Lanzerwaldian-Whaler War
| Lanzerwaldian-Whaler War | |||||
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 Lanzerwald Calbion
|  Western Natopia
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 Cibola Command
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Demetrius Hummock
/The Lanzerwaldian-Whaler War was a conflict that was fought out between the Republic of the United Cities in the Lanzerwald and the Western Natopian Empire and primarily the latter's demesne, the Principality of Whales. The war broke out after Lanzerwald expanded its territory to include the entire region north of Whales, essentially preventing Whales' access to the Cibolan interior.
Factors leading up to the war
During the Second Ludwiggian-Monovian War the Zandarijn Liberation Army, a precursor to the Lanzerwald Republic had attacked and conquered Nieuw Rotterdam, a territory that had not formally been claimed by Whales, but where Whales maintained a plantation. This issue was considered to be resolved when the Republic of Sankt Ludwigshafen bought the assets of Whales in Nieuw Rotterdam. Between Lanzerwald, Whales and Mondo there remained a large swath of unclaimed territory and Lanzerwald wished to expand into it, inasmuch as the territory was not controlled or claimed by its neighbours. Representatives of Mondo and the Republic had met in Neurossheim to discuss the border between their nations and this issue was resolved amicably.
The issue of marking the border between Whales and Lanzerwald would doubtfully also have been resolved in a friendly manner, if it was not for the plotting and scheming of the Lord of Mandible Hill. Major Ferdinand Streichholz, commander of the 1st division of the Dragonderkorps, formally representing the Republic of the United Cities in the Lanzerwald, had met with Timur Osman von Szintakuszima, then Lord of Mandible Hill to determine whether Whales would respond favourably to the expansion. The Lord of Mandible Hill was, despite his claims to the contrary, not an official representative of Whales but still considered to be an influential figure in the principality's society. The Lord of Mandible Hill encouraged the republic to claim more than it initially intended. Brushing away any reservations held by the Republic of the United Cities, Timur Osman von Szintakuszima claimed that the Principality of Whales would welcome the expansion and that it would be the start of a flourishing trade relationship.
In reality, the Lord of Mandible Hill was not appointed to be a representative of the Principality of Whales. He had met a courier from Lanzerwald that was carrying a letter to the court of the Prince of Whales, and had first seduced him, and then misled him. Von Szintakuszima had access to stolen stationery belonging to the court of Whales, and provided himself with a letter of credentials, faking the signature of the Prince. Showing these letters of credentials to Major Ferdinand Streichholz, the major had no reason to doubt what he was informed of, even though it would lead to the disastrous Lanzerwaldian-Whaler War.
Initial Skirmishes
The first exchange of fire between Whalers and the forces of the RSL occurred on 10.XII.1709 AN when riders of the 1st (Iedźak°'ehe Łaqehe) Cossack Cavalry Regiment, heading northwards from Chur on razzia into the Green, encountered a contingent of dragoon horsemen guarding a party of surveyors who were engaged in the installation of a border-marker. Considering the activities of these strangers to be infringing on the frontiers of Whales, the Cossack commander, Abner Goltz, ordered nine squadrons to dismount and form a skirmish line, whilst he led the remainder, one-hundred and twenty riders in total, towards the perceived intruders. Startled to discover that these men hailed not from Steerswick but rather from the Lanzerwald, Goltz remonstrated with their apparent leader, demanding to know by what right they had presumed to come so far west setting markers. Harsh words were subsequently exchanged and weapons soon drawn. It is not known who fired the first shot, but soon the firing was generalised and the two parties dissolved into a tangled mess of clashing sabres. With battle joined, the Cossack skirmish-line moved forward to engage the intruders. Soon the heathland was strewn with corpses and the Lanzers driven off, leaving the Cossacks in charge of the border-post. A couple of wounded Lanzers were consequently taken captive.
