First Battle of Lira

First Battle of Lira
Part of the Divide War
Syaran artillery fires on Cacertian troops
Date 20-24 May, 1917 Location Lira, Makedon Result Cacertian Victory
Belligerents
Cacertian Empire	Republic of Syara
Commanders and leaders
Agnolo Barbigia	Vlatko Kostencev
Units involved
Sixth Field Army	3rd Corps
Strength
33,200	25,000
Casualties and losses
3,210 killed 8,617 wounded	2,899 killed 6,923 wounded 5,500 captured

The First Battle of Lira was a battle that took place between the Cacertian Empire and the Republic of Syara during the Desopya Campaign in the Divide War. The battle lasted from 20 - 24 May, 1917 when Cacertian forces of the Sixth Field Army under Brigadier General Agnolo Barbigia assaulted the Syaran city of Lira on the northern coast of Makedon. The Syaran defenders provided unexpectedly heavy resistance, causing heavy casualties among the Cacertian forces sent to capture Lira. The battle was the counterpart to the Battle of Korzhany, occurring on the other end of the Desopya Coastal Plain.

Background

Lira was strategically significant to both the Syarans and Cacertians. The city sits on the north-west face of the peninsula that bears its name, and during the Divide War was home to a collection of coastal batteries, for a total of eight guns, the biggest which fired 36cm shells. These guns had already sunk a Cacertian cruiser and damaged a battleship, and Rear Admiral Lea Davion had insisted upon their destruction. In the lead up the landings in the Timotej Sound Cacertian Imperial Marines had snuck ashore and destroyed three of the guns while disabling another two; the Syarans had since restored both to working order leaving them with five operational guns, stil enough to threaten Cacertian warships.

Lira had been defended by local defense regiments, but these lightly armed militia had been reinforced by elements from 2nd Army's 4th Corps. In May Syaran defenders totalled 25,000, most of the troops from the 21st and 77th Divisions. The Syarans were commanded by Major General Vlatko Kostencev, a veteran of the Syaran-Ruvelkan War. Alongside their troops, the Syarans also head two batteries of 105mm artillery pieces and several dozen mortars for further firesupport.

The Cacertian Sixth Field Army, commanded by Brigadier General Agnolo Barbigia, consisted of two rifle infantry divisions (17th and 18th) and four Grenadier Battalions (11th, 12th, 13th, and 4th Guards) for a total of just over 33,000 troops. The Cacertians had over a hundred mortars and artillery pieces, but most of these were lighter than their Syaran counterparts, a motif that prove all too common during the war.

Lira was not considered by the Cacertians to be a hard target. Unlike Korzhany, which is located amid sharp cliffs and rocky outcroppings, Lira sits atop a gentle rising slope before a largely featureless plain. The Ossa Hills rise to nearly 2,000 meters, but are located on the east side of the city away from the vital port facilities and main population areas. The Lira Acropolis, which sits roughly halfway between the port and the Ossa Hills, at one point was dominated by a fortress but by the 20th century it been reduced to just a few columns. Lira lacked a rail line and the only major roads led to Pydna (already under Cacertian control), and further south-east, but the point of divergence was within the Cacertian area of operations. Given the lack of defensible positions and relative straightforward route of attack, General Barbigia did not expect significant resistance.

Battle

On 20 May the Sixth Field Army approached within 5 kilometers of Lira, with the 17th Rifle Division taking control of the road junction at the village of Latyia. Minor skirmishing between Syaran scouts and the vanguard of the Sixth Army continued throughout the morning until the Cacertians were within range of Lira itself. The main road to Lira ran straight up the gentle slope, through a largely empty field that runs into a series of homesteads that formed the outskirts of Lira. The largest of these, what the Syarans knew as Tirilov's Farm, was surrounded by an extensive fence that was long enough to support riflemen from two battalions, as the 211st Infantry Regiment discovered. As the Cacertians advanced, led by the 17th and 18th Rifle Divisions on a 1.5 kilometer front, they came under intense rifle fire from the Syaran infantry. Although the 211st Regiment only had 16 machineguns, the barrage of rifle fire convinced the Cacertians they were facing much more than that.

