NationStates Jolt Archive

Introduction
In this first publication for my Modern War Series I have attempted to piece together a history of the Amerigo Slave War, and at the same time, attempted to present an accurate analysis of strategy and tactics. However, as you may be aware of, any analysis of the Amerigo Slave War required a re-construction of the war, which, with the information at hand, was nearly impossible. Consequently, I stumbled into a myriad of problems and obstacles, however, I hope that this analysis provides further insight on what some recall as the best role play on NationStates, and, perhaps, the first large war of NationStates, with some of the best role players.

First, I would like to thank NSWiki for their excellent, if brief, coverage of the war, as well as all those who have attempted before to piece a history together. They were testaments to how difficult, and how arduous, such a job is. Although Tahar Joblis agreed to talk to me about the war I never had a chance to fully conversate with him due to my time table, however, should I ever get in touch with him expect a new, much more upgraded, edition of this manuscript to be released.

Second, if anybody has any information to give, please contact me through AIM (nucleicacidman), MSN (puto_poeta@hotmail.com) or by e-mail (jonathan.catalan@gmail.com). All information would be most welcomed and would ultimately help in creating the most accurate description of the Amerigo Slave War. Furthermore, it would get your name on the bibliography!

I have styled the “history” in a total of seven sections, including this introduction. The rest are, without detail, “cassus belli”, “the landings”, “the ‘cheap unit’ strategy”, “stalemate and collapse”, “end war”, and “conclusions”. In detail, cassus belli deals with the reasons to go to war, and descriptions of the personae dramatis. The landings deal with… the landings, and the cheap unit strategy deals with the naval and air war, while stalemate and collapse leads to the finale, with end war finally giving you the end. Conclusions deals with analysis, and… conclusions.

Hope you enjoy,

The Macabees

Chapter Two: Cassus Belli
The genesis of slavery provides an excellent insight on the development of nations early on in history, and the issue of slavery was one which lacked a blurry middle, and was clearly an issue where the two sides were substantially divided. Moreover, tensions over slavery were characteristically high, and those who supported it did so without hesitation, and those who believed against it were diehard to that cause. Consequently, wars over slavery were as much an occurrence as any other reasons for war, and it was only a matter of time that a major conflict sprung from the eggs laid from smaller brushfire wars that had laid the groundwork for the division of ideals. An example of this is the American Civil War (1861-1865) where attempts to push the matter of slavery under the carpet for later clean up burst in their face, and instead, they received a five year war, claiming around a million lives. Indeed, the war that would burst soon enough would claim not just a million lives, but millions.

It’s increasingly important to understand the matter of slave wars, only because the theme is constantly re-surgent, in fact increasingly cyclical. In the particular instance of Amerigo the slavery was especially ideological. However, what’s ironic is that many of the nations that came to bring war to Amerigo practiced their own forms of injustices. For example, Iesus Christi was incredibly well known for his persecution of non-Catholics and non-human races, and was in fact the butt of a multitude of anti-Iesus alliances. So, it could have been likely that Amerigo’s slavery was focused towards the common man – humans. Furthermore, it could have been just as likely that Amerigo targeted those of religion, which would have given Iesus Christi all the reason to intervene. However, it’s also important to note that Iesus Christi did not join the war until after the debacle of Melkor Unchained’s peacemeal assault on the blockading fleet. So, it would also be safe to say that Iesus Christi’s intervention was one of force, as he may have had an ally already engaged in the blockade. However, the discussion of this should be left for later.

All evidence indicates that Amerigo decided to openly export slaves from his country, and that he paraded the fact throughout the world, bringing in the attention of dozens of nations, both sympathetic to slavery and sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. In fact, within days the matter became an international crisis. The escalation was not unlike any other attempt to pressure a sovereign who enslaves, however, this case was marked by especially belligerent countries, willing to go to war over the issue. At some point Syskeyia, evidently a powerful nation, came to the ultimate decision that a blockade on Amerigo was absolutely necessary in order to stem the exportation of humans, and Syskeyia deployed just to that end, even forging a forward base on St. Peter Claver Island, just off the coast of Amerigo. What’s interesting is that Syskeyia was also a fervent Catholic nation, which further points to the idea that Amerigo’s targets for slavery were those that were men of faith, and Syskeyia’s participation could be why Iesus Christi decided to join the fray.

