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In honor of the brave men of Ctrigall who fought, bled, and died for their Motherland — on both sides, regardless of their loyalties or beliefs that led them to fight in this unfortunate, bloody conflict.

Also in honor of the brave men from the Republic of Sorbas, Leidenschaflich, and other nations who came to help Ctrigall in their hour of need during this desperate struggle.

May they rest in peace, and may their valor never be forgotten.

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PREFACE

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The history and the past are simply two names for the same entity; both give us painful lessons to learn, and both we try to our utmost to avoid. The difference is that, while both are cyclical, the past can be healed and resolved, while history, once it's been written, cannot be erased. But both can experience change — hopefully for the better.

The Great War was one such event. Yes, it's now in the bowels of history in recent years, but the pain and loss among the families during that conflict has only now begun to heal.

One of the most tragic conflicts was during the end of the war, when Ctrigall was ravaged by an internal insurrection. Eventually, the rebellion was crushed and the war was officially over, but the tensions between the victorious and the vanquished remained.

What made the situation all the more potent was that the conflict wasn't even needed; there was nothing to gain. All it did was cost our beloved Motherland the lives of more young men that could've been used to heal and prosper the nation — not sink it lower.

It has now been fifteen years to the day since that conflict, and the families on both sides, while healing, are still suffering from their tragic losses. It is my hope in publishing this work that it will begin to heal the divide that has been rifted between these families and hopefully have my readers understand that we are all Ctrigallians in the end, and should be there for each other, and not let what lies in the past leave us embittered and resentful.

In this work, I have spent the past year traveling throughout Ctrigall — even across the continent — in search of veterans and families of veterans to write down their testimonies and stories that they had experienced during these troubled times, regardless of their previous loyalties, and show my readers the perspectives from both sides. I've also included the stories and testimonies from soldiers originating from the Sorbas Republic, Leidenschaflich, and Gardarik Empire as well.

This work will also include interviews and journal entries from Ctrigallian veterans during the Great War as well.

It is my endeavor to mend this social divide and to include the stories from those who took part in this conflict, in order to show that soldiers and civilians on both sides had suffered from this internal mini-war, and that those who had fought for the anti-peace faction were just as human and virtuous as those who had fought for the anti-war faction. In the end, bitterness and fear were our true enemies, not those of flesh and blood.

Of course, there is another reason I am doing this work: one that personally concerns my family, and which I shall share with you eventually in the course of this work.

May my work be a blessing to you and your family, and may this work bring out the final installation of peace and forgiveness over all of Ctrigall.

— Olive Lyre, Historian and Professor of the University of Seiran, Assistant Manager of the Ctrigallian Culture and Heritage Department.

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INTRODUCTION

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The Great Continental War (1914-1918) was possibly the largest — and bloodiest — conflict in the Teppou Period (1860-1919) of the 20th Century to date, having involved almost every nation in the Telesis continent, and has still influenced our culture to this current day fifteen years later. From technology, to job opportunities, and even to social, cultural, and political reforms. Many of these changes have particularly affected those certain nations in the Northern Alliance — Ctrigall being one of them.

However, what isn't told in the history books is the mini-conflict that began in the northernmost country of Ctrigall known as the Ctrigallian Civil War, also known as the 'Pro-War-Continuation' cum 'Pro-War-Advocacy' cum 'Anti-Peace Insurrection'.

Ctrigall was a large but struggling nation that had been bereft of gaining any advantage or reward in the Great War, aside from the profits made through the export of their natural resources to the rest of the Northern Alliance. Its military had been greatly abused by the Gardarik Empire, who had decided to use their satellite's army as a supplement to their own forces, thus the Ctrigallian military was never used effectively and was often used for patrols or guard duty — or to plug in gaps in the front line.

