Report : Disaster at Ionith Content . " Report of the Imperial Commission on the Disaster at Ionith " Lord Pottreid , Chairman Part I : Preparations . The Emperor ' s plans for the invasion of Akavir were laid in the 270s , when he began the conquest of the small island kingdoms that lie between Tamriel and Akavir . With the fall of Black Harbor in Esroniet in 282 , Uriel V was already looking ahead to the ultimate prize . He immediately ordered extensive renovations to the port , which would serve as the marshalling point for the invasion force and as the main supply source throughout the campaign . At this time he also began the construction of the many large , ocean - going transports that would be needed for the final crossing to Akavir , in which the Navy was previously deficient . Thus it can be seen that the Emperor ' s preparations for the invasion were laid well in advance , before even the conquest of Esroniet was complete , and was not a sudden whim as some have charged . When Prince Bashomon yielded Esroniet to Imperial authority in 284 , the Emperor ' s full attention could be devoted to planning for the Akaviri campaign . Naval expeditions were dispatched in 285 and 286 to scout the sea lanes and coastlands of Akavir ; and various Imperial intelligence agents , both magical and mundane , were employed to gather information . On the basis of all this information , the kingdom of the Tsaesci , in the southwest of Akavir , was selected as the initial target for the invasion . Meanwhile the Emperor was gathering his Expeditionary Force . A new Far East Fleet was created for the campaign , which for a time dwarfed the rest of the Navy ; it is said to be the most powerful fleet ever assembled in the history of Tamriel . The Fifth , Seventh , Tenth , and Fourteenth Legions were selected for the initial landing , with the Ninth and Seventeenth to follow as reinforcements once the beachhead was secured . While this may seem to the layman a relatively small fraction of the Army ' s total manpower , it must be remembered that this Expeditionary Force would have to be maintained at the end of a long and tenuous supply line ; in addition , the Emperor and the Army command believed that the invasion would not be strongly opposed , at least at first . Perhaps most crucially , the Navy had only enough heavy transport capacity to move four legions at a time . It should be noted here that the Commission does not find fault with the Emperor ' s preparations for the invasion . Based on the information available prior to the invasion , ( which , while obviously deficient in hindsight , great effort had been made to accumulate ) , the Commission believes that the Emperor did not act recklessly or imprudently . Some have argued that the Expeditionary Force was too small . The Commission believes that on the contrary , even if shipping could have been found to transport and supply more legions ( an impossibility without crippling the trade of the entire Empire ) , this would have merely added to the scale of the disaster ; it would not have averted it . Neither could the rest of the Empire be denuded of legions ; the memory of the Camoran Usurper was still fresh , and the Emperor believed ( and this Commission agrees ) that the security of the Empire precluded a larger concentration of military force outside of Tamriel . If anything , the Commission believes that the Expeditionary Force was too large . Despite the creation of two new legions during his reign ( and the recreation of the Fifth ) , the loss of the Expeditionary Force left the Empire in a dangerously weak position relative to the provinces , as the current situation makes all too clear . This suggests that the invasion of Akavir was beyond the Empire ' s current strength ; even if the Emperor could have fielded and maintained a larger force in Akavir , the Empire may have disintegrated behind him . Part II : The Invasion of Akavir . The Expeditionary Force left Black Harbor on 23rd Rain ' s Hand , 288 , and with fair weather landed in Akavir after six weeks at sea . The landing site was a small Tsaesci port at the mouth of a large river , chosen for its proximity to Tamriel as well as its location in a fertile river valley , giving easy access to the interior as well as good foraging for the army . All went well at first . The Tsaesci had abandoned the town when the Expeditionary Force approached , so they took possession of it and renamed it Septimia , the first colony of the new Imperial Province of Akavir . While the engineers fortified the town and expanded the port facilities to serve the Far East Fleet , the Emperor marched inland with two legions . The surrounding land was reported to be rich , well - watered fields , and meeting no resistance the army took the next city upriver , also abandoned . This was refounded as Ionith , and the Emperor established his