Arveyran Ethnic Wars

The **Ethnic Wars** in Arveyres were a brief period of violent military conflicts following the assassination of Queen Mercedes II on 29 May 1961. The Ethnic Wars, although triggered by the assassination of Mercedes, are not traditionally agreed to have started on 29 May 1961, but on 13 January 1962, with the Royalist Execution in Andalusia City.

The events leading up to the Royalist Execution are generally called the Incubation Period in Arveyran history. Following the death of Queen Mercedes, as assumed by many, Serena, Mercedes' eldest daughter, would automatically be proclaimed Queen of Arveyres. However, due to her refusal, Serena refused to return from Aloia to be proclaimed Queen, and thus she passed the Crown to her sister Sofia, ten years her junior.

Although the royal family and government now accept that Sofia was the successor to Mercedes, at the time this caused a great split in the Senate, creating two rival factions: the Serenists, who were adamant on the extradition of Serena, calling her "abdication" a crime; and the Sophites, who were loyal supporters of the now-Queen Sofia IX.

This caused a great split within the Royalist Party and led to a government stalemate in which a rogue branch of the Federalist Party who called themselves the Arveyran Republicans saw this as the perfect point to attempt to bring down the monarchy in favor of a full democratic republic. They assembled themselves in central Andalusia City at the Federal Republican Palace, an unused office of the Federalist Party.

From the founding of the Republican Party on 11 July 1961, the three-way parliamentary conflict gradually escalated into physical conflict on the Senate floor with Sophite Royalist Sigiu Dalmotei of the being stabbed by Alcei Sirhin of the Republican Party. The physical conflict reached a national scale with the Royalist Execution of 13 January 1962 in which masked members of the Republican Party publically executed seven Serenites and five Sophites in front of the Federal Republican Palace.

The public, having largely forgotten about the Palman Paramilitary Organization (PPO) which orchestrated the assassination of Mercedes, began to focus on the national crisis brewing within Andalusia. Following the execution, the Serenite Dissentist leaders met with leaders of the Sophite Loyalists to drop their claim of Serena in favor of reuniting under the banner of the Royalist Party. When many people thought the threat of the PPO was over, the reunited Royalists called on the help of the PPO to assist in the revenge against the Republican Party.

The PPO secretly organized a bombing, this time with the intent of striking the Federal Republican Palace. The PPO soon organized themselves within the Royalist Party for legitimacy within the conflict, and conducted the 21 February 1962 bombing of the Federal Royalist Palace, killing the now-leader Alcei Sirhin. Within two days, the Royalists stormed the Palace and proclaimed their control over it on 23 February 1962.

As many thought the conflict was coming to an end with the dissolution of the Republican Party, the PPO sought the freedom of religious press they had first demanded with the Bombing of the Savoy Palace. After four days of bilateral stalemate between the PPO and Royalist Party, the PPO separated themselves from the Royalist Party after their needs were not met. Many PPO returned to their homes in Low Navarra to organize possible attacks on government institutions in demand of their rights.

On 14 May 1962, the PPO formally organized in Las Palmas, the capital of Low Navarra, storming the provincial palace and taking control of the provincial government, declaring the Free Republic of Las Palmas. The Free Republic was quick to blockade most land routes into the province from Sevilla and Cantabria. Castor Santos was installed as the first Free President of Las Palmas and Santos quickly took control of the provincial assets, including EsMA equiment, largely stationed in the ports of Las Palmas.

Castor organized the creation of the Free Army of Las Palmas, regarded by the national government as a terrorist militant organization. The Free Republic established and organized their government quickly, within the first week re-establishing freedom of the religious press to its citizens, which still was not returned in the Kingdom of Arveyres.

On 23 May 1962, fearing an Arveyran invasion, Santos quickly moved his capital inland from Las Palmas to Soledad, a rural mountain city in central Low Navarra. The Arveyran-led siege of Las Palmas began on 30 May 1962 and was an embarrassing defeat for the Arveyran Army, as they lacked intelligence on the environment of Las Palmas. As Low Navarra had only been a constituent province since 1955, little was documented on the environment, topography, and infrastructure of the province. Thus, the siege ended with the Arveyran withdrawal on 15 July 1962, as the Arveyran government was oblivious to the sudden change of capitals within the Free Republic.

   Fearing the potential formal loss of land to a rebel-led republic, the Kingdom of Arveyres called upon the help of the Imperial Army of the Empire of Eurasia to assist in the recapture of Low Navarra, as the sheer manpower of the Eurasian Army greatly outweighed their lack of local intelligence. The Eurasian-led siege of Las Palmas began on 13 October 1962 and was concluded within six days. Eurasian forces had stormed the city from the north and south and captured it swiftly. Finding no local government in power, intelligence led them to the Citadel of Soledad, the now-capital of the Free Republic.

