700-799 (Abrittus)

Overview: Germania Magna 385-800
This is the only period in recorded history where the development of Germanic peoples is not marked by migration. (Before the Hun War, Germanic tribes had moved southwards for more than three centuries; beginning with the 9th century, the chasm of economic development between Magna Germania and the Celtic and Roman Empires becomes so large that millions of Germans leave their homelands to become migrant workers.)

Also, this period marks the beginning of urbanisation in Germania Magna and its integration into continental trade as well as the development of modern statehood. In all these fields, the Visigoths in the South-East are the Germanic vanguard; the further one moves along the Germanic "crescent" to the West, then to the North (Visigothised Vandals and other minor tribes; Baiuvarians; Alemanni; Franks and Burgunds; Frisians; Saxons; Scandinavians), the less pronounced are all these developments.

Ostrogoths
At 800, although there are people all over the world who call themselves "gothoi anatoloi" or Ostrogoths, the Ostrogoths have long ceased to exist as a Germanic people. Since the 5th century, all Ostrogoths speak  and write in the Greek language and alphabet. Nominally, 99 % of them are of Judaist faith, although religious practices are not very widespread and strict.

The Ostrogoths have become the backbone of sea trade all around the known world, from Norway to South Africa and from the Azores to China. With the exception of the Azores, they have never built any colonies outside Tauris, though, preferring to settle in towns governed by other nations, mostly because the Treaty of 385 forbade them to wear arms, which precluded the establishment of colonies which they would have to defend on their own.

Although the Ostrogoths may be the least religious people of the known world, Judaism and the necessity of formal education to read canonic Hebrew religious texts has made the Ostrogoths one of the best educated populations.

They do not share any meaningful characteristic with any of the Germanic peoples anymore.

Visigoths
The Visigoths have become good Roman citizens, are fully integrated into the imperial economy (providing e.g. gold and copper) and enjoy the highest living standard and education levels of all Germanic people. They live in Dacia Superior, Dacia Inferior and Transdanubia; they colonised the second for the Roman Empire when it was depopulated and absorbed the third at the city states` own choice. Their king, although without any real political power, remains a symbol that unites Visigoths in all three provinces.

Most Visigoths are bilingual; the literate majority of the population is also mostly biscriptural: they use Latin for most professional and everyday communication and Gothic (with Wulfila`s alphabet) in religious or literary contexts. Gothic literature has developed well-known texts, both epical and lyrical. More than 90 % of Visigoths are members of the Arianist Christian Church.

The Visigoths have absorbed city states in Transdanubia inhabitated by Germanic people mostly of Vandal descent (but also including remnants of the Langobards and other Suebic tribes) during the 6th century; their particular languages have become mere Gothic dialects by the 7th century already, and most of them have adopted the Arianist Christian faith, too, and see themselves as Visigothic Roman citizens now, too.

Baiuvaria
After tribal structures separating and defining Vandals, Lugians, Langobards, Varisci and Markomanni were crushed in the Hun Wars, then questioned by the influence of Roman civilization (directly felt in the case of the asylum germanii, indirectly through cross-Danube trade in the following decades and centuries), Germanic people of all these backgrounds built fortified cities and villages, where they lived together. Whereas the cities and villages in the East, especially in the Pannonian plains, came under Visigothic influence and finally Visigothised themselves and entered the Roman Empire, the cities and villages in the West, neighboring on the Roman province of Norica, developed a new common identity and called themselves Baiuvarians.

Highly influenced by trade relations with Roman Norica, the Baiuvarian cities and villages developed crafts as well as democratic structures based on guilds of these craftsmen. The development of crafts mirrored both the influence of Roman knowledge and the absence of sufficient amounts of capital necessary for large-scale production as it slowly developed in the Roman Empire. Baiuvaria`s main export produce is barley.

Different brands of Christianity seeped in and fell on fertile ground in some cities; Roman Catholicism being the most successful type of Christianity among Baiuvarians, followed by Arianism especially in the East. Roman Catholicism remained more influential, though, especially because the Latin alphabet established itself firmly across all of Baiuvaria (and Gothic liturgy depended on Wulfila`s bible and its Gothic alphabet).The traditional Germanic cult and mythology was also transformed by the catastrophe of the Great Hun War and the consequent import of ideas that led to economic development: A common interpretation developed, which saw the great war as a defeat of the Æsir and the subsequent time as a "Third Age" ruled by the peaceful Vanir, who are responsible for growth and wealth.

The necessity to defend themselves against Slavic attempts to expand into their territories led to the formation of a Baiuvarian Alliance, a loose federation comprising most cities and villages. The Alliance now fortified not only its dwellings, but also erected walls around its outer territorial borders, protecting its agricultural land against plundering and invasion. The Baiuvarian Alliance thus proved both oriented towards defense and able to defend themselves, as the successful rejection of Frankish attacks would show.

