First Oathbreaker War

Belligerents	
Beiveïd Saiël	
Saiännic Alliance
Commanders 	
 Czeti	
 Pacuäran
Strength 	~5,000 	
~6,000
Losses 	Unknown	Unknown
Result 	Victory	Defeat
The First Oathbreaker War (Syannese: Seraiveioszcu Coveca) was a conflict fought by city-state of Tālmoä, then known as 'Saiëlrea', or 'River Island Realm', between 66 and 70 years After the Beïveï.
They were fighting a coalition of three other major city states and several smaller allies who apparently called themselves the 'Saiännic Alliance' but who live in the histories as the Oathbreakers.
==Origins==
The cause of the conflict was the apportioning of territory after the Ghazri War, wherein a great swath of formerly Saiännic land had been recaptured from the Rahōl. 
The five city-states which had allied to recapture lost Saiännic land had agreed to the foundation of four new, independent states, each to be colonised by settlers from different cities. These were
* Dausai: Meaning 'Two Rivers', grew into Dausailōn.
* Suveisra: 'South of the Veisra', grew into Suquamoä.
* Phaveisra: 'Western Veisra', annexed by Dausailōn.
* Jaremoä: Rebuilt after the Ghazri invasion.
As well as triggering the first two Oathbreaker wars, the seeds of other future tensions were sown in this arrangement. Dausai - fortified into a 'lōn' by Tālmoä after the war - was settled by Tālmoëne and Szamoëne colonists and would wage continual regional conflicts against both Jaremoä, which was resettled by Anmoënë, and Phaveisra, which was settled by Anmoënë and Maramoënë. More than two hundred years later, an intervention to support Jaremoä by the united Veiszalära of Anmoä and Maramoä would trigger the Third Oathbreaker War.
More immediately, Maramoä broke the terms of the Treaty of Five Cities by directly annexing land earmarked for Tālmoëne colonisation: the future site of Dausailōn. When Tālmoä threatened war in pursuit of its agreed claim, Szamoä and Aranmoä backed Mara and announced the creation of the 'Saiännic Alliance', which they invited Tālmoä and Anmoä to join.
Fought at the dawn of the Bronze Age Saiännic military era, the war was fought with small armies and minimal devastation.
== The War Begins - 66 ABV ==
=== Tālmoëne Response ===
Upon hearing of Mara's annexation of the town of Jaza'ha, the Tālmoëne response was immediate: a formal diplomatic protest was lodged and circulated amongst the Saiännic cities. The terms were as follows:
* That the Soroszaszīn of Mara hand herself over to Tālmoä for trial.
* That the Maramoëne state issued a formal apology for breaching the Treaty.
* That Mara renounce all claim to Dausailōn.
* That Mara commit 3,000 troops to the defence of the westernmost areas of Saiän.
* That Mara withdraw all colonists from the Dausai territory.
At this time Szaeda, the Reidaun seeress, forges what would become the Tālmoëne State Crown and the cult of the Red Dream spreads rapidly throughout the Saiël. The pan-Saiännist fervour exhibited by the crowds stiffened the resolve of Tālmoëne hawks to take a tough line on the colonies, but is likely to have made other cities wary of their true intentions. Meanwhile, the commander who had allowed Mara to annex Jaza'ha was sentenced to the Supreme Redemptive Path and burned alive in the city centre.
=== Declaration of the Saiännic Alliance ===
To Tālmoëne dismay, however, Mara was not isolated by her violation of the Treaty. Two of the other coalition cities supported her, and announced the creation of an alliance by which each committed to defend the other. Both Tālmoä and An were invited to join, but refused. The full reply issued by the three cities - henceforth known to history as the 'Oathbreakers' - read as follows: 
"To his Excellency, the Reiszasȳel, Szāduofasyyan
"Maramoä remains deeply concerned for your life and safety, and we would inquire whether you can travel as you please within your domain? Maramoä remains committed to friendship with her neighbours, but is realising that a concord between civilised states demand an understanding of the concerns of every individual state being taken into account.
