[center] [h2][b][color=007236]The Osladian Empire[/color][/b][/h2] [img]http://i.imgur.com/wUeuT21.png[/img] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QA4aWzS6sc][b]Ний сме достойни![/b][/url][/center] [center][b]The War of 1867[/b][/center] The War of 1867, known in Karum as the Osladian War and in Oslad as The Karumi War, was the final nail in the coffin of 'Great Karum' and the end of Karumi dominion over the Seronans and Tangarians, and it was the rise of Oslad as a great power. However, the history of this conflict stretches much farther back then the 1860s. 30 years prior Tsar Dominik I had just finished his conquest of the Tangarian horse lords and quelled the last unrest south in Serona, beheading the upstart Prince Valeriev, thus fulfilling his ambition of 'The Greater Karumi Empire'. With his quest fulfilled, Dominik gave himself the title of 'Tsar-Domnitor' and declared a new age for the Karumi people. In the following years the Karumi state would begin resettlement programs in Tangary and Serona, attempting to colonize the regions and thus expand their cultural influence over the continent. The results of these programs were likely not what the Tsar-Domnitor had expected, and instead of a steady resettlement of Karumi colonists with little resistance, any ethnic-Karumi that attempted to settle in either Tangary or Serona was met with fierce resistance. [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/kBGXsw8.jpg?1[/img] [i]Artist's rendition of Karumi colonists in Tangary, circa 1842.[/i][/center] These attempts at colonization came to a head in 1856, 20 years after the original conquest of Tangary and Serona, when an entire colonist caravan was slaughtered by Tangarian cossacks while the colonists rested. The Karumi government immediately reacted and martial law was implemented in the towns of Tangary, with the royal constabulary arresting and outright executing anyone who protested. In 1857 a Tangarian delegation of horse lords and refugees journeyed to Oslograd and pleaded with then Tsar Aleksandr II to support the Tangarians for their independence. At the time the Tsar rejected the Tangarian request, citing the Osladian friendship with Karum and the history of Tangarian 'brutality', thus the Tangarian host returned to their occupied homeland with little faith in the future. However, the tides of turn in favor of the Seronans and Tangarians in an event known as 'Dominik's folly'. A letter sent by the Tsar-Domnitor himself meant for the regional govenor of Tangary was stolen in a raid on the royal carriage by Tangarian bandits in 1865. In the letter, the Tsar-Domnitor expresses disdain with their alliance to the 'weak Osladians' and instead a growing interest in the Osladian province of Loren and a 'Karumi navy'. The letter made it's way to Oslograd and the new tsar, Tsar Nikolas III, was outraged at Karum's treachery. In a public statement spread throughout the continent, the young Tsar declared Tsar-Domnitor Dominik to be a 'treacherous lech' and officially cut all ties with Greater Karum. A year later, likely with under the table Osladian support, the Tangarian horse lords made their move. On the morning of the 16th of February, as the snow still fell across the steppe, a Tangarian host under chief Kazymyr Tarasyuk rallied the town of Nevidny into a revolt against the Karumi constabulary. The mayoral house was raided and looted of goods and the Karumi police in the town were killed in a vicious attack. In the town square Tarasyuk read a declaration of independence from the Karum Empire to a patriotic crowd. Hours after, the Osladian Imperial Army crossed the border and a declaration of war was sent to Salaz, the Osladians were marching into Tangary. [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/fgHLpwu.jpg?1[/img] [i]Artist's depiction of a young Tsar Nikolas III at the battle of Buraclia, circa 1869.[/i][/center] Over the following months the Osladian Imperial Army, under the leadership of Tsar Nikolas III and Field Marshal Viktor Todorov, fought a hard campaign against the Imperial Karumi Army. Starting at the crossing of the River Lus and the siege of Buraclia fifty thousand Osladian soldiers faced off against thirty thousand Karumi within the city. Over the course of five days the Osladian forces managed to cross the river after countless skirmishes with Karumi skirmishers and begin a hard pressed siege of the city, costing thousands of Osladian lives. However the city did fall and with it opened a road to Luska and Fallum. Meanwhile, far to the south-east of the Osladian theater, a revolt in Serona grew to become a rebellion against the overstretched Karumi army, and the declaration