Chapter 471 - Securing The Teutonic State (1/2)

While Berengar and his marines were engaging in a one-sided massacre on the other side of the world, the Austro-Bohemain Army had finally arrived within Marienburg. The current Grandmaster of the Teutonic order was a man named Hennek von Rotenburg and had greeted Eckhard and his soldiers with open arms. After all, the current state of the Teutonic Order was not exactly enviable.

Immediately upon making contact with the Teutonic Order, Eckhard handed the Grandmaster a list of demands from King Berengar von Kufstein. After a night of intense negotiation, the terms that the Austrian Monarch had presented were agreed to by the Teutonic State and its various leaders.

The first of these conditions was that the Teutonic State, all of its territories, and claims were to be annexed by the Kingdom of Austria starting immediately. This was something that the Teutonic Leaders had already agreed to some time ago.

However, the second condition was far less forgiving. Berengar demanded that the Teutonic Order disband its military component and become a chivalric order within the Austrian state, whose membership would be conferred to those who had served valiantly on the field of battle within Austria's armed forces.

It would retain its nature as a religious organization. However, it was demanded that they convert to the German Reformation and publically Disvow the Catholic Church and the Pope. This was a stipulation that the members of the Teutonic Order fiercely debated. However, they had no choice but to accept these demands in the end.

After all, not only could they no longer defend their borders, but they had a hundred thousand Austrian and Bohemian soldiers temporarily settled in their lands; by accepting these soldiers into the Teutonic State during their negotiations with the Field Marshal of Austria, they had essentially given away any power that they had to negotiate for themselves.

Eckhard's first act as the newly crowned military governor over the Teutonic Region was to send an ultimatum to the forces of the Eastern Coalition. Under the terms presented by Eckhard, they were given three months to remove all military, and political presence from the lands claimed by the Austrian Crown or face a full-scale invasion.

The Leaders of the Eastern Coalition did not take these demands lightly and responded by immediately invading what remained of the Teutonic State. A bold move, and one that Eckhard had entirely expected. Thus the aging Field Marshal currently stood atop a castle on the Eastern Front.

This once proud Teutonic fortress was nothing more than an obsolete structure in the eyes of the Austrian Field Marshal, though it, and other castles like it would serve as important cultural icons in the Kingdom of Austria and the future German Empire, its usefulness as an actual military structure was inferior to a star fortress, or even earthen fortifications.

Currently, as he stood atop this structure, his soldiers were firing their needle rifles and cannons into the Field below where the army of the enemy had gathered. Eckhard had split his army into much smaller units to protect the border from the enemy's invasion effectively. Thus, he merely commanded 5,000 men in defense of the current castle.

Despite being vastly outnumbered, the rapid-fire of the needle rifles and the support of the high explosive artillery was more than enough to ensure total victory in this battle against the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As the shells impacted upon the lines of iron-clad warriors, the enemy began to be filled with dread.

Just how were they supposed to siege a city against such a technologically superior foe? While Eckhard watched the ongoing carnage, a crossbow bolt flew by his head, narrowly missing his skull. Despite this threat to his existence, the man did not panic; in fact, not a single sign of excitement was visible from his appearance. Instead, he merely sighed heavily before ducking below the merlons.

As he sat by his soldiers, who fired their needle rifles into the gathered army below; the Austrian Field Marshal pulled out a pack of hemp cigarettes where he began to light one up and smoke during the ongoing battle. Such senseless slaughter, simply because the Eastern Coalition stubbornly refused to recognize that there was a new power in this world, one greater than their three nations combined. It was all so tiresome...