Modern North Boroso Border Conflicts
| North Boroso Border Conflicts | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Dhwer Tuanmali Lhavres Sangmia Hayaf (modern day Taanttu) Vosan Kerezh Colony (before 1893) Kerezh (modern day Taanttu, after 1893)Mwamban Empire (until 1932) Kīmi Kīmis We Other Mwamban offshoot polities  Mwamba (in the 1940's) | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Hard to calculate as most of the combat was carried through dubiously sanctioned border skirmishes and raids and guerrilla tactics. | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Hard to calculate for the same reasons as above. | |||||||
The Modern North Boroso Border Conflicts were a protracted series of mostly-undeclared border conflicts that occurred in northwestern Boroso for the better part of a century between the fall of the Setyal Empire in 1844 and border treaties in the 1940s. They were prompted primarily by Dhweran expansionism and the power vacuums left by the collapse of several extensive polities in the 18th and early 19th centuries in the region: the Mwamban Empire, the Setyal Empire and the Bavkir Empire. Another substantial motivation for these conflicts was the discovery of mineral wealth in the region, sought by all of the involved parties.
With the shifting focus of Dhweran expansionism, the period can be broadly divided in two periods: the Thewer Basin conflicts and the Kojuruv Highlands conflicts.
Thewer Basin Conflicts
Background
In 1831, Dhwer and Kavrinia (the predecessor state to today's Lhavres) began a series of wars with the Setyal Empire, challenging its superiority and the threat it posed to the rest of Upper Boroso. When the Setyal capital Ǧuun fell in 1844 and their bureaucratic infrastructure dissolved, a large region was left effectively unmanaged, stretching from the Thewer River Basin west of Ǧuun to the Kojuruv Highlands to the west, from Sangmia in the south and the Yaa Peninsula to the north. The fertile floodplains, high population (and thus workforce), leftover Setyal infrastructure, and, in some areas, mineral resources made the region immediately desirable to neighboring powers.
Conflicts
Simultaneously, the Mwamban Empire moved to occupy Sangmia, Lhavres occupied most of the middle extension of the Thewer basin, and Lhavres and Dhwer moved into the Yaa peninsula in the late 1840s. Mwamba attempted to launch a campaign into the Lhavrinian-occupied areas north and northeast of Sangmia, but the logistical costs of transporting armies and supplies over the Sangmian Mountains with an uncooperative populace proved too expensive, and the effort had largely failed by the early 1850s.
Dhwer conducted border skirmishes, raids, and--most notably for the populace of the region--slave raids on the entire extent of its southern borders and along the Thewer River, displacing considerable Kav populations in the Yaa peninsula. In 1858 and again in 1865, Dhwer mounted major military campaigns to annex Yaageqyë directly, but were repelled by the Lhavrinian government, intent on maintaining and expanding control of the Yaa Peninsula. Ultimately, both nations were unsuccessful in their attempts to take the peninsula, and a series of treaties signed in the late 1800s divided the peninsula between them. Despite this, complete conformity to the treaty terms in the area would only be achieved in the late 1920s, on both sides.
In its southeast reaches, Lhavres was primarily concerned with cementing national identity and reducing tensions between the ethnic Setyalni and settlers from other parts of Lhavres, tensions rooted in pre-1844 animosity toward or lingering sentiments for the Setyal Empire. These efforts were greatly helped by Dhweran slave raids, giving both sides an external enemy and furthering identification with the Lhavrinian institutions that defended against Dhwer. Over time, Lhavres was able to consolidate its eastern regions and push the reach of Dhweran attacks distinctly north, until the primary area of conflict became the Thewer territory, of deep-rooted historical and religious significance to the Dhwerans. This dispute remains unsettled to this day.
Legacy
These conflicts played a large part in the establishment of both Lhavres and Dhwer as unified political entities. In Lhavres, the opposition to Dhwer fueled a more cohesive Lhavrinian national identity between its Kav and human populations, particularly with the assimilation of the Setyalni population. In Dhwer, while Lhavres' growing dominance led to internal conflict among Dhwerans, it too gave them a common enemy to rally against, especially when Thewer became threatened.
Kojuruv Highlands Conflicts
Background
In the late 1800s, the focus of Dhweran expansionism shifted from the Thewer River to the Kojuruv Highlands. Three processes drove this change: first, the consolidation of Lhavres--and increasing support from the populations it annexed--made both formal annexation attempts and informal raids both risky and unlikely to succeed, therefore being less profitable and less popular. At the same time, the Mwamban Empire began to shatter. Weakened by the loss of the Setyal Empire as an ally and rocked by rebellions in Qazania (1860), Sangmia (1861), and Tuanmali (1862), the empire was already falling apart by the time the Vos fleet invaded in 1868. Without Mwamba's control over the region--and with the Vos pulling out of the Kerezh Territory in modern-day Taanttu in 1893--the Kojuruv Highlands became uniquely vulnerable, comprised of several independent or loosely affiliated polities with no backing from any major global or regional power. The third and perhaps most important factor was the discovery of mineral wealth from Sangmia in the 1870s, and in the highlands north in the subsequent decade.
