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The Great Northern Aquilonis War, sometimes known as the Umdari War of Aggression, was a major war in Aquilonis, taking place mostly on the northern half of the continent. This war pitted the Confederacy of Umdar and its allies against a legion of allied nations. Umdar's goal was to unite Aquilonis under its banner, and bring about its dominance in Aquilonis. Allied intervention led to the defeat of Umdar and its dissolution.
Behind the scenes, the chaos of the war was being used by the Chaos Order in an attempt to bring back the Dark Lord, but this too was defeated at the hands of the timely reunited lunaculi.
This war also marked the first time in over 500 years that the seven lunaculi were reunited.
Prelude
Breakup of Salrinoa
The war's origins can be traced back to the Salrinoan Revolutionary Wars roughly a century prior. Towards the end of the conflict, several Salrinoan States that separated from the defunct Salrinoa Federation merged with Umdar to form the Confederacy of Umdar.
Annexation of southern Solana States
In the early days of 4534 AFZ Umdar began its campaign to unify Aquilonis, starting by annexing the former Salrinoa states of the south, from Koelba to Qatu, after months of negotiation. It also attempted to annex Lirgal and Velda, but they refused to negotiate. The Salrinoa states to the north also refused to negotiate and turned a blind eye to what Umdar was trying to do.
War
Fall of Lirgal and Velda
In the early days of Rasanova 4535 the war began. While the remaining Salrinoan States yet to be annexed by Umdar held a summit in Lirgal, two Umdari armies, without a declaration of war, invaded Lirgal and Velda. Caught off guard by the sudden attack, both countries fell by the end of the month.
In response, the northern countries, including Soleil, who's king had been in attendance to the meeting, declared war on Umdar. Despite stiff resistance, the northern Salrinoan States soon fell as well. When the last of the Salrinoan states on the mainland fell, Markaydia also declared war, fearing it would be next.
Fall of Soleil
By the end of the war's first year most of former Salrinoa was in Umdari hands. But Soleil, having no real ties to any of the nations, did nothing to prevent it. Instead it worked toward securing its own borders to prevent invasion, using spies and making all sorts of guesses as to when and where it would occur so they could react in an instant. But after Umdari rule in the northern countries was secure, all activity seemed to had stopped.
A year passed with no one making any moves, and the Soleilian Government soon believed that Umdar had no quarrel with Soleil and would be open to negotiate. They were wrong.
For several months, Umdar had been secretly stacking troops on Potiruka, which had secretly sided with Umdar in exchange for retaining its independence. Umdar then invaded Soleil from its southern coast, outflanking the Soleilian Southern Armies one after another. With the southern flank broken, the Umdari armies advanced and shattered Soleil's confused Northern Army, sending remnants of it into full retreat.
By the end of the war's third year, Soleil's capital had fallen, its king killed. Even worse, Soleil was betrayed by one of its own noble houses, House Adhmenar, which led to the king's death, and its leader, Germain Paul-Antoine, Marquis de Adhemar, was placed on the Soleilian throne; the rightful heir to the throne, Edmond Jean-Louis de Lafayette, went into hiding, and only a small rebellion loyal to the Royal Family, led by Germain's own daughter, Veronica Emiliana de Lafayette, persisted the fight.
Soleil's friend and ally for generations, the Empire of Yamatai, preoccupied with an uprising, was powerless to help.
Fall of Avalar
Halfway through the fourth year of the war, Avalar, viewing Umdar's military expansion as a threat, declared war and attempted an invasion. This invasion didn't even last three months, and Avalar was beaten back and invaded by Umdar.
Most of the main body of Avalar and the eastern handle fell to Umdar quickly. Having lost its capital and pushed back into the southeast corner of their territory, the remnants of the Avalari government, without any real military strength left, agreed to an armistice, and was allowed to retain independent authority in the southeast.
Invasion of Bestiauris & Intervention
At the same time as the Invasion of Avalar, Umdar also focused on its next target, and invaded Bestiauris. The Bestiauris had been expecting this and was more than prepared for it, allowing them to hold them back for the time being. However, when Avalar signed the armistice with Umdar, Umdar launched the full force of their army against Bestiauris, and the brute force of the Umdari attack forced them back.
Partway into the year 4540, Drakyncia and Telmarnia declared war on Umdar and lent aid to Bestiauris. Now fighting three armies at once, Umdar, having already conquered over half of Bestiauris, was forced to halt their advance. However, while the fighting continued, neither side of the conflict was able to make any significant gains. By this time, the persistence of the remnants of the Soleilian Loyalists, along with aid from an unknown source, had halted Umdar on the Vieillesse Peninsula as well.
