September 9, 1917
Northern Syara
The land of northern Syara was ancient. It had been around long before there was a Syaran Republic, or a Cacertian Empire, before iron ships sailed across the world and airships filled the sky. If you dug deep enough, below the top soil, the mud, the sand and dirt you could find long lost spear shafts and pottery. Occasionally shell craters exposed these relics, but amid the fighting above ground few gave such trinkets any second thought. This was the case all over Makedon, the heart of Syara’s ancient empire, where history had been made on the events and names like Orestes, Anaximenes, and Kerensky. Ancient stones and oaks had bore witness to the kings and legends of old, and centuries later they were now bearing witness to a new era, one born of blood and iron. Places and names like Lira, Nitchov Hills, and Kriven’s Ridge would soon force themselves into the Syaran historical lexicon, adding their own stories and personalities to the history of Syara and the Syaran people.
Just four weeks had passed since the Syarans had held, just barely, against the onslaught of the Cacertian Imperial Army. The Cacertians had landed in April, brushing aside the territorial militia that was supposed to be guarding the coast. Before long they had seized Sena and Lira, turning the Bay of Slaveiko into their personal lake, skirting the edge of the Veylo Channel that fed into the Strait of Syara before turning south and advancing through the Desopya Coastal Plains. For a while it seemed that nothing could stop them, and that the Cacertian Guards and Grenadiers would blast and fight their way into Zovahr itself and force a capitulation. As fast as their trains could move, the Syarans had transferred as many soldiers as possible into Makedon, withdrawing their forces from Ruvelka and leaving the Ruvelkans to their own fire and war. In desperate, bloody fighting they had managed to force a stalemate, surrounding Grimani and her 5th Field Army at Kotev Ridge, beating Barbigia and the 6th at the Nitchov Hills, and barely preventing Foscarini from crossing the Dazin River at Patom.
Division General Bertino Bassadoar had to know that he had almost broken the Syarans, but by now he was outnumbered badly. Geography was now the major problem for the Cacertians. They had a loose perimeter stretching from Korzhany in the west, along Desopya’s plains, from Kotev Ridge to Nitchov Hills, through the Dazin (but not at the valuable river crossing at Patom), finally to the Tane Highlands further east. Pressing him from all sides was Colonel General Atanas Endekov, with over 300,000 Syaran soldiers at his disposal, but his numerical advantage wasn’t enough. The most powerful nation in the world at the time, the Cacertian Empire could afford its troops a quality the Syarans couldn’t match, and so they went into battle with the best weapons, the best training, and the best leadership.
It showed. When the attack had come it broke the Syaran lines in numerous places, too many for Syaran reserves to plug. First the primary, then the secondary, all the way to the tertiary defensive positions, with Cacertian Grenadiers swarming through Syaran defenses faster than they could be reinforced. With the force of a rapier they had sliced their way through Syaran battalion after battalion, regiment after regiment. Green Syaran troops broke ranks and fled, forced back into positions by officers waving revolvers, and died by the hundreds manning machineguns they barely knew how to use and firing rifles that rarely hit their targets. Cacertian troops had earned their stripes in a dozen brushfire wars, in battlefields across Knichus, Xevden, and Allamunnika, and now Syara. The young Syaran republic had no experience beyond its adventures in neighboring Ruvelka, and now it was learning war the hard way.
War is ultimately an extremely pragmatic affair. Flair and finesse give way to efficiency and effectiveness above all else. Endekov had realized that rather quickly. He was faced with a seemingly insurmountable difficulty. The Cacertians were burning through his troops and defenses faster than seemed humanely possible. The framework for modern combat doctrine would be laid out in the actions and maneuvers of Cacertian rifle platoons, but now there existed little time for studious ventures. Endekov was faced with a nearly hopeless situation, every defensive effort seemingly failing before the Cacertian offensive. So he attacked. Again, again, and again, division after division charging to meet the Cacertians head on. When one attack failed in one location, another attack was launched in another location. Decades later historians and armchair generals would deride Endekov for his brutal, frontal assaults that killed thousands of Syaran soldiers, earning him nicknames like the “butcher”.
