War Progression Story Caution Thrown To The Icy Winds Of The North

A series of unfortunate decisions and words of rhetoric was to unfold in the days following the mobilization of the Typhonus troops that would leave the whole of Drixagh teetering on the edge. First came the announcement of von Rahm, who had previously proclaimed neutrality in the Drixagh-Calemberg conflict. The local lords had already taken note of the von Rahm and Krupp alliance that had been signed mere days sooner, causing movements to be made to provide for contingencies in case house von Rahm would turn out to be a traitor to the Calemberg Union. It was true that von Rahm had only been a token supporter of the Union before during the first purge of the North, but it had nonetheless been counted as a supporter of the Calemberg union under Hamelin von Rahm. When the title passed to a new title holder, and with the alliance with House Krupp however, tensions started rapidly mounting between former allies. Even House Drachenburg supporters spoke with concern, especially since both the Count and the Baron of Drachenburg had previously been allies in the successor group of the conservative alliance.

It was as such, that Typhonus troops had already anticipated the von Rahm plans to mobilize, and saw this as a direct opposition to their border defence compact. In fact, it was becoming rapidly clear that von Rahm had no intention of actually negotiating, and was telling Typhonus to carte blanche leave their lands immediately, which would cause Hadrian's wall to no longer be garrisoned against a Skagger invasion. With the alliance that von Rahm made with Krupp days prior, and had publicized, it became obvious to Typhonus that von Rahm had no intention of actually keeping their allies out, and now posed a massive security risk to Calemberg. When the call for mobilization was placed in von Rahm's lands, Typhonus troops who were already mobilized, in the area and armed to the teeth with fast cavalry units, captured the von Rahm armories and barracks, denying the von Rahm levies their mobilization order. When riders with messages were intercepted, proclaiming von Rahm support to the Krupp cause, house von Rahm was proverbially nailed to the justifix and caught with their pants down. The Count was able to escape capture and route back to Regalia, but the mobilization had effectively failed and the Typhonus and von Treppewitz troops seized all the major von Rahm military installations, effectively placing the whole County under military occupation.

The former act would have come across as a very serious provocation and non-casus-belli hostile act, had it not been for what would transpire next. As if by clockwork, while the von Rahm positions were being taken behind Hadrian's wall, a massive Skagger army comprising of Sterke-Enn, Sorenvik, Viduggla and Krupp troops moved south in one large bulk, thus being entirely not subtle, and parking themselves in camps in front of Hadrian's wall. This obvious provocation was complicating for a number of reasons. Count Viduggla insisted that the North Alliance intended to negotiate, but in all their years had the Calemberger lords never heard of a negotiation attempt with a full mobilization backed by a massive army. They rebutted the claim that if a negotiation had been made, the North Alliance would have sent an envoy to Regalia and Calemberg would have done the same for peace talks, not bring half the "screaming wolds" down on the south wall. These matters were further complicated with the lands meet language used by Krupp's representation. They made it very clear that war seemed inevitable, and that Krupp was going to utterly destroy Calemberg.

Not all was yet a mess however. With the North Pact parking in front of the wall, and the Typhonus army behind it, all seemed at an impasse because neither side was interested in making the first move for the sake of the court and the people's reactions, which remained absent. It was there that von Brühl's actions forced everyone's hands however, as he too mobilized his forces with a most curious rhetoric. The Reverend von Brühl sanctioned the murdering of fellow Unionists for the sake of cultural appreciation of heretics. Especially the comment mocking the deference to the correct pronunciation of "dich" fell badly with the local Mayors because a large segment if not the majority of Brühl lands were Alt-Regalian, thus antagonizing a large portion of the local population. Finally however, von Brühl started his speech with "We've been dragged into a war now with other parties", thus signalling to his levies (for those that did show up), that there was now officially a state of war between the Calemberg Union and von Brühl, who by extension according to von Rahm and Krupp announcements, were part of the Northern Pact.

