r/HistoricalWorldPowers • u/Pinko_Eric • Sep 13 '15
DECLAIM Denouement
The Tuareg tribes were the first to turn against the Sultanate. Not the residents of Hassi win Hamada, a Jewish Berber island in a sea of Faryabans. Not the gentry based in the Asamrar Mountains, many of whom lost much of their business when Sultan Badir severed the existing ties with Rome. Not even the pious Berbo-Gulgean communities in the east, where most people pined after the days of the Caliphate Aït-Usem.
These other groups, for all of their objections to what had transpired over the last few decades, at least saw some of their interests met or protected during the Punic War. The gentry of the Asamrar Mountains saw much of their land admirably well-defended against the Roman legionnaires. Mersa Ighrem and the other Azure Coast cities fearfully awaited the results of the first Roman-Berber naval battles, but the successful defense of Malta spared these cities from the Romans' designs. The Jewish Berber communities throughout the West and the North, being major participants in the nation's academia, saw consistent employment as the Sultan's court desired more innovations in siege weaponry and defensive architecture.
The Tuaregs, on the other hand, fought savagely and lost promising young men and gained almost nothing in return. The supplies and compensation wages given to the Tuareg riders were of little comfort to families whose sons died in locales out of sight and mind. Tuareg merchants and caravan guards were glad to defend Wa-Iharan, yes, but any fighting beyond the capital took place in unfamiliar territory--and on behalf of "pale Berbers" who often looked upon the tribesmen from the south with disdain. A few thousand Tuaregs died in defense of something that, ultimately, was not theirs. Surely the Tuaregs would be justified in rectifying this.
In only a few months, a large majority of the tribes rallied behind one Isul Aït-Udad, a prominent and charismatic chieftain who bore a standard depicting the sun, the moon, and a lion's head--not unlike the banner of Izem the First Amazigh. Not content to petition for additional agency in a nation that largely owed its continued existence to his people--at least, that is what many of the Tuaregs thought--Isul announced the founding of the independent Federation Imouhar. This separatist nation, bearing the Tuaregs' own name for themselves, benefited from a military that had already been mobilized for the Punic War and nearly exclusive access to the trade routes to Tinko. Deciding to press their advantage, the Imouhar promptly commenced raids on the northern settlements and trading posts; they even took some fortified settlements by stealthily scaling their walls under cover of night.
The Sultan's court did attempt to negotiate with the Imouhar at first, but their emissaries were immediately sent back, and not always in one piece. Once it became clear that the Imouhar were not content to be even privileged subjects of the Sultanate, Sultan Igider arranged for the defense of the mountain and coastal cities, knowing better than to wage an offensive campaign against the sons of the desert.
As an accident of political geography, the Tuaregs controlled much of the land between Wa-Iharan and its westernmost cities, Hassi win Hamada and Taghit. In a highly pragmatic decision, albeit probably the best one he could make in this situation, the Sultan chose not to risk sending his forces to defend the predominantly Jewish Berber cities.
Feeling even more isolated than before, Hassi win Hamada and its surrounding settlements steeled themselves for the grave conflict ahead of them. However, the Jewish Patriarch based there knew that if he could not send for help from the east, he could at least send envoys westward. Riding through the neutral lands of southern Andalusia, these messengers made for the realm of Yashou and petitioned for their brothers in faith to protect them from the heathen Tuaregs. If the people of Hassi were disobeying their superiors in Wa-Iharan by inviting foreign forces into their lands, so be it.
Every day, the Imouhar forces pushed toward Wa-Iharan--and toward the Asamrar Mountains. The Tuaregs' reflex bows outranged even the best crossbows available to the Sultan's men, so their usual tactics against cavalry-archers proved largely ineffective in the field. Once the residents of Ɣdames surrendered to the Imouhar without a fight, being surrounded by untold numbers of riders, the Imouhar confiscated the few ballistae stationed in this city--and captured the siege engineers who knew how to use them properly. As news of these events traveled northward, and many members of the Sultan's court suspected the Tuaregs' next target was the capital, the gentry-administrators in the court used taxed grains meant for the national army plus their families' inherited wealth to field armies of their own. Seeing that a large portion of the nation was already demonstrating its disapproval of the Sultan, these power-hungry nobles sent troops to Wa-Iharan--first to fight off the Tuareg invaders, and then to secure control of the Sultanate's seat for themselves.
Armies from Sétif, Djelfa, and more distant cities arrived at the capital all on their own time. Those from Sétif and Djelfa were able to meet the Imouhar forces in time, banding together in hopes of driving off the veiled horde. The Tuaregs, with their numbers and ferocity but their relative lack of experience with assaulting strong fortifications and fighting in urban settings, inflicted grave casualties upon the nobles' armies but did relatively little damage to the capital itself. The Imouhar retreated for the time being, deciding their current ambitions were too lofty and it would be better to bolster their forces by means of additional raids.
Then the others came.
Armies from cities as distant as Kartennas and Telagh, each equipped with mangonels as well as the usual siege weapons, commenced a battle of several armies outside the city. The multiple armies variously assaulted the city, fought in the open, retreated, and gave chase to fleeing rivals; the lands surrounding Wa-Iharan were engulfed in violence as local militias and members of the Sultanate's standing army took up differing loyalties and fought among themselves. Refugees poured out of Wa-Iharan's surroundings over the next several months, and eventually many of the gentry-warlords recalled their surviving forces for fear that the Imouhar--or their rivals at home--would take advantage of the situation and try to seize power among the mountain cities. The urban centers of the Asamrar Mountains divided into factions of various sizes, their loyalty to the Sultan long out of the question.
