Veikan Civil War

The Veikan Civil War was a multifaceted Civil War in the former Veikan Kingdom between government forces, the Ignatovist Communist People's Red Front (PRF) and the Democratic Democratic Action Movement (DAM). Several minor factions sprung through the war but never managed to reach a major position in the conflict and were eventually defeated or integrated by the Red Front and Democratic Movement. The war began in 1972 after a series of pro-democratic riots and revolts threw the country into chaos and the Army's state of disarray allowed for the Red Front militias to take several key positions along the country's highlands. By 1978 the war was nearly over and the PRF held most of the country, facing only minor resistance from DAM and royalist forces in the south.

The exiled Veikan Kingdom has not officially signed a peace treaty with either side, turning the Veikan Civil War into one of the longest military conflicts in history lasting over 30 years.

Background
Through the 20th century the Kingdom had suffered large amounts of dissent and an exponentially growing communist movement led by Ignatovists with several large scale revolts rocking the country and slowly destabilizing it further. The power of the state had been already waning for at least a century and the newly ascended Oroket Anton III's liberal attitudes fueled the pro-democratic movement's strength and greatly increased discontent among the Veikan Old Guard; A group of high ranking military officers and important political figures that had great power in the Veikan Political System and were decidedly conservative.

In the other hand, the communist movement in Veikaia had been steadily growing since the 1940s, unhindered by an archaic military force and inefficient bureaucracy but remaining somewhat contained, only engaging in sporadic combat with government forces across the northern Veikan Highlands. Filipe Iesuvak was chairman of the illegal Communist Party of Veikaia and the Voika Council; The head of the revolution. The man had led several Communist insurrections since his election as head in 1965.

Riots of '72
Through the early 1970s the political situation in Veikaia had begun to sour as King Bronislav's more liberal policy on the matters of the state had tremendously backfired. Lighter censorship and oppression of liberal movements in Veikaia had led to the noticeable radicalization of the democratic movements in the nation from a policy of slow reformation into open revolt. Through the early 70s the country started to experience mounting tensions as protests slowly escalated into open riots and terrorism.

This escalated until the September 21st 1972 when the largest riot in Veikan history erupted in the largest city in South Veikaia, Biratov. After an unsuccessful and bloody attempt at dissolving an ongoing protest, the riot raged and continued for several days as rioters barricaded themselves inside buildings and cut off entire roads, building makeshift tank traps across roads and slowing the advance of the severely outdated Veikan armor. The King's slow reaction and aversion towards violence caused the riot to escalate to a point where most of the major parts of the city were under the control of the rioters, now declaring themselves part of the Democratic Action Movement and under the orders of their leader Macij Tomak. For a period of at least a month military incompetence, low morale and uncertainty led to a standoff between the military and members of the Democratic Action Movement who were reportedly armed and ready to engage in open combat.

The extreme escalation and the outright refusal of the King to engage in open combat with the dissidents caused an uproar among the conservative elements of the military and government. This group of important members of the country's elite was eventually named the "Old Guard", as they defended the views of the older members of the Royal Family and refused to accept the new King's more liberal policy.

Across the country several more riots and protests sprung almost in unison with varying levels of success, meanwhile the standoff raged in Valopole. The rioters and protesters declared themselves in allegiance to the DAM; The regional capitals of Samil and Biratov eventually becoming strongholds of the Democratic Movement after successful revolts in 1973.

December Uprising
December 1973 saw the largest communist uprising in the country's history take place in the city of Rozkva. Due to the armed forces' shift from defending against the ongoing insurgency in northern Veikaia, the city of Rozkva was left mostly undefended from nearby communist insurgents, which took the opportunity to attack the city and seize control of its apparatus of government. The city was declared a "Freed Proletarian Territory" and armories were attacked and seized. The swift action by the People's Red Front left the poorly prepared royalist forces reeling and scattered, allowing the communist forces to barricade the city's streets and prepare for any government attack. The nearby military base of Rozkva was also attacked and several armored vehicles were seized and used to further protect the city from attack. From 1973 until the capture of Oztov and the end of the civil war the city of Rozkva was the base of operations of the PRF.

Through 1973 and into 1974 the PRF forces recruited many new members into their forces both in the city of Rozkva and across the outskirts of the nation's city, using the general disdain for the monarchy among the rural population of the country, a population that suffered greatly due to famines and other disasters that struck the country in the past few decades and felt the monarchy was to blame. The PRF quickly bolstered its already rather large forces with the victory in Rozkva and repelled several attempts by royalist forces to retake the city. The December uprising of 1973 had been a resounding success, but the PRF desired to expand further and capture more territory, as the situation became clearer and a civil war became an unavoidable reality.