As soon as all the pieces fell into place, trebuchets on Hadrian's wall opened fire on the Norhern Pact's forces north of the wall who summarily retreated further away to avoid artillery fire. The vantage point of elevation the Typhonus troops had made countering their artillery a pointless venture, so most of the soldiers resorted to cutting down swathes of trees to dig anti cavalry ditches with pikes. The Typhonus troops however did not muster from behind the wall at all, and furthermore also seemed to completely ignore the von Brühl mobilization. Viduggla and Sorenvik couldn't even try to negotiate with Typhonus, even if there was a very slim chance that he would still have sat down at the table, because of the actions of von Rahm and Brühl who inadvertently forced everyone's hands and made the Northern Pact the aggressor in the conflict.

Back at the court, this became immediately the talk of the day, including von Brühls outlandish claim that waging war on the Claws of Union, the nickname given to the Typhonus veterans who had fought in every major conflict defending the Empire against heathen invaders, was permitted, because they didn't respect the cultural diversity of another brand of heathen. Whatever shreds of legitimacy in a defensive claim the Northern Pact had at court, and whatever subsequent sympathy they might have had for their plight, evaporated the moment von Brühl claimed the war was already upon them, and the rhetoric turned violent. Distantly in Vlissinghelm, no doubt, the Duke would butter his hands in anticipation of the moment he had waited for: Sorenvik lands which still harbored heathen refugees from his lands was now exposed with a token force of defenders who could not adequately position all the defenses the Duchess has been making for the past year.

House Typhonus as such also made no delay in calling upon the Duchy of Ravenstad and the Barony of Drachenburg to mobilize their troops and invade von Brühl to "de-seat this craven crazed mad-prophet", while proclaiming that the snow of Drixagh would run red with blood if the Northern Pact would dare to assault Hadrian's wall. An unofficial overture was also made to House Harhold to consider mobilization of their own, but Typhonus was clever to avoid any direct implications, and outright refused to make any agreements or public alliances with Harhold to uphold the spirit that he did not intend to invade Drixagh. Indeed, doing so would prove a costly attrition affair. The Northern Pact had built many anti-cavalry ditches to nullify their advantage, but inversely, the North could not hope to assault Hadrian's wall without incurring massive casualties on all fronts.

Military speculators would later theorize about what went wrong in the events that unfolded: Most of them agreed, that the rhetoric used by the Reverend von Brühl was the catalyst. By participating the actual war and proclaiming it as fact, his words served as a unilateral declaration of war for the entire North Pact. The catalyst was however not what would have prevented the situation from panning the way it had. Others speculated that, even before von Brühl, the fault lay with von Rahm. Had von Rahm not demanded Typhonus leave, and had they not made an announcement about an alliance with Krupp days before, Typhonus troops would have likely remained on low-alert, and unaware that von Rahm troops wanted to mobilize. They also would not have intercepted orders, and it would have been likely that von Rahm would have been able to mobilize his army and thus take Typhonus from surprise from behind, and force him to the table. The unfortunate series of events served as another warning to the other nobles however: Don't play your hand until you know the actions of your enemy, and don't make an enemy out of a friend when they are right there in your own backyard.

Either way the situation had turned, by the rules of the feudal war contract, war was now officially raging between the North Pact, which had been joined by von Rahm and von Brühl, and the Calemberg Union, which in itself now called upon the good sensible unionist men of House Ravenstad and von Drachenburg as allies in the conflict, to revive their alliance of old. Hadrian's wall stood tall, casualties on the Northern Pact were negligible because the soldiers were moved away from the siege engines range fast enough when they started firing. House von Brühl was however hopelessly outnumbered. Not only did part of the levies simply not show up because von Brühl had alienated a lot of Alt-Regalians in his lands, he split his army three ways to cover three different tasks, which spread a super thin line of soldiers across the entire land border. It was speculated that even von Drachenburg alone could smash through his lines and ride straight for his capital, notwithstanding the large knightly army of Ravenstad.

Satirist's take on the rising conflict:
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