Battle of Altagracia (1935)
| Battle of Altagracia | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Pan-Septentrion War | |||||||
 Menghean infantry surround a group of Sylvan prisoners after the surrender. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Sylva |
 Menghe | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Andrés Costa † Rubén Guillén  (POW) Alfonso Cazalla (POW) |
Kang Do-wŏn Cho Sŭng-chŏl | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
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Imperial Menghean Navy | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
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34,000 300 artillery pieces 54 heavy coastal guns |
82,000 440 artillery pieces 21 tanks 42 armored cars | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
2,000 killed 6,600 wounded 26,000 captured |
1,517 killed 2,986 wounded | ||||||
The Battle of Altagracia, also known as the Fall of Altagracia, was one of the first engagements of the Pan-Septentrion War, fought immediately after the Greater Menghean Empire declared war on Sylva. It involved a coordinated Menghean offensive to retake the peninsular trading enclave of Altagracia. The one-sided battle lasted just three days, as the poorly prepared Sylvan defenders crumbled under a coordinated Menghean land and naval attack, with the surviving members of the garrison surrendering on the morning of May 31st.
The retaking of Altagracia was a major propaganda coup for Kwon Chong-hoon, as it reversed the outcome of the humiliating 1853 treaty which leased Altagracia to Sylva for a period of 99 years. It also removed a key Sylvan naval base in the South Menghe Sea, and allowed Menghean forces to operate freely along their own southern coast. On the Sylvan side, the poor preparation of the garrison became a major source of humiliation, and led to the suicide of Lieutenant-General Andrés Costa, the highest-ranking Sylvan officer to lose his life during the Pan-Septentrion War.
Background
At the Treaty of Dongchŏn in 1853, Sylva was awarded a 99-year lease to the peninsula of Goŭn, just south of what is today the city of Sunju. This treaty, which followed a crushing defeat of Menghean naval and land forces in the Opium War, was seen as a major source of humiliation in Menghe, as it marked the cession of "core" territory to a foreign power and symbolized Menghe's inability to fend off foreign invasion. During the late 19th century, the State of Namyang respected the treaty due to its need for foreign aid and its focus on the ongoing civil war with the State of Sinyi, and after Menghe's reunification in 1900, the Federal Republic of Menghe agreed to respect the treaty until the lease's expiration in 1952. Even so, in civil life there was still widespread resentment over the existence of a foreign colony on Menghean soil, and members of the nationalist-militarist movement pressured the government to demand an earlier return of the peninsula.
During the same period, Sylvan administrators built up Altagracia into a major trading enclave, building a breakwater on its west side to support a harbor for trade ships and warships. During the final years of the Myŏn dynasty it was one of the few sites for legal trade between Menghe and western powers, and even after the State of Namyang loosened restrictions on trade it remained an important transshipment point. Although at the time of its cession the peninsula was a rural county lined with fishing villages, by the 1920s it had grown into a city of some 400,000 people.
When Kwon Chong-hoon came to power in a 1927 military coup, he promised to respect Altagracia's 99-year lease, apparently under pressure from conservative military advisors who were uncertain as to whether Menghe could win a war with a Western power. Yet Kwon and his nationalist party also intensified domestic propaganda calling for Menghean reunification and the revival of Yi dynasty greatness. By the early 1930s, there were deep disagreements among the military's upper commanders about whether Menghe could win a war to retake Altagracia and whether it would be worth the risk.
Tensions rose in February 1935, when Sylvan diplomats protesting Menghe's offensive into Themiclesia suggested that they might attempt to hold on to Altagracia even after its lease expired, unless Menghe withdrew from Themiclesia and Dzhungestan immediately. By this time, Kwon and his upper staff were feeling very confident about Menghe's military capabilities after a series of victories in Central Hemithea, and the balance of power had tipped in favor of the war faction. This was especially true in the Imperial Menghean Navy, which after a 1932 reshuffle of top administrative staff was now led by members of the nationalist faction. The Sylvan threat, which according to some insider accounts was never intended seriously, provided the nationalists with a pretext to resort to military action.
Over the course of the months that followed, the Greater Menghean Empire made preparations for a coordinated attack on Altagracia, relocating the 2nd Corps to the area north of the peninsula and supporting it with a special regiment of heavy artillery, including 250mm howitzers and railway guns. The Imperial Menghean Navy also moved a combined fleet of ships to the nearby city of Dongchŏn, less than half a day's cruise away. This operation was a major feat of deception, as the Sylvan garrison was unaware of Menghean mobilization until days before the attack, and even then they failed to report it to higher-up commanders.
