Arracian Civil War

**The Arracian Civil War**, also known as the **1860 Arracian Unrest Period**, the **Fall of the Arracian Monarchy**, and the **1860 Coup** by Arracian royalists and the Kremwelli government, was a period of looting, rioting, demonstration, and armed confrontation between forces affiliated with the Republican People's Front, and other associated anti-monarchical movements, and forces loyal to the Royal Family and government of Arracia, at the time led by the usurper, King Giorgio I. The unrest was caused by the public execution of republican leader, and at-the-time Chairman of the Republican People's Front, Asterio Totaro, by hanging, drawing, and quartering, a medieval punishment which horrified many in the Arracian intelligentsia, working, and middle-class, mobilizing the citizenry into spontaneous protests, which eventually coalesced under the RFP banner. This was all in the backdrop of yet another severe economic crisis, the backsliding of liberal reforms made under Loreno III, and increased in the south, as Ralencian-separatist activity was once again on the rise. During the two weeks of brutal street-fighting, a total of 400 people were killed, according to an 1862 fact-finding commission arranged by President Calcagni, however more modern estimates, including a 1910 Commission investigating the same incidents, believe a higher body-count, closer to 620, is more accurate to the real death-toll.

Violence first started after Loreno III, who sat the throne in Bezian in 1856, was overthrown in a coup, and replaced with his brother, Giorgio I, in response to growing liberal reforms and pressure from reactionary and absolutist movements in the royal government. After the coup succeeded, and Loreno III was imprisoned, Giorgio moved to undue all liberal reforms conducted under Loreno with the RFP, disbanding the Royal Congress before it could meet, scrapping the liberal Constitution of 1855, and ending Loreno's leniency on the press. He would also crack down on the opposition movements which had formed to compete for seats in the Royal Congress, with most of his efforts focused on the RFP particularity. Totarl would be found after a three year manhunt, and brought to the capital, where he would be hung, drawn, and quartered in the medieval fashion, before his body parts were displayed in different quarters of the city, and his remains left to rot in public. This sparked outrage at the royal government, and rapidly, the citizenry began to riot all over the country, with underground newspapers and word of mouth making news of Totaro's execution, now martyrdom, spread like wildfire. The newly created telegram played a massive role in this.

The Royal Government responded to initial protests with a heavy-hand, immediately issuing shoot-to-kill orders. Dozens of demonstrators in the capital alone were gunned down. In response, demonstrators began to arm themselves with a combination of clubs, oyster shells, rocks, bottles, and sharpened sticks. However, after demonstrators organized under the RFP banner stormed the city's armory, killing several of the guards, the demonstrators suddenly managed to acquire several pieces of light artillery, several hundred rifles, and several barrels worth of shot and powder. This was repeated throughout the country, as demonstrators overran local garrisons, and engaged in street fighting with a combination of royalist police, both public and secret in nature, rural constabulary, and eventually, the military itself. By the third week of unending violence, elements of the army already sympathetic to the revolution revolted, led by Major-General Evodio Cutrona. With himself at the head, the Army joined with the rioters, and stormed the palace, finding it empty. Just a couple of hours prior, the Royal Family, which included Giorgio, his wife, and his children, as well as the extended family, a portion of the navy, and the nation's gold reserves, had been evacuated to Novar del Ciavas, never to return. Nicodemo Calcagni, who had assumed control of the RFP by then, quickly moved to secure legitimacy in the eyes of the people, assembling an impromptu mob and declaring in front of them that,

*"The tyranny of the monarchy is no more!"*

## The Rebellion

### Week 1

On the 1st week, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched to the Palazzu Reale unarmed, shouting vitriolic slurs and insults aimed at the Royal Family, in order to protest the Royal Family. They were met with gunfire from the 13th Regiment, Light Infantry. Several dozen demonstrators were killed or wounded, and the rest dispersed temporarily, only to return this time armed with improvised weapons, which they began hurling at now reinforced lines of royal soldiers, until this disorganized mob once again dispersed, leaving behind yet more bloody corpses behind. Royalist forces would then begin to comb the city, not before a section of the demonstrators broke into the Bezian Capital Armory, acquiring weaponry. Rapidly managing to distribute the arms, they began engaging in street fights with royal troops, this time taking care to stay in cover, utilizing their knowledge of the city, and the army's inflexible tactics to outmaneuver and isolate royal troops. The rebels in the first week managed to capture the telegraph station, the police station, and the city's industrial and tannery districts.