of a Seronan principality came in June of 1867. Seeing defeat as inevitable as the Imperial Karumi Army fled over the Tangary border into Karum, and the Seronan's beginning to push them from their own province, Tsar-Domnitor Dominik watched the empire he had forged only 30 years prior begin to collapse around him. In a final act of defiance to his enemies, the elderly Tsar-Domnitor threw himself from the Spring Palace in Salaz and ended his life, leaving his son of 26 Michel in control as Tsar-Domnitor Michel I. Shortly after Dominik's death, the young Michel was forced by his deceased father's council to wave the white flag and seek peace with the Osladians. The demands were brutal, but had the war lasted any longer there may not had been a Tsardom of Karum to rule over at all. So, in January of 1868 Michel I, Nikolas III, and then Prince-Elector Oksanen signed the Treaty of Salaz, marking the official independence of the Principality of Serona and the Tangarian Hetmanate, though the Tangarian state was little more than a Osladian protectorate. Thus came an end to Greater Karum, and the dreams of the Tsar-Domnitor Dominik. Though of course, Michel I would go on to attempt to follow in his father's footsteps... [hr] [center][b]Oslad at War[/b][/center] As war raged on in the north, life remained much the same in Oslograd for the average citizen. While the already enlisted and deployed soldiers marched to the northern coast, the reservists and high ranking general staff remained in their stations, continuing the ever-lengthening Osladian military bureaucracy that came with a multicultural empire. Musicians still wrote songs, poets still wrote poems, and lovers still quarreled. However, outside the industrialized capital of the Empire, things had changed rather suddenly. Once quiet fishing towns had suddenly been given the task of providing for sometimes hundreds of soldiers, and cities like Voskreya, Shurga, Dukovsta, and even Kurakka began to fill in the weekends with soldiers off duty coming to gamble and enjoy their free time. Indeed, life for the northern Boletarians and Osladians had changed. But while the soldiers drilled, gambled, and mobilized the navy was busy at work. After their humiliation in the Zeelian strait both the Imperial Navy and the Selidov government had become the butt of many jokes within the military and political right, with Grushanin especially receiving perhaps unworthy hatred by many patriots. However critics were silenced when the second battle came and Grushanin once again proved his honor and integrity as an officer of the Imperial Navy. Three vessels, two of which being miniture pre-dreadnoughts in themselves, being sunk to the bottom was an honor and Grushanin returned to Oslograd's harbor as a hero. Reporters demanded photos of the Admiral and his vessel, artists sent requests for portraits, and sailors told jokes of Grushanin 'spending more time chasing Zellonian ships than sinking them'. Selidov and his twilight government could breathe a sigh of relief for now, their legitimacy was secure for a time a time... Until the alliance. [center][img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Vice-AdmiralKolchak.jpg/340px-Vice-AdmiralKolchak.jpg[/img] [i]Rear Admiral Aleksandr Grushanin, circa 1900.[/i][/center] In early September the Republic of Kalpia requested permission to join the Osladian side of the Zellonian conflict. Selidov, seeing no real trouble in allowing a fellow nation affected by the northern King's banditry to join the Empire's struggle, accepted the request and orders were sent from the Duma to the Military Academies and Offices informing the general staff and the admiralty that they were to plan to meet with and plan in coalition with the Kalpian armed forces. Needless to say, Selidov was unprepared for the storm he had brought upon himself. In a public statement Union traditonalist Count Yegorov lambasted the Prime Minister as 'weak' and 'requiring the aid of a weaker nation to take on a second rate kingdom'. In the Duma mocking names for Selidov continued, and the image of Selidov as old and weak were widespread. However within the moderate camp of the Union party, Palkowski was quick to defend Selidov and remind his own party that it was a Union prime minister that called upon the aid of Tyro-Redania during the unrest of '36, when the liberal revolutions of the Continent were in full swing and the young Tsardom was on the verge of civil war. However the voice of reason within the party was outspoken by the Yegorov camp and his military allies. It seemed as each day passed and victory was not achieved, the military lost more and more faith in Selidov and his supporters.