The Cacertians began shelling the Syaran line with their own mortares and artillery, but the Syarans answered back with their own guns, including their 105mm howitzers. The unexpected barrage of rifle and artillery fire stopped the advance of the Cacertian infantry dead in their tracks, forcing them to seek whatever cover they could in the largely flat slope leading to Lira. Forced to temporarily withdraw, the Cacertians regrouped back at Latyia and reformed their lines. At around 13:00 they advanced again with fire support from their mortars and smoke shells covering their advance, a tactic the Cacertians had developed fighting against Allamunnic and Knichan rebels. This time the Cacertians made better progress, closing the distance with the Syaran rifle troops at Tirilov's Farm. Armed with automatic weaponry like the Vitali FM 1913 and the Gisenti ASF M1916 the Cacertians leveled the playing field and began to push the Syarans off their line around 14:15, but just as the Cacertians began gaining the upper hand the Syarans revealed they had been able to rotate one of their coastal artillery pieces inland and fired on the Cacertian lines. The sudden unexpected blast of 36 centimeter shells killed and wounded nearly 200 Cacertian soldiers, and broke the attack of the Rifle Divisions, forcing the Imperials to call off their attack and retreat back down the slope towards Latyia.

Actions on 21-23 May

The Sixth Army regrouped overnight and resumed the attack in the early morning when volunteers from the Grenadier Battalions launched an infiltration into Syaran positions to knock out the coastal artillery guns. This raid, conducted at around 04:30, was succesful, but alerted the Syarans to Cacertian intentions. Skirmishing broke out in the morning as the Syarans reoccupied their lines near Tirilov's Farm, which the Syarans followed up by shelling the Cacertian lines with their 105mm howitzers. The heaviest guns the Cacertians had brought with them on their invasion were 75mm guns, which were outranged by the Syaran artillery. Unable to respond in kind, Brig. General Barbigia ordered the Grenadiers to take control of the Acropolis, which was being used by the Syarans to direct their artillery fire.

While the 17th and 18th Rifle Divisions continued to engage the Syaran main line, the 11th, 12th, and 13th Grenadier Battalions swung east through the woodlands that led up to the south side of the Acropolis. The forests were defended by the 772nd Infantry Regiment, who engaged the Cacertians from the treeline before they withdrew further into the brush. The Grenadiers, armed with automatic rifles and submachineguns, were well trained in the small scale tactical maneuvers necessary to combat in dense woodland, and within a few hours they had forced the Syarans all the way back to the Acropolis. By 13:00 the Syaran position was becoming unraveled as the main line at Tiriliov's Farm found its right flank exposed to fire from the Grenadiers.

Sensing the opportunity, Barbigia ordered the 13th Grenadiers to swing west and hit the Syaran right flank and roll through the entire line while the 11th and 12th Grenadier Battalions seized the Acropolis. By 14:30 the Syarans atop the Acropolis, which was held by the 773rd Infantry Regiment, had absorbed the remnants of the 772nd and were fighting a desperate defense against the heavily armed Grenadiers, who despite their numerical inferiority were threatening to overrun the Syaran position. Just as the Syarans seemed on the brink of collapse the 773rd's Regimental commander Colonel Rumen Gushtanov, a one-legged, one-eyed veteran of the Ruvelkan-Makedonian War, rallied the Syarans for a bayonet charge down the Acropolis. Led by their 66 year old commander, 2,500 Syaran riflemen charged down from their positions, stunning the Grenadiers who were overwhelmed and forced to fall back. The 13th Grenadiers, who had just began to pressure the right flank of the 21st Division, were forced to abandon their maneuver in light of the Syaran charge. Again, the Cacertians were forced to withdraw back towards Latyia under Syaran shelling.