News of the uprising would spread to surrounding villages, then surrounding towns, as reinforcements would pour into Bezian, rapidly spiraling the situation out of control. Reinforcements, in the form of the secret police and Royal Constabulary, were called.

### Week 2

The rebellion spread nation-wide, as impromptu armed bands began to pop-up everywhere and seize government buildings. In the meanwhile, Ralencian rebels rose up en masse, overrunning the limited garrison left in the capital of Ralenci, occupying the governor's mansion, and publically hanging the ethnically-Arracian governor at the time, declaring a new Provisional Republic of Ralence. Up North, violence in the capital rapidly escalated, as secret police began indiscriminately arresting anyone who was suspected of having participated in the violence. This however, could not stop the tens of thousands now under arms, and the hundreds of thousands nationwide taking similar actions against the government. With rumors circulating of disloyalty in the Army, plans were made amongst the Royal Family and the Royal Guard to evacuate the city, as republican rebels overran a police barricade guarding the city's second armory, and the city's train station. It seemed any day now that armed citizenry would overrun the limited army presence in the city, and cut-off the monarchy's retreat out of the city, or out of the country entirely if they were able to capture the city's port district. Fortunately for the Royal Army, the 5th Division, under the control of Major-General Evodio Cutrona had reportedly been marching towards the city to relieve the garrison. Little did the royal family know, however, that Cutrona was a sympathizer to the republicans and a fervent ultranationalism. Although historians debate when exactly he made his decision to defect, it is known from his personal diaries that he had harbored a long-standing hatred for the monarchy, believing them to be impotent, weak, frail, and "primitive in culture".

### Week 3

As Evodio Cutrona entered the city, he turned on the garrison, and publically joined the rebellion, ordering his troops to massacre any royalists they saw. They rapidly overran the city's cultural district, its secondary industrial district, the telephone exchange, the Royal Mueseum, and inched their way towards the Royal Palace. On the 2nd day of the 3rd week, the monarchy made the decision to evacuate the country as a whole, electing to flee to Novar del Ciavas, whose governor was in the pocket of the monarchy. They would board a ship, taking every ship that could be re-fueled on short notice, and scuttling the rest, leaving as well with numerous royal treasures, and the nation's gold-reserves. There could be no mistake of their intention. Cutrona would overrun the remnents of the city's garrison, and enter the palace to find it empty, just 48 hours later. Ralence by this point had completely broken away into its modern borders, with pro-Ralencian militias pushing both royalist and republican troops out of the isolated province, and cutting all phone and telegraph lines to the rest of the country, and capturing any navy ships that could not cast their moorings in time. This would mark the end of the Arracian occupation of Ralence, and the end of the monarchy, simultaneosuly.

Calcagni would move quickly to assert control over the situation, making his famous declaration on the balcony of the Palazzu Reale. Cutrona would, to the surprise of his own troops, let this happen, stepping aside and allowing Calcagni to try and assemble a provisional government in the wake of the fall of the monarchy.

## Aftermath & International Reaction

The Revolution would result in (obviously) the end of the Arracian monarchy on the mainland. However, the monarchy would continue to exercise direct dominion over Novar del Ciavas for the next four decades, with it only being ended by the invasion of Novar del Ciavas by the Republic. Major social and political changes would come from the revolution, most notably the massive loss of power and exodus of nobility from the country to the colonies, and the secession of Ralence. Internationally, the revolution was met with open hostility from neighboring powers, as monarchies in Kremwell, Lentenia, Raszovia, Achaeyand, and Czervenia all feared republican movements arising in their own countries, modeled off the Arracian way. Kremwell was especially worried, as their hold in Krem Obekland was becoming increasingly tenuous, and not willing to lose yet another imperial possession (after the fall of Krem Alaequen in the mid-1700s). These fears would not be unjustified, as seen with Raszovia's suppression of their liberal movement in the following decades, Kremwell's monarchy being forced to give up most of its responsibilities and formal power in the next three decades, Lentenia overthrowing their monarchy in 1867, Obechliand gaining its independence in 1872 and declaring its own republic, the Kielson Square Revolution in 1884, where Reymich abolished their monarchy, the Grey Vest Consensus overthrowing the Shah and declaring Achaeyand a republic in 1896, the monarchy in Kalentia being phased out by 1906, and the Arvel War of Independence, which started in 1896 and ended in 1915, overthrowing the Reymichian colonial adminstration and resulting in the establishment of the 2nd Republic of Arvel.