In spite of being looked down upon by other nations, the Ctrigallian army, despite its appearance, was pretty formidable in their own right. While not anywhere near the level of the major powers or of the wealthy nations, its army was vast, and while simply equipped (sometimes with obsolete weaponry and cannonry), was filled with men who had a great love for their Motherland, and a courageous valor that more than made up for their lack of martial potency.

Unfortunately, being bullied by the Gardarik generals coerced Ctrigallian commanders into fighting in engagements disadvantageous and even compromising situations that nullified their fighting strength. Adding to the problem was some of the army's own general staff who were incompetent and heavy-handed themselves, with little knowledge of warfare and big ambitions for glory and power.

By the Great War's end, over half of the 200,000 men in the Ctrigallian army had been either killed, wounded, captured, or missing (it must be noted, however, that the Ctrigallian army was the only army active during the war that, aside from the Salbert Holy State's army, didn't lose men to desertion, despite the bleak situation they found themselves in by the end of the war). What was worse was that the economy did little to improve from this conflict. In fact, the situation in Ctrigall, aside from the Gardarik Empire and some other nations, was extremely dire indeed. An extended winter and a blight in the summer caused crops to fail by the war's end, causing the government to declare an edict to ration food, and had all but cut any further food trains from resupplying their military on the frontlines. It's certainly no surprise then that Ctrigall was one of the first nations, along with the Gardarik Empire, to sue for peace, along with the added stipulation for food and medical supplies for their soldiers, along with their impoverished peoples.

Unfortunately, what was left of the Gardarik army grew a boiling resentment at the treatment they received when they returned home. Instead of receiving a warm welcome and relieved faces, they instead faced their own people shunning them, calling them names, throwing various objects at them, and adding more salt into the already festering wound of humiliation that they had been feeling since the truce and unofficial surrender. Adding to this was the lack of food and jobs once the majority of the army was disbanded according to the treaty, increasing their malcontent with the situation.

This caused much of the military to break away and become renegades, attempting to restart the war in a desperate bid and illusionary hope that they could eventually defeat the Southern Union forces to not only regain their honor but also to gain the coveted resources of the South.

The situation in Ctrigall wasn't much better. While they didn't suffer humiliation as the Gardariks had, they instead had experienced the disintegration of their economy and government, who had already been divided bitterly over the issue of peace for months, splintered into two factions: the Pro-War/Anti-Peace faction (more commonly known as the Extremists), who argued for a continued war since the other Northern countries had quit trade with them in favor of the more inexpensive and abundant resources of the Southern nations; and the Anti-War/Pro-Peace faction (more commonly known as the Moderates), who wished for peaceful relations and an end to the war in favor of receiving aid from the South and strengthening their impoverished economy.

The heated division eventually exploded into civil war, and many of the soldiers ended up siding with the pro-war faction, forcing the moderate administration to hurriedly raise up troops to defend the capital against invasion. Because of the sudden conflict, the new army ended up having to train on the march and had inherited hand-me-down weapons and equipment from the capital warehouses. Thankfully, Ctrigall had help from other nations in the form of supplies and troops to suppress the Ctrigall extremists and the Gardarik renegades they were supporting.

Unfortunately, due to the sudden scramble to put down the revolt, the pro-peace faction and their allies were unprepared and ill-informed. What was worse, the enemy had committed themselves to a guerilla war and had several bases in the isolated and cold mountains in Ctrigall. Because of this, the anti-peace faction were able to win several victories against the coalition and hit several cities taken by the Southern Union. They had even broken into various POW encampments and liberated the Gardarik and Ctrigall prisoners-of-war there and added them into their ranks to fight for the pro-war cause.

Despite the help from their neighbor the Sorbas Republic, along with the Southern Union, the inexperience and slipshod-equipped army of the Pro-Peace faction greatly hampered the efforts of the coalition to defeat the rebels. Thankfully, the government had the foresight to keep most of its hastily-built army — along with the remainder of their professional army that didn't join the anti-peace cause — in the capital city to protect it from a dreaded attack or invasion from the rebels (though the Southern Union also sent troops to protect the capital as well), but were mostly preoccupied fighting the Extremists, leaving the rest of the Coalition to focus on the Gardarik renegades.