Brought back to Chur and put to the torture, these prisoners had a remarkable tale to tell. Numerous survey parties had ridden westwards, guided and encouraged by the agents and representatives of a coterie of lords in Whales. Their course had been that which was to take them all the way along the northern border of Whales to the furthest point westward, the narrowest point between Whales and the frontier of Steerswick. The testimony was duly recorded and sent by courier to Walstadt whilst the captives were transferred to the ESB's hospital ward where they were kept under guard. The transcripts were received within four days by the Chief Notary to the Court of Cassation & the Court of Admiralty, and in response writs of summons were urgently sent out to the native lords of Whales.
The dragoons and surveyors that had been able to escape the blood spill reported to Major Ferdinand Streichholz, a veteran of the Ludwiggian-Monovian wars. Based on what he heard, and the perceived invitation by Whales to colonise the lands, he assumed that the Principality of Whales, and perhaps the Natopian Empire as a whole, had lured them into an ambush. Compiling his findings in encrypted letters which he sent to the Steden-Generaal, his superior, General Donatien de Lancôme of the Dragonderkorps, General Diederik van Zandt of the 2de Krijgskorps and General Gerhardt Streuß of the 1ste Krijgskorps. The couriers were sent to deliver these message on horseback, and galloped away into the night. After receiving these letters, the generals were summoned by the Steden-Generaal to discuss the strategy and goals of the war. These discussions were held on 19.XII.1709.
Expecting not only an attack by Whales in the south, but also from Zaddi's Bay in the north, Gerhardt Streuß had been given the task to meet the Western Natopian army that was expected to arrive at any moment. As the 1ste Krijgskorps reached the Natopain-Lanzerwaldian border in the north, no signs had been spotted that pointed at a Natopian invasion. Still, Streuß had orders to destroy the Natopian army and he did not wish to let his superiors down.
Before the war started, the United Cities had been close to acquiring new fighter planes from Sanama, but that deal had been put on pause after hostilities had started as treaty obligations prevented Sanama from helping Natopia's enemies. In anticipation of the purchase of these planes, the Luchtkrijgkorps had started re-developing the domestically produced J-1 Lärm into a primitive cruise-missile by fitting it with a rudimentary auto-pilot based on a gyrocompass. The system still relied on a pilot to be present in the aircraft from landing to about 10 minutes before the plane reached its destination, where it would explode. Despite the obvious shortcomings, Gerhardt Streuß anticipated that deploying this system en masse would be his best bet to destroy the fortifications of Zaddi's Bay.
On 2.XIII.1709 Gerhardt Streuß had assembled a total of 120 J-1 Lärm based semi-automatic flying cruise missiles, south of Zaddi's Bay, and also placed his other troops in strategic positions to destroy our route the XXX/4/2 Brigade that was stationed in Zaddi's Bay. The planes were launched by 12 winches and the pilots flew them in the direction of the Natopian military base. As soon as the pilots were able to see the military base, they were instructed to set the mechanical auto-pilot, setting the fuses on the warhead and to escape from the plane with he help of a parachute. For a majority of the planes, the system worked reasonably well and those planes flew into the Natopian base where they wreaked havoc, or they crashed in the vicinity of it. In roughly a quarter of the planes, the auto-pilot caused the plane to crash instantly, or the pilot was unable to escape from the plane before it crashed into the Natopian base. None of the failed planes could be recovered for examination as the fuses worked in all cases and all the planes were destroyed.
Zaddi's Bay
As might be inferred from the launch pattern, the first of ten waves of twelve aerial contraptions bound for Natopian territory on the morning of 2.XIII.1709 AN crossed over into Natopian territory from the south and was detected by the outpost of the XXX/4/2/1 Light Infantry Regiment nearest to the intruder flightpath, with further sightings noted by a patrol of the XXX/4/2/2 Dragoon Regiment returning to the battlegroup marshalling area of it's demi-regiment. Both instances of visual observation of the intruder aircraft were radioed back to the XXX/4/2/0 Command & Control Regiment at Zaddi's Bay.
