Crisis at Chiklar

The Crisis at Chiklar was an attempted coup d'état in Lefdim on 12–16 Empery 1981, supported by Zemay. The putschists desired to overturn the 1969 Union of Aleon between Lefdim and Terophan, and to re-establish the independence of the Lefdic Empire. The defeat of the coup led to a rapid deterioration in Zemay's interordinate position, and contributed to reinforcing Terophan's dominance of Lefdim.

The Union of Aleon, proclaimed by the Lefdic Debates under overwhelming pressure from the Terophan of Vsevolod the Great in 1969, had been condemned repeatedly by Azophin and Agamar in the 1970s, and became an exemplary case of the injustice of Terophan's hegemony during the great challenges to the Terophatic Ascendancy that marked the Constellation Crisis. Zemay had remained Terophan's closest ally during this period, hosting the abortive Congress of Lesser Pestul in 1977 that unsuccessfully sought to leverage the Lacrean emergency into an affirmation of the Ascendancy. The collapse of the Congress and the following years of Terophatic retreat provoked Zemay to unwind its close ties to Terophan, however, and eventually to attempt, in common with the major revisionist Powers, Agamar and Azophin, to revise the Kethpor settlement in its favour. The Lopts, for their part, naturally looked to Zemay as a potential ally if it could be pried from its alliance with Terophan: despite its moralising over the Union, Agamar was reluctant to provoke a crisis that could challenge its control of Meshrati, which itself had partially been constituted from territory ceded by Lefdim in 1959, and Azophin's reach in the Starroz Krai was too limited at this time to offer meaningful support to Lefdim. In 1979–80 the Zemayan court thus decided to make a move of its own in Lefdim, sponsoring rebel groups in the hope of expelling the Terophites from the region and consolidating Zemay's own commanding position in eastern Outer Joriscia.

Zemay's interference in Lefdim could be expected to alienate Terophan, but in fact, from the Azophine, Agamari, and Lutoborian perspectives, Kethpor had already been disproportionately favourable to Zemay, and there was little interest in buttressing Zemay's overgrown maritime power over the east of the continent even further than it already had been. The justification of challenging Terophan's hegemony thus fell some way short of reconciling Zemay to the revisionist Powers. Zemayan destabilisation of Lefdim was particularly unwelcome to Agamar, whose domination of Meshrati had alienated it from the Lopts; the Agamari were firmly opposed to the emergence of an independent, Zemayan-aligned state in Lefdim.

In the event, twelve years of suppression of the intermittent rebellions since the Union, especially the 1976 Lefdian Revolts, and a rather longer period of surveillance of Lefdim since Kethpor had given the Terophatic authorities considerable local experience that the Zemayans lacked. The Terophites had, in fact, become aware of the plot early in 1981, and their efforts within the Marshalate to identify its perpetrators and dissolve the conspiracy led to the plans being put into motion prematurely on 12 Empery. In the face of the direct deployment of the Terophatic Army and an enormously increased police presence, the putschists failed in seizing their strategic targets in central Chiklar, and several days of desultory fighting ensued in both Chiklar and various other parts of the country as the coup's supporters attempted to rouse a popular revolt. This strategy was not successful. Zemay's recognition of the new 'imperial Lefdic government' came rather too early on 12 Empery, and an Azophine promise that had apparently been conveyed to Zemay beforehand to recognise the coup government did not materialise, leaving the Zemayans isolated and embarrassed. The statement was accordingly withdrawn four days later.

The fateful intervention of Zemay alienated it from virtually every other Vaestic Power, and, combined with the verdict of its later, unsuccessful Three Week War with Azophin, led to the decision of the 1983 Congress of Molot to strip Zemay of its two recently acquired southern Marshalates of Argah and Littorea, and to transfer its position on the Panarchate to a resurgent Azophin.