Alemannia
In the 4th century, the Alemanni had started to develop trade and cultural contacts with the Roman and Celtic empires and a confederal proto-state. The Hun War has destroyed much of this fundament and reduced the Alemanni both in number and in influence dramatically. After the Treaty of 385, the Alemanni started to build fortified towns (burgi), like the Baiuvarians. Throughout the 5th century, many of these independent cities were conquered or absorbed into the Frankish Confederacy, some as independent members of the confederacy, some bereft of ther independence and ruled by territorial kings.

In the conquered towns and their surrounding countryside, the Alemannic language (as it developed from the 2nd to the 4th century AD) and culture (as it resulted from the contact of Suebian Germanic cults with Christianised Romans) are less discernible and a greater extent of assimilation to Frankish German and a culture influenced rather by West Germanic cult and Celtic influences is observed. The newly codified Ripuarian Frankish law (in the 6th century) applies here.

Alemannic German and a culture influenced more deeply by Rome has preserved itself and taken its own path of development in free towns like Friburg or Basel. In the free towns, democratic political structures evolve (city councils, elected mayors etc.) around craftsmens' guilds. Some of these towns have significant Roman Catholic Christian minorities. Here, as in Baiuvaria, Germanic cult has shifted towards the "Third Age" interpretation.

In the 7th century, Alemanni fight on the republican side against the "old order" in Franconia. With the victory of the New Frankish Federation, relations between Franconia and Alemannic cities improve in the 8th century.

All literate Alemanni (roughly 60 % of adult males in the city states vs. 25 % within Franconia) use the Latin alphabet.

The economic back-bone of Alemannic society (whether Francised or not) is situated in the Rhine and Neckar valleys, where wine and tobacco are grown and traded with Romans and Celts.

Franconia
At least eleven tribes on the Eastern shore of the Rhine have merged to some extent and formed the "gens Francorum" in the 3rd and 4th century. Before 375, they have repeatedly attempted to raid the Roman and later Celtic empire. The Great Hun Wars have reshaped their identity, owing to two pivotal experiences:
 * The successful and well-organised retreat, which happened on the lone initiative of High King Lothar and was organised by free peasants loyal to Lothar, saved thousands of Frankish lives and became a semi-mythological foundation of the Lothringian dynasty and its state reason of efficient organisation.
 * In the later, reltaliative campaign, warriors in the confederate Frankish army witnessed the might and superior organisation of the much larger armies of the Celts, Romans and Sassanids, as well as the cruel and horrible fate they brought upon the nomadic people of the steppe, The Frankish nobility returned into a system, where the Lothringian state reason rendered high-bred aristocrats without any function, not only with slaves, who would cause changes in the socio-economic structure, but also with a view of themselves as caught between the empires on the one hand, with whom they could neither compare nor contend, and the "primitive barbarians" on the other hand, from whom they sought to distinguish themselves (in the hope that they would never have to endure their fate) and whom they had subjugated and brought home with them.

In the 5th century, several Lothars built a modern state apparatus which was in constant conflict with the old warrior nobility, whose powerbase was now merely military and economic (slaves), but no longer as a judicial or spiritual authority.

At the beginning, both groups were still united in their pursuit of securing Frankish power and bringing forth their own type of culture and civilization, which would protect them from imperial annihilation. After Roman models, a network of solid roads and aquaeducts was built as well as an impressive capital of the Confederacy (Bonn), where the new Lothringian central ministeries were situated, too.

Traditional law was codified in the "Lex Franca" and juries were to be presided by judges selected by the High King.

Even traditional Germanic religious cult underwent a transformation. Lothar II. banned all Christian churches, and Lothar III., in order to stop the proliferation of the "Third Age" interpretation, attempted to transform Germanic mythology and cult into a scriptural religion with priests selected by the High King and official temples erected by the confederacy. (This fixation of Germanic religion did not find broad popular support, though. Later, the label "Odinism" was created to describe it.)

In the first half of the 5th century, Franconia used the new military strategies learned from the Romans and Celts (especially the "Parthic maneuvre" the Huns had also practised) and conquered new territories. A Saxon attack on Western coastal Franconia resulted in a retaliative war, at the end of which Westphalia was brought under (Salian) Frankish control. Throughout the entire 5th century, Frankish kingdoms, who had their core settlements along the Rhine between Mogontiacum and Colonia Agrippina and would later come to be known as "Ripuarian Franks", conquered large swaths of the former Agri Decumates. But the Frankish Confederacy also expanded through voluntary accession: When the Saxons attacked the Chatti in the 450s, the Chatti asked for permission to join the Confederacy, which was granted. With some help from other Frankish tribes, the Chatti pushed the Saxons back across the Weser and Werra.

