Third Duscadorian-Sevician War

The **Third Duscadorian-Sevician War** (707 - 708 A.S.) was an offensive war launched in three separate campaigns by Duscador against the Empire of Sevicia in late 707 A.S. The war was the culmination of more than three years of tensions between the two states, with conflicts and skirmishes such as the Feather Tree Massacre serving as impetus for the Duscadorian declaration of war. War began on the 26th day of Tullena IV, 707 A.S, and was ended in two parts; the Treaty of Candar ended the Duscadorian-Sevician war on the 9th of Saturna I, 708 A.S., and the war proper was ended thirteen days later on the 21st with the Treaty of Hobury, between Duscador and the newly sovereign Duchy of Hobury.

The war began when Aigo Tayne, in his third term as Presidian of Duscador, sensed weakness along the southern Sevician border and, eager to regain ground lost a decade earlier in the second war, called an emergency council meeting to chair a vote regarding offensive action. War was declared by Duscador on the 26th of Tullena IV, with the first major battle, the Battle of Flatbush Hill, commencing six weeks later. Early Sevician losses were heavy; Imperator Kyos had not deemed the threat of war with Duscador a serious possibility, and pressing internal conflicts in the north had temporarily distracted Sevician interests.

Duscadorian progress was swift and effective, with Duscadorian forces reaching as far north as Candar by late in the year. The turning point came in early Tullena I, 708 A.S., where Sevician forces under the joint command of Garrahan Gallus and Deoca Bailo marched from the River Ostar to west of Candar. Presidian Tayne, wary of a potential Sevician counter-offensive along the Candar Line, broke the siege of the city and ordered a full-scale retreat.

In terms of number of confirmed casualties, it was the single bloodiest conflict on the continent since the Anaean Wars some forty years prior. Marek Kyos would use Sevicia's re-established hegemony over the continent to wage a series of small-scale wars and conflicts in the mid-continent over the next few years - see the Chrysanthemum Wars - while Duscadorian soft power waned. Suffering a significant loss of manpower and disillusioned with the possibility of further conflicts, a party of anti-Tayne partisans took hold of the central council house in the city of Tyno and began a four-year rebellion against the central government of Duscador, known commonly as the Blue Shirts Crisis.

## Background

Tensions between Sevicia and Duscador had been brewing for years, following the Second Duscadorian-Sevician War of 691-697 A.S, which ended with the annexation of 80 miles of land south of Candar. A series of minor engagements and skirmishes between border forces had occurred years earlier, resulting in minimal, but still notable, losses on both sides of the divide. The Feather Tree Massacre, in which four Sevician farmers were killed over a land dispute and Sevician militiamen killed 31 Duscadorians in retaliation, provided the necessary diplomatic *casus belli* for Duscadorian Presidian Aigo Tayne to call a council meeting. Council was convened on the 22nd of Tullena IV and was concluded 48 hours later, with the council voting 82 to 38 in favour of miltary intervention.

Armament on the Duscadorian side was short and swift. A notorious warhawk, Tayne had pursued a hardline policy of military accelerationism since the beginning of his reign as Presidian, which included a significant expansion of Duscadorian military capacity and capital funding. Sevician armament was by comparison much more laboured. A number of notable internal events, such as the Enis River Incident and the Enerin Uprising of 706 A.S, had stunted plans for potential expansion westward, and Marek Kyos saw Duscador as little threat, with no significant chance of any sort of conflict in the immediate future. Reaction to the Duscadorian declaration of war was initially slow, with conflicting reports in the region south of Candar leading to a delay in mustering reinforcements.