headquarters there , being much larger than Septimia and better - located to dominate the surrounding countryside . The Expeditionary Force had yet to meet any real resistance , although the legions were constantly shadowed by mounted enemy patrols which prevented any but large scouting parties from leaving the main body of the army . One thing the Emperor sorely lacked was cavalry , due to the limited space on the transport fleet , although for the time being the battlemages made up for this with magical reconnaissance . The Emperor now sent out envoys to try to contact the Tsaesci king or whoever ruled this land , but his messengers never returned . In retrospect , the Commission believes that valuable time was wasted in this effort while the army was stalled at Ionith , which could have been better spent in advancing quickly while the enemy was still , apparently , surprised by the invasion . However , the Emperor believed at the time that the Tsaesci could be overawed by the Empire ' s power and he might win a province by negotiation with no need for serious fighting . Meanwhile , the four legions were busy building a road between Septimia and Ionith , setting up fortified guard posts along the river , and fortifying both cities ' defences , activities which would serve them well later . Due to their lack of cavalry , scouting was limited , and communication between the two cities constantly threatened by enemy raiders , with which the legions were still unable to come to grips . The original plan had been to bring the two reinforcing legions across as soon as the initial landing had secured a port , but the fateful decision was now taken to delay their arrival and instead begin using the Fleet to transport colonists . The Emperor and the Council agreed that , due to the complete abandonment of the conquered area by its native population , colonists were needed to work the fields so that the Expeditionary Force would not have to rely entirely on the fleet for supplies . In addition , unrest had broken out in Yneslea , athwart the supply route to Akavir , and the Council believed the Ninth and Seventeenth legions would be better used in repacifying those territories and securing the Expeditionary Force ' s supply lines . The civilian colonists and their supplies began arriving in Septimia in mid - Hearthfire , and they took over the preparation of the fields ( which had been started by the legionnaires ) for a spring crop . A number of cavalry mounts were also brought over at this time , and the raids on the two Imperial colonies subsequently fell off . Tsaesci emissaries also finally arrived in Ionith , purportedly to begin peace negotiations , and the Expeditionary Force settled in for what was expected to be a quiet winter . At this time , the Council urged the Emperor to return to Tamriel with the Fleet , to deal with many pressing matters of the Empire while the army was in winter quarters , but the Emperor decided that it would be best to remain in Akavir . This turned out to be fortunate , because a large portion of the Fleet , including the Emperor ' s flagship , was destroyed by an early winter storm during the homeward voyage . The winter storm season of 288 - 289 was unusually prolonged and exceptionally severe , and prevented the Fleet from returning to Akavir as planned with additional supplies . This was reported to the Emperor via battlemage and it was agreed that the Expeditionary Force could survive on what supplies it had on hand until the spring . Part III : The Destruction of the Expeditionary Force . The winter weather in Akavir was also much more severe than expected . Due to the supply problems and the addition of thousands of civilians , the Expeditionary Force was on tight rations . To make matters worse , the Tsaesci raiders returned in force and harried any foraging and scouting parties outside the walls of the two cities . Several watch forts on the road between Septimia and Ionith were captured during blizzards , and the rest had to be abandoned as untenable . As a result , communication between the two cities had to be conducted entirely by magical means , a continuing strain on the legions ' battlemages . On 5th Sun ' s Dawn , a large entourage of Tsaesci arrived at Ionith claiming to bring a peace offer from the Tsaesci king . That night , these treacherous envoys murdered the guards at one of the city gates and let in a strong party of their comrades who were waiting outside the city walls . Their clear intention was to assassinate the Emperor , foiled only by the vigilance and courage of troopers of the Tenth who were guarding his palace . Once the alarm was raised , the Tsaesci inside the city were hunted down and killed to the last man . Needless to say , this was the end of negotiations between the Emperor and the Tsaesci . The arrival of spring only brought worse troubles . Instead of the