Apprised of the incursion, the commandant of the Zaddi's Bay Defense Zone ordered the cantonments, airfield, and spaceport into a full lockdown with the XXX/4/2/3 Area Defence Regiment ordered to man the nine defensive strongpoints of the perimeter and the eighteen pintle-mounted heavy machine-guns protecting the airfield. NDF aerospace personnel meanwhile hurried to move the solitary light transport shuttle present at the spaceport into the nearest hanger. As sirens blared all other non-essential personnel were ordered to head for the nearest shelter.
At the elapse of a little under ninety minutes, the first intruder aircraft were spotted after reports of parachutes descending from the south-west were observed. These were swiftly engaged with anti-aircraft fire from the eighteen Polybolos 12.7 mm heavy machine-guns positioned to protect the approaches to the airfield. Five of the contraptions, listed in the NDF identification database as a primitive Cibolan cadet training aircraft, were soon spiralling towards the Micrasian soil in flames. Those watching the spectacle from the perimeter defences could only watch in horror as the remaining seven aircraft plunged downwards onto the cantonment area. A solitary aircraft had fallen on the taxiway of the airfield, another had struck the coolant storage area of the spaceport, and yet another again had struck the NDF barracks complex. Each impact had resulted in a cacophonous explosion that seemed out of all proportion to the size of the flimsy aircraft that had delivered the blows. Worse yet, the bunkers which housed the command and control infrastructure for the cantonment and the entire defence zone had been bracketed by a series of three sequential explosions. A troop of forty men from the Security Cohort loaded up into Snatch Land Rovers and headed beyond the perimeter to hunt down the reported parachutists. As they did so, all available personnel not presently assigned to the defence of the cantonment were hurried out of their shelters and formed into firefighting details and dispatched off in the directions of greatest need. The fire in the coolant storage area of the spaceport was a priority concern. The command and control bunker had seemingly survived its ordeal, although its myriad assortment of communications antennas had been comprehensively wrecked. Nothing important appeared to be burning at the airfield, and the shallow crater could doubtless be filled in. Instead the highest priority was to control the fire that had broken out after one of the jerry-rigged drones had detonated in the courtyard of the cantonment hospital, collapsing the southern wall.
No-sooner had these ad hoc response teams formed up and arrived at the scenes of the worst devastation than the air-raid sirens had begun to wail anew. With communications interrupted there had been no warning of the further nine waves of flying bombs that had now heaved into view on their final approach towards the cantonments, parachutes already descending in their wake. Wave after wave of rudimentary flying bombs rained down on the base, making the effort to extinguish the fires seem futile. At the same time the 1ste Krijgskorps advanced on the city with infantry and closely followed by donkey-towed artillery pieces. The pilots had been instructed to retreat away from the Natopian base and join the advancing infantry. Twenty-three of the pilots were not quick enough and were shot by the West Natopian Security Cohort that had been hunting them down in their Snatch Land Rovers, most of them died heroically in gunfight, but seven were killed while pleading for their lives. Inevitably though, in the afternoon the advancing Krijgskorps infantry encountered the forty men strong troop of the Security Cohort, as it was resting in a valley. Six platoons of the Krijgskorps circled the enemy, which surrendered at the sight of one hundred and fifty carbines pointed in their direction.
Reaching the proximity of Zaddi's Bay, the Krijgskorps set up six sites from which six FLAK cannons each could shell the base. Without electronic means of communication to their disposal, a strict time plan was established. The artillery would attack the Natopian fortification at exactly 6:00 PM and expend twelve shells before 6:15 PM. At 6:15 PM the infantry would storm the base at the site of the collapsed southern wall, and fight the Natopians at close quarter with their carbines and their bayonets.