In any case, an undeclared naval war followed and all details of this are lost in the archives, although further conversation with some of the nations may in fact shed light in this area. However, the period was also marked with considerable amounts of diplomacy, in which in the end Ineptia decided that it was in everyone’s favor to just buy the slaves, import them, and free them, which Amerigo agreed to. Subsequently, Ineptian ships made their way to Amerigo, however, it was just at that point where the turning point of the diplomatic situation was made present. Mercenary groups, under the command of the BlackWolf Order Army, attacked and sunk a considerable part of Ineptia’s shipping convoy, forcing Ineptia to leave the area unsuccessfully. Consequently, Amerigo still had the slaves, and the tension further heightened, making war almost unavoidable. To alleviate the situation Syskeyia agreed to buy the slaves and offered the same terms as Ineptia, however, Amerigo refused.

Why Amerigo refused may never be answered. However, the best explanation would most likely be because of pride. Syskeyia’s blockade of Amerigo had resulted in several naval operations in the area, and with tensions so high national pride was a stake, and for Amerigo, selling the slaves to Syskeyia would be defeat, and so, it attributed to his decision to refuse Syskeyia’s offer. In any case, the refusal made war just a matter of time. Also, at some point Amerigo offered to meet the representatives of all nations involved to discuss the matter, however, this attempt at peace was also shattered, again, most likely due to national pride. Melkor Unchained launched several attempts to break the blockade prior to the peace conference, but these ultimately failed.

As piecemeal attacks Melkor had both commited his men into a suicide attack, and he had, in fact, ensured the advent of war. Finally, Amerigo himself declared war on the blockading countries and the Bay of Amerigo rose in flames as the sides scrambled to destroy each other.

Why did this war have to happen? Well, as told before, slavery had been more or less pushed under the table, and it finally rose to a breaking point – something, that could not be ignored. More over, the sheer power shared by the nations involved promised that neither of them would bend easily, and finally national pride escalated the situation until war broke out.

Its like reading a textbook! (Thats good, if your wondering. I like to read history text books, lol)

I must say that I highly like this analysis of the Amerigo Slave War, the fact that you - and many of us - do not have all the facts makes us give our own interpretation of what little we do know, and so far as I can tell, you are giving a plausible - thus likely - interpretation of something that has been effectively lost to 'history' as all records have been erased. Very good.

Chapter Two: The Landings
Following Amerigo's decleration of war Iesus Christi commited to a joint landing, with the Reich, on the beaches of Amerigo. The operation must have gone swiftly, as no written records which survive describe military operations, so it could be deducted that any that actually happened were of little importance. What is important to acknowledge was the slash and burn policy of the Reich and Iesus Christi, which would contribute to Iesus Christi's ultimate demise as an 'evil nation', although he was a loyal Catholic. However, much of what was occupied by Iesus Christi and the Reich as they advanced was destroyed.

At the same time another force, spearheaded by Syskeyia, Chimea, and Rastonia landed on a seperate beach and continued a second axis of advance. The implications of the landings are obvious, as the dual threat would force Amerigo's forces to split and consequently thin, thus weakening his war effort. However, it's also evident that the split into two seperate axis weakened the drives considerably, relating them to a single drive. One axis would have placed all the pressure on a single tip slowly forcing Amerigo's forces to break, and using their comparative strength to their advantage. However, at the time such a strategy may have led to a brutal slugfest earlier in the campaign.

The second axis was able to hit the city of Jungle Falls, but as Iesus Christi's and the Reich's advance are barely covered, yet the second advance is said to finally reach a city, it's very plausable that the second advance met heavy resistance, and consequently, deductable that so did Iesus Christi's. It is apparent that after the reaching of Jungle Falls the fighting stalled, and this seems to indicate heavy resistance on the part of Amerigo.

As a result, casualties must have been extremely high for the invading forces, and it is very strange that all written records on the event fall suspiciously silent. Because one of the sources was written by a Syskeyian author, and the other anonymous, which might as well be Syskeyia, it could be that the war may have been glorified to further enhance the reputation of Syskeyia. In the Syskeyian account of the war it claims that the Syskeyian and allied army stopped "short of the city of Jungle Falls."

At the focal point of the war seemed to have turned from the ground war to the air war, although this will be left for discussion in the next chapter. However, the ground war must have been incredibly ferocious. According to another anonymous account Syskeyia ultimately put sixteen divisions into the ground war, a testament to the need for man power in a war of attrition. Casualties must have been incredibly high for both sides and the destruction wrought on Amerigo was evidence of the ferocious combat in the country. However, casualties were not high enough to force any nation out of the war, so it could be assumed that total casualties for the ground war in this time span was somewhere around fifty thousand per side - although, casualties at this time area impossible to pin down.

Additionally, during the first days of the war it's likely that the naval war had subsided for a landing during a heated blockade is an incredible feat, and it's very possible that either the blockaders had scored an amazing victory over Amerigo, or that Amerigo had happened to not launch any naval sallies on the blockade. However, a landing during those times was an incredible happening, and even without naval sallies casualties during the landing must have been incredibly high, although, again, impossible to pin point.

