade Korea, or if they fall apart into civil war. Both are possibilities in 1600 – Something.

Another development is that I have finally finished my measuring sticks, as shown above. The one on the left is a base width wide; the one on the right is a half base width. Both extend to the putative new range of heavy cannon in the rules, and the first three base widths of the measure are divided into half-base widths. As the Estimable Mrs P observed when she saw them: ‘Much neater than your handwriting…’.

I have found that the thinner one is handier for the actual games, as the other can knock things around a bit more easily. They both have a bit of a tendency to bow, which is OK. You could argue that they are not that accurate, and I would agree. The lines are hand-painted and a bit wobbly. But then, I do not really do millimetrics and working out exact distances and angles. I am more in the ‘if it looks and feels right, do it’ sort of camp. The other issue is that I could have scored the plastic card to make things a bit more precise, but decided not to, as it would make the measuring sticks more likely to snap.

A few other things have come to pass rule-wise. I mentioned the new smoke rules last time, and they are imported from the naval rules. I have also mentioned the new artillery rules, including longer and shorter ranges. The motivator for this was a recent battle in Burgundy where Spanish artillery, trained on an open field, managed to rout some French infantry single-handedly. At one level, that was fine. After all, I do recall Bicocca and the mess French guns made of Spanish cavalry at that one, but it did seem a little extreme. So the artillery has been downgraded a little, while the ranges have been adjusted. Not that it has made much difference yet.

That brings me to another thing I have been pondering over the last few weeks, relating to both the tabletop and the campaign rules. I keep tinkering with them, and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. On the other hand, I do feel a little guilty that, for example, the introduction of some fairly swingeing financial rules a few game years ago has really, totally and utterly crippled Sweden as a power. Is that fair? Should I have, say, set all debts to zero at the end of that year and proceeded from there?

I do, of course, invoke guideline 1 from that book, which is, essentially, if it happened and you think it was wrong, do not go back and redo it, for that way madness lies. Thus the Swedes are facing recurring bouts of rebellion and the loss of their budding Baltic Empire. That seems fair enough, and, indeed, agrees roughly with the historical record. But I do feel a little guilty sometimes that the financial rules were retrofitted, and I had not worked out the implications of going into debt before the Swedes plunged headlong into unaffordable wars.

The issue is a little more acute with the expansion of the game to cover the Far East and now Africa. For example, in the original Euro-centric campaign, the Spanish got an extra D6 money per year to cover income from the Empire, both the Spanish and Portuguese. The expansion to the Far East made no difference to that, as I did not model the Portuguese Empire. But now, with Africa and the Americas added, it is starting to look a bit odd. The two sea-borne empires are, on paper, wealthy, having large geographical holdings for the Spanish and great trading holdings for the Portuguese. So, should I remove the Spanish extra money per year?

At present I have not decided, and I will see how things go. At present the Spanish are unlikely to go bankrupt, as they did in real life, but that seems to be because they are holding on to a major empire in Europe on a really very small group of armed forces – three armies, two artillery trains and a fleet. The Empires will have to figure out how to remit money to the metropolitan capital as well, which entails having a suitable fleet (which they can do) and an unbroken chain of bases for re-victualling and repairs. Actually, thinking about it, the situation is not unlike the coaling stations of steamships.

The advent of empires has necessitated another slight rule change. Fleets started out as just fleets. In my head they were galleys in the Mediterranean, and galleons elsewhere. However, I have realised that there is a big difference between an ocean-going galleon and a home-defence galleon. This relates to the victualling issue raised above. Until the 1650s or thereabouts, for example, most English warships did not have the range to go far from their home bases, and the ability to receive supply at sea was limited. So the fleets of empire tended to be different – hence the ‘East Indiamen’ of the period. So now I need another fleet type, the ocean-going galleon. That, at least, is reasonably easy to implement, as only the Spanish and Portuguese have them at the moment, although the Dutch are starting to build such an object.

1600 – Something: Obscured by Clouds

And so, westwards in the Summer 1606 move, to another Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. After the last round of hostilities here, both sides have deployed field armies, and so it was two standard lists that encountered each other. The is three Ottoman light cavalry bases, five cavalry, two janissaries, and two militia bases. These faced two light cavalry, six cavalry, three shot, and a militia base.

For this game, I tried a little experiment. In the naval rules, as you might have spotted in the last game for Spring, there was a lot of smoke generated. This was inspired by historical accounts of naval battles in the Anglo-Dutch wars, where the sky is reported to have turned grey. Indeed, if you look at some of the artwork of the period, you will find that the skies are indeed grey, and it is not just an artistic conceit. The sheer number of cannon fired made for lots of smoke.