"Veisramoä (which you call Dausȳlōn) is a price paid for by the blood of over one thousand of our countrymen. We fail to see how the enlargement of our territory is in any way, shape or form contradicting the mutual interests of our two states.
"From the perspective of intra-state relationships, the current actions undertaken by the military force of Talmoä is illogical. The retreat of your military forces is putting peril on the colonists, which are coping with internal and external threats. Moreover, by the logic of the Syannic defence agreement, Talmoä has vioalted the sovereign territory of another Syannic state, and has therefore made a joint military strike against Talmoä a necessity.
"We have however no reason to doubt your sanity. Instead, we would inquire whether that woman - Shaida or what her name now is - has built up a power base, founded around the notion that the Syannic world somehow must unite under her power? Under the power of Talmoä? Such a vision is dangerous, and would risk to rip open a torsion deeper than ever between the Syannic states. Such discord will only serve to empower the forces beyond the ring of evil surrounding the Syannic world.
"We have recently received a letter with a few absurd requests. We inquire whether this letter has the official approval of the Talmoäese state, and isn't just another spiteful rambling by that Red Woman? Rest assured that we have saved this letter, made copies and sent it out to the neighbouring states. They mentioned for us that they also had received the very same letter with demands to us. The notable dignitaries from Aranmoä and Szamoä indeed found it "peculiar" to state the least.
"Rest assured that we three cordial states would like to make the following statement.:
""The Syannic Alliance is an Alliance of equal states opposing internal and external aggression, and we are bound to defend against internal and external aggression through any means necessary. If an independent Syannic state is using military aggression against one or several other Syannic states, the aggressor will be confronted by the united forces of the Alliance.
""We are worried by the developments occurring in Talmoä and in all of Syel, and we find the Red Dream cult to be a dangerous, Un-syannic institution which is threatening the concordate between our brotherly and sisterly nations. Therefore, we have now issued a joint statement condemning the Red Dream as in opposition to the stability, well-being, prosperity and mutual unity and friendship between the Syannic states. The ambitions of Shaida will, if left unchecked, lead to the inevitable destruction of Talmoä and of the state of Syel.
""Therefore, we do as friends urge the political and military leaders of Talmoä to resist Shaida and her manipulations, and to join the Alliance in restoring proper Syannic values."
"If this letter is left unanswered, or rejected, we will inform you that the Alliance is in a state of war against Talmoä.
"We wish you a long and prosperous life!
"Reiszaarael Neszoaran of Aranmoä
"Reiszaszael Magoszagan of Szamoä
"The Third Sorosärszín of Maramoä."
=== Other Cities ===
The prospect of a war between four Saiännic states, only a few decades after most of them were founded, shocked the riverlands. History records that Yāmoä offered its commiserations to all who would die in the conflict, whilst An pronounced itself "extremely unhappy", and offered to mediate a diplomatic resolution. 
However, An would show passive support for the Red Butterfly during the war by allowing Tālmoëne scouts to use their territory, and by refusing to allow the Oathbreakers to cut off the marines garrisoned in Dausailōn. 
Nehamoä, on the other hand, announced that any party bringing the conflict into the north would be "destroyed" - perhaps in a bid to ensure that the Catasarszínat, which publicly endorsed the Tālmoëne legal case (whilst criticising the strength of the response) from supporting its mother-city militarily.
More worrying for Tālmoä the tiny state of Nusynanmoä, which had been founded by settlers who fled after a failed rebellion against Saiëllene rule of the West Bank of the Reisra. The Nusynanmoënë established an embassy in Mara, which pledged to help them "regain their lost territory", and called their spears.
=== Initial Operations ===
The war started small, as each of the moǟ called their spears and prepared their strategies. The first recorded military clash was initiated by Szamoä, which drove Tālmoëne scouts out of its northern territories, killing about fifty of them. 
Beyond that there was only the so-called 'Battle of the Fishermen', in which a quarrel between fishing boats loyal to each city erupted into a physical fight upon the waters. This ended when one boat overturned and three men drowned, and the remaining combatants set aside their grudges and helped the rest out of the water.
