The War of 1850

## Overview

**The war of 1850 (also called the Great Burshian war, or simply "the war with Bursha") was a major military and trade conflict fought from March 3rd 1850 to October 30th 1858 between The Kingdom of Edordeyah and The Holy Empire of Bursha. The economic conflict had started in 1848 when Edomeyah began heavily restricting Burshian access to transislandic trade routes. This culminated in 1849, when Edomeyah began fully blocking all trade from Bursha, causing heavy damage to their economy. Eventually, Bursha sent traders re-enforced by soldiers to force the trade through. This led to the first armed conflict of the war, between the Burshian troops/caravan guards, and the Edomic troops stationed at the trade checkpoint at Fort Gashr.**

## Background: 1798-1849

**Tensions had been rising between Bursha and Edordeyah for just over 50 years before the war broke out, particularly about the Burshian Empire's ruthless expansion and subjugation of its conquered peoples. Over the decades, the two powers often found themselves increasingly on opposing sides during conflicts, especially when Bursha's military expansion ramped up in the 1760s. Tensions first came to a head during Bursha's first invasion of Tereiz**

### The First invasion of Tereiz: 1798-1799

**After finishing their conquest of the Hefnr plateau in 1791 with the fall of Slavē and the conquering of the Avic kingdoms, the Holy Empire of Bursha began to set their sights on more land to take. This led to their first attempt at annexing the neighboring kingdom of Tereiz. On the night of September 20 1798, Burshian troops stationed near the border were attacked in an ambush by Tereizian militants, an attack possibly stanged by the Burshian government to be used as an excuse to invade. After the attack, before the Tereizian government had even been told what happened, troops quickly mobilized to march on Kranek. At 9:00 am on September 22, less than 48 hours after the initial attack and only 6 hours after the Tereizian government was informed war had been declared, 5,000 Burshian troops marched across the border, encountering little resistance. The Burshian military had hoped and planned that the Tereizians wouldn't respond quickly or substantially enough, allowing the Burshian troops to march and capture the capital city of Kranek within the month. This plan was quickly foiled when they encountered major resistance from both Tereizian military and civilians at the city of Zualston. The Edordians were deeply offended by Bursha's sudden attack of their longtime ally Tereiz, but neither the government nor the people were sure Edordeyah was ready for a war, so they chose to stay out of the situation for the time being. The Burshian advance was halted, and the war quickly dragged to a stalemate. After 3 weeks of fighting, the Tereizians sent word to Edordeyah asking for reinforcements and support against the Burshian advance. The Edordians were still hesitant however, so they offered to impose sanctions on Bursha, as well as sending ammunition to the Tereizian militant forces. It wouldn't be until June, about 8 months later, that Edordeyah would send any military assistance to Tereiz. However, the assistance they provided was very limited. It's estimated that only 250 Edomic troops actually served in Tereiz, and Edordeyah only suffered around 12-25 casualties. No matter how little they contributed, the decision to send in any troops at all, as well as the numerous sanctions and embargoes were seen by Bursha as Edordeyah illegally meddling in Burshian business. From this point on, tensions between Bursha and Edordeyah would continue to grow. On November 13th of 1799, just over a year after the war's beginning, Bursha would sign a peace treaty with Tereiz, granting war reparations and some Tereizian territory.**

### The Second Invasion of Tereiz: 1812-1814

**In 1812, Bursha would launch a second surprise invasion into Tereiz, with much more success than the first. On the morning of April 7, without any warning, over 10000 Burshian troops spread across the Tereizian border began marching in and capturing villages and property. The Tereizians were caught entirely by surprise, and struggled to defend themselves. The rest of Dé Gra was shocked by the sudden invasion, and Edordeyah in particular was enraged. They found the invasion of their close ally Tereiz with no basis or justification offensive and immoral, and quickly began preparing support for Tereiz. On April 10th, Edordeyah issued Bursha an official ultimatum, declaring that they had exactly 10 weeks to either cease fire and pull troops from Tereiz, or provide what they called "reasonable justification" for the invasion. If one of these terms was not met within 5 weeks, then economic sanctions and embargoes would be placed on Bursha, and if these terms were unmet within 10 weeks, then full Edordian military support would be sent into Tereiz. The Tereizians were confused and angered that they gave the Burshians so much time to invade, and they pleaded with Edordeyah to change the terms and provide troops now, but Edordeyah held firm, only providing Tereiz economic assistance. Bursha chose to simply ignore the ultimatum. Within 6 weeks, Burshian forces had swept through southern Tereiz, capturing most of the Goshific regions, including the Gosheif capital of Gamalsud. Though Tereizian forces were gathering in more substantial numbers, they were still no match for the Burshian forces massively outnumbering them. on June 19th, exactly 10 weeks after the ultimatum was issued, 4,000 Edomic troops marched into Tereiz to help the defence. Though the military assistance definitely pushed the Burshians back, it was ultimately a failure, and after 2 years, Tereiz sued for peace, ceding much but not all of their territory to Bursha. Tereiz criticized Edordeyah for not providing more military support, and Bursha was angered they had gotten involved at all. Edordeyah felt that they had done well to not increase tensions with Bursha, but they felt disappointed they had let Bursha take most of Tereiz.**

