1719 Battle of Tyrador
The Battle of Tyrador (24.IX.1719 – 7.XI.1719) was a battle for control of Tyrador, the district capital of Transprinitica, as part of the 1719 Hurmu government crisis, a civil conflict which erupted at the start of the year between the Assembly and Senate of Hurmu. Fighting within the city was terminated by the intervention of Benacian Union Defence Force units which led to the expulsion of the Green Turban militia.
The combatants in Tyrador were elements of the Hurmu Peace Corps and the Green Turbans, a powerful paramilitary group composed primarily of Umraid members of the Communist Workers' Party and Trade Unions Congress of Hurmu and secretly armed by Sanama. The battle began on 24.IX.1719 after the Green Turbans responded to the publication of the Tiegang Papers by attacking HPC bases around the city in a preemptive assault designed to forestall any attempt at forcing the surrender of their covertly acquired arms caches.
The main HPC cantonment within the city's boundaries was located at Tyrador Airfield, a site controlled by the 151st Aviation Base Regiment under the authority of the HPC's Air Department. The remainder of the HPC sites within the city were barracks and housing units for personnel deployed to Transprinitica in order to support the municipal authorities of the district. With the disbandment of the 6th Auxiliary Constabulary Division earlier in the year, the isolated and ill-equipped HPC garrison in the city was highly likely to outmatched by the Green Turbans and the Umraid population within the city.
This placed Viric Merrick, former Minister and Commissioner for the district, in a delicate position. Under circumstances that would have been scandalous in any other country, he had held the civil administration of the district on behalf of Hurmu whilst exercising command of the 15 Kavallerifördelningen "Angularis", a division of the Benacian Union Defence Force garrisoned there in defiance of a previous Hurmudan referendum in favour of the departure of foreign forces. Following his dismissal from the civil posts at the start of the year, he had nonetheless retained legatine authority over the division. Were he to give an order to intervene overtly he might risk internationalising the crisis, yet were he to permit Tyrador to fall wholly into the hands of the Green Turbans, the cantonments of the BUDF throughout the district might be the next to be isolated and reduced in turn.
After eight days of sporadic low-intensity fighting, during which time Jingbei, Lanmen, and Luzhong were reported to fallen to the Green Turbans without meaningful resistance, Viric Merrick received a directive from the Benacian Security Council to secure Tyrador Airfield and to occupy the port and ferry terminal within the city.
