The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 3

Devnum

Ky looked down the long table, surrounded by all of the military commanders currently on Britannia, as well as Talogren, who had decided to remain for several weeks following the treaty signing, Ramirus, and even Hortensius. It had been more than a month since the defeat of Carthaginian forces in Ériu and the Carthaginian fleet, but this was the first time Ky had been able to summon all of the scattered forces back together to plan their next moves.

Velius was still in transit, getting his legions shuttled to Britannia, but Ky couldn’t wait for his chief general any longer. The Carthaginians had done them a favor, stripping a large number of soldiers from Iberia and the continent for the multiple armies sent against Rome. It was far from the largest part of their might, but most of that was still scattered across their sprawling empire. They had a window where the Carthaginians were actually weakened, at least along the coast. From Ramirus’s reports, they had too few soldiers to cover the entire coastline, making now the perfect time to strike.

Of course, they couldn’t just go across with the legions as they were. Even with the first cannon rolling out of Hortensius’s factories, swords and shield walls would not stand up to the size of the forces the Carthaginians would be able to throw at them there. Unlike their battles on Britannia, where the Carthaginians needed to ferry every man, weapon, and supply item needed to move armies, they had all that available on the continent. The armies they faced there would dwarf the ones the Britannians faced so far, and Ky doubted they would be able to train up more than one more legion, even if they brought in the Ulaid.

The recruiting in the Roman and Caledonian regions was already slowing, thanks to the competition for men needed in the factories and fields, both just as vital to the Empire's chances of success against the Carthaginians as new soldiers. Unfortunately, until they took back a lot more territory, depriving Carthage of their conscripted soldiers, Britannia would continue to face growing disparities in the number of men each side could field.

Crossbows and better steel weren’t enough. The cannon was a good start, but Ky needed to start adding serious force multipliers if they were going to be victorious. Which meant time … which they didn’t have a lot of.

It was going to be a race between the Britannians building up weapons and forces and the Carthaginians marching forces from across their empire to the coast. Whoever got there first was going to win.

The men were all talking amongst themselves, and most were in excellent moods. They had survived what looked like the worst and had a string of remarkable victories to be proud of. Ky almost hated to bring them back to reality. Almost.

“Gentlemen, and lady,” he said with a nod to his wife, who smiled back at him. “We’ve done well this spring. Britannia Mana is almost free of Carthaginians; and, for the present, we control the seas around our islands. Our people are safe, for a time at least. Now isn’t the time to lull ourselves into complacency. We have wounded the monster at our door, and we’ve gotten its attention. It’s only a matter of time until they bring the full weight of their empire down on us.”

“Let them try,” Valdar, the recently appointed admiral of the fledgling Britannian navy, said. “We rule the seas and will sink any ship that comes for us.”

“You are smarter than that, Valdar,” Lucilla said. “You’re one ship was nearly out of gunpowder when you lured their fleet into the range of our guns on the cliffs, and that fleet was just what the Carthaginians could pull together on short notice. Are you so confident they will fall into our trap twice? And even if they do, we could not possibly mount enough cannons to sink a larger fleet. The last one was surprised and overconfident. If they decided to ignore you and take their losses, they still could have landed a huge army on our shores. Thinking your enemy is toothless, or underestimating the danger they represent, is how fools die.”

Ky had to fight to hide his smile as he heard his words coming out of her mouth. He didn’t begrudge her passing off his analysis as her own, even when she had taken the exact position as Valdar during their conversation. While she was beloved by the Caledonians, not all of the Britannians believed a woman had a place leading men into combat. They were a team and it was in both of their interests that she convinced the commanders that she belonged in these councils of war. If he had to give her a crib sheet to do that, he was more than happy to do it.

“Exactly. I think we can eventually control the waves with a fleet no Carthaginian can touch, but we are not there yet.”

“I apologize, my lady,” Valdar said with a slight bow of his head.

“What we need is to give them a threat apart from our islands to focus on, and to begin taking some of their resources, including men, away from them. That means taking the fight to the continent, which is precisely what I called you here to discuss.”