Anyway, after the success of the smoke reducing visibility at sea, I thought it was time to consider it on land. After all, 500 muskets going off at more or less the same time do make a lot of smoke. So a temporary rule was introduced that the smoke I use to keep track of who has fired this turn will linger unless a roll is made under the wind force number. I also added (which should probably be in the naval rules as well) that un-dispersed smoke will drift downwind.

The terrain rolling favoured the Ottomans, who are to the left above, sitting, mostly, behind a stream. Their light cavalry is deployed forward of it, just to make a nuisance of themselves. The Persians have put their infantry in the centre, with the militia, mindful of the Ottoman light cavalry, by the baggage. The Persian lights are on their right, hoping to make a gap somewhere for the heavier cavalry to pass through.

The Persians tried, shall we say. They got their shot in over the central hill and are firefighting the janissaries. Unfortunately, they were also taking pot shots at the Ottoman militia in the rough ground, and so did not focus their superior firepower against the Ottoman shot. On the Persian left, their cavalry has been held up and disrupted by the Ottoman light cavalry. On the far side, the Persian and Ottoman light cavalry are having a go at each other, but the Persian heavies are refusing to cross the stream.

The Persians were having to be cautious. The Ottoman heavy cavalry on both flanks is lurking within a charge move of the banks of the stream, so any attempt to cross is likely to be met by a downhill charge, which will, in all likelihood, destroy the Persians. The best hope was on the Persian right where the light cavalry could cover the heavies, and the Persian reserve and general headed that way.

This, however, took quite a long time, and the situation was not much better than it was when the general set off. The Persian cavalry was still refusing to cross the stream. Meanwhile in the centre the Persian shot had managed to drive back a base of janissaries but was not going to attempt to cross the stream without some cavalry support, which had just arrived on the right.

At this point some strategic considerations began to emerge. The engaged forces were the only field armies for both sides for quite a number of provinces. Neither side could really afford to lose the army, as then only local forces would be available to prevent an invasion. This might be adequate, but it might not, and neither side wished to risk it, particularly. Secondly, the Persians had never been sure they could force the crossing of the stream. With their cavalry advantage, they would have preferred more open terrain. Additionally, they could possibly have used their militia base on the front line to assault across the stream.

As for the Ottomans, they were on the defensive anyway, and the same considerations applied to them about crossing the stream. Light cavalry, of course, are not disrupted, but their light cavalry were stretched enough on the wings. They were also losing the firefight in the centre, partly because the smoke kept blowing in their faces, rendering their shooting a little less effective.

At this point, and with these considerations, the Persian commander gave the order to withdraw from the combat. The risks of crossing the stream outweighed the potential that could arise from it. While the firefight was going in their favour, the Persians could not see how to exploit it, especially having committed the reserve cavalry and general to the right.

While this was not, perhaps, the most exciting game in the world, it was, nevertheless, interesting. The tactical problem of how to cross an obstacle in the face of determined opposition is always a thorny one, and the Persians did not have an answer this time. The aim was to outflank the Ottomans on the Persian right, but the timing of that did not work out. They might have done better to have retained the general and reserve cavalry in the centre and tried to exploit the advantage they had gained there, but it was only marginal, and losing cavalry to militia might have been deemed embarrassing.

So, both sides live to fight again, and I dare say they will. The rule change seemed to work quite nicely, with a -1 to shooting factors for firing through smoke. Even though the wind was strong, the smoke still hampered the firefight. While I cannot think, offhand of too many incidents where smoke caused problems for combat, it must have been a bit of an issue, especially in those European actions where there were a lot of muskets and cannons. I do recall an incident at Basing House where a regiment of foot was loomed at out of the smoke and opened fire, only to find the loomers were on their own side.

Still, next up is the accidental Muscovite invasion of Latvia. All I have to do is work out a Latvian army list for 1606….

The Meaning of the Campaign

Thinking philosophically about wargaming, or bout a wargame campaign, is probably a bad idea. After all, wargaming is a hobby. And some rather unhelpful non-questions can be thrown up, but such reflections, some of which I have considered here in the dim and distant past. Examples would include ‘does wargaming indicate a condoning of violence?’ The answer to that one is a fairly straightforward ‘no’. There are more difficult questions, of course, such as ‘does the depiction in this or that role-playing game of the nation state suggest fascism?’ The answer to that one is ‘possibly’. But I am not really trying to pursue such questions here.

What has been slightly puzzling me over the last week or so is the thought that my campaign might actually represent, for me, part of my world-view, albeit reduced to something which can be comprehensibly wargamed. I suppose I need to elicit the campaign system a little bit, and also a bit of the background to why I made the choices I did.