expected spring rains , a hot dry wind began to blow from the east , continuing with varying strength through the entire summer . The crops failed , and even the river ( which in the previous year had been navigable by small boats far upstream of Ionith ) was completely dried up by Sun ' s Height . It is unknown if this was due to a previously unknown weather pattern unique to Akavir , or if the Tsaesci manipulated the weather through magical means . The Commission leans towards the former conclusion , as there is no direct evidence of the Tsaesci possessing such fearsome arcane power , but the latter possibility cannot be entirely ruled out . Due to prolonged bad weather , the supply fleet was late in setting out from Black Harbor . It finally left port in early Second Seed , but was again severely mauled by storms and limped into Septimia eight weeks later much reduced . Because of the increasingly desperate supply situation in Akavir , the Emperor dispatched most of his Battlemage Corps with the fleet to assist it in weathering the storms which seemed likely to continue all summer . At this time , the Council urged the Emperor to abandon the invasion and to return to Tamriel with the Expeditionary Force , but he again refused , noting that the fleet was no longer large enough to transport all four legions at once . The Commission agrees that leaving one or more legions behind in Akavir to await the return of the fleet would have damaged Army morale . But the Commission also notes that the loss of one legion would have been preferable to the loss of the entire Expeditionary Force . It is the unanimous opinion of the Commission that this was the last point at which complete disaster might have been averted . Once the decision was made to send the fleet back for reinforcements and supplies , events proceeded to their inevitable conclusion . From this point on , much less is known about what transpired in Akavir . With most of the battlemages assisting the fleet , communication between the Expeditionary Force and Tamriel was limited , especially as the situation in Akavir worsened and the remaining battlemages had their powers stretched to the limit attending to all the needs of the legions . However , it appears that the Tsaesci may also have been actively interfering with the mages in some unknown manner . Some of the mages in Akavir reported their powers being abnormally weak , and the mages of the War College in Cyrodiil ( who were handling communications for the Council ) reported problems linking up with their compatriots in Akavir , even between master and pupil of long training . The Commission urges that the War College make a particular study of the arcane powers of the Tsaesci , should the Empire ever come into conflict with Akavir again . What is known is that the Emperor marched out of Ionith in mid - Sun ' s Height , leaving only small garrisons to hold the cities . He had learned that the Tsaesci were massing their forces on the other side of a mountain range to the north , and he intended to smash their army before it could gather full strength and capture their supplies ( of which he was in desperate need ) . This rapid advance seems to have taken the Tsaesci by surprise , and the Expeditionary Force crossed the mountains and fell on their camp , routing the Tsaesci army and capturing its leader ( a noble of some kind ) . But the Emperor was soon forced to retreat , and the legions suffered heavily on their retreat to Ionith . The Emperor now found himself besieged in Ionith , cut off from the small garrison at Septimia which was also besieged . By this time , it seems that the efforts of the few remaining battlemages were devoted entirely to creating water to keep the army alive , a skill not normally emphasized at the War College . The fleet had arrived safely back to Black Harbor , thanks to the Battlemage Corps , but all attempts to return to Akavir were frustrated by a series of ever more savage storms that battered Esroniet throughout the rest of 289 . The Council ' s last contact with the Emperor was in early Frostfall . By Evening Star , the Council was extremely worried about the situation in Akavir and ordered the fleet to sail regardless of the risk . Despite the continued storms , the fleet managed to press on to Akavir . Hope was raised when contact was made with the Emperor ' s battlemage , who reported that Ionith still held out . Plans were quickly laid for the Expeditionary Force to break out of Ionith and fall back on Septimia , where the fleet would meet them . This was the last direct contact with the Expeditionary Force . The fleet arrived in Septimia to find its garrison under savage assault from a large Tsaesci army . The battlemages with the fleet threw back the enemy long enough for the survivors to embark and the fleet to withdraw . The few survivors of the Expeditionary Force who reached