Battle of Dendryn
The Battle of Dendryn was fought in early April of 1934 during the Kiravian Civil War between the Resistance Party and Kirosocialist party with the Jade Resistance Movement providing assistance to the Resistance Party. Following the beginning of the civil war Dendryn was a fortress for federalist forces due to its close location to many important rail lines and the importance of the cities dam, one of the largest in Kiravia at the time, in ensuring the federalist forces has access to electricity. As a result, the surrounding reasons saw constant skirmishes with socialist forces as they were unable to contribute significant forces to capturing the cities due to other ongoing battles in other parts of Kiravia, however after eviction of federalist forces from the eastern seaboard the capture of the city became a priority for the socialist leadership due to its strategic value against the federalists.
| Battle of Dendryn | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
Federalists Renaissance Party Jade Resistance |
Socialists Kirosocialist Party | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
| Vurdhan Taráxev† | Avitus Savinnen† | ||||
| Strength | |||||
| 250,000 | 420,000 | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
|
246,000 military personnel | 412,000 military personnel | ||||
The federalist forces had been under the command of Gen. Vurdhan Taráxev since the beginning of the civil war with him being a notoriously defensive and risk adverse commander which would prove to be a large reason behind the defeat of federalist forces in the battle. Meanwhile, the assembled socialist forces were put under the command of Gen. Avitus Savinnen who has become famous for his repeated victories over federalist forces on the eastern seaboard. Before the battle both sides were hampered by lack of effective communication and sabotage of their communication lines preventing effective planning which helped lead to the battle becoming in the words of many famous Kiravian historians "A clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks.'
The battle began with socialist forces crushing skirmishing battalions on the outskirts and leading up to the city with speed that neither side expected, this would prove to be a major blow for the federalist forces as Vurdhan Taráxev had expected the socialist forces to take several more days to arrive at the city and as a result had not focused on evacuation of civilians and setting up defenses with the speed necessary for how fast the socialist forces were coming, fights with his subordinate officers and lack of information on the socialists advancement delayed both until only two days before the arrival of socialist forces. After socialist forces arrived at the city, they subjected it to a 3-day long artillery bombardment to destroy what defenses the federalist forces had. A major blow was dealt to socialist forces when reinforcements who were supposed to arrive on the end of the first day arrived on the opposite side of the city, at its most fortified point, attempting a breakthrough which resulted in almost all reinforcing forces being killed or captured by the federalists. Once the main socialist forces finally entered the city, operating on faulty information of city streets and the location of important buildings they were led into several ambushes by federalist forces, eventually however they arrived at and began their attacks on the main federalist forces which lasted for several days before the Jade Resistance Movement was given orders to destroy the Dendryn dam, as federalist forces were losing badly and Vurdhan Taráxev decided to destroy federalist infrastructure rather than let the socialists have it and use it against the federalist effort. The dam was destroyed on 11:45 AM, April 22nd, 1934, with the resulting flood completely enveloping the city and much of the surrounding countryside. This action successfully stopped socialist forces from making use of the city and its surrounding infrastructure however also severely damaged the federalist war effort with the flood often being listed as a major reason for the eventual socialist victory.
Lead-up to the Battle
Socialist Decision to Capture Dendryn
The socialist forces of Kiravia had been planning to capture the city since the beginning of the war with multiple battle plans having been drawn over the course of the war most notably from the Revolutionary Council, the head of socialist forces during the war, however this plan was scrapped due to the lack of recourses available to the socialists at the time. Multiple other plans were made however almost all were rejected for similar reasons as most were made during the campaign for the eastern seaboard before the blunders of Gen. Whiggus McDickus. However, after the fall of the eastern seaboard a large number of socialist resources were freed up for the campaign which was conducted almost immediately afterwards. After his success in the eastern seaboard campaign Gen. Avitus Savinnen and his forces were put in charge of the offensive on the city. Before the main offensive began Gen. Avitus Savinnen used two supporting forces to launch raids on nearby farmland that was vital to maintaining the cities food supply, this prompted an immediate response from the garrisoned troops in the city, this was the plan by Gen. Avitus Savinnen as he believed it helped to divert troops away from the city long enough to capture it then preform a mop up operation to dispose of the remaining fighting units. After the march to Dendryn began the army immediately encountered problems as they found that the knowledge of the terrain, they obtained was faulty and often wrong leading to one incident where several hundred soldiers, after a mistake from their commander, were lost in the woods. Despite their faulty knowledge at first the army still made steady pace to the city however faced multiple ambushes by federalist forces along the way, the army taking the wrong paths on multiple occasions though often led to them getting the jump on ambushing forces, this led to them collecting information from maps and hostages that they captured along the way allowing them to cut their expected travel time by two days however running into several more ambushes by federalist forces along the way.
