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Can Aegon I conquer Europe in the 15th century?


ninewinter

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5 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

That's why I say he'd have to start with the Vatican first and Rome second. He would have to kill the pope and burn Rome. The fires would make Nero blush.

Seems Legit heck he may score major Muslim allies with that 

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10 hours ago, Destiny Arrives said:

Seems Legit heck he may score major Muslim allies with that 

Yes.

But if he wants to conquer all of Europe, the Muslims in Sicily, Iberia and Greece must either bend the knee or face the dragon themselves. If he has Muslim allies, it's all over for Europe.

Are we counting Russia as 15th century Europe? And how far out does Russia go?

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12 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

That's why I say he'd have to start with the Vatican first and Rome second. He would have to kill the pope and burn Rome. The fires would make Nero blush.

It'd be a bit more complicated than that… If Aegon and his modest army comes from "some" island in the Atlantic (as suggered by OP) how does he get to Italy? Through France and Burgundy? Through the Holy Roman Germanic Empire? Where would he establish his base?

This is simply not realistic… He would have to fight Louis XI + Charles le Téméraire + the Habsburg (and maybe Joan of Arc if we're talking early 15th century :ph34r:)…

 

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24 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

It'd be a bit more complicated than that… If Aegon and his modest army comes from "some" island in the Atlantic (as suggered by OP) how does he get to Italy? Through France and Burgundy? Through the Holy Roman Germanic Empire? Where would he establish his base?

This is simply not realistic… He would have to fight Louis XI + Charles le Téméraire + the Habsburg (and maybe Joan of Arc if we're talking early 15th century :ph34r:)…

Vermithor and Silverwing established the capacity for 1800 km King´s Landing to Oldtown in 3 days. No stops mentioned besides the two night rests.

Gibraltar to Rome is under 1700 km as a dragon flies.

600 km from Gibraltar is about to Valencia. Next stage to Mahon. Then, e. g. 420 km Mahon-Cagliari - and from Cagliari, it is one stage to Rome. Note that the isles were inconveniently sited. An alternative might be sticking to African shore.

Now yes - Velaryon fleet was destroyed by Arryns. Possibly the Targaryens split their dragons too much - the one dragon nearby was some distance away scouting, so Arryns could attack when the fleet was undefended. Sensible use of dragons to defend vulnerable targets ties down a dragon - you need two to free the other for scouting and offensive duties.

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10 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Yes.

But if he wants to conquer all of Europe, the Muslims in Sicily, Iberia and Greece must either bend the knee or face the dragon themselves. If he has Muslim allies, it's all over for Europe.

Are we counting Russia as 15th century Europe? And how far out does Russia go?

After he leaves Rome a burning mess the Orthodox church may just say he was god's judgement for the corrupt Catholics and bend the knee 

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11 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

It'd be a bit more complicated than that… If Aegon and his modest army comes from "some" island in the Atlantic (as suggered by OP) how does he get to Italy? Through France and Burgundy? Through the Holy Roman Germanic Empire? Where would he establish his base?

This is simply not realistic… He would have to fight Louis XI + Charles le Téméraire + the Habsburg (and maybe Joan of Arc if we're talking early 15th century :ph34r:)…

 

Remember that Westeros is a continent the size of South America. Europe is a lot smaller in terms of geographical distances than the Seven Kingdoms.

Like I said, he only needs to destroy Rome. He destroyed Harrenhal with only one dragon. If he were wise, he should make his base somewhere that is very difficult to assail. Greece is a good option but the best option would likely be Norway.

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On 3/26/2019 at 12:56 AM, Jaak said:

Prince was published in manuscript form in 1513 (printed in 1532). Machiavelli was born in 1469, and got job in chancery of Florence in 1498.

 

I know, and yeah, it's quite careless to stretch Machiavelli can be a Hand when we're talking for early 15th century here. 

 

On 3/26/2019 at 12:56 AM, Jaak said:

Like, if Aegon employs Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci... who´d be the third?

Possibly a Theologian, to placate the people and make a better "Exceptionalist" theology. 

