Abranoussan War
The Abranoussan War (Hártal Աբրանւսըտ Ստրիձ / Abranúskt Stríð; Pilas Kalamish Ελιmnεθι Αυmλαϕ / Elimnethi Aumlaf, “Helmin War”) was a conflict fought in the country of that name during the period between Metrial 1937 and Nollonger 1941. While significant in terms of events in Lestria, its importance is frequently downplayed in Messenia given the absence of significant great-power involvement, and it is usually regarded as one of the lesser theatres of the Long War period.
| Abranoussan War | |||||||
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| Part of the Long War | |||||||
 A Helmin army column on the march in central Abranoussa, Fabricad 1940 | |||||||
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Origins
The territory of Abranoussa had, for much of the 19th century, been a backwater region, notionally claimed as territory at various times by Neyet and Yufet without either nation being able – or, to some degree, willing – to fully enforce its stated positions. However, the discovery of significant deposits of petroleum in the region in the first decade of the 20th century caused a quite rapid shift in its neighbours’ assessment of its economic value. It also drew the interest of larger and more powerful nations across the Medius in Messenia, all anxious to secure access to this new and valuable resource.
The most persistent involvement in the region came from Helminthasse and from Zeppengeran. The Helmin economy, at the time mainly driven in energy terms by its sizeable coal deposits, was beginning to shift gradually towards petroleum-driven machinery, but was hampered by lack of supply. Zeppengeran, although somewhat better served in this respect already, considered that parts of north-eastern Lestria already fell within its legitimate sphere of interest – the more so given its long-standing presence on the Lestrian mainland in the territory of Alberdsland – and had already established a position of influence in Neyet, which bordered Alberdsland to the south.
The Helmin involvement in Abranoussa initially came about through the friendship of Khourit Ghek, the ruler of Abranoussa, something engendered largely through his education by the Helmin-born tutor Hestsást Thiay and further study at the University of Virkið, where he trained as an agronomist – a small part of the wider phenomenon across the region of the Nekhseri, in which progressive elements actively sought out best practices from Messenia and elsewhere with a view to reviving the increasingly static methods used at home. Ghek’s granting of favourable concessions to Helmin companies looking to exploit the new fields was followed by military and economic assistance, as the Helmin government realised the benefits of building strong relations with Abranoussa. While not universally welcomed – the short Left Foot War of 1909-10 being prompted largely by conservative resistance to perceived outlander interference – Helminthasse continued to maintain a small but distinct presence.
The death of Khourit Ghek and the struggle for control
Ghek, who had exercised a quasi-autonomous rule over Abranoussa for almost forty years, died on 11 Conservene 1936, at the age of 76 years. While the country had benefited substantially from foreign investment in the region, its people had become less enamoured of the Messenians’ presence; the Arlaturi faith of much of the outlander labour force was a particularly sore point for the Abranoussans, themselves Sirian of a particularly martial bent for generations heretofore, and predisposed under the mandates of Siriash’s Divine Hierarchy to regard non-Sirians as lesser beings. Nesbo Ghek, Khourit’s eldest son and heir and the commander of Abranoussa’s army, fell very much into that camp, although the extent to which his actions were motivated by religion, rather than greed or self-interest, remains questionable; he was not regarded as being particularly devout, and had previously been censured by the Lamneary of Abranoussa during a dispute over the ownership of lamnearic property in the north of the territory near the Neyeti border.
Further complicating the issue were the interests of Abranoussa’s neighbour states. Much of northern Abranoussa had originally been Neyeti territory before its loss in the Neyeti succession dispute of the later 1700s (known there as the Four Falcons’ War), and its people spoke a language that was closer to that common in Neyet. Yufet had its own irredentist claims in Abranoussa, having lost what was then the south of that country during its internal disputes in the 1840s.