The beginning of the 6th century marked the end of Lothringian rule. Under Lothar V., central administration had become ineffective, the bureaucracy and judges were deemed corrupt, and local kings prevented tax collections and resumed judicial and fiscal authority. The Lothars were Ripuarians; so, in order to weaken the High King further, Salian kings managed to install Ucomer (from the small kingdom of the Chatti) as High King.

This backfired badly. When a slave revolt broke out in the land of the Salian Franks and three kings called for confederal help, Ucomer declined (the Chatti held no slaves, on account of not having participated in the Hun Campaign). The slave revolt was ultimately suppressed, although not only many slaves, but also many Frankish noblemen were killed in the fights. This paved the way for the later establishment of a Salian peasant republic.

The formal end of the Confederacy came in 559, when a war of succession between the Salians and Ripuarians ended inconclusively.

Overall, the 6th century marked a decline in Frankish power and a partial return to tribalist structures. This was aggravated by outbreaks of the bubonic plague towards the end of the century. (Only the Chatti were not affected and managed to expand across the Rhön mountains and further to the South.) Religious conflicts with Christian minorities in the South regularly turned violent, too.

But the myth of Frankish unity endured and fuelled internal power struggles throughout the 7th century, at the end of which the "New Frankish Federation", an alliance of the Salian Peasant Republic and the Inter-Mayorate, which comprised city states whose councils had declared themselves independent from the kingdoms surrounding them, emerged triumphant. Some old kingdoms continued to exist into the 9th century, but progressively, the NFF - and with it a modern state which combined the old and mythological Lothringian state reason with a solid bottom-up foundation of the polity - took control over all of Franconia.

In this later period, the Frankish economy became oriented towards Gaul and provided the developing Celtic industry with cheap coal and ore in exchange for advanced products manufactured by the Celts.

Literacy among the Franks is mostly limited to urban areas; an educated minority also speaks Latin. Frankish German is exclusively written in the Latin alphabet.

Burgundy
The Burgunds were already united under a single judge king in the 3rd and 4th century.

After the Huns defeated the allied Germanic tribes under the Langobard king Albert in the battle on the Eastern Pannonian plains, the Burgunds had considerably less time and were forced to retreat in a much less organised manner than the Franks. It is assumed that almost half of the population died, either killed by Huns or starved on the flight to Bohemia.

In Bohemia, the decimated Burgunds settled in unpopulated woodland, secluded by mountains on three sides, and quite large for their small number. Thus, no intermediary warrior nobility was required in the 5th century, which had proved so inadequate against the Huns anyway.

In three battles against the advancing Venedi at the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries, the Burgundian yeomen army proved able to defend its land, and the Burgundian and Venedian kings agreed on the Morava as their common border.

In their relative isolation, the Burgundian social system remained unchallenged and unchanged throughout the centuries: the comparatively primitive economy was based on agriculture, cattle farming, hunting and fishing, with a free peasantry as its backbone. Most issues were solved by the heads of families, in village gatherings and by juries. Major conflicts and appeals were brought unto the King, who came from the same dynasty throughout the 5th-8th centuries. From the late 7th century on, population surpluses led to some Burgundian emigration into Transdanubia.

During the entire period, Burgundy preserved its traditional cult and mythology. Only few people were literate (and then only in Latin). Burgundy exports a limited amount of its agricultural produce, especially pork and beer, and starts to import chemical products for medical and agricultural purposes in the 8th century.

Frisia
Frisia´s economy, society and geopolitical role were shaped by the North Sea.

In the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, unaffected by the Hun War, Frisia´s main military concern was to defend itself against Saxony. Sometimes, after military defeat, Frisia became temporarily tributary (first to the Angrivarii, later to the Saxon king), but the Frisians always managed to free themselves after short periods of oppression.

Politically, Frisia is almost a peaceful anarchy. Conflicts between clans are settled in consensus-oriented Things, criminal offenses are dealt with by juries, common endeavours are discussed and decided upon in Things, too. Frisian "counts" are basically only a guard paid by the peasantry to warn and organise evacuation in case of floods, to keep dikes in shape and assemble all young males in case of military attacks. With the formation of trading towns, the counts also became official heads of a police force protecting the market place, which was paid by the city council, who in turn financed themselves through excises and customs. Thus, with increasing urbanisation, Frisia turned more towards democracy in the 7th and 8th centuries.

Economically, Frisia is a trading nation with a great (and defiant) commercial fleet. Frisia trades its own products (wool, mutton, fish, salt) for all kinds of practical imports (wood, steel, glass, chemical products etc.). Frisian fishermen control and exploit vast areas of the North Sea.

