NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Because of the situation in Dearth right now, I’m RPing both Spain and the Italian Confederacy. So nobody can get involved, really, unless you’re in Dearth and I tell you you can.

IC:

“That the Western regions of the Mediterranean Sea are henceforth part of the sphere of national interest of the Great Confederacy of the Republic of Firenze, and that therefore, armed incursions by foreign powers into that area, without explicit permission of the Confederacy, are to be regarded as incursions into the territory of that nation; and that the aforementioned Confederacy shall have the rights of search and seizure, blockade, taxation, and impound over all trade in those parts…”

-Excerpt from the Declaration of Rome, 1704

* * *

“And you are sure of the Navy’s ability to supply your men during the campaign?”

“Absolutely, Your Excellency. In addition to contracted merchant shipping, our transports are more than adequate to supply the invasion force, especially given the steps we shall take to remove the Spanish navy from the picture.”

“Excellent. Very well, you have my full authority.”

Lorenzo de Medici VII, Duke of the Republic of Firenze, folded the order to begin the invasion of Spain, applied hot wax, and pressed his signet ring into the red liquid, marking it with the arms of the Confederacy. Handing the paper to General de Rossa, he walked back behind his desk and sat down heavily in his chair.

So easily are European wars begun.

* * *

It wasn’t very surprising, really; the grudge between Spain and the Italian Confederacy was centuries old, dating from when Spain ruled Sicily and Naples, lands that the Republic of Firenze had snatched away in the sixteenth century. The Confederacy’s hold on the Balearic Islands had historically been a cause of particular distress and irritation to the Spanish monarchy: having an Italian outpost within spitting distance of Spain itself had been a headache for every Spanish monarch since 1560. However, in recent years the tension had eased somewhat; the Balearic Islands had been stripped of any significant ground forces, essentially eliminating the threat of invasion from there, and the Spanish fleet once again spent most of its time floating through the Atlantic. The ideal strategic situation for invasion, and not from the direction the Spanish had feared: the army that was to attack the Spaniards was assembled not in Palma, but in faraway Tunizia, to be launched not from Palma or mighty Palermo, but the primarily merchant port of Cartago. To preserve secrecy, rumors of a horrible cholera outbreak in Cartago were spread by agents of the Duke, and under the Declaration of Rome, a quarantine was imposed on the city to dissuade foreign merchants from seeing the fleet being assembled there.

Two weeks after Duke Lorenzo’s order to proceed with the invasion as General de Rossa’s plan called for, Admiral Domenico Borgia sent a telegram to the Duke, stating simply: ALL PREP COMPLETED STOP BEGINNING PROCEDURE FULL STOP…and mere minutes after the wire was sent, the troop transports assembled for the invasion left the port of Cartago. The blockading ships, all from the Northern Fleet, turned west and escorted the transports along their path, anchoring for a few days in a cove in the Balearic Islands where they could be re-supplied by Italian ships.

The fleet turned southwest, making for the Strait of Gibraltar and its final destination. After a few days of travel, they reached the mouth of the Strait. Turning suddenly northwards, the fleet headed for the port of Malaga, sinking a Spanish frigate that crossed their path along the way and signaled the Italian ships to stop. The fleet was running on schedule, a fact that assured General de Rossa and Admiral Borgia that the day before hostilities were set to begin, Duke Lorenzo would announce conscription to fight the war.

The morning of the next day, two Italian ironclads, the Lazio and the San Giovanni, entered the port of Malaca, spotted two Spanish sloops and a frigate that were being reloaded…and opened fire in a hail of shells. The Spanish-Italian War had begun.

At once the port of Malaga exploded into chaos. The crew of the Spanish frigate, Santiago, had seen the Italian ironclads coming, and had raised the alarm; however, there was simply not enough time for the Spanish squadron to cast off, and the three ships were pinned against the wharves of Malaga and torn apart under the Italian barrage.

Merchants, hired guards, accountants, and sailors fled the docks when the firing started, scrambling into the city proper like rats. Distantly, someone standing on the ironclads' deck could have seen housewives and shopkeepers running around in the streets, looking for the source of the confusion or sheltering children back into their homes.

