Auroran Imperial War
| This page (or section) is a work in progress by its author(s) and should not be considered final. |
The Auroran Imperial War, also known as the AIW was a continental war that lasted from 1970 to 1975. It involved the vast majority of the countries of Aurora—forming two opposing military alliances: the Bursil Accords and the Ribenstadt Pact. The continent was in a state of total war, directly involving more than 45 million personnel from six countries, all participants threw their entire industrial, scientific and economic capabilities behind the war effort, voiding any distinction between civilian and military resources. The Auroran Imperial War was the deadliest conflict on the Auroran continent, resulting in over 29 million fatalities, with more civilian than military personnel killed. Millions of people died as a result of premeditated starvation, disease and massacres. Aircraft played a large role, particularly the strategic bombing campaigns of major conurbations such as Sani Bursil, Ribenstadt and Andel. The war ended shortly after the Kevatuul nuclear bombings of Ribenstadt, Karinthus, Anzrelstätt and Rorikton.
| Auroran Imperial War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Clockwise from top left:
| |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
Bursil Accords:  Morstaybishlia  Salovia  Kostoria-Obertonia  Valerica |
Ribenstadt Pact:  Ethalria  Norograd  Quarii SR  Oscrelia  Emberwood Coast (1970-1971) | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Ian Crowcasa Remis Gregorisi Victor Victrovavich Alec Crownfold |
William Thornton Chance Syng | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
Military dead: Over 4,500,000 Civilian dead: Over 11,000,000 Total dead: Over 15,500,000 |
Military dead: Over 8,250,000 Civilian dead: Over 5,500,000 Total dead: Over 13,750,000 | ||||||
The war involved the majority of the continent of Aurora. The primary nations involved were the Morstaybishlian Empire, Norograd, the Grand Matriarchy of Ethalria, and Salovia. The war lasted from January 17, 1970 to July 23, 1975.
(Editors note: This page and its contents are under heavy revision. All previous information that was on this page is safe within a google doc, or by previous edit. Contact Dylan for more info.)
Background
Arms race
Nuclear arms race
The first nuclear weapons research was performed by the Ethalrian Empire in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the first nuclear test was conducted on 5 June 1953 in the Azure Sea. Scientists of Morstaybishlia and Salovia were aware of the potential of nuclear weapons and had also been conducting research on the field.
Having been long allies with Ethalria going back to the late 19th century, Salovia requested that Ethalria share their nuclear technology projects with them. Ethalria refused twice, but when offered a lump sum of ♅125 million (equivalent to ♅3.304 billion today) they accepted. Salovia received the blueprints and information on the Roter-Himmel Projekt, which was one of Ethalria’s initial nuclear tests and began reproducing it under their own project, Operation Courier's Tide.
Morstaybishlia caught wind of Salovia’s nuclear tests in August of 1954 in the Great Auroran Desert approximately 100 miles northeast of modern-day Ikometa. Of the three Auroran powers, Morstaybishlia had not been at all successful as they had not figured out how to purify plutonium, a key step in the creation of an atomic bomb. By now, Ethalria had conducted around fifteen nuclear tests and were monopolising specific knowledge and raw materials for nuclear weaponry, and Salovia close behind, having conducted thirteen tests by the end of the 1950's, many located on the Far East Isles and others in the Great Auroran Desert. Morstaybishlia had attempted to acquire the secrets Ethalria possessed by hiring and deploying agents to reveal any information, but these were all unsuccessful or resulted in dead ends.
By the time the 1960's rolled around, the P'reria Crisis began, and with it Chancellor Kurasin Sokolo requesting assistance from Ethalrian Matriarch Arin V to assist in quelling the insurgency by the P'reria Front, as a sign of trust and goodwill to continue the positive relations that had been built in the past century. However, Arin V opted to stay out of the conflict, calling the crisis an "internal affair for Salovians to handle," a statement that would presage the 1966-1967 Ethal-Salovian War.
The P'reria Crisis well underway, Morstaybishlian Prime Minister Ian Crowcasa met in secret with Kurasin Sokolo, known as the Green List Meeting today, to discuss potential diplomatic cooperation regarding the crisis. The two would come to the agreement for Morstaybishlia to aid in quelling the violent insurgents, on the condition that an exchange of military information would be conducted afterwards, specifically regarding Operation Courier's Tide from Salovia and from Morstaybishlia.
At the conclusion of the Salovian crisis, the two powers exchanged the information, setting Morstaybishlia on the path towards their first nuclear test on September 12th 1964. Upon receiving intelligence on the secret military exchange, Matriarch Deloria XV condemned the act, declaring it a sign of mistrust and desperation to level the playing field. The three powers of Aurora now all with nuclear weapons rose tensions on the continent further, setting the stage for the Auroran Cold War.