In 1974 several other military bases, airfields, armories and small villages and towns were captured by the PRF, which had started to receive support from other communists states across Anterra such as Teutonia and Albel among others. The International Brigades were shortly created, accommodating a large number of international volunteers which desired to fight for the cause of the communist forces.

Fall of the Monarchy
In 1973 the King was forced to abdicate and go into exile in Tiperyn by members of the Old Guard Government. This caused division among the conservative government members of the royalist faction, but was eventually accepted as the best way forwards. The country was temporarily without a monarch until the end of the war, when Oroket Anton II was re-established as monarch of the government in exile by the opposition of the then defeated and exiled Old Guard Government.

The fall of the monarchy and rise of the Old Guard Government meant a complete shift in the royalist forces' strategy. As the communists grew in strength and the democrats continued to fight government forces in the south, the situation was deemed too volatile and dangerous to continue the Oroket's more liberal appeasement campaign. The royalist forces became more aggressive in their fighting against the communists and democrats, effectively stopping the northern expansion of the communists and putting the democrats between a rock and a hard place for the rest of the war. The Old Guard Government employed the fascist militias of the National Unity Brigades in their campaign against communists and democrats.

The Old Guard also began a campaign of military imprisonment of anyone believed to be a supporter of either the Democratic or Communist forces, a move that further hurt their legitimacy in the eyes of the dwindling supporters of the monarchy and further fueled the ongoing mass desertions. The mass imprisonments caused the deaths of many thousands of innocent civilians under the Old Guard Government's rule, many of the imprisoned were freed by advancing communist forces and joined, willingly or not, the communist campaign.

Communist Expansion
As the months passed, a campaign of harassment and hit and run tactics were employed by communist forces to bleed the royalist forces dry, a campaign that had great impact on the enemy force's morale. Pickup trucks were used to a great extent by communist forces as hit and run vehicles. They were armed with machine guns and even artillery, mortars and canons and their great speed and maneuverability were used to a great advantage. Territory was quickly gained and the cities of Rotika and Baska were captured, giving communist forces access to the sea and therefore easier access to foreign military equipment and support. The northern areas of the country were deemed a lost cause by royalist forces, which proceeded to try and contain the PRF's advance while suffering losses in the south from the increasingly more aggressive democratic forces, which were too receiving foreign support from the League of Free Nations.

Many minor factions rose up through the Veikan Civil War, primarily on the Communist side. Examples include the Veikan Black Army, an anarchist organization working together with while still being separate from the People's Red Front. The Veikan Peasants Army, the Red Rotika Brigades, Oberlandscheid Brigades and many others.

The advancing communist forces were eventually contained and their advance halted in 1975, but much territory was lost and the royalist forces found themselves reeling from an aggressive and fast advance from enemy forces. The combat zones were mostly static in the middle of the war, as forces from neither side found themselves ready to push forwards and attack. Royalist forces found themselves relentlessly harassed by insurgents on light vehicles armed with a wide range of captured or foreign military equipment. This period of the war is generally believed to be the bloodiest, as many lives were lost (primarily on the royalist side) while little to no territory was gained.



The forests of Veikaia became home to fierce insurgent cells, some of them not directly connected to the PRF but still fighting alongside them. Anarchist forces managed to briefly capture the city of Valopole before being repelled by royalist soldiers. The cities of Sernicaba and Nambrosi also experienced open revolts that were crushed at a great loss of manpower. Communist forces continued to harass the tired royalist forces.

Into 1976 communist forces managed to break the eastern side of the front and push into the cities of Ecekva and Iakaetzadrag, which were promptly captured and barricaded. The cities of Voikadrag and Kurusk were briefly captured but royalist forces managed to recapture them a few weeks later. The front became mobile again as fresh volunteers joined the communist ranks and royalist troops started to experience mass desertions. Into 1977 the war was already tipped in the communists' favor as they started to push further and further into royalist territory.

Intervention by Mero-Curgovina
Since the start of major military actions in northern Veikaia by the communist forces prior to the war in the early 1970s, Mero-Curgovina had been sending military advisors to the Veikan Kingdom's government in an attempt to contain the mounting crisis in the country. By the start of the war in 1972 the Mero-Curgov government had at first supported the DAM's actions in the south, but seeing their lack of effective military action, their attention shifted towards the royalist government they had supported prior. The first direct acts of intervention by Mero-Curgov forces were the involvement of an armored grenadier brigade as an attachment to the royalist forces' primary fighting force in the north. This intervention force was known as the VFOR or Veikan Force. The military actions of the Mero-Curgov armored brigade were generally successful, but the Veikan royalist forces at large's performance was lackluster.