After Frisia recovered from the bubonic plague in the 7th century, it modernised its production to compete against cheap cotton etc. on the European market (inventing new manufacturing techniques for wool and building new and modern shipyards, selling ships to other nations like Franconia as well). Now, Frisians overtook the Ostrogoths in trade volume in the North and Baltic Seas. This also meant that Frisia came into repeated conflict with Danish pirates. Frisian merchants appealed to the Celtic navy to assist them in combatting Danish piracy, which marked the beginning of a close and succesful alliance between Frisia and the Celtic Empire.

Towards the end of the 8th century, Frisian settlers followed the invitation of the Celtic Empire to help settle Glaciana.

Frisian religion remained fixed on Nerthus. Foreign merchants have brought their cults with them, which are all tolerated in the liberal Frisian towns.

Saxony
In the course of the 3rd and 4th century, a distinct and homogeneous Saxon culture develops in Northern Germany. The Hun Wars do not affect Saxony directly.

Early Saxon society was highly hierarchical: led by the ethelinga caste, with frilinga (yeomen), lide (half-free craftsmen etc.) and indentured servants as the other castes, plus slaves (e.g.war captives) outside the caste system. Saxon religious cult at this time highlighted the Æsir and their rule over the Vanir (comparable to the warrior nobility ruling over the peasantry). Local ethelinga acted together across Saxony, but never chose a king in these first centuries.

This rigid order is dealt a severe blow in 410, when a Saxon invasion of Salian Frankish territory leads to a Saxon-Frankish war, which ends in an utter defeat of the Saxons and an enslavement of the Westphalian ethelinga. The catastrophe is generally interpreted as an absence of divine intervention. Nobility and peasantry differ in the details of their interpretations, though. While the majority of the Saxons takes over the South-East Germanic interpretation of the Hun War and adapts it - i.e. a Third Age has come in which the bellicose Æsir have been defeated by the earth-bound Vanir -, the Angrivari and Eastphalian nobility explains the defeat as the sign of a new era in which the gods would not intervene directly and humans would have to follow the divine rules revealed in earlier times (a position which paves the way for the later move towards scriptural Odinism invented in Franconia).

The catastrophe and the ensuing religious/mythological/cultural disagreement undermine the foundation of Saxon`s unique social model. Military difficulties in halting Venedian advances are attributed very critically to lacking military skills among the ethelinga by the frilinga and lide.

The socio-cultural frictions eventually lead to the establishment of the monarchy. In 484, Widukind, a North-Albingian noble, defeats his Anglian neighbours. For the first time in more than 100 years, Saxony`s territory is extended. And for the first time ever, Widukind does not transplant the Saxon model onto the Anglians, but grants them relative independence as a dukedom tributary to him. When Saxony comes under attack from two sides (Hermunduri in the South and Venedi in the East) in 486, thousands of frilinga from Northern Saxony decide to fight under Widukind instead of trusting their ethelinga to choose an appropriate war leader. While a weakened ethelinga army has trouble stopping the Hermunduri, Widukind`s new Saxon army pushes back the Venedi, then tackles the Hermunduri and defeats them. In the course of this war, Widukind is called "king", for the first time in Saxony, The Hermunduri are integrated into Saxony after the Anglian model, becoming the Dukedom of Thuringia.

Over the 6th century, Saxon kings are permanently engaged in power struggles against the ethelinga. To broaden their powerbase, Saxon kings facilitate the growth of trading ports into cities and grant their crafts- and tradesmen far-reaching autonomy in exchange for royal loyalty. Especially Saxony`s capital, Hammaburg, grows considerably. The ethelinga react to the social transformations with the codification of the old Saxon laws. They are written down in the runic alphabet developed by the Swedes. This becomes the main function of the annual Things, after military leadership must no longer be chosen, but falls automatically to the king. The kings, in return, try to influence the Things, which over the course of the 7th and 8th century develop into a more permanent parliament, by securing the representation of commoners from the cities. After Hammaburg, Bremen grows to become the kingdom`s second largest city.

Venedian westward advances into Saxony are halted in the 6th century, and in 580, Saxony and Venedia formally acknowledge the Stignica-Delf-Elbe border. From then on, Saxony`s only trouble seem to be the Danes, who often raid their ports and attack their ships.

Towards the end of the 8th century, Saxony is a constitutional monarchy and a middle-sized power in Northern continental Europe. Beginning urbanisation has weakened social stratification. Saxon economy is still mostly dominated by agriculture, farming, fishing and relatively simple, but slowly developing craft manufactures in the port towns. Compared to other parts of Europe, Saxony is relatively poor, but no acute famines have been recorded in the 7th and 8th centuries anymore.Literacy is mostly limited to port city dwellers and ethelinga, who use runes to write in their Saxon language. Religious cult has declined somewhat, but is still rather homogeneously Germanic in nature, with scriptural Odinism being a minority position in a mostly third-age-oriented mythology.