## Initial Duscadorian Offensive

The Duscadorian offensive campaign was swift and calculated. Presidian Tayne believed a decisive victory on three separate fronts would bring Sevicia to the diplomacy table quickly, believing the war would be won by early the next year. On the 2nd of Mandera I, 707 A.S., the first Duscadorian troops crossed the River Placid, some 200 miles south of Candar. Due to bad weather and logistical troubles, troop movements were not reported by Sevician scouts until almost three weeks later. By the second week of that month, the Duscadorians had established what Tayne and overall Commander of the Armies Dior Hamilco had termed the Candar Line, a defensive line of operations approximately 100 miles south of Candar, and running for over 200 miles to both the east and west. Early plans to advance on Candar by the third week of the month had been scrapped, owing to poor weather conditions and an inability to properly resupply an army of such size. Instead, the offensive on the northern front was pushed back two weeks.

### Early success

The northern advance finally came to a halt on the 3rd of Mandera II, at the foot of the Flatbush Hills, 65 miles south of Candar. The hilly terrain provided natural cover from the elements and wide sweeping plains made perfect fit for a pitched battle. Scouts reported that Sevician forces had camped three miles to the north. Duscadorian forces under Tayne and Hamilco, among others, number approximately 162,000, vastly outnumbering the 12,000 Sevician regulars, split into two legions, under the command of Yoric Clay and Thorin Audell. Poor reconnaisance by Sevician scouts led Clay and Audell to believe the advancing Duscadorian force was significantly smaller than it actually was, and on the 5th of Mandera II, 48 hours after initially making camp, the two armies came to blows within the grassy Flatbush Hills. Fighting ensued for most of the day, with significant losses on both sides, before the left flank of the Sevician forces buckled and began to retreat. By the end of the fighting, Duscadorian losses numbered triple that of their Sevician opposition, but nevertheless had broken through the Sevician line.

### Weather troubles to the east

The Army of the East, under the command of Aderbal and Balcazar Balco, ran into similar weather issues. The harsher bogs and marshland waters of the eastern territories proved difficult for horses to traverse, and the advance was delayed a further week. On the 27th of Mandera I, scouts reported a Sevician counter-force amassing not far from the banks of Lake Lanar, some 70 miles southeast of the city of Candar proper. Seeking an opportunity to strike a strong early blow to the Sevician forces, Aderbal ordered the troops under his command to break camp and advance for Lake Lanar. The two armies met on the 6th of Mandera II. Most of the 7000 Sevicians were ten-year veterans, but with a significant numerical advantage, and buoyed by news of the main army's advance to the west, Aderbal began preparations for battle. The two forces clashed a mile from the banks of Lake Lanar. Duscadorian troops outnumbered their Sevician opponents six to one, with an advantage in guns of 400 to 30. Despite this, the veteran troops under Sevician general Noam Enwood managed to hold out for most of the day of the 10th of the month, inflicting heavy casualties. Rain in the night had loosened the earth, and mud became a big issue on both sides. General Enwood issued a full-scale retreat command late in the evening, with Duscadorian forces unable to pursue due to poor visibility in the rapidly darkening day.

### Advance on Grace

Perhaps the most important early skirmish in the war came under Philoshir Philoco, commander of the Army of the West. With numbers amassed to almost 70,000, the western bulk of the Duscadorian forces advanced on the semi-autonomous vassal state of Grace. The Duchy of Grace had long since been a tributary state of the Sevician Empire, and marked an important strategic staging point for the western arm of the Duscadorian campaign. Resistance was met some fifteen miles south of the city in the form of three Sevician legions, numbering some 18,000 men, and a few thousand conscripts and militiamen from Grace, under the joint command of general Enas Haine. The two sides fought in a pitched battle over three days, from the 12th-14th of Mandera II.

