Muttay

The Muttay
ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ
Date	7 - 10 June 2023
Location	Charnea
Caused by	Attempted military purge
Resulted in	Dissolution of the Charnean Empire

The Muttay (Tamashek: ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ, lit. "The Change") was a major mutiny within the Charnean Army that resulted in the overthrow of incumbent civilian government of Charnea as well as the established military command structure. The mutiny began on June 7th, 2023, in the city of Azut, considered to be the de facto headquarters of the Army, and ended on the 10th of the same month when the mutineers entered the Palace of State in Agnannet. The conclusion of the Muttay ushered in the seven month long rule of the Provisional Military Government (PMG), which in turn would give way to the establishment of the first Republic of Charnea. plane crash in Fahran in May of 2023. Marus Ibiza's crackdown on military dissent and the veterans movement would later be cited by the mutineers as the single primary event which incited their uprising.

Background

Civil-Military tension

Unrest proliferated in the Charnean Army and the wider military community for many months prior to the events of June 2023. Antagonism had been rife between the Ministry of Defense, the high command, and the civilian leadership of the state on one side, and the rank and file of the active service Army as well as the retired veterans and their families on the other ever since the conclusion of the Ninvite War. For the veterans, grievances were varied but generally accused the military and the government of disregarding the well being of the Army's servicemembers, particularly failing with regards to reduced or non-existent disability benefits or family stipends which left many wounded veterans and military widows in dire financial straits after the war. On the other side, the Ninvite War was an inflection point for the attitude of civilian leaders towards the military, as the military culture of the ICA of officer autonomy and on-the-ground decision led to several politically toxic incidents. Some in the ruling AKE party began to criticize the military for lacking cohesion and failing to control its own men. The sentiment of a growing majority of politicians and civil leaders was that the military, or more specifically the officers in the field, had been given a free hand for far too long and that it would be necessary to reign them in before they could do further damage to the image and agenda of the civilian authorities.

Tensions increased during the regime of Martuf Lamine, a ranking member of the Army who conducted a successful counter-coup against an attempted military putsch in 2013. Lamine ruled as the self-appointed regent of puppet monarch Amina N'Okha for a decade, and brought his agenda for radical reform to Agnannet. His vision clashed frequently with the civilian administration he had come to preside over, pushing the military man to fall back on the support of the military community who came out in the hundreds of thousands in support of his government. In practice, this meant focusing all the dissatisfaction of the military community into a politically active veterans movement which Lamine could use to pressure the uncooperative AKE party and the civilian institutions it controlled to further his political projects. Under Lamine, open criticism of the government was tacitly encourage within active military ranks, something which was unprecedented until that time and which was taken by many civilian observers as a serious threat to civilian rule in the country. It was felt that Lamine, who had taken power under the pretext of stabilizing the country following a coup that he helped to put down, was in the process of laying the groundwork for a more permanent military government by undermining the legitimacy of the civilian political institutions. Several influential members of the AKE party would start to openly talk of bringing the military to heel in the name of restoring civilian rule, chief among them the speaker of the legislature, Marus Ibiza ag Haqar.

In an attempt to undermine the Lamine regime, Marus Ibiza introduced a proposal in January of 2023 to the legislature that would greatly expand state subsidies to infrastructure and provide additional funding to education and medical institutions, while cutting specific military benefits such as the ICA family stipend program which had been implemented to help motivate poor Ajamite men from the countryside to sign up. This was a direct shot at Lamine's base of support, as it forced Lamine to come out against a program stuffed full of widely liked and popular policies for the citizenry or else he would loose credibility in the eyes of his veteran supporters. Lamine pre-empted the political backlash he would face from coming out against the proposal by calling on the veteran movement to begin demonstrations in the capital protesting the proposal to cut military benefits. Tens of thousands of retired ICA and their families came to Agnannet in protests that would last for months, sustained in part by a "war chest" Lamine had been amassing which he now used to pay some of the expenses of his supporters so they could sustain their assemblies. The actions of the veterans movement successfully stalled out Marus Ibiza's proposal in the legislature, who opted to wait for a more opportune time to vote the proposal through, when it would do much more damage to Lamine's public image without his supporters rallying in the streets in his defense.

Death of Martuf Lamine

On the 3rd of May, 2023, Martuf Lamine was killed while visiting the Charnean expeditionary forces active in the then-ongoing Fahrani Civil War. The plane crash which claimed his life would ultimately be blamed on the hostile action of opposing factions in Fahran. Lamine's death had almost no effect on the Charnean position in Fahran, but was of tremendous significance back in Charnea itself. With the support of the legislature, Marus Ibiza stepped into the power vacuum left by Lamine within hours of his death and immediately set about securing his position. He quickly removed Lamine loyalists from prominent positions, particularly those in the high command of the ICA. This included reassigning Lamine's right hand man Rezkhou Goma to a remote posting overseeing the advisory mission to the Amayana Makgato Federation where he could pose no threat to the regime. Ibiza assigned General Aspar Amini, a relatively unknown officer of the ICA reserve forces with close ties to the AKE, to take up the post of Chief of Staff for the Army.

Marus Ibiza now found himself wielding the authority to directly disperse the veterans rallying in the streets of the capital that had caused him significant setbacks in the past months. This would prove to be a difficult task, as the veterans movement was now further motivated to put pressure on the legislature and the civil authorities now that Lamine, whom they viewed as their main advocate in the halls of power, was gone. While the larger crowds and encampments were dispersed by municipal police, some groups armed themselves and opposed police action, leading to tense standoffs and clashes around the capital. In one of the worst incidents on the 14th of May, a gun battle broke out between a group of armed veterans and the police, killing 5 demonstrators, 1 police officer and 2 bystanders. The outbreak of such violence in central Agnannet was deeply corrosive to the legitimacy of the Ibiza government, although its most consequential effect was in galvanizing opposition to Ibiza and his Chief of Staff Amini from within the military itself, with a significant contingent of servicemembers sympathizing with the demonstrators over their own leadership.