World powers remodel Türkestan
The new Persian Republic reaches out to all sides, attempting to establish good neighbourship relations.

One of these initiatives brings Rome, Persia and China together in talks about securing safe trade on the Silk route. The talks last several years; they are the world´s first semi-institutionalised co-operation of the two major world powers (plus Persia).

Chinese ambassadors surprise their dialogue partners with plans circulating among the Tang dynasty`s higher officials, which would transform China´s yeomen army into a professional army led by district commanders. Tang China announces it is going to strengthen its control over its borders, including its Göktürk-inhabited end of the Silk route, by this measure.

Representatives from Persia`s new republic strongly advise against these plans, giving vivid illustrations from their own recent history of the infights, instability and oppressive potential of professional armies. Rome´s ambassadors concur.

But what else could be done? ask the Chinese. Our task of securing both our northern border and the trade route to the West cannot be tackled by our yeomen army anymore.

Persia and Rome know they must provide relief, but neither want to overstretch their powers by permanently stationing tens or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers to control the entire steppe. If only the nomads from the steppe would see the opportunities that the trade route through their territory provide! If only they decided to work together with the world powers instead of raiding them! But nobody has any idea how to convince them...

But then, the Persians propose to invite the kingdom of Tibet into the talks, too. What, by Jove, is Tibet? the Roman ambassador silently ask themselves, while Tang China´s representatives heatedly discuss the idea. Intitial reluctance is overcome and king Tride Tsugten is contacted.

He sends a delegation. And the Tibetan ambassadors have a great idea. They describe how Buddhism, which is currently all the rage in Tibet, brought political unity, stability and cultural exchange with advanced empires like India's to Tibet. The Chinese and Persian ambassadors sigh: Buddhism had been tried twice already with the steppe people, first in the Kushana, then in the Göktürk Empire; it just doesn't stick with the nomads! But the Tibetans don't give up: Buddhism is so adaptive! We must only find a connection to their current religion, then it will take roots and the nomads will see its truth!

But what do these barbarians believe? The Chinese know a little about Tengrism. The worst part, in their view, is how the veneration of their leaders is part of that religion; that is why Buddhist monks have never become truly influential and honored.

And how exactly is this incompatible with Buddhism? ask the Tibetans. It turns out, to the surprise of the Chinese, that in Tibet, there is a variety of Buddhism which believes in one chosen spiritual leader, the lama.

After a short diplomatic crisis, where Chinese and Tibetan ambassadors call each other infidels and unenlightened, all sides come to the see the potential of the idea. A Tengrism-compatible buddhism could take deeper roots and succeed in creating an erudite culture with strong ties to China and India, and the leaders would still be venerated, but only if they mutated from warrior leaders to spiritual leaders. That seemed useful. Now, the only open question was how to sell the idea to the barbarians? Surely one couldn't be open about one's plans...

And again, the Tibetans have an idea. How about a marriage between a Tibetan princess and a Khagan's promising heir? They had a particular young lady in mind: Chime Kalzang, who was as beautiful as she was educated and smart; many of her buddhist monk teachers considered it a pity anyway that she would in all likelihood not be involved in the kingdom's next leadership.

Chime Kalzang and her father, king Tride Tsugten, embrace the plan. Leaders of the Ashina, who have dominated the Göktürk confederacy under Tang China`s influence for almost a century, are invited. It turns out the Ashina have already been looking for ways to install Bilge Kutluk-Tengri as new Khagan, although at 13, he was clearly too young. A marriage between Bilge`s uncle, Ozmysh Khan, and Chime Kalzang is negotiated, under the condition that the next Kuriltai would accept the package deal of making Ozmysh Khan the confederacy`s Bek (executive leader), inviting Tibetan Buddhist monks to found monasteries, and trusting them to choose Bilge Kutluk-Tengri as the Göktürk`s first lama-khagan.

The Kuriltai goes exactly according to plan, which some historians attribute to the impressive dowry the Tibetan princess brings into the marriage and which was provided mostly from Tang China´s and Rome´s treasuries. Bilge is declared the new Khagan and Ozmysh his Bek.

Ozmysh co-operates with the empires and is rewarded with an expiration date on the Göktürk vassalage: If the next ten years would pass peacefully and the Göktürks would then agree to the stationing of a joint Göktürk-Persian Silk route guard throughout their territory, tribute payments to Tang China would stop.

