Retgard

## History

### Former Rulers

Katesia Ioannidis (Mayor from 1943-46)Alexandros Pachis (Party Secretary from 1927-60)

### Former Owners

Principality of Novo Gavia

Retgard (IN: Ρετγαρτ; Retgart) is a city in Western Kokinos, and the capital of the Retgard District. Re-founded in 1907 after the Cataclysm, the city was one of the four "Revolutionary Capitals of the SRK", being where many communist revolutionaries stayed in during the 1910s and serving as a socialist stronghold during the Novo Gavian Bush War, and the city was a strong support base for orthodox SRK communism in the 1950s.

## Etymology

The name "Retgard" is obviously not of Ionian origin. Kanorian nationalists claim that the settlement was of Kanorian and/or Astavaran origin (*"Röt"*, meaning red, and *"gard"* or *"gart"* meaning castle or farm). This has been disputed by Kokinos for obvious reasons. Since 1926, there have been numerous calls for the renaming of Retgard to a more Ionian-sounding name, but this never happened

Proposals for Retgard's new name included "Kokkinopolis", "Erimos" and "Soliapolis". Fortunately, none of these were approved

## History

### The Interventions

> *"A small settlement near Neopolis, Retgard fared better during the Interventions, but much of the population still fled, leading to the town's population to decrease from 400 thousand to 210 thousand"*
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> *-Guide to Kokinos, 1928*
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The "original" Retgard had existed for at least 7 centuries by the time of the Ionian Revolution. A settlement located near the desert, the city was always small in size and population. Despite its relative insignificance, the city (alongside the nearby Retgard Steel Refinery) was a major point of contention during the Second and Third Interventions. In the Second Intervention of 1928, Kokinos repelled the Jabeyracki invaders in a pyrrhic victory, which was a major political success for the Kokinan Socialist Worker's Party (a propaganda film was made to celebrate the victory, and a song was written for it as well). The conflict was devastating for the region's population, with nearly half of the population fleeing the city.

In the Third Intervention, knowing that prolonged warfare was unsustainable for the Kokinan population, which had been devastated by decades of war, genocide and Cataclysm, the Kokinan government evacuated Retgard's population and destroyed the supplies in a scorched earth tactic, leaving behind partisans to disrupt the enemy supply lines and sabotage its operations. One prominent figure that emerged from the guerilla warfare was Katesia Ioannidis, a partisan and (later) leading figure in Kokinan conservatism and women rights

Retgard was liberated by partisans in 1930, and the Interventions soon came to an end, leaving an awkward Jabeyracki-Kokinan Independent De-militarized Zone that cut off the middle of the Iordanou River as well as the centuries-old route from Limni to Retgard through Neopolis. This would severely disrupt trade and transportation in the region for generations to come

### Post-Intervention

Retgard was the major battleground of the Interventions, and after the end of the Interventions in 1930, the city was left in ruins with over 90% of the population having either died or evacuated. However, the discovery of oil in the region in 1935 quickly revived the city's economy, and Retgard became a major center of oil production and refinement for Kokinos

## Demographics

Kokino-Ionians are the largest group in Retgard, making up 76% of the population. Kherfiyyans and Redouin make up 23%, and the remaining 1% are various international migrants

## See also:

* The Interventions
* Second Intervention
* Retgard Steel Refinery
* Crimpor
* Arsenkos
* Sons of Kokinos
* Neopolis
* Enotilopolis