Grand Campaigns

The Grand Campaigns, also known as the Great War, was a originating in Artemia and Kesh that lasted from 1915 to 1925. The war involved most of the world's major powers and is considered to be one of the most clear cases of in world history.

The Grand Campaigns are considered to have begun on 15 April 1915 with the Teutonic invasion of the ethnically Teutonic department of Husseren-Wesserling in eastern Vallis. Initially from 1915 to 1919 the war only included Vallis fighting Teutonia and Austrasia mostly on its own sole. However, an allied faction headed by Tiperyn and including Brigantica, Koryeo, Agrana y Griegro and the Vojiskiy Empire would join the war on the side of Vallis to counter the growing territorial gains of Teutonia.

However, this allied faction would split in 1920 as republican rebellions would rise in Vallis and the Celt-dominant regions of Tiprain. Around the same time, the Caliphate that encompassed what is now Naseristan, Qurac and Asharistan declared war on Tiperyn which occupied several port cities on the northern coast of the Naser Desert. Brigantica allied itself with the republican groups in Artemia and the Caliphate in an effort to counter Tipslansk imperialism in the eastern hemisphere, becoming the de facto leader of this new faction.

Legantus joined this faction, supporting the republican rebels in Vallis and fearful of Teutonic posturing against Legantus due to its substantial Germanic population. Additionally, Guurdalai and Kodeshia would join this faction and fight in Kesh to restrict Artemian imperialism on the continent.

The world would see several concurrent civil wars, some of which would draw major powers out of the conflict. These included the Celt insurrection in Tiperyn from 1920-1926, civil war in the Vojiskiy Empire beginning in 1924, civil war in Kodeshia beginning in 1923, republican rebellions in Vallis beginning in 1920, collapse of the Caliphate in 1925 and the Teutonic communist revolution of 1924.

The conflict would have mixed results for each faction. Teutonia would fall to communist revolutionaries and lose territory to Legantus and Agrana y Griegro. The Vallis monarch was exiled as a republican government took power and the Brigantic-supported Celt insurrection established the Republic of Tiprain off of Tiperyn's southwestern coast. However, the majority of Keshan countries within the Brigantica- and Caliphate-led faction would collapse or suffer violent regime change either before the war's end or during the inter-war period. Meanwhile, there were no territorial changes in Avalonia as the new world did not experience any major land battles.

Burgeoning republicanism
Legantus was relatively quick to support these rebels. Vallis had been a significant threat for the entirety of the Republic's existence, and the prospect of turning what was considered the greatest threat to its national defense into an ally was an attractive one. Secret supply routes through Legantus's northern provinces to the areas that the Republican rebels operated in (ironically through several of the old battlefields of the Never-War) moved unimpeded, providing a surplus of basic supplies to the rebels.

Initial Teutonic offensive (1915-1919)
With the  of reclaiming ethnically Teutonic communities in eastern Vallis, Teutonic forces crossed the Vallisian border in force on 15 April 1915. Teutonia immediately gained ground, capturing most of the target province of Husseren-Wesserling by May of that year. Legantus watched these initial thrusts with extreme concern. The Legantian military was structured similarly to its Vallisian counterparts, and that structure was proving inadequate in the face of modern technological advancement. Its equipment was also out of date, a significant portion of it having been in service during the previous war. A large-scale rearmament effort was therefore decided upon, with the military replacing or supplementing almost every piece of equipment in its inventory at a rapid pace. Across the channel, Empress Fedde of Tiperyn proclaimed that Tiperyn would maintain a policy of armed neutrality unless its territory was threatened. Although Tiperyn viewed Teutonic aggression as a threat to regional stability, it did not view the capture of Husseren-Wesserling as a direct threat to Tiperyn interests. However, the Holy Realm had declared that the Hillich Channel separating Tiperyn and Vallis would remain open to all no matter the flag the ships carried. In late April 1915, the Tiperyn Home Fleet set sail with the mission of patrolling the channel and protecting major sea lanes. This was the first deployment of TNV Humongous - a battleship converted into an early aircraft carrier in 1913 - as well as the first case of a military deployment in defense of Vallisian shipping in Tiperyn's history.