And they do. Ozmysh (or rather his influential, determined wife) founds a dozen monasteries over the next decades, at first exclusively staffed with Tibetan monks hand-picked by Chime Kalzang, but later including the first generation of their Göktürk disciples. The monks (who could never have risen to prominent positions so fast back home in Tibet) do as they`re advised and announce with feigned surprise how it was revealed to them that Khagan Bilge is in fact a lama.

Bilge, who likes his new aunt a lot (some say, more than that), readily accepts his new role, which includes extensive buddhist studies for a couple of years.

He emerges a true spiritual leader, whose reinterpretations of Tengrist shaman practices in the light of Tantric buddhism subtly but irreversibly change the religious practices of his fellow countrymen across the whole wide steppe and include a very important social group into the new social system. In political matters, lama-khagan Bilge translates cosmic harmony / unity with the sky with a respect for justified rules and laws within the confederacy and a fair and balanced order with all foreign powers.

His uncle, Bek Ozmysh, translates this into pragmatic policies of codifying traditional Göktürk rules into written laws. These he submits to Kuriltai, which in this period become institutionalised as annual gatherings of representatives from all tribes, hosted by a different tribe each year, but always on the grounds of a monastery (which further contributes to the spreading of monasteries and Buddhism across the land). Ozmysh`s foreign policies are characterised by strengthening the ties with China and Tibet, institutionalising the co-operation with Persia and establishing friendly contacts with the Roman Empire. Trade on the Silk route multiplies in these years, and customs payments to the Göktürks and Persians stabilise and enrich both countries. Medical breakthroughs, glass and petrochemical products from Europe reach Göktürkestan just like high-quality steel products and the letter press from China does. Göktürkestan`s favourable geographical position does not require them to export much in exchange; renowned horse breeds and increasingly also cotton cultivated by sedentary Göktürks make up most of the exports.

When Bilge dies an old man at the end of the century, the funeral ceremonies take several weeks, and among the tens of thousands of attending guests are high-ranking officials from Rome, Saba, Persia, Pala, Gupta India, Tibet, Tang China and Silla. He leaves behind a calm, self-confident, open and rapidly developing Göktürkestan in the middle of a process of redefining its identity, uniting nomadic, agrarian and urban Göktürks behind the idea that together, they form the centre of the Earth and must fulfill this role responsibly.

The First East African War
The First East African War was a result of inner tensions caused by Aksum`s economic modernisation, which led to the colonisation of the plains East of the Great Lakes by Massai under Aksum´s protection, which in turn sparked a war between Aksum and Saba. Among its consequences are an increased engagement of Aksum and Saba in central Africa, which some scholars call a first phase of imperialism in Africa, and a political modernisation in Aksum.

The underlying problem: Frictions caused by Aksum`s economic modernisation
General descriptions of Aksum`s development in the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries AD often focus exclusively on its economic development (improved agricultural productivity, improved glass manufacturing, medical discoveries and better treatment, oil extraction and the development of a petrochemical industry, innovations in many crafts), increasing living standards, its important role in global trade, the establishment of universities in Aksum City and Meroe and scientific progress, the peaceful cosmopolitanism in Aksum`s colonies in Africa`s East Coast, where Persians and Indians were as welcome as Kanem`s aristocracy after the revolution, or the magnificent churches in Matara and Adulis with their typical high-rising steles which quote and reinterpret pre-Christian Aksumite traditions.

But Aksum`s development had its drawbacks, too. Especially in the South of the expanded kingdom, native populations like the Nuer and the Massai refused to give up their nomadic lifestyle and animist faith in order to become modern farmers and Christianised urban professionals. But an intensification of agriculture especially in these fertile lands was deemed necessary in order to sustain Aksum`s growing population, just like an increase in agricultural imports became inevitable in the growing coastal colonies. The livelihood and the prerequisites of their traditional ways of life of the ethnic groups in the South was endangered, and the Massai rose up in a rebellion which even reached and devastated the city of Shewa.

At the same time, Aksumite and Saban towns on the Indian Ocean coast were repeatedly raided by bands of Kamba and others, who were both attracted by the cities` wealth and often expropriated and pauperised when their home villages were turned into hierarchically controlled plantations aimed at producing bananas and other products for the trade with Mombasa and other coastal towns. The high walls and solid fortifications of the coast towns stem from this period and were intended to keep such looters off.

