Liberation of Björnland

The liberaton of Björnland, also known as the exodus by the Malgraveans, the suppression of the Björnland rebellion, was a war fought between Malgrave and The Absolute Royal Federation, seeing first an Malgravean invasion of the federal realm of Björnland followed by sporadic civil resistant and guerrilla fighting by the Imerian natives. The federation was for almost a decade busy with their own civil strife and were unable to respond, this ended in 1932 when the royal guard was mobilised and struck down hard on the Malgravean kingdom, breaking it and forcing a full scale retreat from federal territory. The war was noteworthy for the Federal crown not considering it a war, it is uncertain if this was a mistake on their part initially in the early stages of planning and fact gathering for the invasion or an intentional political manoeuvre, however instead of declaring war did the federation refuse to acknowledge the Malgravean kingdom as a fellow state and instead blanked termed every Malgravean on federal territory as a federal subject in rebellion and treated as such rather than fellow combatants.

Causes of war

The Malgravean state had for a long time looked upon Björnland and it's ancient ruins that they claimed to be part of their heritage whereas federal authorities claimed that they had the right to the island due to the centuries of Imerian habitation that had been the status of the island for most of it's recorded history. However, oddly enough had the Malgravean decided to forgo basic scouting and research and it is claimed Template:By whom? that the Malgravean leadership was even unaware that the land was owned by the federation, that there were people living there, and that the federation was embroiled in a civil war.

Malgravean invasion and colonisation

While lacking much in the way of federal protection and even a standing army did the local federal subject organise themselves into combat teams, while untrained did they know the land and was able for a short while resist Malgravean encroachment on their land, however the much more organised and better equipped Malgravean army forced the local militias to withdraw inlands and most federal subjects set themselves up in the mountainous highlands as the Malgraveans took over the lowlands that they had once called homes.

Imerian preperations for liberation

The royal guard, in stark contrast to the Malgravean preparations for the seizure of the island took their time to prepare a federal counter attack, amassing armies in secret and spending months to organise the ground, naval, and air forces while studying their foes with great interest. The first steps to the invasion was carried out by the navy that declared the realm of Björnland under blockade and the navy moved in attacking Malgravean merchant shipping. Faced with the threat of starvation and being cut off from the outside world did the Malgraveans attempt to create a system where they organised their shipping in armed convoys protected by their own navy ships. This however backfired spectacularly as the armed convoys were tempting targets for federal attack fleets and causalities started to ramp up for the Malgravean navy that while modern and well drilled were unable to match the much larger and battle tested federal and royal navy. As causalities kept on mounting were the Malgraveans ultimately forced to abandon the seas entirely as their navy withdrew back to port where they would remain for the rest of the war barring the occasional sortie. This however effectively cut them off from imports and important war materials, and even basic necessities became scares and would negatively effect their ability to continue fighting the war in the future.

The absolute royal federation however did not sit idly by as large field armies were assembled in Vinland and massive stockpiles of food and material were similarly assembled to fuel the campaign to come, all while claiming that their plans were an expedition to the federal realm of Nova Imeriata instead of Björnland. This attempt at misdirection though failed as the Malgraveans assumed, rightfully as it turned out, that any attack would be launched at them and prepared a defence of their new found homeland.

War of the sea

The Absolute Royal Federation begun their push by establishing naval dominance denying the Malgraveans from further imports and resources large fleets were sent to hound Malgravean shipping, cutting communication lines, and destroying the Malgravean navy itself. While the Malgravean government attempted first to combat this by implementing a convoy system where ships under military protection would travel in large numbers to avoid being picked off. This however backfired massively as the federal fleet was able to just concentrate their ships and destroy the slow moving convoys and their escorts. This mistake is often claimed to have quickened federal supremacy on the sea by several federal scholars.

However this first pushes and the mounting causalities on the open seas by the Malgravean navy forced them to finally cede the oceans to the federation. While this preserved their fleet for future use was the immediate effects of sudden shortages of materials for industry, food, oil, and both the people and the Malgravean army suddenly faced massive shortages at home. The federation worked under the assumption that this would be enough to force the Malgraveans to withdraw in good orders. However the Malgraveans instead banded together and relied on rationing and their so called social solidarity. This refusal to step down caused some confusion amongst the federal forces. However with the Malgravean navy anchored for the time being and the seas theirs did the federation launch an amphibious attack on the small island named "bärsheim" just off the north east of the Björnland mainland. This island was used as a staging area and preparations were made here for a large scale. While the Malgraveans were able to notice federal activity on the island where they unable to determine exactly what was done there. In reality under massive effort was the federation able to in secret build several large scale federal airfield and transport enough airplanes to overwhelm the Malgravean airforce onto the island ready to strike.