War declaration
The Menghean government delivered a declaration of war to its embassy in Chandler City at 1900 hours Menghean time (0900 hours Sylvan time) on May 6th, 1935, with instructions to pass it on to the Sylvan government at exactly 1630 local time. The Menghean ambassador arrived on schedule, but was very nearly turned away by Sylvan government staff, as they were preparing to head home for the evening. As a result, the war declaration only arrived on the desk of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at around 1645. Even with one hour's warning before the attack, the Sylvan government had little time to warn its soldiers on Altagracia, who in turn had mere minutes to rush to battle positions ahead of the attack.
Battle
Opening offensive
At 0230 hours local time - just one hour after the war declaration was supposed to have been posted - the battleships Anchŏn and Haeju opened fire on Altagracia's lights with their main guns, having sailed to within range under the cover of darkness. This spread immediate confusion among members of the local garrison, who initially mistook it for sabotage at a munitions depot; many soldiers had just woken up and were not yet informed of the attack. Subsequent shells added to the confusion, in some cases hitting recovery teams sent to assess the damage, but overall the bombardment was only sporadic and other warships did not take part.
While the naval gunfire drew the garrison's attention away, elements of the 15th and 42nd Infantry Divisions crossed the border on land, bypassing border outposts by crawling through the rice paddies. A sentry sounded the alarm at 0342, sparking a local firefight in the northeast, but forces in the west were able to infiltrate hundreds of meters behind Sylvan lines without being detected. Shortly before sunrise, these troops launched their attack on the bunkers and trenches which were in some cases directly in front of them, catching the defenders off guard and capturing entire platoons in the ensuing chaos.
By the time the sun rose, all soldiers in the Altagracian garrison were aware that they were at war and under attack. Yet the Army had already exploited its nighttime advantage by overrunning 75% of the fortifications along the border, in some cases while the soldiers inside were still sleeping. The 34th Infantry Division rushed its soldiers into the field, hoping to set up a second line of defense along the narrower neck of the peninsula and restore communications with a few forward units which had been surrounded but were still holding out.
The sunrise, however, brought with it a renewed barrage from the Menghean warships which now surrounded the peninsula, as they could now accurately correct fire without using their searchlights. Due to a budgetary priority on rebuilding war damage at home, Sylva had not invested in improving the coastal gun batteries around Altagracia, some of which dated to the late 19th century and were still muzzle-loaded. The heaviest weapons on the peninsula, twelve 14-inch naval guns installed in 1906, could not elevate more than 16 degrees, for a range of 16,500 meters. This allowed the Menghean battleships and cruisers to sit comfortably outside the range of the coastal batteries and drop 20- and 40-centimeter shells at plunging angles, devastating open-topped and open-backed disappearing emplacements which had been built to fight at the ranges of the 1900s.
By the end of May 7th, the commander of the IMN's force, Cho Sŭng-chŏl, estimated that 90% of the naval batteries at Altagracia had been disabled or destroyed, allowing the Navy to move in closer during the next two days of fighting and bombard smaller positions and coastal troop concentrations with greater accuracy. After the surrender, it was discovered that most of the guns were still technically operational, but their crews had abandoned them during the bombardment.
War in the air
In a further sign of their neglect of Altagracia's defenses, the peninsula only had a single airfield, which was mainly used for civilian flights and did not include earthen walls around aircraft, fuel, and ammunition storage. A single squadron of 24 biplane fighters was assigned to the garrison, though some of these were not operational at the time of the attack. These planes survived the nighttime attack, as the Imperial Menghean Army Air Force was unwilling to attack in complete darkness and the Navy concentrated its fire elsewhere, and on the morning of the 7th they were able to contest the skies, shooting down two Menghean bombers which had flown in to attack the coastal batteries.
Nevertheless, the Altagracia squadron was outnumbered by the multiple Menghean air units stationed nearby, many of which were equipped with the new Chikai Type 34 fighter. While Sylva had not taken part in a military conflict since the War of the Sylvan Succession, many of the Menghean pilots were veterans of the Dzhungestani war with Themiclesia, where the IMAAF had also refined its aerial combat tactics. As the Sylvan military had kept its best planes on the home front, underestimating the ability of Menghe to produce a parity fighter aircraft, Menghean pilots soon found that their Type 34 could easily outrun and out-climb its opponents, which when combined with the numerical balance in the air allowed them to dive through enemy formations.