Massai colonisation
In 756, King Ezana IV. attempted to solve all the problems described above with one bold move. He called in a royal council and negotiated with hundreds of representatives from the Nuer, Massai, Luo and other nomadic and semi-nomadic Nilote groups. In the end, everyone agreed to this plan:

The Massai would pack up and leave with all their cattle towards the savannas to the South of Aksum. Their migration would be aided, accompanied and secured by the royal army. Massai and royal Aksumite soldiers together would secure the land of OTL central Kenya and northern Tansania. The Kikuyu, Kamba and other tribes who live there and have begun to convert in rather unorganised ways (as the king thought) to sedentary agriculture, would be forcibly moved further East and South-East and, under the supervision and with military, technological and infrastructural "help and instruction" from Aksum`s army and settlers from Aksum`s coastal towns, would resume their process of constructing plantations in earnest there, in the vicinity of the towns with which they`d trade their produce. The entire land in question would become a part of the Kingdom of Aksum, but the Massai would be granted far-reaching autonomy in their territories and given the guarantee that they could pursue their herding way of life there without further interference.

The Nuer, Luo and other Nilote tribes would then have enough land to continue their socio-economic model in their present settlement regions in the South of the existing kingdom, even though some parts of the land would be used for conversion to intensified agriculture and settled by Northern farmers.

With the next seasonal migration, the plan was put into practice. By the middle of 757, Massai and regular Aksumite army units had conquered already half of the projected territories easily. As the would-be deportees began to put up more resistance to the relocation plans, army leaders decided to leave the task of further Southward expansion to the Massai in order to bring the Kikuyu and Kamba under control.

The Massai decided to consolidate first, used up what they found in the plantations and burned them down and spread across the savannah secured so far. Fights between the Aksumite army especially against Kikuyu resistance proved bloody and lengthy, but finally, this part of the plan was executed, too.

Outbreak of the war
What nobody had thought about beforehand, though, was that, with all the warfare in their hinterland, Aksumite and Saban coastal towns were a) cut off from food supply they had come to rely on and which, due to the dependence of sailors on seasonal winds, could not be replaced quickly enough with imports from elsewhere, and b) flooded with refugees from the hinterland (especially Saban towns), who did not trust the Aksumite army in the slightest to help them build up a new livelihood.

Starvation in the coastal towns caused even more casualties than the fights between Aksum´s army and Kikuyu and Kamba resistance. The cities on the coast cried for help and demanded an immediate end to the nocive interference in their hinterland. While the Aksumite citiy of Kismayu was, with great effort, brought back under royal control, Saba`s cities of Lamu, Mombasa and Bar ul-Zandj were a different piece of cake altogether. After diplomatic interventions and economic sanctions had proved ineffective, the Queen of Saba declared war on Aksum in September 757.

Since Saba`s navy was unable to deploy landing troops at the coast, too, the war did not make itself felt in the first five weeks, which Saba used to complete its mobilisation and send spies on the long horseback ride into the hinterland of the coast towns, where Aksumite troops tried to occupy favourable positions and maintain control over the deported natives.

As the Monsum turned (rather late that year), Saba set a massive fleet in motion and landed near its colonies, which it first secured and supplied with the direly needed goods.

Uprising and Saban advance
Saban spies had forged an alliance with the Kikuyu and Kamba. In January 758, the war began in earnest, with a simultaneous uprising of the Kikuyu and Kamba and an advance of three Saban armies from the coast towns Eastward into the hinterland held by Aksumite troops.

///to be continued on Monday///

Centennial developments and trends
Co-operation between Rome, Persia and China to keep the Silk route open has far-reaching implications, first for the central Asian steppe and later due to intensified contacts between Europe and China.

Economy
Exchange through the Silk route brings advanced glass products and chemical and medical innovations to China - and advanced steel products and gunpowder to Europe. Towards the middle of the century, Chinese furnaces are copied in Europe and high.quality steel production increases especially in the Celtic empire, bringing the Celts` level of economic development closer to Rome´s.

Military
The Academia Martiana immediately perceive the potentials of gunpowder that Tang China had not thought of. First primitive firearms are used towards the end of the century in a punitive campaign against the Chasars, who had violated the Don-Volga-Caucasus dictate and attacked Slavic settlements in the Borysthenes region.

Philosophy / science
Inspired by such contradictory Western ideas like Simonist Christianity and Celtic philosophy, which seeped into China through Persia, a new anti-Confucian philosophy develops and (in contrast to other schools) finds broad support among the rebellious Chinese peasantry, which suffers from re-dispossession and a re-concentration of land which they had been given in the early Tang reforms, The main tenets of this philosophy, labelled either Zhi-Wangism after its most prominent thinker or Westernised "egalitarianism", are an equal creation of all human beings, the rejection of social structures that legitimise inequality, an economic analysis of debt, rent and profit based systems as inherently instable, omnivorous and socially pernicious, and a propensity to engage in active struggles against such structures. At first, its Chinese proponents, who found the Western systems of thought both impossible to digest as a whole, and contradictory (which they obviously were), claimed to re-interpret Confucius (upholding humanity as the supreme value, but rejecting filial piety as a means to achieve it) and Laozi (defining the working population as the natural force that must govern society). Towards the end of the 8th century, the rejection of Zhi-Wangism by mainstream Confucianists and Daoists and the schism becomes conspicuous.

