Being an History of the Allorn Empire; the Javarindar War.
Pt. 2 of 5
[An illustration of one of Empress Talea's private halls.]
Pt. 2 of 5
[An illustration of one of Empress Talea's private halls.]
Of the Beginning of Conflict; the Probing
Of the Probing, there is much material to survey and analyse in comparison to the other phases of the war, thanks in part to the very nature of the phase itself; in being the so-called 'Probing', Empress Talea had General Fáenille gather as much information on the militant Javarindar as she possibly could. From this came stacks of papers, veritable tomes on the nature of the Javarindar, their lifespans, physical attributes, political and social hierarchies. Even their weapons, inelegant and violent as they were, were recorded and catalogued for use in battle, though this was rarely ever executed; as the Allorn Empire began to dominate yet more of Daen, transporting such quantities of information where necessary became a challenge, and more oft than not the journeys to and fro were never completed before battle was waged.
Sometimes, this proved a surprising boon; in 2673BC in Qaelinaál, the commanding officer Cáelle Ssortafael was informed only hours before battle by scouts that the Javarindar were in possession of great metal constructs capable of lobbing fire and brimstone over long distances while remaining well out of the reach of infantry or archers. Had Ssortafael listened to Fáenille Nyssa Naahl's texts, he would have gone without this knowledge, and seen his armies shattered by Javarindar artillery. Instead, he sent out mages on horseback to destroy or, in the least, disable the weapons before they could be used. These mages never returned, but their sacrifice allowed the Allorn lines to crush the attacking Javarindar and dissuade further attacks on Qaelinaál for another fifty years.
More often than not, however, the results of Fáenille Nyssa Naahl's Probing were in high demand and short supply. Grand Rector Solicent despaired at the veritable seas of parchment and scrolls, writing, "the General is respectable for her hunger to collect information on the opponent, but is absent of a target; she does not choose to learn one thing and then another, for she wishes to learn it all at once." Because of this, it is understood that the bulk of Fáenille's collection of Javarindar knowledge was not contained in any one single place, but rather spread thinly across the borders of the Empire where the Javarindar made to attack; for example, the Pálancarn Kingdom had in-depth records and descriptions of Javarindar army formations and tactics, but not of the units and warriors that made them up, which was instead collected in Solánsat Principality. This led to an exacerbated sense of disjointment and lack of unity among the military leader, for how was the realm to defend itself when the facts and figures necessary to prepare were sorely unattainable in any reasonable amount of time. Some Princes had a solution; by dedicating their court mages to the defensive effort, a few generals were able to coordinate and disseminate their knowledge through scrying and telepathy. It is no coincidence that these generals fared the best against the oncoming swarms of cat-like engineers.
However, in these early Allorn days, magic was not widespread, and so only a few dozen mages were available for use at any time for these mages, and there were far more than a few dozen border skirmishes and indeed borders altogether for these scryers to do much more than staunch the metaphorical bleeding of the deep wound in the military intelligence hierarchy of the Crown's war host. This was not a wound that would heal quickly; misinformation and utter lack of information to begin with ran rife until well into the Conservation, by which time the generals and commanders of Talea's military had the misfortune of experiencing what should have been relayed to them half a century ago. Resultantly, Javarindar assaults were met with well-equipped, yet unprepared Allorn defense forces, shaving many towns, villages, and cities from the Allorn Empire's borders and prompting mass-outrage among the many Princes and Princesses who had yet to receive even a page's worth of Fáenille's intelligence. One particular Princess, Haellüwenne, went so far as to lobby for the General's ejection from her military seat, citing that her efforts were simply too thinly spread to provide anything more than a victory of luck and questioning Fáenille's abilities since the conclusion of the World-Crown Wars centuries before.
In spite of these lobbies, Talea allowed Fáenille to retain her position, reasoning that no other military operative had neither as much tenure nor as much experience as the Vallean, and that any other choice would have already lead the crown army to ruin, or worse. Although this decision cost Talea many tributes from the Principalities, the number of Princes and Princesses who abstained from offering gifts to the Empress dwindled over the course of the war. In the meantime, the western border Principalities continued to be harried by Javarindar forces, who oftentimes chose to raze and collapse the settlements rather than occupy them. The Allorn militaries were afforded only sparse victories, mostly pyrrhic or luck-driven in nature. One such victory saw a Highborne army escape nearly entirely unscathed, using an elemental mage to collapse a mountain pass along the western border on top of a marching Javarindar army. However, the touch of fate was not with most others; Alar Terelwë fell to mass-bombardment by what would be recognised today as artillery fire, leaving it a smoking crater.
Augur Lorlavelle claims that Javarindar forces went even far as to burn and salt any farmland they came across, no matter how large or small, in attempts to starve out the western Principalities and trigger a surrender-by-attrition. However, Rector Solicent's reports make no such mention of these scorched earth tactics, nor do any surviving military papers, prompting some scepticism among historians towards the truth of Lorlavelle's words; however, the relative scarcity of still-existing material overall means that there is no definite resolution to this debate.
In the meantime, the twin Princes of Cáelle began to formulate more solid strategies and military doctrines against the Javarindar. Despite their formal education and high regard as strategists and tacticians, neither the red-clad Neyle nor the blue-clad Niyle could generate offensive strategies that they held any confidence in. Instead, they released a controversial doctrine to the many commanders and captains not only in Talea's crown forces, but to those in as many Principalities as they possibly could, to boot. Said doctrine essentially boiled down to the principle of pragmatism and conservation (hence the name of the following era of the war) of military strength; the so-called "Cut Your Losses Paper" (translated) sparked fires of pride and honour among the Empire's military leaders, who believed that their Pantheon may assist them, or that Estel herself may come to their aid in their time of need.
However, Neyle and Niyle were far more apprehensive to rely on divine intervention, and instead sought Talea's affirmation, which was readily given. Soon enough, the resistance to the twin Princes' doctrine melted away, either through the acceptance of pragmatism by the dissenters, or by the results of their 'death-before-dishonour' mantras. The bard Ríe reported that other, perhaps more inward forces hurried this process, though no other records support his claim.
Haferath reports that as a result of the twin Princes' papers, Allorn losses across the Empire began to fall, though the loss of territory increased where their overall engagements decreased. By 2655AC, roughly a third of the western Allorn territories had been consumed by the encroaching Javarindar forces, a tenth of the northern territories, and a fifth of the southern ones. Calls for Talea herself to intervene grew louder, though she seemed far more focused on ensuring the quality of her personal guards and the overall military of Alar Talea. At the same time, many smaller Principalities began to conglomerate to form larger, marginally more formidable states through means of marriage, conflict, or simple confederation. This would ostensibly enable the states to survive, even if not as they had been, as well as providing far greater military might together than they had held divided. However, in most, this was not the case; mass military spending in the states had led to crippled economies and, for the most part, meant that the conglomerated Principalities inherited debts and deficits far larger than their shiny new armies.
Overall, the Probing could be considered a learning period for the Empire; although lessons of unity, innovation, and practicality were upon the proverbial table for the many Principalities to take advantage of, the early Princes and Princesses instead chose to rely on the older, less effective methods of the World-Crown Wars, leading to a far more heightened distrust of the Empress and her Court, as well as major, doubtlessly unnecessary losses for both the Empire's wealth and the Empire's populace.
Next, the Conservation, and the learning of the aforementioned lessons by force.