== War on the Rivers - 66-67 ABV ==
Whilst each side was mustering its ground forces, each city had build up effective brown-water navies during the Ghazri War, driven by the need to ferry troops and supplies up the Veisra to the theatre of operations. This experience had taught each the value of controlling the great rivers which dominated Saiän, and each side set about trying to win control of the other's Serpent.
=== The Red Serpent ===
On the Reisra, Tālmoëne strategists were acutely aware of the doubled-edged nature of their capital's situation on the island of Saiël. Although well-insulated from the armies of its rivals, Tālmoä's capacity to prosecute the war, and support its territories on the West Bank, depended on it maintaining control of the Red Serpent. To that end, the two island settlements north and south of Saiël were turned into naval bases and the southern one, Suëlmoä, fortified in expectation of an attack.
Szamoä had other ideas, however. Bypassing the fortress, their fleet rowed north and launched an attack on Susai, the southern port settlement on the Saiël. This was to the the only attack on the Tālmoëne home island in either the First or Second Oathbreaker Wars.
Unfortunately for the Szamoënë, their enemies had been making preparations to knock out their fleet. Before they could establish a beachhead or position any troops for an actual invasion of the Saiël, the Tālmoëne navy encircled their fleet with fire ships: pitch-soaked hulks bound together with thick, tar-coated ropes, rowed towards the enemy and set alight. Most of the Szamoëne fleet was destroyed.
=== The White Serpent ===
Having been fortunate enough to knock out one enemy fleet before it could be reinforced by the other two, Tālmoä now tried to press the attack up the Veisra. However, in much the same way as their successors in the Second Oathbreaker War, the Red Butterfly's naval commanders would find only frustration and stalemate on the White Serpent.
==== Battle of Jasjäy ====
History records that the Tālmoëne fleet first encountered vessels from the Saiännic Alliance near "the small banks of the Jasjäy". Lacking castle ships (lōnsuä), the Alliance fleet retreated before the massed archery of the invading vessels, with the Tālmoëne ships in pursuit.
Then the White Serpents sprung their trap: larger ships suddenly "raised their sail poles" and emerged from right and left, bombarding the Red Serpent vessels with "leather bags of tar, or stones which break arms and legs and oars". At first the Tālmoëne appeared unscathed, but once the Alliance started igniting the tar with fire arrows the Battle of Jasjäy turned at once into a miles-long fighting retreat back towards the delta. 
Each side suffers heavy losses, but Tālmoä loses many vessels and hundreds of sailors. It would not launch another attack up the Veisra for the rest of the war.
==== Sack of Jaza'ha ====
The Alliance scored another victory at the disputed town of Dausailōn/Jaza'ha. Tālmoä had captured it a force of about two thousand marines, which had previously been employed protecting the western frontiers of the newly-recaptured Saiännic world. But the local population, comprised as it was of illegal Maramoëne settlers, resented the occupation and conspired against it.
After hearing of the Tālmoëne retreat from Jasjäy, the colonists broke out into open revolt. Torching the newly-built marine barracks, the rioters then seized control of the gates of the settlement and, reinforced by peasant militias levied from the rest of the territory, overcame the embattled garrison. A hundred or so prisoners are taken, and the rest of the occupying force is killed.
=== Divisions in Tālmoä ===
Nor were setbacks on the Veisra the only way in which the First Oathbreaker War offered eerie premonitions of the second. Just as open conflict between the Reds and the Blues would almost cripple the Tālmoëne war effort in the 230s, tensions over this colonial dispute threatened to snuff out the nascent Red Dream movement at birth.
In the year 67 ABV to young sāsza launch an assassination attempt on Szaeda herself, wounding her in the shoulder before being slain by her bodyguards. Whilst the seeress survived, and apparently gave a speech later that same evening, the government of Reisza Szāduophasaïan had little choice but to launch an investigation into the city's underground opposition.
