Invasion of New Zealand

**Location**
 **Result**
 **Participants**
 **Commanders and Leaders**
 **Casualties and losses:**

The **Invasion of New Zealand** (Eurasian: *Invasio de Hiberniam*; Lyrian: *Der Überfall von Neuseeland*) was a military intervention undertaken against New Zealand by Eurasia and Duresia and other allies. The invasion was ostensibly in response to New Zealander intervention into Blukon and Texania, which the Duresio-Eurasian coalition decried as illegal and genocidal, although the escalatin factor was the news that an Eurasian battleship, the *HIM Paventia*, was sunk while stationing in Blukon Bay. Eurasian authorities consequently blamed New Zealand, authorizing the invasion of the Social Democracy in retaliation.

The invasion initially began with a Eurasian airborne invasion in the early morning hours of June 6th, 2016, which quickly incapacitated NZDF defenses. Duresian invasions from the opposite side of the country split the defenders evenly, bottling them into the center of the country where they were quickly besieged. Grand Haven fell to a Eurasian advance on August 9th, 2016, though Naveen Garagen, president of New Zealand, escaped capture by coalition forces. The occupation lasted a short time before NZDF forces who had been unable to retreat to the unoccupied interior of the country launched resistance operations, which resulted in widespread Eurasian and Duresian crackdowns.

Tarajani forces participated in this first stage of the conflict as support for Eurasian and Duresian troops. The Kingdom was drove into the conflict by the belief that New Zealand was in fact responsible for it. After the disclosure of evidence that the Social Democracy was not to blame about the *Paventia* sinking, public opinion in New Tarajan became ostensibly hostile to the war. As a result, the crumbling government of Prime Minister Van Aardenne-Gliefen withdrew every support to the Eurasian-Duresian alliance, strongly advocating peace talks, and activating the Kingdom's military in relief operations for the citizens of New Zealand. New Tarajan moved increasingly near Garagen's position, with official recognition of Garagen's government and consequent reprimand of Eurasian-Duresian operations, and even unofficial support given to NZ resistance forces until the end of the war.

The resistance did succeed in forcing Eurasian and Duresian retreats from several occupied cities and districts, but overall were unable to decidedly force the occupiers from the nation, fighting them in effect to a stalemate. The announcement of a ceasefire in mid-February of 2017 nominally ended hostilities between the NZDF and the Duresio-Eurasian forces, though the resistance continued widespread operations despite the insistence of the NZDF that they were unconnected to the resistance leadership. Eurasia responded by instituting harsh curfews and bringing in veteran garrison legions from their far-eastern colonies who brutally cracked down on the rebels, leading neutral observers such as Achaean Morea to assert that both sides were blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement.

The resistance activities culminated in the Charlesville Uprising, in which almost 10,000 resistance members attempted to drive Eurasian forces from the city of Coopersville in mideastern New Zealand. Eurasia responded by deploying the Legio XX Atra Custodiatrix (Eurasian: Twentieth Black-Heart Guards), who quelled the uprising but whose brutal methods lead to a near-breakdown of the peace talks. After this, the resistance largely ceased offensive operations.

Thanks to the intervention of Tarajani, Morean, and Antanaresian, diplomacy, a peace conference was organized in Velikogovolka, under the auspices of the UN Secretary General, in order to resolve the conflict. At first, however, the peace conference itself was nearly a failure, as both the Eurasian and Duresians pointedly stalled and delayed proceedings while the New Zealanders refused to negotiate. The conference ultimately ended with Eurasia and Duresia agreeing to withdraw, with the last Eurasian soldiers leaving New Zealand on March 19th, 2017.

The war saw much of New Zealand utterly destroyed, with much of its critical infrastructure completely ruined. The Duresio-Eurasian troops also engaged in widespread looting, as did the Resistance members, leaving the beleaguered populace materially displaced. President Garagen was left as a near-universally despised figure internationally, while the New Zealander people viewed him both as the man who saved their country from foreign occupation but also whose imperialist ambitions largely caused the destructive war in the first place. The war has, according to most analysts, spelled the end of President Garagen's imperial ambitions, with Eurasia and Duresia, the dominant world superpowers, sending the clear message that further expansion will not be tolerated. On the other side, however, paradoxically Garagen obtained the sympathy of other countries (namely Antanares and Morea, but also New Tarajan's new government): as a result, the NZ president was able to lead a renewed diplomatic activity in the aftermath of the war, leading to the signature of stronger agreements and alliances, particularly with New Tarajan, which rapidly became the No. 1 partner of the Social Democracy.

The economic impact of the war was severe, and the New Zealander economy has yet to fully recover. Internationally, the war caused turmoil in world markets, with the Eindhoven Stock Index falling and climbing wildly in response to the turns-in-fortune that the war brought both sides. Overall, it was economically profitable for Eurasia and Duresia, who experience significant increases in their economic productivity due to war production, while New Zealand's industrial might was glutted by bombing and coalition reprisals. Reconstruction efforts, however, have been greatly speeded up by the increasing arrival of massive Tarajani capitals, part of a wider effort by both New Tarajan and New Zealand to build a stronger Social Democracy in a safer political environment.