Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)

The Royal and Imperial Army is the principal land warfare force of Urcea, a part of Armed Forces of the Apostolic Kingdom of Urcea. In the 2030s, the Royal and Imperial Army was comprised of just over two million active personnel with a similar number of enrolled.

The modern Army traces its history back to 1591 upon establishment of a by King Leo II. The term Royal and Imperial Army was used whenever the Apostolic King of Urcea also held the title Emperor of the Levantines, and has been the permanent name of the force since the Treaty of Corcra due to an ongoing legal fiction tying Urcea to the Empire. Members of the Royal and Imperial Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, though precedents established during the Aedanicad and before invest most authority with the Procurator, who holds the title of Magister Militum. The army is administered by the Ministry for the Armed Services and commanded by the Deputy Lord Marshal for the Army.

The Royal and Imperial Army has seen action in major wars between the world's great powers, most especially including the Second Great War. The strength of the armies in the Caroline Wars allowed Urcea to become the preeminent military and geopolitical power in Levantia. Since the end of the Occidental Cold War and beginning of The Deluge, the Army has primarily been involved in both offensive and peacekeeping operations throughout northern Crona and Cusinaut.

History
Due to the centralizing, anti-nobility program of most of the Apostolic Kings of the medieval period, combined with the establishment of relatively egalitarian economic and social norms by the 16th century, Urcean arms did not have a long tradition of mounted soldiers, particularly heavy cavalry. Instead, the use of infantry was central to Urcean arms, with a lineage dating back to the heavy infantry of Great Levantia and light infantry of the Gaelic peoples. The Army's traditional doctrine and organization emerged during the in the decades after its establishment as a standing army. From the mid-17th century through the early 19th century, the Royal Army became increasingly professionalized with a focus on rank discipline and organizational logistics. Social and political changes in the 19th century led to the great expansion of the army but a focus remained on logistics and infantry discipline, and by the late 19th century the Royal Army was organized in such a way that large numbers of well-disciplined infantry, combined with new heavy artillery, would win battles by large, deliberate, and unrelenting advances of massed troops along an entire line of engagement with the enemy. Continued advances in artillery, combined with the advent of motorization, mechanization, and armor, made this form of warfare largely untenable by 1920. During that decade, the Royal and Imperial Army underwent significant renovation by a clique of foreign experts, most prominently Benno de Caryale, who revolutionized Urcean doctrine and introduced some of the world's first armored formations. These renovations were proven by fire in the Second Great War and the Army - wartime industry - greatly expanded to meet the new realities of war. These lessons led to the Royal and Imperial Army being extremely armor-centric for the remainder of the twentieth century, as it was viewed as the best way to establish battlefield dominance in the event of the Occidental Cold War going hot. Various engagements as part of the Deluge began the Royal and Imperial Army's twenty-first century campaigns, and these engagements - combined with significant occupation duties across Crona - led to a gradual reemphasis on the importance on the infantry. This shift occurred relatively organically based on on-the-ground experiences of officers throughout the Deluge, though the armor-first approach saw a reemergence with the Final War of the Deluge. The Royal and Imperial Army after 2030 began to take a more balanced approach in its stated doctrine and organizational choices, though this organic transition to 21st century warfare is still unfolding.

Rising and division
The Royal Army went under the name "Regal Army" during the time of the Crown Regency (1889-1902). This period, where no Apostolic King of Urcea sat on the throne and Gréagóir FitzRex ruled as regent saw the Army assume greater control over the authority of the state; for this reason, it is commonly referred to as the "Rifled State". The "military privilegiata" - a subset of career officers from the privilegiata class - served as a rulign class during this period, being both FitzRex's primary supporters as well as implements of his will. P.G.W. Gelema commented that "there was no separation...between the military privilegiata and the Regency...it was a state administered by them for their benefit." Accordingly, the Regal Army participated in several acts of political suppression against regime opponents in the near decade and a half of regency.

