Srav Kann
Srav Kann | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Marquis of Yugstran | |
| In office 1913–1918 | |
| General of the 3rd Army | |
| In office 1905–1918 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Zavria, Drevstran |
| Died | Angrast, Drevstran |
| Children | 4 |
| Profession | Military General |
Srav Kann was a Drevstranese Army General under the Triple Crown who remained loyal to the old monarchy after it was abolished by Hortankh Bolsar. He and his Third Army secured for themselves first the entire portion of the southern borders they had been affected to, then expanded from this base. Kann ended up titling himself as the Marquis of the Yug, and referring to the lands under his control as the Marquisate of Yugstran.
Despite his excentricities, Kann managed to keep Bolsar's armies at bay, defeating all the attempts of the Provisionary State to quell the Third Army's rebellion. Distant but cordial relationships were kept with the Golden Columns, the other major royalist forces of the Civil War, even if neither Prince Farza nor the self-proclaimed Marquis could agree on a common program. It's notably to Yugstran that many Golden Columns, after the final defeat of their Prince, tried to flee, providing a small boost of experienced soldiers to Kann's army.
Kann took the oportunity presented by the assassination of Abemus Kumar and the civil war inside the ranks of the Bolsarists to greatly expand his territorial gains, almost reaching Angrast. He refused Vilvo Orbraggar demands of reddition, precipitating the war between the two. While at first on almost equal footing, Orbraggar was ultimately victorious and Srav Kann was forced to begin negotiating his surrender. It's at this point that a faction of ex-Golden Columns loyalists attempted to assassinate him and the news of his death spread throughout. But Srav Kann survived and was abled to escape to Brumen where he would end up playing a role in the Third Insurrection as an absolutist warlord. The death of king Hannes II and the signature of the Second Reform in 1922 spelled his doom. After further months spent as an outlaw, he was ultimately imprisoned and extradited back to Drevstran where he was wanted for treason, sedition, insurrection, and a number of other damning charges. He ended up killing himself in the middle of his mock-up trial in 1923 as one last act of defiance against the Orbraggists.
Personal Life
Youth
Srav Kann was born in the Lush noble family of Kann, a lineage that took great pride in its tradition of military service. The young Srav would be quickly noticed for his hunger for litterature, passion for poetry, and boundless love for horses and guns. He was known to practice "Horseback shooting" during his teenage and early adult years. He entered the Saint George Military School in 1882 at the age of 17. five years later he joined the Drevstranese military as an officer, in the footstep of his father, uncles, and grandfathers before him. It's during his stay at the military academy that he would meet Amanda Roshvan. They would be married in the Church of Our Lady of the Passion, in his home province of Blue Drevstran.
Military career
Throughout his career, he would become known for his mischievous personality, free speech, and unfailing loyalty to the Monarchy. The latter quality (in the eyes of the King), and a good track record as an officer, suitably counterbalanced his other defaults. In 1911, at 46 years old, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Third Army. However his relative young age (it was considered uncough for a general to be under 50) and meteoric rise through the ranks have isolated him from the rest of the officer corps. He would notably never be invited to the Kopeny Clique of his fellow general Hortankh Bolsar, the King's Enforcer. The Kann family would notably run afoul of Hortankh's secret services: Srav Kann's father would be questioned by "The Service", two of his brothers would be arrested, and he himself would be put under much pressure for hiding his nephews and nieces from the authorities.
His open opposition to, and disdain of, the Royal Executor, up to and including challenging his lieutenant Abemus Kumar to a duel over his honor, was threatening Srav Kann's position in the military and his career and it is highly probable that, sooner or later, the King would've favored the "royal darling" over Srav Kann, no matter his loyalty and the prestige of his name, had it been not for the 12th of February Coup and the start of the Drevstranese Civil War.
After the Civil War
Srav Kann escaped his would-be killers through the help of the Havari volunteers who smuggled him out to Brumen. He became a regular guest at Hannes II's court where he used his popularity with the king and some of his ministers and courtiers to acquire funds for the Royalist network, the Under-foresters (Al-Erdesek), he had organised from the remnant of his Marquisate. The Under-Foresters continued to spread pro-royalist ("Restorationist") propaganda as well as organising a number of sabotage and violent operations against the young Republic of Drevstran to gather funds and equipment for their cause. Their boldest and most well-known act happened in 1921: the failed attempt to kidnap Ansmar II, the destitute king of Drevstran who had been put in house arrest by Vilvo Orbraggar,. It's only then that the rumors of his survival spread as he had been known by a number of monikers and war nicknames in the interim: "Forest Marshal" (Erdei Marshall), "The Last/First Marshal", "Marshal-Rider", Bunösh ("The Sinner", although only for personal poetry), or even simply the personal name "Geredant". A crackdown followed on the Under-Foresters activities, but the deterioration of the Brumen King's situation during the Third Insurrection had demanded Srav Kann's full attention.
Third Insurection
During the civil war and within the court of Brumen, Srav Kann had built relations with all head figures of the Third Insurection: the king Hannes II obviously, but also his field-marshal Hellfried Kraus] and Ulrich Hoffman. His personal ties to the monarchy and as a guest and dependent of Hannes, in addition to the General Strike of 1919 which saw socialists elements ousting state institutions and creating their own proto-republic: the Union of Brumen, led to Srav Kann siding with the Absolutists despite his own open criticism of his host' despotic practices. He would notably condemn in private Ulrich Hoffman and the Oberhaus' "Royal Decree", lamenting it as "disastrous timed" and decrying it as a "shameless appropriation of royal authority".