Prelude
Ethal-Salovi War of 1966-67
Main article: Ethal-Salovi War of 1966-1967
On 26 November 1966, nearly a month after Kurasin Sokolo was elected Chancellor of Salovia, Sokolo conducted a swift military campaign into the Lowurt region, the only part of Ethalria that existed east of the Lenevi River. Within less than twelve hours Salovian forces had engaged state forces and captured the towns of Adaberg and Litwenz, destroying the only bridge, the Khalfbrücke, crossing the river into Ethalria.
Ethalria responded with airstrikes on nearby Salovian military targets, the first raid killing over 290 soldiers and civilians. Ethalria later targeted supply lines to nearby Salovian towns, and sent over 7,000 soldiers by landing craft which directly engaged the Salovian army. The Salovian armed forces were dug in but were ambushed by a second Ethalrian front of 4,000 soldiers from the rear that had used a two mile detour. The Salovian occupants surrendered and became POWs whilst a second wave struggled to reach them due to the bombed supply lines.
Civilians from the Ethalrian towns were evacuated across the river as the soldiers dug in and reinforced their position. Another engagement between the armed forces lasted two months from December to January, where the fronts solidified gradually. Morstaybishlia held ceasefire talks in Sani Bursil on 6 March 1967 which established a new military controlled border which did not constitute a legally recognised international boundary, but served as the de facto border.
Noroist Revolution
The Morstaybishlian Empire’s control over the Korstazian Principality weaned as nearly four decades of ethno-nationalist conflict primarily under Prime Minister Ian Crowcasa’s administration tarnished his opinion polls. It began in the 1940s where the Jilkania Revolutionary Front, a minor Noroist secession party led attacks against politically motivated targets and the Morstaybishlian government responded with its armed forces and increased police liberties. Through the 50s and 60s, similar armed conflicts between separatist groups and the state occurred, and anti imperialist sentiments spread throughout everyday life.
A large underground Noroist group, the Noroist People’s Liberation Party (NPLP) led by Winston Ulysses had garnered key supporters from within the Korstazian Regional Defence force (KRDF). He travelled abroad multiple times, meeting with representatives from Ethalria and East Cerdani which agreed to allow him to smuggle arms into South West Aurora, as well as providing the financial resources needed to begin manufacturing their own weapon designs by the end of the decade. The activity of the NPLP had not been entirely unnoticed by the Morstaybishlian Empire, with Ian Crowcasa stating in 1964 that a violent uprising would "certainly occur within the next few years", and that it would tip the balance of power on the continent dangerously towards Ethalria. As a stop-gap solution to mitigate the effect any uprising would have on the empires control of the area, they approved a large funding boost for the KRDF such that any popular uprisings could be handily put down, as well as protect from a predicted naval invasion in case of war with Ethalria. Unbeknownst to the Morstaybishlian government, however, the NPLP controlled KRDF had accumulated at least four times as much materiel as was publicly known, much of it stored in compartmentalised clusters of hangars and warehouses across the principality, successfully hiding them from Morstaybishlian police and military auditors. With the funding boost, Ulysses ordered a rapid expansion to the navy and had all current KRDF personnel be trained as officers far above their rank in preparation for training a large number of conscripts which would soon form the new Noroist Army.
In the early hours of December 26th 1969 under the orders of Winston Ulysses the KRDF mobilised, bombing and immobilising major highways and rail lines leading into Staynes and southern Staynes. As day broke, the KRDF declared that the Noroist Peoples Liberation Party was the legal government of the principality, and began rounding up non-loyal governors from each province, imprisoning or executing them. By 11:00 they had successfully secured the Morstaybishlian colonial government buildings in a coup d’état. However several areas were still in considerable disarray, in which pockets of KRDF forces loyal to the Morstaybishlian Empire continued fighting for many days. Soon though, they had all had either surrendered or been destroyed. It was during this time that Winston Ulysses was killed by a lone wolf assassin from within the party ranks.
After a lull in the fighting was reached several days later, vice-commandant Kiet Narvga was installed as the de facto leader, quickly establishing a provisional government and reorganising the KRDF into the Noroist Axdel Armed Forces. He led a small campaign which saw the remaining Morstaybishlian national guard driven out of the former colony, and declared that Noroist Axdel was now an independent republic. At the time Noroist Axdel encompassed all of South West Aurora, and had began the rapid establishment of concrete land defences in the Molvian Corridor and flatlands on the Valerican and southern Staynish borders, later known as the Finch line.