The weather was clear and the temperature was moderate, unlike the harsher conditions to the east, and casualties on both sides were roughly even. Neither side could gain a significant enough advantage until a heavy shelling campaign by the Duscadorian guns on the third day broke through the right flank of the Sevician forces, leading to a full-scale retreat. Losses were heavier for the Duchy of Grace; of the 3000 conscripts fielded, more than 90% were either dead, wounded, or captured within 72 hours. Facing the prospect of near-definite loss, Lady Ester II surrendered the Duchy of Grace to Duscador. General Enas Haine had been rallying the right flank when the Duscadorian bombardment had begun, and in the ensuing chaos was surrounded and captured. He spent three months as a prisoner of Duscador, ultimately succumbing to wounds sustained in the battle on the 2nd of Saturna II, 707 A.S. Eight days after the battle, on the 22nd of Mandera II, Duscadorian forces walked into the city of Grace to no resistance.

## Second Offensive Phase

Following three decisive defeats in the field and the loss of ground to the south, Sevician public perception of the war seemed to be a desire to reclaim lost ground. Imperator Kyos immediately began the raising of new legions, drawing on both volunteers and conscripts from Maenaea, Meirum, Morosea, and Ostar, among other cities, for a new 'grand army,' to be headed by general Eris Farlan. To bolster recruitment numbers, a monthly stipend of fifty silver crowns was promised for all new volunteers, sixty crowns for regulars of between six months and five years' experience, and seventy-five crowns for veterans with more than five years' experience. The result was more than 250,000 registered volunteers within a three-week period, many of whom had already served in the military before. To counter the rapidly advancing Duscadorian forces, the 3rd Legion Group was dispatched from Merissa under the command of Garrahan Gallus, with strict instructions to delay the advancing force no matter the cost.

### At the Crossroads

The Sevician forces under Gallus met the advancing Duscadorian forces a few miles south of the Crossroads, a forked road connecting Candar in the north with Adanaea in the east and Grace in the west, on the 7th of Saturna I, 707 A.S., three and a half months after the onset of war. Initial reports both from scouts and from the Sevician defeat at Flatbush Hills put the estimated Duscadorian numbers at between 45,000 and 60,000; in truth, the actual force numbered close to 145,000, including 1000 heavy guns. Despite being outnumbered almost four to one, Gallus - bolstered by the regrouped forces of Yoric Clay and Thorin Audell - made a stand at the Crossroads. Battle was waged for more than sixteen hours on the 11th of Saturna I. A tactical bombardment campaign of the reserve lines fractured the Duscardorian forces and halted the use of most of their heavy cannons, but a second assault by generals Miro and Mago Malcar succeeded in splintering the Sevician lines late in the day. By nightfall the battle had claimed more than 40,000, either dead, wounded, or captured, in total. The following morning, under the cover of heavy cannonfire shelling, Gallus ordered the total retreat of Sevician forces to Candar.

### Dasat in the east

Despite the challenges of the awful and uncommon Mandera weather, Aderbal seized upon his victory at Lake Lanar and ordered the pursuit of the Sevician forces. Noam Enwood, general of a bruised Sevician unit of less than 3000 regulars, found sanctuary a week later at the fortress town of Dasat. Built centuries earlier as a military fortress at the foot of the Riari Mountains, Dasat could only be accessed from the enormous front gates, built into three separate walls. The harsh terrain turned Dasat into one of the most terrible events of the war; Duscadorian general Balcazar Balco had expected the siege to last six weeks. Instead, the two remained at an impasse for more than a year. See the Siege of Dasat for more.

### Siege of Candar

Presidian Tayne pushed the advantage his forces had won at Flatbush Hills and the Crossroads and continued the northern advance to Candar. Three weeks after the victory at the Crossroads, Duscadorian forces arrived at the southern outskirts of the city of Candar. A border city for more than a hundred years, Candar had long been a bastion of high strategic importance for the Sevician Empire. Breaching the city walls proved difficult; a first attempt on the 2nd of Saturna II, under the cover of darkness, ended without success. A second attempt a month later proved equally fruitless. Unbeknownst to Presidian Tayne and his generals, Garrahan Gallus had left the defense of Candar to a relative skeleton crew of two legions, approximately 12,000 men, and had marched west instead. Despite overwhelming numerial superiority, three further attempts at breaching the city's walls - two by front attack and one via a system of tunnels under the city - ended in disaster.