First Battle of Dendryn Forest
The first battle of Dendryn Forest took place as the socialist forces encountered one of the returning federalist forces sent to fight one of the socialist raids on the countryside. An immediate skirmish followed with socialist forces retreating to set up on a nearby hill while federalist forces repeatedly came in a human wave tactic, retreating and returning multiple times in a day until socialist forces were able to escape due to fights among federalist commanders preventing successive attacks later on in the day. Socialist forces set up camp for the night in a nearby field, intentionally trying to lead federalist forces to attack them at night, which worked however socialist forces retreated before the attack leading federalist forces to follow them into an ambush in the early morning, the morning fog from the reservoir obscuring the socialist forces as they surrounded the federalist forces, being arranged in a fishhook like formation to take advantage of the natural terrain and pin them between socialist troops and the reservoir to completely envelop and annihilate the federalists in the battle. After the battle socialist forces made a swift and uneventful march and reached the city on April 2nd, 1934.
Federalist Defense Preparations
Before the socialist army had started their march to the city, the federalist garrison had been suffering from sabotage of their communication lines for days and only heard about the socialist raids on the nearby farmland a day after socialist forces arrived, Gen. Vurdhan Taráxev made the decision to immediately send two sets of reinforcements out to keep the city's main food supply from being destroyed. This proved to be a flaw some historians call fatal as communications were restored days later and the city garrison received word of both the rapidly approaching socialist forces and the federalist defeat at the reservoir, federalist high command had heard of the approaching army previously from retreated skirmishing units but had severely miscalculated how long they would take to arrive. Evacuation of the cities civilian population and setting up defenses in the city had been going on as soon as they received the word of the approaching army however due to their perceived time they had, as a result an estimated 60,000 of the cities 500,000 population still being in the city by the time the socialist forces reached the city. At the end of the second day the federal forces had seized close to all of the cities wood reserves and has erected a palisade around important military points in the city with a shallow trench dug where socialist forces were expected to appear. After the beginning of the shelling of the city despite orders from commanders many soldiers abandoned their posts and seeked refuge wherever possible reducing the available manpower of the federalist forces by a sizeable amount, the main reason historians associate with this is the heavy lack of morale and effective leadership in the federalist garrison with there being multiple accounts of federalist forces blatantly disrespecting their commanding officers.
Siege and Battle of Dendryn
WIP
Aftermath
Impact on the War
The battle had an immediate and detrimental effect on the manpower of both sides of the war, heavy losses effectively stopped any military action outside of light skirmishing in the area for months until sizeable reinforcements could arrive from other areas. Roughly two and a half months after the flooding socialist forces took control of the surrounding areas and would hold onto it until the end of the war. Outside of the immediate area however the destruction of the dam represented a huge blow to the capabilities of the federalist forces with the dam's destruction putting Federalist controlled territories into a power deficit that neither they or the socialists after the end of the civil war would recover from for years, with electricity rationing leading to a decrease in the federalists' industrial capacities and energy rationing for civilians lead to large-scale protests and some riots in the nation's major cities.
The destruction of the dam lead to a decrease in agricultural production for both the socialist and federalist held territory with irrigation projects stemming from the dam being heavily relied on by neighboring food producing provinces who were estimated to have seen a 15% reduction in total crop yields, this reduction limited the abilities of federalist forces to wage an offensive against the socialists as most of the affected provinces were in their control. Most modern historians list the destruction of the cities dam as one of the major causes for the federalist defeat.
Impact on Civilians
The destruction of the cities dam led to the direct deaths of 60,000 civilians both in the city and in the surrounding areas, many more are estimated to have died however from the long-term problems caused by the destruction of the dam such as via hunger or by various ways associated with the constant energy black outs that were faced. There were multiple demonstrations by farmers after the destruction of the dam calling for greater government subsidies to help offset their lost crops, however these demonstrations went largely ignored by the federalist government. In the long term the destruction of the dam came with major economic consequences for the area, the state currently has the highest rates of poverty, lowest life expectancy, and the lowest electricity usage of any state on Great Kirav, these modern problems are usually associated with the lackluster socialist response to the disaster, a new dam was built but it could only operate at 1/3rd of the capacity of the previous one as well as the socialist government's policy on agriculture largely harming the primarily small-scale and family-owned farms of the state.