But the Turks have 

On 3/26/2019 at 12:56 AM, Jaak said:

Not Christian? But neither are Turks. And Aegon is more tolerant than Turks. While Turks did tolerate Christianity, there was big no-no of converting to Christianity, frequent forced conversions...

Aegon´s very lack of big army is an asset. His prospective allies don´t need to worry about sharing so much with his existing army, the way they´d need to if they defected to Turks.

Yes but that's the problem. When the Targs have conquered substantial amount of territory, let's say half France, they'll be very vulnerable to peasant uprisings that is hard to put down without the help of the Church. 

The story of the turks is different since they have a huge army to silence the religious dissent whereas Aegon will depend on whatever forces his new vassals will gave him. And I doubt if it's really an asset since Europe is so decentralised. There's no lord who can bend the knee and give him huge amount of manpower and resource supplies. He needs to wage and wage war, Dorne style, and we saw Aegon got tired of that kind of warfare. 

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I think now that the quickest and possibly the only road to conquer Europe is for him to arrive in the time of Nero. The Roman Empire is intact, but the Emperor is a Mad Man. Aegon can claim he's a true Julian, show the dragons as evidence of Divine approval. make himself a Dragon Emperor striking Rome fast and hard. Not all the legions will surrender of course, but with the dragons he can defeat other would be General-Emperors, consolidate the Roman Empire and proceed to conquer Germania, Scythia, Hibernia and the Picts. With the skills and organisation of the Empire and the legions, as well as a Senate quite content with Aegon's effective but loose hand of ruling, I'm sure he can do that within his lifetime. 

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12 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Remember that Westeros is a continent the size of South America. Europe is a lot smaller in terms of geographical distances than the Seven Kingdoms.

Not quite.

The planet is bigger, but the size of Westeros South to North is comparable to the size of Europe, Southwest to Northeast:

Sunhouse-Oldtown, close to 400 km, is comparable to distance Cadiz-Madrid;

Oldtown-King´s Landing is about 1800 km, which would be comparable to Madrid-Hamburg;

King´s Landing-Winterfell seems to be about 2500 km, which is comparable to Hamburg-Nižni Novgorod;

Winterfell-Wall, about 1000 km, is comparable to Nižni Novgorod-Urals

So if you put the Neck somewhere around Poland-Lithuania border then the whole Europe from Portugal to Poland would be as big as the whole Andalos, Arbor to Neck. And the North from Neck to Wall would be comparable in size to Russia - then (early 15th century) divided between Lithuania, Muscovy, Novgorod, Golden Horde...

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Like I said, he only needs to destroy Rome. He destroyed Harrenhal with only one dragon. If he were wise, he should make his base somewhere that is very difficult to assail. Greece is a good option but the best option would likely be Norway.

Norway is inconvenient for access by land, and only gives few useful directions by sea or air.

Since dragons like volcanoes, Norway has none. Iceland has them, but is otherwise inconveniently far. Italy and Greece do have useful volcanoes.

Destroying Rome is limited usefulness - it does nothing to Avignon!

Generally, the problem with popes was that since 11th century they were not stuck to city of Rome. When threatened by local nobles or citizens or imperial armies, popes could flee and continue to enjoy recognition by clergy and lords, and stay away from Rome in long term (Avignon, but previously other places in Italy).

Popes never claimed ability to provide all that reliable protection against temporal attacks. So a pope who is forced to flee his capital is not discredited as much as a secular king who cannot protect his people.

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14 hours ago, ninewinter said:

and proceed to conquer Germania, Scythia, Hibernia and the Picts. 

Agree with the rest, but I don't see how the dragons or his new legions will have more luck against Germanic tribes and Picts than the Romans did in real life - in the safety of their thick forests and mountains. The dragons are a good threat against fortified defences (unless you can manage to shoot them in the eye), cities and against land armies out on the plains in dry weather. As Dorne proved, a determined enemy with the advantage of terrain with little to lose could hold out longer than Aegon had the appetite for. In this particular scenario, he would be quite happy to have taken over the Roman Empire in its existing form and rule over it rather than bother with subduing barbarians on all sides of the empire. In Westeros, he didn't bother with the Wildlings beyond the wall, not even with the Wildlings of the mountains of the moon - they were Arryn's problem. I think if Dorne hadn't shot down Rhaenys, maybe he would have stopped the Dornish war sooner as well. 

