Kaya-Mutulese War of 1845

Kaya-Mutul war of 1845
Kaya soldiers and civilians under siege
Location Mutul Kayahallpa Result Mutulese victory
Belligerents
Kayahallpa	Mutul
Commanders and leaders
Achkachay Qhapaq Inka Yuruma Inka Chachan Inka Qepayari Inka Tiwanaku Inka Tara	Itzamnaaj B'alam Jasaw Chi Kem Yum Hachak K'atun May K'atun Ox Pat Yax Kelem Pat Winik Pek
Strength
600,000	720,000

the Kaya-Mutulese war of 1845, also known as the War of the Twin Gods, was fought in 1845 CE between the two Oxidentalese theocracies of the Mutul and Kayahallpa. The war was part of a wider rivalry between the two states, dating back to the the Resurgence and the war of 1818, during which the Mutul had lost complete control over its southern neighbor, failed to prevent its unification under the Sapa Inka, and even lost many of its southern Provinces. In fact the recovery of these lost territory was the purported reason behind the war, and the reconquest of the entirety of the Kichwa-speaking area the Mutul's ultimate wargoal.

While the war was an overall victory for the Mutul and fixed the modern border between the two countries, the Mutuleses failed to regain many territories that had remained sympathetic or even faithful to the K'uhul Ajaw. Meanwhile, the Kayahallpan royal military placed the blame of the defeat in its report on the local elites and aristocraties, which they accused of not having helped the war effort as much as they should have; the Sapa Inkas would spend the next decades consolidating their power at the expanse of said local elites.

Background

In the 1840s, the Mutul had been on a downward spiral for close to a century, since the creation of the First Tsurushimese Republic that weakened its grasp on its Oversea territories and the rise of the Sapa Inka Tupaq Churan, a spiral that accelerated greatly after the Kaya-Mutulese war of 1818 and the Second War for Kahei, resulting in the Lady Ik' Jol's de-facto coup, her murder, and the civil war known as the Sajal War between the Monarchists led by the Regent Itzamnaaj B'alam and the Aristocracy re-united as the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale. The final nail to the coffin for the Mutul's global status was, in the wake of the civil war, the Arthuristan Ultimatum which forced the Mutul to give up parts of its colonies to the Arthuristans and then abandon its control over the rest. By 1842, the dissolution of the Mutulese Empire was complete.

Since the end of the civil war, the Regency had been working on a vast series of political and economical reforms, with the stated goal of strengthening and reinforcing a State that was at its weakest comparatively to its neighbors: Kayahallpa, Sante Reze, and the Latin Empire. Itzamnaaj B'alam, now the Prime Minister of his son, gave the country a Constitution in 1844, and completely re-organized the political structures of the Divine Throne. But since the first days of the Sajal War, he and his clique had been piloting the reconstruction of the economy and industry, mostly to the benefit of the military.

The weakness shown by the Mutul during the Arthuristan Ultimatum had led to both a legitimacy crisis for the Itzamnaaj government as well as arose in the Mutuleses that more foreign enemies would try to profit from the situation if they continued to fold to the events. Itzamnaaj had been preparing for a potential reconquest of the territories lost after the War of 1818 since the end of the Sajal War, but he now reached the conclusion that a war with Kayahallpa had become necessary to safeguard the throne.

In Kayahallpa, the outcome of the succesful 1818 reunification and proclamation of the Kayan Empire radically shifted the face of western Oxidentale from a patchwork of small states controlled by foreign influences to a centralized empire governed by the iron fist of the Ch'ak Wiraqucha, the Divine Lords of the Qhapaqwasi dynasty. The first major crisis of the new government was the Rebellion of the Regions in 1827, where a coalition of powerful local leaders from across the country, mostly from the north, attempted to reclaim their political autonomy; the aging Tupaq Churan managed to lead his armies one final time and crushed the revolt. The death of Tupaq Churan two years later marked a turning point as his successor, Itsamna Kamachin, reversed some measures which were unpopular among the political establishment; nevertheless, the trend of power concentration in Tupawasi would continue. The state's complexity began to increase considerably, among the most significant being the formation of an Imperial Council composed of the most powerful noble clans to guide and advise the monarch's policies, and also so the Sapa Inka could keep a closer eye on their activities. Kamachin was assasinated in 1836 and followed by Achkachay Qhapaq, who would place great efforts at strengthening the nation's armed forces.

