Normark campaign (1717–1720)

Normark campaign (1717–1720)
Part of the "Wars of the Disinherited"
Date 11.IV.1717 AN–present Location Dalen (also known as Jangsong)
Belligerents
Raspur Pact  Normark Support  Benacian Union Volunteers	Confederacy of the Dispossessed  Jangsong
Commanders and leaders
Phakchay Chaupin  Tarjei Thorgilsson  Arnold Christianssønn Einhorn  Alf Einhorn  Jonas Dahling Einhorn  Oddbjørn Gruntland-Einhorn	Knotaric
Units involved
Keltia Command Banner Group Normark  Nordhær  18th Vanguard Division  Elian Militia	Leagues of Haifan Keltiania (remnants) League of the Northern Strait Vaeringheim Division Hatch Ministry Division
Strength
Initial force ~ 15,600 regulars ~ 28,800 reservists	Estimated Forces Jangsong Muster' – 117,513' Northern Rising – 58,757

The Normark campaign (1717–1720), known within Normark as the Liberation of Dalen, began as a campaign by the Nordhær of Normark to restore Norse government, sovereignty and administration in Dalen, after the Haifo-Pallisican–Bassarid occupation of Dalen (Jangsong) appeared to have collapsed.

Initial forces

• Banner Group Normark
  •  Nordhær (I Corps)
    • Life Guards Brigade
    • 1st Field Engineering Brigade
    • 7th Commissariat Regiment
  • Special Mission Group "Dalen"
    •  18th Vanguard Division
    • Security Police Division

The course of the campaign

A reconnaissance-in-force

Amongst the immediate problems encountered by the Nordhær, upon being tasked with the mission of liberating Dalen, was the quality and quantity of the equipment held in its depots. Indeed the majority of vehicles and armaments appeared to be hand-me-downs abandoned in place by the Union Defence Force following its departure from Normark in 1702 AN / 1703 AN – with many items uncovered having been in storage at facilities established by Keltia Command in the aftermath of the War of the Harpy sixty-years prior.

The Calamity at Dalen

Whilst the old Bassarid garrison had numerically outmatched the Nordhær and its predecessors in the years subsequent to the War of the Harpy it had been hoped that the chaotic unravelling of the Bassarid dominion in Keltia would have led to a perceptible melting away of the League of the Northern Strait, the opposite effect appeared to have occurred - with the distant restraining hand of Corum removed many warbands now felt emboldened to begin to organise, and the attempt by the Nordhær to conduct a reconnaissance in strength into the Jangsong Pocket served as the trigger for a general rising of the dispossessed in the boreal regions of northern Keltia. Of the estimated 105,807+ regulars and 151,152+ reservists maintained by the New Zimian War League, 176,270 armed and motivated fighters would ultimately answer the call to arms made by the piratical elders of Jangsong. Worse yet, of those fighters, roused to fury and their own ambitions of conquest, it would subsequently transpire that a full 117,513 of these so-called dispossessed were already within the enclave and underarms when the first armoured vehicles of the Nordhær crossed the frontier. Distressing reports that would swiftly reach Elijah's Rest brought the dire news of risings and massacres gripping the northern coastal regions and boreal islands of the Kingdom, as long concealed fighters and cultists shed their cover and came out into the open, their hearts set upon the most joyful slaughter of their unbelieving neighbours. The nightmare that had been the War of the Harpy was set to replay once more - all thanks to the reckless folly of Tarjei Thorgilsson and Arnold Christianssønn Einhorn trying their luck against a foe of whom they had remained fundamentally ignorant until it was too late. With the refugees that would subsequently stream into the capital came estimates that anywhere between fifty and sixty thousand rebel fighters were loose in the countryside, raising havoc.

International assistance sought

Having eventually grasped, after six ignominious months, the extent to which they were comprehensively outmatched by the forces of the disinherited, the Government of Normark dispatched appeals to the Benacian Union and Nouvelle Alexandrie for military and financial assistance.

The stocks of material requested by Normark, as expressed in the form of a memorandum submitted to the Joint-Military Council of the Raspur Pact on 6.XI.1717 AN, were considered to be remarkably ambitious, if not indicative of desperation:

• Support vehicles: 38,000
• Armoured fighting vehicles: 1,200
• Rocket artillery: 800
• Towed artillery: 800
• Self-propelled artillery: 600
• Light attack aircraft: 1,200
• Transport rotorcraft: 120
• Multi-role strike aircraft: 72
• Training aircraft: 72