But in truth Endekov had few options. And above all his attacks worked. The Cacertians had plenty of skill, machines, and leaders, but they were in foreign soil, fighting in unfamiliar lands against an enemy they knew few things about. Every Syaran counterattack drew their strength away, diluted their presence, and extended their already stretched flanks. Before long Bassadoar had expended his reserves trying to cover his blind spots, and the Cacertian drive finally ran out of steam. Zovahr would not fall in 1917. It had come at a tremendous cost. Thirty thousand Syaran corpses littered Makedon from the shores of the Sundering Sea to the valleys and plains of the interior. Thrice that many screamed and strained in agony on a hundred plus field hospitals and nursing stations. The Syarans had “won”, and it was just a taste of what was to come.
Tihomir Zlaten Gavrilov could scarcely remember the last time he had gotten a good nights sleep. The past few weeks had seen nothing but drills, digging, and waiting. The waiting was the worst of it all, sitting in his trench, rifle in his hands, staring off at the horizon, where somewhere off in the mist the Cacertians were waiting. Gavrilov was in theory a veteran, he had been part of the battles a month prior that had halted the Cacertians at Nitchov Hills. To the newcomers (of which there were thousands) that earned him some status as a fabled expert in combat. Gavrilov didn’t understand their bright eyed fascination with which they asked about his experience. He had woken up one morning in Ruvelka, told that they were moving, and before he knew it their train was racing north on the tracks, moving so fast the entire chassis rattled and whined as they moved along the tracks.
They had disembarked and organized into their regiment faster than ever before, the customary shouting and complaints about their disheveled state forgotten by their Sergeants and officers. Soon they were marching, a very fast pace, drawing closer and closer to the sounds of battle. They heard the artillery first, so distant and deadened that most thought it was thunder at first. But then it grew in intensity and volume, and not long after it was joined by the rattling of machine guns and the volleys of rifle fire. The scenery changed, the forests and hills giving way to smoke and dropping visibility. The sides of the roads were clogged with wagons and discarded debris. Suddenly they were among thousands more Syaran soldiers, rear echelon troops who were hastily erecting fortifications and digging trenches.
Not long after they were split up into their companies. They marched past the artillery crews, who were yelling and shouting at each other as they loaded their guns. Garvilov couldn’t tell if they were mad at each other or just trying to be heard above the sounds of their cannons. The sounds of battle were much closer now, enough to tell that that the enemy was close at hand and soon would be engaged. The whistle from their Captain had them lined up in standard advance formation. Bayonets fixed, rifles loaded, staggered line. They passed through a thinly wooded area into some sloping hills, and then everything went to hell. The first man to fall was too far off for Gravilov to notice, but then the man next to him fell, and soon the NCOs were screaming to open fire. Gravilov couldn’t even see the enemy, but he noticed where everyone else seemed to be shooting at followed suit. More of the men died, thrown back by the impact of bullets, and screams of agony soon joined in the chorus. Their platoon leader yelled at Gravilov and others to follow him, revolver at the ready as he charged forward. They did so, at least half of them did, running up a small slope while trying to stay low. Their small point of elevation allowed for just a glimpse at the enemy, who were hold near a cluster of trees on a neighboring hill stop.
Gravilov did his best to aim, but he could still barely see the enemy troops. He picked out what he thought was a Cacertian in their dark blue uniforms and fired. He continued to do so until he had nearly run out of ammunition and turned to see that everyone else on the hilltop was dead. Gravlov sat there for an amount of time unknown to him, until another officer from the company found him sitting atop a hill surrounded by his dead comrades. He had no idea what the outcome of the battle had been, but two hours later he was digging a trench with a shovel taken from a nearby farm. Mind and body still numb from his first taste of combat, he barely spoke a word for the rest of the day, until finally he was told that he was being sent to another company. His old one disbanded afterwards, apparently due to heavy losses.
And so he found himself with his new unit full of unfamiliar faces, eating meager rations that tasted like they had been buried in the mud for days, officially a combat veteran, and no idea what was in store next.