Hand-to-hand fighting and pitched siege attempts simmered quickly, moving instead to a steady bombardment of the city from more than 800 heavy guns. Between the 26th of Saturna II and the 28th of Saturna III, Candar was shelled more than 60 times, for 38 straight days. More than a quarter of a million cannonballs were shot over the walls of Candar, after initial attempts to destroy the walls themselves proved to be entirely ineffectual. Despite continued attempts to wear down the Sevician resolve, the garrison of Candar remained strong. Tayne and his generals suffered from the same shortsightedness as general Aderbal at Dasat; the city had food reserves to last more than a year, and by the end of Saturna IV it was clear that the siege was not going to be over by the end of the year. Duscadorian advances came to a halt for more than five months, which proved to be a crucial turning point in the course of the war.

## Collapse of the Western Campaign

### Grace Uprising

Also known as the 66 Day Uprising, the revolt began on the 12th of Saturna III, when Sevician partisans and patriots of the Grace Home Army, including Duke Elialtes and Lady Ester II herself, assaulted a factory north of the city gates, captured two of the six Duscadorian guns left behind, and launched a full-scale battle within the walls of the city itself. The Army of the West had departed for the north more than a month previous, leaving behind a relatively small garrison of about 2500 men under the command of majors Adonibal and Sakarbal. The Grace Uprising became one of the most fiercely fought theatres of the war. Fighting raged within the city for 66 straight days, stopping only rarely. Grace and Sevician soldiers advanced street by street, block by block, sometimes battling for days on end over single houses, or even single floors. Fighting devolved into bitter hand-to-hand combat. Houses were stripped and converted into makeshift fortresses and the majority of the Duscadorian garrison - who had initially been caught off guard by the revolt - concentrated their defense in the north of the city. By the 15th of Tullena I, 708 A.S., Grace forces had captured all six heavy guns and had captured or killed almost the entire garrison. The remaining Duscadorian forces, vastly outnumbered and outarmed, escaped through a narrow passageway to the north. The 66 Day Uprising marked the first successful city-wide revolt in Sevicia in more than fifty years.

### Turning the Tide

The Sevician response to the western campaign was decisive and effective. Imperator Kyos dispatched nine legions under the command of general Harold Byne to combat the advancing Duscadorian force. Philoshir Philoco departed from Grace at the beginning of Saturna I and was met some 75 miles north by a smaller force led by generals Gorigan Alco and Mago Malcar, with instructions to advance and capture the strategically important city of Fort August. Scouts on both sides reported significant numbers, and a pitched battle was inevitable. On the 19th of Saturna III, hours after learning of the revolt in Grace, Philoshir Philoco led a force of almost 60,000 into battle against nine Sevician legions to the south of the town of Alasia. Fighting was brutal and exhausting over three days, with battalions rotating out every six or eight hours. By the third day the slaughter was general, with fighting having devolved to skirmishes in and around bombed-out craters and amidst cannonfire. A cease to the fighting was called on the night of the 22nd, after more than 60 hours of combat.

Duscadorian scouts reported to general Malcar that a second Sevician army of approximately 5000 men was approaching from the east. Though it was more than 30 miles away, and early reports showed no indication of it being a relief force, generals Malcar and Alco decided against continuing the battle. Fearing the worst, they ordered a full retreat under the cover of darkness. An unofficial ceasefire remained in effect for roughly six weeks before general Philoco was put in command of an expeditionary force of 8000 troops and instructed to meet the second Sevician relief army, some fifteen miles to the southeast.