“If that is where they are amassing their new armies, is that a good idea?” Ursinus, the former guard and newest legate, asked. “Any men we land ashore will be crushed by their larger forces, just like they would be if we allowed them to land here. I agree that Valdar put the cart before the horse, but he isn’t wrong. If we can build enough of a fleet and these new cannons, wouldn’t our safest bet be to put a ring around our islands, and keep them at bay?”

“Perhaps, but that won’t last forever. They will never stop prodding us, and eventually, they will break through. We also do not have limitless resources and, as long as they control most of the continent, they effectively do. They can cut us off from trade routes without ever coming directly into conflict with our ships. If they wanted, they could starve us. We import a fair amount of food and a lot of supplies from the Scandi and Asia, and that doesn’t even consider the number of men we’d need to keep a ring in place for years, sustaining constant losses to Carthaginian probes. No, hiding on our islands, hoping that the monster will just go away, will not work.”

“But you have a plan, yes?” the Emperor, who was the only one seated at this meeting, asked.

“Yes, Princeps. There are several things we need to do simultaneously. One. We need to begin training the new men coming in. Our superior cohesion is what has allowed us to stand firm against far superior numbers, and the number of trained legionaries we have now is significantly and dangerously lower than when I arrived almost a year ago. You all understand the difference between a soldier and a warrior, and the need for soldiers. With the mostly Ulaid reinforcements, we will need time to train them. Two. Hortensius will continue to produce new weapons. With the successful field test of the cannon and the progression in the quality of the steel we have been producing, I believe it is time for another major leap forward in our weapons technology. The arcuballista was a good middle step, something better than what the legions used previously but still within our original manufacturing capabilities. They are not, however, good enough to give us the force multiplier we need to deal with the Carthaginians.”

“And what are these new weapons, precisely,” Auspex asked.

“I am going to hold off on sharing that for the moment. It is going to take time and a lot of work on Hortensius’ part to get us ready for production on anything more complicated than the arcuballista, and I don’t want to distract the men. I’m sure word will leak out before we decide it’s the right time, but, right now, I want your men focused on training. My purpose today was to let you know there is a major overhaul coming which will change the way the legions fight, although the change will be less than it would for a less ordered unit.”

“And what, precisely, are we training for?” Ursinus asked. “Besides teaching farmers and herders how to hold a sword and march, what are we doing?”

“That’s number three. When we do land on the continent, it’s going to be a challenge. The last time anyone here attempted a landing on an area without a port, it was in small, oar-driven, shallow draft vessels. It took days to move whole legions, which is plenty of time for the Carthaginians to catch us with half our legions on the continent and half on Britannia, attacking us when we are not prepared. That said, even if they greatly increase their manpower along the coast, they can’t cover every inch of it and they won’t know where we’re going to strike. That gives us the element of surprise, a chance to maneuver, and even a chance to make local allies to help reinforce our numbers.”

“Do you really think the locals will side with us when the time comes?” Valdar asked.

“Maybe. We’ve taken in a lot of refugees from the continent over the last several months, as the tribes closest to the coast have seen us as a potential safe haven. We can use that to our advantage, getting some of our new countrymen to negotiate with their brothers and cousins to see that siding with us is in their best interest.”

“Which is why you pushed so hard to get them allowed in as citizens,” Lucilla said.

“Precisely. They’ve been safe for several months now. Ever since we defeated Bomilcar’s army, we’ve allowed them to come here for safety,” Ky said, which caused all eyes to turn to the Carthaginian, now Britannian, general who had remained silent so far. “They all ran because they didn’t want to live in Carthaginian lands, where they and their families were being brutalized. It hasn’t been so long, however, that their people aren’t still there. Once they see some of their family in legionnaire armor, coming to free them, they’ll do the work for us. Or at least make it easier. That will be the start. Once we convert some villages and create a safe area on the continent for our forces, more will defect to us. The Carthaginian empire is held together by fear and their armies are made up of men who serve because if they don’t the Carthaginians will kill everyone they grew up with and burn the remains of the village behind them as they leave. The more villages we free, the less manpower the Carthaginians will have. The men they would conscript from those villages will see a chance for freedom and come over to us, and so on and so on. By the time we clear enough of the continent to secure our own supply lines, the Carthaginian army, and their base of supply, will be greatly diminished, which is what we need, because this will only work in Germania, Gaul, and the like. Once we cross over to the Carthaginian homelands, we will have to fight for every inch we take.”

