Sabrian Wars

The two empires during the war.

The Sabrian Wars were a series of two wars between 656 and 692 CE fought between the Symmerian Empire and the Sabrian Empire. The First Sabrian War was fought between 656-661 CE over the eastern Siduri coastline. The Second Sabrian War occurred between 680-692 CE and was fought primarily at sea on the island of Lirinya. The wars pitted the two dominant powers of Siduri at the time against each other, the Symmerians controlling much of northern Siduri from coast to coast, while the Sabrian Empire dominated eastern Siduri.

A principle naval power, the Sabrians had amassed a large empire spread out over much of eastern Siduri and the coast of southeast Eracura, as well as exercising de-facto control of the Cacertian isles. In 638 CE Deinokrates III began his conquest of Quenmin, which brought the Symmerians into contact, and eventual conflict, with Sabrian holdings along the Quenminese coast. The First Sabrian War broke out in 656 CE following the Symmerian capture of Sabrian ports within Quenmin and over the course of five years the Symmerians steadily reduced the Sabrian presence along the continent. In the process of doing so, the Symmerians exercised complete control of Quenmin and established a foothold in neighboring Knichus. Sabrian dominance of the seas allowed Sabria to continue to resupply its forces on the continent which eventually led to a cessation of hostilities in 661 CE.

The ascension of Heliodoros to the Symmerian throne in 677 led to a renewal of tensions with Sabria resulting in the Symmerians breaking the peace treaty in 680. By 683 the Sabrians had effectively been pushed entirely out of Siduri proper, but Heliodoros followed up with an extended naval campaign and launched an invasion of Lirinya in 687. Initially successful, the Symmerians conquered nearly a quarter of the island before the Sabrian general Tiberius Decmus inflicted a decisive defeat at the Battle of Asakumo in 690 CE which halted the Symmerian campaign and re-establishing Sabrian control over Lirinya. A second peace treaty was signed in 692, permanently ending hostilities between the two powers.

Both powers were exhausted by the wars and it is believed to have contributed in part to their decline. Despite their victory in the second conflict, the Sabrian Empire was left bankrupt by the defeat as most of its continental holdings gone. This left Sabria left devoid of much of its wealth and power which had relied heavily on its now-shattered trade networks. Throughout much of the 8th and 9th centuries Sabria was wracked by several internal conflicts and entered into steep decline, eventually dissolving in 858 CE. The Symmerian Empire would end the war at it's greatest territorial extent, but steadily declined in the coming centuries. Between 800 CE to 1100 CE the Makdonians gradually lost control of eastern Siduri as Quenminese rebellions and the rise of the Arkoennites steadily reduced Symmerian influence while the rise of Islamic caliphates in Mansuriyyah further divided the Empire's attention.

Heavily studied by historians, the Sabrian Wars involved participants from all over Tyran in the form of levy soldiers and mercenaries fielded by both sides. Both empires fielded large armies and navies resulting in some of the largest battles of late antiquity with many battlefields remaining popular archeological sites and tourist attractions. More than a thousand treatises and studies have been published on the wars since their conclusion over a millennia ago, and the wars are extensively covered in the historical education of both Syara and Cacerta.

Background and Origin

Orestes II had ended his campaign of Arkoenn in 226 BCE, effectively establishing the Symmerian Empire's borders with Quenmin which stood more or less unchanged for nearly 800 years. During this time the Symmerians embarked on a number of other campaigns, crossing the Sundering Sea and invading Borea in the 4th Century under Anaximenes. Starting in the 5th and 6th centuries the Symmerians conquered and absorbed Mansuriyyah and extended their control south along the west Siduri coast. In 635 CE, Deinokrates ascended the throne in Pella and immediately aimed to expand Symmeria's borders east following the onset of the Second Quenminese Anarchy, which left Quenmin fractured and in a state of constant warfare. Deinokrates assembled a massive army and began his campaign in 638 CE. The disunified Quenminese warring states were in no position to challenge the Symmerian Army, and Deinokrates proceeded to conquer or subjugate Quenmin over the course of five years. It was during this campaign that the Symmerians first came into direct contact with the Sabrian Empire, which maintained control over several coastal strips of land and ports along the Quenminese coast of the Bara Sea.

Indirect relations between the two powers had existed for centuries beforehand through merchants and traders traveling along the Siduri Coast. First contact is believed to have occurred with Kydonian and Symmerian sailors attempting to circumnavigate the continent, some of whom eventually settled in the Liúşai League as the ancestors of the Hellene Gylians. Sabrian emissaries were dispatched sometime in the 2nd and 3rd century but never reached Syara proper for reasons that are still not certain. By the time of the Symmerian conquest of Quenmin, the Sabrian Empire was already in a state of slow decline following the collapse of the Acrean Empire a few centuries prior, which had robbed the Sabrians of a major trade partner. While the arrival of the Symmerians on the borders of Sabrian holdings in Siduri alarmed some Sabrian leaders, the two powers co-existed for more than a decade without major conflict, and both states signed treaties recognizing the other's sovereignty.