The morning of the 22nd of May brought with it more frustration from the Cacertians, who were now troubled with the fact that their comrades in the Fifth Army had taken the supposedly better defended Korzhany in less than two days. Still, the Cacertian position was not hopeless; the Syaran troops holding the Acropolis were exhausted and depleted, while the main Syaran line at the Tirilov's Farm has become increasingly untenable in light of heavy shelling by both sides. At 10:00 the Cacertians again assaulted Syaran positions, splitting up into as small of maneuver sections as possible to reduce the impact of Syaran artillery. Meanwhile the Grenadiers again pushed through the western woodlands to assault Syaran positions on the Acropolis, this time backed up by the 4th Guards Grenadier Battalion.

Again the fighting around the Acropolis was fierce, by by noon the 4th Grenadiers had managed to drive off the defending Syarans. Hopes that the Cacertians could immediately move to outflank the main Syaran line further west were dashed when the Syarans almost immediately counter-attacked the Cacertian position, regaining it for a brief while before the Grenadiers rallied to recapture it again. The Syarans regrouped and launched another counter-attack, which was beaten off, and then attacked again, continuing to do so until nightfall. By the end of the day the Acropolis was littered with Syaran and Cacertian bodies, and the Syarans resorted to shelling their former positions to keep the Grenadiers from advancing any further.

By dawn the next day both sides were exhausted. The Syarans pulled back the 21st Division from their lines at Tirilov's Farm, aware now that without control of the Acropolis their position was becoming more compromised. In the morning the 77th Division counterattacked and attempted to seize back control of the highground, but the Grenadiers managed to hold their position and drive back the Syarans. The Syarans fell back to Lira itself, but their situation was becoming more and more difficult; they were running low on ammunition and most of their riflemen were not casualties. In the late afternoon the Cacertians drove down into Lira itself and engaged in bloody urban fighting with the remnants of the Syaran forces, where the submachineguns wielded by the Grenadiers proved extremely effective.

After six hours of fighting the Syarans were forced to withdraw further into the city, ceding the docks and much of the residential areas to the Cacertians. By now their ammunition stocks were nearly depleted and further resistance seemed impossible. Major General Vlatko Kostencev gathered the Syaran commanders together during the night where they agreed to attempt one final effort to repulse the Cacertians from Lira, and if that failed they would attempt a breakout to the east through the Ossa Hills where hopefully they could get to the coast and follow it towards Sena.

Final actions

In the early morning of the 24th of May the Syarans opened fire with what was left of their artillery and attacked from their positions in the city center and the market district. Cacertian automatic weapons fire proved too much for the Syaran infantry, who were bloodily pushed back amid heavy losses. Having seized the docks, the 17th Rifle Infantry Division swung through the west side of the city into the northern districts to surround the Syarans in the city center while the 18th Rifle Infantry Division did so in the east. Effectively surrounded, the Syarans launched their breackout attempt through the lines of the 18th Rifle Division. Approximately 10,000 Syaran troops managed to make it through and fled through the Ossa Hills, some of which were later captured by the Cacertians as they fanned out to secure the peninsula. By midday on 24 May the Cacertians had gained control of Lira and Barbigia reported back to DivGen Bertino Bassadoar.

Aftermath

The Cacertian victory at Lira was ultimatly a costly success for the Empire, but in many ways it foreshadowed the fighting that would dominate the Divide War. While the individual Cacertian soldiers were more than a match for their Syaran counterparts, when properly armed and led the Syaran troops were difficult opponents, especially when on the defense. The difficulty in capturing Lira surprised the Cacertian commanders who had expected Kozhany to prove more difficult. The battle also identified a number of weaknesses within the Cacertian expiditionary force, namely the lack of heavy artillery that allowed Syaran guns to frequently silence their Cacertian adversaries. The Syarans would later recapture the city in the Second Battle of Lira in 1918.