Dying New Galasia

[Aerandariel]

14 DOSA, 1584
Battle of Rhine, Sixth Day
General Belisarius' Command

With two days inside of the city of Rhine, both the Imperial and Regime forces blasted each other in hopes of dislodging each other's armies.

With pressure building from the Imperial Capital for more decisive action from the front, Belisarius ordered his VI and IX Corps to move into forward battle positions at least a half of a mile outside of the center of Rhine. The Imperial Air Force began bombing significant military and government targets within the city to soften up the city's defenses. Cruise missiles, fired from the Angirisian Navy batteries off the coast, began falling onto the remaining air fields and then began to target naval shipyards near Rhine. This continued for approximately ten hours. Facing dwindling supplies and little hope for any victory, Regime troops tried to hold their ground as long as they possible could, peppering the Angirisians with near-endless gunfire and trying to inflict as many casualties as possible. Belisarius's central armies, the II and IV Corps, moved down into the eastern side of Rhine, dislodged a motley force of 2,400 Galasians and forced their surrender. Later that day, another Angirisian regiment moved into downtown Rhine, captured the City Hall and Courthouse and ran up the Imperial flag. What few defenders remained had either fled south toward Alsace or surrendered.

After six days of fighting, the Angirisians had lost a total of 4,700 troops, the Galasians lost 7,500. The city of Rhine was now in Angirisian hands, and the Regime had been handed a significant defeat in the northern part of Drazen.

15 DOSA, 1584
Emperor Tyrael's Command
Eastern Drazen

Buoyed by the major victory in Rhine and the succession of smaller victories in the North and in the East, Emperor Tyrael's large army of nearly 100,000 moved into the east-central portion of Drazen with the intention of clearing the heart of the territory of Regime power and denying resupply to Alsace from the east and south. Tyrael was to move through the deserts of Eastern Alsace and then south toward the Ustyaran border. If the Angirisians could push through these areas with little issue, then the entire territory could be brought under Angirisian control and Tyrael could link up with Belisarius in preparation for the all-out attack on Alsace.

Tyrael moved into eastern Drazen and immediately ran into Regime opposition. Two small armies gathered to combat the Imperials in the deserts, but were combined to only make up less than half of Tyrael's total army. Both Regime armies attacked the Angirisians in the early morning of the 15th, hoping to either a) defeat the Emperor or b) weaken the Emperor's forces. One of the armies attacked Tyrael's northern flank while the other army hit Tyrael in the center. The Emperor dug in his XX and II Corps, absorbing the double-blow from the Regime troops. But the action took place in Tyrael's right and center, leaving his left flank on the south end completely unaffected. The Emperor then utilized a textbook maneuver, moving his left flank into forming a right angle from his center. He moved them to trap the Regime armies and pound away at them to force surrender.

The Emperor pounded the two armies for hours. One of the Regime armies attempted a breakout by moving around the southern flank of Tyrael's army but was bogged down by Angirisian artillery fire. After another two hours of fighting, the majority of the Regime troops broke and then fled. The Angirisians lost approximately 1,000 troops while the Galasians lost 3,000. But the two armies converged, regrouped and moved into a position where they could attack Tyrael a second time. But Tyrael saw the attack coming and moved his army into defensive position.

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LATE DOSA, 1584
Cathedrium, capital of the Angirisian Empire

The Second Angirisian-Galasian War had been raging for nearly a full month, and in that time the northern, eastern and southern frontiers of Drazen had either been occupied or were being attacked by well over 320,000 Angirisian soldiers divided between two armies. The Imperial Navy was completely successful in bottling up the Drazen coast, and the Air Force was in total control of the skies. After the capture of East Drazen, the Empire instituted a no-fly zone over nearly all of the country.

An attempt to urge the surrender of the Alsace government by the administration of Chancellor Aerandariel Apotecarius was firmly rebuffed, with the now military-controlled government of the territory determined to fight until the bitter end. They knew the battle was hopeless, but it appeared as if the Regime was resigned to inflicting as much damage as it could upon the Imperial armies to force the Angirisians into a position where they would have to accept Regime rule at the end of the war and very likely leave the Rojadavi-controlled Eastmarch vulnerable...