A pair of frigates and three troop transports slipped into the port, unmolested by Spanish resistance as yet; the frigates sat at a distance, firing at random into the city, while the transports made for the wharves. Tying up, a gangplank was set in place and the soldiers of the Italian Confederacy marched down. They were professional warriors, these, men who had made a living policing the territories of the Confederacy's Empire, whose burgundy uniforms, black trousers, and dull gray helmets distinguished them from the armies of foreigners and stated plainly to the terrified Spanish onlookers peeking out from between their shutters that the Confederacy had arrived.

In columns they marched, up the wharves and into the city, bursting into houses and ordering frightened Spaniards to keep to themselves or be shot. A few, invariably men, themselves opened fire with a revolver or old family rifle, gunning down one or two Italian soldiers; the reward for their bravery, however, was only the kiss of the bayonet or the caress of the bullet. The few Italian dead were placed in a church to receive a quick final rites ceremony before they were tossed into the sea.

* * *

The fleet, meanwhile, was preparing to go. Leaving the Lazio, the San Giovanni, and the two frigates at Malaga (as well as the troop barges), the Northern Fleet made sail at best speed for Gibraltar. The second day of the voyage, a Confederate ship of the line encountered and sank a Spanish frigate, sustaining damage to the mainmast in the process, forcing it to limp behind the rest of the Northern Fleet. The next day, the fleet reached Gibraltar; rather than pass through the the channel and brave the fire of a Spanish fort located near the Rock itself, the Italians began unloading mines. They were a new technology and relatively untried, but they would do at least a basic job of denying the Spanish fleet passage through the Strait of Gibraltar, meaning the Italian supply lines were guaranteed. And once the fort at Gibraltar was taken overland, the Italians were fully in control of the Western Mediterranean.

* * *

However, a different fort was presenting the Confederacy with some difficulty in Malaga. Fort San Jorge, a few miles northwest of Malaga, had been designed to guard the road to the port; however, it now did an excellent job of keeping the Italians from marching north into the heart of Spain. The soldiers, therefore, had little to do but turn Malaga into the first outpost of the Italian Confederacy in Spain until the cannons could be offloaded and brought up to firing position, a process which took until dark. The Italians held fire during the night, but before dawn, a hundred cannons opened up simultaneously on the lone fort. The bombardment continued until after noon that day, when the Spaniards ran up the white flag and allowed the Confederacy to occupy the fort.

Less than twenty Italians had been killed taking Malaga; however, the most valuable commodity to the Confederate forces was not manpower, but time. They had to overwhelm the Spanish defenses as quickly as possible in as many places as possible, and hold the territory until a wave of conscripts could arrive to reinforce them, which would take at least another month. A month, in which the Spanish themselves would be frantically training conscripts. The enemy fleets were essentially taken care of; if they got through the minefield off Gibraltar, they would then have to engage the entire Northern Fleet, a battle no admiral would relish the prospect of. All the same, if the Italians couldn't force and win a decisive battle soon, the campaign would rapidly escalate into a fiasco.

A matter of hours after Fort San Jorge fell, Spain crumbled into chaos. Mobs took to the streets in Madrid, roaring curses and threats in front of the Queen's palace, until they were dispersed forcibly by the police. Printing presses across the nation hummed into life, churning out everything from conscription orders to patriotic posters to flyers attacking the Italians. In a few villages, suspicious characters were lynched by paranoid townfolk, on charges of spying for the Confederacy. Fear swept through Andalusia, and wild rumors erupted in its wake. There were hundreds of Confederate ships. There were a million enemy troops. They had planted spies in every city from Cordoba to Madrid. None of it really mattered; the reality was frightening enough.

* * *

Malaga had become a hive of activity. Outside the city, trenches were dug to reinforce the captured fort, as engineers scrambled to restore it to full functionality. Patrols roamed the countryside, foraging and exploring the lay of the land, as the port's warehouses were commandeered to store rations, gunpowder, and ammo for the soldiers. The railway station was heavily guarded, with troop trains running loads of a few hundred Confederate soldiers each to the towns around Malaga: Alora, Cartama, Velez-Malaga, Nerja, Marbella...by nightfall the day after Malaga fell, the Confederacy controlled many of the towns in Andalusia, with fewer than three hundred soldiers killed in the whole invasion. In the wake of the Italian soldiers, support personnel arrived in waves, forcing captured populations to dig trenches and erect barricades, turning indefensible towns into positions that could be held at least until reinforcements arrived, in the event of a Spanish counterattack. And in the meantime, two new major assaults were planned: one south, to take Gibraltar, and another north, to break through to Cordoba.