Chapter Three: The "Cheap Unit" Strategy
Why the ground war shifted to a naval/air war is uncertain, however, the meatgrinder in Amerigo may have been a reason. Moreover, the appearance of EOTED in the war made the scene much more problamatic. It may have also been that the Amerigan fleet was completely devastated in the first days of the war. IT is known that Tahar Joblis detonated a nuclear device during the war, however, the exact date is unknown. The detonation destroyed a submersible aircraft carrier belonging to Yavik, after his hydrogen fuel cell powered submarine risked capture.

In any case, EOTED's M# Interceptors jabbed at blockading forces in their first deployment. The advent of EOTED is strange since he was fighting for neither side, and his political aims remain unclear, since EOTED collapsed and reformed as the ICEL. It may be that the EOTED saw itself as the force to end the war.

The M# fighters soon became embroiled in bloody dog fights with large amounts of TJF-3 Mongoose fighters. A description of the M# is unavailable but the TJF-3 is recorded in several documents. The TJF-3 was incredibly cheap, and robust as well and all weather worthy. The Mongooses payload, including foward canards with a 20mm cannon, was considered light, but it made up for any deficiencies through speed and maneuverability.

The M#s Interceptor faced incredibly amounts of casualties. The anonymous source includes the fact that the M# had more of its class destroyed than any other fighter. However, it also faced the most enemies. Consequently, it is safe to assume that the kill ratio between specific aircraft shifted to the M#s favor, making it the best aircraft of the war. The allied navies in the Bay of Amerigo also dealt heavy casualties on the EOTED's M# Interceptors.

The destruction wrought must have been incredible, with dozens of aircraft constantly falling out of the sky in fiery balls. It was also one of the last wards where the opposing sides threw fighters at one another, regardless of casualties, testament to the ferouciousness of the war and the willingness of countries to emerge victorious no matter the cost. As for the strategy it seemed to be a heavy failure, with M#s eventually loosing the war in some respects. Moreover, most of the nations involved fell out of the international elite soon after, perhaps due to such high casualties.

From then on the war turned into a bloody quagmire - technological attrition. The first signs of which appeared during the final stages of the Amerigo Slave War.

Although the strategy may work in a war where your enemy might not want to take heavy casualties, the use of cheap units proved disastrous in the air - both sides loosing thousands of men.

bump

Nice...........

Hmm..just found this. I joined NS only a few weeks after the conclusion of this war. A good read, especially for noobs wishing to find out the history of NS.

[OOC: A quick note: the M# suffered horrifically in the war, with far more M#s falling (although not more than about thirty, I think - I actually have the entire war logged on another machine, I suspect, but that machine is in Wales, of all places, while I'm here in south-east England...sorry!) than Mongooses. The main reason for this, it ought to be noted, is that the M# at that time did not carry lethal armaments. This was an experiment which failed - although the deployed forces (which were in fact the bulk of the military might of the rather depleted EOTED [which was, after all, only just freshly formed from two bickering nationstates] at that time, although very few were aware of that little fact) did in fact succeed in their efforts.

Also, 'historians' tend to disagree on who detonated a nuke, or how many nukes were in fact detonated. ICEL (the successor to EOTED) military historians maintain that declassified evidence shows that there were two radiation pulses, not one - and some even go so far as to claim that EOTED was responsible for one of those detonations. The source of that 'rumour' is entirely unknown, so is generally not given any credence. OOCly (this is known only by upper-echelon Crown Guard officers thesedays), I can tell you that we detonated a five kilotonne bomb underneath the Bay of Amerigo, deployed from an experimental 'air destroyer' also capable of limited submarinal movement. Back to what's ICly known: Firstly, off-subject a bit from the prior, the vessel in question [the Si Ling I, later destroyed by the Gothmog in the All Elves War] made a brief appearance at the tail-end of the war - some ICEL analysts claim it was in fact one of the many nudges towards a peaceful resolution, so fear-inspiring was its deployment. In fact, that's highly unlikely, and is undoubtedly patriotic claptrap. ;)

On the M#: there is, in fact, a small section on the M# on the wikipedia. I have other info, too, but its mostly boring. In a nutshell: the #-series of aircraft are 'super' dogfighters - they get in close and personal, evade missiles at supersonic speeds (and have turning capacity at those speeds), and cruise to their targets at hypersonic speeds. The M#s of that war were equipped with electron cannons (usually referred to as 'EF cannons' nowadays - 'EF' being 'electron flux') that were designed to supply additional charge to circuits aboard enemy birds and thus damage their ability to fight, forcing them to return to base for repairs. Unfortunately, the energy discharge level was not high enough, and very few Mongooses were damaged to a high enough degree - although the battle did succeed in distracting Tahar Joblissian forces. Notably, EOTED paid Tahar Jobliss reparitions after the war - albeit on equal and friendly and entirely voluntary terms - and what is now ICEL and Tahar Joblis are presumably still on good terms, although contact is very rare (at least on-camera).