Altagracian anti-aircraft defenses were also quite poor, consisting mainly of .30-caliber machine guns on pedestal mounts and a small number of three-inch flak guns. There is no record of a Sylvan anti-aircraft gun downing a Menghean aircraft during the battle, though one Type 34 belonging to Lt. Kim Gyŏng-ju suffered heavy damage from ground fire while strafing coastal guns on the 8th.
The IMAAF achieved total air superiority early on the 8th, when a formation of fighters and single-engine bombers led an attack on the airfield itself as the surviving planes in the Sylvan force were refueling. While Sylvan pilots had fought bravely in the air despite the odds against them, there was little space in which to disperse the planes on the ground, and it was not possible to contain the fire from the burning fuel stores. From this point onward, Menghe had uncontested control of the skies.
Land offensive resumes
With the border defenses largely overrun, the Sylvan garrison was forced to dig in around the upper neck of the peninsula, where it had not prepared any fortifications. The relatively level terrain also offered little in the way of natural cover, though the trees on the plantations offered some cover from Menghean aircraft above. The 34th Infantry Division formed the bulk of the defensive line, but it was outnumbered and still struggling to coordinate its subunits effectively.
Once the coastal batteries had been silenced, the Menghean warships outside the peninsula drew closer and turned their guns to the 34th Division's staging areas, spreading disorder around the already beleaguered unit. Equally devastating were attacks on its supply stockpiles, many of which were gathered in thin-walled warehouses known to the general population - and to Menghean intelligence planners prior to the attack. Nevertheless, by the evening on the 7th they had formed a somewhat cohesive defensive line halfway down the peninsula, and were able to further regroup under the cover of darkness when Menghean air attacks and artillery fire softened.
The resumption of the Menghean offensive the following day - this time with three Infantry Divisions behind it - brought new challenges. The IMA brought up light tanks at this stage of the conflict in an effort to break through the still-regrouping line. Having underestimated Menghean armor, the garrison lacked anti-tank guns and anti-tank rifles, and eventually resorted to using medium-caliber artillery guns for direct fire. The tanks themselves were few in number, but combined with the loss of air superiority, they had a major effect on the defenders' morale, and they contributed to the push further south.
Attempts at rescue
Shortly after it became clear that the island was under attack, Lieutenant-General Andrés Costa radioed Sylvan regional command for the Eastern Hemisphere to report his situation and request reinforcements. His calls became more urgent after dawn, when Menghean naval gunfire began working its way along the coastal batteries from outside their maximum range. The Sylvan Flota Oriental, which included three battleships and four heavy cruisers, was docked in Puerto Alegre some 2,000 kilometers away, and initial defense planning contingencies had been based on the assumption that it would relieve Altagracia in the event of an attack. Yet Vice Admiral Giordano Caravello, the commander of the fleet, refused to come to Costa's defense, fearful that he could be drawn into an engagement with a larger Menghean force. Indeed, the Imperial Menghean Navy had two battleships off the coast of Altagracia, three at the coastal border with Innominada, and two more patrolling the western half of the South Menghe Sea, all formations poised to intercept any movement by the Flota Oriental.
Once it became clear that no reinforcements would arrive, Costa became increasingly erratic and despondent, at one point walking out of his headquarters and daring a Menghean naval shell to kill him on the spot. His state worsened as reports came in that the 34th Infantry Division was unable to hold its line at the neck of the peninsula. By the night of the 8th-9th, he had locked himself inside his personal room at the military headquarters, leaving the division commanders to coordinate the defense among themselves.
Later on the same night, the mid-size ocean liner Santa Maria, which had been docked in the harbor, attempted to leave under the cover of darkness with its lights blacked out. It was loaded entirely with civilian passengers, though sources disagree on whether deserting soldiers in civilian clothes were among them; records after the battle turned up over a hundred missing Sylvan soldiers. As the ship was steaming away from the island, the Sŏnsan-class destroyer Myŏnwŏn spotted it in the beam of its searchlight and opened fire, thinking that the Sylvan garrison or administrative officials were on board. While the Myŏnwŏn initially fired a warning shot across the bow, the liner did not change course, and the destroyer responded by opening fire on its hull. This started a fire amidships, leading the panicked passengers to abandon ship. The Myŏnwŏn lowered lifeboats to pick up some survivors, but the recovery operation was not completed until the following day, when the garrison's surrender allowed more ships to take part.
