1st Constancian Razzia

1st Constancian Razzia
Part of Constancian Reconstruction
Date 01.I.1671–24.I.1671 Location Mbasana, Gulf of Zinjibar Result Burning of Laziville Mass enslavement of Mbasanans
Belligerents
Constancia ESB Group Iron Company (post-combat auctions)	Mbasana
Units involved
Nivardom Command Task Force 1671-1	Glorious People's Army
Strength
	estimated 20,500 combatants

Background

The Razzia, a hostile raid for purposes of conquest, plunder, and capture of slaves, was a time honoured Euran tradition dating back to before the Babkhan era. It was, moreover, a recourse frequently hit upon by shahs, emirs, satraps, and khans, temporarily embarrassed by a passing shortage of the readies with which to retain the loyalty of their avaricious gaggle of cutthroat retainers. Under such circumstances it was a necessity for rulers to take up the knife and gun and lead their followers, in the name of the holy law naturally, on the road to enrichment that passed, by and by, through the burning fields and villages of their unfortunate neighbours.

Constancia, burdened by the staggering costs of reconstruction and a foreign policy that was once again turning towards thoughts of adventures outside of its borders, as evidenced by the annexation of Arak, and the pursuit of trading contacts in the Norfolk Isles, needed to gather in the resources, tradable commodities, and hard currency to finance its burgeoning ambitions. Under these circumstances it was natural that the thoughts of Constancia's ruling council - the Permanent Standing Committee - turned towards the communities of Androphagi beyond its borders and the most substantial, yet fractured and weakly defended, agglomeration of these - Mbasana.

Course of the conflict

Scarcely had the Constancian legislative assembly convened in the city of Astérapolis for its 2nd session in the reconstruction era[1] than the skies over Laziville reverberated to the roar of twenty-four A-10 Kamberas making a low pass over the cluster of slums, half-built public buildings, and teeming marketplaces. Scarcely had incredulous eyes glanced skywards than the grandiose marble layer cake that passed for a Presidential Palace was bracketed by a brace of 227 kg unguided bombs released at an altitude of 150 metres by the lead aircraft in the attacking force, with six more bombs slamming home in and around the grounds of the palace as the three other Kamberas accompanying the lead aircraft jettisoned their bombs as they crossed the aiming point. As the twenty-four attacking aircraft banked and peeled away, left and right, from their initial run over the city, six distinct four-bomber strike packages executed a series of low-level turns in order to line up on their designated targets. The four which had jettisoned their payload over the Presidential Palace made a low and fast run towards the port district, strafing shipping in the harbour with their monstrous hydraulically driven seven-barrel rotary cannons, before heading out to sea and towards the first waypoint on the journey southwards towards Nivardom. Meanwhile the remaining strike packages bombed and strafed their own respective targets in turn, these being, in no particular order, the wretchedly dilapidated international airport, the glass-faced high-rise building housing the Finance Ministry and Central Bank one-atop of the other, a building that might have been either a command and control centre for the Republican Guard or a barracks for the local traffic police depending on which report was believed, the city telephone exchange, the national assembly building, and finally the city's power generating station along with its adjacent store tanks of heavy fuel oil. For the attackers the main danger, aside from the arcing machine-gun fire rising up from every befuddled militiaman who had stumbled out onto the street, was the danger of their flight paths unintentionally intersecting at high speeds in a relatively confined portion of air space. Excepting a couple of eyebrow raising near misses, the attackers passed over their targets unhindered and were able to return southwards to the aerodromes outside Nivardom without incident. At least one pilot however was left ashen-pale when the ground crews led them on a post-flight inspection of the craft and pointed out a fine collection of bullet holes in the wings and fuselage.

The attack however had been a curious affair. The payload was altogether too light to put any of the given targets out of commission, indeed, aside from a burnt out terminal building at the airport, and the shattered glass edifice of the finance ministry, every structure targeted remained substantially intact. What the raid had done however was stir up a hornets' nest in Mbasana itself. The President had been struck, and the city endangered, while the man himself was seemingly powerless to respond. Whilst the city and the nation was momentarily united in indignation and fury at the attack, the President's weakness had been glaringly telegraphed to his enemies, of whom there were many, both in the bush and amongst his close entourage.

Aftermath

Whilst the majority of Mbasanans were marched away into the Euran interior to toil on the water reclamation projects and walled plantations of the vast desert reclamation project spilling out in wasteful horror across the provinces of Aqaba and Nivardom, several thousand, many of them notably plump former government bureaucrats, city officials, along with their wives and children, were manacled and assembled on the quayside whereupon they were beaten and whipped by their captors until they boarded converted bulk container ships until every square foot of space on the decks was covered in a moaning and wailing mass of dejected humanity. These ships, under a substantial military escort comprised of twenty-two swift-class corvettes and fourteen auxiliary cruisers disappeared out into open waters and towards a destination unknown.