Meanwhile a new senior commander, Serairu Czeti, had taken overall command of the Tālmoëne military and was overseeing the construction of new fortifications on the West Bank. These would prove to have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war.
== War on the Red Serpent - 68-70 ABV ==
The naval campaigns had ended in a stalemate, with each of the Serpents firmly under the control of Tālmoä or the Alliance. With neither side seeming able to gain a decisive advantage on the water, the focus of the campaign shifted landwards.
=== The West Bank ===
With the Red Serpent under control, the mainland territories on the West Bank were the obvious target for the Alliance. To counter this, Czeti ordered the border town of Tigmoä fortified with new walls, a moat, and an outer earthwork set with stakes in the Ghazrid style.
The Saiëllic strategy was to force a favourable stalemate: once Tigmoä was fortified, it would be nearly impossible for the Allied army to force its way through into the West Bank. Since Tālmoä had the largest individual army, this would force the Alliance to keep its combined army together indefinitely. They then assumed that they could fracture the alliance as those cities less invested, particularly Aran, sought terms.
==== The Battle of the Rūsyn Field ====
However, Czeti had underestimated the strength of the Allied field army. Far from proving uncommitted, Aran deployed an extra 2,000 troops, allowing the Oathbreakers to attack with a field army at least 6,000 strong. They were thus emboldened to push against the main Tālmoëne army, which was screening the completion of the Tigmoëne fortifications, at the start of the dry season. A small force of reinforcements from Ur also failed to arrive, having disappeared under the command of a man called Martius.
Unexpectedly outnumbered, Czeti sought a field that would allow him to meet the Oathbreakers on more equal terms. He chose the Rūsyn field, which lay on the best route from the Szamoëne border to Tigmoä and which was flanked to the east by a brook and the right by a mire, which he hoped would force the Allied troops to attack his forces head-on.
Once battle was joined, Czeti held out for three days. The Allies apparently employed a new unit of 'runners': slingers armed with grieves and small shields who would dart forward to try to pick off officers and standard bearers, but these had to retreat in the face of superior Tālmoëne archery. Yet despite forcing higher casualties on the Oathbreakers during the fighting, Czeti was forced to fall back after a surprise attack through the swamps collapsed his right flank. The retreat to Tigmoä cost him 3,000 men.
==== Siege of Tigmoä ====
The Allies now moved to besiege Tigmoä, with its "elaborate" defences, in order to try to force their way through to the West Bank. The Oathbreaker commander, Pacuäran, started to circumvallate the fortress with an exterior wall, and his army started burning the crops near the town to try to starve the population into surrendering. 
However, his forces are unable to completely surround the town. Worse, they lack anything by way of proper siege weaponry, having not needed it against the Gazri, and were hard pressed to find the materials in lightly-wooded Saiän. Faced with the prospect of storming the formidable defences apparently led to falling morale in the Oathbreaker army.
=== Blockade of the Red Serpent ===
With the ground war having ground to a halt in the trenches at Tigmoä, each side looked once again to its navy for a way to tip the balance decisively in its favour. 
Confident that they wouldn't face another attack, and reinforced with new ships, the two intact Oathbreaker fleets moved to blockade the Red Serpent, strong-arming a small, neutral statelet called Zinji to serve as their base of operations. This was unpopular with Yāmoä, which feared that it might lead to the widespread disruption of commerce later seen in the War in the Reisra Delta and reduce its own substantial naval influence on the lower Reisra. 
However it did not prompt them to enter the war, and the blockade did begin to squeeze Tālmoëne commerce and further turn that city's merchant classes against the war.
=== The Situation in Tālmoä ===
Czeti's defeat at the Rūsyn Field saw immediate calls for his resignation, and with the commander not present to defend himself his position was for a time at political risk. However, an investigation concluded that the army had been failed by inadequate intelligence of enemy troop movements (just as in the later Battle at the Gates of Aran) and another general, Yaphi, resigns his post and takes his life.
