Fall of the Deltarian Empire

Fall of the Deltarian Empire
Men Aside occupying Tsargrad
Date May 3566 - July 3574 Location Deltaria Result Victory for False Miloš Dismantling of Deltarian Empire Extermination of Čestibor Dynasty
Belligerents
White Guard Whig forces Supported by: Zardugal	Men Aside Revolution Movement Supported by: Sultanate of Badara	Dunic Republic of Doron Akigo Supported by: Zardugal
Commanders
Viktor I Ban Bohdan z Zlumčan Field Marshal Josef Pusero Lt. Colnel Vasilliy Zelnyin Juraj Crai	False Miloš Lt. Colonel Petar Coluvic	General Theodorik Adalfuns
Strength
210,000	190,000	100,000

The Fall of the Deltarian Empire is the name given to a civil war in the nation of Deltaria that resulted in the destruction of the Second Deltarian Empire and its ruling Čestibor Dynasty. The war was mainly fought between the aristocratic supporters of Czar Viktor I and the forces supporting False Miloš, a claimant to the Deltarian throne.

Background

Between 3470 and 3568, the Deltarian Empire was the largest and most powerful state in Majatra and even all of Terra. Created as a result of monarchist victory in the Deltarian Czarist War (3457-3466), the Deltarian Czardom was the unquestioned ruler of its Empire. The Czarist system of government, established in 3467 as an uneasy alliance between the Crown, nobility, Church, and peasants, proved to be flexible enough to endure throughout the Empire's existence. The tensions between the various components of Deltaria's political system did nonetheless surface from time to time, constantly threatening Deltaria's hegemony. The first Czar, Dušan III, was little more than a puppet for the reborn aristocracy, leading to a failed assassination attempt on his life by discontent commoners. The old nobility too was dissatisfied with the new aristocracy, and during the Lake Majatra War (3494-3509) the Bátory family started a war against the Premyslid, Mojmír and Čestibor Dynasties, with Countess Anna Bátoriovská, the head of the Dynasty, proclaiming herself Queen of the Deltarias and Imperatrix of the Ríša. The Bátory rebellion was only ended in 3509, resulting in the extinction of the Bátory, Premyslid, and Mojmír dynasties.

Dušan's successor, Ľubomír II, was not any more fortunate at the beginning of his reign. After the Czar executed a number of nobles without trial as an attempt to reduce the power of the aristocracy and implement a form of absolutism, Voivode Augustin Čestibor, the Governor of Tsargrad, overthrew the Czar in 3510; Ľubomír only managed to return to the throne in 3511 with the help of Indralan troops. But by that point, the balance of power in Deltaria had shifted from the nobility to the Church. The Hosian People's Party led by Bishop Vladan Martinek became the largest faction in the Deltarian legislature, making Martinek the new Head of Government and pushing for a large number of populist and theocratic reforms. To counter the growing influence of the Church, the Czar created the Vonkajšíci (literally "Men Aside") in 3514 as his personal secret police organization, formed of low-class commoners fiercely loyal to the Crown. The religious-populist government of (by that point) Cardinal Martinek was eventually overthrown by the Men Aside in November 3519 and the Czar was installed as an absolute monarch. This was the beginning of decades of absolute Czarist rule over Deltaria, aided by the Men Aside, who could now enjoy an unchecked reign of terror, unchallenged by either the Church or aristocracy.

When Ľubomír died in 3548, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Vel'kovojvoda Miloš of Čestibor. The new Czar retained the absolutist rule established by his father, continuing to rely on the Men Aside to enforce his will over Deltaria. But it soon became obvious that Miloš II was far less sane and cunning than his predecessor, leading to several aristocratic attempts at forcing the Czar to abdicate, including the installment of an aristocratic dictatorship and a mass engineered famine leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of Deltarians. Miloš was by that point no longer capable of retaining his power, and when he became deathly ill in June 3560, the nobles refused to accept his infant son, Iván, as the future Czar. The Czar however recovered from his illness and, in September 3560, proclaimed himself the incarnation of Saint Parnum and demanded to be worshiped as such by all Deltarians. He was eventually assassinated in August 3563 by the exasperated nobles and replaced with his elder brother, Viktor I, the bastard son of Czar Ľubomír. The aristocracy, united within the White Guard had now become the most powerful faction in Deltaria, and soon moved to remove the last remaining elements of Czarist autocracy, the Men Aside.