First of all, the background. The idea of wargaming a whole world (this one) has been with me for a while. When I started solo wargaming, there was a penchant for imaginary worlds, peopled in various ways, like Tony Bath’s Hyboria campaign. Wider reading, such as Parker’s The Military Revolution, indicated that the early modern period was the first in which the various bits of the world really started to interact with each other. The 1618-Something email campaign was an outworking of this, inspired by the DBR army list books which covered the world (or much of it, at least).

I suppose you could say that the various campaigns I have run, more or less successfully, and journaled here as blog posts, have been practice for 1600 – Something, the big one. Quite likely. Ideas that have been around for years have linked up with fairly new ones to form some sort of fairly open, flexible, practical and interesting method of dealing with large numbers of actors, at a level of detail (or lack of it) which keeps things moving and keeps wargames flowing. The latest of these, incidentally, the Wars of Stuart Succession, has just been published in Lone Warrior. 232.

Underlying the system is a good deal of randomness. Each power, each turn, attempts to make an initiative roll. They manage it or not. Those that make it then draw a card which indicates the activity – raise or move a force, engage in diplomacy, or subvert someone. Across the mass of actors, this can lead to quite a variation in action, and each has to be considered as to what would be best or most likely for the actor in question. Occasionally this is clear, but mostly a list of options can be made and the decision established by a dice roll, possibly a bit like matrix games.

Other dice rolls, such as GOOS rolls or diplomacy rolls, decide on the outcomes of the actions. Hence, a list of wargames is drawn up, which are resolved on the table. The results of that- financial, in terms of armies and territory lost and prestige gained (or not), then feed into the next turn of the campaign. Random events, such as rebellions, disaster, or a few good things, mix things up a bit, as do some of the more raucous elements of the world of the early Seventeenth Century, such as the Mongols and Circassians.

Does this mean, then, that I see the world as essentially random, with no one, no potentate of 1600 or so, as really in charge of anything? Is that an expression of my political (with a small ‘p’, please) views of today? Anything is possible, I agree, and I might not be the best person to assess my motives, but the answers are, I think, ‘yes’ to the first question, and ‘no’ to the second.

The final influence on the game is possibly Parker’s book, Global Crisis. The thesis of this wide-ranging book is, as I recall, that Seventeenth Century rulers put far more store in their ambitions and ‘honour’ than they did in the well-being of their people, even in the face of environmental catastrophes, such as crop failure and plague. The rulers of Germany, for example, continued to make war even though their polities were depopulating. Spain kept fighting even though the country was financially exhausted. Sweden kept going in spite of the fact that the country was more-or-less depopulated, so much so that agriculture could barely continue. And so on.

I suppose that my campaign is in part a reaction to this, and an acceptance of it. The reaction is that my actors have small armies, and the conceit is that these do not really affect the local populations. The acceptance comes because the armies, or at least their victories and losses, can cause problems to the home nation in terms of bankruptcy and rebellion. In the game, Sweden is facing waves of rebellion because of huge (relatively) debts. Cambodia ceased to exist because of debt and battlefield losses. The actions of leaders had consequences for their nations, usually bad ones.

I am not sure, having tried to write this down, that it amounts to a ‘philosophy’ in any way, shape, or form. It does, perhaps, amount to a view of history, which suggests that most people simply want to get on with their lives in a relatively stable context, and that leaders only make things worse. On the other hand, I have, in the expansion to Asia, Africa and the Americas, tried to give these political actors agency. That, too, is a historical and possibly politically philosophical act. The Africans (etc.) were not simply quietly waiting for the Europeans to come and conquer them in the next two hundred years or so.

I suppose that there is not a single driver for the way the campaign has been created. I wanted a system that would generate wargames, and it has achieved that goal. What underlies that is a matter for some debate, but I have tried briefly to outline some of the influences, even if they do not amount to anything cohesive. But the foregoing may at least ask a question: do our wargames reflect our own personal thinking, or that of our society or culture in any way? Answers in the comments, please…. 

Lightest Africa

In order to expand the 1600 – Something campaign to include Africa, I am having to do some digging. First of all, of course, I need an atlas (which I can manage) and the DBR army lists. The African lists are contained in volume three of the lists, published, it would seem, in August 1997. Thus armed, I started to establish some of the players in Africa at the time, and started to encounter problems.

The first issue is that, actually, very little is known about most of Africa in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century. There are hints, and a fair bit of stuff in the journals and accounts of mostly Portuguese travellers. But the Portuguese were not Africans, and they imposed their own views, worldviews, and prejudices on what they saw.