Seeking an easier target after their defeats and compromises with Lhavres over the remains of the Setyal Empire, the Kojuruv Highlands were the natural next target for the Dhweran expansionist machine. By the late 1890s, virtually all of its focus was either on the Thewer territory or campaigning in this region. However, Dhwer was not alone in their ambitions. Taanttu and Tuanmali, newly independent and wanting to remain that way, also pushed into the area, hoping an aggressive stance would ward of Dhwer and that the mineral wealth of the area would fuel their weak economies and infrastructure. At the same time, what was left of the Mwamban Empire tried to reassert its authority and influence over recently-seceded territories, a policy that was particularly influential after Äräläżüp I came to power in 1901.
Early conflicts
Due to the treacherous landscape--largely unmapped, rough terrain, heavily forested, and filled with dangerous animals--outright war in the region was impractical. Instead, the early conflict was mostly carried out through all sides sending groups of colonists and prospectors into the region. While the highlands were already inhabited by Bavkir descendants who had migrated inland centuries before, the population was sparse, and several new towns appeared virtually overnight, each populated almost entirely by immigrants from one of the neighboring nations; Dhwer, Tuanmali, the Mwamban Empire, Sangmia, various taanttuan polities, such as Hayaf, later Kerezh and Yvo, with also a few human lhavrinians. Early disputes were small scale, fights or sabotage on the scale of a few families or a town. As tensions escalated, however, all sides began to send troops into the region, ostensibly to defend their citizens, but also to seize land and resources more directly.
Starting in the 1880's, the Mwamban Empire started funding militias to intercept cargo out of the mining towns in the region, and occasionally raid and pillage some of those settlements, out of retaliation for the rebellious northern provinces and also from lacking the funds that would be necessary for formal military action. Those groups roamed around the region for a few decades and most of the higher profile early conflicts were involving the mwamban militias, such as the pillaging of [insert small place close to kel sela or sth]. They also raided areas of what are now modern Taanttu and Lhavres, Sangmia, and some places that were still under imperial control.
Kīmi Kīmis We occupation
After a few decades of settlement and mapping and greater mobilization from the parties involved, all-out war in the region became feasible. In 1904, Dhwer formally annexed the Kuthaltum region, and in 1906 they advanced into the neighboring Kīmi Kīmis We state, which had been independent from Mwamba since 1886. While the annexation of Kuthaltum did not garner international attentions, save for some Lhavrinian activists, the occupation of Kīmi Kīmis We prompted immediate action from several neighbouring polities.
Tuanmali, by this point a solid entity occupying the eastern half of it's present expanse, had close diplomatic ties and interests in KKW and neighboring regions also recently independent from the Mwamban Empire and took it's invasion as an act of direct enmity. By early 1907 a joint liberation campaign had been started by Tuanmali, Altūnwelēnīn, Sangmia, and other neighboring polities in what is now modern day Tuanmali. The conflict quickly devolved into an early example of trench warfare, combined with plenty of guerrilla action complicated by the terrain. By late 1909, the newly formed Taanttu state had also joined the liberation efforts, primarily out of concerns about being the next target of Dhweran expansionism.
(Insert like, trench warfare Things that Happen)
1912 was a decisive year in this conflict, as for most of the year the conflict was centered in the siege of Kel Sela, the biggest and most important settlement in the region, by Tuanmali-led forces. The siege lasted a few months, but the city was eventually breached by the liberation army. This proved a major victory, and Dhweran forces were pushed out of KKW by early 1913. Attempts to liberate Kuthaltum after KKW was secured continued into 1915, but the complications of trench warfare in such tricky terrain exhausted political will before it could be released, and it remains a Dhweran territory to this day.
Casualties are estimated at [estimate], but all measures are inherently imprecise because there is very little census data available for the region in the decades around this conflict, due to the political turmoil and the considerable amounts of displacement and migration that occurred.
Taanttu unification
In the beginning of the period, the area which would become the modern day nation of Taanttu was divided between various states such as Hayaf, Kerezh (occupied by Vosan until 1893), and Yvo. Hayaf, which today is the capital region of Taanttu, began to exert power over smaller states in the region, subjugating them to expand its influence further. AFter the discovery of the Hayaf saw the Kojuruv area as being profitable so it sought to expand its territory to the west, dividing the territory in that region between itself and Dhwer.
Yvo became a point of contention between the nations of Hayaf and Bavkirak as a result of the succession crisis of 1876. In 1876, when the last monarch of Yvo died, its succession was not secure. Both Hayaf and Bavkirak had claims to the former Kingdom of Yvo. Unable to reach a compromise, the two nations went to war. While Bavkirak achieved what could be considered a victory in the war and gained more territory from Hayaf, the two nations had reached a stalemate. The result of the conflict between the two nations established the modern day border between them.
Having been given indpendence from Vosan in 1893, Kerezh was positioned between Dhwer and the nation of Hayaf. After the incorporation of Kerezh, in 1906, Taanttu was formed as the unification between the three historic Taanttic states: Kerezh, Hayaf, and Pakat.
Legacy
The liberation of Kīmi Kīmis We by Tuanmali forces in 1912-13 cemented very close diplomatic relations between Tuanmali and the smaller polities of the region, which would come to join Tuanmali in a series of treaties in plebiscites in the following decade, culminating in the 1921 annexation of Kīmi Kīmis We and Altūnwelēnīn. A similar plebiscite was suggested in Sangmia in 1920 but it did not reach the necessary thresholds.
While small-scale border disputes continued into the 1940s and beyond, by this year all major conflicts had been resolved and the modern borders of northeastern Boroso had been established, with the exception of the ongoing contention over the status of the Thewer territory.