What Up, Nerds?
OMG Hussites Part 2 is in filming! In the meantime I simply did not do Robert "the Weasel" Guiscard justice with my treatment of the Norman conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily. Lets fix that.
The Weasel was not born at the very top of the ladder. He wasn't just some peasant, and certainly that was an important advantage he was born with. But he was just a sixth-born son and he sure didn't start as no king. So as a young man he set off to make his fortune with just five horsemen and thirty foot soldiers in his pocket.
In 1047 he got off the boat in south Italy. He wasn't particularly physically intimidating. He was tall, but he had a ruddy face and kind of nondescript blondish hair. And here he was an a strange land with 35 soldiers he had to take care of and get fed. He didn't really know where to start.
So he gave a metaphorical shout out to his Viking heritage and lead his men into becoming freelance roving robbers.
And like any talented leader of a band of robber-vikings he quickly got noticed by the local lords who were at war with each other. He was hired and officially in business.
The Weasel performed admirably, and gained a bit of a reputation. But when his master refused to pay him the castle he'd been promised for his services, the Weasel up and quit. He took his services to the lord next door. Here he got a castle, but he decided he didn't really like that castle. So he just went out and took himself a different one.
The Weasel was just real real good in battle. He'd make himself terrifying, and he had a natural grip on the usually slippery world of battle tactics that confounded most folks. That gave him more and more of a reputation. Soon enough the Normans' allies betrayed them and allied with the Pope to crush them. The Weasel got command of the left flank and charged into the Pope's force at the precise right moment. He led in the battle personally, and the Normans scored a huge victory.
So when the old Norman lord died the Weasel got the spot this was in 1057, just ten years after he had arrived in Italy with nothing but a handful of men. The Pope was a little terrified of the Weasel and so he decided to buy him over by officially promoting him to the rank of Duke. Naturally the Weasel accepted, and things started to be friendlier between the Normans and the Pope.
At this point the Weasel just went crazy. He attacked anyone and everyone he could find in south Italy. Sometimes it took a while but in the end he always won.
He started getting bored, and so he decided to do what nobody had successfully been able to do, well, ever. He launched an invasion of the Emirate of Sicily. At first he allied against one feuding Emir against another. He took almost the entire island, but when one fort refused to surrender he got frustrated and went home.
He came back a few years later and almost conquered the whole island again. This time he didn't turn around because of impatience, he turned around because Giant F*cking Tarantulas swarmed his whole goddamn camp. So it took him until his next invasion a few years after that to actually conquer all the important cities.
So he once again found himself with nothing much to do but occasionally put down rebellions. These rebellions were all basically sponsored by the Roman Empire (whose land in south Italy he'd already conquered). So he decided that he might as well just invade the goddamn Roman Empire.
So he did. The Weasel landed in Greece with plans to go straight for the capital. He met the famous Roman Emperor and whooped his ass in one big battle. The Weasel had a straight road to Constantinople at this point and he kicked around the idea of just taking over the whole empire. But then he was attacked in the back by the Venetians who burned his fleet without warning. Simultaneously Pope Greg Seven called the Weasel back to Italy to save him from the approaching German Emperor Henry Four.
So the Weasel had to abandon his army in Greece, sail back to Italy on his own, and save the Pope. When he did and the Romans thanked him for it by rising up and attacking the Normans the Weasel decided to just let his soldiers ransack the city for three days.
Once that fiasco was taken care of he set his sights back on taking over the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately his son had already lost control of the Norman conquests in Greece, so the Weasel had to launch another attack. He crossed over to Greece in his fleet of 150 ships and retook a good chunk of what he'd conquered last time.
And then all of a sudden he got sick and died. He and 500 other Norman knights died on or around the 17th of July, 1085. Just like that the Norman conquest of the Roman Empire was over. It had really all depended on that one single man.
OMG Hussites Part 2 is in filming! In the meantime I simply did not do Robert "the Weasel" Guiscard justice with my treatment of the Norman conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily. Lets fix that.
The Weasel was not born at the very top of the ladder. He wasn't just some peasant, and certainly that was an important advantage he was born with. But he was just a sixth-born son and he sure didn't start as no king. So as a young man he set off to make his fortune with just five horsemen and thirty foot soldiers in his pocket.
In 1047 he got off the boat in south Italy. He wasn't particularly physically intimidating. He was tall, but he had a ruddy face and kind of nondescript blondish hair. And here he was an a strange land with 35 soldiers he had to take care of and get fed. He didn't really know where to start.
So he gave a metaphorical shout out to his Viking heritage and lead his men into becoming freelance roving robbers.
And like any talented leader of a band of robber-vikings he quickly got noticed by the local lords who were at war with each other. He was hired and officially in business.
The Weasel performed admirably, and gained a bit of a reputation. But when his master refused to pay him the castle he'd been promised for his services, the Weasel up and quit. He took his services to the lord next door. Here he got a castle, but he decided he didn't really like that castle. So he just went out and took himself a different one.
The Weasel was just real real good in battle. He'd make himself terrifying, and he had a natural grip on the usually slippery world of battle tactics that confounded most folks. That gave him more and more of a reputation. Soon enough the Normans' allies betrayed them and allied with the Pope to crush them. The Weasel got command of the left flank and charged into the Pope's force at the precise right moment. He led in the battle personally, and the Normans scored a huge victory.
So when the old Norman lord died the Weasel got the spot this was in 1057, just ten years after he had arrived in Italy with nothing but a handful of men. The Pope was a little terrified of the Weasel and so he decided to buy him over by officially promoting him to the rank of Duke. Naturally the Weasel accepted, and things started to be friendlier between the Normans and the Pope.
At this point the Weasel just went crazy. He attacked anyone and everyone he could find in south Italy. Sometimes it took a while but in the end he always won.
He started getting bored, and so he decided to do what nobody had successfully been able to do, well, ever. He launched an invasion of the Emirate of Sicily. At first he allied against one feuding Emir against another. He took almost the entire island, but when one fort refused to surrender he got frustrated and went home.
He came back a few years later and almost conquered the whole island again. This time he didn't turn around because of impatience, he turned around because Giant F*cking Tarantulas swarmed his whole goddamn camp. So it took him until his next invasion a few years after that to actually conquer all the important cities.
 |
| I don't f*cking blame him for turning around. (Pic from Wiki) |
So he once again found himself with nothing much to do but occasionally put down rebellions. These rebellions were all basically sponsored by the Roman Empire (whose land in south Italy he'd already conquered). So he decided that he might as well just invade the goddamn Roman Empire.
So he did. The Weasel landed in Greece with plans to go straight for the capital. He met the famous Roman Emperor and whooped his ass in one big battle. The Weasel had a straight road to Constantinople at this point and he kicked around the idea of just taking over the whole empire. But then he was attacked in the back by the Venetians who burned his fleet without warning. Simultaneously Pope Greg Seven called the Weasel back to Italy to save him from the approaching German Emperor Henry Four.
So the Weasel had to abandon his army in Greece, sail back to Italy on his own, and save the Pope. When he did and the Romans thanked him for it by rising up and attacking the Normans the Weasel decided to just let his soldiers ransack the city for three days.
Once that fiasco was taken care of he set his sights back on taking over the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately his son had already lost control of the Norman conquests in Greece, so the Weasel had to launch another attack. He crossed over to Greece in his fleet of 150 ships and retook a good chunk of what he'd conquered last time.
And then all of a sudden he got sick and died. He and 500 other Norman knights died on or around the 17th of July, 1085. Just like that the Norman conquest of the Roman Empire was over. It had really all depended on that one single man.
No comments:
Post a Comment