Swamps and forests that is all the North is. The land is not rich like that behind the Hoogpiek Mountains and conquest of it would add little to the empire. This is what I told emperor Engelbert in the hopes of persuading him to keep the peace rather than waste resources in war. Engelbert, as weak emperors are wont to do, refused to listen to wise advice, instead favouring the words of warmongering marshals and generals who told him that a great military victory was necessary to secure his throne. Pure foolishness of course, considering I and his father had spent the past twenty years strengthening imperial power and disposing of any overly ambitious aristocrats or merchants that stood in the way. I told the emperor this as well and yet again he refused to listen.

So preparations for war were made: troops were mobilised, taxes were raised and the imperial forges burned day and night. The target would be Midlandt, the impoverished duchy that is the gateway to the lands further north. The campaign was to be short and sweet. Our armies would sweep through the poorly defended dukedom and take the fortresses that protected the crossings of the major natural obstacle, that is the broad, slow flowing Traak river. This was how the generals envisioned it at least but, as this story will show, the military’s enthusiastic projections should always be distrusted.

The invasion force was finally ready in the spring of 1645 when two armies led by generals Alarik Grootland and Kornelius van Hove crossed into the high grass of Midlandt, with fire and steel in hand. Villages were pillaged, fields were burned, and peasants were massacred. All the dirty wartime business. It all seemed to go rather smoothly just like the generals had promised. In the first month the Midlandian duke and his army had been decimated in an ambush while the few castles and cities of the land preferred surrender over destruction.

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Everyone was saying that the war would be over before summer even started, until the newly formed Traak Coalition joined the war. Sure, the Coalition army led by Albert Waterland was defeated at Hertenbos the moment they crossed the Traak to engage our forces, yet now we ourselves were forced to cross the Traak to deal with five kingdoms united in a common cause against us.

The war dragged on for four more expensive bloody years before disaster struck first at Wateren and then at Baaker, not to mention the foolishness that was the Grijswater expedition. We were defeated and I had to urge Engelbert to sign the treaty of Zeeburg before things worsened. I had already seen trouble brewing in the capital, I had foiled countless plots of opportunistic merchants and prevented a coup of a cabal of nobles, yet this would prove to be inadequate. Chaos erupted in the provinces in the wake of the peace treaty, with freedom fighters appearing everywhere. Several of our governors had to flee their palaces to avoid capture or execution.

While the provinces were in open revolt a group of Maecktian nobles saw an opportunity to capture emperor Engelbert and so they did. After killing any loyalist opposition in the capital, the conspirators put the emperor’s cousin Dietrich as a puppet on the throne. I would have been killed as well if I had not had the foresight to flee the capital for the army camp of crown prince Willander. The prince welcomed my service and with my advice he brought order back within the borders. He crushed the revolts in the provinces and put down the coup with an iron fist, freeing his father from the grasp of the conspirators. Then Engelbert abdicated his throne to Willander, the only wise decision he made during his reign.

Willander is not like his father, he more resembles the old emperors: he is cunning, ambitious, and ruthless when he needs to be. With Willander on the throne and me as his chancellor the Empire is in good hands once more.

-Imperial Chancellor Vreemde, 1651