The approach to war
Initially, the Animare directive was not regarded seriously by the Helmin oil companies; Nesbo Ghek had used similar tactics in the past as bargaining ploys to extract concessions, sometimes with success. However, the seriousness of Ghek’s intent on this occasion was brought home by a series of raids conducted in the early morning of 25 Animare 1937, in which some two dozen key company employees were pulled from their beds and held prisoner in the Abranoussan capital of Khessopt. On the day after the kidnappings, officials of the Abranoussan trade ministry, supported by local police units, announced themselves at the business premises of a number of Helmin companies and ordered the seizure of all assets. The sequestration was given a further religious imprimatur by a pronouncement by the Lamneant of Abranoussa that the act was being performed in settlement of arrears of schahn, the traditional tax levied on non-Sirians in Sirian countries (despite the fact that schahn had not been assessed in Abranoussa since 1894, well before the oil boom).
While the Helmin captives were released after a week of strained negotiations and despatched from Abranoussa, Ghek refused to discuss the seizure of Helmin assets or compensation therefor, instead expelling the Helmin ambassador and his staff as personae non gratae on 4 Metrial. This proved the last straw for an administration in Virkið already exasperated with Ghek’s intransigence; orders to invade Abranoussa were confirmed on 13 Metrial.
The Helminthasse government mobilised units from the homeland, dispatching a contingent of troops by sea from Lágskáli on the 17th. Initially refused permission to debark in Tisceron, they instead made landfall at Eine in the west of Neyet, then technically neutral but informally antipathetic. This was reportedly after the making of a substantial payment to Evriphe Soulket, then the provincial governor. (Soulket, a distant relative of Khoa III, Neyet’s erro or king, would later himself rule Neyet as Evriphe II after Khoa was deposed by Zepnish forces in 1948.) The force then made its way up the Barthin river valley to cross the frontier into Abranoussa near the town of Thaf on the 30th.
The view from abroad
The official position of the Helmin government at the outset of the war was that they aimed merely to secure Helmin property rights and economic interests; they expressly disavowed any intent of taking over Abranoussa or forcing its absorption by a neighbour. However, Ghek’s perceived intransigence and irrationality hampered and increasingly overrode the instinctive Siur preference for a negotiated settlement; indeed, the Helmin alráðherra, Kendur Lönföld, would make such a change explicit in an address to the Eðaldeild in Fabricad 1937, stating, “If the only way that we can make Ghek and his band of bravos see sense is by putting our boots on the back of their necks, then that is what we shall do.”1
The view in Henver was somewhat ambivalent. The general relationship between Zeppengeran and Helminthasse had historically been one of broad respect, if not always of understanding, for most of the previous century, and given the network of alliances linking both states to the Savamese, taking a visibly active role in opposition to the Helmin was considered inappropriate. However, the Zepnish government considered north-eastern Lestria to be one of its primary spheres of influence, and a substantial body within government thus considered Helmin involvement in the region to be both unwarranted and impermissible. This resulted in a compromise in which Zeppengeran essentially stood aloof from the conflict while waiting to see how the pieces fell.
The rulers of Yufet, on the other hand, saw the invasion of Abranoussa as a positive boon – and a perfect opportunity to attack in force and recover its long-lost territories while the Abranoussans were being pinned down elsewhere. They launched their own invasion of the southern provinces on 2 Floridy. Ghek, whose relatively small army was now faced with a two-front war, cast around for allies. Citing Yufet’s “wanton betrayal of the ideals of Nevaras in allying themselves with these descendant interlopers”, he petitioned for support from friendlier Sirian countries, and from Neyet and Zeppengeran in particular, in a conscious appeal to the Wars of Purgation which Sirians had fought against unbelievers and heretics in centuries past.
The response from Zeppengeran was tepid at best; a communiqué from Henver on 24 Metrial expressed sympathy, but declined to offer anything more than logistic support, citing (and markedly bending) their existing ties of alliance to Helminthasse. Neyet, on the other hand, was vigorously supportive, with a letter from erro Khoa to Ghek, his uncle, pledging firm backing, although it is clear from events taking place elsewhere in Neyet at the time that Khoa doubted Ghek’s stability and fully intended to pull back that support at the first indication that such an action would be beneficial.