On the island itself, rumors soon began to spread that the Imperial Menghean Navy would fire on any civilian ship which entered or left the harbor, spreading panic among the local population and especially the colonial officials among them. As the Imperial Menghean Army was already at the outskirts of the southern settlement, a crowd gathered outside the city hall demanding that the military surrender before the fighting moved into populated areas. Some sources also attest to the presence of pro-unification rebels in the population organizing an uprising, though this may have been an act of convenience in the face of the advancing army rather than a genuine expression of Menghean nationalism.
Garrison surrenders
By the afternoon of May 9th, Menghean forces had pushed all the way to the outskirts of the southern settlement, and were beginning to fire into the town. With their stockpiled food supplies destroyed during the bombardment, several units had resorted to stealing from local markets. Ammunition supplies, which were harder to replace, were also running low, following a fire at the main munitions depot and the capture of smaller sites further up the peninsula.
Once rumors spread that the Flota Oriental would not send ships or supplies to relieve the blockade, morale and discipline among the remaining soldiers all but collapsed. There were reports of drunken squads running through the streets to storm into taverns and brothels, and of entire companies deserting at the front line. Recognizing that their position was effectively indefensible, many of the officers began discussing the possibility of a surrender.
Shortly after midnight, Lieutenant-General Andrés Costa hung himself in his private quarters, leaving only a note that expressed his outrage that his superior officers had forsaken him. Once word of his suicide got out, Major-General Rubén Guillén of the 34th Division assumed command, and ordered the remaining units on the front line to withdraw into the town. Menghean ground forces had suspended their attack during the night, apparently held back by fatigue, resulting in an eerie cease-fire at the front lines as shells fell and fires burned in the town.
When dawn broke the next day, Menghean soldiers were greeted by white flags over the remaining defensive positions. Major-General Guillén and a small group of aides crossed the front line at 0932 under a white flag, announcing that the garrison commander was dead and the remaining officers and enlisted men would surrender. Guillén himself made a favorable impression on the Menghean officers present at the scene, remaining cool and dignified even as he faced his captors. The flag of the Greater Menghean Empire was hoisted over Altagracia later that day, and the 2nd Corps began moving the prisoners of war to a temporary camp north of the border.
Aftermath
In keeping with the terms of the surrender, the Imperial Menghean Army treated its prisoners well, even inviting observers from the International Red Cross to its camps to demonstrate its compliance with international treaties. The civilian population of Altagracia was also spared any harm, as the Menghean armed forces viewed them as friendly civilians under foreign occupation. In the weeks after the victory, Menghean propaganda newsreels showed crowds of enthusiastic locals greeting their liberators with flowers and gifts, though actual feelings in the city were mixed given the intensity of the attack.
The same good treatment was not extended to Westerners caught in the city. As part of a campaign to rally public support, and driven by its own nationalist rhetoric, the new Menghean garrison organized public humiliations of "imperialist lackeys," forcing colonial officials and entrepreneurs to shine soldiers' boots, sweep the streets, and bury the dead, in a pointed inversion of the pre-war social order. These acts of revenge were sometimes extended to Meng locals who had been employed in the colonial administration, who were made to stand in public squares wearing signs that announced "I am an imperialist collaborator."
Militarily, the speed with which the Altagracian garrison surrendered forced the Sylvan military to re-evaluate its pre-war view that the Menghean people were racially inferior and incapable of defeating a Western army. Contrary to expectations of "swordsmen and riflemen hurling themselves against machine-guns," the Menghean attack displayed a high level of coordination, including coordination between the Army and Navy. The Sylvan garrison in Innominada would learn the same lessons during the first few years of the war, though it would be unable to apply them in time to stave off defeat in 1938.
In the longer run, Menghe's defeat in the Pan-Septentrion War negated its gains in May 1935. Unwilling to return Altagracia after so much blood was shed to protect it, the Sylvan government petitioned the Allied postwar occupation authority to extend the lease indefinitely so that Sylva would not have to cede control of the peninsula in 1952. The occupation authority approved the request, and Sylva and its allies today maintain that Altagracia is legally independent of Menghe. Neither the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe nor the current Menghean government recognize this claim as legally binding, claiming that the indefinite extension of the lease was not part of the formal peace treaty which Menghean diplomats agreed to, and that the Allied occupation authority was not a sovereign Menghean government and did not have the power to authorize the cession of territory. Thus, the status of Altagracia remains a major source of tension between Menghe and Sylva to this day.