The bold push by the Krijgskorps, seemingly disregarding and bypassing the frontier posts in their urgency to press on to Zaddi's Bay itself, placed the defenders in a terrible predicament. Two of the "Tahmaseb" assault hovercraft were brought-forward to cover the breach itself with their considerable armament of three heavy machine-guns and a flamethrower apiece, and all remaining base personnel not hitherto involved in perimeter security were hurriedly gathered together and issued with rifles, carbines, and submachine-guns were available in the arsenal. Some unfortunate souls at the back of the queue were dismayed to find a bolt-action rifle with Shireithian stampings on the barrel and a clip of five rounds pressed into their hands. Formed into bands of 120-men, led by whatever senior NCO was nearest to hand, these men -distributed amongst shell-craters and air-raid shelters between the breach and the airport - would be called upon to conduct the counter-charge against whatever lodgement the Krijgskorps was able to make.
For the Krijgskorps the first hint of an upset began to appear as high-explosive shells began to fall amongst the left flank and the rear of their formations. Three "Matador" tanks from the nearest demi-regimental battlegroup, supported by a squadron of dragoons and twenty snatch land rovers, the latter used as improvised firing platforms for Wren light machine-guns, had taken up a position amongst the gorse of a nearby ridgeline. Behind this vanguard followed at a distance of 10km the remainder of the battlegroup, one-hundred and eighty dragoons, three-hundred artillerymen, and twelve towed 105 mm light field guns. However the damage to the communications array at Zaddi's Bay continued to work in the favour of the invaders. Only two of the four demi-regimental battlegroups screening the frontiers had received word of the attack in a timely manner, and been able to respond appropriately. One of these was now engaged, meaning that the prospect of reinforcements from within the Zaddi's Bay Defense Zone were now severely limited. Whilst the other two battlegroups had most likely by now dispatched a land rover back to base in order to ascertain the reason for the loss of communications, it would be a matter of further hours if not now days before they could move off in turn. The situation remained dire, even as the twelve field guns were unlimbered, and an officer tasked with being the artillery spotter was dispatched forward with a team of four dragoons, in yet another land rover burdened with a radio set and signalling flags, in order to find an appropriate vantage point overlooking the site of the battle.
West of Moorheim
In the midst of this, the razzia into the Green being mounted by the ESB-Kosaken Afzælt continued in much the same fashion as it would have done had the Lanzerwalder contingent never have been encountered in the first place. The hunt for persons who would be of interest to the organ and tissue specialists in the field of longevity studies or who would fetch a good price in the kul markets of Eura continued unabated. There was now an additional objective communicated to the gentlemen commanding the 1st Cossack Brigade of the Honourable Company - a wide patrol was to be conducted up to the so-called "Mondo Line". Whilst in the Green adjoining Steerswick, the Cossacks were to conduct a survey of the best routes for approaching that realm, snatch a sufficient number of "tongues" who could tell of the present state of affairs there, and arrange for the erection of a suitable trophy to mark the passing of forces from Whales through the region.
Whales: mobilisation & impressment
As the scale of the attacks on Zaddi's Bay became ever more apparent, Whales - still stung by the treason of the lords - began tentatively to mobilise the forces available to it. Nominally the principality fell within the Southern Banner Group of Cibola Command and the formations garrisoned there would in turn comprise the XXXI Corps of the Natopian Army. However the position of Whales, precariously situated on the southern shore of the Cibolan continent and separated from the polar icecaps only by narrow sea that was only navigable without icebreakers during the too short months of the southern hemisphere summer, had stymied the development of the corps beyond anything other than a collection of local demesnal and corporate militias.
Amongst one of the main problems facing Whales was that it enjoyed the lowest level of prioritisation in the Raspur Pact, even from its own government - whose Prince had recently been elevated, via various machinations, to the office of Szodan of Benacia. This left Frederik Anders the Younger in the position of serving as de facto regent for the principality through the multiplicity of offices he had acquired following the demise of Prince Kir in 1703 AN. Nonetheless, in response for an appeal for aid, a search was begun for young notables from the great houses who could be dispatched to serve in an obscure frontier war at the very edge of the civilised world.