Vonkajšíci rebellion

In 3566, the White Guard government of Deltaria proclaimed the Men Aside an illegal organization and its members sentenced to death by the breaking wheel. In response, the Men Aside began an open rebellion against the White Guard and Czar Viktor I, receiving much popular support from the commoners discontent with aristocratic rule.

Dunic Secession

With the central Deltarian government collapsing, the notoriously separatist province of Doron Akigo once again seceded in December 3566 after a vote in the Hadsingōs Thing, the province's legislative. Doron Akigo had previously attempted secession during the Lake Majatra War, but that attempt was doomed by the infighting between the province's two ethnic groups. This time, the secession was done under the banner of Dunic (OOC: Ancient Germanic) pan-nationalism, creating the Dunic Republic of Doron Akigo, with the new republic stating its goal of uniting with the fellow Dunic nation of Deltaria Nova. Due to the presence of Zardic peacekeepers, the Dunic republic managed to preserve its independence until 3609.

Rise of false Miloš

Although Miloš II was assassinated in 3563, many poor Deltarians took his earlier proclamation of divinity to heart, thus many of them believed that a god could not possibly perish so easily by mortal hands. Capitalizing on these beliefs and on his physical semblance to the deceased Czar, a previously unknown individual came forth claiming to be Miloš II. This False Miloš managed to gain the support of many anti-aristocratic commoners, and most crucially, of the revolting Men Aside, who now had their own candidate to the throne held by the noble-backed Viktor.

Foreign intervention

Eager to recover its dominant position in Majatra lost to the Deltarian Empire and to fill the power gap created by its collapse, Zardugal began covertly deploying a number of troops throughout the disintegrating Empire, including in Cobura and Jakania. In 3568, Zardugal sent troops to Deltaria itself, protecting the independence of the breakaway province of Doron Akigo, although Zardugal (or any other nation) never recognized the Dunic Republic. At the same time, Zardugal decided to offer its support to the White Guard, seeing them as the legitimate Deltarian government. Badara too intervened in the conflict, recognizing False Miloš as the legitimate Deltarian Czar and granting his forces significant economic and military aid.

Fall of Tsargrad

By mid-3568, the Men Aside had gained the upper hand, and in June they managed to occupy the capital city of Tsargrad and the entirety of Darali, while Czar Viktor and most of the White Guard government managed to flee to the city of Královice in Alazinder. Upon conquering Darali False Miloš ordered the execution of all Čestibor nobles found in the region, and since most of the Dynasty resided in Darali, the Čestibors were almost completely wiped out.

End and aftermath

In the following years the Men Aside steadily grew in power, while their populist reforms made them increasingly popular with the commoners. Following the violent suppression of a large protest against the White Guard, the opponents of the Guard government created the Revolution Movement, which immediately declared its support for False Miloš. With the Revolution Movement expanding rapidly throughout White Guard-held areas, Viktor I was forced to abdicate in favour of False Miloš in July 3574 , ending the civil war. The Men Aside, who had grown in number during the course of the conflict and lost their original purpose as the Czar's secret police, dissolved into the Revolution Movement, and the remaining White Guard forces were quickly overrun and eliminated.

Although Deltaria was finally reunified under a single Czar, Deltaria's Empire was brought to an end as a result of the war. Throughout the conflict the numerous nations in the Empire declared their independence, taking advantage of Deltaria's inability to act, so that by the time the war ended the Deltarian Empire was no more. The war also resulted in the extermination of the Čestibor Dynasty, who had ruled Deltaria for one century. In the aftermath of the war, Zardugal quickly moved to fill the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Deltarian Empire, creating the short-lived Pax Zard and laying the path for the future emergence of the Augustan Empire as Majatra's next overlord.