However, the most crippling Achilles heel of the Coalition was the lack of intelligence and mobility. Without intelligence, they couldn't locate and intercept the insurgents; and without mobility, they couldn't take advantage of the little intelligence they could gather concerning the rebels' location, number, and targets. This would plague the Coalition for much of this conflict. This limitation allowed the rebels to come and go and attack at will, almost with impunity.

Because of this severe limitation, it wasn't uncommon to send entire companies to their deaths in rebel ambushes in the forests and in the mountains. Leidenschaflich and the Sorbas Republic alone lost several thousand troops combined to these hit-and-run tactics. No one was safe.

It wasn't until reliable intelligence from their agents (secretly hidden among the rebel units) and the frequent use of telegraph and phone units that eventually tipped the scales in the Coalition's favor, and they began to systematically and methodically defeat the rebel cell groups, one after the other. The fighting was bloody and fierce, and most of the rebel troops were determined to fight to the death; few surrendered.

The most infamous skirmish in the conflict was the Skirmish of Fort Menace, in which a company from the Sorbas Republic was tasked with the mission of investigating and surrounding a potential rebel base and eliminating any remaining enemies therein (thinking that the enemy were scattered and almost wiped out) but were themselves ambushed by various cell groups. Only a handful survived.

(Several of these following accounts will be of this event.)

After destroying the company, the rebels then went and captured Fort Menace, later ambushing another company that had been sent to investigate when the previous unit didn't report. As this happened, the other cell groups dispersed to rendezvous at the main base established by General Merkulov — the rogue Gardarik commander in charge of the anti-peace rebellion — leaving the remaining cell groups to use Camp Menace as a temporary base to raid nearby outposts and units.

However, the Coalition retaliated by sending an entire regiment of troops along with a battery of cannons to take out the anti-peace extremists, forcing the rebels to destroy Camp Menace and retreat. Fierce fighting ensued, but in the end, the Coalition finally annihilated the surviving remnants of those units.

Once Merkulov's forces were inevitably crushed — with the rogue general himself slain whilst attempting to kill the Leidenschaflichen ambassador and destroy the bridge that connected North and South — the pro-war faction in Ctrigall was eventually forced to surrender and peace was finally established.

By the civil war's end, thousands of troops and civilians had been killed, wounded or missing, on both sides. Even now, Ctrigall is still healing from this tragic conflict. The Ctrigallian Civil War lasted only five months, but it will forever have a lasting impact on Ctrigall, and the rest of Telesis. Even when history, and mankind, forgets.

May these valiant men never be forgotten.

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Author's Note:

Hello everyone! Welcome to my second work for the VE Fandom. This was a project I was thinking about doing for the past year but never got around to it, and then decided to do it in honor of Memorial Day. This is a fictional nonfiction work that will be written in an autobiographical/biographical format that will put us in the POV of the soldiers and civilians who dealt with this Civil War. Much of this will be depending on my own headcanons as much as real canon, since I have little info on the conflict aside from what I know from the Wiki and Anime.

I will also be including cameo appearances from major characters such as Gilbert and Violet, and minor characters such as Merkulov, Isidor, Aidan, Master Sergeant, and Yale. As well as many original characters.

However, I'm not sure whether to write the stories in First Person or Third-Person Limited, or maybe just do it according to the testimonial — such as First Person for living characters and Third-Person for dead ones? What do you guys think?

Anyway, I hope this work blesses you and I hope you enjoy it. I'll try to post chapters when I can, but it'll probably be sporadic, since I'm currently writing for other Fandoms and Fandom events. But I'll hopefully get a little more dedicated to it during the Autumn or Winter.

Thanks again!

— Noctus Fury