Forces

Mutul

Numbers

19th century Mutulese infantry still wore padded cotton armor as in previous centuries, but had traded the medieval spears and shield for modern rifles

The Mutulese Army facing Kayahallpa was divided into two Army groups, the Western and Southern Armies, each made of four Corps for a total of 640,000 men. This represented already half of the Mutul's military forces but the Mutulese High Command's plan demanded for an extra corp, detached from the Northern Army, to stay withdrawn behind the frontline in a plot to trap the right wing of the Kayan army. Ultimately, around 720,000 men would be accounted for in the Mutulese battle plan.

Despite their number, the Mutuleses still lacked cavalry or any sort of beast of burden even, greatly complexifying their logistics and reducing their mobility. Similarly, the Mutuleses only used canons in fortified position. A train artillery was already in preparation before the conflict, but did not saw any meaningful deployment during the war.

Instead, the Mutuleses had greatly developed their Rocket artillery. Their offensive tactics called for a Human wave attack supported by mass-fire from their rocket artillery. A Battalion of rocketeers was associated to every regiment of infantry to support any assault or defense.

Defensive line

Mutul's major waterways and important geographical features for the war

Since the war of 1818, the Kaya-Mutli front had been heavily fortified by both sides. The Mutulese defensive system was articulated around series of fortified defensive positions. These were, from east to west, the southern hills of Mamk'ab' looming over the Kayan jungles and the river Chixoy. The protection of said river was especially important to the Mutul, as it represented a road leading directly to K'umahkah, the "southern capital".

The second strongpoint of the Mutulese defense was the Cataracts of the Kat'ak river. These rapid were where the Kayahallpan main force had finally been stopped 27 years ago, and had been heavily reinforced by the Mutul. This denied the Kayas a direct access to the Yajawil of Muynal, an important hinterland for the logistics of the Mutuleses.

More westward to the Cataracts was the Yajawil of Kowmul, one of the few Kichwa vassals that the Mutul had been able to retain. The local dynasty had been able to repell the Sapa Inka's forces through the careful exploitation of their land's topography, and had since remained a dangerous salient into Kayahallpa. Its defense was left to the Kowmul Corp, still commanded by the local Dynasty and manned mainly by Kichwa and Awa-Kwaiker natives. This became a saying among the Mutuleses, that Kowmul was "an army with a Province to its name ". The Kowmul Corp was famed as the most elite army at the Divine Throne's disposal, and so despite its lack of participation in the Sajal War it received autonomy that would've been considered outrageous for any other unit.

The Tok'pakal desertic plateau

Finally, the last real bastion against any Kayan offensive were the fortified hills of Pamkab', also known as the M'ephaa Kingdom. As for Kowmul, Pamkab' was protected by the Corp of the same name, composed of troops recruited mostly among natives to the Province, and led by their traditional Dynasts. And just like the Kowmul Corp, M'ephaa Corp was mostly expected to hold the line in case of any offensive, or counter-offensive, from Kayahallpa.

Despite its strengths, there were two main weakness to this disposition: the Waxaklajun Hills, between Kowmul and the Cataeacts of Kat'ak were under the control of Kayahallpa. A strong vantage point that made the defensive positions of the Mutul on the Yajawil of Tok'pakal plateau especially precarious and gave the Kayans the possibility to ignore the Cataracts' forts and flank them by the west and north-west. An entire army, the Muy Corp, had been placed on the defensive there to oppose any such plan from the Sapa Inka's military. The second main weakpoint appeared as serious: the Chixoy river itself.

