Cacerta-Xevden War
| Cacerta–Xevden War | |||||||
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| Part of Xevden's disintegration | |||||||
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 Xevden | |||||||
Part of a series on the |
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| History of Gylias |
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The Cacerta-Xevden War was fought by the Cacertian Empire and Xevden between 1904 and 1908. It ended with a Cacertian victory, and the signing of the Treaty of Ðajyr, whose provisions included Cacertian annexation of several territories that were organised as Alscia.
The conflict erupted after king Karnaz allowed a diplomatic dispute with Cacerta to get out of hand. Throughout the conflict, the Cacertian forces enjoyed superiority over the Xevdenite ones, which performed infamously poorly. Despite its dominance, the Cacertian government feared the risk of over-expansion and victory disease, and settled for modest territorial gains in the Treaty of Ðajyr, disappointing Gylians who hoped for a complete liberation.
The war was a major defeat for Xevden, and a pivotal event in its disintegration. Karnaz's authoritarian turn, intended to defeat the forces of the Gylian ascendancy, backfired and instigated further insurrections, engulfing Xevden in a low-intensity civil war which eventually culminated in the Liberation War.
Background
The Gylian ascendancy brought a strong challenge to the Xevdenite state, whose grip on power remained generally precarious after the Colonisation War. The Gylian revolution of 1848 and Glorious Rebellion had wrested major concessions, and the latter only been defeated at great cost. Xevden's fundamental weakness was the hardening split among its elites between reactionaries fanatically defending the status quo and pragmatists willing to grant concessions to preserve the state.
Immediately after the Glorious Rebellion, a window of opportunity emerged in which Gylian constitutionalists and Xevdenite pragmatists had the upper hand in their respective camps. A succession of governments attempted to resolve the "Gylian Question", many sabotaged by the intractable reactionaries. The fracture of the ruling Party of Order, Raţiáş Keýmer's reformist coalition of 1890–1897, and Gezy Nemáz's liberal government of 1900–1902 all frightened the reactionaries into action. They staged a coup in September 1902 that installed Karnaz on the throne to succeed Laŋyl.
Karnaz instituted an autocratic regime: abrogating the constitution, shutting down the legislature, imposing censorship, banning numerous organisations, and instructing mass arrests of dissenters. However, the authoritarian turn failed due to decades of administrative decay and rampant corruption rotting the state from within. The arbitrary and capricious enforcement destroyed any remaining support for the regime outside the Xevdenite elites.
Karnaz wanted to end Xevden's pariah status in Tyran, and preferred forceful ways of doing so. He allowed a dispute with the Cacertian Empire to get out of hand, to the point that the Empire declared war in 1904. Karnaz hoped the war mobilisation would consolidate the state and help him in his quest to destroy the opposition. Further, he felt that other great powers like Ossoria and Acrea could be persuaded to support Xevden, as Cacerta was only unified in 1871 and was fast rising as a great power, becoming a potential rival to established powers.
Course of the war
At the start of the war, the Royal Navy established naval supremacy, setting the stage for the rest of the conflict. The Cacertian military landed in north-east Xevden, where they began to push back the Xevdenite defenders. Cacertian land operations were supported by Gylian kyðoi, uprisings, and sabotage. Most Gylians conscripted into the Xevdenite army defected to the Cacertians or killed their Xevdenite superiors.
One obstacle for the Cacertian operations was the amount of territory that had to be covered, which slowed down advances. In order to strengthen their operational range, the Empire successfully took Iárus island, which became a vital naval base close to the Nerveiík peninsula. From the Iárus base, the Cacertians launched several raids and harassment operations directly into the Xevdenite heartland, culminating in a famous raid and sacking of the capital Velouria.
By 1908, the Cacertians had scored a string of victories and had reached the Nazar river, which marked the peak of their westward advance. However, Cacerta's military dominance over Xevden caused misgivings among the Cacertian government, which feared the prospect of victory disease and overextension into such a vast area. The offensive on land stalled as the Cacertians reached the thickly forested Nezyál in the south and the Kackar mountains in the west, making further offensives less advantageous. For these and additional reasons, Cacerta accepted a ceasefire that year and negotiated peace.
The Treaty of Ðajyr dictated heavy terms for Xevden, but some analysts were surprised at the relatively cautious Cacertian demands. Xevden ceded the already occupied territories to Cacerta, and paid an indemnity for the conflict. Uniquely, the Cacertian government demanded the indemnity come directly from the royal family, as they were aware of Xevdenite immiseration and mistreatment of Gylians, and sought to avoid the burden of reparations falling on them.
Aftermath
Gylians greatly supported Cacerta during the war and viewed it as a liberator; many were disappointed by the Treaty of Ðajyr for ending the war before Xevden's destruction. Nevertheless, the war marked a turning point in Xevden's disintegration. The newly-annexed territories were organised as Alscia, the first lasting Gylian polity since the Colonisation War. Alscia became the centre of Gylian cultural, social, and economic development in the 20th century, and a haven for radicals. Its foreign policy was aggressive towards Xevden and supportive of the Gylian rebels, and led to the Alscian Border War.
Karnaz's gamble failed, with disastrous consequences. The authoritarian regime stumbled from crisis to crisis for the rest of his reign, sliding into an unofficial civil war. Gylian insurgencies and uprisings consistently erupted and gained ground, supported throughout by Alscia. The Gylians were emboldened by Xevden's defeat and the sacking of Velouria, breaking whatever remained of the regime's aura of untouchability. Additionally, Cacerta's victory and deliberate extraction of reparations from the elite helped discredit the reactionaries at the royal court, setting the stage for the abortive 1400 Days' Reform.
The death throes of Xevden and Alscian promotion of radicalism helped cement the shift within the Gylian resistance towards more radical ideologies like anarchism and communism. At the same time, this made other Tyranian powers wary of intervening, regardless of their distaste for Xevden, and thus the situation lurched on towards the Liberation War.