The traditional historical perspective of the Sabrian War as crafted by Cacertian and Syaran historians throughout much of the early modern era have typically painted the Sabrian Wars as an inevitable dialectical conflict between the two regional superpowers. Modern historians on the other hand tend to view the origin of the conflict as more nuanced. The expansion of the Symmerians into a Quenminese state in the midst of a warring states period had left the region generally unstable, with numerous vassal and client states forming complex, and at times seemingly contradictory, networks of alliances that both Symmeria and Sabria were drawn into in the decade between the Symmerian conquest and the outbreak of the first war. The common consensus today is that both powers were ultimately drawn into fighting each other while weaving through the web of regional relations as a result of numerous competing interests rather than a simple desire to struggle for supremacy of eastern Siduri.

Forces Fielded

Some of the largest wars that occurred in late antiquity across Tyran, the Sabrian Wars were massive conflicts fought on a scale that wasn't seen again until the Siduri War. At it's peak in the 680s CE, an estimated one and a half million soldiers and sailors were fielded by the two powers in armies that fought along a front line that stretched from Trang Dihn in the north and the Liúşai League in the south.

Ancient Symmerian histography has often emphasized the mercenary aspect of the Sabrian armies. This characteristic was not without merit, but overstated; many Sabrian soldiers were foreigners either hired or drafted from overseas territories under direct Sabrian control or within their sphere of influence, rather than simple soldiers of fortune. Nevertheless, the Sabrians made extensive use foreign fighters from across Tyran, including Gylians, Acreans, Quenminese, Knichans, Delkorans, Akashi, Kosdreans, and Tennaiites. Many Sabrian troops were from the Cacertian archipelago itself, and often formed the core of Sabrian armies. Sabrian soldiers themselves were predominantly citizen-militia, landowners who could afford their own equipment and weaponry.

In comparison to the Symmerians, the Sabrian armies typically fought in a looser order, relying on the flexibility and agility of their diverse forces to compensate for their usual inferiority in training and drill. In battle the Sabrians typically employed their forces in staggered lines of intermixed light and heavy infantry, skirmishers, and archers. Cavalry was utilized extensively as a screening and scouting force, or to chase down retreating enemies. The Sabrians had comparatively fewer heavy or shock cavalry. As the wars waged on, Sabrian infantry gradually grew heavier and better armed, eventually being equipped with their own javelins in addition to short swords, spears, and occasionally battleaxes. The Sabrians at times emulated the pike phalanx of the Symmerians, though this was not standard. In battle the Sabrians preferred to engage heavily with missile fire before moving into a short, vicious melee attack before retreating again. This fighting style became known as fluctus (Sabrian for "waves"), and differed from the steady, resolute close order battle line favored by the Symmerians.

The Symmerian Army had retained much of its fighting traditions since Orestes II had first expanded Symmeria's dominion beyond Syara's borders, but as the Empire had expanded so had it's armies. The centerpiece of the Symmerian armies, the phalangitai, or pike phalanx, remained. Each army usually had 15,000-25,000 pikemen, and there was typically the only Symmerian soldiers present (save for the officers). Various other levy soldiers and auxiliary troops were conscripted or hired from across the Empire. Ruvelkan heavy infantry, Mansuri skirmishers and cavalry, Scitarian and Galanian infantry, Quenminese cavalry, halberdiers, and archers were fielded in large numbers as well.

In battle the center was usually held by the Symmerian pikemen, and supported on their flanks by Ruvelkan or Quenminese infantry. Cavalry was often positioned on the wings, with Quenminese archers in the rear and Scitarian and Mansuri skirmishers up front. While often described as serving as the "anvil" in "hammer and anvil tactics", the phalanx was powerful offensive tool of its own right; well drilled and trained, the Symmerian pikemen were among the most professional soldiers in the world of their time. In battle it was common for Galanian and Ruvelkan heavy infantry to act as "shock troops", charging the enemy lines to weaken them before the phalanx would crash through it. The downside of the phalanx was it required highly trained professional soldiers to wield it effectively; levy troops lacked the discipline and precision to perform complex maneuvers or react to flanking attacks, placing Symmerian pikemen at a premium.