Monarchist Intervention (1919)
As Teutonic forces advanced further north during their campaigns from 1918 to 1919, concern was building among the international community and interventionist movements on behalf of the Vallisians had begun to gain widespread appeal. By 1919, the aggressive expansion of the Teutonia had exceeded their claims on the ethnolinguistically Teutonic provinces of Vallis and threatened the Vallisian capital of Ornans. Although a colonial rival in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Holy Tiperyn Realm had favored the Vallisian monarchy, believing it to be a relatively stable power in the region to balance the Germanic and Slavic empires of Artemia and prevent the rise of popular democratic movements. Further, the Teutonic advance north had could threaten Tiperyn's southwestern shores should Vallisian forces be pushed into the sea. Since the start of the conflict, Tiperyn, as well as most of regional powers had remained neutral in the conflict. However, on 2 February 1919, Tiperyn Minister of Diplomacy Brent Garrick convened a meeting including representatives from Tiperyn's allies; namely Koryeo, Agrana y Griegro and the Vojiskiy Empire. The powers agreed that Teutonic aggression could not be tolerated, and it was in the best interest of all for the status quo of Artemia to be maintained.

Tiperyn troops of the 11th Tipslan Cavalry Regiment and 9th Idlerein Rifleer Regiment would first arrive in Vallis on 10 April 1919, travelling by rail towards the front at what would later be known as the Sarsoux Salient. Meanwhile, Agranian forces had engaged Teutonic forces along the mountainous Agranian-Teutonic border. The alliance had planned for Agrana y Griegro to draw forces away from Teutonia's offensive in Vallis by harassing Teutonic forces in mountainous terrain and pushing east with the intention of cutting of Teutonia's access to the Eurybian Sea. Two Tiperyn mountaineer regiments were deployed to Agrana y Griegro in May 1919 to aid in this task. In the western hemisphere, Koryeo, leveraging its large industrial capacity and relative isolation from the conflict, had increased its production of war materiel. In partnership with the Tiperyn Realm Armada, in May 1919, Koryeo begun large shipments of arms, artillery and other military equipment to Tiperyn and Vallis.

On the other side of the spectrum, the potential of burgeoning republican movements in Vallis attracted the interest of the democratic Legantus and Brigantica. The Vallisian monarchy was a rival of the Legantian republic, having warred only two decades prior. Republican movements had been gaining strength and influence during the early years of Vallis' conflict with Teutonia, fueled by civil dissatisfaction with the monarch and the state of war. Legantus would not enter the war on the behalf of the monarchy, but had been covertly supplying republican rebels with arms and other aid in the early days of the war. Brigantica, who was a staunch ally of Legantus, saw an easier opening by intervening on behalf of the monarchy to stem the tide of the Teutonic advance, covertly support rebel factions and gain an immediate foothold on Vallisian soil for further operations. Initially, Brigantica's deployment of troops to Vallis was coordinated with both the Tiperyn and Vallisian governments. However, Brigantic forces never fought alongside Tiperyn forces and were mostly focused in areas with significant republican rebel influence.

Legantian offensives
Legantian entry into the war was sudden. The Republic's initial moves, operations code-named Geror and Urd, were launched almost concurrently with declarations of war. Operation Geror, utilizing General Reynaud Wolter's Fourth Army and aimed at cutting off Teutonic forces deployed against the Vallisian republicans, quickly found itself bogged down after advancing only 8 kilometers. Republican force buildup had not gone unnoticed on the northern front and General xxxx xxxx had deployed his forces accordingly. On the southern front, General Walther Giehl's Operation Urd saw significantly greater success. General xxxxxx xxxx, in charge of the southern border defenses, had not detected any force buildups and had seen his forces repeatedly cannibalized for reinforcements for Army Group South facing Agrana y Griegro. The front collapsed almost immediately. While the Fourth Army found itself bogged down in trench warfare well away from its objectives, Giehl's Second found itself facing almost no resistance and limited in advance only by its movement speed. It was able to take its primary objective, the important transportation hub of xxx, by the second day. With his primary objective secure, the General sought and received permission to continue with offensive operations. His new objective was Teutonenland's southern coast, and the port of xxx. The Eurybian fleet docked there, having not sortied since the beginning of the war, remained a significant threat to Republican supply lines and operations in Kesh. In addition, it would provide a new port from which to base naval forces in the Eurybian sea and opened the possibility of deploying Legantian forces to help swing the initiative on that front back to the Republican alliance.