Amini's purge

On May 10th, Amini announced he would be launching an investigation into a number of officers in the military for misconduct, going on to declare that open dissent of the kind that had been rampant under Lamine's regime would now be punished as an act of insubordination and would even rise to the level of treason. The Army's NCOs would be the hardest hit, as many in these ranks had garnered a reputation for insubordination and opposition to the military hierarchy both in speech and in action. Amini's team of military judges and investigators assembled to carry out his project under the banner of restoring discipline to the ranks acted with the characteristic swiftness of Charnean military justice, remoting, discharging and detaining more than one hundred servicemembers in the first week. Among these was Colonel Khyar Aziouel, chief of the Desert Rangers training center at Senusret military academy in Azut. Aziouel and many other Ranger leaders were targeted early on in Amini's purge, due in part to the Desert Rangers reputation as a mostly autonomous and semi-covert formation of the ICA known for acting on their own, without or against orders, something which painted them as one of the most prominent threats in the eyes of Ibiza and Amini.

An uprising from within the ranks of the junior offices, NCOs and enlisted of the Army, began to germinate in the city of Azut. As the gateway to the long-contested Charnean east, Azut had long been an important logistical hub for the ICA, becoming its de facto nerve center with many depots, training bases, and other facilities located there. Consequently, many of the units from which key people were being purged were tied to the "military city" of Azut, and the city soon became fertile ground for conspiracies involving those who retained connections to their units. One such figure was Khyar Aziouel, who still commanded the personal loyalty and respect of many officers and soldiers within the Desert Rangers from his years serving as the head of the training school. Through the weeks leading up to the outbreak of the Muttay mutiny, Aziouel connected with many like-minded individuals, both fellow targets of Amini's purge as well as those still serving with their units, all while retaining a connection to the Rangers through his loyal ex-subordinates. Supporters of the Ibiza regime would later blame the Muttay on Amini's relative leniency in not detaining and arresting a majority of purged personnel, which allowed figures such as Aziouel to organize their reprisal relatively freely.

Mutiny

Azut

The mutiny began in the early morning of the 7th of June with the seizure of key installations around the city of Azut by Ranger units following Aziouel's orders, alongside many others who supported or abetted the mutiny, including a number of the logistical units who seizing control of the central rail yard critical to the eastern supply operation. Estimates vary from 15,000 to upwards of 40,000 involved in the initial mutiny, focused on capturing key positions in and around Azut while the others were more widely dispersed across eastern Charnea and engaged in disruption of the military's operations. The wide range in size estimates for the initial mutiny reflect the confusion at the time, as neither mutineers to Amini's high command were entirely sure of the extent and disposition of those involved. A main continent of the Azut mutineers were considered to be the more active segment of the uprising, made up primarily of Rangers with a few of Aziouel's newfound allies, and were engaged in seizing facilities, inspiring more formations to join the mutiny, and detaining those who were expected to work with Amini's high command to bring down the mutineers. A much broader group affiliated with the mutineers, however, were engaged in spoiling operations or otherwise showed their sympathy for the cause by simply refusing orders and remaining in their positions. It is unclear to what degree these additional units were directly conspiring with Aziouel and the Azut mutineers before the 7th.

The Azut phase of the mutiny lasted for two days, the first pre-occupied with seizing the key facilities and taking secure control of the city, and the second with consolidating forces and organizing the next leg of the plan. Aziouel and his cohorts overall objective had been to force Ibiza to back down, possibly removing Amini and ceding an extreme version of the traditional autonomy of the military. In order to accomplish this, the plan was to seize Azut and in so doing separate the bulk of the Army and most of the units still loyal to Amini east of Azut, leaving Agnannet and the Charnean heartland relatively exposed to the west. The mutineers could then proceed towards Agnannet in any way they saw fit, either intimidating Ibiza into backing down or forcing his hand by entering Agnannet directly. Through the day and into the night of the 8th of June, the Azut mutineers assembled their forces to begin their movement on Agnannet via the Xallalbatan railway, organizing a force including fresh student recruits from the Ranger school to stay behind and continue to occupy Azut. These forces staying in the city, together with those further east sympathetic to the cause, were intended to delay any eastern forces from taking Azut while the main contingent moved on Agnannet. It is thought that much of the activity on the 8th involved the coordination of actions by the mutineers to engage or counter attacks by Amini's forces, including actions by the ICA Air Corps on Azut and the Xallalbatan, as well as the process of managing the number of loyalist personnel that the mutineers had managed to bring into their custody.

March on Agnannet

The 9th of June, which came to be known as the "Day of the Xallalbatan", saw the stiffly contested transit of the bulk of the active mutineers along the railway towards Agnannet. At least two armored trains were seen traveling on the Xallalbatan, escorted by ground vehicles on either side of the tracks, including at least once wheeled chassis mobile SAM system which shot down an Air Corps K'akmul 5 some time shortly past noon. The transit was fiercely contested as Ibiza and Amini had had time since the 7th to reposition the forces available to them into positions to delay the advance on the capital, primarily by airlifting forces from the east into the path of the railway. A brief battle between the convoy and the loyalist forces occurred at the town of Azemmaz, the headquarters of the Xallalbatan railroad, lasting some four hours and significantly delaying the advance of the mutineers. This was the most significant battle of the Muttay, and the main armed clash between the opposing forces. Around dusk on the 9th, the mutineers on the march gained control of two squadrons of Ashwal helicopters, and began to screen their advance with airborne infantry detachments. After this point, the mutiny progressed much faster into the night.