In Whales' favour however was the fact that, mostly through institutional inertia, the General Staff and Allied Headquarters for Cibola Command had remained at Walstadt in spite of the colonisation of the Waffel Plains and recent efforts to resettle Geneva. Fortunate too was Walstadt's standing as a destination for the Hurmu Gate Network. Although limited by the spatial constraints of the gates, and general prohibition against the carrying of warlike articles across the gate network, the Walstadt Gate was soon receiving a steady stream of Benacian and Tapferite staff officers, regimental officers, and NCOs tasked with bringing the command directorates back up to their required manning levels, whilst establishing a headquarters and the command and control infrastructure required for XXXI Corps to cease being a purely nominal formation and to exercise effective authority over the collection of armed groups within its area of responsibility. One poor officer, assigned to the Military Intelligence Directorate upon arriving through the gate, was the first to draw attention to the inconvenient detail that the existence of the gate in Walstadt necessitated the existence of a scaled down fusion reactor, also somewhere in the municipal bounds of the lordship corresponding to the city. Couriers were duly dispatched back through the gates bound for Aqaba, Lindstrom, and Merensk to urgently request the dispatch of air defence assets via whatever means at the earliest opportunity. The concern was somewhat alleviated as the attention of the newly arrived officers was drawn by the "old hands" of the station towards the four Silver Hammer short-range defence systems, arranged on embrasured artillery platforms, corresponding to the cardinal points around Mandible Hill, and operated by the GHQ Area Defence Squadron. Nonetheless the requests for urgent reinforcement were not rescinded, as no-one wished to carry the can for a repeat of the Zaddi's Bay affair down in Walstadt.
Arrest, imprisonment and liberation of Timur Osman von Szintakuszima
Timor Osman von Szintakuszima sat in his prison cell on the foot of Mandible Hill. Being imprisoned in his own, former, lordship was a humiliating experience for the nobleman but some of his previous servants still retained some level of loyalty and he received privileges such as edible foods and access to stationery. Like famously stated in The crucifixion of Elijah Ayreon, the hill was a fifteen minute walk from the Palace of Walstadt and on his first day Timor had sent a letter to the court, pleading his case and begging to have his freedom restored to him. The second day of his imprisonment he could see how carpenters started constructing a series of large gallows and he realised he had been given an answer. His only hope for escape, Timor Osman von Szintakuszima fantasised, was a Lanzerwaldian attack on the city and the victorious conquerors of the Walstadt urban area releasing him, perhaps even appointing him Prince. The former lord started writing down everything he knew about the fortifications around Mandible Hill, and where troops could be entrenched. What he didn't know he filled in with his imagination. As dusk fell, Timor sent a courier away to meet with Major Ferdinand Streichholz of the Dragonderkorps, who Timor had spoken before the war.
The courier arrived in Nieuw Rotterdam on 9.XIII.1709 and asked around, inquiring to the whereabouts of the major before he was taken in captivity. The letter was taken from the courier, who was then sent to a POW camp south of Vulcuria. Instead of being presented to Major Ferdinand Streichholz, it was brought to General Diederik van Zandt of the 2de Krijgskorps. Van Zandt read the letter with interest. In the letter Timor argued that if he was to be restored to liberty, he could persuade the Prince of Whales to stop hostilities and let the Republic of the United Cities colonise the Green. Based on the information given by the former Lord of Mandible Hill, Van Zandt and his Majors planned out an assault on the Walstadt urban area with a special focus on Mandible Hill. Crucial to the success of the plan were the 13 Raven IV Model fighter planes that had been provided by the Gwlad y Calbain. After the planes would have destroyed the most significant defensive structures, the road would be paved for an infantry assault on Mandible Hill. No significant anti-air installations had been reported by Timor, so it was assumed the planes could all be refuelled and re-armed, so they would be able to fly a second mission against Walstadt itself in the second phase of the assault. In order to execute the assault, the 2de Krijgskorps sent out its allotted troops to take up positions south-west of Flaschenhals. The troops left Nieuw Rotterdam on 10.XIII.1709 and reported to be ready for an assault on 15.XIII.1709 after they had constructed an airstrip to be used by the Raven IV fighter planes.