Srav Kann, alongside his leadership of the Under-Foresters secret society, became the leader of a confederation of Absolutist militias mainly made up of Havari veterans of the Drevstranese Civil War who opposed Socialism and the ongoing revolution. They notably fought a war against the revolutionary pocket of Schritte-Flusstadt on the shores of Lake Blühen and participated in the hunting down and removal of pro-union forces in Althaven. Officially, these militias were unrelated to one another but their leaders were all Under-Foresters. It is unknown if it is Srav Kann who ordered the creation of these militias to serve as auxilliaries to the Absolutists and as a show of goodwill to Hannes II, or if they were the result of spontaneous action from Havari veterans who had remained highly organized even after the Drevstranese Civil War and who then called upon Srav Kann, who still enjoyed great prestige among his ancient partisans, for leadership.
After the failed kidnapping of Ansmar II in 1921 and the deterioriation of Absolutists positions, (Dinsmark, capital of Brumen had been captured in 1920), Srav Kann abandoned his anonymity and took official control of the Havari auxiliaries, now re-organised in a single command structure merged with the Under-Foresters. They waged mainly guerilla warfare against the Constitutionalist-Syndicalist Alliance. The assassination of Hannes II on the twentieth of March 1922 did not put an end to the Under-Forester resistance who notably tried to march on Althaven in the wake of the king's death and later on continuously attempted to assassinate the "Artillerymen", the plotters who had organised the coup against Hannes and the Houses' leaders. Lord Chancellor Klemens Pabst was especially targeted as the "arch-traitor". Nonetheless, the Under-Foresters fight was now doomed. By December of 1922, he "honorably discharged" the few troops who had remained loyal to him and, with a small company of core loyalists who had refused to abandon the fight, tried to reach Garima but was captured after a final stand in the countryside around Eintrag.
Trial and final moment
The reformed Brumen agreed to Drevstran demands and extradited Srav Kann to the Mervoret' authorities. He was put on trial in Angrast for his action during and after the civil war. The trial was highly publicized and even had radio following, Srav Kann having acquired an almost mythical quality as the last great enemy of Vilvo Orbraggar who was announced dead and miraculously re-appeared as the head of a secret society seemingly bent on infiltrating and subverting the youngly created republic. On the last day such a large crowd had gathered in and outside the Tribunal that the trial almost had to be reported. But before his sentence was declared, Srav Kann began a short, prepared, speech before drinking from his water cup. Soon after he fell unconscious and couldn't be taken to the hospital on time due to the large crowd that had to be dispersed for the ambulance to arrive. In one last act of defiance, Srav Kann had committed suicide by poison.
Legacy
During his lifetime, Srav Kann became a Royalist Icon especially among the Absolutists and the most radical ones even though he himself wished for the Triple Monarchy to evolve into a constitutional kingdom. Nonetheless, he still enjoys a positive reputation in both Drevstran and Brumen, the circumstances of his proclaimed death, re-apparition, and then public suicide in protest of Vilvo Orbraggar authoritarian practices in front of a baffled crowd has become part of Drevstran's national myth. Meanwhile, he is still honored by the Havari people of Brumen among whom he is commonly understood to have been a leader of men and a father for his troops. Socialists also remember his role in the repression of their movement in the north of the country and its brutality. A generation after his death, a monument in his honor was erected by veterans' associations in Althaven.
The Under-Foresters remained active in Drevstran even after his death. It was discovered that his second son Karro Kan had taken over as Forest Marshal. After his arrest, the organization slowly disbanded or evolved, nowadays being little more than a discreet royalist fraternal organization for the purpose of networking.
Srav Kann had four children with his wife, Amanda Roshvan. His eldest son, Richard Kann, was finishing his studies at Saint George Military School when the Drevstranese Civil War began but managed to escape the city to join his father. He was wounded and made prisoner in 1918 as his father Marquisate collapsed. His mother and siblings were all captured as well, although the supposed death of Srav Kann had made their situation less problematic. Amanda was kept under house arrest but kept the custody of her children. Richard Kann was placed in military jail for 5 years and then dishonorably discharged from the military not long after his father's trial. He then moved to Garima, unwilling to stay in Drevstran after a decade of struggle and misery. Despite the potential security threat, Vilvo Orbraggar authorized him to go.
His second son Karro Kan, who had also escaped Saint George Military School and Angrast with his brother (he had just begun his studies there), did not flee Drevstran with his brother. Instead, he continued to claim he was the Marquis of Yugstran despite all nobility titles having been abolished by the new Republic. He maintained a royalist network, the Under-Forester Northern Branch of which he had been a part of since its creation, using his name and claim. He otherwise worked as a publisher and event organizer. He was ultimately arrested for fraud, organized crime, and conspiracy against the State.
His eldest daughter and third child, Helen Kann she married the youngest child at the time of the Siranko Family, another prominent noble family from the same region - Blue Drevstran - as the Kann. She began her business in horse-breeding and horse racing before taking over her brother's legal business. Afterward, she expanded into printing and publishing and began a number of magazines and newspapers considered conservative and traditionalist even at the time. Many of these publications do not exist anymore but those that survived, alongside the editing house and publisher, were consolidated into the Siranko's larger and growing media empire.
Finally, his youngest daughter and last child became an Agriculturist with business ties to the Siranko. She notably fought for her husband and children to take the "Kann" name instead of their father's surname. She was able to buy back some of her family properties that had been seized during the Civil War which her own children restored into a moderately successful farming business.