First Soravian Civil War
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| First Narozalic Civil War | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Euclean Spring and Liberalism in Euclea | |||
  _001.jpg)  Clockwise from top: Zalyk Mordorna at the Battle of Ovdapol; a Western volunteer army made of Norodyn peasantry in Patovatra; civilians being marched out of Samistopol before the city's siege; Norodyn Tsarists ambush a Yaratan outpost near Lake Nimgan | |||
| Date | April 4 1857 – 13 July 1861 | ||
| Location | |||
| Resulted in | Western Zalyk/Yaratan victory:
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| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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| Lead figures | |||
| Number | |||
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| Casualties | |||
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| Total casualties: 2,500,000–3,000,000 Total displaced: c. 1,500,000 (incl. civilians) | |||
The First Narozalic Civil War (Narodyn: Первая норозалыкская гражданская война; Pervaya Norozalykskaya grazhdanskaya voyna) was a civil war fought throughout Narozalica between 1857 and 1861 between the Yaratans and the Zalyks, largely concentrated in the West - who advocated for large government reforms, and the Tsarist Narodyns in the East, who advocated for the status quo. One of the most defining conflicts in modern Euclean history, the civil war began largely as a result of the Narozalic defeat in the War of the Triple Alliance. The Zalyks and Yaratans of the Mornorda armies were dissatisfied at the continual Norodyn leadership, many of whom had no experience with cavalry-based armies. War broke out on April 4 when the Mornorda seceded from the army, led by Norodyn-Zalyk General Vasiliy Chaykev and attacked a garrison in Ulan Khol.
The country was divided by Lake Nimgan and most of the initial fighting would take place in that area. Beginning in 1859, the Zalyks and Yaratans began to advance further into Tsarist controlled territory, with their advances culminating in 1860 and 1861 with the Battle of Patovatra that saw the capital taken and the Siege of Samistopol which officially ended the war on July 10. The states were still de facto at war until July 13, when the Treaty of Ulan Khol was signed, calling the Narozalic Empire defunct and ordering the Tsar's exile to their once allies of Gaullica. Chaykev was sworn in as President the same day and adopted hardline anti-Gaullican policies to try and secure Narozalica's position on the Euclean stage. He adopted hardline nationalist and industrialist policies and his 43-year tenure saw the complete rejuvenation of Narozalic society that had dwindled under the monarchy. His policies are defined nowadays as Chaykev nationalism or Narozalic Revivalism.
Background
The Narozalic Monarchy
The Nurukovich dynasty after 1750 was largely characterised by series of greedy, brutal and ineffective rulers. The Narozalic Empire entered one of its largely dormancy periods in history following the conquest of Minerva in 1790, and the monarchy did little to make any moves that would improve the country's situation as it slowly began falling behind the emerging powers of eastern Euclea. The Narodyn peasantry throughout the empire, although largely concentrated in the empire's two largest cities - Patovatra and Samistopol - were becoming increasingly revolutionary as the monarchy lagrely ignoring the problems that the two cities were facing. This unrest cultimated in the Samistopol Revolt of 1797, largely inspired by the successes of the Etrurian Revolution and the formation of the First Etrurian Republic, but triggered by Ivan V's succession and his immediate plans to lavishly spend on an extension to the palace he was residing in. Ivan V cracked down hard on the revolts and the military disbanded them quickly with many people being killed and many more being injured and wounded.
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The peasantry's situation would continue to worsen as the Industrial Revolution spread throughout eastern Euclea, but Ivan V's reluctancy to implement reforms meant the technology of the Industrial Revolution did not reach Narozalica until much later. The employment created by the Industrial Revolution never came to fruition in Ivan V's reign, and so the peasant's population continued to expand and the unemployment rates continued to rise. Homelessness became a large problem in Samistopol in particular, but the military would often kick people off the streets if they saw them. Begging and busking was outlawed in 1823 throughout the empire, which put immense pressure on the homeless to either migrate or find a job within the city's borders. In a stroke of bad luck, the harvest of 1823 was extremely poor due to a large dip in temperatures and reduction in sunlight hours throughout the year, leading to the Famine of 1823 and increasing the unrest between the peasantry as many watched their friends and family die in the famine. As many as 300,000 people died as a direct result. In Altko Nurukovich's (Ivan V's half brother) Accounts of a Lost City, he writes:
It was a ghost town - something of nightmares. Wearied bodies limped down streets littered with corpses thin enough to be mistaken for skeletons. An air of dread lay about the city - as if something inhumane and immoral was happening as I roamed the streets. The realities of the world had made their mark on Samistopol and I could never see the city in the same light again.
