Part 35: Europa Universalis III: Chapter 5 - State of Affairs
Interlude: State of Affairs
Swabia is a country marked by twenty years of constant warfare. Its 'soft power' policy has seen little actual application, forced to give way for the Empire's defense against the highly aggressive French monarchs, the latest of which is King François I. As a result, Swabia's court is dominated completely by its militaristic faction.
Some good has come out of the war, as Baron Karl Weber has successfully completed a program aimed to reform Swabia's medieval levy infantry into a semi-professional corps of Men at Arms.
Swabia's economy remains weak, especially with the current peasant uprisings disrupting tax collection. Largely dependant on agriculture, Swabia nonetheless has access to a number of important provinces that produce Salt and Cloth, bringing in much-needed revenue from tolls and tariffs.
Still, it can only afford to keep 20,000 men under arms, a pitiful number compared to great powers such as France and the Hammadid Caliphate. Its saving grace in the wars so far has been the supply of manpower from member states required by the terms of the Golden Bull.
Having emerged as the dominant power in Europe, France is a large and decentralized country, dominated by powerful magnates and monasteries who treat their peasants little better than slaves. As the world's leading producer of textiles, it is nonetheless a wealthy country that glances hungrily at its small mercantile neighbours of Holland and Brittany.
Its chief rival besides Swabia is Aquitaine, which by comparison has developed into a fairly enlightened society with a powerful merchant class and a peasantry largely free from serfdom. Despite its strong economy, it is in a vulnerable position, bordering France to the north and the Hammadids to the south.
The apex power of the Muslim world, the Hammadid Caliphate is busying itself conquering the last remnants of christianity in Iberia. Galicia and Castille are all but defeated, while the King of Navarra has been forced to swear vassalage to Aquitaine to save his lands from conquest.
On the eastern plains, the Finns are locked in a civil war with the breakaway Rus Tribe of Novgorod. The Finns are weakened after several wars with Georgia and Lithuania, and the future of their Empire seems highly uncertain. Lithuania and its weaker ally Poland have crushed the Catholic rebellions in Mazovia and Silesia, and consolidated the West Slavic lands as a stronghold of Orthodox christianity.
Georgia, meanwhile, is facing its own problems, torn apart by rebellions on the inside and the target of a resurgent Golden Horde on the outside.
The Balkans have remained relatively stable for the last two decades. The current Byzantine Emperor Michael X is a passive man with little ambition who has refused to bring his country into any of the region's wars. Hungary has conquered Serbia, but its subsquent attempt to subjugate Croatia resulted in a humiliating defeat at the hands of Croatia's ally Austria.
In the Holy Lands, the Crusades continue. Egypt is rapidly disintegrating, and its neighbours are fighting over the remnants of the once-mighty Shiite Sultanate.
Having fared much better than Egypt in its wars, Syria has expanded considerably to the east, annexing several territories formely controlled by the Il-Khanate, which is in the grips of a succession war.
Catholicism remains poised against Orthodoxy and Islam, and only the Lord above knows which of the three will come to dominate the world in the future. These are uncertain times, and such times present opportunities for those bold enough to seize them.