On 1 January 1970, Morstaybishlia held an emergency meeting with its allies Salovia, Valerica and Kostoria-Obertonia; having already signed the Bursil Accords in 1968 which stated An attack on one is an attack on all, Prime Minister Ian Crowcasa declared that Narvga’s coup d’état violated this and the nations agreed to intervene. Two days later, Kiet Narvga had flown to the Ethalrian capital and signed the Ribenstadt Pact alongside the host and Thorntonist Oscrelia, with intention to remove hard control of Morstaybishlia in the south and Salovia in the north.
Course of the War
Fort Staynes Campaign (1972)
With the successful breakthrough of Noroist forces in the Molovian Corridor and into Corstanil the previous year, Noroist high command felt that they possessed the supplies materiel needed to begin pushing into Staynish territory and cripple their industrial capacity. Specifically, they hoped to get deep enough to launch aerial strikes on the interior oil fields which had been key to supporting their war effort so far. With their fuel supply crippled, it was then predicted that the empire would then be forced to surrender. The plan was split up into three parts. First, Morstaybishlian naval presence in the West sea had to be eliminated, and this would be achieved through the saturation bombing and mining of Morstaybishlian naval ports, as well as a comprehensive submarine operation in deeper waters where Morst carrier groups had been observed to operate. Secondly, a northward thrust into Corstanil would be used to draw forces south, and then a naval invasion of Fort Staynes would be undertaken and the city then used as the staging post for a second thrust southwards which would then meet with the Northwards one and encircle the west coast. Finally, a third, smaller thrust Eastwards would then be used to capture key airfields which could be used to stage long-range bomber missions into the interior oilfields. In late 1971 when it was first conceived, this was originally planned to occur at the same time as the Ethalrian campaign to take Sani-Bursil which would spread the Morstaybishlian forces across two fronts and was predicted to cripple the empire by the end of 1972.
After a delay of several weeks due to an attempted breach of the Finch line in the Southern front, the first part of the plan began in February 1972 under the name operation Mountain with Noroist fighter-bombers destroying a large fraction of coastal air defences and radar arrays using anti-radiation missiles. This was then followed by an intense aerial campaign of supersonic bomber runs which terrorised coastline settlements and destroyed dozens of docked naval vessels. Xenliada was the hardest hit, the mines layed in the water surrounding the base making it nearly impossible to bring supplies in to repair the damaged ships, stretching countermeasures teams beyond their limits. The sinking of the aircraft carrier MBS Lavel by a submarine pack led by NNV Thunder on March the 2nd 1972 and the subsequent softening of the West sea signalled the completion of goals set out by operation Mountain, and the next part of the plan was enacted under the name operation Tornado.
Operation Tornado began in mid-March when a Noroist armoured spearhead was driven through the Morst lines and began working its way towards towards Kasidura, with a second later emerging from the east side of the front in the direction of Fort Jintaan. As expected, the southern front was reinforced and the assault was slowed, but on march 29th the first naval landings of fort Staynes began with the arrival of a naval force at the peninsula which included a dozen amphibious assault carriers. A fierce battle ensued after the landing as Noroist troops and armour converged northwards towards Fort Staynes. A rushed manoeuvre on the Noroist navy's behalf led to the Morstaybishlian's being able to maintain contested air superiority for the first week of the landings, resulting in the endeavour bogging down outside the city limits where mobile SAM's could still operate. This allowed much of the population to evacuate before a Noroist carrier group intended to bring reinforcements to the city after its capture having to be used to drive back the Morstaybishlian Air force as well, resulting in a delay in the mainland assault whilst extra fuel and parts could be brought up. All attempts by Morstaybishlian forces to retake the city failed, and they were forced to retreat eastwards. With the peninsular secure and more troops and supplies arriving daily, the landing forces punched southwards towards Redrugus and Xenliada, with a smaller demolitions force working their way up the North coast to find and destroy hidden submarine pens.
Whilst the Western front was performing as expected, Ethalrian forces had not been able to secure the lake Lamberta region as fast as expected due to increasing tactical and logistical difficulties with the terrain slowing progress dramatically and leading to delays. With the pressure on the Eastern front relatively low, Morstaybishlia could afford to send more reserve forces Westwards with the objective to keep Redrugus from being captured and protect the crucial oilfields from Norograd. As Noroist forces were set to meet West of Skaul, the Morstaybishlian's led a counteroffensive, attacking their flanks and allowing them to keep Redrugus from being encircled. They focused their efforts on the weaker North side, as without a land connection their flexibility would be limited. In response the meeting point of the two forces was shifted westwards and the Southern forces changed direction and pushed straight for Redrugus. A Noroist naval group was also sent to Redrugus to provide fire support, but couldn't get close to shore due to the mines and had to wait for countermeasures forces to clear a path to the coast. Redrugus was eventually reached in June, where the winter slowed progress from either side.