Rotbest slaget

Rotbest slaget
Part of the two hundred years war
File:Vedians.jpg A vedian Army as they appeared at the time
Date 10-14 August 1367 Location Syd vedian, Imeriata proper. Result Decisive Vedian-Imerian loss
Belligerents
Kingdom of Vedian File:Imerian flag.png Kingdom of Imeriata	Wild animals
Commanders and leaders
File:HeraldryMundi.png Mundi auf Nordberga † File:HeraldryMundi.png Egil auf Nordberga	none
Strength
Estimated to be around 6000 men. divided into 500 Imerian cavalrymen, 2000 crossbowmen and the rest billhookmen and pikemen.	Estimates at the time 30 Rotbestar 6-8 Rotbestar out of which only 4 would be adults.
Casualties and losses
3000 men	Unknown, at least two rotbest lairs

Rotbest slaget (English: Battle of Rotbest) was a battle between a joint Vedian Imerian force that marched from Vedian to re-enforce Oskar rex Stjärnkhrone I's army and to prepare for his autumn campaign of that year where, in which he intended to break a few sieges of the border castles on his side of the border. He also hoped to be able to cut off the enemy supply lines and starve them out during winter.

The battle became known as one of the greatest embarrassments for the Stjärnkhrone dynasty during the entire war and put the entire Imer-vedian war effort into disarray. They decided not to engage the enemy in autumn and instead had to wait for the next summer.

Contemporary accounts of the battle

Accounts of the battle from the survivors are the most common source of information, even though these accounts have a tendency to be exaggerated and not show much knowledge of the wider scope of the battle. Instead, most information come from one single source, the historian Erik Fyrvelssen that by chance had happened to tag along the expedition.

Battle

Terrain

The terrain of the battle is what many people attributes to the confusion and panic that ensured amongst the army that routed as it in Sydvedian in the foothills of the Vedian mountains and just north of the forested regions of Imeriata proper and the riverlands so were the land wet, it was covered in thick forest and was very hilly and even mountainous forcing the army to spread out during the nights while they camped due to lack of space.

Day 1

Day one was the most peaceful day of the "Battle" as the army descended into the forest which would be the scene of the battle and quite quickly did scouts start to vanish with little to no trace where they had went. Fearing an ambush did high lord Mundi auf Nordberga send forth a rather sizable force of light infantry in the forest to follow the road in the hope of being able to attack the ambushers from the rear as he marched slowly. When neither of the small force had returned did he decide to dig in for the night and head back the day after.

However in the middle of the knight did a pair of Rotbestar attack the camp, smashing through the defensive lines before a word of warning were raised and chaos started to spread and a lot of men engaged one another in the belief that they were either Erathians, Karmän or Ismän. Especially the Imerian cavalry was heavy attacked due to them being the only men in the party wearing trousers rather than the kilt worn by Vedians which made a lot of men confuse them as foes.

Mundi auf Nordberga himself died in the chaos fighting one of Rotbestarna and even managed to slay his foe before he succumb to the wounds inflicted on him by the beast. It took well into the small hours for fighting to truly die down as the large and spread out camp forced men to run through wooden terrain and nobody was sure who was in command and what to do.

Day 2

When the day arose had a large number of men fallen, people argues that it was as many as half the force while Erik Fyrvelssen claims that only a 1000 men had died and they had lost half of their cavalry to attacks amongst their own people. As they knew that they had been attacked by a rotbest family and they had slew one of the guilty in the attack so did they have to track down the nest and kill the remaining adult. So trackers rode out and found a tunnelling system where at least half the force advanced down into to avenge their comrades while the rest of the army started to prepare to continue the march. However what the army did not know is that there were two families of beasts that lived in the forest and the beast that had attacked them during the night attacked the unprepared camp again. Demoralised from the last nights war did a lot of men break rank and run while other attempted to put up a ill organised defence which caused more casualities before the beast finally withdrew having slain a hundred men in it's attacks against the confused army before it decided to hunt down deserters.

A lot of lardins decided to hunt down the beast on their own and rode off while others claimed that they intended to care for their men first and foremost and either tried to push on or retreat back to Vedian in good order. These groups were the ones that included the most survivors as the remainders tried to fortify their position even more.

In the caves so did many men perish as the soldiers desperately tried to hunt down the animals that knew their tunnels well and a lot of men died in the poorly organised raid led by mundi's own son Egil auf Nordberga and at least a hundred men had died before finally an animal was cornered and killed by pike and crossbowmen. Thinking that they had killed the pair did the army once again break up to find the treasure hoards that rotbestar often stored unaware that there was not only a second rotbest alive but there was also a pair of smaller beasts that had not jet left their parents lair jet.

Panic quickly ensured as the rest of the lair attacked and men retreated in panic claiming that the animal had risen from the dead to avenge themselves and Egil sounded the retreat when he himself and a small group of heavily armoured Lardins and Huskarls managed to kill a second beasts with poleaxes and realise that were in fact in the wrong lair.

When he arrived at the camp so had a large portion of the army left, more was wounded and of his 1000 men he had attacked the lair with were half dead or wounded and could not fight anymore. Seeing this did he send a bird about their situation assuming that his father had done the same and claimed they were only at half strength and that they planned to dig in or be overrun.

Once he had sent the letter did he organise the army into two groups that built a defensive position by building a half circle of chopped down trees and light torches in the open field they had created around their camp.

Day 3

In the middle of the night did another beast try to attack the camp but due to the torches so were it spotted in time and this gave the defenders the time to prepare and in a more organised manner attack it. Compared to panicking unnorganised humans so did the beast learn dearly that organised soldiers were another thing entirely as a pike square marched out to meet it and unable to penetrate the pikes were it severely wounded before billhookmen engaged it at it's flanks and cut it down in good order.

Another beast was spotted but driven off by crossbow fire. Faced with his situation in the morning did Egil spend most of the day planning a raid the following day and sent out a sizeable scouting team that managed to locate the second lair but took heavy causalities in doing so as they were attacked by a young animal that they managed to slay before they retreated.

Day 4

Just as before did a large rotbest try to attack in the early morning but was repulsed with no causalities as it ran when the army tried another pike charge. When the morning came so did he attack the two lairs in a much more organised manner this time and the remaining animals were slain and he continued the march in good order having lost half the force to various rotbest attacks and desertion while one third of the survivors had ran off either ahead of him or back home so he only managed to join the king with 2000 of the original 6000 men his father had set out with.

Aftermath

The aftermath was more disastrous than the battle itself as the high king only heard rumours of the attack and wounded soldiers and lardins telling widely conflicting stories. When he got the message from Egil auf Nordberga saying they would have to fortify themselves or risk getting overrun did he assume that they talked about an Erathian attack and marched his army north to face the attack which delayed his plans for the autumn campaign even more and once he had his army togeather did he decide that it was too late to push west as they would not be able to return for harvest.

Further more did a lot of people see it as a bad omen from the spirits and a lot of people felt a bit more coldly about the war the next year, forcing the Imerians to fight more defensively for an entire year even if they continued to push rather aggressively into Erathia by 1369.