1st Battle of Alx̣tsʻan

1st Battle of Alx̣tsʻan
Part of Xanaaq̇ut's War
Date 29th February 1887 Location Alx̣ valley Result Dze victory
Belligerents
Alx̣tsʻan Clan Nuł̣ńtʻe Clan	Thuhaq Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Tsotʻaan Xanaaq̇ut Tʻaan Plytł̣uŋ  (WIA)	Qharaq Iz'udan †
Strength
1,800-2,300	5,000 Infantry 2,000 Cavalry
Casualties and losses
Minimal	~6,000

The 1st Battle of Alx̣tśan was the battle that began the Xanaaq̇ut's War; occuring on the 29th of February 1887, it marked the end of the truce established at the end of the Thuhaq-Alx̣tsʻani War that had concluded a slightly over half a decade before and was fought between the coalition of tribes under the banner of Tʻaan X̣ṭeḿł̣oqʻ and a Thuhaqi army under the command of general Qharaq Iz'udan. The battle was fought near the entrance to the Alx̣ valley in a chokepoint closed off by hilly outcrops.

Following the end of the the Thuhaq-Alx̣tsʻani Wars in 1863 with the Alx̣tsʻani Massacre, the clan would spend the following many years recovering their strength, with X̣ṭeḿł̣oqʻ managing to maintain the alliance with the neighbouring Nuł̣ńtʻe clan, from where his former bride had come from. Eager to avenge her death and the slights against the clans, the Dze would begin preparing their forces in 1881 for a punitive campaign against the Thuhaqi Kingdom, launching a series of Great raids of 1881-1885. Their human enemies quickly mustered an army under the command of the prominent general Qharaq Iz'udan, one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom, and marched towards the Alx̣ valley in the last weeks of 1886.

After being informed of the approaching Thuhaqi army, the tʻaan had organized the evacuation of his people and prepared to meet this army near the entrance chokepoint of the Alx̣ valley, infested with tall grasses, begining to bog them down with traps across the valley and ambushing them to lure them further into the valley. With the Tʻaan and a small company of soldiers going behind the rear from the outcrops, the Dze would feign a retreat and the Thuhaqi army was then swiftly encircled and almost completely destroyed during the course of the day. This battle is pivotal in Dze history for being the start of the process of uniting the Dze and their allies by X̣ṭeḿł̣oqʻ, and expelling the human invaders, a task that would take him the next twenty years of his life.

Background

In 1863, the Thuhaq Kingdom had sent a punitive expedition at the end of the Thuhaq-Alx̣tsʻani Wars, resulting in the Alx̣tsʻani massacre of 1863, which greatly weakened the Alx̣tsʻan clan as half of it's people were killed and they were driven towards the mountains. By the time of the battle the Alx̣tsʻani had recovered some of their strength and gathered 1,300 warriors under the command of a young Tʻaan X̣ṭeḿł̣oqʻ who would be joined by some 500 to 1,000 warriors from the Nuł̣ńtʻe clan under the command of his father-in-law, Tʻaan Plytł̣uŋ, who was eager to avenge his daughter.

Prelude

After returning to their old traditional ranges, sacking and burning a few newly established small settlements along the frontier and slaying their population and garrisons, the Thuhaqi caught wind of these attacks and sent an army 7,000 strong under the command of Qharaq Iz'udan, one of the kingdom's most prominent nobles and an aggressive military commander, to fully exterminate the Alx̣tsʻani once and for all, beggining their march on the 3rd of Primo towards the Alx̣ valley.

After hearing of the approaching army around the 20th, X̣ṭeḿł̣oqʻ began to prepare for the encounter, sending his people towards the mountains on the 27th to avoid a second massacre and dividing his forces into three, with two components in the flanks, made of 700 warriors each, hiding in the entrance to the valley on the tall grass while a third contingent under his direct command would be mounted and draw the enemy army towards them.

Battle

Initial moves

The figures for the Thuhaqi army are well documented in sources from both sides, with the Thuhaqi sources stating 5,000 infantrymen and 2,000 cavalry were sent northwards to fight whilst the Dze claimed to have faced similar numbers, which are laid upon in the Alx̣ Stelai, three massive stones erected at the entrance to the valley after the war, presumably carved into individually at the aftermath of each battle. The Thuhaqi sources are from a series of scrolls found at the ruins of the old Thuhaqi capital.

The Thuhaqi would enter the valley from the south-east through the hill passes whilst the Dze awaited on the sides. Upon approaching the entrance to the valley, the Thuhaqi noted in the distance the dust clouds of the dze carts and wagons moving towards the mountains and began rushing towards them, hoping to catch the wagons and people within, however they would spot the cavalry contingent of Dze, composed of heavy mounted archers, who would engage and stall the infantry.

Thuhaqi attack

Seeing a chance for an easy victory, Iz'udan would order for the cavalry to pursue the mounted archers whilst the infantry followed them. The Thuhaqi would quickly begin to split into small groups as they entered the valley and getting increasingly more separated in the pursuit of the dze cavalry, which continued going into the valley in a feigned retreat. By the hour of the start of the attack the Thuhaqi contingents were separated by several hundred kilometres and the cavalry itself was almost a kilometre ahead of the infantry vanguard.

Sources from either side detail that after an hour of continuous march, the infantry began to tire out and slow down as the cavalry kept in pursuit, until the dze took to their melee weapons instead of their bows and turned around to crash into the exhauted enemy cavalry.

Encirclement

After the cavalry contingents began to clash, the signal was given for the dzeii infantry to attack the enemy rearguard, ambushing it and preventing for the contingents ahead to come in time to rescue them before they returned to the tall grasses and prepared for the next ambush, eliminating over two thousand enemy soldiers this way.

This pattern of engagement would continue until the Thuhaqi cavalry was routed and exterminated and the dzeii horsemen charged towards the Thuhaqi infantry as their own infantry charged from the rear.

Thuhaqi collapse

After the pincer movement was complete, the exhausted and demoralized Thuhaqi line would collapse, with the Dze leaving a gap in the line for them to attempt an escape, from where they were then fired at with arrows and javelins until less than a thousand enemies were left retreating back towards their lands as their own sources report.