Early scouting reports proved unfortunately incorrect. The reported figured of 5000 Sevicians was in fact 16,000, under the command of general Alexander Mayam. A decorated war hero in Sevicia, Mayam had been called upon to lead a western force in counter-offensive and break through the Candar Line. Fighting ended quickly and decisively, with Mayam's forces breaking through the centre of Philoco's expeditionary dispatch and routing them from the field on the 7th of Tullena I, 708 A.S., along the crest of Poplar Ridge. Philoco himself was killed in the mayhem, and his body was found and presented to Mayam. After an initial offer to return the body to Duscadorian forces in the west was ignored, Philoco was buried with full state honours on the 9th of Tullena I, two miles from where he had perished.

## The Counter-Offensive

### Renan Demarian's breakthrough

Tayne and the Duscadorian forces broke off the siege of Candar early in the second month of Tullena, 708 A.S., after five and a half months, wary of encirclement from incoming Sevician reinforcements from the west. The failure to take Candar marked a key turning point in the war, and the Sevician reaction was swift. General Renan Demarian, accompanied by forces from the nearby semi-autonomous duchies of Belisar and Thume, led a relief force of almost 40,000 men from the northwest. Scouts reported the advancing force to Presidian Tayne, who had retreated 50 miles closer the Candar Line to regroup. Tayne personally led a force of 50,000 west to meet the oncoming Sevician force in the field, leaving the bulk of the Duscadorian army under the command of Harubal and Miro. The two forces met at the foot of Candar Valley on the 4th of Tullena III, 30 miles southwest of Candar proper. Two days later, the two armies fought a brutal and bloody pitched battle within the valley.

The day of the battle was shrouded in a thick fog and it had been raining all morning. Tayne appointed command of the centre of the army to Mago Malcar, who launched an immediate offensive against the main Sevician line. The dismal weather conditions made combat hard, and Renan Demarian's veteran Ironsides legion managed to hold the line while Demarian - protected by the heavy fog cover - launched a cavalry charge that succeeded in collapsing the Duscadorian right flank. By late evening the fighting had ceased and the Duscadorian forces, under Presidian Tayne's direct command, began a hasty retreat.

### Rose Fields

The bloodiest battle of the war came barely a month after the Battle of Candar Valley. The third and fourth legion groups from the north had finally arrived at Candar late in the month of Tullena III, and a combined force of more than 160,000 men - the largest of the war - under the command of Garrahan Gallus, began a counter-offensive along the Candar Line. Still wounded from a fresh defeat at Candar Valley, the Duscadorian forces were reeling, but maintained a strong fortified position, dug in to the south of the Rose Fields, 60 miles south of Candar. To the aid of Duscador was the Wolverines Battalion, a mercenary company numbering some 2000 strong under the command of Asgar Augustus. The Duscadorian forces entrenched north of the Candar Line numbered over 100,000, but significantly less than the Sevician counter-offensive. On the 8th and 9th days of Tullena IV, the war's most infamous battle was fought across the Rose Fields.

Despite their numerical inferiority, the Duscadorian forces had the advantage of terrain. Heavy shelling began almost immediately and continued throughout most of the first day. Advancing infantry were met with a wall of cannonfire that left the fields craterered out and made pitched warfare almost impossible. Across 40 hours of fighting some 80,000 - almost half - of the entire Sevician force was either killed or wounded, and almost 50,000 Duscadorians. The battle was an astonishing loss of life on both sides, and after the end of the second day, despite a tactical victory in the field, Presidian Tayne called for a full-scale retreat along the Candar Line, wary of the potential of a second Sevician attack from the northwest cutting them off from retreat.

### August Bridge

The Sevician counter-offensive was launched in two locations simultaneously. On the 9th of Tullena IV, the remnants of the routed Duscadorian Army of the West, under Mago Malcar and Gorigan Alco, fought a massive Sevician army of almost 90,000 men, including auxiliaries, at August Bridge. Aware that a retreat to Grace was now impossible as the city had been retaken, Malcar launched a preemptive strike on the Sevician forces. The initial attack was a surprising success, breaking the Sevician line, but the Sevician reserves soon regrouped and fought back. In the single bloodiest day of the war, almost 70,000 were killed or wounded - 27,000 Duscadorians and 40,000 Sevicians - nearly 3000 Duscadorians were captured, and more than 400 heavy guns were destroyed or dismantled. Mago Malcar was killed in battle by a stray arrow, and the Duscadorian main army was routed from the field. In a day that marked the final major pitched battle of the war, the Duscadorian western army collapsed and the survivors were added to the Central Army along the Candar Line.

