Operation Bellona

Operation Bellona
Part of the Great Vanic Revolt
Date 13.III.1709 AN - 24.V.1709 AN Location Lyrica  Hurmu  Nouvelle Alexandrie Status Concluded
Belligerents
Hurmu  Raspur Pact  Nouvelle Alexandrie  Constancia  Benacian Union  Suren	Freyja's Battlers  Movement for Vanic Rights  Vanic Front of Salvation
Commanders and leaders
Herakleios Rostami Yupanki Tupaq Augustin Alatriste Laurent Bivar Justin Castro Hernando Bivar Linus Truls Thorgilsson
Units involved
Apollonia Command [Show/hide] Yak Tail Banner Group 210th Army (North Lyrica) VII (Lyrica) Combined Arms Corps 1st Air Defence Division Benacian Contingent Command Constancian Contingent Command Surenid Contingent Command 211th Army (South Lyrica) 1st Armoured Division VIII Corps IX Corps Lyrican Tactical Air Force Lyrican Banner Fleet Federal Gendarmerie North Lyrican Constabulary South Lyrican Regional Police  Hurmu Constabulary  Hurmu Peace Corps	Various partisan bands & resistance groups
Strength
Federal Army – 154,800 Auxiliaries – 271,920 Allied Contingents – 31,132 Constabulary – 30,000 Peacekeepers – 12,000	Unknown

Operation Bellona was an action undertaken by the Apollonia Command of the Raspur Pact, supported by the governments, law enforcement agencies, and armed forces Hurmu and Nouvelle Alexandrie, against the forsaken remnants of the Vanic cause on Lyrica.

Background

The 1708 Federal Humanist Party election manifesto contained a pledge to commence a "hundred days campaign" to break the spine of the Vanic Insurgency in Lyrica. With Felipe de Almagro already installed as caretaker President of the Government, the Department of Defense saw a tremendous flurry of new activity. The FHP attitude marked a contrast with the stance taken by the preceding SDLA administrations, which considered the Lyrican situation to be a counterterrorism and law and order issue primarily.

Already by late 1708 the expeditionary units of the Alexandrian Legion, initially formed from the survivors and descendants of the Alexandrian and Caputian diasporas, have been recalled from colonial postings and dispatched to Lyrica. These were followed by nine divisions (eight infantry and one armoured) raised from garrison troops and support personnel and earmarked for deployment to the ports of South Lyrica.

Anti-Vanic Groups, such as the Tirailleurs Alexandrin and Organisation for Armed Settlers, forcibly incorporated into the Home Guard Regiments envisaged in the FHP election manifesto. Mixed reaction with some socialist self-defence groups proving outright hostile to the attempted coordination.

The urgency of the build up led to concerns that the Federal Forces were being encouraged to rush a response that suits the political needs of the incoming FHP ministry, ahead of the operational requirements of a complex counterinsurgency operation. Of particular concern was that the new divisions were being hastily thrown together using personnel drafted from administrative support functions and equipment hastily diverted from the Euran theatre of operations or else taken out of storage in the National Qullqa System.

Outcome

By 24.V.1709 AN the regular units of the Federal Army had attained possession of the sites of their assigned cantonments and the operation was therefore deemed to have been concluded.

The main outcome of the campaign was the separation of units assigned to the 210^th and 211^th armies to garrison districts in North Lyrica and South Lyrica respectively, with a defensive line held by the 210^th that ran from Maigneux to Fauquier through the Southern District of Hurmu that screened the Lake District from any further attempts at northward Vanic infiltration.

The notoriously mutinous work camps formerly occupied by Vanic subjects within the Southern District were suppressed as a part of the action, their populations either being pacified or obliged to retire into North Lyrica below the Maigneux-Fauquier Line.

211^th Army, being comprised of newly formed divisions, had been tasked primarily with providing support to the Federal Gendarmes and Tirailleurs Alexandrin as they conducted a community-led cleansing of Vanic influence from urban communities in South Lyrica. As they were flushed out of the cities and towns a considerable number of Vanic diehards were believed to have retired into the Massif Central at the heart of Lyrica. Their dislodging from these remote fastnesses would have to be subject to further follow-on operations.

Ultimately it might be said that the Federal Forces of Nouvelle Alexandrie experienced more difficulty overcoming its own logistical challenges and organisational inertia than the resistance offered by the scattered bands of Vanic partisans and saboteurs. Nonetheless, at the communal level, with the law enforcement agencies and rear echelon troops supporting Lyrican and settler attempts at uprooting the Vanics from within their midst a number of nasty skirmishes and street battles proliferated throughout the island.