1855 Invasion of Ridwan

The **1855 Invasion of Ridwan** was the invasion of the Kingdom of Ridwan by the Khiadamese Empire, led by Sultan Khahleen in 1855. It was the climax of Khahleen's efforts to rebuild the Khiadamese Empire in the first half of the 19th century after losing a signifigant amount of its territory and power to Lanodola and Jadmazar in the late 18th century.

## Background

Ridwan was one of the only Pan-Carallian states to maintain independence from the Sahirean and Khiadamese Empires during their heights in the 1500s and 1700s. Several invasions had been attempted before but were fought off by the Ridwani. After Jadmazar turned against Khiadam, ending the Golden Age of Khiadam in the late 1700s, Sultan Khahleen came to power in 1820 and began rebuilding the empire. After taking over the Upper Karmine Basin states of Butatlu, Samwon, and Shakhora, Khahleen shifted his attention to Ridwan. Taking Ridwan would be one of the greatest achievements in Khiadamese and Sahirean history. Khahleen, who was beginning to reach old age and would soon pass, felt that Ridwan would be his crowning achievement and had been building up to it for his entire reign as Sultan.

While he determined that Khiadam had the stability, manpower, and material for a successful yet costly invasion, he still lacked a justification for war. To remedy this, Khahleen, in cooperation with the Nezura Caravan League, whom were rivals with the Ridwani Karris Caravan League and stood to gain power if Karris was disbanded. In early 1854, Khahleen began meeting with the Nezura Chairman, Aboura Ag'Makhia, to plan a series of false flag attacks on several of Nezura's caravans routes.

## False Flag Caravan Attacks

On November 23rd, 1854, roughly 3,000 fighters wearing Karris and Ridwani identifying uniforms secretly employed by Nezura launched raids from the direction of the Ridwani border onto caravan routes running between the cities of Mussaya, Yasoupur, and Rustar, all cities near the Ridwani border. The secret force fought against both the Nezura private army units and Khiadamese army units and the overall raid lasted about 5 hours. The attacks primarily targeted the military units and tended to avoid destroying trade assets such as camels, elephants, civilian caravaneers, etc, however there was still some destruction to sell the authenticity of the attacks. By the time the attacks ended at noon, roughly 2,300 Khiadamese soldiers were killed and 1,600 Nezura soldiers, with 313 civilian deaths. Any secret fighters who were captured were executed by Nezura or Khiadamese officers who received special orders to do so in order to prevent any leaking of the conspiracy. After the battle, the surviving fighters were taken through secret paths safely back to Nezura without being spotted, where they were all killed and their payments voided. By the end of the day, over 7,000 were left dead by the operation. Most of the fighters hired by Nezura were Jadmazar veterans who had been secretly recruited and trafficked to Khiadam using the Nezura caravan routes.

In the days following the attack, the Sahirean government and Nezura leadership called for an immediate invasion of Ridwan to "disarm the Karris Caravan League" while the Ridwani government and Karris leadership vehemently denied any involvement. Initially, Khahleen feigned a modest, diplomatic solution, offering to meet several times with the Ridwani King, Kazem Mosafari, to discuss a solution. Mosafari refused the offers unless the meeting was held in relatively neutral Jadmazar and was declined for their "treachery". While the sham negotiations were ongoing, a cell of the Ridwani state terrorist organization, the Qadirma, thought a war had already started between Ridwan and the Nezura Caravan League, so on November 30th independently conducted a bombing of the Nezura Caravan League's headquarters in Nezura, destroying a large portion of the building and killing 53. While Khahleen didn't expect it, he was more than thrilled to receive even further justification. On November 31st, Khahleen announced the mobilization of the Khiadamese army against Ridwan and gave Mosafari an ultimatum: Hand over the leadership of the Karris Caravan League to the Khiadamese army by the beginning of Rabi Al-Thani on December 21st, 1854.