— Altko Nurukovich, Accounts of a Lost City, 1825
Conditions would not approve when Ivan VI succeeded to the throne in 1829, and he largely continued the brutal policies of his father. As unrest broiled, the peasantry were at breaking point. With liberalism taking hold throughout Euclea, the peasantry of Samistopol stormed the Nuruk Palace in 1848, and almost succeeded in breaching the palace gates. The storming led Ivan VI to seclude himself within in palace for the rest of the year, and he was not seen outside the palace until he made a public address in the February of 1849 explaining his absence. Ivan promised "great riches" and "the progression of all mankind" in his 1849 address, but scarcely acted on it between the speech and his reforms - which were the opposite of what he promised.
Reforms of Ivan VI
Ivan VI's reforms were anything but, and they changed largely irrelevant and arbitrary things while ignoring or brushing aside the main problems that the empire had been facing for the past 60 years. The country's economy was in one of the worst recessions it had seen in years and the lack of farmers as well as the situations faced let many to resort to subsistence farming to help themselves and their family survived, only amplifying the hunger problem the country was facing. Ivan's reformed outlawed subsistence farming entirely in favour of a better system that would provide for both the farmer and the peasant. In the first year of the implementation of this new system, both farmers and urban peasants were starving as the food the farmers grew was simply not enough to sustain the growing urban population of the empire. Farmer's began resorting to hiding their food in the floorboards or under hay bales to avoid having to send it all away (a farmer had to provide a certain amount of food before they could keep some for themselves). This pushed the poverty imbalance back towards the urban centres, and the unrest broiled once again. Fearing a threat to his reign, Ivan VI attempted to unify the nation under a single cause when he declared war on Werania in support of Gaullica in 1852 and entered the War of the Triple Alliance.
War of the Triple Alliance
Following Narozalica's entry into the war in 1852, the Zalyk and Yaratan armies who had been in the west for a good portion of the 19th century now had to march over to the east of Kansasto to fight against Werania. Due to the lack of a nationwide railway system, this took a while, and would ultimately be one of the biggest contributors to the Narozalic defeat in the war. Even though the war was practically on the empire's doorstep, its supply lines were strained for a majority of the conflict. With the war escalating after Estmere's entry, the national unity that Ivan VI had hoped to garner as the result of a quick victory against Werania, and the projection of Narozalic influence over eastern Euclea, had quickly faded as the resources needed to sustain the large Imperial Army took much away from the lower classes in society. Coupled with growing anti-Narodyn leadership fervour from the Zalyks and Yaratans, who felt they were ineffectively led by inexperienced generals, ultimately culminated in the loss of both the Battle of Trierberg and the Siege of Rokrika in 1855, leading to Narozalica signing an early peace with Werania and Estmere in the Treaty of Mirmisto in the February of 1855.
Many western armies were now openly seceding from the main army and declaring their intent to form a new army and state separate to that of the Empire. The recklessness of Ivan VI in plunging the nation into a war many felt it had no reason to be fighting in led to formation of the Narozalic Republic near Lake Nimgan, led mainly by Zalyk and Yaratan forces, as well as Narodyn peasants in the west. General Vasiliy Chaykev, a veteran of the war, defected to the republicans after witnessing Ivan's warmongering at the expense of his own people. The Narozalic Republican Declaration of Independence was made on April 4, but the republic went unrecognised by most Euclean nations - most of which were still monarchies at the time.
Eastern Euclean emergence
Another reason for the civil war and the defection of many of the upper-class was the decline in Narozalic power, which had been displayed in the War of the Triple Alliance. The decline of western Euclean influence was being publicly shown, and with the ideas of pan-Weranicism taking hold in Werania after their victory in the war, eastern Euclea was beginning to eclipse its western counterparts. The colonialist era, where many eastern Euclean nations expanded into Coius and the Asterias, only amplified this eclipse in power. While Narozalica was a colonial presence in Asteria Superior through the island of Svobinsk, it was incomparable to the presence of the eastern nations, who had taken a massive foothold on the continent by the outbreak of the civil war.
Geography and chronology
The civil war is usually split into two or three fronts: the Northern front, the Southern front, and sometimes - though less regularly, the Kansen front in central Euclea. It can also be split into the following phases:
The main phase of the war was the fighting that took place along the Northern and Southern fronts between 1857 and 1860, the end of which is generally cited as the Tsarist defeat in the 1860 Battle of Ovdapol. The main bulk of the casualties were attained during the main phase around Lake Nimgan and the Western republicans garnered much of their support here throughout the Zalyk steppe and eastern Zalykia, and their numbers were greatly bolstered throughout the main phase, especially when Ivan VI fled to Florena in 1858.
The second phase of the war, also known as the Njich-Orikh Line Campaign took place in the early parts of 1860, where the Western republicans fought to overpower the strong Narodyn Tsarist fortifications across the Njich-Orikh Line, a 200-mile-long stretch of trenches, forts, barbed wire and military installations originally designed to prevent an advance from the east into the Zalyk steppe. The campaign lasted until the August of 1860 when the line was breached by Yaratan forces.
The third and final phase consisted of the Battle of Patovatra and the Siege of Samistopol, the cities where the fighting was largely concentrated from August 1860 until the end of the war.