* * *

General de Rossa had set up a temporary meeting room in the mayor's estate in Malaga, a tastefully appointed chamber. Maps and copies of orders covered the huge table that was the room's centerpiece, around which the majors and colonels that served under him were gathered, waiting for him to issue his orders. Which he did, with little preamble.

"Gentlemen, as you are all aware, we have secured a fraction of Andalusia in the space of a mere few days. This has been accomplished through surprise, through force, but above all, through the rail system. Using railways, we've been able to get several thousand troops to other towns in the area too quickly for the Spanish to react. You had better not start counting on this advantage, though.

"In accordance with the plan, there are two tasks confronting us at this phase. Firstly, we need to take Gibraltar. Once the fort there falls, we control the Strait, and the Spanish will be locked out of the Mediterranean for good. Until that time, our supremacy on the ocean is not complete, and His Excellency the Duke has made it clear that this situation must not be endured. Secondly, we need to break through the resistance in Andalusia and take Cordoba. From there we can expand through the rest of southern Spain. However, a large Spanish army is sitting between us and Cordoba, and we cannot count on the railways anymore. My plan is to send the bulk of our forces north to attack that army, taking the train as far as Estepa; a little more than halfway. Then we go overland to attack them, disperse them, and take Cordoba. We have word from a Spanish farmer sympathetic to our cause that the Spanish army is slowly moving southeast; it should be at Rute by the time we get to Estepa. We can flank it and rout it, even with an inferior force. After we win, we will be further strengthened by the first shipment of reservists, which I expect to arrive two days hence. Further information is contained in the orders I have given to you. Dismissed, gentlemen."

* * *

The next day, they set out. Four thousand soldiers, a thousand cuirassiers, and a hundred guns, taking the train as far as Estepona before beginning the day-long overland march to Gibraltar, over twenty miles. The horsemen swept around the marching column, hunting for raiders along the route, but found none as they marched. They spent the night at the village of San Martin del Tesorillo, intending to veer around the River Guadiaro the next day; Fortune smiled on them when they enjoyed another peaceful march the next day, unharrassed by raiders. But that very day, they put their artillery within range of the outer forts of Gibraltar, and the real test began.

And northeast, at Malaga, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers, although they had no idea, were preparing to walk into a trap.

There were two of them guarding the road to the Rock: two fortresses, east and west, sturdily constructed with modern technology, Fort Valencia and Fort Sevilla. Two piles of dirt, wood, and concrete, built on volatile magazines and dotted with gun emplacements. Each was triangular; three embankments, each of them triangular in shape, equipped with half a dozen guns. Eighteen guns per fortress. Thirty-six total. Layers upon layers of numbers, totaling up to...just over a third of the Italian firepower.

A foregone conclusion.

The Italian guns were laid up in groups of four; twenty-five batteries, firing shrapnel-spraying 'case' shells, which arced above the fortresses' walls and rained hot metal on the defenders. Artillery crewmen fell stricken with shards lodged in their skulls, or bled from wounds cut deep into the flesh. It did damage, yes, a little; however, only the forty heavy guns could fire at this range, outside the range of the fortresses' lighter guns. More importantly, though, the rounds weren't designed to do serious damage.

There were thousands of Spanish troops garrisoned at Gibraltar, possibly tens of thousands. And the more of them that could be drawn out to fight, the better. It would be the Battle of the Trebia all over again.

Fight they did, rather than let the shrapnel silence their guns one by one. They marshaled their troops in splendid order, escorted by horsemen with gleaming breastplates and sabers, plumes arcing above their helmets. They marched north up the road, seeing the thin line of burgundy and black arrayed in the distance, with small cavalry forces on the wings. They marched out, re-deployed in perfect formation, and marched in an orderly fashion to the meat-grinder.

Loaded with canister shot, the cannons opened fire.

They exploded in the midst of the Spanish lines, sending balls of lead shot rocketing through armor and cloth and flesh and bone and organs. Blood exploded in fountains. Dozens of soldiers fell with every explosion, torn apart by the flurry of tiny bullets. Horses and their riders alike were ground to pieces by the horrible weapons. The Spanish officers sounded the charge, and hooves and booted feet thundered across the plain. From atop their position on the hills, the Italian cavalry unslung their rifles, took aim, and opened fire, as the cannons continued to roar, the field guns joining in. The slaughter was incredible. The Spanish had barely charged a hundred yards when they dissolved, the survivors trying desperately to play dead among the corpses as they bled out on the already-saturated field. The Italians had not moved a single pace, even as the surviving Spanish opened fire with their rifles as they ran closer, sending their comrades sprawling facedown into the foreign soil. The Spanish sortie had gone as the Italians had planned, to the letter, and the artillery resumed their bombardment of the exterior fortresses of Gibraltar.