Despite the near ubiquitous support for the regime among the higher ranking officers of the Regal Army, support for the regime was limited at best among the lower ranking officers and enlisted personnel. As of 1895, the vast majority of the enlisted men of the Regal Army was comprised of freemen, who felt no fondness for and extracted no benefit from the Rifled State. Although the Army remained united through the very earliest months of the '97 Rising - namely July and August - widespread discontentment filled the army as guerilla engagements increased in regularity toward late summer. On 2 October 1897, the 4th Highlanders regiment - a regiment from South Ionia - voted 1,702 - 8 to defect from the Regal Army and declare their allegiance to Patrick de Weluta. Their Práfati subsequently ordered the white flag raised on their position close to guerilla lines and were greeted by the militia with applause. The 4th Highlanders were the first unit of the Regal Army to defect, setting a precedent followed by more than fifty other regiments in October 1897. After "defection October", high command cracked down on votes being held within any unit and recalled many officers whose loyalty were in question. Despite this, units would defect in a trickle throughout the war, although units responsible for fighting non-Urcean forces typically remained loyal to the Regal Army out of a sense of national obligation.

In December 1897, a command structure for the defected units was established known as the Army of Legitimate Governance, also known as the Legitimist Army. The Legitimist Army fell under the nominal command of retired Lecáti Princeps Car Ermano, though Ermano was largely a figurehead due to his advanced age and physical disability. Division-sized formations were established at this time. Throughout much of 1898 and 1899, the divisions operated largely autonomously, with three "primary" groups being observed: "seconded" forces, or those who chose to put themselves under joint forces command of Burgoignesc leaders; "defensive" forces, divisions and regiments only focused on defending their home provinces from Regal authority, and; "independent" forces, those which operated in an offensive capacity against the Regal Army but in no clear organized way. Patrick de Weluta was given significant oversight of the Legitimist Army in March 1899, although his role remained that of civilian controller of the military rather than as military leader. On 4 October, Ermano died; Patrick, in consultation with the senior division leaders of the Army, appointed Lecáti Sean Domeo as Commanding General, promoting him to Lecáti Princeps. Domeo, with the support of Patrick, began to reorganize the Legitimist Army. The "Legitimist Front", the name for the unorganized various pro-National Pact and pro-Welute militias, were folded into the Legitimist Army as Royal Army Volunteer "regiments", although the actual organized sizes of these forces varied greatly. Domeo also established a set of of three division commands and a varied number of "volunteer regiments", with senior division commanders in each grouping assuming corps command. From 1899 through the end of the war in 1902, corps remained the largest units of the Legitimist Army, and at its peak in mid-1902 the Army fielded eight corps. The focus on corps established the modern convention of corps as the basic unit of the Royal and Imperial Army. Once the war ended and House de Weluta was restored, the command apparatus of the Legitimist Army became the new hierarchy of the restored Royal Army. Many units of the Regal Army were incorporated wholesale, but full units who fought under the banner of the Regency were gradually mustered out over the next four years. Soldiers and officers who fought for the Regency were generally subjects of discrimination, and by 1909 all former Regal Army officers were no longer in service. All enlisted personnel were gradually shifted to logistical or backline duties and mustered out by 1911.

Army commands and army service component commands
The Royal and Imperial Army has many different components and commands, both organizational as well as regional field commands. Any regional field command is under the jurisdiction of its corresponding military-wide Unified Command Region.

Structure
The Royal and Imperial Army consists of three primary components: the regular army, the reserve army, and the Royal Army Volunteers.

The base deployable formation of the army is the, although mission-specific smaller formations are easily adapted depending on the need. Specifically, due to the various garrison, occupation, patrol, and other responsibilities the Army has in Crona, Army forces under the jurisdiction of the Far Western Command (WES-COM) are traditionally organized on a al basis.

Volunteers
The Royal Army Volunteers are a component of the Royal and Imperial Army that fields "volunteer" - i.e. non-professional - units, mostly during wartime. Though separately organized than the Royal and Imperial Army and with a mostly breveted officer corps, the Royal Army Volunteers functionally serve as the method through which the nation's component is organized for military service. Members of the Royal Army Volunteers are paid by the subdivisions of Urcea, who are responsible for organizing the units. Units organized through the Royal Army Volunteers are almost always in size and are placed under the command of the Royal and Imperial Army after they are mustered, retrained for a month, and federalized. Unlike service in the Royal and Imperial Army, members of the Royal Army Volunteers term of service are typically three years or the conclusion of an armed conflict, whichever is earlier.

The Volunteers, once the bulk of Urcean manpower during several of the Caroline Wars and beyond, have been largely rendered unnecessary by the increase in size of the regular army, though they were mobilized twice in the modern era - during the Second Great War and during the Final War of the Deluge.