Husseinartian War of Independence
| Husseinartian War of Independence | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Husseinarti |
 Sieuxerr Gothia Dayashina (until 1954) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Napoléon Bonaparte V | |||||||||
The Husseinartian War of Independence (Merovingian: Guerre d'indépendance husseinartienne) was a conflict between Sieuxerr and revolutionaries in Husseinarti that ended with Husseinarti gaining its total independence from Sieuxerr. While seen as a separate conflict in most historical sources, in Husseinarti, the war is seen as the last conflict in what had been originally described as Notre Lutte or The Struggle, by Husseinartian revolutionary Berthony Jean Compaore who had been the primary organizer of the 1907 Revolt. The war was one of the important wars of decolonization in the post-First Pan-Septentrion War era, and was characterized by the brutality of all involved.
Notionally, the primary Husseinartian faction that fought Sieuxerr was the Husseinarti Liberation Council, headed by Council Secretary Médard Bourque. Other smaller factions existed, mostly along interior tribal lines, but the HLC was the largest and most well established faction. By mid-war the HLC was a fully-functional government body with local elections, civil services, as well as even funding small infrastructure projects in territory that it held.
As the war drew on, Sieuxerrian forces in Husseinarti became more and more brutal in their response and attempts to crack down on any form of Husseinarti nationalism. This resulted in general condemnation from the Septentrion League as well as the war becoming very unpopular for Sieuxerrians.
Background
Conquest of Husseinarti
1907 Revolt
On 19 June 1907, a Husseinartian revolutionary Berthony Jean Compaore
First Pan-Septentrion War
Revolutionary Activity
As Saintonge and the Casaterran Axis invaded Sieuxerr at the start of the Sieuxerrian-Saintonge War, there were some 30,000 colonial troops located in Husseinarti, along with 70,000 indigenous troops. Immediately half of these troops were rapidly organized into an infantry division and sent back to Sieuxerr. Along with this, an additional 30,000 indigenous troops were prepared to be deployed to Sieuxerr when shipping was available to do so. Adding to this, the colonial government instituted conscription and began to draft more natives.
This proved incredibly unpopular and draft riots quickly broke out and were suppressed with an incredible amount of violence. In one instance in the capital of then-called Louisville, now known as Bonadiala, so many rioters were killed that colonial marines needed to use sawdust to absorb the pools of blood in the streets and to dig mass graves for the bodies. Known as the Bonadiala Massacre, this fueled only larger and even more violent riots throughout the entirety of the country.
Understanding the degrading situation, the colonial government rapidly ceded control of the interior and withdrew its forces towards the coastline, building a number of fortified outposts along various rail lines for support, it also drew up plans to withdraw to Bonaparte Island in the event of an uprising it could not control. The indigenous Husseinarti People’s Council, the puppet ruling body that Sieuxerr had organized in the wake of the 1907 Revolt, entered negotiations with the colonial government. The HPC pushed for total independence from Sieuxerr and cited their willingness to use violence. The colonial governor Lambert Girard refused to enter any talks and routinely berated the native negotiators whenever they were present. Following this, the HPC formalized the Emergency Army, which was made up mostly of defected colonial auxiliary troops as well as numerous local tribal militias. The Emergency Army had been clandestinely formed prior to the Bonadiala Massacre, but now was officially announced as an organized fighting force.
On the night of 9 October 1937, the 22nd Colonial Marine Infantry Regiment was conducting a road march from Bonadzopé to reinforce another colonial marine force at Bibré. The route the regiment was taking was regarded as secure and safe to use at night, however during the night, the regiment was ambushed with roadside bombs, machine gun fire, and later waves of men armed with only machetes who flooded in from the woods that flanked the road. In about four hours, the whole regiment was wiped out with very low Husseinarti casualties. This would be known as the Chélak Massacre.
On the morning of 11 October 1937, Husseinarti negotiators again arrived to attempt to speak with the colonial governor. They reported the total destruction of a whole regiment, 10% of his entire military force, and threatened that such attacks could happen again. The colonial governor refused to believe that such an attack occurred, however an officer of the Husseinarti Emergency Army proceeded to present the colonial government with the severed tongues and testicles of the colonial marines. Girard became sick at the display, and after recovering accepted the demands of the HPC. A stipulation was that Sieuxerrian colonial troops and their families would be allowed to withdraw to Bonaparte Island.
The agreed withdrawal took place without majority incident. In total, over 13,000 colonial troops, the vast majority of the air force as well as the majority of the naval forces were evacuated to Bonaparte Island along with thousands of civilians. Colonial troops had left, however the left-behind indigenous auxiliary forces were absorbed into the Emergency Army.
"700 Day Republic"
With total control of the country, the Husseinartian Republic set about attempting to immediately reform and take the reins of the older colonial government structure. Assurances from the HPC were given to the many segregated colonial communities that they would be protected from local reprisals provided they assisted the new government. Few from these communities would help the HR in anything, though the HR would continue to protect these communities.