“That’s still a big risk,” Ramirus said. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if villages don’t come over to us, we’re going to have to fight larger and larger armies, since it’s easier to march an army across Germania than sail through it with our cannons.”

“True, it’s a risk, but that’s true about everything in war. If it works, it solves our supply problem, solves our manpower problem, and weakens the Carthaginians at the same time.”

“He’s not wrong about how the locals will react,” Bomilcar said, speaking for the first time. “A large part of the Carthaginian army is used for reprisal and punishment details, putting down nascent rebellions. Since we couldn’t send any of the pressed units into their homeland, for fear of mutinies or refusals to kill their countrymen, we had to constantly shuffle forces, sending Persians to Germania, Germans to Italy, Italians to Persia, and so on. Even then, if you killed too many people from an area, the units conscripted from that area would often revolt, since we … the Carthaginians no longer had leverage to keep them in line.”

Only glares answered him. Bomilcar showed his mettle by not flinching or stammering at the hostile reception. Ky couldn’t help him either. He was trying to build the beginnings of a professional military, and he wanted his leaders to feel free to speak their minds. He felt for the former Carthaginian, but he had to let the man take his lumps until he convinced the rest of the Britannians it was better to use him than fight him.

“You’ve already had a difficult time convincing the Senate to allow the Ulaid to join the Empire, and they have long-standing ties with the Caledonians and were given a significant landmass to control, which meant resources valuable to us,” Ramirus said. “Germania isn’t the same thing. We can’t be kingmakers. We still aren’t sure it worked on Ériu, since the entire country is on the verge of rebellion after each of the kingdoms lost their individual sovereignty. If everyone on the island hadn’t either already been destroyed or sided with the Carthaginians, putting the entire country under one ruler wouldn’t have worked there. Germania hasn’t been able to mass any large political organization, so each village is basically a kingdom unto itself, or at best a collective of a handful of villages. To incorporate them would mean convincing the Senate to allow a bunch of comparatively diminutive manpower and resource-poor groups in as equals, giving each the same say as Rome, Caledonia, and the Ulaid. I can’t imagine any of our current senators would agree to have their faction's power diluted that much.”

“They almost certainly wouldn’t, which is why I’m not suggesting they be absorbed into the Empire. So far, we discussed the Empire and former, pre-Empire alliance between the Romans and Caledonians interchangeably. I think it’s time we began to build an actual alliance. Villages, kingdoms, whatever that are willing to fight with us against the Carthaginians, we will supply weapons and civilian supplies, both by opening our markets to them and by giving supplies to each member of the alliance as needed, in return for their supporting our war effort. They won’t be integrated into the legions, but we can use their warriors as auxiliaries and, more importantly, have access to buy the resources they might be sitting on. That gives them wealth, which they could in turn use to buy finished products from us, and sell us supplies for our factories. We’ll have to work out the details of what we’re offering and asking, but it gives us a safe base to work from as we fight toward Africa and desperately needed supplies. Some of the resources we are going to need in the future aren’t available to be mined either here or on Ériu, and will have to come from the continent.”

“What about after the war, once Carthage is defeated? We will have armed people who could then use those weapons to come after us.”

“There are some weapons we won’t give them, or we will give them, but they won’t be able to manufacture for themselves, at least not for a long time. It will be a long time before the Carthaginians are able to duplicate our results, let alone smaller regions without their resources. Remember, it has taken an Empire-wide effort and systematically planned changes to get where we are, and it will only get more complex as I introduce more changes needed for even more advanced weapons. Without my know-how, they will have to work out not only what we do to produce certain weapons, but they will have to understand why we do things, which is a much harder task. Could they one day duplicate the cannon or some of the other things we will be making? Maybe for Carthage, but doubtful for one or two villages on their own.”

“Fine, they’ll be reliant on us for resources,” Talogren said. “But you just said we will need their resources too. Why give it away when we could extend our grasp over the entire continent? You are constantly saying we need resources and manpower. There it is. Once they have submitted to us, we will have the ability to hold onto it.”

