War of the Orlian Reunification
| War of the Orlian Reunification | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
|
Declanian forces  Tsardom of Orly Midget Nation-in-Exile |
Esmondian forces  Empire of Austenasia(from 10 December)  Kingdom of Rushymia | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Declan I, II & V Frances I Thomas IV |
/ Esmond III Lord William | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
 ~4 |
16 1 | ||||||
The War of the Orlian Reunification (sometimes known as the War over Orly) was a conflict between the Carshalton Nations in December 2010, secretly planned and orchestrated by the then Crown Prince Jonathan of Austenasia, which ended with Emperor Esmond III being replaced as overlord of those nations by Declan I, II & V.
Background
In July 2010, some regular users of the Grove Park in Carshalton, United Kingdom, declared independence. They asked Emperor Esmond III of Austenasia (seen by local supporters of Austenasia as the successor to the Western Roman Emperors after his victory in the Austenasian Civil War) to appoint a leader for them. He gave his friend Calum the Austenasian title of Caesar, and appointed him leader of this newly founded nation, the Caesarship of Orly.
Later that month, Caesar Calum issued the Edict of Orly. This divided Orly into two independent kingdoms, the Kingdom of Copan and the Kingdom of the Grove. Under the Edict, if either throne became empty without a successor having been appointed, then the other King would have the right to temporarily assume the empty throne as Regent until the western Emperor appoints a successor. Calum gave the throne of Copan to King Declan I of Moylurg, and kept the throne of the Grove for himself.
King Calum accepted and permitted the suzerainty held by the Emperor over the Grove, whereas King Declan did not recognise the Emperor's suzerainty over Copan. In November 2010, the Emperor deposed King Calum and installed Crown Prince Jonathan as the new leader of the Grove.
Around this time, Esmond III began to confide in the Crown Prince plans to transform Austenasia into a "communist dictatorship". Concerned for the Empire's future, the Crown Prince began to formulate various contingency plans in case Esmond III attempted to make this vision a reality. Sure enough, on 8 December, Esmond III asked the Crown Prince to draft legislation to change Austenasia's system of government into a dictatorship. He reacted by secretly activating one of the contingency plans, aimed at stopping Esmond III from being able to effectively exercise the powers of the Throne.
Enacting the plan, later that day Crown Prince Jonathan abdicated from the throne of the Grove. King Declan assumed the throne as Regent under the Edict of Orly, but once the Grovian head of state he almost immediately merged the two kingdoms, re-unifying them as the Tsardom of Orly, and declaring himself Tsar.
War
Once the Emperor learned that Orly had re-unified, on 9 December he demanded to be allowed to carry out his right under the Edict of Orly to choose a new leader for the Grove, as a Copanese regency was intended to be temporary. The Tsar refused, and rejected the Emperor's claim to suzerainty over Orly which had been maintained in the Grove under King Calum. The Emperor, as King of Rushymia, declared a symbolic state of war between Rushymia and Orly, Rushymia being a completely titular nation with no population or military.
Later that day however, the Midget Nation-in-Exile (who had been allied with Copan and the Grove and were therefore allied with the newly re-unified Orly) declared war on Rushymia in defence of Orly. Surprisingly, Midget Fuhrer Thomas IV also threatened Austenasia - since March 2010 the Midget Nation had been practically an Austenasian vassal. In light of these threats, and due to the fact that as Rushymia has no sovereign land, Austenasia would most likely be attacked in the event of an Orlian or Midget invasion, the Empire declared war on Orly and the Midget Nation on 10 December.
Invasion of Orly
On the afternoon of 10 December, the 1st Zephyria Commando Platoon of the Austenasian Army invaded Orly from its southern border and occupied a large area of what was formerly known as the Kingdom of the Grove. Orlian forces fell back and offered no resistance, although the Orlian capital of Memphis was not occupied by the Zephyrian force.
The following day at roughly 11:00, the Zephyrian force advanced on the gains made the previous day, claiming victory over the entirety of Orly before withdrawing. Memphis itself was briefly occupied, but at 13:08 the Austenasian Government received notification that Orly had been retaken by an Orlian force. No more attacks on Orly took place after this.
Fourth Midget Coup
When Midget Fuhrer Thomas rallied the Midget Army for the war, they learned that Declan I was overall head of the forces opposing Esmond III - not wanting to be seen as subserviant to the Orlians with whom they were fighting alongside, in the evening of 16 December the Midget Army declared Declan I to be the Fifth Midget Master, since Thomas IV had accepted Declan I as holding a higher military rank than him, something no Midget Master had done in the past. Thomas IV was instead appointed the Fifth Midget Master's local deputy, as a kind of field marshal or viceroy.
Fall of Wrythe
On 19 December 2010, Crown Prince Jonathan unilaterally surrendered Wrythe to the threat of an invasion of the Midget Army, and passed through an Act of Parliament appointing the Midget Master, Declan I & V, joint Emperor of Austenasia. The war was then declared to be over.
Aftermath
The War of the Orlian Reunification drastically changed the political situation of the Carshalton Nations. The suzerainty that Esmond III had held over the local nations since the Austenasian Civil War was now over, and had been replaced by the sovereignty of Declan I, II & V, who now held the thrones of Orly, the Midget Nation, and (jointly with Esmond III) those of Austenasia and Rushymia. Esmond III was no longer able to effectively exercise the powers of the Austenasian Throne, as since it was now jointly held by Declan I, any action made by either one of them could be vetoed by the other, as they were under Austenasian law effectively the same legal person: the Monarch.
After peace was declared, Declanian and Esmondian factions remained. Rivalry between the two factions dominated the internal political intrigue of Austenasia until 31 March 2011, when Esmond III was removed from the powers he still held by Parliament - by this time, the Esmondian faction had dwindled to a small number of supporters in the Austenasian Army, leaving the Carshalton Nations under the dominion of the Wilcslandian monarchy.
The war negatively impacted on the international standing of the Empire for several months. This can be seen most dramatically in the results of the MicroWiki Influence Survey - Austenasia dropped down from sixth in the First Survey (16 October 2010) to eleventh in the Second (11 January 2011) and thirteenth in the Third (15 March 2011). While the Fourth and Fifth were widely denounced for inaccuracy, by the time of the next generally accepted Survey, the Sixth (30 December 2011), Austenasia had returned to the top six nations, being ranked fourth.
International response
International reaction to the war was mixed. Many micronations, including Kozuc, Andalusia, Gishabrun, Istoria, the Republic of Atlantis and the North American Confederation supported Austenasia in what they saw as defending itself against the Midgets and attempting to uphold the legitimate government of the Grove. However, Secundomia announced support for Orly, supporting Declan in his attempt to remove it from Austenasian suzerainty - Bradley of Dullahan made similar comments.
In contrast, many micronations - including Emerald Isle, Sirocco, Flandrensis, the USLSSR, Wyvern, Zealandia and Los Bay Petros - announced an official stance of neutrality. Many cited it as being a purely local matter, and being unwilling to cause a repeat of the Austenasian Civil War by too many micronations taking sides.
The United Kingdom, despite having had the war take place on territory which it claimed, did not release any official statement regarding the conflict. This seems to have been in keeping with their lack of a response to the Skirmish of Beddington Park and the battles of the Austenasian Civil War.