The war begins
The first Helmin encounter with Abranoussan forces took place on 5 Floridy 1937, south-west of Thaf. While no more than a village, the settlement represented the northern extremity of Abranoussa’s limited rail network, and was a likely quick route towards Khessopt if it could be taken easily. However, the Abranoussan army was present in larger numbers than initial scouting reports had suggested; enfilading mortar fire did substantial damage to the Helmin attack, and they were repelled to the west. The defenders profited from a disjointed attack, as the speed with which the invasion force had been assembled and put into the field had allowed little time for orientation or training drills.
Pushed south-westward into the foothills of the Tloule range, the Helmin forces were repeatedly harried by spirited Abranoussan attacks, with Tharo Khouthein, Ghek’s successor as army commander and linked to one of the country’s more powerful houses, proving both unorthodox and inspired in his approach to the conflict. However, this raw inspiration had to make up for substantial shortages of manpower and supplies as strength had to be diverted to the south, where the Yufet invasion force was being fought to a frequently bloody standstill.
Battle in earnest
After some initial setbacks, the Helmin army recovered its equilibrium and began to make inroads towards the oilfields in the centre of Abranoussa which were the stated reason for its presence. This proved harder than anticipated, as Neyet made good on its promise of assistance by bringing units of its own forces into the Abranoussan line; however, over the remainder of 1937 and into the beginning of 1938, the Helmin army made steady, if unspectacular, gains in the north-west and on the western fringes of Abranoussa’s main oil-producing regions. However, gaining a firmer foothold in the oilfields proved a more difficult question.
One of the key battles in this period took place at Erat, in the central lowlands some 150 kilometres upriver from Khessopt, on 17 Sation 1938. The town was a provincial administration centre and one of the main centres of population in the central oilfields, and holding it was deemed a critical matter by the Abranoussan army. The Helmin attackers made an initial strike on the main railway line south of the town, which drew a substantial part of the Abranoussan force out of position; this allowed the main Helmin attack to go into a much weakened position, breaking the defence relatively quickly. The Abranoussan troops, as they fell back in some disarray, arranged to divert any pursuit by deliberately destroying facilities and safety devices around the Erat fields, creating enormous fires which made some areas impassable while countermeasures were taken and which left large parts of the region affected by dense, acrid black smoke for several weeks afterwards.
The engagement marked the beginning of a complicated period of three-cornered conflict in the region; while the Neyeti and Abranoussan troops formed a single, mostly coherent force, the Helmin and Yufeti forces were more fluidly engaged; as co-belligerents rather than allies, there was little direct communication between the two, and while their attacks formed separate fronts for the Abranoussans, some opportunities for advance were almost certainly lost by inability or unwillingness to properly co-ordinate their efforts.
The fog of war
By the beginning of 1940 the tide was beginning to turn in favour of the invaders, with Helmin forces holding most of north-western Abranoussa, including about half of the main oilfield region, and now descending on the Takessart river valley, while Yufet forces were in control of most of the south-eastern area south of the Tugdi, and the process of reintegrating it into its former homeland was already vigorously – and at times brutally – under way. While the two forces still did not fight alongside each other, communications between the two commands had improved, and troop actions were being co-ordinated to some extent. The Helmin army was also hampered by conflictimg signals from home, which continued until the summer of 1939 and the resignation of Lönföld; new alráðherra Kapp Elsturhæð was content to allow the army commanders a much freer hand.
With the Abranoussan position deteriorating, internal unrest began to surface within the country’s senior ranks. Tharo Khouthein now emerged as the leader of a faction within the territorial government that feared the power which Ghek was gathering to himself – thus abrogating the agreement on balance of house influences within the territory that had held Abranoussa in a distinctly fragile stability for almost fifty years at this time. However, plans for the Makot coup, led by Khouthein and several senior army officers with tacit support from within the Shoushouet, were discovered by Ghek in early Floridy; the ringleaders were captured and executed (some sources claim that Ghek killed Khouthein himself, severing the general’s head with a steak knife).