Halfway through the war's fifth year, the war in Bestiauris, as well as Umdar's campaign against the remnants of the Soleilian Loyalists, was in a deadlock, putting the entire war in a stalemate.
Allied Liberation of Soleil
Markaydian Liberation of Novarus
End of the War
Collapse of Umdar
The Siege of Garvis is generally marked as the unofficial end of the Great Northern Aquilonis War as the consequences of the battle were severe for Umdar: Umdar had lost its last major army, and the remaining ones were either tied up fighting either Markaydia in the north or the Southern Alliance to the south, and were too depleted to mount a meaningful defense. The prospect of invasion by enemies advancing on all sides was becoming increasingly likely as the southern alliance finally drove Umdar from Bestiauris and Avalar completely, and Markaydia continued to push Umdar out of the Northern Salrinoan states; and, most problematically, the people's resentment against the totalitarian Umdari government for years of mistreatment was at an all-time high.
Private talks of rebellion were common even before Garvis, and many were itching for an excuse to overthrow their despotic masters. There had some measure of resistance for several years prior to Garvis, some of it violent, but nothing truly meaningful; but, after waiting for so long for a sign of weakness in the Umdari army and government, the resistance leaders finally got the valid excuse they needed to initiate outright rebellion. The day after the Siege of Garvis ended, messengers used every available means to spread the word in every direction like wildfire, and the entire continent knew of the defeat within a week; and within a month after the battle, the entire northern hemisphere knew of the Umdari defeat.
As word of the Umdari-Adhemar defeat at Garvis spread across the confederacy, the grim situation was the last straw for the the people of the constituent states of the country. In the days and weeks following the defeat, roughly a few days after word of the outcome of the siege initially reached them, the people and resistance leaders in the still-occupied lands revolted and overthrew the Umdari-controlled governments. The remnants of the Umdari Armies were tied up at the northern and southern fronts, but once word of the defeat at Garvis reached them, they lost the will to fight and dispersed within hours. With the collapse of the Umdari Army, the small garrisons around the confederacy were powerless to stop the insurrections; some soldiers even joined in the rebellions, hastening the governments' overthrow. Even the capital province, Umdar itself, wasn't spared revolt, resulting in the complete overthrow of the once despotic-totalitarian government within a matter of hours after the news reached the capital, Quarc.
Within a month of the initial rebellions, the Confederacy of Umdar, now already a much smaller territory, was replaced with the Republic of Umdar. Even while the new republic was still fighting for territory with the emergent states that splintered from the former confederacy to declare independence, the new government of the Umdari Republic sent dignitaries to negotiate a collective peace treaty with every major belligerent from the previous conflict. However, negotiations were repeatedly put on hold due to constant changes of leadership in Umdar, as well as other situations that hindered Umdar's political stance. In 4548, almost six years after the Umdari defeat at Garvis, the peace treaty was signed in the City of Harkolio, a city in the Kingdom of Galiara, a northern peninsular nation that had remained neutral throughout the war. After thirteen long years, the Treaty of Harkolio brought the Great Northern Aquilonis War to an official end.
Aftermath
While the Great Northern Aquilonis War unofficially ended with the Umdari defeat at Garvis, the aftermath of the war was mixed and varied by country: While Avalar and Bestiauris rebuilt their realms following the expulsion of Umdari forces, Soleil, aided by Yamatai, continued to fight a civil war for the throne, followed by a conflict to preserve its territorial integrity.
The only countries to have a relatively peaceful conclusion to the conflict were the participating powers who weren't invaded by Umdar during the war; such as Arabia, Markaydia, Hylar, Drakyncia, Telmarnia, Transylvania, and Maratha. They were able to simply able to call their troops home and rebuild their economies without interference. Meanwhile, the aftermath of the war was a time of turmoil for Central Aquilonis.
The initial rebellions that resulted in the collapse of the once-dominant Confederacy is often termed the Second Salrinoan Revolution. These rebellions, while for the same reasons, were not a unified matter. As the confederacy splintered into several independent states, it wasn't long before the new factions started fighting each other for land and power.
Every emergent faction went to war with one or more of its neighbors on and off for several years, as every one of them looked to firmly establish their place amongst the republican north that was former Salrinoa, as well as gain control of vital strategic points and resources. There were even attempts to reunify former Salirnoa into a single federated state for the first time in more than a century, but none were successful. The negotiations either broke down entirely, or the propositions were met with mockery and contempt.
After seven years of on-and-off warfare, constant shifting alliances, and compromises, peace was restored in Central Aquilonis, helped along by Suguha Oda and her entourage.
Notes & Trivia
- The Great Northern Aquilonis War was primarily inspired by World War II.