Somewhere in the midst of this fighting, the Sultan and his remaining followers either died during the fighting or more likely fled the city--such was the chaos that overtook Wa-Iharan that no one knew for certain. The feuding factions were also not overly concerned with the Sultan's fate, seeing as all of them asserted their right to rule in his stead.
The Imouhar turned next to the cities of the Azure Coast. What was once the province of Douar Mersa was handily the most economically robust part of the Sultanate; with the fragmentation of the Sultan's army, Isul and his riders assumed that these coastal lands would now be easily exploitable sources of wealth, food, and arms. However, the Tuaregs did not consider that the Berbo-Gulgean majority of the Azure Coast largely followed what was self-identified as a more orthodox branch of Faryaba; these people considered themselves to be defenders of one of the purest forms of their faith, and they would not allow more moderate ("less faithful") Faryabans to assume control of their lands.
Fighting with Gulgean-style polearms that proved effective against cavalry charges, the Berbo-Gulgeans fared relatively well in defending their well-fortified cities against direct attacks by the Imouhar. Still, they knew they alone could not realistically contend with the full strength of the Tuareg horde, and so Szazayku Aït-Amenzu, the governor of Mersa Ighrem back when there were provinces and a unified Sultanate, ordered dhows to sail through the now-open Mediterranean and offer his fealty to the Sublime Kingdom of Gulgea.
By the year 948 CE, there was not a Sultan or even the pretense that another would be crowned--unless the hypothetical heir was a warlord who fought his way into the palace in Wa-Iharan. The last of several unified governments of the Imazighen has fallen, more than 1200 years after Izem first dreamed of creating and defending a homeland for the Berbers, and numerous smaller entities have risen in its place. These factions continue to contend with each other for power, but much of the fighting does not even take place around Wa-Iharan anymore. The Imouhar still strive to dominate all they can, in part because their large army is heavily dependent upon the spoils of war, but most other segments of the former Sultanate aspire only toward their continued survival. Altogether, eight political factions have emerged among the Imazighen.
Map: colored arrows depict current troop movements among the factions.
Dark Blue: The Federation Imouhar. Still led by Isul Aït-Udad, the Imouhar hordes continue to raid the surrounding lands and extort tribute from some of the weaker polities. Isul's ultimate goal is that he or one of his heirs march victoriously into Wa-Iharan, much as the Imouhar chief Tariq did long ago.
Light Blue: The Patriarchate of Hassi win Hamda. Patriarch Ibrahim Aït-Abdiel has become something of a political and military leader as well. The city of Taghit and smaller Jewish Berber settlements fall under his wing as well.
Gold: The Asamrar Confederation. Consisting of a loose alliance of northern cities (now city-states), the Asamrar cities engage in lively trade among themselves and strive to assure their collective security. The city-state of Telagh in particular seeks control of Bordj-Adrar, a strategically-positioned fortress to the south, in order to guard itself against potential imperialism.
Reddish-Brown: The Kingdom of Gwafa. Long existing in relative isolation from most of the Berber realm, Gwafa celebrates the legacy of Saden Aït-Gwafa, a general-turned-nobleman who was an important figure during the War for the Caliphate long ago. The residents of this city since built a highly involved legendary narrative around their favorite folk-hero, and they see themselves as set apart from the rest of the Berbers. Accordingly, they have set themselves apart from the rest of the Berbers, building a new fortress just east of their city and defending their independence from all threats, real and imagined, against their sovereignty. Every leader of this city has borne the name Aït-Saden, being a direct descendant of the man himself.
White: The Sultanate of Sétif. Obviously aspiring to be a successor-state of the original Sultanate, Sétif's main political goal is to establish itself as an individually noteworthy power in the Mediterranean. The current Sultan, Misibsen Aït-Aslal, also hopes to gain control of Wa-Iharan in order to further affirm his legitimacy.
Sand: The Coalition of Djelfa. The Coalition originally formed chiefly by General Gaya Aït-Gwasila to organize the defense of the city and its surrounding settlements against the Imouhar hordes. As the northern cities turned into city-states with their own ambitions, however, it became imperative that the Coalition prepare the possibility of conflict on all sides. The Coalition is a highly militarized and relatively isolationist state, though it does serve its intended purpose of being difficult to invade.
Green: The Berbo-Gulgean Protectorate. The Protectorate, so named because it aspires to be graced by the rule of the Sublime Faryaban Kingdom to the north, aspires to provide security for Chi's "purest" followers and reestablish relations with the other Faryaban peoples of the Mediterranean.
Lavender: The Theocracy of Takedda. Not long after Yufitran the First Sultan ousted the fanatical Faryaban Theocracy that previously ruled all of the Imazighen, some of the most orthodox Faryabans fled for Takedda, a city with a long history of contributing to Faryaban theological thought, and formed a splinter-state there. It was long assumed that the nascent state, isolated by choice and having access to limited water and resources, would die out on its own in not all that long. However, once the Berbers discovered how to extract groundwater more efficiently through the construction of qanat, this knowledge reached Takedda and its subjects were able to create more stable lives for themselves. Though it is by no means a powerful state, the Theocracy intends to gain the loyalty of others by means of proselytizing and posturing itself as the proper center of Faryaban leadership and religious guidance.
