User:Rtcity/Invasion

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Invasion of Yaraa (1963)
Invasion of yaraa.png
Date:1 August, 1963
Place:Yaraa, Kryfona Kingdom
Outcome:Invasion successful; Yaraa occupied
Combatants

Yaraa Province Flag.png Yaraa Province

Kreifonswies.png Awaseq government

Commanders

none for militia or mobs

Kreifonswies.png Tyeri Awaseq

Strength

~ 1,500 organized militia >25,000 self-mobilized Yaraans

28,000 standing troops
15,000 reserves

Casualties

20 killed, 85 wounded

18 killed, 59 wounded

38 killed, 144 wounded in total

On 1 August, 1963, after the refusal of the provincial government of Yaraa—then run by the Yaraan Kryfon's Movement—to dissolve itself immediately, King Tyeri Awaseq ordered and carried out the Invasion of Yaraa (Kryfona: Euvesiye za Yaraa; Yaraan: Uvesije sa Yara) with the forces of the Army of the Kryfona Kingdom. It was the first—and to date, only—time in the history of the Kryfona Kingdom that Kryfona troops were deployed to subjugate a province's government.

Kryfona troops entered Yaraa beginning at around 5:30 AM Nylzsryf time, and by around 8PM had essentially stamped out all resistance; resistance nevertheless was quite serious in many places and resulted in large scale confrontation between members of the Army of the Kryfona Kingdom and the citizens of Yaraa. Large confrontations occurred in the Yaraan-majority cities of Aarŭ and Yolrie, which resulted in the deaths of 20 civilians and the injury of 85. 18 soldiers, including 10 in Aarŭ and 3 in Yolrie, were also killed during the course of the invasion, with 59 injured. The conflicts represented the largest loss of life of Kryfona soldiers since the Tabrin attack in 1950, which killed 19.

While the invasion was successful in bringing down the Yaraan government—the governing parties peacefully relinquished control of the province, as Awaseq wanted—by virtually any other metric the invasion was a critical failure. Awaseq, who had already caused outrage in Yaraa the night before by firing the Minister of Yaraan Affairs Syora Vehei, now found himself with a Yaraa that refused to aid his government. Subsequently, Yaraa would go on to be one of the government's most vehement critics and its greatest adversary. Furthering the government's headaches two major issues came to define the invasion and its aftermath. Firstly, the federal-ban of the YKM in the aftermath of the invasion (which prevented the YKM from holding its Kryfonsparliszaiye seats for 20 days on the basis of being "anti-Kryfona") effectively ended the net-positive approval of the Awaseq government. Secondly, although the Awaseq government attempted to conceal the overtly political intent of the invasion, much of the Kryfona public saw the invasion as a blatantly political move. By the time the federal ban of the YKM was walked back, the government found itself with an net approval rating of -30. It would be almost six years before Awaseq's government even approached a net-positive approval rating. The KRP, which had pushed for the invasion, was also devastated as a consequence of the invasion's unpopularity. In the 1963 elections, the party lost seven seats and, still burdened by it and the Yaraan Crisis during the 1969 election cycle, would lose six more. Similarly, the KLP, who was then in an alliance with the KRP, lost eleven seats in the largest federal loss of seats since the first contested election in Kryfonsparliszaiye history. The two parties never regained their strength from the events.

Background

Several major events prompted what would eventually become the Invasion of Yaraa in the weeks and months before it actually occurred. Even before the implication of the YKM being involved with terrorist organizations, there was a clear tension between the Yaraans of the Kingdom–and particularly between the YKM's government in Yaraa–and the reigning monarch Tyeri Awaseq. Awaseq, although certainly not against Yaraans and Tuszkeans, was extremely hesitant to involve himself in their political revolutions, much less help them deal with the active Impurist campaigns then going on in their respective provinces. While Tuszkeans quietly accepted this and went about their days, Yaraans were much more outspoken about the matter. The YKM in particular was not hesitant to criticize Awaseq severely for his inaction–often, the YKM would go so far as to say he was actively aiding the Impurists by doing nothing. Awaseq for his part neither listened to nor cared much for these Yaraan criticisms; when he did, he often characterized them as 'intentionally offensive.' This was the status quo of the relationship between Yaraans and the crown as early as 1960, and well into the period of tumult in 1963.