The collapse
The confusion engendered by the coup attempt spread rapidly; finding himself in a position where he did not know whom he could trust, Ghek responded by effectively ceasing to trust anyone. He prorogued the Shoushouet on 24 Floridy and attempted to rule the territory purely by fiat thereafter; however, where Khourit Ghek’s unassuming yet unalloyed patriotism had made him much loved among his people, his son’s increasing paranoia caused his support in the territory to haemorrhage. Zeppengeran, recognising the collapse which it had been anticipating since the start of the war, now cast its weight behind its protégé polity Neyet, which likewise chose this moment to turn its collective coat.
A disheartened Abranoussan army already battered from without now began to crumble from within. On 19 Sation, local commanders in the north-east along the border with Neyet mutinied, seizing control of civil government and declaring independence for the province of Pitrem. Loyalist forces from the centre of the country were dispatched to break up the mutiny, leaving the Abranoussans dangerously exposed in the regions west of Khessopt.
Now the allied forces stepped up their efforts to overrun Abranoussa; a drive by Helmin armoured vehicles from locations higher up the Takessart valley brought its forces within striking distance of Khessopt by the end of Ediface 1940, with Yufet support from the south, a siege of the city ensued, extending into the beginning of Petrial 1941. Ghek, with his capital on the verge of falling, escaped the city under cover of darkness on the evening of 12 Petrial, trying to reach what he considered to be a safe haven in the south of Neyet, but his commandeered vehicle ran into a Helmin armoured patrol some twenty kilometres north of the city; the vehicle was forced off the road, and Ghek and his driver were captured.
Under normal circumstances, this might have been considered to be the end of the war for practical purposes. Indeed, leaders of the suspended Shoushouet stepped adroitly into the gap, assuming control by nightfall on 14 Petrial and ordering those forces still in the field to stand down by dawn on the 16th. However, the victors now disputed vigorously with the interim Abranoussan leadership over custody of the rebel commander; the Helmin proposal to place Ghek on trial in Virkið was vigorously protested by the Abranoussans, who insisted that, as their citizen, he was perforce subject to their laws. The Helmin government, recognising the death sentence which Ghek would almost certainly receive, refused to turn him over. The stand-off lasted almost three months before the Ædsthirð, the court of final appeal within the Siur legal dominion, ruled that the Abranoussans had first rights in the matter and directed the handover of their former ruler. As a result – and as the Helmin authorities had anticipated – Nesbo Ghek was duly executed by public beheading on 3 Nollonger 1941.
Post-war outcomes
The restored Shoushouet, unwilling to countenance another dictator in the Ghek mould, declined to appoint a successor, instead choosing to exercise power as a collective body. The family of the late khraisabe made no protest; Ghek’s children had spent most of the war in Neyet, and the nominal heir Othtoure, then 19, refused to return home, eventually settling in Zeppengeran, where he trained as a veterinarian. The decision has been criticised inside and outside Abranoussa as introducing a systemic weakness into the affairs of government, but the absence of a single dominant faction has maintained this uneasy stasis.
Yufet, which had entered the war with such irredentist dreams, was instead stripped of almost everything that it had gained, as Helminthasse and Zeppengeran made common cause to largely restore the status quo ante bellum in the south-east. Ghmot V, High Lamneant and ruler of Gekit, never forgave this “betrayal”, and became a persistent cause of problems for the Helmin and Zepnish alike during the later Sleepwalker War period. A sense of outrage over this “perfidy” still serves to sour relations between Gekit and Helminthasse today.
Despite vigorous protests, the Shoushouet refused to restore Helmin property rights in full, instead agreeing a 75-year lease by Helminthasse over the existing Abranoussan oilfield installations, with a moratorium on lease payments for the first twenty-five years. Additionally, the attempt to levy schahn payments was nullified and the pre-war position reinstated. Helminthasse also committed to pay compensation for the destruction of certain facilities in the affected region. The steady decline in profitability of the Abranoussan fields has left Helminthasse with a significant liability, and negotiation of new terms in 2017 gave them a substantial improvement in that position.
Notes
- ↑ From Lönföld’s address to the Eðaldeild of 22 Fabricad 1937, as cited in Blábok.