First Sabrian War, 656-661 CE

Main article: First Sabrian War

The war began in 656 roughly 12 years after the Symmerians had completed their conquest of Quenmin under Deinokrates III. The cause of the war is believed to have been disputes over ownership of ports and alliances of the various Quenminese warring factions, and their relationship with Sabrian holdings along the coast. The Symmerians began besieging Sabrian cities and ports along the coast, but the Sabrian navy sailed in supplies and reinforcements. The Symmerians began building their own fleets along the coast to compete with the Sabrians on the open sea while continuing to assault Sabrian holdings on the continent. Over the course of two years the Symmerians steadily reduced Sabrian holdings one by one while fighting several naval battles along the coast, but failing to secure a strategic victory at sea.

In 559 the Symmerians finally captured Van Lao, prompting the Sabrians to dispatch two armies in 660, one in Bà Thiết in the north and the other to the south in Lào Hòa. The Sabrians scored a victory at Cam Doc, but were decisively defeated at the Battle of Buon Ma Thuot. The Sabrians withdrew from Quenmin in 661 and signed a peace treaty, ending the war in a Symmerian victory. The Sabrians were forced to relinquish their holdings in Quenmin and swore off further ambitions to the Quenminese coast, and were forced to pay a reparation of nearly 10,000 silver pieces. The Symmerians cemented their control over Quenmin, but disputes and tensions over the rest of eastern Siduri would lead to the Second Sabrian War less than twenty years later.

One of the largest conflicts of late antiquity, the war would would eventually be eclipsed by the second war, which was larger in scale and lasted longer. Quenminese soldiers played a major role in the conflict as both levy troops and mercenaries, fighting for both sides in large numbers and at many times constituted the majority of the soldiers on the battlefield. Quenminese forces would become a major component of the Symmerian armies in eastern Siduri, and Quenmin would remain under Symmerian rule for four centuries until it was overthrown by the Âu Lạc Rebellion in 1090.

Second Sabrian War, 680-692 CE

Main article: Second Sabrian War

Deinokrates III, who had led the Symmerians to victory in the first war, died in 676 CE, leaving his son Prexinos I to ascend the throne. Prexinos, who had been too young to fight in the previous conflict, saw the continued Sabrian presence on the Siduri continent as an unnacceptable strategic threat, but was reluctant to go to war unprovoked out of fear of aggravating Symmerian allies and vassal states in eastern Siduri who were not eager for another destructive conflict. In an effort to undermine the Sabrians Prexinos began funneling weapons and supplies to Knichan tribes who were engaged in a low intensity conflict with the Sabrian protectorates along the Knichan coast. Legate Artoria Flavina eventually raised an army to subjugate the Knichan tribes, which Prexinos labeled an aggressive move on the part of Sabria that threatened Symmerian security interests and invaded Knichus.

The Sabrians were able to repel the Symmerians initially, but a second Symmerian campaign drove the Sabrians back to the coast. The Sabrians attempted an invasion of southern Quenmin in 682 under Maximus Caldus, which raged on for two years before it was defeated by Eniopus of Pylla. In 684 the Symmerians began constructing a fleet in eastern Quenmin to challenge the Sabrians at sea and blockade Sabrian ports along the Knichan coast, which led to a prolonged naval campaign that ended indecisively. The Sabrians landed another army in Knichus in 686 under Lucia Mariniana, which defeated the armies of Hegesinos the Younger before the Sabrians suffered another defeat at the Battle of Mersako. By 687 the last of the Sabrian cities along the Knichan coast has been captured or destroyed, which led Legate Flavina to sue for peace. The continued presence of Sabrian forces on Lirinya concerned Prexinos, who refused negotiations and ordered an invasion of the island. After a sustained naval buildup the Symmeriaia and landed in eastern Lirinya in 689, and managed to conquer roughly a third of the island between 689-691. In 692 the Sabrian army under Tiberius Decmus met and defeated the Symmerians under Kallistratos at the Battle of Asakumo, then proceeded to recapture the rest of Lirinya. Faced with the failure of the invasion, Prexinos agreed to a peace treaty.

The terms of the treaty forbid the Sabrians from establishing holdings on the continent of Siduri, while in exchange the Symmerians recognized Lirinya as Sabrian soil and were limited to a fleet of 50 warships in the Bara Sea. Although the Symmerians had driven the Sabrians from Siduri, the failure of the Lirinya campaign and the decisive defeat of the Symmerian armies left many contemporary historians to label the war a Sabrian victory. Nevertheless, the war effectively marked the end of the Sabrian Empire as a major power in eastern Siduri. Sabria would enter into a steep decline and eventually dissolve itself less than two centuries later. As a result of their conquest the Symmerians would achieve their greatest territorial extent, though within a few hundred years they would lose control of all of eastern Siduri.