So, we have a problem of Eurocentrism. This is not unexpected, but, as a wargamer, it is a pain. We know a bit about what was happening on the coasts of some parts of Africa, but as to what was going on internally, we have little clue. The heritage from colonial Africa does not help at all, by the way. A lot of names have been changed (or, I suppose, changed back). The old political units of Africa have been roundly destroyed, some as late as the 1880s (or even beyond). And colonialism generally had the view that Africans could not govern themselves, which is patently untrue.

A case in point might be the rather mysterious ‘Zimba’ in list 8, East African Pagan. Just as an aside, the list covers more or less the whole of East Africa, at least away from the coasts. In the notes for the list, the Zimba are described as expanding from the rolling grasslands of the interior to the coastal plain and terrorising the inhabitants by their ferocity and cannibalism. They sound promising as a wargame army, but where, in fact, did they live and, perhaps more usefully, who were they?

The description continues with a brief account of the siege of Mombasa, where the Portuguese fought, and fought off, an expedition from the Ottoman Empire. ‘Hang on, a moment,’ I can hear you cry. ‘I thought we were dealing with East Africa, what is now Kenya. What has that got to do with the Ottomans?’ A good question.

Fortunately, the good old internet (which had hardly got started in 1997, of course) came up with this paper: Global Politics in the 1580s: One Canal, Twenty Thousand Cannibals, and an Ottoman Plot to Rule the World. Cracking title, I am sure you would agree, from Giancarlo Casale, in the Journal of World History, volume 18, number 3, 2007. But you might be forgiven for wondering what on earth was going on.

Well, the paper is available for free on Academia.edu; you are quite free to read it and decide for yourself. My own takeaways from it are, firstly, that the influence of the Ottoman Empire in the Indian Ocean was a lot more extensive than I thought. Apparently, Ottoman troops fought in the Far East (in Aceh, on the northern end of Sumatra, so far as I can tell). There was also a great deal of rivalry between the Mughals and Ottomans, particularly over the route to Mecca, the protection of the Holy Cities and the distribution of alms there. The Ottomans were also engaged in a protracted war with the Persians, and extricating themselves from the war with Spain, although not with Portugal. As a note to that last comment, of course, in 1579 Phillip II of Spain took over Portugal and its Empire. The Ottomans wanted a free hand in the Indian Ocean, so did not want to promise not to attack the Portuguese.

If you are still with me, some Ottoman officials in Yemen and Egypt sort of conspired to try to divert resources to the Indian Ocean, including suggesting building a canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Part of this was launching a raid on Mombasa in 1588 (an interesting date for Armadas, of course). The Portuguese responded by sending an expedition from Goa. The Ottoman force was welcomed by the Mombasans, and set up a defensive position with plenty of artillery and the galliots defending the harbour. This could be unbeatable, even given the numerical disparity.

However, the Ottoman position was undermined by the appearance of twenty thousand Zimba cannibals on the shore, which split the Ottoman forces. The Portuguese, when they arrived, overwhelmed the seaward-facing fortifications, while the Ottomans fought off the Zimba. The Ottomans surrendered to the Portuguese, and the Zimba crossed, terrifying the inhabitants and causing mass panic as the Portuguese only managed to save a few. The rest, including women and children, seem to have been butchered.

Casale interrogates the accounts of the action which we have, and dismisses quite a few aspects, including the idea that it was fanciful or made up, that the Zimba were really cannibals, and noting that the Portuguese chronicler might well have inflated the account to show that they, too, fought the infidel. But the point of interest here is to ask who, exactly, were these twenty-thousand Zimba?

Unfortunately, we cannot tell, and Casale does not probe too deeply. Were they a mercenary army brought from the Zambezi? Or a migrating band of Maravi warriors moving north, having been disrupted by the coastal Muslims? Or were they locals unhappy at the idea of an Ottoman takeover? Unfortunately, history does not tell us.

On the other hand, the decisive intervention in the whole affair was by a bunch of otherwise unknown Africans. The Zimba, whoever they were, determined the outcome of the confrontation of the two technologically advanced empires. How this came about is unknown; it could have been entirely fortuitous, or they could have been allied to the Portuguese, or influenced by them in some way. The point is that Africans were perfectly well able to act on their own behalf, under their own leaders and polities, however obscure to contemporary Europeans and historians those leaders and polities might be.