Religion

 * Imported from Tibet, Lamaist / Tantrist Buddhism takes deep roots in Göktürkestan. This is perhaps the last major step in Buddhism`s ascent to world`s no. 1 religion.

Nations of Europe

 * Celtic explorers discover Nova Hibernia (Newfoundland). Here and in Polaris, first contacts between Europeans and Northern American indigenous people occur. So far, Celtic (and generally European) interest remains marginal.
 * Towards the end of the century, the Celtic Empire decides to colonise Glaciana. Not only Celts, but also Germanic Frisians, Jutes and Norwegians are invited to settle there.
 * Roman Empire: Boom-and-bust cycles aggravate in the empire´s economy (except for the interest-free fringe economy run by Christians of different confessions). In the wake of busts, anarchists breakaway attempts occur in Africa, Illyria and even Italy, too, now.
 * The Chasars lay siege on Bogatygavan in 721. After five months (Bogatygavan had huge grain deposits),most inhabitants of the wealthiest, proudest and most sophisticated city in the Slavic world flee on board of their ships, and the city is taken over by Chasars. Many Slavs from Bogatygavan remain in the Black Sea region (its Roman Western and Southern shore), but some emigrate as far as Rome, and the more religious arrive in the splendidly new-built Jerusalem. The Chasars are unable to maintain the trading network or don`t even try to. They plunder what´s left in the city and continue to use it as a fortress. Peresechen takes over some of Bogatygavan`s former daughter cities. (This has confessional implications, since among Peresechenians there are many Arianist and Catholic Christians, whereas Bogatygavan had brought Judaism to its daughter cities.) 14 years later, they launch their first attack on Ostrogothic Tauris from here, which was easily fenced off by the Ostrogoths, who are allowed defensive weaponry now. Chasarian raids become frequent in the Black Sea region, and the Roman Empire begins to seriously consider intervention. A positive decision is taken after major Chasar attacks both on Dacia and Tauris. Rome agrees to fund and train a Slavic Bogatygavan reconquest army and to let it experiment with the latest Academia Martiana madness: firearms, based on a civic innovation from China... The reconquest is immensely successful and the new weapons cause high casualties on the side of the Chasars (among whom were many Slavs, too, now).
 * Ostrogothic sea merchants explore ever new parts of the world, including an island far away across the Atlantic Ocean inhabited by Taino people.

Nations of Africa

 * Modernisation leads to tensions in Eastern Africa, resulting in Aksum`s expansion and inner reform and the first Eastern African War between Aksum and Saba.
 * In the area of the Great Lakes, the empire of Kitara establishes itself and manages to balance out influences from Simonists from the North-West, Aksumite Massai from the East and Saba`s coastal towns in its own favour.
 * Conflicts over resources between several Hausa and Banza states, escalated into conflicts about the right interpretation / preservation of Simonism, lead to a civil war, which lasts several decades. The massive casualties are not directly felt by the world at large, but the shortage of cotton supply from the Sahel is. Encouraged by the Romans, Garamants step in and manage to bring the city states under their control. The Garamants are revered by many Hausa and Banza as the apostles who brought them the gospel and liberated them. They build on that trust and leave some of their people behind to teach the Hausa and Banza the Garamant alphabet and provide them with Bibles. The underlying resource problem is solved to all parties` satisfaction with some help (in the form of resources) from the Roman Empire.
 * On Africa`s central West coast, Yoruba emerges victorious from among a dozen nascent and warring kingdoms and controls the entire Guinean Golf Coast and large swaths of its hinterland.

Nations of Asia

 * In China, egalitarianist rebellions occur, but are still contained by the Tang regime.
 * Egalitarian Zhi-Wangism instills a successful revolution in Silla, though, which overthrows ariistocratic rule and installs a peasant republic there.
 * India: After prolonged warfare, Chola breaks away from Pallava.
 * Sri Vijaya expands across Java.
 * In an attempt to stop Sri Vijayan expansion toward the North, the Kambujan state forms on the ruins of ancient Funan.
 * Caught between Kambuja and Dvaravati, the Tai states unite (Muan Thai).
 * Persia and Saba agree on a joint control of the Strait of Hormuz and sharing customs revenues equally (after the Gibraltar model).
 * After Saba-Aksum relations brighten up again, the same agreement is replicated for the Bab-el-Mandeb.

Salvador79 (talk) 12:49, March 12, 2014 (UTC)

Abrittus