Plan

Despite their strong vantage point, the troops defending Mamk'ab' could not protect the Chixoy effectively, creating a hole in the Mutulese line that could be easily exploited to encircle the Corp there and then march toward an unprotected K'umahkah. This weakness had been well spotted and studied by Kayahallpa, but what they did not knew was that it had been left on purpose by the Mutulese High Command. In case of war, an extra Corp, taken from the Northern Army was to be deployed on the Chixoy but a few hundreds of kilometers away from the front. The goal was to aspire the Kaya front into the gap and then fix it with the withdrawn Corps while the Mam Corp could then come down from the mountain and cut off the Kayan troops. This was the first step in the Mutulese plan to destroy the Kayahallpan right wings, take over the fortified Ixil triangle that made the junction between Kayahallpa center and right wing, and force the Kayan center to withdraw from its position under the threat of being completely out-flanked.

Consequences

In Kayahallpa

The war had a tremendous impact on Kayahallpa, which suffered an agonizing defeat to its "sick northern neighbor" and ended any hopes of establishing a Pan-Oxidentale state under Kaya rule in the future, a distant but very much real aspiration. The ruling Sapa Inka, Achkachay Qhapaq, would be deposed three years later by his uncle Paqariy Inka. The new Sapa Inka placed full blame on "the treacherous Northern nobility" (essentially any Lord from the formerly-Mutulese influenced areas) for the loss, who he claimed had collaborated with the K'uhul Ajaw to weaken Kayahallpa's modernization efforts. Paqariy Inka would embark on a massive campaign of centralization, causing a purge of local power elites who were replaced by Tupawasi-loyalist judge-clerics. This started a trend away from localized, mercantile interests to a national, theocratic one where sovereignty and social stability became the priority of the Kayahallpan government.

In the Mutul

Example of a rocket launcher used by the Mutul during the war

The war had been a gamble by the Itzamnaaj Regency which had all but spent the credit it had acquired during the Sajal War because of the harshness of the Itzamnaaj Reforms and the humiliation of the Arthuristan Ultimatum. The Mutul's victory and territorial gains, intensively exploited through propaganda, restored the Ilok'tab Dynasty's image and served to justify the costs of the Reforms on Mutulese society. Nonetheless, Itzamnaaj stepped down from his position as Regent a year after the war and is still remembered in the Mutul as the man who restored the Mutul's power and international prestige, the complete reverse of his image even a year before the war.

In History

The war was a shock for its contemporaries because of its scale, with more than a million of soldiers involved, its violence, and its use of modern technologies that drastically altered how warfare was to be conducted. Trains saw their first use in Oxidentale as part of the armies' logisitics, although their still almost experimental nature and the rarity of railways greatly limited their use. Steamboats and carriers remained the main way to resupply the armies, augmented with mules in Kayahallpa. The rifles used did not improve accuracy, but did greatly speed up the rate of fire. Dense, compact, charging columns, still in use at the start of the war as they had been during the Asherionic Wars, led to unsustainable casualties and had to be dropped entirely. Battles became long, sluggish, bloody and, worst of all, inconclusive affairs.

The scale of ammunition consumption also took both side by surprise. The Mutuleses for example, fired 4000 rockets daily during the year of the war, quadruple the ammount of the war of 1818 (not counting for the Mutulese navy's consumption). The industriallisation of the war was already in place and armies could no longer tolerate being cut from their Hinterlands for prolonged periods of time.

The Asherionic Wars had taught the world the need for states to mobilize as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time to gain the upper hand over another state. The Thunder Dance was also the first military to make use of the standard Divisions and even introduced the Army Corps as a military formations, two innovations that were re-purposed by both the Kayans and the Mutuleses. Mobilisation was handled, on Kayahallpa's side, by the Neo-Mit'a system of conscription introduced by Tupaq Churan during the Resurgence, with reserves for the military being distributed in tambos. Itzamnaaj' Mutul, defeated by this very system in 1818, would take massive inspirations from it for their own conscription and mobilisation system.

As a result, while Oxidentale's historiography tend to present the War of 1845 as the "first modern, industrial conflict", international commentators and historians have instead taken to describe it as the "last Asherionic war".