Septimia told how the Emperor had led the army out of Ionith by night two days earlier , successfully breaking through the enemy lines but then being surrounded by overwhelming forces on the road to Septimia . They told of a heroic last stand by the Emperor and the Tenth Legion , which allowed a remnant of the Fourteenth to reach Septimia . Two survivors of the Tenth arrived in Septimia that night , having slipped through the enemy lines during their undisciplined victory celebration . These men confirmed having seen the Emperor die , cut down by enemy arrows as he rallied the Tenth ' s shield wall . Part IV : Conclusion . The Commission believes that the invasion of Akavir was doomed from the start for several reasons , none of which could have been foreseen beforehand , unfortunately . Despite extensive intelligence - gathering , the Expeditionary Force was clearly unprepared for the situation in Akavir . The unexpected weather which plagued the army and navy was particularly disastrous . Without the loss of a majority of the Far East Fleet during the campaign , the Expeditionary Force could have been withdrawn in 289 . The weather also forced the Emperor to assign most of his Battlemage Corps to the fleet , leaving him without their valuable assistance during the fighting which soon followed . And of course the unexpected drought which struck Ionith during 289 dashed the hopes of supplying the army locally , and left the Expeditionary Force in an untenable situation when besieged in Ionith . The Tsaesci were also much stronger than intelligence reports had suggested . Information on the size of the army the Tsaesci were eventually able to field against the Expeditionary Force is vague , as the only serious fighting took place after regular communications were cut off between the Emperor and the Council . Nevertheless , it seems likely that the Tsaesci outnumbered the Emperor ' s forces by several times , as they were able to force four crack legions into retreat and then keep them under siege for several months . As was stated previously , the Commission declines to criticize the initial decision to invade Akavir . Based on what was known at the time , the plan seemed sound . It is only with the benefit of hindsight does it become obvious that the invasion had very little chance of success . Nevertheless , the Commission believes several valuable lessons can be taken from this disaster . First , the Tsaesci may have extremely powerful arcane forces at their command . The possibility that they may have manipulated the weather across such a vast region seems incredible ( and it should be noted that three Commissioners strongly objected to this paragraph even being included in this Report ) , but the Commission believes that this matter deserves urgent investigation . The potential danger is such that even the slight possibility must be taken seriously . Second , the Tsaesci appear to possess no navy to speak of . The Expeditionary Force was never threatened by sea , and the Far East Fleet fought nothing but the weather . Indeed , initial plans called for a portion of the Fleet to remain in Akavir for use in coastal operations , but in the event there were very few places where the large vessels of the Fleet could approach the land , due to the innumerable reefs , sandbars , islands , etc . that infested the coastal waters north and south from Septimia . Due to the utter lack of trees in the plain around Septimia and Ionith , the Expeditionary Force was unable to build smaller vessels which could have navigated the shallow coastal waters . Any future military expeditions against Akavir would do well to consider some way of bringing a means for inshore naval operations in order to exploit this clear advantage over the Tsaesci , an advantage that was sadly unexploited by the Expeditionary Force . Third , much longer - term study needs to be made of Akavir before another invasion could even be contemplated . The information gathered over the four years prior to the invasion was extensive , but clearly inadequate . The weather conditions were completely unexpected ; the Tsaesci much stronger than expected ; and the attempted negotiations by the Emperor with the Tsaesci a disaster . Akavir proved alien beyond expectation , and the Commission believes any future attempt to invade Akavir should not be contemplated without much greater knowledge of the conditions , politics , and peoples of that continent than presently obtains . Finally , the Commission unanimously concludes that given what we now know , any attempt to invade Akavir is folly , at least in the present state of the Empire . The Empire ' s legions are needed at home . One day , a peaceful , united Empire will return to Akavir and exact severe retribution for the disaster at Ionith and for our fallen Emperor . But that day is not now , nor in the foreseeable future .