Brief Histories of Qarau

[Qarau]

PART I: SILTSKIA, THE SEVEN DUMAAQS, AND THE MOUNTAIN WAR

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great wurld-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

- Karl Marx

The history of Qarau, for millennia, has been the separate histories of Siltskia and the Kuulna, separated by the Red Mountains. Siltskia, the fertile grasslands and prairies on the seaward side, had been ruled by a succession of city-states and petty fiefdoms for most of its history, occasionally unified into an empire by a particularly militaristic dynasty before again collapsing into bickering statelets. The state of affairs was largely similar in the Kuulna, but among Dumaaq khanates instead of agrarian princedoms.

In the 18th century, however, the Fourth Siltskian Empire was crumbling under famine and unrest, with a return to interstate anarchy all but guaranteed. Meanwhile, on the Kuulna, the Great Muq Yaqriyadiqa had united the steppe under the banners of the Seven Dumaaqs, through a great display of diplomatic and military might stretching over a decade. Seeing the chaos in Siltskia, and drawn by the physical and spiritual riches of the region, he unleashes his last military campaign in 1835, attacking around the Red Mountains in a gambit for Haqar. The ruling classes of Siltskia, taken by surprise and already struggling to hold the nation together, quickly surrendered the empire to the Seven Dumaaqs. The Siltskian army, however, refused to follow the order to surrender, and escaped into the Red Mountains. Faced with the prospect of simultaneously rebuilding Siltskia and fighting a literal uphill battle against the army remnants, they were left isolated in the hills, and allowed a tenuous de jure independence for some time.

Despite the tumultuous situation in Siltskia, and the widespread expectations that foreign overlords would only exacerbate the chaos, Yaqriyadiqa and his subordinate Dumaaqs proved themselves to be more than capable leaders. Historians generally attribute this to a widespread series of social reforms, which secured the trust of the general populace and the security of his administration. The most notable of these reforms was the creation of the Riikamaq, a democratic legislature that was long sought after in the Siltskian Empire’s absolutist regime. Though initially an advisory body subordinate to the Dumaaqs’ wishes, the institution grew in influence over the rest of Yaqriyadiqa’s life, culminating in the Seven Week’s Crisis.

On August 14th, 1861, Yaqriyadiqa disappeared. Leaving behind a scrawled and cryptic message in his bed-chambers, he took his horse and rode into the Kuulna, never to be seen again.* The power vacuum he left behind was immediately fought for by the Dumaaqs, and almost brought the young nation to total civil war. In a series of diplomatic master strokes by the Riikamaq, the assembly proposed that the position of Premier be created as the new head of government, accountable to the legislature and filled by popular vote every 5 years. Through various carefully-applied diplomatic pressures, all but one of the Dumaaqs accepted this devolution of their authority, and the first Premier was elected on October 3rd the same year. This event would set a trend of power-rivalry between the Riikamaq and Dumaaqs, one which arguably continues to the present day.

The consequences of the Seven-Week Crisis were not completely dealt with, however. Though Qarau had a leader, it still had a pretender. Sakuuqaq ngu-Ariqii, Muq of Ariqii Dumaaq, claimed to be personally promised the leadership of Qarau by Yaqriyadiqa before his disappearance, and made a deal with the exiled Siltskian army to dismantle Qarau, recreate the Siltskian Empire, and return to the Kuulna. In exchange, the Siltskian Army would fight for Sakuuqaq’s ascension to Grand Muq, funded by his Dumaaq’s considerable connections. Though the Siltskian army felt great shame to be fighting in the name of a Dumaaq, they had few other options in their conditions. Reluctantly, High Commander Kalyents, de facto leader of the insurgency, accepted the offer. Over the following years, the Siltskian Army would prepare for the reclamation of their homeland.

