Lakhesis Incident

Lakhesis Incident
Date 12.IV.1679 12:58 a.m. – 03:42 a.m. Location Lakhesis, Sanama Result Disappearance of Adalwolf Hiedler Interim Presidency of Amalric Woehrle
Belligerents
Benacia Command Federal Government-in-Exile	Council of National Reconstruction
Commanders and leaders
Palatine General Rofolo Nur Pinito Kasha Palatine Legate Melkdan Haltorthen	Adalwolf Hiedler
Units involved
Guards Pathfinder Regiment Cohort 106 802 Air Assault Regiment	VIP Protection Unit 28th Reconnaissance Squadron

Unternehmen Trūrēnkorïur (Operation Mourning Sweep), known as the Lakhesis Incident was a military action undertaken by Benacia Command and the Black Legions on 12.IV.1679, in which special forces assaulted the island of Lakhesis and assassinated Adalwolf Hiedler, the self-proclaimed king of Sanama, at his holiday residence, a villa guarded by the VIP Protection Unit. The brittle and illegitimate nature of the coup regime was exposed by the manner in which the Black Legions was able to dissuade the commanders of Sanaman forces in adjacent sectors from responding to the unprovoked attack on the island and also by the refusal of Sanaman troops garrisoned on the island to make any effort to rescue Adelwolf from the attacking forces once it became apparent that he was the primary target. In spite of this, the Sanaman garrison on the island - the 28th Reconnaissance Squadron and its support elements - suffered heavy losses after disdaining a call to surrender. In recognition of the valour of the defenders of Fort Lakhesis, the surviving garrison was accorded the full honours of war and permitted to depart from the fort with flags flying, drums beating, and bayonets fixed. In contrast no effort was made to spare Adelwolf's lackeys in the VIP Protection Unit from the massacre inflicted upon them by the local populace after the tyrant's death.

After fighting on the island had subsided control of Fort Lakhesis was transferred at daybreak to a force of exiles and dissidents loyal to the government-in-exile. The removal of Adalwolf from the equation meanwhile had allowed the pragmatic faction on the Council of National Reconstruction, led by Amalric Woehrle, to assume control in Niyi and begin negotiating a peaceable and orderly restoration of the constitutional government.

Background

On 11.XV.1678 Adalwolf Hiedler, a former Dux of the Corps of Auxiliaries who had attained the position of Supreme Commander of the Sanaman Federal Armed Forces, had staged a coup against the Federal Council in Niyi whilst its President, Semisa Caprici, was abroad in Drak-Modan. Like all the so-called “vulture states” established in the aftermath of the break-up of the Imperial Republic, Sanama had enjoyed scarcely a decade of independence, and had not fully managed – with the elapse of so scant an amount of time – to establish the legitimacy of its democratic and federal institutions, ruling as they were over a multi-ethnic and post-colonial society.

Whilst the reaction to the coup amongst Sanama's neighbours - members of the Raspur Pact and the South Benacian Community - had initially been muted, wariness over the sudden upheaval in a treaty partner being allayed somewhat by assurances given by the Council of National Reconstruction that all existing obligations would be met in full, doubts had very quickly begun to creep back in. Most of those doubts, it might be fair to say, derived from concerns over the character and judgement of Adalwolf himself.