In the approximately week long period immediately prior to Awaseq's invasion, chaos had prevailed throughout Yaraa. The YKM-controlled government, powerful as it was, was threatened significantly by the Purge scandal, which had been unveiled by the media just a few days earlier. The YKM at the time, although well liked in Yaraa and its sole representative at the federal level, had won only 30 seats in the Yaraan House in the local elections just a month earlier; this was seven short of a majority, meaning they were stuck in a coalition with the Social-Populist Party, who held 8, plus an independent who caucused with them for a total of 9. When the extent of the Purge scandal was revealed, the Social-Populist Party wanted out, and subsequently threatened to pull the plug on the alliance, leaving the YKM in an unenviable situation where they would have no guarantee of holding power. This was also a bad prospect for Yaraa as a whole (at least to the Awaseq)–the second place party, Revolutionaries, was a far-left, Homaitist, radical socialist party which in its first election cycle just weeks earlier had won 23 seats. Were the YKM to lose their majority, it would then be incumbent on them to call new elections, in which it was figured the Revolutionaries would absolutely do better. Thus the YKM brought the Social-Populists to the negotiating table, tried to appease the government while also telling Awaseq off, and simply hoped to somehow, some way, stay in power.

Events of 29 and 30 July

In the final two days before the invasion, two major events took place. On 29 July, 1963, Mirgany Day, the recessed Kryfonsparliszaiye briefly re-met for a meeting and subsequent vote on a just-introduced resolution. In an intentional move, only sympathetic members of the KLP and KRP were invited to the meeting. A total of 51 MPs were known to have attended the meeting, all of whom went on to vote in favor of the legislation being proposed. What specifically was discussed beyond the bill and its content is not known, the documents containing the specifics of the meeting having been destroyed intentionally in the aftermath of the invasion. Very little is also known about the context in which the meeting was called, in part because of similar document destruction on subjects relating to the meeting and in part because many of the members who attended refused to speak openly on the matter. Only a few MPs, in particular the eventual-exile Vargiz Mahemeite of the KLP, eventually came to speak on the matter. Even Mahemeite however was only willing to give a few details about the meeting in an interview with Nylzsryfa, and as a direct result of the interview he was crucified in the royalist press. As far as Mahemeite knew, the meeting was called after members of the royalists, under direct orders from Awaseq, wrote up a quick legislative bill to give him the powers necessary to invade Yaraa. In function, the meeting was to serve a way of keeping the guaranteed voters in line.

The meeting lasted somewhere around 30 minutes, and for the most part, everyone who attended was in agreement, at least outwardly. Mahemeite himself was privately against the invasion, but felt that voting against the bill which would allow it to go forward would likely result in him being vilified and removed from the party silently. He noted in the interview that many of his loyalist colleagues felt similarly about the matter, but ultimately voted with the royalists on the matter out of fear of being voted out in the coming elections and being threatened politically. One of these MPs, Janej Mazegem, also opened up about the meeting in an interview, saying that threats of primaries and of political retribution were lobbied against any 'assured' voters who then voted against the measure when it came before the Kryfonsparliszaiye.

The meeting adjourned sometime around 1 PM, Nylzsryf time, at which point the 67 present MPs (the YKM was invited but did not attend the vote because of the aftermath of the Purge scandal) began to debate and vote on the resolution. The debate on the matter was short; there was effectively no need to debate the resolution in the first place. Aside from the fact that the intention of the resolution–to give the government the authority to invade Yaraa where it previously had none–was clear, it was also clear that the resolution had more than enough votes to pass. Although there were some naysayers, both parties officially supported the resolution. When the debate finished, a vote was quickly taken. The resolution passed 51–16, with every member who attended the meeting voting yes.