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On 3/25/2019 at 6:04 PM, Ran said:

You claimed 14th century Scandinavia was full of pagans, and that's what @Nowy Tends was responding to. Your Wikipedia article says that Scandinavia was pretty much entirely christianized by the 12th century. There was no "very large" pagan population, as you claimed. 

Read the article again, it was formally christianized by the 12th century, but large parts of the population still followed the old ways.

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8 hours ago, MagicPen said:

Read the article again, it was formally christianized by the 12th century, but large parts of the population still followed the old ways.

There were not "large parts of the population" who were pagans in Scandinavia in the 14th century. There were some pagan Sámi in the northern reaches of Scandinavia, but they were a very small percentage of the overall Scandinavian population.

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13 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Agree with the rest, but I don't see how the dragons or his new legions will have more luck against Germanic tribes and Picts than the Romans did in real life - in the safety of their thick forests and mountains. The dragons are a good threat against fortified defences (unless you can manage to shoot them in the eye), cities and against land armies out on the plains in dry weather. As Dorne proved, a determined enemy with the advantage of terrain with little to lose could hold out longer than Aegon had the appetite for. In this particular scenario, he would be quite happy to have taken over the Roman Empire in its existing form and rule over it rather than bother with subduing barbarians on all sides of the empire. In Westeros, he didn't bother with the Wildlings beyond the wall, not even with the Wildlings of the mountains of the moon - they were Arryn's problem. I think if Dorne hadn't shot down Rhaenys, maybe he would have stopped the Dornish war sooner as well. 

Your point is legitimate. I'm only hoping that with a Dragon Emperor, the legions will fight better and their enemies will lose morale and give up easily. Remember, the nobility of Dorne are partly Rhoynar, and they are one of the few peoples in Planetos who have faced dragons and defeated them in open combat. I'm sure some of the scrolls in Sunspear showed strategy or thoughts on how to counter the dragons or survived with an invading army with dragons, such as guerrilla tactics, which they have done. However, the countless "barbarians" of Europe lived in an age of superstition and facing  three realDragons will certainly take the heart of them. Again this is plain speculation, and the "germans" might lose easily, whereas the Picts will fight Dorne style. But the argument is correct that a Dragon Emperor will surely fare better than most Roman Emperors did. If Tiberius almost pacified Germania, Aegon could too. It's not too far stretched that Aegon can surprassed Alexander the Great as one of the best generals in Antiquity. 

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The 1500 men Aegon had when he landed in, basically, Riverlands was about the number of men Isabella had at Orwell in September 1326.

Henry IV, in Ravenspurn in June 1399, had much fewer, though I could not track down the precise number.

Neither Isabella nor Henry IV had dragons.

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15 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

No but they didn't conquer an entire continent did they? Henry didn't even had to fight…

Henry IV took England, yes. Henry V took France.

Henry V after Agincourt needed 10 000 men and 5 months to take Rouen. 20 000 men and 7 months to take Meaux. 6 months for unsuccessful siege of Orleans.

Castle of Monte San Giovanni had lasted a siege of 7 years. In 1495, Charles VIII of France attacked it with 25 000 men - and a heavy artillery siege train. It fell in 8 hours, and the defenders were slaughtered.

Against attackers before such siege trains - Calais was held for 210 years by a garrison of around 500 men.

A conqueror marching across France or Italy with a dragon for siege train will not need to get stuck for months at a siege. A dragon will reduce any castle or town in matter of hours, not months. So no need to feed the encamped siege army for months - leave a garrison and march or ride on a few days later. And no need to have 10 000 men. 500 to hold the city - a couple of thousand would be completely adequate for initial clearance of a hostile city.

So - how about a little chevauchee? Not 10 000 men and 5 months. 2000 men, one dragon and 5 hours to take a city - total of 5 days rest, then move on. One trip around Rouen, Paris, Orleans, leaving 500 men garrisons each and returning with 500.

A conquest like this is cheap. For the conquered, too. Bending the knee is cheap because the winners have little to repay. Fighting on is expensive - and hopeless.

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