Thistle Uprising (Amathia)

Thistle Uprising
Part of the Great Game
Narozalican tanks in East Arciluco
Date 30 November – 22 December 1958 (1958-11-30 – 1958-12-22) Location Amathia Result Uprising crushed Amathian Equalists suspend the 1937 Constitution
Belligerents
Amathian Equalist Republic Narozalica	Demonstrators Movement for the Democratic Reform
Units involved
Republic Protection Troops Amathian Equalist People's Army Narozalic occupation forces	Thistle Guards Mutinied units of the Amathian Equalist People's Army
Strength
30,000 soldiers 10,000 police	2,000,000 demonstrators 1000 mutineers
Casualties and losses
400 killed 2000 wounded	3,500-5,500 killed 20,000 wounded

The Uprising of the Thistles (Amathian: Ⱃⰵⰲⱁⰾⱅⰰ Ⰽⰹⱆⰾⰹⱀⰹⰾⱁⱃ, tr. Revolta Ciulinilor, Narozalic: Повстання будяків, tr. Povstannya budyakiv), commonly known as the Thistle Uprising, was a massive uprising of the Amathian population against the Equalist regime in November and December 1958. After months of unrest fostered by popular discontent against the Narozalic occupation of West Arciluco and by the memories of the violently suppressed 1948 Uprising, combined with tensions in the Equalist government and the Great National Assembly between the authoritarian Equalist League and the reformist Movement for the Democratic Reform, the 1958 Uprising began with a protest march that was supposed to move through the two parts of Arciluco. The protest degenerated into violence as protesters started to harass Narozalic military forces in the Western side, and the violence led to outrage, and to more than 2 million protesters pouring into the streets of Amathia's major cities the next day.

The name under which the revolt entered into history, the Uprising of the Thistles, was a reference to the symbols used by many protesters. Alexander I, the exiled Amathian king, had been decorated with the Caldish Royal Order of the Thistle in the weeks preceding the unrest, and news of the ceremony reached Amathia despite the increased media censorship. The first protests attempted to use thistles and images of thistles as a way to avoid the ban on monarchist and democratic Amathian symbols, and the violent deaths of these first groups of protesters inspired even more of them to use thistles, and as such, a flower that had no importance to the Amathian culture was turned into an icon of resistance and defiance, being officially adopted by many revolting groups such as the short lived paramilitary Thistle Guards

As several military unities of the Amathian Equalist People's Army mutinied, the Equalist regime suppressed the unrest with the help of the Narozalic occupation forces and the dreaded forces of the Authority for the Protection of the Republic, the Equalist secret police. Around 5000 people were killed and tens of thousands were wounded in one of the most brutal suppression operations ever organized in Euclea, and the uprising is considered by many to have marked the end of any sort of widespread popular support for the regime. Even if it was downplayed by the Equalists, the uprising went on to inspire decades of passive resistance, and the eventual protests that led to the Amathian Revolution.