Library:Second Partisans' War

OLD HVAL-ERA LORE

Names

Historians of differing backgrounds across the world have used various terms to identify the conflict. The most widely-translated and used is Second Partisans' War. This may be due to the predominance of anti-Hvalheimer dispositions in global academia, and thus a predilection to identify the war according to its anti-Imperial fighters, but the term is not without merit as the war started primarily as insurgencies in continuum from the First Partisans' War. Some have taken to referring to the early part of the war as the Southern Hvalheimer Uprisings, but this ignores the participation of non-Hvalheimer-identifying, occupation-resistant partisans in Rheigen from even before the Southern Uprisings. The war is also commonly known as the Hauland War, a reference to the Uvurryk dur Hauland, the political subdivision of Hvalheim formed from Rheigen, southern Slavishek annexations, and other Hvalheimer-occupied portions of northern Ostrozava since the First Partisans' War. The Overreich itself was named for the ethnic Haulander people and culture, a creole of the Eastern Tyvarian Zvish and the non-Slavic Magnish-speaking peoples of region who, alongside the rest of the Imperial Federation, referred to the area as das Haulanden, or simply "the Hauland."

Background

From 1922 to 1928, the Imperial Federation of Realms waged a holy war on Ostrozava ostensibly as part of its larger Hrynnkrig policy, with Hvalheimer nobility and military leadership seeking territorial expansion to secure reliable trade with Ochran along the old Transkarminian roads and prevent the spillover of revolutionary, anti-monarchist, and communist actions in the burgeoning Prime Republic into the Imperial Federation. The war was considered a partial strategic success for the Imperial Federation with the capture of the Ostrozavan subprime of Rheigen, which, though lacking direct access to trade routes to Ochran, did provide a major influx of labor in the form of newly-enthralled Rheigeners as well as increased industrial capacities and economic opportunities for the Realms. However, in cultural admixture, the annexation of Rheigen and the ongoing resistance to Hvalheimer occupation, both armed and unarmed, provided one of the major catalysts for the Second Partisans' Warin the form of diffusion of revolutionary literature and materials into the Reichs' popular consumption. While Imperial scholars and leaders had hoped to spin revolutionary thought as a "malevolent force," many southern mystics of various persuasion found within Ostrozavan texts Beranist ideas that, while predominately atheistic, were not only critical of authoritarian and hereditary systems but also liberating spiritually.

Developing Tensions

Ostrozava had come under the influence of the Alek Dalibor government, which had cracked down on political opposition that had worked against the Prime government in the First Partisans' War, such as the Rytieriroz and First Albans. Forced relocation and work programs had made Ostrozava into a military behemoth by the 1940s, with the nation actively seeking interventions on behalf of leftist factions worldwide, fighting in Shambhala for what would become the USPR, and in western Belisaria ensuring the independence of North Ottonia. Despite their limited economic and geographic reach, Ostrozavan officials had leveraged their position in the Transkarminian basin to isolate Hvalheim from the east, heavily fortifying the existing border while ensuring a tacit support of various leftist insurgencies within the Federation of Realms, particularly in Occupied Rheigen and Hauland. Existing cultural contact accelerated with clandestine motivation into the liberationist Bathing of Many Springs and while it enjoyed widespread support throughout the Realms of Slavisha, Slovonia, Tôln-dur-Rhíanne, and Occupied Rheigen as a popular reform movement, it was ultimately defeated in its aspirations by harsh crackdowns from Imperial forces as well as local Realm governments, a move which later led to concessions to the Sacral Estates.

Ostrozava and Hvalheim mainained a period of heightened tensions without ever resorting to hostile action during the 1930s and 1940s, both nations distracted by foreign and internal affairs. The PRCO, founded in 1941, was given full responsibility over creating and managing an advantageous against the Imperial Government. Despite the fact that tensions between the Estates had been defusing within the Imperial Federation, PRCO intervention in disseminating both information and weapons had continued to bolster revolutionary ideologies in southern Hvalheim. With the higher-level subdivisions of Ostrozavan political power looking to ordosocialism increasingly through the hyper-emphasis of foreign policy, many censorship laws began to get passed within Ostrozava as a way to stem the growing tide of popular movements, which had now crossed borders through Rheigen in various forms of music, literature, art, and protest. Similarly, the Imperial government imposed several new series of prohibitions in the ongoing Vurboten with especially severe penalties for violation that specifically targeted academics and their students, a move that was ironically copied by the Dalibor administration in 1943 with a total ban on the teaching and dissemination of spiritualism and religion.