1600 – Something: Patience is a Virtue

The next action in the Summer 1606 turn of the campaign is, again, in South-East Asia. This time, a Laotian army is responding to the invasion of Vientane by the Vietnamese. You will doubtless recall that the Laotian army was a bit unlucky to lose against the invaders in spring, and was forced to retreat into garrison. The main Laotian army was in the north, invading bits of Burma. Now, they have turned south and with the aid of the garrison, are aiming at turfing the Vietnamese out.

The Vietnamese army also has support, and so it is two eighteen-base armies that are going to face each other. The Vietnamese totalled three elephants (including the general), two cavalry, six bows and crossbows, five bills and two skirmishers. The Laotians had two elephant bases (including the general), two cavalry, eleven tribal foot bases and three bows.

I rolled a fair bit of terrain, as you can see above. The Vietnamese are on the defensive, even though they are in Laos, and are to the left. I decided to leave the skirmishers protecting the train, while the main strength of the army is deployed on two hills, the central one with the general, and the far side with the sub-general. The cavalry are on the extreme left (if you look carefully you can see the edge of one of the bases), and the elephants are in reserve.

The Laotians were not looking forward to this. Previous experience shows that bill elements are very tough when uphill against, well, more or less anyone, and perhaps especially tribal foot. They deployed in two blocks, one in the centre under the general, the other on the right, to outflank and hit the hill on the far side. The cavalry were flank guards.

The Laotians advanced cautiously. I am trying to learn not just to slam tribal foot into any passing target, but to try to gather them up into a decisive strike. The Laotian ‘right hook’ is advancing, the archers having deployed. In the centre, the general is dividing the tribal foot into two, while pushing up the archers. On the Laotian left, the cavalry have advanced, but they have been disrupted by bow fire from the central hill, and are now a bit scattered, and the foremost element is looking a bit vulnerable.

The Laotian centre deployed and, with the Vietnamese on the hill masked by archers, charged the Vietnamese bows in the centre. Neither side had really planned for this. The Vietnamese elephants were too far away to support them, while the Laotians were also a bit flat-footed by it. Nevertheless, they are wreaking some havoc among the Vietnamese bows. On the far side, despite losing the archery duel, the Laotian right hook is making progress, even though charging bill bases uphill still sounds dubious.

Two-thirds of the Vietnamese bows were routed, although rather to everyone’s surprise one base stood its ground and recoiled the tribal foot. The Vietnamese on the hill advanced down it into the covering Laotian archers and routed them, while the remaining Laotian tribal foot charged on, encountering the Vietnamese elephants. The Vietnamese cavalry is being moved across to the volatile centre, while on the Vietnamese left the reserve bills are moving into position. At this point the Laotian morale drooped a bit, and they fell back.

Nothing daunted, however, the Laotians fought on. Their right hook charged up the hill and, rather to everyone’s surprise, took out a bill base, following it up with a flank attack on the reserves led by the sub-general, which they also won, killing the general. In the centre, the marauding Laotian tribal foot with the general were bounced by the elephants, and were falling back in disorder. However, the destruction of the Vietnamese left, and the death of the sub-general pushed Vietnamese morale to a critically low level, and a poor roll left them with a status of withdraw.

Overall, the Laotians had lost two bow bases, while the Vietnamese lost two bows, two bills and the sub-general. So it was fairly close, the main difference being the success of the flank attack. Strategically, the Vietnamese will now have to withdraw from Laos, and try to work out how to pay three armies from two provinces. The Laotians have just about survived the invasion, and the land grab in the north might, in time, give them the upper hand.

Along the way I discovered a problem with the Vietnamese list I was using. I referred back to the DBR list and discovered a whole pile of warbands (the DBR equivalent of tribal foot) which had dropped out of my twelve-base armies. So a revised list has been prepared, with two elephants, a cavalry base, four bows and crossbows, a tribal foot base, a skirmishers base and a rocket, cavalry, elephant or tribal foot base decided at random. It was a bit of a humbug moment, but invoking guideline 1 of that book I let the previous results stand, of course, but I must do some amendments to my lists.

I also am considering adding some singly-based elephant commanders to my collection. The problem is that in the armies with elephants, the elephant is the general, and this can lead to the general exposing himself to a lot of risk. Additionally, elephant bases are slower than cavalry or light cavalry bases, which most generals move as. This is not really a problem when both armies have elephant bases as generals, as here. But when one army has an elephant base as a general, and the other does not, the latter is a bit more flexible, which seems unfair. So I am trying to work out an order which rectifies this shortcoming as well.

Still, a good battle which shows that a patient build-up with tribal foot can pay off, even when attacking bills deployed defensively on top of hills. Mind you, the Laotians were lucky with some combat rolls.

Next up, I think we return to the Middle East, where the Persians have invaded Mesopotamia again.