After talks between Queen Sofia IX and her step-grandfather Emperor Marinus, they mutually agreed on the preservation of the environment of Soledad, specifically in not directly bombing the city, as it was home to many religious sites in Aetherism. The Siege of Soledad began on 11 November 1962 and was logistically difficult for the armed forces of Eurasia and Arveyres as Soledad was a walled citadel and had very few entrances. After three weeks of stalemate, the Arveyran government agreed to make a breach in the wall, which allowed Eurasian forces to funnel en-masse into the citadel. The last Free Republican soldiers were fought down on Christmas Day in 1962, 25 December, bringing an end to the fighting in the Ethnic Wars.

The Ethnic Wars would legally be ongoing until Santos' formal surrender on 14 February 1963 from prison. All fourteen executive members of the Free Republican government were imprisoned in a prison in Salares. Of the fourteen members of the executive government, only five are still alive, including Castor Santos. Fearing more unrest, Queen Sofia formally overruled the parliament decision which revoked religious freedom of the press, in what was viewed as her first major exercise of her absolute power.

Today the Ethnic Wars remain the costliest civil conflict within Arveyres following the Arveyran Civil War of the 1800s. The Ethnic Wars along with the Catalan Revolt constitute a period in Arveyran history called the Savoyard Unrest, which takes its name from the Bombing of the Savoy Palace, which was the catalyst for the Ethnic Wars.

- disregard -

The **Ethnic Wars** in Arveyres were a series of connected violent military conflicts that formally began on 29 May 1961 with the assassination of Queen Mercedes II which occurred at the bombing of the Savardi Palace in Angostura. The bombing was conducted by senior members of the paramilitary organization known as the Termicoro.

The Termicoro takes its name form the Eurasian "*terminus ad coronam*" meaning "end of the crown", whose members are called "*termicordi*". The Termicoro had aspirations of republicanism in Arveyres and a complete dissolution of the monarchy and nobility, having its roots in the early age of republicanism in Arveyres in the early 1800s. The Termicoro historically had staged assassination attempts and general obstructions of peace across the nation and were the recipients of a violent extermination campaign in the 1890s, being designated "enemies of the state". They would see limited success in their coordinated attacks throughout the 1910s and 1920s before formally dissolving with the beginning of the Great War.

Many prisoners of war and imprisoned republicans would be freed following the end of the Great War and would coalesce to form again the Termicoro in 1952, with the expressed intent of assassinating Queen Mercedes II, who many believed was the power behind their swift imprisonments. Queen Mercedes oversaw many calculated oppressive acts against various non-Arveyran ethnic groups including Newellians and Khanites. Many of these people following the end of the Great War would go on to become Termicordi and seek revenge on the Queen. The assassination plan, organized by the most senior members of the Termicoro, had one uniform plan of killing the Queen through any means possible. The plan would come to fruition with the bombing of the Savardi Palace in the morning of 29 May 1961, which successfully killed Queen Mercedes.

The events following the assassination are generally categorized into two theaters: royalist and parliamentary.

## **Royalist Theater**

There were two royalist fronts fighting each other over who would become the subsequent monarch, Princess Serena (Sybilla) Mercedes, mother of King Christian IX; or Princess Sofia Mercedes, Duchess of Caprina. These two armed factions of the royal community would become known as the *Serenisti* and *Sophisti* respectively. The armed conflicts were sparked by the refusal of Princess Serena to return to Arveyres.

The Princess, living in Aloia for nearly twenty years at the time was required to return to Arveyres as a royal election could not start until she arrived in Angostura. Upon multiple requests to return to Aloia by members of the Senate, she formally issued a note of her giving up her Arveyran royal titles and right to election as Queen. This, alongside the bombing of the royal palace, triggered nationwide strife and protest among royalist, with those who demanded Princess Serena's return taking up the name of *Serenisti*.

The *Sophisti* were supporters of Serena's younger sister Sofia Mercedes, Duchess of Caprina, who believed that the forfeiture of her older sister's right to rule meant that Sofia Mercedes should become the next Queen.

The royal court would remain in deadlock until 11 September 1961, when Sofia Mercedes was elected and later enthroned as Queen Sofia IX on 11 August 1962. The events surrounding this royal electio would lead to a rise in republicanism all throughout Arveyres, but primarily in the borderlands, with the mainland remaining fiercely royalist. The split within the Royalist Party would eventually be mended within the months following Sofia's enthronement, with public support or membership of a *Serenisti* group leading to imprisonment.

## **Parliamentary Theater**

     The split within the Royalist Party caused by the

FINISH LATER