Growing Interborder Dissent

These new prohibitions began to be used as a means of resolving long-standing administrative, intellectual, and personal rivalries between traditionalist and progressive factions within Eastern Belisarian academia. While estimates vary wildly due to the Fires of Reprieve in the 1960's, in 1947 somewhere between 1200 and 20,000 individuals of scholastic occupation had been censored, imprisoned, reenthralled, tortured, and/or executed for violating academic Vurboten statutes in the Imperial Federation, and over 200,000 'dissidents' killed across Ostrozava, or else sentenced to hard labor constructing infrastructure. The Second Compact, despite its attempt to grip to absolute power and instill purely ordosocialist beliefs and practices within the populace, nevertheless remained open to political change if a sufficiently large faction could outperform their often-rigged elections electorally. The Ostrozavan Military had often taken a Contractualist stance throughout their existence and remained a constant impediment to the harshest of Dalibor's reforms. The era saw a growing consolidation of power and authority by central government across the region despite often-fierce resistance to oppression by local populations.

_____________________

It was in this environment of institutional distrust and violence that a Master-of-Crafts, Fridrik Karlsson under the alias Garstrommur, first organized a group of high-ranking academics and political dissidents from across the Twelve Realms to meet in Zapónné, Slovonia, where they founded the Society of Scholars in 1945.

As a secret society, the Scholars were originally dedicated to the covert translation and dissemination of Ostrozavan and other nations' revolutionary movements' literature for wider consumption throughout not only the Hvalheim's academic institutions but also its proletariat. However, facing increasing investigations and even arrests and later executions of some of his compatriots, by 1947, Karlsson had shifted the Society's functions and goals from those of subversive education to political organization and militant action. After travelling secretly to Occupied Rheigen to meet with resistance fighters there and secure arms with which his growing organization could defend itself against Imperial and Realms police, Karlsson and other high-ranking members of the Society were invited to an refuge of the Knights of Saint Michael and Saint Robert, also knowns des Roburdines, in Southern Slavisha near the old, prewar border with Ostrozava. While it is alleged Ostrozavan intelligence agents were there at the meeting, what is certain is that the Roburdines offered their support to the Society so long as it advocated for the formation and independence of a Christian state in place of the Realm of Tôln-dur-Rhíanne. Karlsson and his fellow Scholars did not make any promises in that regard but instead guaranteed that the Society would neither censor nor condemn Christian revolutionary literature in their publications and invited some of the Roburdine philosophers to submit their own works for review then and there. While this moment is famously considered the precursor to the formation of the modern-day Dur Hohenvurband, the High Network, it is perhaps more importantly the moment that the leading Scholars, to include Karlsson signed their death warrants for the meeting and its outcome amounted to a "violation of the Vurboten with facilitation to Christian treacheries."

In 1947, the Hrynnkrig ended with the Hvalheim's agreement to the Thalassan Peace. While many in the Hvalheim, from loyal followers to critical dissidents, rejoiced the end to the Imperial Federation's holy wars, the Society of Scholars feared the worst and raised an alarm of sorts to their members and allies across the Twelve Realms. "Peace for the world outside and free has come, but war for our shackled world inside the Realms now comes. Stray not far from your arms, comrades, for the Tyrant of the Fallen neither forgives nor forgets," remarked Karlsson in the prefaces to the Society's publications immediately after announcement of the Peace. Many of these publications were intercepted, and the Imperial government decided that the Society had gone far enough. Following an intensification of the Vurboten's prohibitions and a reinforcement of the investigative units assigned to the Society and its associated groups, Karlsson and most of the other founding members of the Society were finally identified and tracked down to a number of hideouts across southern Hvalheim in 1950. At the same time, it had become apparent to most throughout the Twelve Realms that the new-found prosperity of free trade across the Thalassan would not be shared equally throughout the Hvalheim.

Prior to what would be called Operation Spearbreak, Vurenkongr XX proclaimed the immediate reorganization of the Realms of Slovonia, Slavisha, and Occupied Rheigen into the Overreich of Hauland with an Overlord appointed by the Vurenkongr himself. The justification for such an unprecedented action was that the region of Hauland had become a hotbed of disloyalty and resistance to the righteous sovereignty of the Hvalheim as willed by all the gods revered by the sanctioned pantheons. This reorganization saw fierce, vocal resistance from those realms' rulers, but the rapid deployment of Imperial troops to enforce the new order prevented any of the Kongs from preparing any sort of legal or military defense.