### The Invasion of Bragatta/Lahvernetic Quiet War: 1827

**Since 1788, Bragatta had been under the control of the Kingdom of Lahvernet, but a major rebellion had sparked in 1824. The Bragattans were fighting fiercely to regain their autonomy from the Lahvernetic throne, but they had been stuck in an on and off stalemate for almost 3 years. Bragatta was a major point of trade for Europe, and was thus incredibly rich, and once enough of the rich nobles had turned to the rebellion, there was a massive turning point. In 1827, the Bragattan government sent the Edordian war department an offer. They offered Edordeyah 120,000 Edordian shettals (approx. 18 million modern usd) to help them in their rebellion by invading the island and claiming it from Lahvernet. Edordeyah quickly accepted and launched an invasion, quickly removing the exhausted Lahvernetic forces from the island with little resistance. This event is known as the Lahvernetic Quiet War, due to the very small amount of actual combat. It's been estimated that only a total of 32 guns were fired during the 4 week liberation. Lahvernet saw any more attempts to reclaim Bragatta as a waste of time and resources, as they had already sunk tons of men and money into putting down the numerous Bragattan rebellions over the years, and so they chose to just let the island reclaim their independence. Bursha found the invasion to be a gross breaching of international trust, and feared that if they could scrounge up enough money, rebellions throughout the empire could simply pay Edordeyah or any other nation to liberate them. Bursha's distrust and disdain for Edordeyah only grew after this, and they became increasingly hostile and protective of their territory and trade.**

### Burshian Support of Andrew Jackson: 1830

**When the Indian Removal Act was signed by American president Andrew Jackson on May 28th, 1830, Edordeyah was horrified. They felt it was a horrible example of unfettered imperialism, and strongly discouraged the US from going through with it. However, Bursha found the act to be a commendable show of authority. When commenting on the act, Burshian foreign policy minister Vaas Kūdsola famously stated, "I support and commend any nation, state, or clan in rule, especially one as large and newly dominant as this [the United States], that takes up its own power to exercise authority over the land it controls. Even more so, a nation with the grace to not simply round up and execute those it doesn't desire, but to offer a peaceful accord of land trade. It shows to me this new nation holding much of the same grace as my own when it comes to the others around us, offering either peaceful assimilation, or peaceful expulsion from the land." This was not the first and certainly not the last time Bursha and Edordeyah would disagree on the policy of America and many other nations. This diversion of opinion led relations between Bursha and Edordeyah to further break down.**

### The Blockade of Kērēkaaml: 1839-1849

**In mid 1843, in an attempt to gain more leverage over Degroic trade, Bursha invaded and seized the economically important island of Kērēkaaml in the western bay of Kērēkaaml. Being the largest and most populated island in the bay, Kērēkaaml was very important to trade. In 1766, Kērēkaaml had purchased its independence from the Medekafa of Zaatr, signing an agreement called "at volēdmaar'Has'slavē" (the Accord at Slavē) which secured Kērēkaaml's independence, and ensured they would continue to trade with the nations of Dé Gra indiscriminately. In return, the nations around them would not interfere with their government, and would provide protection in the event of their invasion. In 1839, the people of Kērēkaaml, being mostly Burofuut speaking ethnic Savarians, were angered by Bursha's increasingly harsh and discriminatory treatment of the Savarian people in their territory. In response, Kērēkaaml began limiting trade to Bursha and urged other nations around them to do the same. This embargo went on for about 4 years, blocking Bursha from valuable trade with the Americas, though Bursha didn't lose out on many resources from this due to their large internal production industries. However, this limiting and outright blocking of Burshian did lose Bursha a lot of money as they were unable to export much of their products overseas. Eventually, in an attempt to sell off their overabundance of product, the Burshians sent a landing force to Kērēkaaml to force trade through on June 30th, 1843. Initially, other nations (specifically Zaatr and Edordeyah) did not know this invasion had happened as Bursha quickly took over and isolated the island, preventing any information from leaving. They quickly paid and/or silenced and incoming or outgoing merchants in order to keep secret. Bursha was initially very careful about not interfering with the trade of other countries to make sure no one found out they had violated the at volēdmaar'Has'slavē, but eventually, news escaped the island. In January of 1844, the Zaatrian minister of finance and trade, Harold Hrrgan, was looking over annual trade receipts from Kērēkaaml when he noticed that there were records of purchases from the Burshian military. Harold found this strange, and decided to personally investigate, discovering that Bursha had seized control of the island. Bursha initially claimed that they just wanted their trade protected, and they wouldn't interfere with anything incoming or outgoing from the island. Edordeyah and Zaatr initially didn't do much, not wanting to start a war with Bursha, but over the years, Bursha continually used their control of Kērēkaaml as leverage to get their way. Most notably, in 1847, Bursha seized Zaatrian shipments of guns to give to their own army. When Zaatr contacted them demanding either the return of the guns or compensation, Bursha pressured the Kērēkaaml government to threaten sanctions if they didn't drop the matter. Bursha continued to leverage more and more power over Kērēkaaml, to the disdain of Edordeyah. They felt it was a blatant trespass of the at volēdmaar'Has'slavē, and demanded Bursha leave the island several times. They were ignored, and Edordeyah eventually decided to take action against them. In 1848, Edordeyah began refusing passage for Burshian traders trying to move north. Zaatr had already blocked Burshian sea trade, so the land route through Edordeyah was the easiest way north to the Lhavren. Bursha was offended by this, and continued to push more through, more and more aggressively. Eventually in 1849, Bursha began paying and working with smugglers, bandits, and pirates to get the trade through to the north. This eventually culminated with Edordeyah ordering its main trade checkpoint, Fort Gashr, to deny all Burshian traders entry in November of 1849.**