Bulgaria, February 1371
Ivan Stratsimir and Ivan Shisman succeeded their father Ivan Alexander in the tsardom of Bulgaria. This of course given the rivalry between the two brothers meant that the Bulgarian state already broken in two would now be broken in three...
Corfu, March 1371
Adrienne Lascaris had followed her husband on the island. 28 Sicilian and Calabrian galleys and 20 Greek galleys had gathered in the island under the command of Ioannis Maniakes. If the Venetian navy wanted to get out of the Adriatic it would have to get past them. Sicilian spies in spies had reported that Venice was arming 47 galleys this year and had been forced to impose more forced loans on its citizens to keep the fleet and the army in Crete paid.
Frascia bay, Crete, April 1371
Over a hundred transport ships begun unloading ten thousand soldiers under Alexandros Philanthropenos. Philanthropenos would soon link up with the army of Ioannis Kallergis and move on Candia. With fifteen thousand men marching on them, the Venetians would prudently hole up behing the fortifications. But they would be besieged there by Philanthropenos and Kallergis, while a squadron of 8 galleys blockaded the city from the sea. The blockade would prove porous, the blockading quadron would prove not numerous enough to cut off every Venetian blockade runner but the Venetian defenders would slowly but surely be cut off from supplies.
Padua, August 1371
The previous year Francesco Carrara, the lord of Padua had diverted the waters to Camposampiero river from flowing into the Trevisano river which was controlled by Venice. Now emboldened by the troubles Venice was finding itself in, he begun building new fortifications on the contested border with Venice. The signoria would react by proclaiming an embargo on Paduan trade.
Candia, October 16th, 1371
The city was finally forced to surrender under terms. The garrison and every Venetian colonist so desiring would be allowed to leave for Venice with their arms and movable property. It was lighter terms than Philanthropenos could possibly squeeze, but what truly mattered was Crete being free from end to end...
Adrianople, October 1371
A Serb army of 20,000 men under co-king Vukasin and his brother Jovan Ugliesa the ruler of Serres put the Ottoman capital under siege taking advantage of the move of the bulk of the Ottoman army for campaign in Anatolia. But Adrianople, defended by Lala Shahin pasha would stand up against the besiegers.
Venice, January 1372
The news of the surrender of Candia had not been received well in the city. Vettor Pisani in command of the Venetian navy would be unceremoniously sacked and sentenced to prison for six months. Pisani, well aware his fleet was the last Venice could mobilize had prudently avoided to give battle with the Sicilian fleet at Corfu. But this had also meant he had failed to come to the aid of Candia, while Greek privateers had played havoc on Venetian trade outside the straits of Otranto, Syracuse had been giving letters of marque to Sicilian captains with both hands. Thus the public and perhaps more importantly the aristocratic houses suffering from the Sicilian raiding and the loss of Cretan plantations wanted a scapegoat. Pisani, as the man in the head of the fleet made an excellent one.
Adrianople, January 1372
Murad I had crossed the Hellespont aboard ships provided by the Genoese of Galata in the middle of winter, forced marched his way to Adrianople in eight days and attacked the besieging Serb army taking them by surprise. The Serbs would be routed and thousands would drown in the waters of the Ebros river. Both Ugliesa brothers would die in the battle. Coupled with the death of Stefan Uros V in December the last semblance of Serb centralization would be gone. Vukasin's son
Marko would be proclaimed king of Serbia but in effect every semblance of centralized authority would come apart.
Candia, February 1372
Men were flocking from all over Crete to Candia, the "Magalo Kastro", the Great Castle as the Cretans used to call it. For years the Cretans had been providing crews to the Venetian fleet. Now for the first time in nearly two centuries the Cretans were arming a dozen galleys on their own volition. As soon as the weather allowed the squadron would be sailing north to meet the rest of the fleet.
Thessaloniki, March 1372
Alexandros Philanthropenos marched east after Chalkidiki at the head of 10,000 men. Thessaloniki had been a Greek island among Serb controlled territory for the past two decades. But now the Serbs had been crushed before Adrianople by the Turks and Philanthropenos had no intention of letting the opportunity go to waste, after all he very much remembered his elder brother dying fighting the Serbs during Dusan's invasion of Thessaly. It was time to liberate Macedonia and of course that hardly meant restoring it to the control of that weakling in Constantinople.
Off Lissa, May 16th, 1372
The Venetian fleet attacked. If any of the Venetian commanders had second thoughts over taking on Maniakes fifty galleys with their forty-eight, the fate of Vettor Pisani earlier in the year was enough to dissuade them from expressing them. The battle not unexpectedly remained in the balance with neither side gaining the advantage and neither willing to pull back. Then twenty more sail appeared over the horizon as the squadron under Kallergis sailed to the aid of their comrades...
Chioggia, June 30, 1372
Vettor Pisani had been dragged out of prison to be placed in command of the Venetian fleet and defenses. But his report back to the council of ten was bleak. Twenty-three galleys had survived the disaster at Lissa. Maniakes had fifty, after sending half a dozen east to deal with the siege of Rhodes. The fortifications at Chioggia had been improved since the assault of Alexandros II, but not enough to stand up to the five thousand Cretans and Calabrians, Maniakes and Kallergis had brought along. And just to compound the Venetian problems, Francesco Carrara of Padua despite the efforts of pope Gregory XI to mediate between him an Venice had first made a failed plot to assassinate several leading Venetian citizens and as soon as the treaty was over had declared war on Venice. Louis I of Hungary had not followed him for now at least but had already sent 1,500 cavalry to the aid of the Paduans. Something had to give.
Venice, July 1372
Doge Andrea Contarini put his signature on the peace treaty between Sicily and the republic. The republic was to surrender, Crete, Euboea, Korone, Methone, Kythera and Karpathos. Sicily was to secure the right of Venetian merchants to freely trade in the realms of the basileus... as long as they adhered to his laws and payed their taxes. The Sicilians undertook to keep the custom duties imposed on Venetian merchants at their post-war levels but then, Alexandros I had already copied the Aragonese in placing somewhat higher custom duties on foreign merchants over Sicilian ones...
Rhodes, August 15th, 1372
Back in May Ioannis Buas had landed with six thousand men on the island. Now Kallergis had joined him with even more men and ships following the peace with Venice. But the knights despite being massively outnumbered had no intention of giving up easily.
Macedonia, December 1372
Serres, Drama had just thrown their gates open to Philanthropenos army. The Athonite monks had not, the Sicilians after all were potentially closet papists and definately anti-hesychast Baa rlamites. But Philanthropenos had an army, they had not and they had no real alternatives thus had submitted. By the end of the year Macedonia between Thessaloniki and the Nestos river was back under Greek control and Philanthropenos was looking after the lands of Radoslav Hlapen to the west. After all why should Hlapen be left between the Lascarid lands to his east, south and west?
Rhodes, February 25th, 1373
The knights had held out to incessant Sicilian attacks for over half a year. But in the end the Sicilians were too many and the Hospital could not expect support from anywhere. After seven years the second occupation of Rhodes was over.