Further into the war more brigades were deployed in Veikaia under orders of the royalist forces, with a full battalion being deployed in 1973, at the peak of the Mero-Curgov deployment in Veikaia. The Mero-Curgov forces were noted for their superior performance in battle against the less trained but ultimately superior in numbers communist forces, a performance that slowed the communist forces in the north of the country significantly until the slow withdrawal of forces in 1975, a withdrawal caused by the mounting concerns about the ideological leanings of the royalist government and their continuing mistreatment of civilians which caused several scandals back in Mero-Curgovina. By 1976 the Mero-Curgov forces were entirely withdrawn from action in Veikaia.

Radicalization of Royalist forces
As the war progressed, specially after the fall of the Veikan Monarchy to the Old Guard Government, the leanings of the Old Guard Government became increasingly more extreme in nature. Among the first actions taken by the Old Guard Government was the approval of the integration of several non-government paramilitary forces such as the National Unity Brigades in 1973. The National Unity Brigades (Or NUBs, for short) had been consistently criticized for their mistreatment of civilians and fascistic ideological leanings that only worsened as the war progressed and the government found itself in a worse position. In the later half of the war proof started to surface by independent reports that the NUBs had been committing war crimes against those they believed to be communists or aligned with communists in any way. These reports were dismissed by the Veikan Government as communist propaganda but were eventually confirmed by Mero-Curgov sources, which led to the eventual withdrawal of the Mero-Curgov military intervention force from the country.

The Royalist Government itself had also been essentially hijacked by radical elements of the NUBs high command by the later stages of the war, with many officers and political figures quitting the Old Guard Government and going into exile just to be replaced by members of the NUBs with open fascist, ultranationalist leanings. The flight of the more moderate conservative elements of the Old Guard Government has been linked to the weakening of it due to the massive loss of experienced high command staff which was replaced by less experienced but highly jingoistic and nationalistic figures.

Siege of Oztov
1977 saw the beginning of the siege of Oztov, which lasted for 2 more years until the end of the war and the capture of the city in 1979. The siege was fierce and very violent, the city was bombarded from several sides simultaneously for most of the war and infested with infiltrated communist snipers, which became infamous for their attacks on civilians. Civilians were forced to stay indoors through most of the day, as the fighting and bombardment was the most fierce. At night the city became mostly safe to explore and looting and scavenging became common. The city descended into anarchy as royalist forces in the city ignored the plight of civilians and concentrated on maintaining control over the city from Communist forces. Skirmishes became commonplace, with communists relentlessly trying to capture the city through most of 1977.

The siege slowed down in 1978 when the communist forces directed their attention towards securing the rest of the country, but the bombardment continued albeit at a much smaller scale. Sporadic firefights continued but mostly at the outskirts of the city. The city was in ruins, homes were bombarded and civilians forced to either escape the city or move underground where they were the safest. Even when at its most calm, the siege was still brutal and violent, and many lives were lost through 1978.

Into mid and late 1979, as the communist forces seized the vast majority of the country and the LFN had already intervened into the war and stopped their advance south, the fighting became fiercest. Attention was shifted from across the country entirely into the city, which was the last bastion of monarchism in the whole country. The city was fiercely bombarded, constantly attacked and harassed and communist forces slowly and at a great cost managed to advance into the heavily mined and barricaded city. In November of 1979 most of the city had already fallen except for the coastline, which was being used to evacuate members of the Old Guard to Tiperyn as the war was already deemed to be lost. Finally, in November 28 the entire city was captured and the war was finally declared over, with the communist and democratic forces successful and the monarchy finally abolished.

Fall of the DAM
Into 1978 the war was already tipping in favor of the communist forces. The DAM had failed to achieve any of its objectives, failing to seize territory outside the barricaded major cities of the south and being mostly contained as a fighting force by the royalist forces through the early and middle portions of the war. The democratic forces received support from several nations across Artemia, including Mero-Curgovina in the early portions of the war, but the lack of a central command figure to lead any cohesive military action outside of major cities caused the movement to quickly fizzle out and be destroyed by the advancing communist forces, which quickly seized the cities with little resistance due to low morale and combat readiness.

The fall of the DAM has been attributed to many causes. A lack of cohesion between fighting forces, the lack of a central command figure and the lack of proper military equipment have been cited. The movement's continued existence through the war has been attributed to the royalist forces quickly shifting their attention to the north and lacking the necessary military forces in the south to reclaim the cities captured by DAM forces. The democratic movement had mostly been practicing its democratic experiment within the cities with not much care for the greater war at large, with most of the command structure of the DAM's military being composed of intellectuals with little knowledge of warfare, unlike the northern communist forces which had multiple decades of knowledge in guerrilla warfare due to their continued resistance from the 1940s onwards.

Aftermath
After the war the country's infrastructure across the nation was completely destroyed due to the heavy fighting. The city of Oztov was almost completely destroyed by the heavy artillery bombardment and several other cities in North Veikaia suffered a similar fate. The south saw less intense fighting and therefore suffered significantly less damage, but suffered considerable damage nevertheless. A period of reconstruction was required to return the nation back to a certain level of normalcy after the war, a reconstruction that costed much money and effort and ultimately changed the landscape of Veikan cities, which had been extensively damaged.

