-1999 AS-

Enough is enough! This maxim is certain to the stubborn and egotistical Great Chief of the Northern Cavale, Arstal Tuvak. From Tuvak’s perspective, the South has become wealthy due to its sheer volume of trade with Ionia in particular. By contrast, the north has only seen a fraction of the same wealth from occasional trade with the Ankalvan Federation and even less common ships from Ionia. What the self-centered Chief chose not to see, of course, is that the Northern Cavale have never had the South’s abundance of valuable goods to attract Ionian merchants, nor its direct proximity along that great trading route, the Buyuk Duvarli Yol. To make matters worse, a critical drought over the past few years had all-but-eliminated the North’s one great source of revenue from foreign exchange: the hides and tusks of big game, particularly elephants.

Aggravated by these great stresses against the Northern Cavale populace leading to a profound sense of abandonment by the spirits themselves, the Great Chief finally turned to his ultimate nihilism. Enough is enough! - exclaimed the Chief’s mind, and burst out from his thoughts as he turned to speak to an assembly of armed citizens at the central plaza of Kuzeycol. With this rallying cry, the Chief turned the spark of discontent in each citizen’s mind into a raging blaze of fury, and refocused that anger at that one great prone target, the nation that each man there had grown to see as his personal enemy – the Southern Cavale. Every so often in the past (but not recently), when conditions had grown too tough to endure without complaint, just about every able-bodied young man in the North would join together to conduct raids into the South, under the Great Chief’s command. But this war would be more than just a few raids for sustenance, for Tuvak wished to subsume that Southern blight under his own rule. And the Great Chief had a great weapon at his disposal this time – a well-trained, well-armed, and professional army of 1,200 full-time Northern Cavale soldiers.

The Great Chief chose a typically sunny and hot winter day, about a month after his rousing speech at Kuzeycol, to begin his march with the soldiers and conscripts alike who had assembled in the meantime. Upon reaching the Cavale border, his army faced their first presumptive obstacle – the fortified gate on the primary road at the border between the two Cavale nations. However, its defense had slackened in all those years of peace, and the few and poorly-trained men were no match for the full force of over 7,000 Northern Cavale troops. Once inside the South itself, the Northern Cavale army went for a tried-and-true raiding strategy, living off the spoils and the plunder from the many farms and small villages in their path. None of these targets, predominated as they were by unarmed farmers, posed much resistance. Regardless, word of the devastation soon began to spread despite the severed lines of communication, and those among the Southern Cavale who could fight rallied to preparing the defense of Guneyorman. Over a month after their invasion began, the Northern army finally reached the outskirts of the grand capital of the Southern Cavale, replete with its stone walls. The soldiers and citizenry alike had thoroughly prepared the city’s defenses, and both sides knew the Battle of Guneyorman would be a long and grueling siege.

The first days of battle saw the most sustained push on the part of the invaders, but the defenders held out with great effort during this time. This first week alone saw over a thousand casualties on both sides combined and much damage to the walls of Guneyorman. Over the next two months, this stalemate dragged on and on, with the defenders holding stalwart and slowly gaining ground thanks in part to shipments of food and supplies by sea from longtime friend and trade partner Ionia, which had learned of the conflict’s details over the past few months. In the third month, the siege’s momentum reversed to the attackers due to a decisive turn of events. Northern Cavale merchant vessels configured with men and weaponry finally arrived from its ports, despite the Great Chief and other army commanders failing to instruct and coordinate this effort. Through lines of communication stretching into the remainder of the North and by sea on to the Ankalvan Federation, both parties were kept abreast of the conflict’s progress. In time, they coordinated the commissioning and sailing of merchant ships, filled to the brim with Northern men and most crucially with advanced Ankalvanian weapons. Steel, longbows, and most crucially trebuchets were all part and parcel. These were enough when combined with the naval support to squeeze out the Southern Cavale lines of supply and decisively shift momentum in the invaders’ favor.

Three weeks after the last ship arrived, as the citizenry of Guneyorman starved and the city itself seemed about to fall, the Great Chief and other top officials approached waving white flags. The Southern Cavale had finally surrendered, and Tuvak proceeded to establish control over most of the countryside in tow with his army. Even the great merchants and philosophers of Sinir Kasabasi folded when confronted with news of their Great Chief’s surrender. This momentous victory had come at a price, though – the Southern countryside was devastated and a significant portion of its population was killed off by the fighting along with rampant famine and disease precipitated by the war. Tuvak became the one Great Chief of all the Cavale, and permanently suspended all trade with Ionia as his first edict. Tuvak was unable to enjoy his position of power for long, however – both the thoroughly devastated former Southern Cavale lands and the drought-ridden old Northern Cavale domain descended into all-out anarchy over the few months after the civil war’s nominal end. Not helping matters was the lack of any significant action to restore normalcy on the part of the weak Chief and other senior officials. They instead spent their time bickering and dithering, and harshly punishing wartime leaders and figureheads of the former Southern Cavale. After rotting in a dingy jail cell for the past few months, the last Great Chief of the old Southern Cavale was finally, very publicly beheaded in Guneyorman’s central square. This execution touched off an orgy of rioting among the citizenry of Guneyorman that resulted in many more casualties and much devastation. Among these casualties was Tuvak himself, slayed with a dagger to the back by one Omin ad-Din, a senior official and would-be usurper from the old North. The subsequent renewed riots and killings were only ended by the intervention of the Northern army itself, which established a junta to nominally rule the war-torn Cavale lands.

Results: The Cavale now form one nominally unified federation ...for now. Part 2 to come tomorrow.