Invasion

At 5:30 AM, Nylzsryf Standard Time, the official orders for invasion were given by Tyeri Awaseq to his commanders in the field. Troop movements began at around 5:40 with the Western Group under Safoadi Mariyenz, while it was not until 5:50 that the Eastern Group under Marjanes Zesi began to carry out actions. Small delays with both groups ultimately delayed the invasion proper from occurring until 6:00 AM. The first troops to enter Yaraa did so at 6:02 AM; by 6:30 all 28,000 deployed troops had entered Yaraa. Owing to the use of armored transport vehicles and tanks, the invasion was swiftly executed and by 6:15, the first troops under Mariyenz were approaching the population center of Aarŭ. Aarŭ would be the first city to fall to the invasion, but not without significant cost. Yadysim was the next city to be occupied, with the first forces under Zesi reaching the city limits at around 6:24 AM. Drzseil was occupied and surrendered by 7:00 AM, and Yarasil fell to a mixed bag of Western and Eastern Group forces at about 7:15 AM. Despite the swift capture of these four cities, resistance by locals and several groups of untrained militia proved troublesome for the occupying forces, and battles were subsequently fought between these groups and the Kryfona Army over the course of the day.

Resistance in Aarŭ

The first major resistance to the invasion was in Aarŭ, despite the city being almost immediately "captured" by the Western Group. Unbeknownst to Kryfona Army intelligence, Aarŭ was actually home to semi-organized resistance as opposed to self-mobilized Yaraans. An independent group of militia going by the Zarjenehŏ Kryfones sa Aarŭ (ZKA) had already well established itself in the city, and when word came to the city that the Western Group was about to occupy the city, mobilized itself to fight the invaders. Also mobilized to fight the invading force was a mass of civilians armed with whatever they could bring to arms. This was not unexpected and had in fact been anticipated by Mariyenz, and he had prepared for the event accordingly–or at least he thought he did. The first signs of trouble began to brew at about 6:20, when several tanks of the 1st Group began to roll down the Avnyŭ Mŏlokŏ only to find themselves confronted by barricades and a mob that was estimated to have been at least a thousand strong. A near thirty minute standoff between the mob and the tanks ensued, in which several times the tanks attempted to circumvent the barricades only to be swarmed by people. After the third attempt to circumvent the barricades failed, and not wanting to cause a riot or some sort of conflict by injuring someone, the tanks stopped and turned to follow the path of the 3rd Group, which was moving into the city from the southwest.

The mob, considering this event a victory, broke apart and attempted to follow the tanks and halt the advance of the 3rd Group. However, the 3rd Group's column of tanks and armored vehicles, much larger than the column which had made up the 1st Group, responded to these attempts with small-arm fire. Nobody was injured–the fire had been at nothing in particular to avoid incident–but the crowd scattered. Subsequently, the 3rd Group managed the drive into the heart of the city with no further incident. The column stopped near the Aarŭ Town Hall, a little ways from Downtown Aarŭ, where a "surrender" of sorts was negotiated and signed at around 7:10 AM. At about the same time, the same mob that had prevented the 1st Group from traveling down Avnyŭ Mŏlokŏ reorganized itself and began to pester the mass of soldiers in the Downtown area. At some point, a command was given to at least one group of soldiers to attempt to cordon off the crowd, leading to the deployment of about 70 soldiers to an adjacent street. Part of the crowd–which had spread out over several streets in the process of the deployment–caught a group of about half the soldiers off guard, and from there the situation escalated. Some of the crowd was openly armed with guns and other weapons, and after at least one member of the crowd refused to drop their weapon, a shooting incident occurred which resulted in the deaths of two civilians–Saszary Goisem and Jeszsem Sarovina. A chaotic scene followed.

