Apollonian Guards of the Eastern Imperium
| Apollonian Guards of the Eastern Imperium | ||
| ||
| Founded | 1574 AN | |
| Marshal | Li Suyi | |
| Part of | ||
| Manpower | 25,400 | |
The Apollonian Guards of the Eastern Imperium, historically referred to as Kaiser Gaelen IV's Apollonian Guard after its lead component, is an infantry and bodyguard formation broadly equivalent to a division in strength. One of its principal roles, alongside the Imperial Whites, is the protection of the Heavenly Light; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonial occasions. The Apollonian Guards also enjoy the honour of serving as the bodyguard of the reigning Kaiser on the occasions when they visit the Eastern Imperium.
Organisation
Structure
- Apollonian Guards
- Grand Pavilion of the Marshal of the Apollonian Guards of the Eastern Imperium
- Banner of the Augurs
- Banner of the Companion Guard
- Banner of the Couriers
- Banner of the Eunuchs
- Banner of the Intimates of the Grand Pavilion
- Banner of the Military Household
- Guards Brigade
- Headquarters Troop of the Guards Brigade
- Reconnaissance Troop of the Guards Brigade
- 1st Grenadier Regiment of the Guards
- 1st Rifles Regiment of the Guards
- 2nd Rifles Regiment of the Guards
- 3rd Rifles Regiment of the Guards
- Commissariat Squadron of the Guards Brigade
- Artillery Train
- Air Defence Regiment
- Area Defence Regiment
- Field Artillery Regiment
- Siege Artillery Regiment
- Baggage Train
- Banner of the Attendants & Stewards
- Banner of the Baggage & Porters
- Banner of the Choir
- Banner of the Drums & Flutes
- Banner of the Engineers
- Banner of the Labourers
- Banner of the Victuallers
- Banner of the Wagons
- Grand Pavilion of the Marshal of the Apollonian Guards of the Eastern Imperium
Establishment
History
Overview
- 1574 AN Founded as Personal Bodyguard to Gaelen IV
- 1598 AN Expanded to a full division under the Martial Code
- 1602 AN Replaced by Order of Sentinels under Imperial Decree Nº 612
- 1607 AN Reduced to a Regiment within Apollonian Legion of the Kaiser's Life-Guard Division
- 1617 AN Relocated to Gong, led by Mordechai Kraut
- 1637 AN Betrayal of the Danya Emperor and loss of Daocheng
- 1695 AN Disappearance of the Chidao Emperor
- 1704 AN Surrender of the Forbidden Palace to the Nokarodo Faction
- 1707 AN Fortuitous Immolation and the Reunification with Shireroth
- 1708 AN Li Suyi, grey eminence of the Tegong, takes the marshalcy of the Guard as his reward for orchestrating the Fortuitous Immolation.
Origins
The Apollonian Guard came into existence in 1574 during the reign of Kaiser Gaelen IV. In the past, the soldiers who were protecting the Kaisers and Raynor's Keep had often showed a total lack of loyalty towards their Kaiser and also showed a lack of discipline. There are examples which date back to the reign of Kaiser Raynor X, where strangers could simply walk into his palace or disturb meetings and field training [1].
More recently in history was the murder of Kaiser Leto III by Kaiser Malarbor I. The soldiers had allowed Malarbor into the castle and, according to some historical sources, even brought him to the Throne room and placed him on the throne, where he could just wait until Leto walked in.
Shirerithian service
With this in mind, Gaelen decided to create a new bodyguard which was placed under direct jurisdiction of the Kaiser himself. A rather small group of guards, 1,000 in total, would be responsible for protecting the Kaiser and guarding important buildings in the capital. He chose to name it the Apollonian Guard as he himself was born in Apollo City and raised with an Apollonian and Kildarian upbringing. His soldiers worn the traditional Apollonian clothes (spear, tunic, armour, helmet, shield and a hidden gun) and were trained as Kildarian soldiers.
When the Kaiser received complaints of the Kildarian influences at the court, he quickly changed his policy towards the Guard: it was opened for all other people from the Empire, not just for only Audentes. At the height of the unit's reputation and prowess, strict conditions on membership were observed - applicants had to have already served in the Imperial Forces, with distinction, on at least four previous campaigns and had to be in peak physical condition and of unimpeachable loyalty to the Crown.