The Siltskian Army was in a sorry state in the days of the Empire, mostly an apparatus to put criminals and desperates to work warding off raiding parties at the edge of the Red Mountains. However, the turmoil of current events had hardened their resolve, and Ariqii connections to foreign interests gave them both material aid (primarily firearms) and the military expertise and doctrine to use them. Simultaneously, Qarau was preparing armaments too. Through great political effort, the Riikamaq pushed for the creation of the Qaraic Army, and mandated the Dumaaqs to contribute their private military forces towards it. Curiously, this resulted in Ariqii Dumaaq technically contributing to the armament efforts of both polities at once, although bribery and fraud made their contributions to Qarau barely enough to not raise suspicion. On both sides of the Red Mountains, an arms race had begun. Tensions were rising all throughout this time, and both sides knew war was inevitable. On March 26th, 1867, High Commander Kalyents made the first strike, coming down from the hills under cover of darkness and capturing the logistics centre of Kilaqsa in just four hours. The First Mountain War had begun.

Of the many Mountain Wars which would follow, this one was by far the most devastating. It would last over two years, and accumulate up to 60,000 casualties on both sides. The Siltskian Army made significant gains in the first months, which historians primarily attribute to the rushed and inexperienced nature of the Qaraic Army, and the insistence of several Dumaaqs to repeatedly send their horse-nomad militias into mountainous operations they were woefully unprepared to see through. With a great deal of effort, however, the Riikamaq eventually forced the Dumaaqs to divert their resources into the central Qaraic Army instead, an infantry force trained by foreign expertise and much better suited to the environment of the Red Mountains. By the time the last Dumaaqs recalled their private militias, the Siltskian forces were driven back into the Red Mountains by Qaraic forces. The rest of the war would be a slow, grueling, and quite literal uphill battle, one which took a heavy toll on both side’s morale.

Eventually, it would not be Qaraic forces that defeated Kalyents, but Siltskian ones. The people of the Red Mountains, many of them Siltskian exiles themselves, had ran out of patience for the ramshackle governance of Kalyents’ military dictatorship, and the prospect of reclamation seemed a pipe dream at this stage. Widespread unrest raged across the Siltskian-controlled Red Mountains, and the open violence in some areas diverted troops from the threadbare frontlines. This would result in further Qaraic gains, further popular disillusionment, more unrest, more peacekeeping forces, less frontline manpower, and so on. This vicious feedback loop was only exacerbated by the withdrawn support of Ariqii Dumaaq, as the clan quickly disowned and exiled Sakuuqaq when the truth of his Siltskian connections came forth.** Ultimately, the situation  broke down on November 13, 1969, wherein High Commander Kalyents was attacked and overthrown as de facto head of the Siltskian Army by his subordinate officers, forcing him to flee the impromptu capital of Yuryatentsk. From there, his true fate remains unknown to this day. Some say that he simply died of starvation in the wilderness. Others say that he took a horse and rode off into the Kuulna, seeking a final act of delirious and petty revenge against Yaqriyadiqa. However, as the most famous (and likely apocryphal) story goes, he ran to the nearby village of Tyoltsayan, with the intention of gathering popular and military support for a counter-coup. At the village’s edge, he happened upon a teenage boy tilling farmland, and shouted to him “You, boy! I need your help to save our people!” In response, the boy said “Gladly”, then beat Kalyents to death with his hoe.

Whatever had happened to Kalyents, he was gone. Facing omnipresent popular unrest and an overwhelming military threat, the Siltskians again surrendered to the Seven Dumaaqs. The Treaty of Yuryatentsk, signed between representatives of the Siltskian government in exile and the United Dumaaqdoms of Qarau, formally ended the state of war which Qarau had been in for the thirty-four years of its existence. The Siltskian Empire officially ceased to exist, and all of its territory was ceded to Qarau. After more than thirty years, Qarau’s legitimacy was finally secured.

*This is not quite true. His skeleton would be found by a mining surveyor 140 years later, and is now in the collection of the Haqar National Museum.

**Many historians believe that Ariqii Dumaaq’s elites knew about Sakuuqaq’s activities from the beginning, and only exiled him to save face when the Siltskian position became hopeless. This is a controversial point in Qaraic history, although contested much more by Ariqii Dumaaq than mainstream academia.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Qarao
Reverted the name changes in the beginning quote; turns out my leg was being pulled. (see edit history)