EOTED was also 'shelling' ground positions - an action that was based entirely off of the decks of what was then the newest breed of warship, the Air Dominance Cruiser 'IDS Vanguard' (later all-but destroyed during the War of Survival AKA the failed invasion of EOTED by Melkor Unchained) in Amerigo, making rather a nuisance of itself by knocking thousands of troops unconscious during the total time of the war. No ships challenged the Vanguard, presumably because it was too damned scary and new at the time. There's a section on that class of vessel on the wikipedia, too, in the ICEL factbook.

In a nutshell: EOTED was, in retrospect, clearly striving to 'make a name'. It did not agree with either viewpoint - sovereingty issues being the clear reason why it could not agree with the anti-slavers, and moral reasons regarding not agreeing with the slavers in Amerigo - and thus decided to fight what is defined as an 'Intervention War'. No side is taken - all sides are equally attacked (generally in a 'non-offensive manner') until such times as the interference gets so annoying that both sides decide to come to the table. It might be argued that EOTED succeeded entirely: the conflict DID end. Whether or not EOTED actually had anything to do with that end, however, is entirely open to interpretation.

One point also: EOTED didn't collapse. It merely 'transitioned' to a new name. EOTED still exists: it just has a new name, and a ratified constitution (also viewable in the ICEL factbook on the NS wikipedia). EOTED went 'silent' and then became ICEL, with very little effect on its allies - however, policy changes are quite clear, and the new 'Commonality' is fairly obviously more tolerant than the old 'Empire'. There's so much more I could say...

But I don't want to bore you to tears. ;)]

No, please all the information you can spare is the best! I thank you a lot - an edit to this edition will be made before I go on to the next chapter - I tried to call out for information but the only thing I got was a vague sentence from Dr. Twist (which is a part of the next chapter) referring to mercenary operations he made in the war.

This is a remarkable document, very much like an historical textbook from a school of some sort.

((OOC: *gives The Macabees an e-pat on the back* :)
Good stuff you're doing here, absolutely incredible. Good for new nations too, in that older nations refer to this war ALL the time as the first NS world war.

Oh, and you've got two chapter two's. Just thought I'd mention that.))

At the same time another force, spearheaded by Syskeyia, Chimea, and Rastonia landed on a seperate beach and continued a second axis of advance. The implications of the landings are obvious, as the dual threat would force Amerigo's forces to split and consequently thin, thus weakening his war effort. However, it's also evident that the split into two seperate axis weakened the drives considerably, relating them to a single drive. One axis would have placed all the pressure on a single tip slowly forcing Amerigo's forces to break, and using their comparative strength to their advantage. However, at the time such a strategy may have led to a brutal slugfest earlier in the campaign.

The second axis was able to hit the city of Jungle Falls, but as Iesus Christi's and the Reich's advance are barely covered, yet the second advance is said to finally reach a city, it's very plausable that the second advance met heavy resistance, and consequently, deductable that so did Iesus Christi's. It is apparent that after the reaching of Jungle Falls the fighting stalled, and this seems to indicate heavy resistance on the part of Amerigo.

As a result, casualties must have been extremely high for the invading forces, and it is very strange that all written records on the event fall suspiciously silent. Because one of the sources was written by a Syskeyian author, and the other anonymous, which might as well be Syskeyia, it could be that the war may have been glorified to further enhance the reputation of Syskeyia. In the Syskeyian account of the war it claims that the Syskeyian and allied army stopped "short of the city of Jungle Falls."

Actually, at the time of the war I claims to have delpoed 200,000 troops, which was soon upped to 300,000 troops. While I keep to that claim, I must OOC admit that I knew virtually nothing about deployment, divisions, troops statistics, etc. I just thought the troops "did what they did" and hoped they knew more about the military then I did. :)

As for casualties and attrition, I don't think the Syskeyia/Chimaea/Rastonia front was such a war. The Reich front was a definite meat grinder, to be sure, but I think the SCR front was less because 1)I'm more on the "maneuver and tactics" side than the "massive human wave" tendency and 2)the Syskeyian/Rastonian/Chimaean troops were much less hateful and atrocity-prone than the soldiers of Eurusea and the Reich.

Jungle Falls? Well, the SCR front made it up to the outskirts of Jungle Falls. A Chimaean soldier then made an announcement to the city: Free your slaves and let us through, or we'll consider the city under seige. Jungle Falls never responded.

Well, I've got class now, so that's all I can say for right now. :)