The Civil War left a mark on the civilian population of Veikaia. Most families in the country lost family members either during the war itself or during the famines and droughts that happened shortly after it due to the extensively damaged infrastructure of the country. The north specially suffered the most as the fighting was the most fierce in the region, and humanitarian aid was more scarce than in the south. The civilian psyche of the country was damaged too, with many civilians to this day surviving the civil war with physical and mental scars that have not yet healed.

After the end of the war many war crimes committed by the royalist and communist forces were uncovered by foreign spectators. Many civilians were executed without a trial and extreme unnecessary acts of violence were committed against political rivals. Many cases of small scale massacres were reported by survivors to international authorities after the end of the war. The modern Veikan government has vehemently denied most reported war crimes, claiming they are foreign propaganda orchestrated to "destroy the public image of the Ignatovist Revolution", still many soldiers and high ranking officers were trialed for war crimes after the civil war by communist forces, some of the trials being considered kangaroo courts by foreign observers, used to get rid of political opponents in the post-war landscape.

Mero-Curgovina
Relations between the new Veikan regime and Mero-Curgovina have historically been cold since the end of the Veikan Civil War, with a number of incidents flaring up between the two countries, some of which came very close to starting a war between the two nations. Shortly after the end of the Civil War tensions between the two states reached a boiling point, with a large number of forces being stationed across both sides of the Veikan-Curgov border. Both nations were prepared for an upcoming outbreak of hostilities, and the situation was seen as extremely dire by foreign experts which predicted hostilities between both countries. Ostban officials, however, intervened in the mounting crisis and assisted both sides in reaching a detente that successfully avoided the outbreak of conflict between the two sides. Still, tensions between the two nations continue to flare up in minor border incidents from time to time.

Ostboland
Before the outbreak of war, Ostboland and the Veikan Kingdom enjoyed relatively amicable relations. The border between both countries was largely open and demilitarized, save for standard forces or checkpoints. Ostben officials regularly granted communist and democratic of Veikaia  if requested, a minor source of tension in the 1950s and 1960s. Extraditing dissidents back to Veikaia was highly unpopular among the Ostben public; after the controversial of famed Veikan activist Źimon Emile Davidak in 1964, Ostboland amended its legal code to completely end the extradition of suspects accused of  or who would face  in their home countries. Just before the Civil War, Ostboland had a thriving community of Veikan left-wing in its border towns and in Nordsham.

The government of Ostboland maintained an official policy of in the Civil War, citing its historical neutrality and fearing an intervention would stoke uprisings from its own  movement. Ostboland publicly criticized Mero-Curgovina's involvement in the Civil War after officials on both sides met in 1973. The government did establish resettlement programs and refugee sites for Veikans fleeing the conflict. As many as 400,000 refugees fled across Veikaia's northern border into Ostboland during the war. By the mid-1970s, with the PRF's consolidation in northern Veikaia, Ostboland deployed elements of the as a monitoring force, the first time it deployed troops to the  in decades.

In May 1977 a small broke out in what has since been dubbed "The Incident" in Ostboland, or more commonly known as the Braot Valley Skirmish. A communist crossed the Ostben border in a valley near the Veikan city of Braot, targeting, a refugee settlement allegedly housing a pro- militia. In 18 hours, the Oberlandscheid Brigade was counterattacked by several regiments of the Ostben Army. The fighting continued sporadically for several days, but the communist brigade eventually withdrew. Both sides sustained casualties. The skirmish sparked a brief but intense ; Ostboland accused the new Veikan government for endorsing this violation of Ostben, while The Council Republic accused Ostboland of passively endorsing pro-monarchist border crossings. In December 1977, the Ostben cabinet approved the construction of a 4-meter-high. Construction on the barrier began in early January 1978. The fence was to feature and permanent.

By mid-1980, the political atmosphere in both countries had changed such that both sides now aimed for. In July 1980, representatives from the Council Republic of Veikaia and the Kingdom of Ostboland met in Apir and signed the Apir Protocol. In the Protocol, Veikaia agreed to take responsibility for the border incursion in 1977, pay to victims, and prosecute any members of the Oberlandscheid Brigade still left in the country (there were few, and most were only charged with ). In return, Ostboland agreed to surrender all remaining once owned by Veikan pro-monarchist forces, turn over all financial assets of the Veikan Kingdom still in Ostboland, and renounce intervention in Veikan affairs. The partially built Ostboland border fence was removed, and both sides agreed to the border once more and extend it to 50 km on either side. Both sides were allowed to keep their and customs officials. Since the Apir Protocol, there have been no other breakdowns in relations between Veikaia and Ostboland.