The attack on Mandible Hill started on 16.XIII.1709 with airstrikes on Mandible Hill. Contrary to expectations based on intelligence given by Timor Osman von Szintakuszima, the town was protected by several anti-air installations and the Lanzerwaldians lost three Raven IV Model fighter jets on their first attack wave but the pilots were able to escape from the crashing fuselage. After returning to the airstrip the ten remaining planes were fuelled and armed again and sent to attack Mandible Hill again. Together with the second wave of the fighter jets, 2 companies belonging to the 2de Krijgskorps stormed Mandible Hill and fought their way towards the prison where Timor Osman von Szintakuszima was being detained. Despite heavy losses they were able to remove him from the site. At the same time the Raven IV jets were strafing Whaler troops that were trying to reinforce Mandible Hill. Missiles from Whaler anti-air installations destroyed most of the Calbain planes and only three were able to return to the airstrip, damaged beyond repair. The 2 companies from the 2de Krijgskorps found themselves increasingly out-numbered and by the evening they retreated from Mandible Hill back into the forest, reporting their lack of success the siege of the Walstadt urban area was cancelled and the 2de Krijgskorps retreated the majority of its forces to Nieuw Rotterdam.
As Timor Osman von Szintakuszima was brought before General Diederik van Zandt it quickly became apparent to the commander of the 2de Krijgskorps that the person they had rescued from prison had delusions of grandour. Von Szintakuszima kept pleading for a Lanzerwaldian attack on Walstadt proper and asked to be named High King over Whales. Realising that this same person had tricked Lanzerwald into the war, a courier was sent to Walstadt with the offer to negotiate peace and return Timor Osman von Szintakuszima to Whaler custody.
Shelling of the Lanzerwald Shore
Foreign aid
Neighbouring country Calbion, which has friendship ties with the Lanzerwaldians dating from the first Ludwigger settlements, provided military support by sending 13 Raven IV Model fighter jets, including pilots, to the battlefield. The Calbain government, in announcing their support for the Lanzer cause, denounced the aggression of the ESB bands in the Cibolan wastelands. As it was not the first time that Calbain forces had faced the ESB cosacks in a small-scale clash, Governor-General Cadwaladr Bevan-Hall called for Cibola to be "cleansed from bandits and free-roamers". The Calbain planes were added to the 2de Krijgskorps' activities in the south.
The move by Calbion had the perhaps unintended effect of galvanising a Raspur Pact that had, hitherto, been frankly uninterested in the fate of Whales. Following a hastily convened session of the Pact's Joint Military Council in Lindstrom, Eastern Natopia had pledged support for its western counterpart, authorisation was given for the Natopian Navy's Gaeos Fleet to dispatch the 2nd Home Group, consisting of two cruisers and an attack submarine, to depart from West Bay bound for the Lanzerwald shore. The Imperial Federation was readily prevailed upon to make available the facilities of Bomei Island available to the 902nd Naval Air Squadron, formed around twenty Covrigi Jump Jets, two air-to-air refuelling tankers, and a Virgo-class scout shuttle lent from the Spacefleet to serve as an AWACs. The Imperial Federation also authorised the dispatch southwards of a light cruiser from 3rd Fleet Command at Glacier City. The Federal Forces of Nouvelle Alexandrie separately undertook to provide air defence assets for Bomei Island and Walstadt provided that the Natopian Defense Force arrange for the shuttlecraft to expedite their delivery.
The Senyan government were concerned by the outbreak of the war, viewing both Lanzerwald and Natopia as key allies. Small scale protests by Barbarian refugees surrounding Natopia's involvement in the war persisted in both Port Nelson and Svorgas, however the Senyan government opted to remain neutral and encourage a diplomatic resolution to the war. It was rumoured that internally, several key public servants and diplomats were becoming worried by the behaviour of nations such as Hurmu and Lanzerwald within the Xäiville Convention, and were concerned that the idea of democracy and the neutral foreign policies of the XC were being damaged by unnecessarily reckless behaviour from some members of the convention.
