War of the Sands

The War of the Sands was a conflict between the Imperials and the Pollev. It started with a dispute over who was allowed to collect taxes from Marwind and ended with the Vregan Annex and William's Submission.

Disputation
For years Pollev had made it's living off of raiding and looting villages in Marwind. The Imperials quickly siezed control of the border villages on the east border in the Marwind Annex in 376 AR. They agreed to allow the Pollev to continue their money gathering but in a less violent manner, through tax collecting. Pollev demanded that the border villages would be handed over and the Pollev borders expanded to allow them to farm the fertile land of Marwind. The Imperials refused, and so the Rah of Pollev, Rah Nanshan, took the deal out of fear of starting a war. Five years later, The Northern Famine struck in 414 and the Imperial Fifth Legion carried out an unauthorized attack on the border villages to drive out the Pollev raiders and retake the border villages. The Rah, now Rah Yuga, was less conservative and immediately ordered a heavy cavalry attack on the villages and burned them to the ground. When the High Imperial Chancellor of Sadriel learned of these attacks he sent three legions to put pressure on Pollev's south border.

Beginning Shots
Talks with Rah Yuga were quickly established. Several ambassadors entered the Pollev capital of Car'af`fel to speak to the Rah himself. Yuga fled the captial, believing the ambassadors to be assassins. The frustrated Emperor Doromen of the Imperials angrily attacked and retook the border villages of Marwind and established outposts to prevent another attack. One of the outposts ended up being where Yuga was hiding. Yuga was secretely executed, but Pollev spies had been planted to monitor Yuga and left for the capital. Imperial intelligence forces soon learned of these spies and carried out Operation Redemption where the spies were intercepted and killed. The Imperials grossly underestimated their numbers though, and more than a dozen still made it back to the capital. Yuga's son Prince Aliyan was made Rah. Even less conservative than his father, he immediately ordered all the ambassadors in the city to be killed. Bad communication between the Emperor and the Chancellor caused them both to attack prematurely, but this surgical strike prevented the Pollev from ever amassing an army to defend. What followed was the first battle of the War of the Sands, the Battle of the Red Dunes, a mass pillaging of the southwestern villages in Pollev.

A Violent Start
Rah Aliyan retaliated quickly to the Red Dunes attack by sending all royal cavalry to drive the occupying Imperials out of the Red Dunes area. By this time winter was beginning, and the Northern Famine had left the Imperial army crippled. After driving out the Imperials from the Red Dunes, the Pollev forces began chasing them south into east Arrowood and Imperial Fief. As winter fell, Pollev withdrew, and the Imperial army began ammassing once again.

What followed in the closing weeks of winter of 415 was called Red Snow, where Imperial and Pollev forces engaged in bloody combat along the border. Pollev quickly gained the upper hand with quick lightning strikes, so named Dah'ril, but Imperials triumphed in open battles using sheer numbers. As Spring dawned and the raiding season in Marwind came into full swing, Imperial focus switched toward defending Marwind's east border and less toward Sadriel, though a legion garrisoned Pollev's south border in case they attempted to attack Imperial Fief. With two Legions in Marwind: The Fifth and the Third, the battle moved into a fortification war. The Imperial Legions dissolved into twenty separate battalions, each taking a village and setting up walls and trenches to trip up Pollev cavalry. Initially the strategy worked beautifully, and it appeared the Imperials had already won the war by severing the Pollev from their only supplies.

The Southern Theatre
While the main forces of the Imperials and Pollev waged war in Marwind, a fight for survival was ongoing in Imperial Fief. The Dah'ril cavalry had driven the Second Legion to the brink of destruction. The Chancellor was unable to secure more support, already having disposed of all three Legions allocated to him. The Third had joined with the Fifth to fight in Marwind, the Second was garrisoned in Imperial Fief, and the First had moved south to monitor Yoren activity across the border. The Chancellor began a desperate campaign of politicking and maneuvering through the provincial Sadrielan-Imperial government to secure the right to draft more soldiers. After about a year, with the Second entrenched in the Hilly Lands, nearing the final battle that would be their end, the Chancellor brought the matter to the Emperor himself. Doromen granted the Chancellor dispensation to draw men from the lands within the Walls of Breen. The Second Legion withdrew southward to fortify The Throne of the South until sufficient reinforcements could be drawn up to replenish their ranks. The General over the Second Legion was Lieutenant General Vyacheslav, a young, inexperienced leader who received his position through inheritance and court connections. He was famously quoted as saying in a speech to his officers: "The lords say I am unable to lead these men, and I'm inclined to agree with them." Still, Vyacheslav took upon him the task of training and outfitting 4,000 reinforcements to bring the Second back to full strength.

Meanwhile, the Pollev Snow Corps—as they had come to be known after Red Snow—had been busy in the north of Imperial Fief. Robbed of supplies, they'd taken to looting Sadriel instead of Marwind, and were constantly transporting supplies north to the Marwind Theatre. Rah Aliyan ordered them to seize the siege weaponry factories and the finished weapons within and also transport them north. After the successful operation, the entire Snow Corps withdrew before the Second was even fully trained. Vyacheslav saw his mistake and handed in his resignation. It was denied and the Second was ordered to forage into Pollev to hopefully draw the Snow Corps away from reinforcing the cavalry in Marwind. In the Autumn of 416, the Southern Theatre closed for a time, and all attention had shifted to Marwind.

Marwind in Flames
Armed with siege weaponry and with a host of over 25,000 men, the Pollev began an attack across the entire Imperial defensive line. Fortified villages fell very quickly, and some battalions, especially of the mostly-draftee Third, were entirely destroyed. A well of wealth and food was opened up to the Pollev, and they turned their attention away from the Imperial defenders to begin looting and raiding Marwind once again. The Northern Famine was winding down to a close, and new agricultural legislature in Sadriel had resupplied the Imperial Legions indefinitely, so this was seen as a small loss. The Fifth Legion was withdrawn without ever seeing fighting in the Marwindi Lootings of 416, and the Third was ordered to muster all forces at Verin to defend Imperial interests in the North.

Meanwhile, the Vyacheslav and the Second had finally reached Marwind just as the snows were beginning, and saw that their diversionary tactic had failed and left southeast Marwind in rubble. As an act of revenge, the Second charged into the Pollev from behind and won a series of small battles against different raiding parties. Seeing their enemy on the rear, the rest of the Pollev began regrouping a little north of the raiding area. The Third saw this as preparation for an assault on Verin and entrenched themselves within the city, reinforcing the walls and establishing a fifty mile perimeter around the city from which no one entered or left. This caused a communications blackout in the city and prevented the Third from ever assisting the Second in fighting back against the Pollev.

The Long Campaign
Over the space of thirty years, the Imperials layed down fortresses and breastworks to prepare for another full scale attack. But over time, Imperial forces began striking deeper and deeper into Pollev territory, eventually shifting the political and military view of the war as a revenge for all the money unjustly stolen from Marwind. During the Zatlin Wars in 457, attention shifted to the defense of the coastline, and the Pollev army was given time to recuperate their southern forces, while the northern battle raged hotter than ever.