Imperial War

Imperial War
Date 12 Empery 1771–7 Animare 1774 Location Outer Joriscia Result Lacrean victory
Belligerents
Terophan Polcovodate of the Lutoborsk Marshalate of the North	Graviate of Lacre Graviate of Laukuna Procuratorate of Lefdim Transmarine Marshalate Kiy Kadalkhia
Commanders and leaders
Spytihnev III Vladibor V	Oktar Matolchy Kugoza Ipdut

The Imperial War was a conflict fought primarily by Terophan against the Graviate of Lacre from 1771 to 1774. Terophan was assisted, albeit in a largely independent theatre, by the Lutoborsk, while Lacre in turn enlisted the forces of the Graviate of Laukuna, the Principality of Lopocka, Kiy, and Kadalkhia. From 1773, the Marshalate of the North (modern Azophin) was also involved on the Terophatic side. Beginning as a punitive expedition by Terophatic forces with the intent of deposing the Grave Oktar Matolchy, the Imperial War rapidly escalated into a major conflict which played out across not just the Starroz Krai but much of Outer Joriscia. It resulted in Terophan's defeat and the consolidation of Lacre as an autonomous state.

Background

Oktar Matolchy's government became increasingly assertive and defiant of Terophatic hegemony in the lead-up to the war.

The cause of the Imperial War was the effective renunciation by Matolchy of the suzerainty of the Terophatic Emperor, Spytihnev III, in the aftermath of the conferral of the Banner of Lacre Undivided in 1769. Spytihnev's authority of the sole Emperor of the Vesnites had been confirmed by the Majestic Peace of 1754, and although Lacre's emergent commercial and industrial ascendancy had already posed challenges to Terophan's ability to exert influence over its eastern neighbour, the Graviate had formally continued to recognise its dependence on Axopol.

In the 1760s Matolchy still retained some distance from the Neo-Chotarianist movement, which demanded the creation of an independent Lacrean empire based on the revival of the classical Chotarian throne, but, after negotiations with the Prysostaia in 1769, Matolchy secured his appointment from the Universal Prophet, Zafuvniprourkah, as the Standard-Bearer of a new Banner. The powers and privileges entailed by the title of Standard-Bearer were not, at this time, well-defined—the modern concept of the Banner-State had not yet been developed—but the revival of the Banner of the Greater West had been the original basis for the Terophite claim to imperial sovereignty, and from 1770 Matolchy began to circumscribe the official legislative authority of the Terophatic Emperor within the Graviate. On the basis of his new position he asserted in particular that the Lacrean Scholarchate owed religious allegiance only to himself and the Prysostaia, and that no decree from Axopol would apply in Lacre without the consent of its Grave.

These challenges of authority by Lacre came alongside diplomatic and strategic provocations. Soon after the conferral of the Lacrean Banner, the Fejedelem's Coup in Lefdim installed the eccentric Neo-Chotarian tyrant Kugoza Ipdut, who as self-proclaimed Procurator attempted to establish a Lefdim independent from Axopol's control and allied to Lacre. Ipdut had acted independently and atop the forces of Lefdic politics, while Matolchy's government was initially cautious toward his invitations to an alliance, but these events confirmed Axopol's worst fears that even if Lacre did not directly support such secessionism it was inspiring it. The resolution of the Lefdic crisis was thus seen as a part of defeating the Lacrean threat.

Events

Outbreak

The immediate casus belli was a crisis over appointments at the Lecture of Rāṇ: in Floridy 1771, Matolchy overruled the enscition of three Terophite Scholars, the 'Three from the West', to satellite positions as academics at that School. The Terophatic Court naturally saw this as an insult, and it was also aware of the gathering winds of Neo-Chotarianism, fearing that Matolchy would soon claim the imperial title, as indeed the Lacreans eventually did in 1778. Contact between Lefdim and Lacre was also increasing, and the Terophites decided to not permit the alliance to develop further. Accordingly, with some degree of precipitousness, on 12 Empery Spytihnev declared Matolchy and Ipdut to be in aberrancy from the imperial throne, and began an invasion of Lacre and Lefdim to depose the two.

There was, initially, uncertainty over the position that would be assumed by the third main power of Vaestdom, the Northerners—despite his suspicion and poor relations with the Marshal of the North, Boris Alevy, Spytihnev held out the hope that he could secure Alevy's help by finding the necessary political enticements. The negotiations between the two drew out over the course of 1771–72: Alevy had little inclination to support Terophan in practice, but many of the Northern nobles were opposed to the Lacreans' pretensions and he sought to play for time.

Peninsular theatre

Lacrean soldiers during the war.

From the beginning the conflict posed a major challenge to the Terophites, who faced not just the pressure of the Lacreans themselves but dissension within their own ranks. By the 'Python Edicts' issued at the start of the year Spytihnev had hoped to reform Terophan's fractious pièche columns into a unified army capable of confronting the Lacreans, and Zdravoslav Yazimov had been appointed as supreme commander over Terophan's eastern armies in order to implement the necessary changes. This proved difficult to accomplish. In the dry season of 1771–72, the Terophites were able to conquer Lefdim and oust Ipdut, who was exiled to Lacre, but after that they found themselves devoting more energy to the suppression of mutinies than to the Lacreans. They were dealt a humiliating defeat near Kethpor on 5 Metrial, and by the middle of 1772 had been driven out of Lefdim.