This defeat, combined with the blockade, led to a general feeling that the war had turned against and led to the resignation of Szādu and his government. He was replaced as Reisza by a Tigmoëne named Czadiotigan.
However, he had completed investigation into the attempted assassination of Szaeda. This found that several prominent merchants and at least fifty sāsza, alongside two senior retired generals, were conspiring to stage a military coup against the Reiszat, with the intention of re-establishing the pre-Beiveïd sorosāszīnat and driving the Red Dream cult from the state. 
This information was kept secret for a time so as not to undermine the war effort, and in the end most of the junior conspirators would flee the state before peace was declared. But the memory of this group would enter into Reidaunari myth, and represents the origins of the division of Tālmoëne politics between the Reds and the Blues.
=== The Fall of Rāmoä ===
The ascent of a Tigmoene was intended to signal that the town was not about to be abandoned by the capital, but it had a side-effect of ensuring that the government maintained Szādu's hawkish stance carried over into the new administration.
Upon taking office, Czadi faced down a clamour from the merchant classes to send what remained of the Saiëllene fleet south to break the blockade. He was wary of risking the bulk of the navy against the White Serpents after the defeat at Jasjäy, as he could not risk losing control of the Reisra and allowing the Saiël to be isolated from the West Bank, where most of its army was, and attacked directly.
Instead, he deployed it much closer to home. Recognising that the outcome of the war hinged on Tigmoä, where Czeti and the main army were besieged, the Reisza instead set out to break that siege. He tasked a force of 2,000 marines to seize the Szamoëne town of Rāmoä. This lay close to the border, and was connected to the Reisra by a short, navigable canal. If secured it would allow the marines to threaten Pacuäran's supply line.
The Oathbreakers had neglected the town's defences, and it surrendered after only symbolic resistance. The war had never been popular in Rāmoä and whilst still professing loyalty to their liege city to the south, the local population offered neither active nor passive resistance to the Tālmoëne garrison. 
== Peace - The Treaty of Tigmoä ==
The army of the White Serpent was now trapped between two fortresses, and lacked the means to capture either. With the scattering of the mercantile conspiracy in Tālmoä itself there was also little chance of the naval blockade tipping the balance either. As Czeti had hoped, once the reality of this situation sank in the Saiännic Alliance fractured.
Aran, which had previously caught Czeti off guard with its unexpected commitment to the campaign for the West Bank, accepted a straightforward ceasefire and withdrew from the war. Lacking either a border with Tālmoä or any colonial dispute, it had little incentive to keep thousands of soldiers camped outside Tigmoä indefinitely. 
Czeti, Pacuäran, and a Szamoëne met in the shadow of the fortifications to sign the Treaty of Tigmoä. In this Mara agreed to all the terms originally demanded by the Saiël four years previously, save that the Third Soroszaszīn had already taken her own life. Jaza'ha was abandoned by Mara, although their colonists would continue to resist the new rulers until they were forcibly repatriated across the river some years later.
Szamoä also lost a town, as it was forced to permanently surrender Rāmoä. This they only did when Czeti threatened to burn the riverside city to the ground with his navy: the Szamoëne delegate reportedly took his own life once the treaty was signed, and the loss of the town engendered in Szamoä a hatred for their northern neighbours which last until their identity was finally extinguished, after a two-decade siege, and their city absorbed into the burgeoning Tālmoëne empire as Reisralōn after the Second Oathbreaker War.
==Aftermath==
The fallout from the First Oathbreaker War would define western Saiän for the next two hundred years. Both the deep-seated enmities which would lead, 150 years later, to the Second Oathbreaker War, and the rivalry between Dausailōn and Jatzemoä which would trigger the Third, were laid during this time.
It also had a defining effect on the Saiël, which the histories record as undergoing a shift in identity during the war. Henceforth 'Saiël' would refer only to the island; the state had come into the identity under which it would make its bid to fufil Szaeda's vision and unite the Saiännic world: 'Tālmoä'. This was formally established in 75 ABV, when Czeti was raised as the first Serai.Category:Wars
Category:Syan
Category:Battles