Southern Uprisings

Early Civil Unrest

Operation Spearbreak followed a week after the appointment of YY to the office of Overlord of Hauland. Spearbreak was a coordinated series of raids on founding Society of Scholars' offices, residences/estates, known hideouts, and meeting places. Hundreds were arrested, but Karlsson himself avoided capture after a gunfight outside of his family home in Slovonia. Vurenkongr XX promised mercy in the form of banishment for all of the arrested Society members, except for the captured founders, if Karlsson turned himself in. It is believed Karlsson went to Rheigen where he met with Roburdine and Ostrozavan intelligence agents to counseled him not to take the offer. In spite of this, he chose to do so, and turned himself in after a year of pursuit and hiding in late September 1951.

Fridrik Karlsson alongside all founders of the Society of Scholars were executed by firing squad on October 17, 1951. Those members of the Society of the Scholars that were released the next night were granted forty-eight hours to leave the Hvalheim or face a similar fate. Most chose to flee to Ostrozava or Vannois, but few ever made it over the borders. Some decided to stay and fight while others were ambushed by Imperial or Realm assassins on orders of vengeance. Many more simply "disappeared" right after being released. The establishment of the Overreich, the execution of Karlsson, and the misfortunes of the freed Scholars sparked outrage across the country, particularly southern Hvalheim. Students and professors throughout the Realms took to the streets in protest, calling for everything from the liberation of the thralls to the Vurenkongr's abdication to the dissolution of the Imperial Federation. Neither would occur by the first month of 1952, and the government response to the protests were particularly brutal.

The South Hauland Revolution

1953 - The SHAZ declares independence and is subsequently invaded by Hvalheim,

Ostrozavan Intervention

Early Intervention

^^^Ostrozava offers support for the separatists

Liberation of Rheigen

1953-1955 - Ostrozavan forces liberate Rheigen from two and a half decades of Hvalheimer occupati

After the initial strike on the southern valleys by Merovian forces and the beginning of the Ostrozavan offensive into Rheigen, momentum momentarily slowed in late 1953 due to a harsh winter and a need to procure additional supplies to maintain the flow of logistics in the region. The winter of 1953-1954 also saw significant technolgical improvements to the Ostrozavan military, with the Air Force recieving its first swept-wing jet fighters in January of 1954, while the Ground Forces recieved a plethora of upgraded armored vehicles and weaponry, including the first batch of the Rifle, Automatic-Loading battle rifle, procured from North Ottonia. Minor skirmishes continued, particularly along several important bridges along the Karmin river, which were blown by retreating Hvalish forces in February of 1954. After almost a month of repairs to infrastructure, Ostrozavan and Merovian forces linked for the first time in great numbers on the outskirts of the Rheigner capital city of Helbarstadt, which had become a fortress city for Hvalish forces since the beginning of the war, and offered the largest airfield facilities in a radius of hundreds of kilometers. Coordination continued with Rheigner partisans and other seperatist-aligned militias, some of which were directly subsumed into the Ostrozavan military, while others continued to operate in small cells. Hvalish forces gained a significant pause in the fighting after the Prime Commander of the Ostrozavan Military, Vațlav Korloveți, had a heart attack while driving a utility vehicle in the mountains of southern Rheigen, leading to his death after the crash of the vehicle. The Ostrozavan Protection Force subsequently elected Harlo Moravec, father of future Primar Dominik Moravec as Prime Commander. Under Moravec's command, tactical focus shifted from disrupting Hvalish supply lines to the liberation of Helbarstadt before the end of the spring would see more Hvalish reinforcements deployed into Rheigen. On 28 March 1954, Ostrozavan and Merovian forces began an assault on the outskirts of Helbarstadt, thus initiating the Second Battle of Helbarstadt.

The initial strike on the city was conducted by Ostrozavan and Merovian troops launching a precision ground strike on Hvalish ammo depots, with linked forces approaching from the southwest, while Merovian forces approached primarily from the West, and Ostrozavans from the east and southeast, seeking to establish the conditions neccessary for an encirclement. Despite facing heavy resistance from the Hvalish forces, the allies were able to push through the city and gain control of key strategic points, including the Opera House, which had been converted into a makeshift infirmary and anti-aircraft hardpoint, and the Capital Building, where Merovian Special Forces discovered that the Hvalish governor of Rheigen, ____ _____, had committed suicide after burning most of his strategic documents. Over the next two weeks, the Hvalish forces mounted a fierce resistance, launching numerous counterattacks against the allied forces in an attempt to retake lost ground. However, the Ostrozavan and Merovian troops were able to hold their ground and continue to advance, slowly but steadily pushing the Hvalish forces back, often in deadly urban warfare and street fighting. By the 11th of April, over 70% of the city was under coalition control, but an unusual heat wave had melted a way through several otherwise-inaccessible mountain passes linking northern Rheigen with the Hvalheim, thus opening the door for several Hvalish army groups formerly posted in Transgvalenia to pivot south and attempt to break the encirclement of the city.