Yazimov had only just managed to secure some degree of quiescence among the eastern pièches, largely in practice by deferring the reform, when Axopol was confronted later in the year by a more serious rebellion by the columns stationed along the Tormaytah, where the imperial prince Krasimir issued a proclamation calling for the removal of the 'ill and ignorant counsel' that surrounded the Emperor. The Terophatic court was losing control of its armies, and by the following dry season the Lacreans had penetrated deep into Dekoral in the south and virtually pushed the Terophites back to the Varudines in the north. Lacrean dominance at sea also provoked many traders in the Messenic Sea and the Sunnar Ocean to switch their allegiance to Kozrat, flying the colours of the Lacrean Banner on their ships. With mounting desperation, at the end of 1772 Spytihnev finally bought Alevy's support by effectively handing him permanent control of Anabbah. Accordingly the Marshal formally entered the war against Lacre, but his commitment was minimal and did little to change the tide in the way that Spytihnev had hoped.

Despite the general crumbling of the war effort, Yazimov continued to make heroic attempts at resistance to the Lacreans in the east; consolidating his most loyal forces he succeeded in checking their advance at the Ruby Pass. Spytihnev himself was not so lucky. On 16 Ediface 1773, Prince Krasimir's pièches marched on Axopol and arrested the Emperor's advisors in the Swing of the Mace, securing their commander's appointment as Lyubim and, effectively, as Terophan's real monarch. It is unclear whether Krasimir had already begun to negotiate with Oktar before the coup: at any rate, he had little interest in continuing the war, and as Lyubim he soon opened formal discussions of a settlement with Oktar's representatives. Yazimov was left to fend for himself.

Gulf theatre

The Polcovodate of the Lutoborsk and its energetic ruler Vladibor V entered the war on Terophan's side, expecting an opportunity to wrest the coast of former Great Doyotia from the Lacrean-dominated Transmarine Marshalate, and even the Graviate of Laukuna (now Zemay) that had only recently fell to Lacrean influence. While Doyotia and northern Gergotea were taken without much effort, in late 1772 the advance stalled near Laukuna, and on 13 Conservene 1772 Lacrean forces led by Zāmbō Erēj inflicted a devastating defeat on the Lutoborians at the Battle of Laukuna. Many important knyazy nobles were killed in battle, and Vladibor himself was captured. Almost all of the Lutoborian gains were undone, and as knyazchiks at home rushed to install the future Vladibor VI as regent, the Lutoborsk engaged in no more significant operations against Lacre and its allies until a formal peace in 1774.

Khuikh theatre

While Lacre mustered forces to deal with the Lutoborian incursion, a close partnership with Critical Kiy that formed in previous decades was invoked as a military alliance. Kiy and the Kadalkhian Confederacy invaded the Lutoborsk's territories on the Homul Peninsula in early 1772, which were only just incorporated from the conquest of the Komandje Kingdom during the Peridot Wars. The theatre in Khuikhland was thus just another episode of the Tardy War as the Lutoborsk's Ignorant neighbours attempted again to undermine and defeat it. This incursion was eventually repelled, though it did serve to distract and delay Lutoborian advances into Gergotea by months.

Conclusion

On 7 Animare 1774, the War was brought to a close. The appointments of the 'Three from the West' were formally abrogated by the Terophatic Office of Schools, while Krasimir recognised Lacre's autonomy and agreed that no Utterance or Edict would have currency in Lacre made without its Grave's consent. In addition, Terophan agreed to shoulder substantial reparations and to allow Lacre favourable terms of commerce. In exchange, Oktar provided Krasimir with tacit assistance in putting down the supporters of Spytihnev and enforcing his new régime within Terophan. Notably, Lefdim was allowed to remain within Axopol's sphere, as Lacre found Ipdut too unreliable to be re-installed over Lefdim, while annexing that country was too unpopular among locals, and so a Procuratorate over that area under Krasimir's pro-Lacrean ally Zakon Khruvsky was determined to be the most convenient. In Lacre the road to the Chotarian Restoration was now clear, and the concept of a single Vaestic Empire as agreed in the Lethpol Covenant had been dealt a fatal blow; in Terophan, the rule of the pièche state was, for the time being, secure, though Krasimir would never be able to shake his reputation as a Lacrean stooge.

The northern theatres of the war were brief side-shows, but immediately produced major political tremors. The knyazy of the Lutoborsk were destroyed as a political force for almost a generation, leaving the junior knyazchik gentry to secure themselves as the main body of Lutoborian nobility, based on strongly parochial local allegiances. This would heavily shape Presidency Lutoborsk. Vladibor V was released and returned to the Lutoborsk in 1774, becoming a powerless and secluded figurehead until abdicating in 1780, while the younger Vladibor oversaw the renunciation of the polcovodate. Kiy's defeat in the war despite Lacre's ultimate victory caused uproar among its citizenry, who regarded the Critics' incompetence as to blame and overthrew them in the Second Dictation War of 1777; the Mural Congress was empowered in the Critics' stead. More pragmatic factions also rose to power in Kadalkhia, seeking to coexist with a Lutoborian-dominated northeastern Joriscia, although in the long run these gestures did them little favour as Kadalkhia was gradually conquered in the early 19th century. The Khuikh campaign was the last offensive by anti-Vesnite forces in the Tardy War, and fully proved Lutoborsk's newfound primacy in the northeast, even as it was humiliated on the southern front.