In the chaos of the event, parts of the crowd fled in a panic, while other parts pursued and exchanged some degree of fire with the soldiers. A general fallback order was given–ineffectively–at some point during the event. The group of soldiers quickly split apart as it attempted to work its way out of the situation, and in its place left a group of ten and a group of twenty-five. While the group of twenty-five managed to escape the general area and eventually worked its way back to the Downtown massing of soldiers, the group of ten became confused and disoriented–in the hasty arrangement of the invasion, many soldiers had not been given maps of the areas they would be deployed to. They were cornered by several armed members of the crowd and quickly surrendered when it became apparent that they were either outnumbered, outgunned, or both. As they were being detained, two unidentified members of the ZKA walked up to the scene armed with automatic weapons and gunned all ten of the soldiers who had been captured down in a hail of gunfire. At least one soldier is known to have survived the initial barrage; whether or not they were shot again or simply bled to death is not certain. All ten eventually died at the scene. The event, which subsequently became known as the "Battle of Aarŭ" in the press, was the deadliest incident during the invasion, and one of the worst attacks on the Kryfona Army in its history up to that point. The incident would not become known until a day after the invasion, on 2 August. It was the only significant incident in Aarŭ on the day of the invasion, and the 12 killed in the incident represented almost a third of the fatalities during the invasion.

In spite of the incident, Aarŭ was effectively subdued completely by 8 AM, and the Western Group officially declared the city to be in their control at 9 AM; however, the full situation that had taken place with the ten soldiers was evidently not apparent to Mariyenz nor his subordinates until late in the day on the 1 August, by which point the national media had been made aware of the matter dissidents in the city. It seems likely that Mariyenz did not notify Awaseq of the matter and that Awaseq learned of the matter through the newspapers the next morning; however, this is a matter of historical uncertainty because Awaseq never confirmed or denied it, and many documents–including virtually all correspondence between parties involved in the matter–related to the invasion were destroyed after the event.

Resistance in Yolrie

Around the same time that the Western Group was signing its order of surrender in Aarŭ, the Eastern Group was rallying on Yolrie. Yolrie was the other major source of resistance to the invasion, owing to the quick organization of its mayor Zeon Gerheye. Gerheye had suspected an invasion as early as 26 July, and had quietly organized defensive fortifications to be be built. Trenches and wire were gradually placed around Yolrie through 1 August, and on that day when it became clear that Yaraa was being invaded, Gerheye activated the "Yolrie Peoples' Militia" under Vyŏri Hain. The Yolrie Peoples' Militia was a large force of nearly 1,000 untrained militiamen that had voluntarily enlisted in response to an open call for bodies by Gerheye on 27 July. The militia took up positions around Yolrie, alongside thousands of civilians who spontaneously mobilized. Barricades were set up in the streets of Yolrie by sympathetic civilians, and by the time the Eastern Group arrived in the city, nearly every major road in the city was partly or completely blocked.

The 10th Group arrived in the city's western outskirts at 7:18 AM, entering the city through the Zanieta subdivision; the 13th Group arrived five minutes later, entering at the southwestern subdivision of Kalakos. At both places of entrance, there were outbursts of violence between the invading forces and citizens. At Kalakos, a standoff ensued between a large crowd of around one thousand and the 13th Group on the Piregaŏd Avenue. Most of the crowd manned large barricades that partially blocked Piregaŏd Avenue, while others sought to form a chain of bodies to block the rest and halt the progression of the tanks that led the 13th Group. For around twenty minutes, the Piregaŏd Avenue blockades held firm, with the middle and tail of the 13th Group gradually trickling to the blockade. By 7:50 AM, the crowd at the barricades had swelled to around two thousand, with the 13th Group being of a roughly comparable strength. Efforts by the 13th Group's leader, Seize Malduivna, to negotiate with the crowd were unsuccessful; likewise, efforts to circumvent the crowd and its blockades were fruitless and only aggravated the soldiers. By 8:10 AM, it was clear that something would have to happen at the Piregaŏd Avenue blockade, and this "something" took the form of stray firing from one of the soldiers in the 13th Group. At least two hundred bullets were fired by soldiers in the resulting gun battle, killing 4 people in the crowd and injuring 27. Most of the crowd scattered, putting end to the blockade.