As with most colonial systems, white Sieuxerrians made up the majority of those who had been in power, as well as the majority of the educated individuals in the nation such as teachers, engineers and doctors. There were few Husseinartians with higher education as well as over 90% of the population was illiterate. Proposed reforms were announced, however the HR was almost completely paralyzed to do anything.
A problem as well was that while the HR had been able to seize the colonial monetary reserves, they had no partners to trade with. The Dayashinese as well as the Maracaibeans were both abhorred by the sudden, though relatively speaking peaceful, come to power by the Husseinartians. For the time being the nation would have to look inward with a finite supply of everything but grains and raw industrial materials.
In December of 1937, the Husseinarti People’s Council held an election for the newly-created President of Husseinarti. They elected Gaétan Gansonre from the newly renamed Party of National Reconciliation. Forming a plan with the HPC, Gaétan identified the three major problems that Husseinarti had immediately. The first was food security, as the majority of the farm owners were white Sieuxerrian colonists, with those who had not fled to Bonaparte Island having gone into protest against the new government.
Gaétan broked deals with white farmers for increased payments for grains as well as for detachments of Emergency Army troops to secure their fields against looters. While unpopular with the HPC, it would prove to allow for food production to be mostly maintained until the downfall of the Republic.
The second was the looming tribal conflicts. Gaétan knew that the relative peace would only be temporary, and set about to mend tribal division before they could manifest in unrest. Gaétan would spend much of his time outside the capital in various tribal meetings during this time. While he himself was a reformer who wished to see a unified Husseinarti leave the tribal systems of its past, for the immediate time he simply met the demands of the tribal leadership. Much of these demands were in regards to autonomy and self-rule. Land reforms were proposed and even done on an individual basis, but Gaétan then needed to balance the appeasement of the colonial planter-class and the tribal leadership.
Lastly, Gaétan was worried about Dayashinese intervention. The Dayashinese had been watching their revolution very closely and threatened intervention as it had happened. Gaétan attempted to appease the Dayashinese, resuming the shipments of various materials and food items to them as had been the norm with the Sieuxerrians, but the situation was further deteriorating. Gaétan and the HPC passed a number of secretive reforms to the Emergency Army, attempting to further centralize it and mend equipment problems. The amount of equipment they had seized from the Sieuxerrians was substantial but inadequate to fully equip the Emergency Army.
The president and the HPC attempted to resolve this by restarting production at the two small arms plants in Husseinarti, but only one of them could fully produce rifles, with the other being a final assembly plant for parts kits from Sieuxerr. As well, there was only one ammunition plant that produced only small arms ammunition. There was no indigenous artillery or artillery ammunition production. The problem for these plants as well was that all the managers and skilled engineers were white Sieuxerrians and many had feld, meaning that while production could be maintained, it would be bottlenecked and plagued with issues due to a lack of experienced personnel.
On November 22nd, General Jean-Baptiste Carré and Governor Lambert Girard met with Dayashinese minister Matsuura Josuke at Fort Cadillac on Bonaparte Island. Josuke had come to better understand the Sieuxerrian situation, as well as to present the Sieuxerrians with plans for a possible Dayashinese invasion of Husseinarti. Dayashina planned to invade and crush the HPC in order to reopen overland travel and trade which existed when Sieuxerr controlled the area, as well as to dissuade any other rebellions from taking place in Meridia in Dayashinese controlled or influenced territory.
Without much hesitation the Sieuxerrians agreed to the plan and offered their full support. Any and all military assets would be available to Dayashina if needed. This included the 13,000 colonial troops, some 3,000 colonial police, over 100 tactical aircraft as well as the naval forces which included a light cruiser, a number of smaller avisos and sloops. Issues arose when Emperor Napoléon V was informed of the plan. With the war in Casaterra having started six months prior, the Emperor already had attracted a degree of criticism from other allies in the Entente over him not joining them in their war against Dayashina as well. The Emperor saw open collaboration with the Dayashinese as a breaking point that could possibly see any support from other Casaterran powers end, if not outright hostilities to be sparked as a result.
This resulted in the Emperor outright rejecting the proposed operation, as well as threatening to remove the two from power if they continued collaborating with the Dayashinese. Despite the Emperor’s threats, general Carré and governor Girard would openly defy him. Relations between Sieuxerr and the colonial administration were strained and were further pushed when two colonial infantry regiments were pulled from the colony to return to Sieuxerr to fight there. This left roughly 13,000 troops and paramilitary forces on Bonaparte Island.
In mid-1938, the Emperor would formally sever ties between the colonial administration and the home government when the first Dayashinese troops landed on Bonaparte Island to assist in preparations for the invasion. The troops were mostly engineers who expanded the airfields on the island as well as improving various facilities. In addition to engineers, heavy weapons like artillery and prime movers were brought in to replace losses from last year’s retreat from the mainland. Later in the year Dayashinese air and naval landing forces would arrive in preparation for the coming invasion. Sieuxerrian forces were subordinated under Dayashinese command and reorganized into a single division-strength force.