Notionally the Guard was placed outside of the military chain of command, reporting to the Prefect of Shirekeep and the Kaiser directly, by-passing the Minister of Military Affairs. This was something of an anomaly and only the relative weakness of the Ministry of Military Affairs prevented this situation from being revisited. Something that would change once a more active and able minister was finally appointed to the role.
The Minister of Military Affairs, Balârak Âlaion, in 1598 prevailed upon the Landsraad to accept his defence reforms known as the martial code which sought to replace the Aurangzeb-Alexander system of Defence Directorates and Operational Commands with three separate branches of the armed forces. The Apollonian Guard was expanded to a full division under this Martial Code to become the land component of the new tri-service configuration.
In 1602, as the loyalty of Balârak Âlaion became suspect and the Capital itself collapsed into anarchy the Guard found itself replaced, in its original capacity of bodyguard to the Kaiser, by the Order of Sentinels under Imperial Decree Nº 612 which was promulgated by Kaiser(ess) Aiomide during his period of exile on the Skyla Isles. The Apollonian Guard, or at least those portions of it which did not surrender, render oaths of fealty or desert, were militarily crushed by a coalition of Elwynn, Goldshire and Imperial Volunteers led by the Kaiser who retook Shirekeep in 1606 and purged it of the last traces of contagion, to which many surviving guardsmen had already regrettably succumbed.
In 1607 the formerly elite unit was reduced to a regiment of regular infantry within the Apollonian Legion of the Kaiser's Life-Guard Division under the reforms of Lord Marshal Laqi Hyrrion which saw the Directorates restored. The regiment was not entirely inactive during the period of its disgrace - it is credited with foiling a suicide attempt by the notoriously melancholic Kaiser Sehml.
Service in Kildare
Minister of Military Affairs Mordechai Kraut, at that time engaged in an intrigue against the Golden Mango Throne re-established the Apollonian Guard and led them to Te Gong Li during the Revolution of 1617 that ended in the independence of the Apollonian Republic and the Gong Federation. The unit remained loyal to Mordechai Kraut and before his martyrdom for the Apollonian-Apollonian-Alliance Kraut requested the Apollonian Guard would swear allegiance to RasmOS. The Kaiser Gaelen IV's Apollonian Guard consisted, at that juncture, of around five thousand proficient riflemen and a near equivalent number of auxiliaries attached to mechanised support units.
Descended from the regiments of the Apollonian Guard sundered from the remainder of the Palatini Corps by the Revolution of 1617, Kaiser Gaelen IV's Apollonian Guard remained in Kildare and was reorganised and tasked with the defence of the Imperial Household and the Heavenly Light in Daocheng. In spite of fulfilling this role diligently and without incident for the greater part of its history, there were occasions where the reputation of the Guard had been called in to question. The first lapse was the loss of Daocheng to the Jexit rebels during the early stages of the Geming War, the next occurred sixty-years later with the unexplained circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Chidao Emperor, which set in train the host of troubles that would follow an afflict the empire. The final disgrace occurred in 1704 AN when the officers of the Guard sought to hide the truth of the widespread rebellion from the Heavenly Light and the Imperial Household until the very moment when the capital was on the point of being overwhelmed.
From the depths of the disgrace into which they had been cast, the Apollonian Guard was recalled to its sense of duty and honour by the marshal Li Suyi, then in exile in the International Mandate. Given an opportunity to redeem themselves for their failures, the guardsmen were readily recruited into the conspiracy that would make them unlikely allies of the Tegong and the Humanist exiles in Arboria. Coordinated by Tegong intermediaries, the guardsmen, disguised as mutinous troops from the People's Revolutionary Army, staged the sudden assault upon the Congress of the Nokarodo Faction held in Daocheng during the sixth month of 1707 AN. The conflagration that would claim the life of General Secretary Wang Wei and the principle leadership cadres of the syndicalist movement was replicated at the regional level with coordinated assaults carried out by the Tegong, Talons of the Archon, and desperate bands of dispossessed youths from the nobility and burgesses - the latter recruited in the days prior to the assault on their neighbourhood prefectures and fortified with stirring patriotic speeches, the promise of pay, and generously poured cups of rice-wine.