While Ky was happy to hear the Caledonian leader refer to Britannia as “us,” he was less happy to hear the rest of the sentiment. He knew it was inevitable. Even for a people who’d previously been threatened, or under the yoke of that kind of expansionist empire, there were always those who saw the power that offered and wanted it for themselves. Ky wasn’t against empires per se. He’d grown up in one and created a new one here, after all. What he was against was creating one that would inevitably fall under its own weight, much as the original Roman Empire, and the empires that came after it, fell when they got too large.

“Because we are not the Carthaginians. Morality aside, we are here precisely because controlling an empire made up of subjugated people who are, themselves, not an equal part of that empire eventually results in rebellions. The history of where I come from is replete with empires such as this growing and then collapsing under their own weight. If we want to build a place where our children and our children’s children can grow up in comfort and safety, we have to build something that will not collapse under its own weight. Better to have trade and political alliances with those people, and use our technological head start to give us more peaceful forms of leverage to get what we need, without having to resort to controlling the lives of every farmer and laborer in the known world.”

“A well-formulated plan,” the Emperor said. “Already we see the difficulty of working between our peoples. How much more complicated do you think that would be if the people involved increased two-fold, or ten-fold? Before the alliance, how easy was it to consolidate the Caledonian league?”

Talogren gave a shrug and let the subject drop. Ky wasn’t sure he’d actually accepted the point, but he didn’t need true believers. Just acceptance.

“So we build an alliance. If only our legions have the more advanced weapons, our new allies will notice we are using them as disposables, soaking up punishment from the Carthaginians so our legions can fight more manageable numbers,” Lucilla said. “I can’t imagine they will accept that kind of use for long.”

“That’s a good point, and one of the many details that will have to be worked out. This session is to go over the broad strokes of the next stages of the war. We will then have to work out the specifics of it. But yes, we will undoubtedly have to arm our allies and train them to some degree to function using those weapons alongside our legions. And yes, this does mean giving weapons to people who might one day use them against us. However, they will be beholden to us for replacement weapons and supplies to use those weapons. We will probably have to give them those things as long as the war continues, but once it is finished, they will have to buy them from us, unless we negotiate a specific value back to our Empire for them. And of course, if they turn against us, they will no longer have access to those weapons. It isn’t a perfect solution, but it should be good enough.”

“You hope,” Ursinus said.

“Which is true of all wars. War is always a risk. Concessions must be made to win and the larger the opponent, the larger the concessions that must be made.”

“Fine, so once these new weapons you mentioned are developed and ready, we take the fight to the continent and build an alliance of locals to help against the Carthaginians,” Talogren said. “That sounds like it will take some time. What do we do in the meantime? The Carthaginians aren’t going to sit and wait while we build supplies.”

“That’s true. Partially, we protect our position. The first ships built from the keel up to support the use of cannons, and a lot more cannons than were on Valdar’s ship, will roll off the slips soon. These ships will help us maintain control of the waters around our islands. We have the benefit of the sea, our superior ships and cannon, and poor Carthaginian ships and sailing ability to keep us safe. It will be a very long time until they can replicate our new ship designs and cannon, making us at least safe behind our coastline for now. However, I don’t plan on just sitting behind our ships while we build up for the invasion of the continent. For one, we can’t go from a mostly infantry force to amphibious landings against a larger enemy that easily. We need to get some experience with new tactics, including integrating cannons into our land forces. Thankfully, we have another option available to us. Insula Manavia still has a Carthaginian force on it. It has been cut off and we currently have ships watching it, but it is both a threat and an opportunity. Our next task should be to train with both Valdar’s ships and the legions to land and take the island, giving our men experience with amphibious assaults, real-world practice with our new weapons, and removing the threat all at the same time. That is our immediate target.”

Talogren, and the legates, accepted that option. Ky hadn’t needed any advice from Lucilla on how to deal with the Caledonians or the commanders. He might not understand politics, but he understood how soldiers and warriors thought. Give them a target, and they were content. What they couldn’t do well was sit and wait. This would give Hortensius time to get the weapons they needed produced, and the military something to focus on, while helping train all of the men being added into the legions before they faced the real test.

The only real danger to this plan was that it would take so long that the Carthaginians would get enough manpower on the coastlines to make any amphibious assault and land invasion impossible.

Even he had to accept that all war included risk.