The Hvalish reinforcements, under the command of General ____ ______, arrived on 14 April, hoping to break the encirclement and relieve the besieged forces in the city. Hvalish reinforcements included better equipped and maintained armored forces, and were supplemented by small numbers of Hvalish jet fighters launched from within the Hvalheim proper, giving Hvalish forces more or less equal parity with coaliton forces and challenging air superiority over the city for the following week. However, the Hvalish battlegroup became trapped in the muddy conditions on the way to the city, and their attempts to break through the encirclement were unsuccessful after a joint counterattack and partisan activity pinned them between two destroyed bridges. As the situation in the city grew more desperate, the Hvalish forces attempted a breakout through the Helbarstadt airport, Flugplatz Himmelsfeld, which had been an artery of air supply to Hvalish forces in the city since the beginning of the battle. With most Hvalish troops now retreating to the airport after the failure of the counterattack, the airfield was pushed to its logistical limit, with there being more troops than could be evacuated present on the night of the 15th of April. Retreating Hvalish forces utilized scorched-earth and terror tactics in their hasty retreat from the city to the airport; as many as 2,000 civilians suspected of collaboration with the seperatists and coalition were hanged and their bodies displayed from balconies and lampposts.

Having suffered a slow attrition of their most advanced jet fighters, and unable to replenish losses in time, Hvalish transport planes on the runway attempted to fly out of the encircled airfield under heavy fire on the morning of the 17th of April. Merovian paratroopers and Ostrozavan armored forces launched a ground assault on the airport in an attempt to stop the breakout attempt. The ensuing battle at the airport was intense and prolonged, with both sides suffering heavy losses due to rainy conditions and heavily fortified Hvalish forces. However, the Coalition forces were ultimately able to repel the breakout attempt and secure the airport. Following the allied victory at the airport, the remaining Hvalish forces in the city were left without any hope of escape or reinforcement. Facing certain defeat, the Hvalish High Command ordered a strategic retreat of any viable forces from the city limits, and ordered them to regroup in the mountains of Transglavenia for the upcoming summer offensive.

The Battle of Helbarstadt was a significant victory for Ostrozava and Merovia, and it marked a turning point in the conflict between the two nations and the Hvalish empire.The battle had significant political implications, as it led to the liberation of Rheigen from Hvalish control and the establishment of a pro-Coalition government in the city. The battle demonstrated the effectiveness of combined arms tactics and showcased the importance of air superiority in modern warfare. The allied victory at Helbarstadt had significant political and military implications, and it served as a major boost to the morale of the Ostrozavan and Merovian forces.

Velikoslavian Harassment

1953 - Velikoslavian partisans cross the border into Ostrozavan and begin an unofficial campaign of harassment

Hvalheimer Retaliation

Battle of the Tyvarian

1955 - Hvalheimer aircraft bomb Ostrozavan cities but the Hvalheimer air force is subsequently demolished by the Ostrozavan reprisal

Reversion

Ostrozavan Withdrawal

See also: Chaos of '57

1956 - Political agitation in Ostrozava distracts from the war and many of its troops begin to desert in large numbers 1957 - Third Compact is formed in Ostrozava

Campaign for Retribution

1957 - The SHAZ is dismantled by Hvalheimer forces in the absence of Ostrozavan support

Velikoslavian Invasion

Operation Ragnarok 1957-1959

On June 6, 1957, the recently crowned Nicholas I south to reassert Velikoslavian control over Baderia, which it had historically held for several centuries. Intending to eventually challenge Ludvosiya, it was theorized that weakening Ostrozava would contribute to this goal and weaken potential republican allies of Ludvosiya. Decades of tensions with successive Ostrozavan regimes since the Crimson Revolution came to a boiling point, resulting in a formal declaration of war by Velikoslavia.

Treaty of Barderec

-1963 - DMZ formed that still exists today