Rebellion of the Slavic Brethren

The Rebellion of the Slavic Brethren, which took place in the United Kingdom of Valourium between the years of 1768 and 1777, is unique in Valourian history in that it is its only ever three-way civil war. The war was initiated by the Russian Prince Kirillovsky Aleksandr Leonidovich, who after several failed attempts by King Romuald Kownacki to establish Valourian colonies oversees declared the Kingdom of Prayataskaya, the homeland of the Valourian Russians, on the 4th of May, 1768. Not only did the Russians in Prayataskaya see the United Kingdom as unfairly skewed to favor the Poles, but Polish kings in recent history had committed some of the most glaring errors in governance both domestically and abroad. This led the Valourian Russians not only to emphasize the differences between their culture and the Poles, but also gave them a scapegoat on which to blame political problems. In turn, the Valourian Poles in the Eastern third of the country, largely isolated by its characteristic hills and forest, began to shun Russian culture and clamor for the creation of a new independent Polish kingdom. Once the Valourian Russians had declared their own kingdom, these Poles moved quickly to establish their own and on the 9th of May, 1768, declared independence as the Kingdom of Wydowik under the leadership of Prince Mariusz Bojanowski. King Kownacki, to whom about half of the country was still loyal, refused to recognize either, and thus began the civil war known as the Rebellion of the Slavic Brethren.

Whereas Prayataskaya began the war moving quickly to establish a firm defense for its territory, Wydowik sought to force Kownacki to recognize the nascent kingdom by sending General Edmund Kubiak with an army to lay siege upon Amestryi. Although this left most of its forces committed, Wydowik had little trouble defending its borders from attempts at invasion from loyalist forces due to the aforementioned hills and forest covering most of its land. Furthermore, few efforts were made by the loyalists to regain Wydowik initially as they accounted for the difficulty of invasion along with the fact that Prayataskaya contained most of Valourium's iron, which was crucial for any sort of war effort. Therefore, Valourium's primary goals at the start of the war was the retaking of Prayataskaya and relieving the siege of the capital. With both the King and the Grand Martial of the Army, Grand Duke Antonov Victorovich, being trapped in Amestryi, the responsibility for these two goals fell on Duke Anatol Krolikowski, who had around 38,000 soldiers, 6 batteries of field cannon, and 2 batteries of siege artillery at his disposal.

Krolikowski initially sent 15,000 troops and 2 field cannon batteries under the command of his lieutenant, Witalis Baran, to break through the encirclement of Amestryi whether or not they would be able to fully exploit it and disband the roughly 45,000 Wydowik soldiers. Krolikowski wanted to establish some sort of contact with Victorovich, who then had the 11,000 soldiers of the Amestryi garrison under his command. With any sort of contact, he estimated that Victorovich would have an outline of locations around the city where the enemy were most vulnerable. Baran's detachment arrived on May 15th.

While Baran's detachment made its way for Amestryi, Krolikowski assigned 1,000 troops under the command of Lieutenant Florian Borowiak to recruit and train new troops, foreseeing that the war would drag out for a notable period of time, as well as 2,000 to monitor activity along the Wydowik border. The remaining 20,000 soldiers and artillery batteries were taken by Krolikowski to go on the offensive against Prayataskaya. His first goal was to capture the small city of Norogodny, which rested upon the Naryudny River dividing most of Prayataskaya from the rest of Valourium and contained two bridges crossing said river. Arriving on May 15th as well, both sides began to engage in aggressive posturing and tactical repositioning. Krolikowski was at a disadvantage approaching the city as the terrain approaching Prayataskaya consists almost entirely of flat plains, making it nearly impossible to effectively conceal artillery and reserves. However, several scouts noted that the city contained no more than 11,000 troops, with most estimating their forces to be around eight to nine thousand with only one battery of field cannon. So on May 18th, Krolikowski effectively opened up the Battle of Norogodny with a long barrage of siege artillery to break up the terrain and buildings deemed most useful to the tactical defense of Norogodny, including the two positions where field cannon could have effectively been utilized against advancing infantry. When the infantry were ordered to storm the city, the garrison gave up without much fight. Overall, 152 people died during the battle: 113 Prayataskayan soldiers, 28 Valourian soldiers, and 11 civilians in the city.