## Final Assault

### Peatwater Marsh

While the western and central Duscadorian offensives had been repelled, the Army of the East remained somewhat stronger. A force of 7000 under general Hamaril had been dispatched from the Central Army with orders to capture the city of Adanaea, an important strategic staging point for attacks to either the west (Candar) or the north. They were met some 40 miles south of Adanaea by Renan Demarian with his Ironsides legion and a force of local auxiliaries. On the 17th of Tullena IV, despite being outnumbered by almost 3000 men, Renan Demarian routed the Duscadorian force at Peatwater Marsh. It was the final Duscadorian offensive of the war and marked the end of Duscadorian operations in southern Sevicia for more than three months.

### The Battle of Brenner's Ford

The final battle of the war came three months later at Brenner's Ford, 25 miles southwest of Dasat. Defeated during the siege of Dasat and abandoned by the central Duscadorian Army, generals Aderbal and Balcazar Balco still held command of a force of over 20,000 men and 400 heavy guns. On the morning of the 22nd of Mandera III, they launched the final assault of the war, marching across Brenner's Ford to meet the unsuspecting Sevician forces under the command of Trys Osman and Renan Demarian where they were camped some three or four miles north.

The attack, however, proved incredibly unfortunate; bad weather and poor visibility meant that scout reports of the area were inaccurate at best, and later that morning Sevician cavalry forces under direct command of general Osman attacked from the hills to the west. Separated by the thick, marshy water of Brenner's Ford and unable to see in the poor conditions, the Duscadorian forces panicked and fled. Thousands drowned and many more either disappeared or were trampled to death. Both generals Aderbal and Balco were killed in the chaos. The victory was the last of the war, before a peace deal was reached just three weeks later.

## Outcome and Aftermath

### Treaty of Candar

By the middle of 708 A.S., Tayne's offensive campaign had fallen out of favour with the Duscadorian council, and the prospect of reinforcements in any sort of significant numbers was slim to none. After much deliberation with both the Duscadorian high command the council, Presidian Tayne called for peace. An official peace treaty was signed between Sevicia and Duscador on the 9th of Saturna I, at a meeting just north of the Candar Line. In attendance were Presidian Tayne, Harubal, Eris Farlan, and Alexander Mayam, among others. The conditions of the treaty handed over the province of Lanar to Imperial Sevicia and recognised the Duchy of Hobury, a Duscadorian semi-autonomous zone, as an independent sovereign nation. The treaty was made official the day following.

### Treaty of Hobury

The final act of the war was a separate treaty between Duscador and the Duchy of Hobury, signed and put into effect on the 21st of Saturna I. In attendance at the meeting were general Harubal of the Duscadorian army and Duchess Ariadne Amilca, son of Duke Amilco II, of Hobury. Alexander Mayam was also in attendance. The treaty recognised the sovereignty of Hobury as an independent city state for the first time in more than two centuries. Damages and reparations amounting to fifty talents of gold were agreed to be paid to the Duchy of Hobury over a five-year period.

### Blue Shirts Crisis

The Duscadorian army under Presidian Tayne left Sevician territory nine days later, on the final day of the month. In the city of Redforest, a long-standing anti-Tayne partisan group calling themselves the Blue Shirts used the army's absence as an opportunity and staged an uprising that took hold of the council house and government buildings. It led to a four-year long internal crisis, where units loyal to the Blue Shirts fought a guerilla war against forces loyal to Presidian Tayne for control of Duscador. The crisis brought Duscador to its knees, with some 80,000 civilians being caught in the conflict.