In the north, matters would shortly turn out just the opposite.

Back at Malaga, a sizable force of no less than thirty thousand soldiers, three hundred guns, and three thousand cavalrymen were being loaded on trains headed north to Estepa. General de Rossa didn't dare to send his troops farther north than that; a single bundle of dynamite along the tracks would derail the train and wreak havoc on the army. Estepa was something of a gamble in and of itself.

It was a strong force, but as much as de Rossa dared to risk. Leaving the garrison at Malaga too weak was an invitation to disaster, regardless of whether the task force in the north broke through to Cordoba. The problem was that the Spanish army was going to have an advantage no matter how many men de Rossa sent; there were an estimated 80,000 Spaniards moving towards Rute, possibly to threaten Malaga. The only advantages the Italians could take comfort in was better artillery, more cavalry, and in all probability, the power of complete surprise: the Italians had been tipped off as to the direction of the Spanish army by a farmer in the area sympathetic to the Confederate cause.

It was an uneventful few hours' ride north; the rapid occupation of Estepa took all of half an hour, and the shocked population didn't put up a fight. A day's march away, towards the town of Rute, a sizable Spanish army was blissfully unaware of the storm about to descend upon them.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

* * *

The next day dawned bright and clear, as if to deny the killing that would take place before the sun fell. Blue skies stretched forever over the golden Spanish plain, overseeing the march of the Italian troops from Estepa. A long line of burgundy and black wound along the narrow roads of Andalusia, sometimes leaving any semblance of paving and trudging across fields and meadows, or through thickets or across streams.

For miles they walked; almost ten miles away from Estepa, the march slowed, as the soldiers reached back into their packs to snatch an afternoon meal. The officer in charge, General Fazio, rode at the back of the line, between the infantry and the baggage and artillery, while the rest of the cavalry rode back and forth between contingents at the front and back of the line. It was a perfectly routine march, and there was a certain enthusiasm written on each soldier's face: they were going to smash an enemy army more than twice their size, and in doing so, open up Andalusia to the full force of the Italian Confederacy. It was going to be-

Thunder rumbled in the distance, out of a clear sky.

Rather than lightning, however, cannonballs tore through the air and burst in and around the soldiers' column. Even the disciplined Italian soldiers looked around in confusion as the volley continued. Cavalrymen dashed about in confusion, mounted officers barking orders. General Fazio looked around in panic; what was happening, what had gone wrong, the Spanish were at Rute, they didn't know the Italians were coming!

That comfortable illusion was shattered into pieces when Spanish mounted riflemen, no doubt grinning like wolves over a crippled deer, crested the steep hill on the army's left. They took aim, and fired, and the Italian cavalrymen tumbled from their mounts, stricken. Cannons were next to top the hill, and they immediately began to thunder at the Italians, shredding their ranks. Orders to charge the hill were blasted out by the surviving trumpeters, but the Italians didn't make it more than halfway up the hill before even the bravest could stand no more: the ranks dissolved into utter chaos, and they fled, sprinting away like all the whips of hell were behind them, while in the distance the Spanish guns boomed and their rifles cracked, picking off the fleeing warriors.

It should have occurred to them: there had to be a reason why the Spanish weren't chasing them. They ran, and they ran; but in three-quarters of a mile, they saw a trench full of Spanish soldiers, who coolly took aim and opened fire. The slaughter was incredible. Thousands went down in moments.

* * *

Very few escaped. Maybe five thousand. An eighty-four percent mortality rate. Catastrophic. It was better for General Fazio that his corpse lay in nine separate pieces on that road between Estepa and Rute; what the Duke would have done to him if he'd come back alive was better off not mentioned. An entire army, slaughtered. Betrayed because they'd been foolish enough to take the word of a single Spanish farmer who had feigned sympathy. General de Rossa knew that his head would be next, as well, if he didn't somehow pull victory out of this catastrophe. If this had happened days ago, he would have said it was impossible. But the Lord taketh away...and the Lord giveth.

The first wave of reinforcements, twenty thousand professionals and a hundred thousand conscripts, arrived that very day.