Slavonia 907-920 : Twilight of the Khan

September 907.

The whole of Hrvastka had been bled dry. Castimir, my personal chaplain and doctor, still held the head of my armies as an old man, using a special chair to ride his horse, and holding on to his sword by his one valid hand.

There was not a village whose men in age of fighting hadn't been killed or wounded in one of the battles against the Magyars or the Czechs. But the Khanate, now confined to the Western bank of the Danube in Pannonia, had survived. The Khan had allied himself with the King of Lombardia, who happened to be at that time a Frankish grandson to one King of Lotharingia, from the faraway Brabant, who was not a descendant of Charlemagne, as had been all the Frankish kings of Lombardia and Bavaria before. In this alliance, the Frankish knights came to blow with the Magyars horsemen for the first time in History.
The wars were not over yet, but thanks in no small part to Venetians troops, the local Hungarian potentates had seen their ambitions frustrated and their armies sent packing home.

In 908, I promised my Natalija to the teenage Ban of Croatia, Zvonimir son of Besar. It was a bet on the future as the wedding would be held eight years afterwards, but I needed support at the court.

[as Braslav III]
My father was murdered on the orders of the Ban of Bosna before he could murder him. I took charge of the Banate of Slavonia on the 25 March of 908. My brothers hated me, because my father had instituted the elective banate. I gave the seat of Zagorje to the eldest Vid, and betrothed the youngest, Dujam, to a daughter of the old, weak, and proud Svatopluk of Morava.
I assembled an army right away to be able to arrest the treacherous Mayor of Gradec. This was quickly dealt with, and, as Khan Täbär tried to defend the coastal town of Rijeka from the Venetians, I could ally with both the Ban of Croatia and the Ban of Bosna.

In 911, Khan Täbär was deposed for his child brother Bihor, who was more a Slav now than an Avar. The Venetian left without a conquest but came back the next year. By then, Hrvatska could assemble a much more powerful army and, after a lull, could crush the Merchants at the battle of Somogyvár in April 914, occupy the City on the Lagoon while repulsing yet another Magyar invasion from Fejér.
I promised my slow little brother Ratimir who was just back from Venetian gaols, to a daughter of the previous King of the Magyars, who had converted en masse not long before. With this, i could make an ally out of the Savage Horde instead of an endless plunderer (1).
I myself married my long-time fiancee, Dubravka, by the day she turned 14. I was 27. She got pregnant that same year, and the twins Besar and Ulfo were born on March 9, 915. In the same year, I looked into marrying my sister, Natalija, whose betrothal to Zvonimir Ban of Croatia had been broken by him. Among the suitors were the King of Alba, the King of Western Francia, the King of Northumberland, the King of Navarra, a King of the Georgians, another of the Northmen, and the young king of Lotharingia. I sent her to the latter, and the family's fate was once more intertwined with those of the Heirs of Charlemagne.

In a glorious moment, Zvonimir of Croatia and I went to war against the nasty Ban of Usora, while my best friend the Ban of Bosna was attacking Usora from the South. We cornered and defeated the Usoran several times without even trying, and I chased after the Count of Certina who had, I'm sure, had a hand in my father's murder. Unfortunately, I was attending business at the Khan's yourt, and I couldn't kill the bastard.

A new enemy emerged in late 917, in the person of Kyprinos, a Greek that had replaced the Serbian strategoi as ruler of the Serbs (for the Basileus). He was a good leader of troops and had so many of them he could have swallowed Hrvatska without skipping a beat. We lost battle upon battle, losing a rich county in the process. But for the first time, an army of Croats had fought and conquered on the coast of Asia.
Then the Magyars attacked us again. And again, it was impossible to stop the tidal wave of their horde. My mother, my wife and three children, my youngest brother and my surviving sister all went prisoners of the Király of the Magyars. Along with them Khan Bihor and much of his court.
In this unfortune, the Khanate of Hrvastka was dissolved.

Each Ban was, again, the master of his own destiny.

Notes :

1. the Alliance would break down in October of the same year, when Ratimir decided to take a walk in the night rain, wearing only his belt.

Bonus :

Resisting conversion and fighting the Pagan Magyars can prove sexy.